Dusk.
The last light of the sun spilled over the city, gilding the towering clusters of buildings in a lazy gold.
In the company plaza, the sunset washed over the surrounding high-rises, scattering into hazy patches of grayish yellow.
The dark metal and glass curtain walls looked as if someone had brushed them with gold powder—
cold, proud, and lonely.
At the center, around the circular plaza, crowds began to gather.
People drifted onto the round platform, clustering into loose yet dense streams of bodies.
The murmur of conversation and hurried footsteps gradually drowned out the constant rumble of traffic on the surrounding roads.
For most employees, it wasn't quitting time yet.
But according to the rhythm of everyday life,
this was precisely dinner hour.
No matter how desperately any corporation wanted its people in a perpetual state of productivity,
they couldn't rewrite a habit that had taken root over generations.
This was one of the few times when foot traffic peaked.
Not only the central disk of the plaza,
but the restaurants inside the nearby commercial towers were hitting their daily rush.
Regular office workers from all the surrounding corps took advantage of the break.
Many came to the small park around the circular platform with boxed dinners in hand.
Others chose Harmony Park a bit farther from the plaza as their dinner spot.
Voices overlapped, people flowed, and the air was thick with the small rituals of eating and resting.
A plainly dressed middle-aged man in a tight-fitting work uniform stepped onto the ring-shaped platform.
His hair was streaked with white, stubble grew thick around his mouth.
He looked utterly ordinary—
just another middle-aged guy.
He held a takeout meal in one hand and an overstuffed tool bag in the other.
He picked an empty bench almost at random and sat down.
There were plenty of people like him around—
rushed, tired, anonymous office workers.
They had grabbed their dinner as quickly as possible,
and like those on the edge of death hoarding their last seconds of life,
they had to choose the perfect spot to eat—
facing the dying sunset, to avoid "wasting" this rare bit of free time.
Compared to them, the man looked surprisingly composed.
He opened his meal at a calm pace, raised his utensils, and began eating alone.
His face was stern, expressionless.
The "keep away" aura rolling off him meant passersby didn't dare share his bench.
His bulky tool bag took up the rest of the space anyway.
While he ate, his eyes wandered toward the rows of corporate towers nearby.
Only then did the dull, lifeless gaze in his eyes sharpen,
turning hawk-like as he watched his prey from a height.
Time ticked by.
He finished most of his food, having timed it perfectly.
When he was done, he casually tossed the empty disposable box toward a trash can a short distance away.
It flew through the air and went straight in—
no bounce, no collision.
He pulled the tool bag closer, hunched over it, and began rummaging through it like an old man clumsily searching through his backpack,
or a miser digging coins out of a worn-out wallet.
In truth, he was anything but clumsy.
Where no one could see, inside the tool bag,
his hands moved with machine-like precision, rapidly assembling component after component.
Before long, the outline of a tech sniper rifle with impressive presence was there in his hands—
only a handful of parts remained unassembled.
At that point, he paused, setting the bag to the side.
The gun, custom-built, was simply too long to fit entirely inside the tool bag.
Those last few parts could wait.
He wasn't in a hurry.
The man finally stood up, grabbed the tool bag, and walked to the outer edge of the circular platform.
He stopped in front of the glass safety railing,
as if he'd just finished eating and wanted to enjoy a bit more of the evening light.
…
The man was a killer—
an international top-tier assassin hired by Moore Technologies.
He'd lost count of how many jobs like this he'd done.
By now, he understood very clearly:
being able to stay calm at all times was the most essential quality for someone in his trade.
On a luxury yacht, he could play the part of a waiter,
chatting casually as he dropped poison into a target's glass—
then slip away on a prepared escape craft once the job was done.
Or he could disguise himself as a random passerby,
walk within a meter of the target,
and fire a hidden micro-dart launcher from his pocket without anyone noticing.
Every job could end lightly, almost carelessly—
just like corp negotiators arguing fiercely in a conference room over slivers of profit,
while the real big players closed huge deals over wine and music,
surrounded by soft laughter and the hum of string instruments,
never seeming rushed.
This was his first job in Night City.
He'd heard plenty about this so-called "freest city in the world,"
and had read up on more than a few of its major incidents.
But the other side of freedom
was chaos.
All in all, it was a great place for people like him to find opportunities—
but a terrible place to retire.
Merc teams all over the world both longed for and feared Night City.
Because unless your abilities had reached a certain level,
you'd never know which gutter you'd end up dying in.
And the truly smart and powerful people?
They stayed far away.
…
Leaning on the glass railing, the man stared into the distance.
He wasn't admiring the sunset—
he was watching for movement.
His cyberoptics scanned the corporate buildings with precise detail.
Traffic outside the towers moved quickly and in large numbers.
Tracking down the target's specific vehicle among all those cars was no simple task.
But he could do it.
According to the intel provided by the client,
the target would be returning to the building around this time.
As long as the intel was accurate,
this would be his moment to act.
He already knew how yesterday's assassination attempt had ended.
He looked down on it,
thought it crude, barbaric, and clumsy.
A single hacker shard, incapable of taking full control of the AV,
and the thing had to land on a rooftop in desperation.
If it had been him,
he would never have chosen to carry out the hit on the rooftop.
He'd have rigged the roof with traps in advance,
and then, from a leisurely distance,
drunk in hand, pushed a button to trigger them.
That was how a real killer should work.
When the time felt right, the man crouched down as if to tie his shoe,
his hands slipping discreetly into the tool bag to finish assembling the remaining parts.
Most of the sniper rifle's body remained hidden inside the bag,
only a long, thin barrel protruding outward.
If you didn't look closely,
you'd take it for nothing more than a stick.
And even if someone saw it was a gun,
so what?
In this city, thanks to its laws,
every random citizen could walk around strapped.
The tool bag was set casually against the railing.
Inside, the tech sniper rested on a compact base, its muzzle aimed toward the road across the plaza.
Data began to flow across the surface of the man's cyberoptics like water.
The tech rifle inside the bag, controlled by an external smart-aim module linked to his optics,
began to adjust its angle, re-centering its aim.
He didn't need a scope.
He didn't even need to pick the gun up.
His cyberoptics were the scope.
The moment he laid eyes on the target,
the external system connected to his neural processor would take his line of sight,
align the rifle, lock the target, and then—
fire.
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Everything would happen calmly, unhurried.
The target's skull would explode without warning,
blood splattering across the car window.
All he needed to do was enjoy the transition from dusk into night,
and press a button.
Elegance and composure—
that was his creed.
If it weren't for the disguise he was maintaining,
he'd have liked to light up a cigarette right here in this unfamiliar city
and take in the sight of the plaza and its flourishing towers.
A gentle breeze rolled through,
a herald of night.
The air was growing cooler.
"Bro, that gun looks sick! No joke, where'd you get it? Hook me up with the seller?"
Along with the breeze came a clear, bright teenage voice.
The speaker was right beside him, full of curiosity.
The man's lips parted automatically—he almost replied on reflex.
But in the next instant,
his whole body went rigid.
He turned his head slowly, eyes full of wariness and shock,
like he'd just seen a ghost.
A very handsome teenager stood there, his face still carrying a trace of youthfulness.
A katana rested beside him as he leaned casually against the railing,
his gaze following the one the man had held just moments before—
looking off toward the distant corporate towers,
with the setting sun behind him.
When had he gotten there?
The man was terrified.
He knew exactly what it meant for someone to appear at his side without a sound during a job like this.
If this boy could come this close unnoticed,
he could just as easily slide that katana straight into the man's heart without a whisper.
All the composure, discipline, and technique of a "top-tier assassin"…
compared to this ghostlike presence—
might as well have been nothing at all.
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