Chapter 34: Operation Briefing

"Once Jacky and I are checked into the room, Lucy, you crack Konpeki Plaza's local subnet," Rocky said. "Pop the target's door for us, blind the cameras on that floor. After that, Jacky and I pull weapons and drop the mark. That is the whole job. Thoughts?"

He looked straight at her as he talked.

Lucy held his gaze for a few seconds, turned the outline over in her head, then nodded.

"No problem. Rooms on the same floor usually sit on the same subnet. If I only have to touch that suit, I do not need to chew through much ICE. I can handle it."

Next to them, Jacky picked up the pistol Rocky had slid across the table.

Instead of keeping it, he pushed it back.

"Perfect plan," Jacky said. "Miss Lucy is the MVP here. But, hermano, you are skipping one thing. Konpeki Plaza does not allow weapons. Guns, blades, even offensive chrome get stripped. Their security check is airtight. How are you planning to walk a gun through that?"

"Good question," Rocky said. "Konpeki's security really is tight. I happen to be tighter."

He caught the pistol again and flicked it from his right hand to his left.

The instant his left palm closed around the grip, the gun vanished.

"Choomba, when did you start doing magic tricks? Where did it go?" Jacky blurted.

He stared at Rocky's empty left hand like it might start talking. Lucy did not say anything, but the shock in her eyes said enough. She wanted the same answer Jacky did.

"New trick I picked up. Fits this job nicely," Rocky said.

He curled his left hand into a fist, turned it palm down over the table, then slowly opened it.

Jacky and Lucy watched, confusion turning into pure disbelief.

Guns started dropping from his hand.

One after another, weapons clattered onto the table and stacked up in a messy little mountain. Pistols. Compact rifles. A shotgun. A few grenades rolled out and bumped against the pile.

"Holy shit," Jacky breathed. "You got an armory hidden in there or what?"

He had never seen anything like it. Had never even thought about something like it.

Rocky flexed the fingers of his left hand, letting the servos settle, then explained.

"Latest space-folding tech module. Opens up a pocket to store gear. For places with security checks like Konpeki, it is perfect."

The ability was straight out of the Module Library.

[Basic Storage Ring Module]

[Storage ring containing an internal space used to hold physical objects. A standard storage tool in many worlds. Initially controlled by thought, with owner recognition, anti-theft, fireproof, and waterproof features.]

[Price correction: world correction +200%]

[Item Module: €30,000 per cubic meter]

[Workbench recipe expansion: €600,000]

[Tech expansion: €900,000]

On paper, stupidly practical. In reality, painfully expensive.

The ring came from a cultivation-style world, and the fit with Night City's tech base was terrible. The world correction hit it hard, tripling the original price to make it function here.

The only saving grace was how simple it actually was—no complicated logic, no stacked systems, just storage. Even with the penalty, it was not much more expensive than high-end tech side space storage modules, and it was a lot more compact.

Rocky had paid €30,000 for one cubic meter of space.

Plenty for what he needed.

The Module Library had done some heavy rewriting on the way in. The ring no longer listened to "thought commands" or bound itself to "soul marks." That kind of thing did not fly in a cyberpunk setting.

Now it had to plug into nerves.

Worn on a finger, the ring would extend a microscopic nerve probe, slip it under the skin, and hook into the user's system with nano nerve tech. Once the connection was held, the user could open and close the internal space with intent.

Pulling things in or out was not done at range, either. The ring had to touch the object to store it physically.

There were limits everywhere, but none of them dulled the core advantage.

When Rocky got the module, he had no interest in wearing it like a piece of jewelry. Instead, he cracked open the prosthetic in his left arm, embedded the ring straight into his palm, and wired it through the arm's nano nerves.

The result was a "storage expansion module" grafted directly into his cyberware.

Compared to simply wearing a ring, taking and stashing gear this way was faster and cleaner.

"Has to be you, L," Jacky said, still staring at the guns. "This is some next-level stuff. With this in play, Konpeki is going to be a lot easier. I was ready to throw hands with them bare-knuckle."

Guests at Konpeki Plaza were banned from carrying weapons.

Unless you were someone like Yorinobu Arasaka, you played by the rules.

Which meant their target would almost certainly be unarmed, while Rocky and Jacky walked in with a full loadout, sitting in Rocky's palm.

The outcome wrote itself.

"That is basically the plan," Rocky said. "Any other questions? If everything goes smooth, no alarms, we walk out the front door. If things go sideways, follow my lead."

"No problem," Lucy said.

"Same here," Jacky added.

Technically, this job was Jacky's find. He was the one who brought it in. But after running with Rocky this long, he trusted the guy's calls. Most of their gigs ended up with Rocky on point anyway, handling the command side. Jacky was used to it.

Once the briefing wrapped, Lucy dropped into a chair with a yawn and started forging identities and booking their suite. Rocky and Jacky stayed at the table, picking through the weapons pile and sorting out what they would actually bring.

Jacky screwed a suppressor onto one of the pistols and handed it to Rocky.

"You stash this," he said. "I will keep the other one close."

Lucy finished her work faster than either of them.

"Your name is Fabien," she said, looking at Rocky. Then she nodded at Jacky. "You are Balsatar. Silver Suite on the fortieth floor. Reservation is live."

"Nice. I am Balsatar." Jacky clapped a hand on Rocky's shoulder. "Hey, Fabien, how does it sound?"

"I think it sounds fine," Rocky said. "And that is the prep done. We can call it here. Balsatar, Lucy, go home and get some rest."

The groundwork for the op was basically finished. All that was left was to see Konpeki Plaza in person.

Rocky walked over to the Deluxo, popped the gullwing door, and glanced back.

"I will run you two home. Take my new car for a spin. Tomorrow it is our ride into the Plaza."

Lucy and Jacky saw no reason to refuse and climbed in.

Rocky fired the engine up. The dash lit, throwing out a cascade of new metrics.

After adaptation, the Deluxo fit Night City like it had always been here. The fuel system supported CHOOH2. The onboard OS had been rewritten to integrate with local infrastructure.

Remote vehicle link, personal neural interface, all the standard bells and whistles were present.

Rocky's warehouse was not far from the clinic. A short drive later, he dropped Lucy at her place, waited until she was inside, then turned the car and headed back.

He parked in front of the clinic, killed the engine, and leaned out the door.

"Jacky. Come inside," he called. "Got something good for you."

"What kind of good thing?"

"You will see in a minute."