One of the first gangs to get word back to their main base was the Moxes. They had girls spread out across several of the safer districts to ply their skills and sell their wares and one of them had been with a street thug that had been warned about there being no cops tonight and was called out to have some fun. The leader of the Mox Gang knew what was going to happen to the city with literally no police on the job.

“Judy, send a priority message to all the girls. Code Indigo. Hide and seek.” Susie Q ordered.

Judy gasped. “Boss, you can't mean...”

“Pull everyone off the streets, and I mean everyone, then they are to arm themselves with whatever lethal weapon they can get their hands on.” Susie said, her voice firm. “All eyes are to be focused on anything that could hurt us or one of our people. If what I think is going to happen, happens, then we'll come down like the Wrath of God on their sorry asses for even thinking of touching one of ours.”

Judy's hands were shaking as she sent the code and then the message. She didn't have to clarify anything, either. Everyone in the gang replied with acknowledgement and acceptance. No one would be left hanging if the worst happened and one of them was taken and assaulted without her permission.

*

The Tyger Claws mobilized almost as soon as word reached them that no police presence had appeared in their usual spots. This alarmed some of the higher ups in the gang, especially a certain Fixer that had set certain things into motion. Wakako suspected that her machinations had somehow set things into motion and she tried her best to figure out how.

It really didn't take a genius to figure things out when they had access to the right information. The new netrunner named Atlas had swept through the city each night and collected unheard of amounts of garbage with his ridiculously huge and apparently illegal cargo hauler. It could easily carry over a hundred high end luxury limousines and he had cleared out entire alleyways and also huge swaths of refuse from the government landfill.

This action uncovered many crimes, bodies, and several large Scav dens, which the police then took down. The notation that he didn't want any part of the bounties had confused Wakako at first, then she remembered her own interactions with him and stopped her automatic reaction to reject it as false or a trick.

After a few minutes of thought, Wakako figured out that he was literally bribing the entire nighttime police force with their own bounty money to clean up the messes he made. She had to respect that decision, even if she herself would have required a token amount of that bounty money for arranging everything.

A bit more digging netted her several incidents of officers complaining about being fired. A quick check using a disposable cyberdeck that used a former informer and now dead officer's credentials, confirmed her suspicions. The bounties were declared illegal funds by the police commissioner and had to be paid back. If they kept the money anyway, or had already spent it in some cases, their pay was docked. Anyone that refused to show up for work for not being paid, was fired.

Wakako shook her head at the sheer stupidity of the man. Only an idiot or a pencil pusher would think that tactic would work on an already strained police force. Oh, it would eventually save him a lot of money, with all of those salaries, pensions, and medical benefits being forfeited and lost; but, in the meantime, the entire city was going to suffer and burn for it.

As a personal favor to herself, Wakako gathered together a heavy combat unit to do as much damage to the man's home and office as they could, with the possibility of bringing both structures down. She sincerely doubted they would get the man himself, though. He was too much of a coward to face his mistakes and would be secured in a bunker somewhere and well out of reach.

Several of her sons were leading offensives against their main rivals, the Sixth Street Gang. Their last turf battle had cost the Tyger Claws an entire street of businesses and their legal and illegal revenue. That could not be allowed to stand. They would take back what was theirs and the cops wouldn't be there to stop them.

Two of her sons had a bitter rivalry with the Mox Gang after one of the Tyger Claw's higher-ranked members brutally murdered a Mox joytoy. The two gangs had fought a near constant ground based war over both turf and the girls the Tyger Claws thought were disposable. They were cheap and easily replaced, so no one in the Tyger Claw Gang held their lives in any real regard, not even her. They were assets to be used and nothing more.

The rest of the Tyger Claws were set up in certain areas for the defense of their current territory, because she knew, as did the rest of the gang, that they were not the only ones that were forming battle plans and were going to attack those that had attacked them in the past. They were spread a bit too thin to cover that much territory, since most of their main force was out in the streets looking for trouble.

In one way or another, tonight was a night that was going to be remembered for a very long time.

*

The Valentinos were having a similar gathering, only this one was at the bar Mama Welles ran. There were a lot of mercs there, since it was a Friday night and they were trying to unwind. By some unspoken mutual agreement, a third of them left to search out a few lucrative deals with other gangs. It wasn't personal, since it was job and they were in the business for the money, after all.

A third of them actually volunteered to help protect the bar, just because it was one of the best places for them to arrange future jobs and to mingle with their fellow mercs. Mama Welles offered them free drinks for the next week as compensation and told them that the Valentinos never forgot a favor owed and thanked them.

The rest chose to stay neutral and a few of them accepted information jobs from various corpos and gang members, because free money was free money. Two or three people wanted the same info and were willing to pay for it? A sucker was born every minute. Most accepted, just to watch and see who would show up and what was going to happen.

Sixth Street was the most militant and patriotic of the gangs, with good hardware and good discipline. They knew their hated rivals the Tyger Claws were going to hit them in key areas, since that was exactly what they would do in their place. The problem was, they knew about it and planned for it.

What would have been an all out battle for dominance of certain areas, would suddenly become a cake-walk for the Tyger Claws. The Sixth Street Gang was only going to provide token resistance and lead them into a false offensive, that would then rush in and realize the entire enemy gang was nowhere to be found.

Instead of defending their hard-won territory, the Sixth Street Gang was going to do an end-run around the Tyger Claws and strike at the heart of the gang in their very own territory. With the rest of them spread out to attack other places, their defenses would be pathetically weak against the full might of the entire Sixth Street Gang.

The Tyger Claws would stagger and possibly fall after such a crushing blow from losing their main source of financial independence.

As for the gangs in the rundown parts of the city, namely Pacifica, they went on as if it was business as usual. The normal lack of police presence there wasn't affected at all by the walkout and subsequent firing of all the night shift cops. They did receive word about it, only it didn't change a single thing in their area.

The Barghest was the strongest and kept the peace, the Animals were the streetfighting booster gang that had turf battles with their rivals, the Voodoo Boys. The Voodoo Boys on the other hand, mostly did the netrunner thing and only had guards for them and other protections. The situation in that area was an uneasy balance that remained unaffected by the rest of the city potentially dropping into the toilet.

*

The feelings of unease and fear rose all across the city as tensions increased and gang members of all kinds, major and minor alike, prepared for war. Bloodlust, retribution, justice, and just the plain old need to let go, were the reasons that drove them all to put everything they had into the upcoming fights.

Surprisingly, it wasn't any of the gang members that set the growing powder keg off. It was a single scared prostitute that had received the passed along warning a little too late. She didn't work for any of the major gangs and her and a couple friends were only dabbling in the business for a few extra eddies to make ends meet.

She was trying her best to get home to avoid the worst of the coming storm when some idiot she passed on the sidewalk reached out and grabbed her arm. Before he could proposition the obvious sex worker for a little fun, she screamed in terror, yanked her arm out of his grip, then she tried to run at a full sprint and tripped over her own high heeled boots and broke her ankle.

Her hysterical crying and begging to not be killed by them, shocked the man and his friend, whom didn't live very long to regret his impulsive decision. Three members of the Mox Gang seemed to form out of the shadows from a nearby alleyway with a spike covered bat and two wicked looking daggers. Both men quickly died without knowing who killed them.

All of the surrounding people, whom were still out on the streets and oblivious to the things going on in the gang world, yelled and screamed about the two blatant murders and ran in terror. This sent up an unofficial flag to all of the gangs to engage operations and none of them would never know it had all started as a misunderstanding that unleashed hell upon the streets of Night City.

*

Most of the people working inside buildings and businesses had no idea what was going on outside until the various gang wars crashed into them or smashed through them. A few of the first victims were workers leaving to go to their cars or taxis, some walked along the upper pedestrian passageways, and most used public transportation.

Bullets rained everywhere as the gangs clashed. Word quickly spread all across the city among the upper lower class workers. Most of them tried to call the police, only to receive an automated response stating that all services were currently suspended upon review. That caused even more panic to rise in the population, because if they couldn't rely on the police, what were they going to do when the gangs came for them?

The downtown area was both the most affected and the least affected. Since it usually had the highest concentration of police officers to population, it was the most heavily protected area in the city. This changed when not one officer appeared for their night shift and left the entire district unprotected. But, because it was usually highly patrolled, there were not a lot of gangs that dared to breach the area to try and gain influence.

Most of the streets were completely empty, except for when the various workers there left. With barely any active gang presence and not a lick of police anywhere, most of them made it to their cars and public transit unmolested. It was when those vehicles left the downtown area that they pretty much rolled into a city-wide war zone and the passengers felt terror beyond belief and tried to call their friends and families to warn them.

*

Both Atlas and Veder received messages almost simultaneously. Delamain called to warn about the people his various taxis had picked up and the growing conflicts he had detected in certain areas across the city. Veder received a frantic call from Denise about her bus being attacked and she said that she loved him and would miss their date the next day because she was going to die.

“I'll be right there.” Atlas and Veder said at the same time.

Atlas stepped to the roof of his office and took out the modified Defiant starship that he had altered way back when he was in the Star Trek: Enterprise Mirror Universe. It was much too big to fit on top of the building and just hovered above it. He stepped onto the bridge and nodded at Captain Chappel.

“The ship's ready and able, sir.” Chappel said and saluted.

“I'll send you a download about the situation as we go.” Atlas said and sat down at the pilot station.

Chappel sat at the navigation beside him and the two of them could control the entire ship from there.

Veder logged out from work and stepped from where he was in the garbage depot to just outside the turned over partially wrecked bus that had a clearly marked Tyger Claw vehicle wedged underneath it. The bus was littered with holes and people were screaming in pain and terror. Gunfire hadn't stopped at his sudden appearance and a few of the bullets shifted from the wedged car they were targeting to swung around to hit him in the back and the side of his head.

Veder turned and looked at the Sixth Street Gang member that had shot him and the man looked surprised. He aimed again and Veder used Heat Vision to instantly burn the man's face off and then liquefied his chrome. The nameless man dropped to the ground, screaming for a few seconds, and then died.

His friend saw this happen and shifted his own focus from keeping a Tyger Claw gang member pinned down near the front of the bus to the new threat. He paused when a fist drove through the gun, his hands, and his chest. He stared at the very up-close calm face of his killer.

Veder pulled out his enhanced heart and showed it to him, then he crushed it and grabbed the man by his chest and used him like a battering ram against the rest of his group. A couple of them dodged the attack and survived. Most of them were crushed against the nearby wall and didn't die right away. The survivors turned on him and tried to attack, only for them to lose limbs and then their heads.

With the obvious danger to the bus taken care of, Veder walked back over to the bus and several Tyger Claws stepped out of cover and celebrated, sending messages that they had secured their target. One of them even had the audacity to thank Veder for the assist. A moment later, all six of the gang members were dead, their heads crushed.

One of the still barely alive Sixth Street gang members sent the recording to the rest of his gang and he didn't request backup or a follow-up strike. He had witnessed someone using a top of the line military grade Sandevistan and none of them would ever have the chance to take the guy down.

Veder walked around to the front of the bus and sighed at the carnage inside. Bodies were flung everywhere, some long dead and some only just passed. He used his hand and finished pulling out the shattered front window and stepped over the headless busdriver. If he had died where he currently was, he could reverse time enough for him to live. He hadn't.

As he passed terrified and crying people, he lightly touched them and healed them. They were in shock, so most of them didn't even notice. One young boy hugged his dead mother and Veder paused and knelt beside him.

“When?” Veder asked, calmly.

The boy lifted his head and wiped at his tears. “Just... just before.” He said and pointed at one of the headless Tyger Claws. “He shot at me because I wasn't afraid of him, then my mom...”

Veder smiled and placed a hand on his shoulder as he also placed a hand on the boy's mother. “It's okay. It was just a flesh wound.”

The boy blinked at him. “Wh-what? Her face was caved in and...”

“Uhhh.” The woman groaned. “What... what hit me?”

“MOM!” The boy yelled and helped her sit up. He stared at her healed face and where the bullet hole should have been in her cheek. Before he could stop himself, he burst out crying and hugged her for all he was worth.

“Shh, it's okay. I'm okay.” His mom said.

Veder moved on and did the same thing for a couple of them. A few of them had died from stray bullets during the first attack on the bus, before it had been knocked over by the Tyger Claw car. Those he couldn't help, since he didn't know where they actually died.

He could heal their bodies, sure. Bringing them back to life after being braindead? That wasn't much of a life. He had that reprogrammed joytoy as proof of what that would be like with the meat part of their brain being useless and he wouldn't do that to these people or their families.

Veder reached Denise near the back of the bus and saw she was with the three secretaries. They were huddled up on her and desperately held several pieces of blood soaked cloth over Denise's chest. She had two puncture wounds near her heart and both had missed the vital organ. One bullet had passed right through near her spine and the other was still in her lung.

“What's this I hear about you cancelling our date for tomorrow?” Veder asked and all four women gasped.

“Veder.” Denise whispered, her voice weak.

“Like that kid's mom, it's just a flesh wound. You'll be fine.” Veder said and reached over one of the women's shoulders and lightly touched Denise's face. He caressed it and the clear pain on her face faded away. He vanished the bullet and healed her insides fully, only leaving the two obvious holes to be fixed later when he brought her to Atlas Incorporated to fix them.

Denise laughed and then groaned as the wounds pulled on her skin. “Don't...”

“Laughter is the best medicine, I've heard.” Veder said and pulled his hand back, then he pulled out a small medkit and handed it to the woman he had reached over. “Use the gauze and packing material on her chest. It'll work better than your silk tops.” He said and then looked at the others. “How about the rest of you? Are any of you hurt?”

“No.” “Not really.” “Maybe.” The three of them said together as the first one did as he said and packed gauze above the wounds in Denise's chest.

“Let me check, just in case.” Veder said and gently caressed each of their faces in turn and healed their minor bruises and one sprained wrist. The three of them blushed at the attention and wouldn't notice the aches were gone until much later in the night. “We'll wait here for a few minutes, just in case anyone else is stupid enough to show up, then we can all get out of here.”

“There's no Trauma Team coming?” One of them asked, surprised.

“I think they are a little busy at the moment.” Veder said, which was a massive understatement.