Night City's Dogtown sector never made anything easy. V moved through the skeletal construction site at the southwest corner, the scav den rising above like a steel carcass. The gig had come through Mr. Hands: somewhere inside that tower, a Zetatech employee named Hasan was being held, and a prototype implant plus its schematic needed to be recovered. The job sounded simple on paper, but the moment V stepped past the warning signs, the air turned sour with the smell of old blood and ozone.
The path led to an elevator shaft deep in the Longshore Stacks Scraper. Beside it sat a locked door with a wall panel. V tried a few obvious codes before the solution surfaced in an old message: 2045. The panel beeped, the lock released, and the door slid open to reveal a maintenance route that would save time later.
Riding the elevator up, V found the interior crawling with scavs. Some lounged near burning barrels, others patrolled with rusty iron. A stealthy approach kept things quiet—quick hacks shorted out optics, and silenced rounds dropped the rest. V followed the waypoint through the maze until the stairs descended toward a holding area. Just before that final drop, a computer terminal glowed in a side room. Its Codes & Passwords file held the digits to Hasan's cell.
Hasan was slumped against the wall when V opened the cell. His eyes widened with the particular terror of a corpo who had learned what Night City really does to people. He stammered about the schematic, then led V up through the tower to retrieve it. The prototype itself was not far, but then came the moment every merc dreads: the fixer's objective pulling one way, a human life pulling the other.
The choice split into three roads. V could pursue the prototype and call Mr. Hands, then either send Hasan's coordinates so Zetatech could pick him up, or ask Hands to extract the prototype while letting Hasan walk. Both paid the same standard rewards, though the first felt colder. The third road was simpler in practice but heavier in consequence: let Hasan go with the prototype, hand-deliver the schematic to a drop point, and trust that the man would vanish.
Some players choose the clean corporate resolution. Others choose mercy. In terms of eddies and street cred right now, the outcomes are nearly identical. The differences bloom later. Only if V lets Hasan leave freely does he reach out again. That message sparks a side job, and at the end of it, the Ambition Iconic Tech Pistol sits waiting—a sleek reward for a ghost who chose not to be one.
For completionists running through Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty in 2026, that detail matters. The gig itself can be tackled loud or quiet, but the choice at the end shapes more than a mission report. It asks whether V still sees people in the machine of Night City, or only parts to be exchanged.
Here is a quick breakdown of the decision:
| Decision Path | Immediate Requirements | Later Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Pursue prototype → send Hasan's coordinates | Report to Mr. Hands | Standard gig rewards, no later contact |
| Pursue prototype → extract prototype, release Hasan | Report to Mr. Hands | Standard gig rewards, no later contact |
| Let Hasan walk away | Deliver schematic to drop point | Standard gig rewards + later side job for Ambition Iconic Tech Pistol |
V stood on the drawbridge controls, hand hovering. Below, the scav den hummed with distant violence. Whatever choice came next, the prototype in the scraper had already shown its true weight: it was never about the implant alone, but about who got to leave with it.