This series is set roughly seven months following the events of Cyberpunk 2077 by CD Projekt Red, around February of 2078. In an effort to fit the story seamlessly in the Cyberpunk world's canon, all player choices for V's actions in the game are avoided and it is assumed that V did every possible thing He/She/They could in Night City before the climax of the game. If your V did the thing, then the V in this story very well could have done the thing. Beyond that, I used resources from both the CDPR game and the original TTRPGs, so expect to see cyberwear and lore from outside of the videogame's story. This project has been long in the making and Chapter 1 here is sort of my love letter to The Cyberpunk genre and property. Please enjoy.
Ding.
What now?
Ding.
“Fuck off.”
Ding.
“I have a gun!”
Ding.
“Fucking hell. Fine.”
With that, I dragged myself out of bed. The sun had already gone down. Over a few quick seconds my Biomon and Kiroshi low-light filters initialized and the ramshackle room I called home came into focus. I tested my arms, listening to the tiny servos respond to my brain, and began to carefully step around the cigarette butts, empty liquor bottles, and ripped clothing that carpeted my floor. With a little agility, I made my way to the small emptied out crate that passed for a desk and squatted in front of the dimly glowing screen of my computer. I keyed in my 23-digit passcode with relative ease, watching the lightning-fast code streak across the screen as several layers of ICE unraveled to let me in. Finally, the dinging stopped, and the screen blinked to reveal my desktop. I scanned the various icons, looking for whatever dared interrupt my sleep. I gave up after a few minutes.
I really need to streamline these icons. I don’t need all of my saved news stories spread out on my screen.
Irritation loosed a groan from my lips. Clearing my throat, I spoke to the screen. “Amber, show me my latest notifications.” I spoke, as clearly as I could manage. The little orange ring in the corner of my screen told me the 7-year-old program was processing my request. After a few more minutes of waiting, I began to wonder if it wouldn’t be quicker to program a new assistant than to wait on Amber. I resolved to grab a drink instead. I pushed myself off the floor and turned for the “Kitchen”. Three propane torches and a coolbox does not constitute a kitchen, according to my friend Dak. I forced the ice chest open, hoping I still had something alcoholic. I found a very expired XXL Burrito and two empty Capitán Caliente pouches. My head fell slack in defeat as I plucked a half-crushed cigarette from the carton on my bed.
“Miss Cyren, I have two messages for you.” Sang the virtual assistant. To prove her statement, two blazing white windows opened on my screen, highlighting the messy floor I knelt on. I stood up again and returned to my terminal. I lit the cig as I squatted by the crate. Taking a long drag, I read the results that Amber had found for me. Two direct messages to my personal account. Had the name been familiar, I would have gone back to bed. But neither of these names should have my personal information. These were two mega corporations. Adrek Robotics, Arasaka’s main global corporate rival, and Zetatech Industries, a company once dominant in cyberware designs but since brought to heel in Night City by Arasaka. Both companies have open friction with Arasaka, but oddly enough, neither firm had publicly made any major moves since the Arasaka building was raided. Both messages were heavily encrypted and deposited in my server from outside of the net. I opened the Adrek Robotics first, scanning for keywords as I skimmed the text.
Good evening, Miss Janette Akihana
Where did they get my name?
Fighting the tightening in my chest, I ran a quick search for my biometrics. A few moments of strained patience later, my vision flashing with static and graphical glitches, a string of binary spelled out “Cyren” in neon blue. A stream of images and memory flashes raced through my mind. Panic began to fester in my chest. I wracked my mind for any way that someone I didn’t trust could learn my name. I didn't get very far in my panic attack before the scent of hot metal pulled my attention outward again. My eyes snapped into focus just in time to watch the mostly burned-down cigarette in my metal fingers drop a chunk of glowing cinders. Still connecting my sight to the laws of thermodynamics, I stared blankly as the cinder landed on my knee and lit the hair on my bare leg on fire. At which point my body happily reminded me what fire feels like. I yelped and bolted away from my terminal, landing on my bed, and shook my leg madly. The last thing I needed was my Biomon to chirp in my ear and plaster a graphic of the definition of a first degree burn on my cornea; Yet another thing I needed to see a Ripper for. After the pain subsided I was left with an interesting olfactory concoction of burnt hair, singed flesh, and scorched electronics to harass my nose. Taking a deep breath I pinged the clock on my computer. Lazy’s Pub would still be open. I hauled myself off the bed, moving to my terminal, and leaned down to continue reading.
I represent the acquisitions department of Adrek Robotics. I have a proposition for you that would prove quite lucrative. The contract requires some skill at Netrunning as well as solo work. Clearly, you have made the list of persons that fit our needs. If you are interested, please respond promptly, as the nature of this offer is time-sensitive.
Employee No. 8646197924
My eyes narrowed as their meaning washed over me. No corporation this big should ever need someone like me. But, if they had a line on sensitive biz, they may be looking to pick a fight with Arasaka through a nobody like me. My metallic fingers rubbed the shaved sides of my head as I thought, trying to make these country-sized pieces fit together. With the tightness already returning, I gave up and opened the second email.
Salutations, Mistress Akihana.
“Nope.”
I resolutely clicked the message into oblivion. The AR message returned to the screen. I stared, unseeing, at the screen.
I’m not drunk enough for this shit.
On that note, I pulled up the balance of my bank account, and grimaced at the projection that appeared. That sealed it. If I wanted to drink this nonsense away, I’d need eddies. If I wanted eddies, I’d need to deal with this nonsense. I typed out a curt reply to the message and hit send. Less than a second later, my terminal dinged and a new message popped up on my screen.
Heywood
El Coyote Cojo
11PM
I’d been there before. A savvy bar full of Valentinos in the Glen. With three hours to make the meeting, I decided to head down to Lazy’s to start my night and gather some intel. I knew the owner well enough to know he had nothing to do with this. But the message still made my skin crawl. How, in Bartmoss’ name, did they know who I was? Steadying myself with a breath, I straightened up and kicked a cleanish pair of cargo pants into my waiting hand. I glanced at my grimy prize and grimaced again. Laundry needed to be a thing. And soon. I adjusted my sports bra and pulled the close-fitting cloth up my legs. My finger caught a sleeveless top hanging from a string that ran along the low ceiling and pulled it down. Soft-soled trainers slipped around my feet as my arms tried to gently wrestle the fragile cloth around my torso. Once I finished dressing, I willed the plates of my arms open for inspection. The reel in my left wrist mangled out of shape, definitely not able to perform at any capacity. I added a visit to a ripperdoc to my to do list, absently sending out an appointment request to my ripper. I took a look around my apartment for my pack of cigarettes, groaning when I found them on the floor near my bed, smashed.
“Stupid, over-sensitive, ‘ganic skin.” I growled at the mutilated cardboard. Huffing like a child, I unlocked my gun safe and collected my gear. First was my belt, a simple leather strap with sewn-in pockets filled with throwing knives: all the better to sever organic arteries. Once the buckle was latched snugly around my hips, I turned back to the safe. Next, the shoulder-holster and gun. I lifted the weapon, a tarnished Nue, and gave it a quick inspection to make sure everything was in its place. The magazine slid out of the grip while I racked the slide back, showing a shiny single-stacked pillar of old school .45 Auto Colt Pistol bullets. Technology from a hundred years ago, sure. But a big enough bullet still puts holes in people, regardless of what metal their skin is. I shoved the magazine back into the gun and hit the slide release, relishing the clunky snap. I clipped the pistol into its holster and slung the leather body-thong over my shoulders, securing it to my belt. Feeling more like myself, I danced to the door and snatched my sleeveless vest from the hook on the wall. Once I was satisfied that I looked like a relatively innocent slumrat, I stepped through the door and tapped the lock icon on the door-panel.
I took the stairs up to the roof. The cool night air caressed the bare skin on my head and tousled my loose mohawk. I took a long, deep breath, and snapped my teeth together, queuing up the radio link of my subvocal implant. A little mental tweaking set the frequency to 107.3 MHz on the short band, Morro Rock Radio. I was lucky that time, because the station was playing one of SAMURAI’s hits, “Black Dog”, a personal favorite. No amount of smog could ruin this feeling. My eyes opened to the settling dusk filtering through the Night City skyline. Kabuki’s cramped buildings glittered in the neon light from the Us Cracks Towers.
With a grin settling on my lips and music vibrating my head, I bounced on the balls of my feet a few times before taking off full-tilt towards the edge of the roof. I launched myself off the edge and watched as the familiar roof of the neighboring building rushed up to meet me. Corrugated metal flexed under my feet on landing. Rooftops, shacks, radio dishes, and air conditioners became a highway. I must have traversed three or four blocks before I remembered where I needed to go. I took a sharp left at the next building and sprinted along an electrical cable spanning a canyon lined with balconies and floored with Tyger Claws graffiti. The cable was still vibrating when I started to make my way down through an alleyway. I eventually landed on a 3rd floor fire escape and climbed through the perpetually open window. The obese man in the computer chair didn’t bother to give so much as a huff when his eyes flickered up from his screen to meet mine. He simply ignored me and went back to whatever kept his attention for nearly 20 hours every single day. I strode merrily through his front door and walked to the rear of the building, Narrowly avoiding a boy running past me as his father chased him with a stun baton. I found the stairwell and jumped right down the middle, landing into a roll on the hard concrete floor. I dusted myself off and went right out the door into the hall.
“Y’know, that entrance is getting a lil stale, Cyren. Y’ever think bout, I don’ know, maybe usin’ the front door?” Drawled an aged voice to my left. I clicked my teeth again to kill the music and stood up straight, turning my face up to a graying old gentleman smiling down at me. His ghostly pale skin hung in thick wrinkles from a crooked nose and square jaw. His spotted lips stretched in a grin, revealing a mouth of near rotted-out teeth. To anyone else, Peter “Lazy” Sonra would be the embodiment of disgusting slum trash. But, if you knew him, he was the warmest and brightest lighthouse of a man there ever was. There was no doubting that every netrunner and merc in Kabuki had a running tab at this man’s pub. I chortled and presented my shiny middle finger for his amused inspection.
“If I did that, then you’d never get to talk to me before I drowned myself!” I declared with a girlish grin. He crushed me into a hug and pulled me through the back door to his kitchen, much to the surprise of his cook, Jason, who nearly jumped out of his legs. Unable to breathe, I pried myself free of his uncomfortably strong arms and pretended to rub my arm.
“Jokes aside, I actually have some biz, I guess.” Sonra’s smile wilted just a little as I recounted the unusual evening I’d had. At some point during the story, he had mixed up a suspicious-looking drink for me. After I finished, he handed me a glass filled with what appeared to be a frog that had gotten on the wrong side of a food processor. “What-“
“Just try it, Cy.”
I sniffed the goo with trepidation, my wince eliciting a barely-hushed snicker and eager stare from Jason. It smelled like rotten guacamole. I took an experimental sip and coughed it back out immediately, accidentally crushing the glass in my hand. Immediately, Jason’s bulky frame was shaking with silent laughter. My admittedly pathetic snarl drew his face out of his hands long enough for him to take in the chunky pattern of glass and slime that covered my pants, throwing him into an unmitigated booming laugh over the griddle.
“Good flippin’ doughnuts, woman!” Sonra yowled, sounding more like a puppy than an elder. “Was that really necessary?” Still coughing, and mentally devising Jason’s murder several times over, I slapped green goo from my pants and clapped my hands to remove the glass shards in their joints.
“What in the name of redundant neural processing was in that?” I tried to snarl, but it came out sounding like a thesis statement. The old man paused to level a stare at Jason, forcing the young man back into step with his work, before turning back to me.
“Well, f’yer information, that was m’latest idea fer a new drink!” He announced indignantly. “I took some o’the mid-range beer an’ steeped dried oranges in the can over a burner. Then I mashed up’n avocado an’ mixed a small amount into the drink!” He sounded all too pleased with his idea by the time he stopped talking. I looked around the ruined floor and then met his eyes.
“Sonra." I said, with permafrost on my lips, "Don’t ever touch an avocado again.” His hurt expression almost broke my resolve to be stern. But I was saved by a notification jumping into my vision. I knew my eyes would shine a pale blue when I opened it.
“Got a mess’ig?” he drawled, back to his default manner.
“Nope. That’s my confirmation from Cassius.” I replied, dismissing the message, a little annoyed that business had ruined the moment.
“The tattoo artist?” Jason chimed in, cocking his head.
“He’s also a ripper. That knucklefuck you two hired me to rough up at Lizzie’s, the one married to your supposed output? He busted up the reel for my wire. I need it fixed before some borged-out scav decides I'm an easy mark.”
“You got paid, did’n you?” He griped, glancing around the kitchen absently. Something catches his attention and he gives me a serious glance. “Hey, if’n y’need a few extra eddies, there’s this man, been sitting at table six fer hours. Some corpo wearing a tracksuit an’ a pair of those fancy new runner shoes. I need ‘im gone before the Claws decide he’s a threat. Besides, he’s too pretty for this part of town.” Sonra glanced up at the top of my head. “He’s actually got a full head o’ hair.” He finished with a playful sneer.
“Eat me, old man.” I snorted at him, earning a snicker from Jason, and turned through the kitchen door and out to the bar. The scene was pretty usual for a Thursday evening at Lazy’s Pub. Two scarred and grumpy old Tygers sat at the bar, looking at no one and saying nothing as they sipped from their mugs. In the far corner sat a man who’d been surgically altered to look like a 20th century comic book character that no one had ever heard of. At the center table, four Tygers of varying size played poker. And on the right side of the room, halfway to the front door, sat a fair skinned man with black hair. He was indeed handsome, well groomed, and miles out of his element. His black and red tracksuit was wrinkled from his hunched over posture. His foot tapped a silent rhythm through a pair of new Feline-Faller running shoes. This man was two things: very bad at pretending to be a nobody, and ready to bolt at the slightest dirty look.
I stepped out from behind the bar and took an oblong path around the room to table 6. Every third step I took, like clockwork, the man flashed a quick glance over his shoulder at the front door. When I got within ten feet of him, the man snapped his head up and looked me dead in the eye. I refused to freeze up so I sat down in the booth across from him. I might be small, skinny, and mostly organic, but this man looked at me as though I was Adam Smasher.
He took a deep breath and I began to wonder if I wasn’t about to witness this man have a full breakdown in the bar. Before I could think of something to say to this frightened uptowner his entire demeanor changed. He stopped shaking and locked his gaze on me. His eyes weren’t filled with terror anymore, they were steel. The change sent a single word through my mind: Doll. My mind started to run in circles. What was a doll doing in Kabuki? Why did he activate for me? Before I could get myself in order, the doll spoke.
“And here I thought I had a few hours to meet you. I’ll have to pay for Kerry’s tab here at the…” He trailed off and looked around at the pub. “Where the hell am I?”
My eyes narrowed, “Lazy’s Pub in Kabuki.” I replied flatly.
“Perfect.” The strange man breathed. His muscles relaxed and sank into his seat. The picture of casual lounging. I was sure I’d get whiplash from the mood swings this conversation had already put me through. The man took a long, quiet breath and folded his fingers under his chin, resting his elbows on the table.
“Well, now that my schedule has been rearranged, may we talk business, miss Akihana?” He said with all the grace of a greedy accountant. I glared at him.
“My name is Cyren.” The uptowner looked puzzled. His optical implants lit up as he scrolled through untold information. After a moment his data search stopped and he pulled out a phone. He turned the screen to show me a picture: an image taken less than a year prior. The woman in the photo smirked proudly at the camera as she leaned her lithe frame against a brutalized freight truck on the outskirts of Night City. Her fair skin pulled snugly over a softly angled face that did not yet wear the plethora of piercings and cyberware that were to come. Her hair was pulled into a light blue braid that hung past her ears down to the massive Liberty model handgun protruding from her waistband. Aggressively blue eyes peered out of hooded eyelids dusted in black makeup. Barely hidden under a soft leather jacket were angry red scars climbing from her right shoulder, along her thin neck, stopping just under her rounded jawline, not yet hidden by a tattoo. Next to the picture was my full birth name, date of birth, and Social ID number. My address, however, was so wrong it may as well have been in Tokyo.
My scowl deepened as I took the picture in, concealing the sharp pain in my chest nicely. The man who took that photo was killed about five minutes after snapping it. The only copy of that photo was on his neural shard when he was hit with a sudden EMP that stopped his unshielded artificial heart. This picture shouldn’t exist. I carefully raised my eyes to meet the man’s, ice flooding my veins.
“You’re going to tell me where that image came from. And you’re going to do it now before I delete your entire digital portfolio and bank account.” I growled with a surprising amount of menace. So much so, the man blinked and the steel was gone. He looked younger now. Not quite scared, not yet cold. I’d have found him attractive had I not wanted to shoot him.
“I can’t tell you, Miss- I mean Cyren.” He wiped the doll’s subconscious sweat from his brow. He took a breath, replacing the steely calm in the doll’s eyes.
“Please, forgive my attitude. As I am sure you can tell by now, I am no more thrilled with being in Night City than Kerry, the man who is sitting with you. However, I can assure you that the source we received this picture and information from is someone who thinks very highly of you. They are the one who recommended you for this task. That being said, you already replied to our job offer.” I made no attempt to speak, waiting for him to explain.
“As you are undoubtedly aware, Arasaka was raided a few months ago. They still hold the reins of Night City, of course. But their grip on their RnD sites is a little lax as they patch up the damage. Most importantly, their data on Kiroshi Optics has been left out to dry. Rumor has it Yorinobu was planning a buyout of Kiroshi, from their deal with Us Cracks all the way to their Militech contracts. A move like that would ruin Militech.“ He paused, grinning, to let me process.
“Data like that could make a globally recognized megacorp very relevant in NC overnight. Even more so if they have a few trillion eddies worth of infrastructure and assets ready and waiting for something to do.” I noted quietly. Softening my scowl and watching his face carefully. The man looked a little taken aback. I gave him a grim smile. “I would never have agreed to meet a stranger from a mega corporation without knowing as much as I possibly could about their employer. Question is, what do you expect me to do about it?” The man cleared his throat and wiped more sweat from his brow.
“You, Miss Cyren, are the exact woman we need for this job. We have been made aware of your skill set by our…” He paused, tilting his head to glance at the rotting ceiling. “Let’s just call them our benefactor. We can only give you the barest of details, as this is something we must keep as quiet as possible. I’m certain you understand that the powers that be in Night City would not take kindly to my company moving in.” He paused, and again I waited for him to continue.
“You are uniquely qualified for this because we need both the best netrunner and the best merc in the city.” I had to laugh at that. I’d never been so covered in butter in my life. The man raised a polite eyebrow at my guffaws. With some effort, I forced my mirth down and collected myself.
“If you guys think I’m the best anything in this city, you have no fucking clue where you are.” I stated matter-of-factly, wiping a tear from my eye. “I’m good, don’t get me wrong. But there are people in just this city alone who could write DataKrash two-point-oh. But they don’t work direct. I think you don’t wanna use a fixer.” The man stared at me for a moment. I thought he might get up and leave to try his luck over at the Afterlife. But he simply reached under the table and pulled out a small pink shard of plastic. I blinked several times, trying to come to terms with what I was seeing. “Hold on. Is that a flash drive? A USB flash drive? Where did you find that relic?”
“Your job.” He deadpanned. “A simple one, really. Just find yourself in the data centers on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th floors of Arasaka’s archive site on the waterfront tomorrow night. You will be given a netrunning bodysuit and an appropriate clearance shard. You need to simply insert this drive into each terminal you use. You will do this four times because each data center is on an independent network from the building, in addition to using it once more to wipe everything else on site.” As he spoke, I took the drive from him, his phone as well, plugged them up, took out my personal link, and connected it. My optics sprang to life as code started to scroll across my vision.
“Crack their ICE, download the files we require. Once finished, just return here, Kerry will be here on his own. Like I said, simple. We are confident our competitors will wait until the building is less heavily guarded. So it should be perfectly clear.” I was half listening when a series of uncomfortably familiar lines of code graced my vision.
“Hold on. This drive contains a viral malware program. What will this thing do to those servers?” I asked critically.
“Wipe them completely.” Greed sprouted in my gut and an evil grin fought to spread on my face.
“Zetatech won’t be pleased with that, will they?” I sneered.
“Excuse me?” The doll asked pointedly, arching a manicured eyebrow. I leaned forward in my seat and sprang my new little trap.
“You weren’t the only company to reach out, you know. Zeta also contacted me. Though, they weren’t as discreet. They gave me an offer up front. 500,000 eddies for essentially the same job.” The lie came easily, as though I had planned it from the start. It wasn’t but a moment before I could see that I’d drawn blood. The man didn’t try very hard to hide the shock and fear that colored his eyes as he processed what I said. I left him floundering for a minute or so before he got himself together.
“Well, that certainly is a surprise. However, I am prepared to make you an offer of 600,000 eurodollars for this job, should you choose to accept it.” He stated, clearly trying to maintain his businessman facade. I stared at him with a patronizing expression. Inside, my entire being jumped for joy. I would be set for the year, at least, with a paycheck like that. I did my best to keep my emotions locked up tight. Pretending to deliberate, I flipped a coin in my head. Tails.
“That is perfectly fine.” I said sweetly, inclining my head cordially. “Provided, of course, that half is paid to me upfront. The other half being paid upon delivery of your… product.” I amended with a sly grin. The man looked almost as though he had just stepped out of the rain. His optics glowed for a few minutes. Finally he caved.
“Fine. We can do that for you, Ms. Cyren.” He sighed. A few more seconds of glowing eyes. Finally, a pop up materialized in my vision.
<Request to send eurodollar transfer – Adrek Robotics Financial Office – [300000] – Accept Y/N>
I grinned and confirmed the transaction. I smiled at the mystery man as my bank account soared in the corner of my eye. As I watched, the man pulled a small black case out of his tracksuit and opened it, revealing a red and orange datashard.
“This will get you in as a contracted dweller to act as a temporary replacement. Slot it and remember to leave behind anything that will be flagged by their scanners. You’ll find the uniform I mentioned delivered here under your birth name. I will meet you here again when we receive the data. Best of luck.” With just a small nod, the man settled into an assessing the stare. I stared back as I processed the info until something hit me.
“What happened to their current dweller?” I asked carefully. The doll’s sculpted face twisted into an unsettling smirk.
“She has… Well, suffice it to say that she has a very intensive surgery planned to replace some damaged hardware.” He paused, pondering, and then finished his thought. “And probably some organic components as well.” He added. A smile like that on a face that pretty was not okay.
I wish I’d finished that avocado drink.
Firmly uncomfortable, I stood up from the booth and paced back to the kitchen without another word. Sonra was waiting for me, his shotgun in hand. I held up a hand to stop him and klepped a bottle of Centzon tequila from the collbox. After a few hearty gulps to cleanse my mind and ease my nerves, I stopped to breathe again. Sonra’s anxious frown brought me into focus, so I opened my bank account on the net. I briskly entered numbers into the small interface of my cornea until his office console beeped out a notification. His head snapped to the noise. The old man looked back at me, his eyes begging for the details of my conversation. I jerked my head towards his desk. He jogged over to his office and set his gun back on its rack. The chair creaked as he sat down and clacked away at the stone-aged keyboard. Silence followed. No gasp or shout. Worried now, I stepped over to the office doorway. The aging man looked up at me, a mixture of adoration and fear on his face.
“Cy. Tell me that my eyes are lying to me.” He pleaded, nodding to his screen. I moved briskly around the desk to look at the screen. There, blue and bright on the screen, was the notification of the 100,000 credit transfer I’d just made to his account. Air rushed out of me in relief.
“Jesus, choom, you gave me a heart attack. Your eyes are fine. No one is dying. I didn’t whore myself out. What’s-His-Dick at table six just offered me a massive payday for a simple office tour. I owed you, anyway.” I told him, my words coming out in a gust.
“Do I want to know who you’re about to fuck over?” He groaned, clearly over his panic.
“I’m going to go with no.” I said, reassuring him with a smile, and quickly tacked on, “Can I klep your EMP ‘nade, too? For good luck?”
“Fine. Go for it. You know the code.” He waved his hand dismissively, as though thousands of eddies were pocket change. I leaned past him to reach his weapon safe. I punched in the code and yanked the heavy tungsten door open. A small armory greeted my eyes as I scanned the contents for my prize. I grabbed an electro-magnetic pulse grenade and stuffed it in my vest pocket.
“I don’t suppose you have any armor-penetrating forty-five rounds?” I asked with false hope in my voice.
“What, for m’shotgun? Go buy your own, miss moneybags!” Grunted Sonra. With a light sigh, I closed the heavy door of the safe, pausing for the thick metal bolts to confirm its security with a dull thunk. From the back corner of Sonra’s office, my ears caught the chime of metal on metal, followed soon after by Jason’s unnaturally relaxed timbre.
“I’m going on break, boss.” The man called. The still-stunned elder at the computer only grunted his affirmation. I couldn’t help but grin at the back of Sonra’s head before I soft-stepped out of the office and back into the kitchen. Jason caught my eye almost immediately. I knew that look. With a mock groan, I eyed him playfully and spoke up.
“Want me to join you?” I asked in a patronizing tone, cocking my head at him. He narrowed his eyes at me, trying and failing to keep his grin in check. That was all I needed. Lazily cracking my neck, I sauntered out the back door of the kitchen and made my way up the stairs, listening to the heavy footfalls that trailed behind me. We climbed the seven flights to the roof in relative silence, the quiet only being broken by gunshots, shouts, sirens, and the sound of a large man who didn’t keep up with his cardio. Finally, we reached the door to the roof of the building. On reflex, I reached for the flat steel plate that concealed the wiring for the door, only for my hand to be gently grabbed by Jason’s oversized mit. I froze up, feeling the metal plates of my cybernetics warm from his touch as I glanced at him quizzically. Jason fixed me with a smug smirk and pointed to a slotted datashard in his head with his other hand. It wasn’t until then that I remembered that my tagalong had a key.
“Allow me.” His voice was about one shade away from husky, only adding to the sensation of being gently dragged by my hand from the wall so he could open the door. The little light on the door flickered from a locked red to an inviting green an instant before the metal panel slid away into the wall. Cool damp air flooded the stairwell, breathing new life into my body as we stepped out onto the now-rain-soaked roof. Jason led us to a small cloth canopy, and the cheap chairs hidden underneath, with a bounce in his step. Without more than a moment’s hesitation, the hulking cook dropped himself into a chair. To my embarrassment, he didn't release me before doing so, instead dragging me down by the hand into his lap. My growl came out limp and empty, only making Jason laugh, as I tried to stand from my impromptu seat. Arms as thick as my waist wrapped around me and held me in place, forcing me to feel the vibrations of his laughter pass through every part of me, ganic and chrome alike.
“Can you not do that, Jason?” I groaned, actively fighting the voice in my head telling me to give in. I tried to wriggle free, hoping my arms, even tuned for agility, were enough to overpower his. Not a chance.
“Don’t act like you don't like it, Cy. Your face says it all.” He whispered tenderly in my ear, turning my head into a warzone. I spared just a little brainpower to confirm that yes, indeed, I was blushing furiously.
Well. Shit.
“Jason…” I trailed off, finding it hard to fight down any emotion, and looked down to hide my face. With his arms around me, though, I ended up burying my face in the crook of his elbow. Not a good look for resistance. Jason pulled me gently closer, scooting my butt over his crotch. Alarms shrieked in my head. With serious effort, I flexed my synthetic muscles and reached for my gun. Thankfully, my captor noticed the fear reaction and released me all at once. My taut muscles, in the sudden absence of resistance, launched me off of him. I landed on my side in a puddle of rainwater, panic opening the floodgates for adrenaline. I pushed myself to my hands and knees and stayed there.
“Cyren?” A shockingly timid tone for the huge man jolted me from the confines of memory. I took a self-inventory. My Nue was in my right hand, hammer cocked and finger on the trigger. My left wrist felt wrong. An experimental test of my monowire reel eased the feeling quickly. My blood ran cold. I’d have turned him into chunks of swiss cheese. I took a breath. And another. One more for good measure.
Holy fuck…
I carefully stood up, panting a little, and thumbed the decocker on my pistol before holstering it. Brushing water from my left side, I took small steps over to the other chair, keeping my gaze locked to the rooftop. I could feel his worried gaze on me as I settled myself into the cheap plastic.
“Landon?” Jason asked softly. The sudden sound gave me a small start, but the husky sound of lust was gone from his voice, easing my nerves a little. Unable to look at him after my episode, I just nodded at my pants. The man beside me shifted and loosed a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry, Cy. I shouldn’t have pushed. Wasn’t thinking.” The remorse in his voice was painful, but his words dredged up memories I’d only just then managed to peel from the inside of my skull. I stood in a rush, already turned and three long strides away before I could get my words out.
“I need to go. Later, choom.”
It was almost an hour before the haze lifted from my head. I’d been walking for most of it. I blinked a few times to clear my head and looked around, hoping I wasn't in Pacifica or something. Around me, through the curtain of people, stood tan factories and warehouses. Above the crowd, a few oversized water towers stood silhouetted against the smog in the sky. Northern Watson. I frowned at the water towers for a moment before clarity dawned on me. I was about two blocks from Ryder’s shop. Score one for PTSD brain; I was right where I needed to be. Feeling renewed, I made my way through the rest of the crowds to the ripper's office. I came around the last corner and stepped into the low-rent maze of spontaneous craving machines that hides Cassius' front door. But, before I could make it halfway, a heavily synthesized voice barked at me.
"Hey, fleshbag!"
A groan died in my throat as I ground to a halt. Casting my face to the night sky, I took a breath and cursed my luck. The crunching over gravel behind me cut my self indulgence short, though.
One? No, two. Probably maelstromers. Fuck me sideways.
I figured I had about ten seconds before they were within arms reach of me. Out of habit, I triggered my monowire, and cringed as the monomolecular bladed cable tangled and coiled itself inside my arm. With metal clogging up my joints, my left hand was useless.
Seven seconds left. A metallic clack.
I couldn't decide if knives or bullets would serve me better here. My bullets were hollow points, so they wouldn't be much use if these borgs had subdermal plating. On the other hand, though, my knives would be about as useless. My eyes darted around the courtyard, looking for some kind of exit strategy. The only paths I could find were either make a break for Ryder's, or turn and try to slip past the gangbangers. I was soundly cornered.
Three seconds. I could hear them breathing.
Fuck it. Make'em remember you, Cyren.
My right hand shot for my Nue, finger on the trigger and thumb on the hammer. Moving as fast as I could manage, I whirled on the pair behind me, my inhuman arm leveling the barrel in a blur, and zeroed my kiroshis on a pair of scrawny maelstrom thugs. The two young men were shirtless and absolutely covered in protruding cyberware. The one closest to me was missing the bottom half of his face, a fact that almost distracted me from the tech shotgun he'd aimed at my face. My time was up. I pulled the trigger, hoping against hope the round would flatline the man before he could pull his trigger. A sliver a second passed before my bullet met the chrome of the borg's face. Sparks flashed in concert with a deafening shriek of feedback from his vocal implants. A second passed, with a surprising lack of pellets in my face, and the first one fell. Like a pipework puppet with cut strings, he collapsed in a heap. I was so shocked, not only that I'd just killed a man, but that my shot actually hurt him, that I didn't get to react to the other maelstromer tackling me into the gravel.
"YOU MEATSACK CUNT!" He screamed, slapping the gun from my grasp with one hand and crushing my trachea with the other. The hit had knocked my breath away, and now I couldn't breathe. Capitalizing on the few precious seconds I had left, I snatched a knife from my hip and poured every drop of speed I had in me behind driving it into the man's skull. For a split second, I was sure I'd have hydraulic fluid spraying out. But my aim wasn't as true. With so much energy in the knife, the subdermal plate's ribbing caught the tip and the blade shattered. Cold laughter and visual alarms from my biomon were all I could perceive after that.
My eyes opened to a painfully bright light. Seconds later, a sharp jolt raced through my chest, driving my whole body to convulse. My jaw clenched down on a yelp. A blue box cut into my bleached out vision: my biomon. My hormones were completely out of whack, and my arms weren’t responding, but I was alive.
Fuck. They fucking took me. I need to get off this table.
I tried to force my arms to move, panic settling in when I realized they weren’t attached anymore. My eyes darted around frantically, trying to get my bearings. The room was light in a dim blue and lined with clear plastic curtains. My head and legs were strapped down to the table. With no other options, I tried to scream, and pain tore through my throat.
Gonkass toaster fucker crushed my windpipe.
I could breathe, barely, so I wasn’t going to asphyxiate. Yet. A few seconds of frantic thought gave way to the clarity of a gig. Calmed by this, I caught the distinct sounds of tinkering: Wire cutters, soldering iron, and what might have been a wire brush wheel. Someone was working on cyberware in the room where I couldn’t see. I had time, so I took inventory.
No arms. Legs and head fixed in place. I can't fight my way out of a Maelstrom lair like this. Options are calling for help or forcing these fuckers to put me down.
Both options mean calling out, so I tried again to speak. The effort left me clenching my teeth against at least a hundred tears in my neck. I tried again, through gritted teeth, and managed to form a tiny whistle in my mouth. Not enough to hear, but it was a step. Figuring the pain might knock me out, and give me a little respite, I tried once more with everything I had. Finally, I managed to force a strangled groan through my ruined throat.
"Hey there, kiddo. Good… well, it's definitely not morning… whatever. You're alive, your throat is fucked, and I'm fixing whatever the hell you did to your left arm."
Holy fuck. I can’t be that lucky.
That relaxed tone, like an old veteran lounging on a beach, I knew as Cassius Ryder: one of the oldest ripperdocs in Night City and my go-to guy for all things chrome or ink. An ample man with all the tattoos and self-assurance any one person could have, Doc Ryder was skilled enough to wire a smart-link into something as simple as a tattoo with nothing but a modified tattooing needle. Immediately, my body went slack, feeling heavy as lead. The relief hit me so hard that the extra-spicy dose of adrenaline in my blood made me nauseous. An easy gait of heavy footsteps drew over to my table, warning me before the large silhouette of Cassius blocked out the overhead lights. He looked me in the eye, disapproval and concern marking his usually-apathetic stare, and smiled.
“Welcome back to the land of the living.” He patted my belly reassuringly. I started to attempt a protest, furrowing my brow at him, and he shook his head. “You don't have shoulders right now, Cyren. Just sit tight while I finish on your monowire. Oh, also, lemme send you a consent form. I have a Dakai New Throat that’s been gathering dust.” I gave him a concerned pout. His eyes flashed blue briefly before a new box appeared in my vision. I scanned the usual consent BS and skipped to the end, where my trauma report was. I’m no doctor, but it looked bad. My neck’s flesh had been crushed into a mangled sleeve around my spinal column. Cassius had apparently fed a tube past my collarbone so I could breathe. The next part was the suggestions section. He wanted to replace my whole neck, spine and all, with chrome.
Damn. Never thought I’d be thankful for running into a corpo-rat first thing.
The price tag was sizable, but my advance for the job would cover it. I added my digital signature and approved the operation. One loading bar and a confirmation tone later, and Cassius grinned like a little kid. He inserted a hardline into my neural port and gave a little wave. And I was out like a light.
Voices broke into my dreamless mind. A man and a woman bickering over something.
“Just because Kiroshi bought them out doesn’t mean their skag is any good! Their firmware was the only good thing about them. Kiro just wanted the monopoly.”
“Bull, old man! If anything, they are even better now since no one uses them anymore. Just admit that Kenjiri has more value because their pre-merger tech counters Kiroshi’s stuff.”
With that, I opened my eyes. The room was pitch black. I couldn’t see a thing at all. I queued up my low-light filter and-
Wait, what? Are my..? oh, sonofa…
“Cassius! Where the fuck are my eyes?” I snarled into the dark, my slightly metallic voice pricking at my ears a little. Something metal crashed to the floor on my right, followed by Cassius’ grumbling and subvocal complaints drawing near. A calloused hand grabbed my face and jerked it into place, two fingers holding open my right eye socket. I felt something hard slip between the lids and click into place. The hand repeated the process on my left socket. A few seconds of electricity buzzing held me over until my vision suddenly switched on. My world filled with a big Kiroshi Opticals logo before pulling up my normal settings. Blinking rapidly to wet my eyes, I lifted my head to look at my ripper. He was tired, and thoroughly annoyed, but forcing a grin anyway.
“I owed you a proper market set anyway. Seemed like a good time.” He said simply, voice laced with irritation.
“So is she well enough to pay me back, now?” The female voice from before interjected. I turned my head to the left and found a burly woman picking up metal casings from the floor in front of a shelf. Her hair was black and buzzed almost to the scalp, almost hiding the twin torn scars underneath. She wore a shiny blue vest covered in outlines of removed patches. Her eyes met mine and held them. I scanned her.
INDIRA COBBS
NCID #NULL
UNEMPLOYED
DESC: ERR_SYS_FILEMISS_CD5563
The dark skin of her face bulged as her jaw clenched. She stood herself upright and watched me.
“Take a picture or say something already.” She groaned, crossing her arms over what I noted to be a very ample chest. I chuckled a little to myself and cut off the scanner. That seemed to ease her spirits a little, judging from her stance. Indira walked over and stood over me, assessing my whole body. I did the same. My arms were still missing, but the resumed whirring in Cassius’ corner was comforting. My dingy clothes were stained with reddish brown and milky white blotches. I sighed and sat up with just my abs.
“Looks like I need to go shopping.” I muttered.
Indira laughed. “I would say so. Unless you like looking like you just left a Scav orgy.” The joke was easy, but damned if it didn’t ring true. She looked back at my face. “So my name’s Indy. I came by this place looking for a Chromaticore, instead, I found a skinny little asian girl having her head popped by a nutcase with a chrome fetish. So either you and your input have some strange kinks, or you owe me.” Her gaze was sharp, but a shadow of playfulness lurked in her brown eyes. I flipped a coin in my head and grinned.
“Well, once I get my arms back…” I announced, loudly.
“Keep your tits on, Cyren. I’m almost done!” Cassius grunted from his workbench.
My grin widened and I continued. “I would be happy to pay for some food for us. I haven't eaten yet tonight.” I tried to make it not sound like a date, but I was ravenous. Indira kept a careful poker face.
“Maybe. But I’m not eating with anyone dressed like you.” She replied matter-of-factly. I flopped back onto the padded table and gave her a faux glare.
“Listen, lady. If you’ve got a problem with how I dress, You can take it up with my Maelstrom input!”
Indy’s poker face shattered. She bent over me, almost headbutting my stomach, and howled with laughter. Her voice vibrated through my organic bits, almost tickling, and made me laugh too. We carried on for a few seconds before she stopped to catch her breath. When her eyes met mine again, they were full of warmth and joy. “Sorry to say, miss, but I maybe potentially possibly definitely splattered your input’s face over…” She paused and glanced up to think. “About four vending machines.” She looked back down for my reaction.
I put on my best expression of shock and wailed. “Noooooo! How could you?! He was my one true love! The sweetest homicidal chrome-junkie this side of the pacific!” My performance, I thought, was perfect. Indy, with another torrent of cackles, seemed to agree. Cassius wasn’t as amused.
“If you two really need to flirt, do it after I’ve kicked you both out so I can get some sleep.” He growled. I looked over at him, grinning like a fool, and saw him reassembling my left arm. I watched him in polite silence, even as Indy’s laughter devolved into sporadic chortles, until he hoisted both of the shiny silver limbs over to my table. “Hold still, you pest.” He groused. He carefully repositioned the arms over the sockets in my upper torso. With more precision that a man his size should have, he slid my right arm into place, tightening microscopic screws as he went. Once the connections were set in place, I tested my fingers and wrist. Full motion. Once the old man had moved away to attend to my left side, I lifted my hand to test out my tools. One finger at a time split open to reveal a tool. The multi-bit screwdriver in my index. The soldering iron in my middle. The wire Cutters in my ring. And the miniature plasma cutter in my pinkie.
Fuck yeah.
My left arm went a little slower to account for the personal link’s wiring. Indy moved around to my right and grabbed my wrist, stopping me from putting my hand back down, and marveled at my tools. I arched a brow at her, but opened all four of my fingers again. She hummed her appreciation and took a close look at each tool.
“What’s so interesting?” I asked patiently. Immediately, she released my hand and looked down to hide her darkening cheeks. I wanted to ask her more, but a jolt in my left arm distracted me. My eyes darted to the ripperdoc’s finished work, and then to the shockprod he had used to get my attention. I obligingly started to test my left arm too. My personal link was intact, and the feeder for my monowire was shiny and new. I reformed my right hand and triggered the reel in my wrist. A golden orange string of metal leapt from the feeder and into my waiting right hand. Pinching the wire, I pulled it taut with both hands, relishing the high frequency thrum that buzzed through my arms. Cassius rolled out a plastic dummy and left it at the far end of the room. I thanked him with a nod and hopped off the table in a single motion. Indy jumped a little before Cassius put a hand on her shoulder to keep her back. I bounced on the balls of my feet a couple of times before I lashed my left hand out, releasing the wire in my fingers. The glowing whip made a warped sound through the air, passing through the plastic man in front of me like it wasn’t even there. I pulled the reel back at the end of my gesture, sucking the bladed wire back into my arm rapidly. It was all over in only a second, punctuated by the plastic man falling over in two pieces.
“Woah.” Indy gasped behind me. I turned to find the awed expression of a little girl on her face. I arched a brow at her to prod her to elaborate. She flushed again, but spoke.
“I’m a nomad. We don't see toys like yours out in the badlands. And I haven’t seen them in my time here yet.”
“Monowire. It's a Kendachi Arms design. They aren't very common anymore, being that they are mostly sold in Japan, but for assassinations and espionage, they have no equal. The blade is only a molecule wide and charged by an internal battery.” Cassius chimed in, a tint of pride in his tone. Indy’s face was glowing. I knew he had bent over backwards to find the parts for me, and his own modifications had made my own rig indispensable. Finally on my feet again, I looked around the office to find my gear. My knives and pistol were sitting on a shiny table to the side. I walked over and started putting things away as I spoke up.
“What do I owe you, Cass?”
“Invoice just finished. one-hundred and sixty thousand. I know you can pay me back eventually.” He replied. Moments later, the invoice hit my optics. I grinned at the invisible display, keying the payment authorization without hesitation. A second passed before Cassius saw it and choked on… something.
“What the- Since when can you afford that much chrome upfront?” He sputtered. Indy’s eyes narrowed at me. I watched my balance plummet before answering.
“Just picked up a gig with some serious edds behind it. Signing bonus was ample.” I said simply. Both of their expressions showed levels of concern, but I’d been on a table for far too long. I pinged the time.
“Anyway. I owe Indy here dinner, and I need to go shopping. Shall we?” I glanced right at Indira, giving her a moment to collect herself. She grinned and started to walk out of the clinic, with me in tow.
The rest of the night passed rather quickly after that. I stopped by a run down little shop on the way south and picked out some new clothes: A dark tank top with a metallic blue design, a pair of newtech running shoes with sound dampening, and new slim fit pants in black leather. After that, we stopped at a diner near megabuilding H10. We talked the whole time. Turns out, Indy had only been in NC for about seven months. She moved in just before the raid on Arasaka in ‘77. She worked as a dedicated runner for a fixer called “El Capitan” in Santo Domingo, who apparently had just fixed her up with her own big job just that night. She had just finished her own prep work when she ran into me. Once all the bills had been paid, I was left with only 30,000 eddies. Indy gave me her Holocall number before we parted for the night.
With the sun rising on Night City, I finally got home and flopped lifelessly into my mattress. I slept easy that morning, dreaming of my ticket into the major leagues.
and because I've been working on this series for over a year: Chapters 2.1, 2.2, and three!
“Thank you for calling RedCab! My name is Jay. Where can I send you?”
“Hi, yeah, I need a car to take me out to the Waterfront in Watson.”
“Of course! I’ll need your cybermodem’s GPS data?”
“Sending it now.”
“Give me a moment… Got it! Wait… Ma’am, you may want to recalibrate your modem.”
“...Why?”
“I’m getting an unusual Z axis in the data.”
“Oh, nevermind that. It’s working fine. Just send the cab.”
“As you wish. He will be there in ten minutes.”
“Thank you.”
The link shut down. I adjusted my weight, pausing when metal creaked uncomfortably beneath me, and looked to the darkened skies. Night in Night City falls quickly most days, but a thick layer of clouds covered the city-state that night. Without the sun to warm the air, every breeze cut like a knife. N54 even suggested there might be snow in the weather report. I shook my head at the clouds, straightening up on my perch, and cast my eyes down at the streets below. The city was winding down already. The usual packs of Tyger Claws were absent from street corners. Only the homeless made an appearance, huddled in an alley around a burning car. My attention shifted to the time painted on my vision. I flexed my legs against the antenna, trying my best to balance my weight so it wouldn’t break. Now in a low crouch over the street, I launched myself forward to the fire escape on the other side. Only a second passed before I could make out the scuffs on the railing of the third floor platform. I pivoted and caught it in my right hand, gritting my teeth as the shock of metal on metal jolted into my skeleton and echoed down the alley. Momentum gone, my human bones protested as all my weight, plus gravity, yanked on my right arm where it joined with my body. I didn’t get time to complain to myself before shouts and curses in eastern tongues rose from the ground below. A cursory glance at the pavement showed me two things: Even the homeless carry weapons, even if they were just pipes and sharp bits of scrap metal, and I was now dangling around twenty feet above a burning car.
Why did I think this was a good idea?
While the heat wasn’t doing more than balancing out the frigid wind, My mother taught me never to jump onto burning automobiles from freezing fire escapes. Or maybe she didn’t, and I’m just a gonkass. In the face of being sauteed, I hoisted myself up and over the railing and onto the platform. I didn't see any path away from the fire when I looked, so I knocked on the nearest window. Within moments, the glass pane slid aside and a finely aged man poked his bald head out into the cold. He scanned the bottom of the alleyway through squinted eyes, apparently without peripheral vision. I decided to make his job easier and called out.
“Yo!”
The poor man jumped from surprise and hit his head on the window frame. When his attention did reach me, he was already scowling. His voice was shrill as his protest spilled from his lips. “孩子，你他媽的在做什麼。你這麼晚騷擾我，像個傻瓜一樣站在這裡。” The wind picked up a little, stinging against my bare scalp, while I watched the chinese convert itself into english in my eyes. Finally, the sentence solidified, reading “What the fuck are you doing, kid. You harass me so late and stand here like a fool.” I frowned at him and hopped over the side railing, gripping the near edge of his window frame as I did. He scurried backward into his livingroom to avoid my legs and like a choreographed dance, I’d landed right in front of him. “我勒個去!” He barked, getting younger by the minute. I held up one silver hand, ignoring the translated protest scrawling along my cornea.
“It’s a fire escape. I was escaping fire. And now I’m leaving.” I managed, wincing at the metallic flange contaminating my words, and headed to the front door before the poor man produced something to hit me with. The metal door slammed shut behind me, flinging a small rush of air through my hair and highlighting the lack of feeling below my head. I started walking down the hall to the elevator, rubbing at the phantom hands around my metallic throat. I shook my head, trying to clear my mind, as I hailed the lift.
It’s over, Cyren. He died. I lived. Circle of life.
The doors opened. I let out a breathy sigh, stepping in promptly and punching in the ground floor before leaning into the wall for emotional support. I must have been lost in thought, because the doors opened to the street before I’d noticed the lift move at all. Stepping out and glancing at the time in my HUD, I ran my fingers along the tight lines of my netrunning suit. I’d never worn one before. I thanked my lucky stars that it didn’t chafe and stood at the edge of the sidewalk. I stood for a few minutes before the cab stopped next to me. The driver scanned me with his implants and the door lock clicked open. All I got was a curt nod as an invitation. I dropped myself into the back seat, cringing away when the door slammed shut after me. Without comment, the driver put his foot in it. We sat in silence as the cabbie bobbed and weaved his way through the night shift rush hour like a pro. Cars and trucks whizzed by my window accompanied by a chorus of honks and beeps. He took the long way through south watson, coming out to the pacific beachfront before wrenching the car right and possibly driving his leg through the floorboard. The car shot out of the turn like a bullet, leaving the speed limit in the rearview. After a minute or two, I spotted my target, the Arasaka Industrial Complex, on the left. Convinced we were going to miss it at these speeds, I leaned forward out of my seat to alert him, only for him to slam on the brakes, rip the wheel left, and pull up the driveway into the waiting garage. Without a seatbelt or time to brace, the sudden deceleration launched me forward into the front of the car. My head wedged itself in the front passenger’s footwell, with one leg in the driver's lap and the other draped over the center console. I pulled my head out of the AC piping to look at him, worried I’d hit him, and was met with the most indifferent stare in human history.
Oh no. I’m fine. Don’t help me or anything!
“We’re here.” He said flatly. With as much haste as I could manage, I untangled myself and crawled out of the passenger side door, scrambling up on the cold pavement and dusting myself off. When I met his eyes again, they glowed briefly, and he tore off into the night. He was already gone by the time his invoice hit my eyes. The sum was modest, given the CHOOH2 he must have burned to get me here so fast, so I threw in a generous tip for his professionalism. Once that was dismissed, I looked around for a bearing. The garage was mostly empty, featuring only a few very expensive vehicles guarded by cameras and triplasers. The door I needed was on the other end of this parking level, if I’d remembered the schematics right. With a hefty helping of false confidence, I strode out to the front doors. I got within ten meters of the doors when I was intercepted by two heavily armored ‘Saka guards. Their bulky pads and plates cut a hulking profile that was bolstered by their heavy machine guns bigger than my own body. I brought myself to a halt so quickly I nearly kissed the concrete. The guards blocked the path to the door and stared down at me through blacked out visors, unspeaking. My optics pinged right then, notifying me of a full-spectrum scan. I opened the readout of their frequencies and liquid nitrogen filled my veins: they could see everything. My monowire, my biomon’s disk, even my fucking IUD. I stood frozen, waiting for those huge guns to rip me to pieces, and thanked the seasons that the cold wafting in from the still open gate kept me from sweating.
“What is your business here?” The scrambled voice came so suddenly I couldn’t stop from twitching. My biomon began to beep harshly in my ear, reporting a spike in cortisol and adrenaline in my blood. I started to stammer, trying to get my story out without pissing myself.
“I- I- I- I’m the n- new dweller. Sup-posed to f- fill in for Lorin.” I spat out, hoping my chattering teeth were from the cold and not the terror in my gut. More silence. The seconds ticked by like hours as I frantically tried to think of an exit. I was about to make a break for the NUSA border when one of them started laughing. The other followed suit with little hesitation. The garbled mess of frequencies hurt my ears, but it evened out my hormones a little, so I fought down the wince. The guards switched off their scramblers and clapped me on each shoulder, chuckling merrily in more human voices.
“Relax, net-head. It’s our job to scare the piss out of people. Go on in, reception can escort you to your rig.” They released me and stepped aside, opening my path to the door again. I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. My cortisol was still way too high, but my fear-heightened senses caught a murmur beside me. I glanced up at the guard. He looked down at me and reached behind him. From some hidden pouch, he produced an inhaler, and offered it to me. “You don’t have the scratch for a hormone regulator yet, huh? This’ll help.” I let my optics zoom in on the inhaler. Ketoconazole, a cortisol blocker. With a sigh of relief, I gratefully took it and sucked down two puffs. The quick-acting aerosol almost immediately killed the edge in my blood, leaving only the nausea of unspent adrenaline in my belly. The biomon alerts stopped as my levels returned to normal. With my mind leveling out and a clearing head, I handed the inhaler back to the guard.
“Seriously, thanks. I really needed that.” I breathed, already sounding like myself again. The man chuckled and put the device away, nodding to the door.
“Go on. We’ve all got jobs to do.” I smiled back at him and jogged the rest of the way to the front door. The metal doors slid open for me and revealed a lateral lift and directory. A quick search of my forged itinerary gave me the codes to enter and just like that, I was sliding sideways at breakneck speeds into one of the most secure facilities on the western seaboard. It wasn’t long before the car started slowing, eventually locking into place. When the doors opened again my anti-dazzle was stress-tested by the shiny white interior. My filters kicked in, dimming the bright lights and letting me get a good look around. The woman behind the desk stood at my entrance, catching my attention, and beckoned me over. I obliged and padded lightly over to her desk.
“Welcome to the Arasaka Regional Archive.” She announced warmly. Her skin was RealFeel, dyed a bright red that complemented her neat black suit. She gestured to a jack on the desk. “Please connect your personal link so I know where to send you.” I nodded and pulled the cable from my left wrist, gently pushing it into the socket until it was secure. My eyes lit up with alerts and warnings as the building’s systems scanned my software and checked the credentials on my datashard. The ID check cleared quickly, resulting in an ID badge positioned in the top right corner of my vision. The software scan came back with some errors, though.
ERR_SYSSOFTCHK_3
/QRY_SYSDAT_TS2053122211022078
INCOM_1_USERSOFT
INCOM_MANUF_MILITECH
INCOM_2_USERSOFT
INCOM_VER_11.2.34.1
LOADING_PRGMS/NEWHIRE/ARCHIVE/DWELL/PATCH/ARA.PATCH.MILI.V28.5.41
ERR_NO_PORT
REQUST_OPEN_PORT7226
Y
LOADING_PRGMS/NEWHIRE/ARCHIVE/NETRUN/PATCH/ARA.PATCH.MILI.V28.5.41
COMPLETE
The system didn’t like my militech-based operating system, so I accepted the update the building wanted for its dweller: A simple patch that allowed my OS to communicate with Arasaka tech. A happy bonus addition to my kit. Once the update patch was integrated, I disconnected the personal link cable, letting it whip back into my arm. The receptionist, who had been watching my progress on her screen, looked up and smiled. “Perfect. You will be on the third floor, on the north side of the building across from the data center. Let me get someone to escort you.” She added as she began to search through her console. It wasn’t long at all before she spoke to the void, “Mr. Smith? Can you come up here please? The temp dweller is here.” She paused for a second, then looked back at me. “Take your time getting set up, we have been made aware of how particular you people can be.” She gestured to the elevators behind her and gave me a final grin-like expression before returning to whatever work she had.
‘You people’? Bitch.
The lift opened before I could ask it to, revealing a well built man with copper hair. His suit was preem, but clearly meant for more rigorous use than a boardroom. The print of a pistol, probably a yukimura, hung under his left arm. As intimidating as that should have been, his smile was utterly disarming.
“Hey there! So you’re the new girl? Here to run away with our nets?” He flung his arms to hug me as I entered the elevator. I simply froze up and let him wrap his arms around me. He squeezed my arms into my fragile ‘ganic ribs, telegraphing the synthetic muscles under his sleeves.
Bad touch. Bad touch!
When he realized my reaction was not enthusiastic, he released me. “Not a hugger. Sorry.” His demeanor was so relaxed and playful I had to remind myself I was in ‘saka territory. He punched the lift controls and sent us off. To my surprise, we were going down. Mr. Smith stood at parade rest, staring blankly at the doors. “I’m Jack. But you can call me Red.” I eyed him out of the corner of my eye, unwilling to risk scanning him, but curious nonetheless.
“Megan DeGrene.” The metal in my voice caught me again, and he seemed to notice. Red broke from his parade rest and leaned in close to me. When I recoiled, he grabbed my arm and held me still. I was about to protest when I got another scan alert on my optics. I could almost feel his regard of my New Throat pass through the circuitry. “Hey, you gonk, my eyes are-”
“Shhh!” He interjected in a hiss, cutting me off. His free hand reached into a pocket in his jacket and retrieved a microtool. I triggered the monowire in my wrist, dropping the energized whip to hang down to the floor. “Hey hey hey, put that away. I’m trying to help.” I narrowed my eyes at him, but didn’t attack. Satisfied I wasn’t going to try and remove his arm, he gently opened my throat. While he fiddled, the lift chimed. I hastily reeled in my wire, but was still left standing there like a deactivated doll with a grown-ass man fingers-deep in my neck when the doors slid free. Immediately, I could hear the snickers of workers who mustave stopped to look. When the agent finally closed me up, it was all I could do not to slap him. But he looked back at me with this goofy grin that saved his face. “Say something.” I felt my throat first, checking to ensure it was closed properly. Then I glared at him.
“Fuck you and your mother, too.” It was me. I sounded like me again. My hand shot to the metal around my neck, feeling for any physical change. Nothing. I ran a self-scan. No malware, virus, or any kind of malfunction. I gawked at Mr. Smith. “Wow. Um… thanks.” The ginger-haired man just grinned at me, already pocketing his tool.
“Don’t mention it. Just a calibration error.”
A pair of boots approached the lift. “Smith get you, too, eh?” I looked over to the left, out of the lift. An olive-skinned woman with shock-white hair and engineer coveralls was smirking at Red. She held a tablet to her chest with one arm, and was holding open the door to the lift with the other. Her eyes met mine, showing off their shiny blue irises, and she leaned towards me a little. “Don’t worry. If Hanako-sama herself came through here, he’d try to fix her, too.” She straightened up to stare at Red then, her voice covering most, but not all, of her amusement with professional demand. “Now will you two delta to wherever? I have places to be.”
“Yes ma’am!” Barked Red, snapping into a real military salute with a stomp of his boot for emphasis. We stepped out of the lift, with the engineer moving in behind us. He led me through the wire-covered walls past groups of engineers and techs replacing burnt out hardware and QAs jacking into nodes. As we walked, a faint beeping caught my attention, getting louder as we went on. I glanced up at Red, who either hadn’t noticed it or was used to it. We passed more techs as they disassembled and reassembled parts of the walls. Red caught my critical eyes and spoke up.
“We’re going through a renovation for the physical parts of the archive. After the HQ was attacked, the brass wanted to minimize physical breach potential.” He paused a second, then grinned. “We already reworked the subnet. I’m sure you’ll get a chance to meet our new high-security counter-virus programs. I heard they have a traditional fashion sense.”
I gave the man a smirk, inwardly hoping I can get out of the subnet before they boil my brain like a lobster. We walked in silence for a bit longer. Eventually we walked past an open office where a man was ripping panels off his walls in a fury. Red paused to watch the man, who took a minute to notice us.
“SMITH!” He howled, turning on us with a sizable steel panel in his hands. Red’s shoulders were shaking from what appeared to be silent laughter. “Where is it, you motherfucker?! If you don’t turn it off, I swear…” my guide broke, busting into staccato laughter. The laugh was genuine and oddly endearing despite almost sounding like he was coughing or choking. It was several seconds before he started to catch his breath.
“In your jacket.” He managed, wiping a tear from his eye. The man, livid, ripped his jacket apart. A little piece of metal circuitry fell from the torn lining. Mr. Angry slammed the device with his heel, crushing it and killing off the incessant beeping. He looked up at me, then Red, and jabbed a finger out. “I’ll have your clearance for this.” Mr. Smith grabbed me by the arm then and hauled me off to my destination, guffawing every now and then. Finally, he stopped us at an unassuming door. It looked like a storage closet to me. A nub on the wall lit up as we stopped and scanned us both. A second passed and the door slid open. “This would be you. Take your time, and I'll be around if you need me.”
As the door slid closed behind me, I couldn’t help but sigh. The room was cramped and sparse. In the center sat an arasaka branded runner’s chair, complete with monitors and hypos ranging from amphetamines to coolant. The dim bar lights in the corners lit the steel walls in red, highlighting the shadows cast by all the various cables, pipes, panels, and consoles that littered the walls. I checked the room for vents or cameras, remembering the rumors of how V, Jackie Welles, and their netrunner T-bug infiltrated Konpeki Plaza with a Militech stealth bot the year before. The story I’d heard was they got Militech to build them a spider mech and snuck it into the hotel, walking it through the vents as they lied their way in, and it shivved the hotel dweller in the throat before he noticed them. Some say they even used it to kill Saburo Arasaka with some kind of poison and it stuck to the base of V’s skycar during the escape.
Then again, these are the same people who can’t even agree on V’s gender in the stories, so who knows?
Remembering that story put me in a somber mood. Dex died, Jackie Welles died, T-bug died. It was a well-known catastrophe among the fixers in the city. Some fixers, like Regina Jones, say it was a heist of some kind of supertech. But Wakako claimed it was a hit on Saburo. But this wasn’t the time for remembering rumors. I shook my head.
Remember Cy, job. Work. Eddies. Do the thing.
I inspected the room, hunting for any exploits or weaknesses a potential attack might use to flatline the dweller. To my relief, Arasaka seemed to have learned its lesson, the walls were completely solid to all but finger-sized jets for air to circulate. A single camera was nestled into the top corner over the doorway, heavily armored and caged for security.
Damn. T-bug must’ave REALLY pissed them off…
Gawking was fun and all, but I was working, so I busied myself with setting up. I engaged the coolant in my suit and sat down on the chair, closing my eyes to pick a temporary avatar for the building’s subnet. Sorting out an avatar for cyberspace can be frustrating, especially when you are trying to hide your identity. My usual avatar is an ogre-faced spider mech, with eyes shining in whatever color I feel like that night, usually blue. Long fangs to attack and infect subnets, huge eyes for cracking ICE, and eight long legs to traverse the net with. But there are enough runners out there that know me by that form, and I couldn’t risk a runner invading or inspecting the campus’ system and recognizing me.
I could be a samurai, play into the whole Saburo thing. Or maybe a ball of light, zapping defense programs in the eyes.
I settled on a spidermonkey. Gold fur, long arms, and a tail. With that decided, I shifted into a more relaxed stance and collected the neural-link cable from the headrest. It took me a second to find the adapter for a standard neural port, but thankfully, they had one ready to go. No more delays. I jacked in, laid down, and waited for the facility’s net to suck me out of my body.
It's like falling into a vat of novocaine. You lose connection to your senses, causing the vertigo, only to lose them in an instant. Then it's just blackness for what feels like forever. That is, until the datastream hits you. Imagine being blind, deaf, and numb. Then imagine, with the flick of a switch, being at a concert right next to the speakers. All the lights, sounds, sensations, and feelings hit like a train. One moment, I was in the void, the next, a labyrinth of red data points and geometry flooded my perception. It was a few milliseconds before I could understand the patterns in the data. I found myself in a red room, with doors all around me. Little sparks of red light zipped along the edges and corners of the walls, communications and programs.
Wow.
The room was lined with doors. Each one was marked with a scan-code that the Arasaka software patch translated for me. I scanned each door, looking for the archives. I needed the schematics for this part of the building. The door was easy to find, but when I went to unlock it, an avatar stepped through it to block me. He was shaped and dressed like any normal ‘saka rat, nice suit, clean shaven, the works. He folded his digital hands behind her back and looked down at my miniature form. I understood. A little mental stretching and my credentials as site dweller appeared in the form of my avatar. The security program melted into the datastreams and left the pathway open for me.
To amuse myself, I picked out random bits of data as I traversed down the rabbithole to my target. Voice logs from employees revealed inter-departmental romances. Access registries detailed the sexual habits of one of the garage guards. Deeper I went, drawing near to the corp files. Fiscal reports, patents, high-security files. I paused on these, wondering how much more trouble would it be if I simply took the data I needed here.
Too many tracks to cover.
So I continued. The once bright red of the data dimming as the timestamps for last access steadily grew older than me. Finally, I found the ‘hallway’ that opened into a small room with a drafting table in the center. I climbed up onto the table and started sifting through barely visible crimson stars. Files on every single piece of Arasaka infrastructure dating back to the nineteen-tens. Suddenly, a file popped out at me, so brightly red it almost hurt my head.
Hold up, what?
I opened the file and watched as my vision flooded with detailed schematics of the entire complex. Every department was in the folder, organized by importance. Two-thirds of the way down, I found the archival floors, also blindingly bright. I downloaded what I needed and started to close things back up, pausing to take note of the timestamps as I went.
Someone was reading these files less than an hour ago.
Somewhere, far beyond my conscious mind, I felt my muscles tense. I wasted no time exiting after that, rushing through my access history and back to the nexus. Once, back, I stopped and issued a seal command on the archives, locking it all down from remote access. No netrunner was going to steal my prize, not while I could still think. The ruby pinpricks congealed into a solid wall of red light, closing up the servers. Then a layer of near-opaque black settled in over the wall. Corpo ICE was no laughing matter. I almost pitied the fool who might try to break that from a beat-up megatower rig. Their brains would leak out of their skulls, they would be fried so fast. Feeling safe-ish again, I dove into the security systems. Thankfully, there was no maze of files this time, just a control room willed with digital avatars for every mech, drone, camera, sensor, and-
Wait, what?!
At a desk in the corner, sat a decent replication of Blue Moon from Us Cracks. She was too busy redirecting what felt like the powergrid to notice me. As the runner worked, cameras around the room died and went dark. Then the drones started shutting down in batches. I stepped up to her, not liking my odds, and jumped on her face, my golden spidermonkey avatar animating a spam attack. I flooded the runner’s synapses with holorecordings of employees fucking the in the storage closet, elicit braindance searches, prank emails from Red, anything and everything I could find on the local net to drown out whatever she was doing. The digital pop idol reeled, blinking back to the doorway to escape my hack. Quickly, I locked down the access console, encasing it in lethal ICE. I stayed still, primed with a dozen counter hacks just waiting for a single neuron to fire, and pinged her with a message.
TRY ME.
She didn’t seem keen on calling my bluff, judging by her immediate disconnect from the subnet. With my adversary gone, I locked down the security hub. I really didn’t want a runner to get the drop on me without a self-ICE implant. The room dimmed into a black tomb behind me as I closed the port on my way out. With the system secured and left in my favor, I set about tracking down my mystery hacker. The VPN was solid. I’d made it to the thirty-seventh IP address when something screamed in my head. All the red lights that composed the network blacked out, leaving only the datastreams and currently open files. Within milliseconds, the halls were filled with gigantic armor-clad samurai.
High-security, indeed.
Three of the hulking programs approached me, making my mental skin scrawl. They regarded me with blank faces, hands on massive swords. They must have approved of my credentials, because they not only relaxed around me, but led me back to my port to exit the server. It was only a few ‘steps’ away, but it was very gentlemanly anyway.
Going to realspace is always rougher than getting out of it. I arrived in my body, feeling like a crematorium shat on me, and tried to open my eyes. Even with anti-dazzle, the lights hurt. My joints creaked as I sat up, reminding me of the worst part of netrunning: The slowness of realspace. In the net, everything runs at the speed of thought for faster. Every movement and action runs along a fibre optic cable at the speed of light. Your brain is free to move at max speed without waiting on a body to react. No struggling for air. No muscles to burn. Just pure thought. Realspace is not so free. Already used to light-speed, just the time it takes for my arm to realize I'm ordering it to move is absurd. Then watching it do as I say in slow motion almost. It's enough to give anyone a headache from the frustration. I knew from experience that it wouldn’t take long for my mind to recalibrate to being human, but damned if I didn’t loathe it.
“BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!”
Oh god! What the-
“BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!”
Right. The security alarms.
I rubbed my face, enjoying the chill of my suit wicking away the heat from my body. Already thoroughly annoyed by the alarms, I queued up my frequency limiters and crunched my teeth together. The beeping siren faded from my awareness, eliciting a sigh. I gripped the cable hooking me to the table and freed it to slither back into its reel. Groggy and running my metal hand through my sparse hair, I tried to remember what my next-
SHIT! Runner!
I launched myself off the chair and out the door of my office. The hallway was empty already, gold pathing lights racing along the floor to the exit. The map of the facility opened on my cornea, complete with a highlighted route to the first node. In the back of my mind, I ran a series of self-checks. My wire was good, with the feed exposed from under the cuff of my sleeve. The USB was still in my right arm, well hidden, along with it’s adapter. No gun. No knives. And there was a rival in the building.
Best to rush the nodes and delta before I run into them.
And like that, I was off. Sprinting along narrow hallways, hopping over the metal carcasses of disabled drones. I’d thought that the other runner had simply disabled the drones and cameras. Wrong. The wyvern-class drones are smoking ruins, reeking of ozone, belching sixty different kinds of deadly smoke. On the walls, I spotted scorched spots with exposed wires, along with glass and metal shrapnel on the path. Whoever that runner was, they were not at all concerned with their presence going unnoticed. I double-timed it to the stairwell. Never trust lifts when there's a netrunner about, lest you be shaken into paste.
Two lefts and a right and the door was ahead. I figured it was locked so I leapt up and speared myself feet-first into it. The door came off its frame with a shriek and landed under my feet on the edge of the stairs. With a quick glance, I found my next door, right at the base of my precarious perch. I shifted my weight forward and surfed down the staircase. It was a long enough ride that I picked up some serious speed. I crouched down with a second left in the ride. Any other day I’d have stopped to admire my door-surfing skills, but this time I took the momentum and shouldered through the door at the stair’s base. The locking mechanism sheared off of this door, flinging it open with a bang. This level greeted me with the visage of a dying mech crawling towards the door I’d just ruined. Its lower half had been blasted off with a precision explosive leaving only its arms to move by. Its optics flashed red when it acquired me, reporting in a gratingly loud and metallic voice.
“SUBJECT IDENTIFIED. YOU ARE INSTRUCTED TO SURRENDER.”
Heart racing and panting, and I managed to laugh. The mech was dedicated, for sure. I cracked my neck, letting the adrenaline in my veins drive my body, and strolled casually up to the mech, stepping over it. I turned and planted a foot on its power supply, pinning it in place. The crippled machine took exception to that, though, and its arms rotated unnaturally to grab my leg with an iron grip.
Ow. Rude.
“SUBJECT IS ATTACKING. YOU ARE INSTRUCTED TO SUBMIT.”
I triggered my reel and watched a stream of green light slide from my wrist. Pinched the grip with my other hand, I let the reel give more and more slack, eventually lowering a loop down the eye-level of the mech. I drifted the wire under the machine’s neck and spooled the reel the other direction. The line shrunk into my wrist, slicing through the metal with ease, until it was taut between my hands. With the mech silenced and my mind calmed a little, I released the monowire to whip back into my wrist and turned for the node.
Almost there.
I started down the hallways to the data node, vaulting over masses of metal and-
What?
I slid to a stop and looked behind me. The pile I’d just vaulted was composed of a few robots, sure, but underneath the top mech, which carried a foot-wide crater in its chest, was a man. I kicked the ruined mech off and gasped. There was blood and viscera painted over the two drones at the foundation. I didn't have to guess where it came from, either. I leaned over the corpse to see his right side, only to find there wasn't one. A huge circular hole had been blasted out of him, taking an arm, lung, and half his ribcage with it. I had to cover my mouth.
Holy shit. Fuck. FUCK. What the hell did this?
I couldn’t help but stagger back a step as I tried to comprehend the damage. I ran through a list of explosives. Then a list of shotguns. Even through my meager knowledge of sniper rifles. I didn’t know what could do that to this man without shredding the whole hallway. Glancing up, back the way I’d come from, the pathing lights along the floor gave me flashes of the scene. For about ten meters past the corpse, the floor was littered in chunks of technician. And, zooming my optics in, I could see a crater in the steel wall at the far end of the hallway.
I need to get out of here. NOW.
I spun on the ball of my foot and ran. I ran faster than ever. The few halls left between me and my goal were littered with shredded metal and disembodied limbs. Some spots in the walls were blasted open by explosives, but I didn't stop to scan what kind. When I finally spotted the door, I hooked my hand on the open door frame and whirled into the data center. The room was cramped, with towers of storage drives forming a floor-to-ceiling grid. Pipes of liquid nitrogen clung to the ceiling, feeding the towers with probably life-saving coolant. At the bottoms, gas pipes fed into the floor from each tower.
Must get pretty hot.
My kiroshis highlighted the port I needed as I looked around. Stopping before my first target, I ripped the cuff of my right sleeve back and pinged my subdermal pocket to open. The slot opened up and dumped out its contents. I jammed the adapter into the port, fitting the ancient tech into it a little more gently, and let the virus do its work. After a few seconds, the whole room died and went dark.
That’s one.
I yanked the gear out of the access point and dropped it back into my arm, sealing it as quickly as possible. The doorway stood out, a beacon in the dark room, giving me an easy vector. I fixed my sleeve and bolted off again, heading for the only other node on this level and my second target. Blinking lights and strobing lamps rushed past me as I weaved my way through the maze-like hallways, my suit barely managing to keep my body cool with the strain I was under. Only a few more feet from the doorway to the node, I took a left and ground to a halt. At the other end of the hallway, with a Yukimura Automatic Smart Pistol trained on me, was Red. His suit was ripped along the waist and he was panting, but he was sturdy.
“What the hell are you doing here?! Are you the breach?” He demanded, shouting down the hall with a tired scowl. My hands shot up, metaphorical tail between my legs. My mind scrambled for what to say. I was brand new, clearly not a corpo regular, and kitted with a rare piece of japanese cyberware meant for corporate assassins. My options were shit. Mr. Smith’s patience waned, taking a step forward. I heard footsteps travelling down the hallway to his left, probably additional guards, and I started to deflate.
So much for the Major Leagues. Sorry Jason, sorry Sonra, sorry-
KABANG!
With a deafening boom, Red’s head exploded into a mist. The shot came from his left, judging by how his body slumped over like a sack of chrome. The shock of the kill sent lightning through my already adrenaline-spiked blood. Not waiting to meet the killer, I bolted into the doorway silent as a fox shitting itself. Heavy boots began the song of getting-way-too-fucking-close-to-me and I jammed the stick into the next port.
“Hands up.” A female voice barked from behind me, accompanied by the click of a revolver’s hammer. My hands shot up again and I turned slowly. Once my eyes had cleared my skull, I saw a bloodsoaked face I recognized. “Wait, Cyren?!” Indy lowered her cannon and inch, taking a step towards me. Just then, the malware killed the node, and the lights went out.
I apparently cannot add anything else right now. The full, up-to-date series is at the URL in my signature.
Post automatically merged:
Chapter 1: Cyren's Long Day
Ding.
What now?
Ding.
“Fuck off.”
Ding.
“I have a gun!”
Ding.
“Fucking hell. Fine.”
With that, I dragged myself out of bed. The sun had already gone down. Over a few quick seconds my Biomon and Kiroshi low-light filters initialized and the ramshackle room I called home came into focus. I tested my arms, listening to the tiny servos respond to my brain, and began to carefully step around the cigarette butts, empty liquor bottles, and ripped clothing that carpeted my floor. With a little agility, I made my way to the small emptied out crate that passed for a desk and squatted in front of the dimly glowing screen of my computer. I keyed in my 23-digit passcode with relative ease, watching the lightning-fast code streak across the screen as several layers of ICE unraveled to let me in. Finally, the dinging stopped, and the screen blinked to reveal my desktop. I scanned the various icons, looking for whatever dared interrupt my sleep. I gave up after a few minutes.
I really need to streamline these icons. I don’t need all of my saved news stories spread out on my screen.
Irritation loosed a groan from my lips. Clearing my throat, I spoke to the screen. “Amber, show me my latest notifications.” I spoke, as clearly as I could manage. The little orange ring in the corner of my screen told me the 7-year-old program was processing my request. After a few more minutes of waiting, I began to wonder if it wouldn’t be quicker to program a new assistant than to wait on Amber. I resolved to grab a drink instead. I pushed myself off the floor and turned for the “Kitchen”. Three propane torches and a coolbox does not constitute a kitchen, according to my friend Dak. I forced the ice chest open, hoping I still had something alcoholic. I found a very expired XXL Burrito and two empty Capitán Caliente pouches. My head fell slack in defeat as I plucked a half-crushed cigarette from the carton on my bed.
“Miss Cyren, I have two messages for you.” Sang the virtual assistant. To prove her statement, two blazing white windows opened on my screen, highlighting the messy floor I knelt on. I stood up again and returned to my terminal. I lit the cig as I squatted by the crate. Taking a long drag, I read the results that Amber had found for me. Two direct messages to my personal account. Had the name been familiar, I would have gone back to bed. But neither of these names should have my personal information. These were two mega corporations. Adrek Robotics, Arasaka’s main global corporate rival, and Zetatech Industries, a company once dominant in cyberware designs but since brought to heel in Night City by Arasaka. Both companies have open friction with Arasaka, but oddly enough, neither firm had publicly made any major moves since the Arasaka building was raided. Both messages were heavily encrypted and deposited in my server from outside of the net. I opened the Adrek Robotics first, scanning for keywords as I skimmed the text.
Good evening, Miss Janette Akihana
Where did they get my name?
Fighting the tightening in my chest, I ran a quick search for my biometrics. A few moments of strained patience later, my vision flashing with static and graphical glitches, a string of binary spelled out “Cyren” in neon blue. A stream of images and memory flashes raced through my mind. Panic began to fester in my chest. I wracked my mind for any way that someone I didn’t trust could learn my name. I didn't get very far in my panic attack before the scent of hot metal pulled my attention outward again. My eyes snapped into focus just in time to watch the mostly burned-down cigarette in my metal fingers drop a chunk of glowing cinders. Still connecting my sight to the laws of thermodynamics, I stared blankly as the cinder landed on my knee and lit the hair on my bare leg on fire. At which point my body happily reminded me what fire feels like. I yelped and bolted away from my terminal, landing on my bed, and shook my leg madly. The last thing I needed was my Biomon to chirp in my ear and plaster a graphic of the definition of a first degree burn on my cornea; Yet another thing I needed to see a Ripper for. After the pain subsided I was left with an interesting olfactory concoction of burnt hair, singed flesh, and scorched electronics to harass my nose. Taking a deep breath I pinged the clock on my computer. Lazy’s Pub would still be open. I hauled myself off the bed, moving to my terminal, and leaned down to continue reading.
I represent the acquisitions department of Adrek Robotics. I have a proposition for you that would prove quite lucrative. The contract requires some skill at Netrunning as well as solo work. Clearly, you have made the list of persons that fit our needs. If you are interested, please respond promptly, as the nature of this offer is time-sensitive.
Employee No. 8646197924
My eyes narrowed as their meaning washed over me. No corporation this big should ever need someone like me. But, if they had a line on sensitive biz, they may be looking to pick a fight with Arasaka through a nobody like me. My metallic fingers rubbed the shaved sides of my head as I thought, trying to make these country-sized pieces fit together. With the tightness already returning, I gave up and opened the second email.
Salutations, Mistress Akihana.
“Nope.”
I resolutely clicked the message into oblivion. The AR message returned to the screen. I stared, unseeing, at the screen.
I’m not drunk enough for this shit.
On that note, I pulled up the balance of my bank account, and grimaced at the projection that appeared. That sealed it. If I wanted to drink this nonsense away, I’d need eddies. If I wanted eddies, I’d need to deal with this nonsense. I typed out a curt reply to the message and hit send. Less than a second later, my terminal dinged and a new message popped up on my screen.
Heywood
El Coyote Cojo
11PM
I’d been there before. A savvy bar full of Valentinos in the Glen. With three hours to make the meeting, I decided to head down to Lazy’s to start my night and gather some intel. I knew the owner well enough to know he had nothing to do with this. But the message still made my skin crawl. How, in Bartmoss’ name, did they know who I was? Steadying myself with a breath, I straightened up and kicked a cleanish pair of cargo pants into my waiting hand. I glanced at my grimy prize and grimaced again. Laundry needed to be a thing. And soon. I adjusted my sports bra and pulled the close-fitting cloth up my legs. My finger caught a sleeveless top hanging from a string that ran along the low ceiling and pulled it down. Soft-soled trainers slipped around my feet as my arms tried to gently wrestle the fragile cloth around my torso. Once I finished dressing, I willed the plates of my arms open for inspection. The reel in my left wrist mangled out of shape, definitely not able to perform at any capacity. I added a visit to a ripperdoc to my to do list, absently sending out an appointment request to my ripper. I took a look around my apartment for my pack of cigarettes, groaning when I found them on the floor near my bed, smashed.
“Stupid, over-sensitive, ‘ganic skin.” I growled at the mutilated cardboard. Huffing like a child, I unlocked my gun safe and collected my gear. First was my belt, a simple leather strap with sewn-in pockets filled with throwing knives: all the better to sever organic arteries. Once the buckle was latched snugly around my hips, I turned back to the safe. Next, the shoulder-holster and gun. I lifted the weapon, a tarnished Nue, and gave it a quick inspection to make sure everything was in its place. The magazine slid out of the grip while I racked the slide back, showing a shiny single-stacked pillar of old school .45 Auto Colt Pistol bullets. Technology from a hundred years ago, sure. But a big enough bullet still puts holes in people, regardless of what metal their skin is. I shoved the magazine back into the gun and hit the slide release, relishing the clunky snap. I clipped the pistol into its holster and slung the leather body-thong over my shoulders, securing it to my belt. Feeling more like myself, I danced to the door and snatched my sleeveless vest from the hook on the wall. Once I was satisfied that I looked like a relatively innocent slumrat, I stepped through the door and tapped the lock icon on the door-panel.
I took the stairs up to the roof. The cool night air caressed the bare skin on my head and tousled my loose mohawk. I took a long, deep breath, and snapped my teeth together, queuing up the radio link of my subvocal implant. A little mental tweaking set the frequency to 107.3 MHz on the short band, Morro Rock Radio. I was lucky that time, because the station was playing one of SAMURAI’s hits, “Black Dog”, a personal favorite. No amount of smog could ruin this feeling. My eyes opened to the settling dusk filtering through the Night City skyline. Kabuki’s cramped buildings glittered in the neon light from the Us Cracks Towers.
With a grin settling on my lips and music vibrating my head, I bounced on the balls of my feet a few times before taking off full-tilt towards the edge of the roof. I launched myself off the edge and watched as the familiar roof of the neighboring building rushed up to meet me. Corrugated metal flexed under my feet on landing. Rooftops, shacks, radio dishes, and air conditioners became a highway. I must have traversed three or four blocks before I remembered where I needed to go. I took a sharp left at the next building and sprinted along an electrical cable spanning a canyon lined with balconies and floored with Tyger Claws graffiti. The cable was still vibrating when I started to make my way down through an alleyway. I eventually landed on a 3rd floor fire escape and climbed through the perpetually open window. The obese man in the computer chair didn’t bother to give so much as a huff when his eyes flickered up from his screen to meet mine. He simply ignored me and went back to whatever kept his attention for nearly 20 hours every single day. I strode merrily through his front door and walked to the rear of the building, Narrowly avoiding a boy running past me as his father chased him with a stun baton. I found the stairwell and jumped right down the middle, landing into a roll on the hard concrete floor. I dusted myself off and went right out the door into the hall.
“Y’know, that entrance is getting a lil stale, Cyren. Y’ever think bout, I don’ know, maybe usin’ the front door?” Drawled an aged voice to my left. I clicked my teeth again to kill the music and stood up straight, turning my face up to a graying old gentleman smiling down at me. His ghostly pale skin hung in thick wrinkles from a crooked nose and square jaw. His spotted lips stretched in a grin, revealing a mouth of near rotted-out teeth. To anyone else, Peter “Lazy” Sonra would be the embodiment of disgusting slum trash. But, if you knew him, he was the warmest and brightest lighthouse of a man there ever was. There was no doubting that every netrunner and merc in Kabuki had a running tab at this man’s pub. I chortled and presented my shiny middle finger for his amused inspection.
“If I did that, then you’d never get to talk to me before I drowned myself!” I declared with a girlish grin. He crushed me into a hug and pulled me through the back door to his kitchen, much to the surprise of his cook, Jason, who nearly jumped out of his legs. Unable to breathe, I pried myself free of his uncomfortably strong arms and pretended to rub my arm.
“Jokes aside, I actually have some biz, I guess.” Sonra’s smile wilted just a little as I recounted the unusual evening I’d had. At some point during the story, he had mixed up a suspicious-looking drink for me. After I finished, he handed me a glass filled with what appeared to be a frog that had gotten on the wrong side of a food processor. “What-“
“Just try it, Cy.”
I sniffed the goo with trepidation, my wince eliciting a barely-hushed snicker and eager stare from Jason. It smelled like rotten guacamole. I took an experimental sip and coughed it back out immediately, accidentally crushing the glass in my hand. Immediately, Jason’s bulky frame was shaking with silent laughter. My admittedly pathetic snarl drew his face out of his hands long enough for him to take in the chunky pattern of glass and slime that covered my pants, throwing him into an unmitigated booming laugh over the griddle.
“Good flippin’ doughnuts, woman!” Sonra yowled, sounding more like a puppy than an elder. “Was that really necessary?” Still coughing, and mentally devising Jason’s murder several times over, I slapped green goo from my pants and clapped my hands to remove the glass shards in their joints.
“What in the name of redundant neural processing was in that?” I tried to snarl, but it came out sounding like a thesis statement. The old man paused to level a stare at Jason, forcing the young man back into step with his work, before turning back to me.
“Well, f’yer information, that was m’latest idea fer a new drink!” He announced indignantly. “I took some o’the mid-range beer an’ steeped dried oranges in the can over a burner. Then I mashed up’n avocado an’ mixed a small amount into the drink!” He sounded all too pleased with his idea by the time he stopped talking. I looked around the ruined floor and then met his eyes.
“Sonra." I said, with permafrost on my lips, "Don’t ever touch an avocado again.” His hurt expression almost broke my resolve to be stern. But I was saved by a notification jumping into my vision. I knew my eyes would shine a pale blue when I opened it.
“Got a mess’ig?” he drawled, back to his default manner.
“Nope. That’s my confirmation from Cassius.” I replied, dismissing the message, a little annoyed that business had ruined the moment.
“The tattoo artist?” Jason chimed in, cocking his head.
“He’s also a ripper. That knucklefuck you two hired me to rough up at Lizzie’s, the one married to your supposed output? He busted up the reel for my wire. I need it fixed before some borged-out scav decides I'm an easy mark.”
“You got paid, did’n you?” He griped, glancing around the kitchen absently. Something catches his attention and he gives me a serious glance. “Hey, if’n y’need a few extra eddies, there’s this man, been sitting at table six fer hours. Some corpo wearing a tracksuit an’ a pair of those fancy new runner shoes. I need ‘im gone before the Claws decide he’s a threat. Besides, he’s too pretty for this part of town.” Sonra glanced up at the top of my head. “He’s actually got a full head o’ hair.” He finished with a playful sneer.
“Eat me, old man.” I snorted at him, earning a snicker from Jason, and turned through the kitchen door and out to the bar. The scene was pretty usual for a Thursday evening at Lazy’s Pub. Two scarred and grumpy old Tygers sat at the bar, looking at no one and saying nothing as they sipped from their mugs. In the far corner sat a man who’d been surgically altered to look like a 20th century comic book character that no one had ever heard of. At the center table, four Tygers of varying size played poker. And on the right side of the room, halfway to the front door, sat a fair skinned man with black hair. He was indeed handsome, well groomed, and miles out of his element. His black and red tracksuit was wrinkled from his hunched over posture. His foot tapped a silent rhythm through a pair of new Feline-Faller running shoes. This man was two things: very bad at pretending to be a nobody, and ready to bolt at the slightest dirty look.
I stepped out from behind the bar and took an oblong path around the room to table 6. Every third step I took, like clockwork, the man flashed a quick glance over his shoulder at the front door. When I got within ten feet of him, the man snapped his head up and looked me dead in the eye. I refused to freeze up so I sat down in the booth across from him. I might be small, skinny, and mostly organic, but this man looked at me as though I was Adam Smasher.
He took a deep breath and I began to wonder if I wasn’t about to witness this man have a full breakdown in the bar. Before I could think of something to say to this frightened uptowner his entire demeanor changed. He stopped shaking and locked his gaze on me. His eyes weren’t filled with terror anymore, they were steel. The change sent a single word through my mind: Doll. My mind started to run in circles. What was a doll doing in Kabuki? Why did he activate for me? Before I could get myself in order, the doll spoke.
“And here I thought I had a few hours to meet you. I’ll have to pay for Kerry’s tab here at the…” He trailed off and looked around at the pub. “Where the hell am I?”
My eyes narrowed, “Lazy’s Pub in Kabuki.” I replied flatly.
“Perfect.” The strange man breathed. His muscles relaxed and sank into his seat. The picture of casual lounging. I was sure I’d get whiplash from the mood swings this conversation had already put me through. The man took a long, quiet breath and folded his fingers under his chin, resting his elbows on the table.
“Well, now that my schedule has been rearranged, may we talk business, miss Akihana?” He said with all the grace of a greedy accountant. I glared at him.
“My name is Cyren.” The uptowner looked puzzled. His optical implants lit up as he scrolled through untold information. After a moment his data search stopped and he pulled out a phone. He turned the screen to show me a picture: an image taken less than a year prior. The woman in the photo smirked proudly at the camera as she leaned her lithe frame against a brutalized freight truck on the outskirts of Night City. Her fair skin pulled snugly over a softly angled face that did not yet wear the plethora of piercings and cyberware that were to come. Her hair was pulled into a light blue braid that hung past her ears down to the massive Liberty model handgun protruding from her waistband. Aggressively blue eyes peered out of hooded eyelids dusted in black makeup. Barely hidden under a soft leather jacket were angry red scars climbing from her right shoulder, along her thin neck, stopping just under her rounded jawline, not yet hidden by a tattoo. Next to the picture was my full birth name, date of birth, and Social ID number. My address, however, was so wrong it may as well have been in Tokyo.
My scowl deepened as I took the picture in, concealing the sharp pain in my chest nicely. The man who took that photo was killed about five minutes after snapping it. The only copy of that photo was on his neural shard when he was hit with a sudden EMP that stopped his unshielded artificial heart. This picture shouldn’t exist. I carefully raised my eyes to meet the man’s, ice flooding my veins.
“You’re going to tell me where that image came from. And you’re going to do it now before I delete your entire digital portfolio and bank account.” I growled with a surprising amount of menace. So much so, the man blinked and the steel was gone. He looked younger now. Not quite scared, not yet cold. I’d have found him attractive had I not wanted to shoot him.
“I can’t tell you, Miss- I mean Cyren.” He wiped the doll’s subconscious sweat from his brow. He took a breath, replacing the steely calm in the doll’s eyes.
“Please, forgive my attitude. As I am sure you can tell by now, I am no more thrilled with being in Night City than Kerry, the man who is sitting with you. However, I can assure you that the source we received this picture and information from is someone who thinks very highly of you. They are the one who recommended you for this task. That being said, you already replied to our job offer.” I made no attempt to speak, waiting for him to explain.
“As you are undoubtedly aware, Arasaka was raided a few months ago. They still hold the reins of Night City, of course. But their grip on their RnD sites is a little lax as they patch up the damage. Most importantly, their data on Kiroshi Optics has been left out to dry. Rumor has it Yorinobu was planning a buyout of Kiroshi, from their deal with Us Cracks all the way to their Militech contracts. A move like that would ruin Militech.“ He paused, grinning, to let me process.
“Data like that could make a globally recognized megacorp very relevant in NC overnight. Even more so if they have a few trillion eddies worth of infrastructure and assets ready and waiting for something to do.” I noted quietly. Softening my scowl and watching his face carefully. The man looked a little taken aback. I gave him a grim smile. “I would never have agreed to meet a stranger from a mega corporation without knowing as much as I possibly could about their employer. Question is, what do you expect me to do about it?” The man cleared his throat and wiped more sweat from his brow.
“You, Miss Cyren, are the exact woman we need for this job. We have been made aware of your skill set by our…” He paused, tilting his head to glance at the rotting ceiling. “Let’s just call them our benefactor. We can only give you the barest of details, as this is something we must keep as quiet as possible. I’m certain you understand that the powers that be in Night City would not take kindly to my company moving in.” He paused, and again I waited for him to continue.
“You are uniquely qualified for this because we need both the best netrunner and the best merc in the city.” I had to laugh at that. I’d never been so covered in butter in my life. The man raised a polite eyebrow at my guffaws. With some effort, I forced my mirth down and collected myself.
“If you guys think I’m the best anything in this city, you have no fucking clue where you are.” I stated matter-of-factly, wiping a tear from my eye. “I’m good, don’t get me wrong. But there are people in just this city alone who could write DataKrash two-point-oh. But they don’t work direct. I think you don’t wanna use a fixer.” The man stared at me for a moment. I thought he might get up and leave to try his luck over at the Afterlife. But he simply reached under the table and pulled out a small pink shard of plastic. I blinked several times, trying to come to terms with what I was seeing. “Hold on. Is that a flash drive? A USB flash drive? Where did you find that relic?”
“Your job.” He deadpanned. “A simple one, really. Just find yourself in the data centers on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th floors of Arasaka’s archive site on the waterfront tomorrow night. You will be given a netrunning bodysuit and an appropriate clearance shard. You need to simply insert this drive into each terminal you use. You will do this four times because each data center is on an independent network from the building, in addition to using it once more to wipe everything else on site.” As he spoke, I took the drive from him, his phone as well, plugged them up, took out my personal link, and connected it. My optics sprang to life as code started to scroll across my vision.
“Crack their ICE, download the files we require. Once finished, just return here, Kerry will be here on his own. Like I said, simple. We are confident our competitors will wait until the building is less heavily guarded. So it should be perfectly clear.” I was half listening when a series of uncomfortably familiar lines of code graced my vision.
“Hold on. This drive contains a viral malware program. What will this thing do to those servers?” I asked critically.
“Wipe them completely.” Greed sprouted in my gut and an evil grin fought to spread on my face.
“Zetatech won’t be pleased with that, will they?” I sneered.
“Excuse me?” The doll asked pointedly, arching a manicured eyebrow. I leaned forward in my seat and sprang my new little trap.
“You weren’t the only company to reach out, you know. Zeta also contacted me. Though, they weren’t as discreet. They gave me an offer up front. 500,000 eddies for essentially the same job.” The lie came easily, as though I had planned it from the start. It wasn’t but a moment before I could see that I’d drawn blood. The man didn’t try very hard to hide the shock and fear that colored his eyes as he processed what I said. I left him floundering for a minute or so before he got himself together.
“Well, that certainly is a surprise. However, I am prepared to make you an offer of 600,000 eurodollars for this job, should you choose to accept it.” He stated, clearly trying to maintain his businessman facade. I stared at him with a patronizing expression. Inside, my entire being jumped for joy. I would be set for the year, at least, with a paycheck like that. I did my best to keep my emotions locked up tight. Pretending to deliberate, I flipped a coin in my head. Tails.
“That is perfectly fine.” I said sweetly, inclining my head cordially. “Provided, of course, that half is paid to me upfront. The other half being paid upon delivery of your… product.” I amended with a sly grin. The man looked almost as though he had just stepped out of the rain. His optics glowed for a few minutes. Finally he caved.
“Fine. We can do that for you, Ms. Cyren.” He sighed. A few more seconds of glowing eyes. Finally, a pop up materialized in my vision.
<Request to send eurodollar transfer – Adrek Robotics Financial Office – [300000] – Accept Y/N>
I grinned and confirmed the transaction. I smiled at the mystery man as my bank account soared in the corner of my eye. As I watched, the man pulled a small black case out of his tracksuit and opened it, revealing a red and orange datashard.
“This will get you in as a contracted dweller to act as a temporary replacement. Slot it and remember to leave behind anything that will be flagged by their scanners. You’ll find the uniform I mentioned delivered here under your birth name. I will meet you here again when we receive the data. Best of luck.” With just a small nod, the man settled into an assessing the stare. I stared back as I processed the info until something hit me.
“What happened to their current dweller?” I asked carefully. The doll’s sculpted face twisted into an unsettling smirk.
“She has… Well, suffice it to say that she has a very intensive surgery planned to replace some damaged hardware.” He paused, pondering, and then finished his thought. “And probably some organic components as well.” He added. A smile like that on a face that pretty was not okay.
I wish I’d finished that avocado drink.
Firmly uncomfortable, I stood up from the booth and paced back to the kitchen without another word. Sonra was waiting for me, his shotgun in hand. I held up a hand to stop him and klepped a bottle of Centzon tequila from the collbox. After a few hearty gulps to cleanse my mind and ease my nerves, I stopped to breathe again. Sonra’s anxious frown brought me into focus, so I opened my bank account on the net. I briskly entered numbers into the small interface of my cornea until his office console beeped out a notification. His head snapped to the noise. The old man looked back at me, his eyes begging for the details of my conversation. I jerked my head towards his desk. He jogged over to his office and set his gun back on its rack. The chair creaked as he sat down and clacked away at the stone-aged keyboard. Silence followed. No gasp or shout. Worried now, I stepped over to the office doorway. The aging man looked up at me, a mixture of adoration and fear on his face.
“Cy. Tell me that my eyes are lying to me.” He pleaded, nodding to his screen. I moved briskly around the desk to look at the screen. There, blue and bright on the screen, was the notification of the 100,000 credit transfer I’d just made to his account. Air rushed out of me in relief.
“Jesus, choom, you gave me a heart attack. Your eyes are fine. No one is dying. I didn’t whore myself out. What’s-His-Dick at table six just offered me a massive payday for a simple office tour. I owed you, anyway.” I told him, my words coming out in a gust.
“Do I want to know who you’re about to fuck over?” He groaned, clearly over his panic.
“I’m going to go with no.” I said, reassuring him with a smile, and quickly tacked on, “Can I klep your EMP ‘nade, too? For good luck?”
“Fine. Go for it. You know the code.” He waved his hand dismissively, as though thousands of eddies were pocket change. I leaned past him to reach his weapon safe. I punched in the code and yanked the heavy tungsten door open. A small armory greeted my eyes as I scanned the contents for my prize. I grabbed an electro-magnetic pulse grenade and stuffed it in my vest pocket.
“I don’t suppose you have any armor-penetrating forty-five rounds?” I asked with false hope in my voice.
“What, for m’shotgun? Go buy your own, miss moneybags!” Grunted Sonra. With a light sigh, I closed the heavy door of the safe, pausing for the thick metal bolts to confirm its security with a dull thunk. From the back corner of Sonra’s office, my ears caught the chime of metal on metal, followed soon after by Jason’s unnaturally relaxed timbre.
“I’m going on break, boss.” The man called. The still-stunned elder at the computer only grunted his affirmation. I couldn’t help but grin at the back of Sonra’s head before I soft-stepped out of the office and back into the kitchen. Jason caught my eye almost immediately. I knew that look. With a mock groan, I eyed him playfully and spoke up.
“Want me to join you?” I asked in a patronizing tone, cocking my head at him. He narrowed his eyes at me, trying and failing to keep his grin in check. That was all I needed. Lazily cracking my neck, I sauntered out the back door of the kitchen and made my way up the stairs, listening to the heavy footfalls that trailed behind me. We climbed the seven flights to the roof in relative silence, the quiet only being broken by gunshots, shouts, sirens, and the sound of a large man who didn’t keep up with his cardio. Finally, we reached the door to the roof of the building. On reflex, I reached for the flat steel plate that concealed the wiring for the door, only for my hand to be gently grabbed by Jason’s oversized mit. I froze up, feeling the metal plates of my cybernetics warm from his touch as I glanced at him quizzically. Jason fixed me with a smug smirk and pointed to a slotted datashard in his head with his other hand. It wasn’t until then that I remembered that my tagalong had a key.
“Allow me.” His voice was about one shade away from husky, only adding to the sensation of being gently dragged by my hand from the wall so he could open the door. The little light on the door flickered from a locked red to an inviting green an instant before the metal panel slid away into the wall. Cool damp air flooded the stairwell, breathing new life into my body as we stepped out onto the now-rain-soaked roof. Jason led us to a small cloth canopy, and the cheap chairs hidden underneath, with a bounce in his step. Without more than a moment’s hesitation, the hulking cook dropped himself into a chair. To my embarrassment, he didn't release me before doing so, instead dragging me down by the hand into his lap. My growl came out limp and empty, only making Jason laugh, as I tried to stand from my impromptu seat. Arms as thick as my waist wrapped around me and held me in place, forcing me to feel the vibrations of his laughter pass through every part of me, ganic and chrome alike.
“Can you not do that, Jason?” I groaned, actively fighting the voice in my head telling me to give in. I tried to wriggle free, hoping my arms, even tuned for agility, were enough to overpower his. Not a chance.
“Don’t act like you don't like it, Cy. Your face says it all.” He whispered tenderly in my ear, turning my head into a warzone. I spared just a little brainpower to confirm that yes, indeed, I was blushing furiously.
Well. Shit.
“Jason…” I trailed off, finding it hard to fight down any emotion, and looked down to hide my face. With his arms around me, though, I ended up burying my face in the crook of his elbow. Not a good look for resistance. Jason pulled me gently closer, scooting my butt over his crotch. Alarms shrieked in my head. With serious effort, I flexed my synthetic muscles and reached for my gun. Thankfully, my captor noticed the fear reaction and released me all at once. My taut muscles, in the sudden absence of resistance, launched me off of him. I landed on my side in a puddle of rainwater, panic opening the floodgates for adrenaline. I pushed myself to my hands and knees and stayed there.
“Cyren?” A shockingly timid tone for the huge man jolted me from the confines of memory. I took a self-inventory. My Nue was in my right hand, hammer cocked and finger on the trigger. My left wrist felt wrong. An experimental test of my monowire reel eased the feeling quickly. My blood ran cold. I’d have turned him into chunks of swiss cheese. I took a breath. And another. One more for good measure.
Holy fuck…
I carefully stood up, panting a little, and thumbed the decocker on my pistol before holstering it. Brushing water from my left side, I took small steps over to the other chair, keeping my gaze locked to the rooftop. I could feel his worried gaze on me as I settled myself into the cheap plastic.
“Landon?” Jason asked softly. The sudden sound gave me a small start, but the husky sound of lust was gone from his voice, easing my nerves a little. Unable to look at him after my episode, I just nodded at my pants. The man beside me shifted and loosed a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry, Cy. I shouldn’t have pushed. Wasn’t thinking.” The remorse in his voice was painful, but his words dredged up memories I’d only just then managed to peel from the inside of my skull. I stood in a rush, already turned and three long strides away before I could get my words out.
“I need to go. Later, choom.”
It was almost an hour before the haze lifted from my head. I’d been walking for most of it. I blinked a few times to clear my head and looked around, hoping I wasn't in Pacifica or something. Around me, through the curtain of people, stood tan factories and warehouses. Above the crowd, a few oversized water towers stood silhouetted against the smog in the sky. Northern Watson. I frowned at the water towers for a moment before clarity dawned on me. I was about two blocks from Ryder’s shop. Score one for PTSD brain; I was right where I needed to be. Feeling renewed, I made my way through the rest of the crowds to the ripper's office. I came around the last corner and stepped into the low-rent maze of spontaneous craving machines that hides Cassius' front door. But, before I could make it halfway, a heavily synthesized voice barked at me.
"Hey, fleshbag!"
A groan died in my throat as I ground to a halt. Casting my face to the night sky, I took a breath and cursed my luck. The crunching over gravel behind me cut my self indulgence short, though.
One? No, two. Probably maelstromers. Fuck me sideways.
I figured I had about ten seconds before they were within arms reach of me. Out of habit, I triggered my monowire, and cringed as the monomolecular bladed cable tangled and coiled itself inside my arm. With metal clogging up my joints, my left hand was useless.
Seven seconds left. A metallic clack.
I couldn't decide if knives or bullets would serve me better here. My bullets were hollow points, so they wouldn't be much use if these borgs had subdermal plating. On the other hand, though, my knives would be about as useless. My eyes darted around the courtyard, looking for some kind of exit strategy. The only paths I could find were either make a break for Ryder's, or turn and try to slip past the gangbangers. I was soundly cornered.
Three seconds. I could hear them breathing.
Fuck it. Make'em remember you, Cyren.
My right hand shot for my Nue, finger on the trigger and thumb on the hammer. Moving as fast as I could manage, I whirled on the pair behind me, my inhuman arm leveling the barrel in a blur, and zeroed my kiroshis on a pair of scrawny maelstrom thugs. The two young men were shirtless and absolutely covered in protruding cyberware. The one closest to me was missing the bottom half of his face, a fact that almost distracted me from the tech shotgun he'd aimed at my face. My time was up. I pulled the trigger, hoping against hope the round would flatline the man before he could pull his trigger. A sliver a second passed before my bullet met the chrome of the borg's face. Sparks flashed in concert with a deafening shriek of feedback from his vocal implants. A second passed, with a surprising lack of pellets in my face, and the first one fell. Like a pipework puppet with cut strings, he collapsed in a heap. I was so shocked, not only that I'd just killed a man, but that my shot actually hurt him, that I didn't get to react to the other maelstromer tackling me into the gravel.
"YOU MEATSACK CUNT!" He screamed, slapping the gun from my grasp with one hand and crushing my trachea with the other. The hit had knocked my breath away, and now I couldn't breathe. Capitalizing on the few precious seconds I had left, I snatched a knife from my hip and poured every drop of speed I had in me behind driving it into the man's skull. For a split second, I was sure I'd have hydraulic fluid spraying out. But my aim wasn't as true. With so much energy in the knife, the subdermal plate's ribbing caught the tip and the blade shattered. Cold laughter and visual alarms from my biomon were all I could perceive after that.
My eyes opened to a painfully bright light. Seconds later, a sharp jolt raced through my chest, driving my whole body to convulse. My jaw clenched down on a yelp. A blue box cut into my bleached out vision: my biomon. My hormones were completely out of whack, and my arms weren’t responding, but I was alive.
Fuck. They fucking took me. I need to get off this table.
I tried to force my arms to move, panic settling in when I realized they weren’t attached anymore. My eyes darted around frantically, trying to get my bearings. The room was light in a dim blue and lined with clear plastic curtains. My head and legs were strapped down to the table. With no other options, I tried to scream, and pain tore through my throat.
Gonkass toaster fucker crushed my windpipe.
I could breathe, barely, so I wasn’t going to asphyxiate. Yet. A few seconds of frantic thought gave way to the clarity of a gig. Calmed by this, I caught the distinct sounds of tinkering: Wire cutters, soldering iron, and what might have been a wire brush wheel. Someone was working on cyberware in the room where I couldn’t see. I had time, so I took inventory.
No arms. Legs and head fixed in place. I can't fight my way out of a Maelstrom lair like this. Options are calling for help or forcing these fuckers to put me down.
Both options mean calling out, so I tried again to speak. The effort left me clenching my teeth against at least a hundred tears in my neck. I tried again, through gritted teeth, and managed to form a tiny whistle in my mouth. Not enough to hear, but it was a step. Figuring the pain might knock me out, and give me a little respite, I tried once more with everything I had. Finally, I managed to force a strangled groan through my ruined throat.
"Hey there, kiddo. Good… well, it's definitely not morning… whatever. You're alive, your throat is fucked, and I'm fixing whatever the hell you did to your left arm."
Holy fuck. I can’t be that lucky.
That relaxed tone, like an old veteran lounging on a beach, I knew as Cassius Ryder: one of the oldest ripperdocs in Night City and my go-to guy for all things chrome or ink. An ample man with all the tattoos and self-assurance any one person could have, Doc Ryder was skilled enough to wire a smart-link into something as simple as a tattoo with nothing but a modified tattooing needle. Immediately, my body went slack, feeling heavy as lead. The relief hit me so hard that the extra-spicy dose of adrenaline in my blood made me nauseous. An easy gait of heavy footsteps drew over to my table, warning me before the large silhouette of Cassius blocked out the overhead lights. He looked me in the eye, disapproval and concern marking his usually-apathetic stare, and smiled.
“Welcome back to the land of the living.” He patted my belly reassuringly. I started to attempt a protest, furrowing my brow at him, and he shook his head. “You don't have shoulders right now, Cyren. Just sit tight while I finish on your monowire. Oh, also, lemme send you a consent form. I have a Dakai New Throat that’s been gathering dust.” I gave him a concerned pout. His eyes flashed blue briefly before a new box appeared in my vision. I scanned the usual consent BS and skipped to the end, where my trauma report was. I’m no doctor, but it looked bad. My neck’s flesh had been crushed into a mangled sleeve around my spinal column. Cassius had apparently fed a tube past my collarbone so I could breathe. The next part was the suggestions section. He wanted to replace my whole neck, spine and all, with chrome.
Damn. Never thought I’d be thankful for running into a corpo-rat first thing.
The price tag was sizable, but my advance for the job would cover it. I added my digital signature and approved the operation. One loading bar and a confirmation tone later, and Cassius grinned like a little kid. He inserted a hardline into my neural port and gave a little wave. And I was out like a light.
Voices broke into my dreamless mind. A man and a woman bickering over something.
“Just because Kiroshi bought them out doesn’t mean their skag is any good! Their firmware was the only good thing about them. Kiro just wanted the monopoly.”
“Bull, old man! If anything, they are even better now since no one uses them anymore. Just admit that Kenjiri has more value because their pre-merger tech counters Kiroshi’s stuff.”
With that, I opened my eyes. The room was pitch black. I couldn’t see a thing at all. I queued up my low-light filter and-
Wait, what? Are my..? oh, sonofa…
“Cassius! Where the fuck are my eyes?” I snarled into the dark, my slightly metallic voice pricking at my ears a little. Something metal crashed to the floor on my right, followed by Cassius’ grumbling and subvocal complaints drawing near. A calloused hand grabbed my face and jerked it into place, two fingers holding open my right eye socket. I felt something hard slip between the lids and click into place. The hand repeated the process on my left socket. A few seconds of electricity buzzing held me over until my vision suddenly switched on. My world filled with a big Kiroshi Opticals logo before pulling up my normal settings. Blinking rapidly to wet my eyes, I lifted my head to look at my ripper. He was tired, and thoroughly annoyed, but forcing a grin anyway.
“I owed you a proper market set anyway. Seemed like a good time.” He said simply, voice laced with irritation.
“So is she well enough to pay me back, now?” The female voice from before interjected. I turned my head to the left and found a burly woman picking up metal casings from the floor in front of a shelf. Her hair was black and buzzed almost to the scalp, almost hiding the twin torn scars underneath. She wore a shiny blue vest covered in outlines of removed patches. Her eyes met mine and held them. I scanned her.
INDIRA COBBS
NCID #NULL
UNEMPLOYED
DESC: ERR_SYS_FILEMISS_CD5563
The dark skin of her face bulged as her jaw clenched. She stood herself upright and watched me.
“Take a picture or say something already.” She groaned, crossing her arms over what I noted to be a very ample chest. I chuckled a little to myself and cut off the scanner. That seemed to ease her spirits a little, judging from her stance. Indira walked over and stood over me, assessing my whole body. I did the same. My arms were still missing, but the resumed whirring in Cassius’ corner was comforting. My dingy clothes were stained with reddish brown and milky white blotches. I sighed and sat up with just my abs.
“Looks like I need to go shopping.” I muttered.
Indira laughed. “I would say so. Unless you like looking like you just left a Scav orgy.” The joke was easy, but damned if it didn’t ring true. She looked back at my face. “So my name’s Indy. I came by this place looking for a Chromaticore, instead, I found a skinny little asian girl having her head popped by a nutcase with a chrome fetish. So either you and your input have some strange kinks, or you owe me.” Her gaze was sharp, but a shadow of playfulness lurked in her brown eyes. I flipped a coin in my head and grinned.
“Well, once I get my arms back…” I announced, loudly.
“Keep your tits on, Cyren. I’m almost done!” Cassius grunted from his workbench.
My grin widened and I continued. “I would be happy to pay for some food for us. I haven't eaten yet tonight.” I tried to make it not sound like a date, but I was ravenous. Indira kept a careful poker face.
“Maybe. But I’m not eating with anyone dressed like you.” She replied matter-of-factly. I flopped back onto the padded table and gave her a faux glare.
“Listen, lady. If you’ve got a problem with how I dress, You can take it up with my Maelstrom input!”
Indy’s poker face shattered. She bent over me, almost headbutting my stomach, and howled with laughter. Her voice vibrated through my organic bits, almost tickling, and made me laugh too. We carried on for a few seconds before she stopped to catch her breath. When her eyes met mine again, they were full of warmth and joy. “Sorry to say, miss, but I maybe potentially possibly definitely splattered your input’s face over…” She paused and glanced up to think. “About four vending machines.” She looked back down for my reaction.
I put on my best expression of shock and wailed. “Noooooo! How could you?! He was my one true love! The sweetest homicidal chrome-junkie this side of the pacific!” My performance, I thought, was perfect. Indy, with another torrent of cackles, seemed to agree. Cassius wasn’t as amused.
“If you two really need to flirt, do it after I’ve kicked you both out so I can get some sleep.” He growled. I looked over at him, grinning like a fool, and saw him reassembling my left arm. I watched him in polite silence, even as Indy’s laughter devolved into sporadic chortles, until he hoisted both of the shiny silver limbs over to my table. “Hold still, you pest.” He groused. He carefully repositioned the arms over the sockets in my upper torso. With more precision that a man his size should have, he slid my right arm into place, tightening microscopic screws as he went. Once the connections were set in place, I tested my fingers and wrist. Full motion. Once the old man had moved away to attend to my left side, I lifted my hand to test out my tools. One finger at a time split open to reveal a tool. The multi-bit screwdriver in my index. The soldering iron in my middle. The wire Cutters in my ring. And the miniature plasma cutter in my pinkie.
Fuck yeah.
My left arm went a little slower to account for the personal link’s wiring. Indy moved around to my right and grabbed my wrist, stopping me from putting my hand back down, and marveled at my tools. I arched a brow at her, but opened all four of my fingers again. She hummed her appreciation and took a close look at each tool.
“What’s so interesting?” I asked patiently. Immediately, she released my hand and looked down to hide her darkening cheeks. I wanted to ask her more, but a jolt in my left arm distracted me. My eyes darted to the ripperdoc’s finished work, and then to the shockprod he had used to get my attention. I obligingly started to test my left arm too. My personal link was intact, and the feeder for my monowire was shiny and new. I reformed my right hand and triggered the reel in my wrist. A golden orange string of metal leapt from the feeder and into my waiting right hand. Pinching the wire, I pulled it taut with both hands, relishing the high frequency thrum that buzzed through my arms. Cassius rolled out a plastic dummy and left it at the far end of the room. I thanked him with a nod and hopped off the table in a single motion. Indy jumped a little before Cassius put a hand on her shoulder to keep her back. I bounced on the balls of my feet a couple of times before I lashed my left hand out, releasing the wire in my fingers. The glowing whip made a warped sound through the air, passing through the plastic man in front of me like it wasn’t even there. I pulled the reel back at the end of my gesture, sucking the bladed wire back into my arm rapidly. It was all over in only a second, punctuated by the plastic man falling over in two pieces.
“Woah.” Indy gasped behind me. I turned to find the awed expression of a little girl on her face. I arched a brow at her to prod her to elaborate. She flushed again, but spoke.
“I’m a nomad. We don't see toys like yours out in the badlands. And I haven’t seen them in my time here yet.”
“Monowire. It's a Kendachi Arms design. They aren't very common anymore, being that they are mostly sold in Japan, but for assassinations and espionage, they have no equal. The blade is only a molecule wide and charged by an internal battery.” Cassius chimed in, a tint of pride in his tone. Indy’s face was glowing. I knew he had bent over backwards to find the parts for me, and his own modifications had made my own rig indispensable. Finally on my feet again, I looked around the office to find my gear. My knives and pistol were sitting on a shiny table to the side. I walked over and started putting things away as I spoke up.
“What do I owe you, Cass?”
“Invoice just finished. one-hundred and sixty thousand. I know you can pay me back eventually.” He replied. Moments later, the invoice hit my optics. I grinned at the invisible display, keying the payment authorization without hesitation. A second passed before Cassius saw it and choked on… something.
“What the- Since when can you afford that much chrome upfront?” He sputtered. Indy’s eyes narrowed at me. I watched my balance plummet before answering.
“Just picked up a gig with some serious edds behind it. Signing bonus was ample.” I said simply. Both of their expressions showed levels of concern, but I’d been on a table for far too long. I pinged the time.
“Anyway. I owe Indy here dinner, and I need to go shopping. Shall we?” I glanced right at Indira, giving her a moment to collect herself. She grinned and started to walk out of the clinic, with me in tow.
The rest of the night passed rather quickly after that. I stopped by a run down little shop on the way south and picked out some new clothes: A dark tank top with a metallic blue design, a pair of newtech running shoes with sound dampening, and new slim fit pants in black leather. After that, we stopped at a diner near megabuilding H10. We talked the whole time. Turns out, Indy had only been in NC for about seven months. She moved in just before the raid on Arasaka in ‘77. She worked as a dedicated runner for a fixer called “El Capitan” in Santo Domingo, who apparently had just fixed her up with her own big job just that night. She had just finished her own prep work when she ran into me. Once all the bills had been paid, I was left with only 30,000 eddies. Indy gave me her Holocall number before we parted for the night.
With the sun rising on Night City, I finally got home and flopped lifelessly into my mattress. I slept easy that morning, dreaming of my ticket into the major leagues.
Post automatically merged:
and because I've been working on this series for over a year: Chapters 2.1, 2.2, and three!
Post automatically merged:
Chapter 2: The Vulture Heist Part One: Big Dog on Campus
“Thank you for calling RedCab! My name is Jay. Where can I send you?”
“Hi, yeah, I need a car to take me out to the Waterfront in Watson.”
“Of course! I’ll need your cybermodem’s GPS data?”
“Sending it now.”
“Give me a moment… Got it! Wait… Ma’am, you may want to recalibrate your modem.”
“...Why?”
“I’m getting an unusual Z axis in the data.”
“Oh, nevermind that. It’s working fine. Just send the cab.”
“As you wish. He will be there in ten minutes.”
“Thank you.”
The link shut down. I adjusted my weight, pausing when metal creaked uncomfortably beneath me, and looked to the darkened skies. Night in Night City falls quickly most days, but a thick layer of clouds covered the city-state that night. Without the sun to warm the air, every breeze cut like a knife. N54 even suggested there might be snow in the weather report. I shook my head at the clouds, straightening up on my perch, and cast my eyes down at the streets below. The city was winding down already. The usual packs of Tyger Claws were absent from street corners. Only the homeless made an appearance, huddled in an alley around a burning car. My attention shifted to the time painted on my vision. I flexed my legs against the antenna, trying my best to balance my weight so it wouldn’t break. Now in a low crouch over the street, I launched myself forward to the fire escape on the other side. Only a second passed before I could make out the scuffs on the railing of the third floor platform. I pivoted and caught it in my right hand, gritting my teeth as the shock of metal on metal jolted into my skeleton and echoed down the alley. Momentum gone, my human bones protested as all my weight, plus gravity, yanked on my right arm where it joined with my body. I didn’t get time to complain to myself before shouts and curses in eastern tongues rose from the ground below. A cursory glance at the pavement showed me two things: Even the homeless carry weapons, even if they were just pipes and sharp bits of scrap metal, and I was now dangling around twenty feet above a burning car.
Why did I think this was a good idea?
While the heat wasn’t doing more than balancing out the frigid wind, My mother taught me never to jump onto burning automobiles from freezing fire escapes. Or maybe she didn’t, and I’m just a gonkass. In the face of being sauteed, I hoisted myself up and over the railing and onto the platform. I didn't see any path away from the fire when I looked, so I knocked on the nearest window. Within moments, the glass pane slid aside and a finely aged man poked his bald head out into the cold. He scanned the bottom of the alleyway through squinted eyes, apparently without peripheral vision. I decided to make his job easier and called out.
“Yo!”
The poor man jumped from surprise and hit his head on the window frame. When his attention did reach me, he was already scowling. His voice was shrill as his protest spilled from his lips. “孩子，你他媽的在做什麼。你這麼晚騷擾我，像個傻瓜一樣站在這裡。” The wind picked up a little, stinging against my bare scalp, while I watched the chinese convert itself into english in my eyes. Finally, the sentence solidified, reading “What the fuck are you doing, kid. You harass me so late and stand here like a fool.” I frowned at him and hopped over the side railing, gripping the near edge of his window frame as I did. He scurried backward into his livingroom to avoid my legs and like a choreographed dance, I’d landed right in front of him. “我勒個去!” He barked, getting younger by the minute. I held up one silver hand, ignoring the translated protest scrawling along my cornea.
“It’s a fire escape. I was escaping fire. And now I’m leaving.” I managed, wincing at the metallic flange contaminating my words, and headed to the front door before the poor man produced something to hit me with. The metal door slammed shut behind me, flinging a small rush of air through my hair and highlighting the lack of feeling below my head. I started walking down the hall to the elevator, rubbing at the phantom hands around my metallic throat. I shook my head, trying to clear my mind, as I hailed the lift.
It’s over, Cyren. He died. I lived. Circle of life.
The doors opened. I let out a breathy sigh, stepping in promptly and punching in the ground floor before leaning into the wall for emotional support. I must have been lost in thought, because the doors opened to the street before I’d noticed the lift move at all. Stepping out and glancing at the time in my HUD, I ran my fingers along the tight lines of my netrunning suit. I’d never worn one before. I thanked my lucky stars that it didn’t chafe and stood at the edge of the sidewalk. I stood for a few minutes before the cab stopped next to me. The driver scanned me with his implants and the door lock clicked open. All I got was a curt nod as an invitation. I dropped myself into the back seat, cringing away when the door slammed shut after me. Without comment, the driver put his foot in it. We sat in silence as the cabbie bobbed and weaved his way through the night shift rush hour like a pro. Cars and trucks whizzed by my window accompanied by a chorus of honks and beeps. He took the long way through south watson, coming out to the pacific beachfront before wrenching the car right and possibly driving his leg through the floorboard. The car shot out of the turn like a bullet, leaving the speed limit in the rearview. After a minute or two, I spotted my target, the Arasaka Industrial Complex, on the left. Convinced we were going to miss it at these speeds, I leaned forward out of my seat to alert him, only for him to slam on the brakes, rip the wheel left, and pull up the driveway into the waiting garage. Without a seatbelt or time to brace, the sudden deceleration launched me forward into the front of the car. My head wedged itself in the front passenger’s footwell, with one leg in the driver's lap and the other draped over the center console. I pulled my head out of the AC piping to look at him, worried I’d hit him, and was met with the most indifferent stare in human history.
Oh no. I’m fine. Don’t help me or anything!
“We’re here.” He said flatly. With as much haste as I could manage, I untangled myself and crawled out of the passenger side door, scrambling up on the cold pavement and dusting myself off. When I met his eyes again, they glowed briefly, and he tore off into the night. He was already gone by the time his invoice hit my eyes. The sum was modest, given the CHOOH2 he must have burned to get me here so fast, so I threw in a generous tip for his professionalism. Once that was dismissed, I looked around for a bearing. The garage was mostly empty, featuring only a few very expensive vehicles guarded by cameras and triplasers. The door I needed was on the other end of this parking level, if I’d remembered the schematics right. With a hefty helping of false confidence, I strode out to the front doors. I got within ten meters of the doors when I was intercepted by two heavily armored ‘Saka guards. Their bulky pads and plates cut a hulking profile that was bolstered by their heavy machine guns bigger than my own body. I brought myself to a halt so quickly I nearly kissed the concrete. The guards blocked the path to the door and stared down at me through blacked out visors, unspeaking. My optics pinged right then, notifying me of a full-spectrum scan. I opened the readout of their frequencies and liquid nitrogen filled my veins: they could see everything. My monowire, my biomon’s disk, even my fucking IUD. I stood frozen, waiting for those huge guns to rip me to pieces, and thanked the seasons that the cold wafting in from the still open gate kept me from sweating.
“What is your business here?” The scrambled voice came so suddenly I couldn’t stop from twitching. My biomon began to beep harshly in my ear, reporting a spike in cortisol and adrenaline in my blood. I started to stammer, trying to get my story out without pissing myself.
“I- I- I- I’m the n- new dweller. Sup-posed to f- fill in for Lorin.” I spat out, hoping my chattering teeth were from the cold and not the terror in my gut. More silence. The seconds ticked by like hours as I frantically tried to think of an exit. I was about to make a break for the NUSA border when one of them started laughing. The other followed suit with little hesitation. The garbled mess of frequencies hurt my ears, but it evened out my hormones a little, so I fought down the wince. The guards switched off their scramblers and clapped me on each shoulder, chuckling merrily in more human voices.
“Relax, net-head. It’s our job to scare the piss out of people. Go on in, reception can escort you to your rig.” They released me and stepped aside, opening my path to the door again. I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. My cortisol was still way too high, but my fear-heightened senses caught a murmur beside me. I glanced up at the guard. He looked down at me and reached behind him. From some hidden pouch, he produced an inhaler, and offered it to me. “You don’t have the scratch for a hormone regulator yet, huh? This’ll help.” I let my optics zoom in on the inhaler. Ketoconazole, a cortisol blocker. With a sigh of relief, I gratefully took it and sucked down two puffs. The quick-acting aerosol almost immediately killed the edge in my blood, leaving only the nausea of unspent adrenaline in my belly. The biomon alerts stopped as my levels returned to normal. With my mind leveling out and a clearing head, I handed the inhaler back to the guard.
“Seriously, thanks. I really needed that.” I breathed, already sounding like myself again. The man chuckled and put the device away, nodding to the door.
“Go on. We’ve all got jobs to do.” I smiled back at him and jogged the rest of the way to the front door. The metal doors slid open for me and revealed a lateral lift and directory. A quick search of my forged itinerary gave me the codes to enter and just like that, I was sliding sideways at breakneck speeds into one of the most secure facilities on the western seaboard. It wasn’t long before the car started slowing, eventually locking into place. When the doors opened again my anti-dazzle was stress-tested by the shiny white interior. My filters kicked in, dimming the bright lights and letting me get a good look around. The woman behind the desk stood at my entrance, catching my attention, and beckoned me over. I obliged and padded lightly over to her desk.
“Welcome to the Arasaka Regional Archive.” She announced warmly. Her skin was RealFeel, dyed a bright red that complemented her neat black suit. She gestured to a jack on the desk. “Please connect your personal link so I know where to send you.” I nodded and pulled the cable from my left wrist, gently pushing it into the socket until it was secure. My eyes lit up with alerts and warnings as the building’s systems scanned my software and checked the credentials on my datashard. The ID check cleared quickly, resulting in an ID badge positioned in the top right corner of my vision. The software scan came back with some errors, though.
ERR_SYSSOFTCHK_3
/QRY_SYSDAT_TS2053122211022078
INCOM_1_USERSOFT
INCOM_MANUF_MILITECH
INCOM_2_USERSOFT
INCOM_VER_11.2.34.1
LOADING_PRGMS/NEWHIRE/ARCHIVE/DWELL/PATCH/ARA.PATCH.MILI.V28.5.41
ERR_NO_PORT
REQUST_OPEN_PORT7226
Y
LOADING_PRGMS/NEWHIRE/ARCHIVE/NETRUN/PATCH/ARA.PATCH.MILI.V28.5.41
COMPLETE
The system didn’t like my militech-based operating system, so I accepted the update the building wanted for its dweller: A simple patch that allowed my OS to communicate with Arasaka tech. A happy bonus addition to my kit. Once the update patch was integrated, I disconnected the personal link cable, letting it whip back into my arm. The receptionist, who had been watching my progress on her screen, looked up and smiled. “Perfect. You will be on the third floor, on the north side of the building across from the data center. Let me get someone to escort you.” She added as she began to search through her console. It wasn’t long at all before she spoke to the void, “Mr. Smith? Can you come up here please? The temp dweller is here.” She paused for a second, then looked back at me. “Take your time getting set up, we have been made aware of how particular you people can be.” She gestured to the elevators behind her and gave me a final grin-like expression before returning to whatever work she had.
‘You people’? Bitch.
The lift opened before I could ask it to, revealing a well built man with copper hair. His suit was preem, but clearly meant for more rigorous use than a boardroom. The print of a pistol, probably a yukimura, hung under his left arm. As intimidating as that should have been, his smile was utterly disarming.
“Hey there! So you’re the new girl? Here to run away with our nets?” He flung his arms to hug me as I entered the elevator. I simply froze up and let him wrap his arms around me. He squeezed my arms into my fragile ‘ganic ribs, telegraphing the synthetic muscles under his sleeves.
Bad touch. Bad touch!
When he realized my reaction was not enthusiastic, he released me. “Not a hugger. Sorry.” His demeanor was so relaxed and playful I had to remind myself I was in ‘saka territory. He punched the lift controls and sent us off. To my surprise, we were going down. Mr. Smith stood at parade rest, staring blankly at the doors. “I’m Jack. But you can call me Red.” I eyed him out of the corner of my eye, unwilling to risk scanning him, but curious nonetheless.
“Megan DeGrene.” The metal in my voice caught me again, and he seemed to notice. Red broke from his parade rest and leaned in close to me. When I recoiled, he grabbed my arm and held me still. I was about to protest when I got another scan alert on my optics. I could almost feel his regard of my New Throat pass through the circuitry. “Hey, you gonk, my eyes are-”
“Shhh!” He interjected in a hiss, cutting me off. His free hand reached into a pocket in his jacket and retrieved a microtool. I triggered the monowire in my wrist, dropping the energized whip to hang down to the floor. “Hey hey hey, put that away. I’m trying to help.” I narrowed my eyes at him, but didn’t attack. Satisfied I wasn’t going to try and remove his arm, he gently opened my throat. While he fiddled, the lift chimed. I hastily reeled in my wire, but was still left standing there like a deactivated doll with a grown-ass man fingers-deep in my neck when the doors slid free. Immediately, I could hear the snickers of workers who mustave stopped to look. When the agent finally closed me up, it was all I could do not to slap him. But he looked back at me with this goofy grin that saved his face. “Say something.” I felt my throat first, checking to ensure it was closed properly. Then I glared at him.
“Fuck you and your mother, too.” It was me. I sounded like me again. My hand shot to the metal around my neck, feeling for any physical change. Nothing. I ran a self-scan. No malware, virus, or any kind of malfunction. I gawked at Mr. Smith. “Wow. Um… thanks.” The ginger-haired man just grinned at me, already pocketing his tool.
“Don’t mention it. Just a calibration error.”
A pair of boots approached the lift. “Smith get you, too, eh?” I looked over to the left, out of the lift. An olive-skinned woman with shock-white hair and engineer coveralls was smirking at Red. She held a tablet to her chest with one arm, and was holding open the door to the lift with the other. Her eyes met mine, showing off their shiny blue irises, and she leaned towards me a little. “Don’t worry. If Hanako-sama herself came through here, he’d try to fix her, too.” She straightened up to stare at Red then, her voice covering most, but not all, of her amusement with professional demand. “Now will you two delta to wherever? I have places to be.”
“Yes ma’am!” Barked Red, snapping into a real military salute with a stomp of his boot for emphasis. We stepped out of the lift, with the engineer moving in behind us. He led me through the wire-covered walls past groups of engineers and techs replacing burnt out hardware and QAs jacking into nodes. As we walked, a faint beeping caught my attention, getting louder as we went on. I glanced up at Red, who either hadn’t noticed it or was used to it. We passed more techs as they disassembled and reassembled parts of the walls. Red caught my critical eyes and spoke up.
“We’re going through a renovation for the physical parts of the archive. After the HQ was attacked, the brass wanted to minimize physical breach potential.” He paused a second, then grinned. “We already reworked the subnet. I’m sure you’ll get a chance to meet our new high-security counter-virus programs. I heard they have a traditional fashion sense.”
I gave the man a smirk, inwardly hoping I can get out of the subnet before they boil my brain like a lobster. We walked in silence for a bit longer. Eventually we walked past an open office where a man was ripping panels off his walls in a fury. Red paused to watch the man, who took a minute to notice us.
“SMITH!” He howled, turning on us with a sizable steel panel in his hands. Red’s shoulders were shaking from what appeared to be silent laughter. “Where is it, you motherfucker?! If you don’t turn it off, I swear…” my guide broke, busting into staccato laughter. The laugh was genuine and oddly endearing despite almost sounding like he was coughing or choking. It was several seconds before he started to catch his breath.
“In your jacket.” He managed, wiping a tear from his eye. The man, livid, ripped his jacket apart. A little piece of metal circuitry fell from the torn lining. Mr. Angry slammed the device with his heel, crushing it and killing off the incessant beeping. He looked up at me, then Red, and jabbed a finger out. “I’ll have your clearance for this.” Mr. Smith grabbed me by the arm then and hauled me off to my destination, guffawing every now and then. Finally, he stopped us at an unassuming door. It looked like a storage closet to me. A nub on the wall lit up as we stopped and scanned us both. A second passed and the door slid open. “This would be you. Take your time, and I'll be around if you need me.”
As the door slid closed behind me, I couldn’t help but sigh. The room was cramped and sparse. In the center sat an arasaka branded runner’s chair, complete with monitors and hypos ranging from amphetamines to coolant. The dim bar lights in the corners lit the steel walls in red, highlighting the shadows cast by all the various cables, pipes, panels, and consoles that littered the walls. I checked the room for vents or cameras, remembering the rumors of how V, Jackie Welles, and their netrunner T-bug infiltrated Konpeki Plaza with a Militech stealth bot the year before. The story I’d heard was they got Militech to build them a spider mech and snuck it into the hotel, walking it through the vents as they lied their way in, and it shivved the hotel dweller in the throat before he noticed them. Some say they even used it to kill Saburo Arasaka with some kind of poison and it stuck to the base of V’s skycar during the escape.
Then again, these are the same people who can’t even agree on V’s gender in the stories, so who knows?
Remembering that story put me in a somber mood. Dex died, Jackie Welles died, T-bug died. It was a well-known catastrophe among the fixers in the city. Some fixers, like Regina Jones, say it was a heist of some kind of supertech. But Wakako claimed it was a hit on Saburo. But this wasn’t the time for remembering rumors. I shook my head.
Remember Cy, job. Work. Eddies. Do the thing.
I inspected the room, hunting for any exploits or weaknesses a potential attack might use to flatline the dweller. To my relief, Arasaka seemed to have learned its lesson, the walls were completely solid to all but finger-sized jets for air to circulate. A single camera was nestled into the top corner over the doorway, heavily armored and caged for security.
Damn. T-bug must’ave REALLY pissed them off…
Gawking was fun and all, but I was working, so I busied myself with setting up. I engaged the coolant in my suit and sat down on the chair, closing my eyes to pick a temporary avatar for the building’s subnet. Sorting out an avatar for cyberspace can be frustrating, especially when you are trying to hide your identity. My usual avatar is an ogre-faced spider mech, with eyes shining in whatever color I feel like that night, usually blue. Long fangs to attack and infect subnets, huge eyes for cracking ICE, and eight long legs to traverse the net with. But there are enough runners out there that know me by that form, and I couldn’t risk a runner invading or inspecting the campus’ system and recognizing me.
I could be a samurai, play into the whole Saburo thing. Or maybe a ball of light, zapping defense programs in the eyes.
I settled on a spidermonkey. Gold fur, long arms, and a tail. With that decided, I shifted into a more relaxed stance and collected the neural-link cable from the headrest. It took me a second to find the adapter for a standard neural port, but thankfully, they had one ready to go. No more delays. I jacked in, laid down, and waited for the facility’s net to suck me out of my body.
It's like falling into a vat of novocaine. You lose connection to your senses, causing the vertigo, only to lose them in an instant. Then it's just blackness for what feels like forever. That is, until the datastream hits you. Imagine being blind, deaf, and numb. Then imagine, with the flick of a switch, being at a concert right next to the speakers. All the lights, sounds, sensations, and feelings hit like a train. One moment, I was in the void, the next, a labyrinth of red data points and geometry flooded my perception. It was a few milliseconds before I could understand the patterns in the data. I found myself in a red room, with doors all around me. Little sparks of red light zipped along the edges and corners of the walls, communications and programs.
Wow.
The room was lined with doors. Each one was marked with a scan-code that the Arasaka software patch translated for me. I scanned each door, looking for the archives. I needed the schematics for this part of the building. The door was easy to find, but when I went to unlock it, an avatar stepped through it to block me. He was shaped and dressed like any normal ‘saka rat, nice suit, clean shaven, the works. He folded his digital hands behind her back and looked down at my miniature form. I understood. A little mental stretching and my credentials as site dweller appeared in the form of my avatar. The security program melted into the datastreams and left the pathway open for me.
To amuse myself, I picked out random bits of data as I traversed down the rabbithole to my target. Voice logs from employees revealed inter-departmental romances. Access registries detailed the sexual habits of one of the garage guards. Deeper I went, drawing near to the corp files. Fiscal reports, patents, high-security files. I paused on these, wondering how much more trouble would it be if I simply took the data I needed here.
Too many tracks to cover.
So I continued. The once bright red of the data dimming as the timestamps for last access steadily grew older than me. Finally, I found the ‘hallway’ that opened into a small room with a drafting table in the center. I climbed up onto the table and started sifting through barely visible crimson stars. Files on every single piece of Arasaka infrastructure dating back to the nineteen-tens. Suddenly, a file popped out at me, so brightly red it almost hurt my head.
Hold up, what?
I opened the file and watched as my vision flooded with detailed schematics of the entire complex. Every department was in the folder, organized by importance. Two-thirds of the way down, I found the archival floors, also blindingly bright. I downloaded what I needed and started to close things back up, pausing to take note of the timestamps as I went.
Someone was reading these files less than an hour ago.
Somewhere, far beyond my conscious mind, I felt my muscles tense. I wasted no time exiting after that, rushing through my access history and back to the nexus. Once, back, I stopped and issued a seal command on the archives, locking it all down from remote access. No netrunner was going to steal my prize, not while I could still think. The ruby pinpricks congealed into a solid wall of red light, closing up the servers. Then a layer of near-opaque black settled in over the wall. Corpo ICE was no laughing matter. I almost pitied the fool who might try to break that from a beat-up megatower rig. Their brains would leak out of their skulls, they would be fried so fast. Feeling safe-ish again, I dove into the security systems. Thankfully, there was no maze of files this time, just a control room willed with digital avatars for every mech, drone, camera, sensor, and-
Wait, what?!
At a desk in the corner, sat a decent replication of Blue Moon from Us Cracks. She was too busy redirecting what felt like the powergrid to notice me. As the runner worked, cameras around the room died and went dark. Then the drones started shutting down in batches. I stepped up to her, not liking my odds, and jumped on her face, my golden spidermonkey avatar animating a spam attack. I flooded the runner’s synapses with holorecordings of employees fucking the in the storage closet, elicit braindance searches, prank emails from Red, anything and everything I could find on the local net to drown out whatever she was doing. The digital pop idol reeled, blinking back to the doorway to escape my hack. Quickly, I locked down the access console, encasing it in lethal ICE. I stayed still, primed with a dozen counter hacks just waiting for a single neuron to fire, and pinged her with a message.
TRY ME.
She didn’t seem keen on calling my bluff, judging by her immediate disconnect from the subnet. With my adversary gone, I locked down the security hub. I really didn’t want a runner to get the drop on me without a self-ICE implant. The room dimmed into a black tomb behind me as I closed the port on my way out. With the system secured and left in my favor, I set about tracking down my mystery hacker. The VPN was solid. I’d made it to the thirty-seventh IP address when something screamed in my head. All the red lights that composed the network blacked out, leaving only the datastreams and currently open files. Within milliseconds, the halls were filled with gigantic armor-clad samurai.
High-security, indeed.
Three of the hulking programs approached me, making my mental skin scrawl. They regarded me with blank faces, hands on massive swords. They must have approved of my credentials, because they not only relaxed around me, but led me back to my port to exit the server. It was only a few ‘steps’ away, but it was very gentlemanly anyway.
Going to realspace is always rougher than getting out of it. I arrived in my body, feeling like a crematorium shat on me, and tried to open my eyes. Even with anti-dazzle, the lights hurt. My joints creaked as I sat up, reminding me of the worst part of netrunning: The slowness of realspace. In the net, everything runs at the speed of thought for faster. Every movement and action runs along a fibre optic cable at the speed of light. Your brain is free to move at max speed without waiting on a body to react. No struggling for air. No muscles to burn. Just pure thought. Realspace is not so free. Already used to light-speed, just the time it takes for my arm to realize I'm ordering it to move is absurd. Then watching it do as I say in slow motion almost. It's enough to give anyone a headache from the frustration. I knew from experience that it wouldn’t take long for my mind to recalibrate to being human, but damned if I didn’t loathe it.
“BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!”
Oh god! What the-
“BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!”
Right. The security alarms.
I rubbed my face, enjoying the chill of my suit wicking away the heat from my body. Already thoroughly annoyed by the alarms, I queued up my frequency limiters and crunched my teeth together. The beeping siren faded from my awareness, eliciting a sigh. I gripped the cable hooking me to the table and freed it to slither back into its reel. Groggy and running my metal hand through my sparse hair, I tried to remember what my next-
SHIT! Runner!
I launched myself off the chair and out the door of my office. The hallway was empty already, gold pathing lights racing along the floor to the exit. The map of the facility opened on my cornea, complete with a highlighted route to the first node. In the back of my mind, I ran a series of self-checks. My wire was good, with the feed exposed from under the cuff of my sleeve. The USB was still in my right arm, well hidden, along with it’s adapter. No gun. No knives. And there was a rival in the building.
Best to rush the nodes and delta before I run into them.
And like that, I was off. Sprinting along narrow hallways, hopping over the metal carcasses of disabled drones. I’d thought that the other runner had simply disabled the drones and cameras. Wrong. The wyvern-class drones are smoking ruins, reeking of ozone, belching sixty different kinds of deadly smoke. On the walls, I spotted scorched spots with exposed wires, along with glass and metal shrapnel on the path. Whoever that runner was, they were not at all concerned with their presence going unnoticed. I double-timed it to the stairwell. Never trust lifts when there's a netrunner about, lest you be shaken into paste.
Two lefts and a right and the door was ahead. I figured it was locked so I leapt up and speared myself feet-first into it. The door came off its frame with a shriek and landed under my feet on the edge of the stairs. With a quick glance, I found my next door, right at the base of my precarious perch. I shifted my weight forward and surfed down the staircase. It was a long enough ride that I picked up some serious speed. I crouched down with a second left in the ride. Any other day I’d have stopped to admire my door-surfing skills, but this time I took the momentum and shouldered through the door at the stair’s base. The locking mechanism sheared off of this door, flinging it open with a bang. This level greeted me with the visage of a dying mech crawling towards the door I’d just ruined. Its lower half had been blasted off with a precision explosive leaving only its arms to move by. Its optics flashed red when it acquired me, reporting in a gratingly loud and metallic voice.
“SUBJECT IDENTIFIED. YOU ARE INSTRUCTED TO SURRENDER.”
Heart racing and panting, and I managed to laugh. The mech was dedicated, for sure. I cracked my neck, letting the adrenaline in my veins drive my body, and strolled casually up to the mech, stepping over it. I turned and planted a foot on its power supply, pinning it in place. The crippled machine took exception to that, though, and its arms rotated unnaturally to grab my leg with an iron grip.
Ow. Rude.
“SUBJECT IS ATTACKING. YOU ARE INSTRUCTED TO SUBMIT.”
I triggered my reel and watched a stream of green light slide from my wrist. Pinched the grip with my other hand, I let the reel give more and more slack, eventually lowering a loop down the eye-level of the mech. I drifted the wire under the machine’s neck and spooled the reel the other direction. The line shrunk into my wrist, slicing through the metal with ease, until it was taut between my hands. With the mech silenced and my mind calmed a little, I released the monowire to whip back into my wrist and turned for the node.
Almost there.
I started down the hallways to the data node, vaulting over masses of metal and-
What?
I slid to a stop and looked behind me. The pile I’d just vaulted was composed of a few robots, sure, but underneath the top mech, which carried a foot-wide crater in its chest, was a man. I kicked the ruined mech off and gasped. There was blood and viscera painted over the two drones at the foundation. I didn't have to guess where it came from, either. I leaned over the corpse to see his right side, only to find there wasn't one. A huge circular hole had been blasted out of him, taking an arm, lung, and half his ribcage with it. I had to cover my mouth.
Holy shit. Fuck. FUCK. What the hell did this?
I couldn’t help but stagger back a step as I tried to comprehend the damage. I ran through a list of explosives. Then a list of shotguns. Even through my meager knowledge of sniper rifles. I didn’t know what could do that to this man without shredding the whole hallway. Glancing up, back the way I’d come from, the pathing lights along the floor gave me flashes of the scene. For about ten meters past the corpse, the floor was littered in chunks of technician. And, zooming my optics in, I could see a crater in the steel wall at the far end of the hallway.
I need to get out of here. NOW.
I spun on the ball of my foot and ran. I ran faster than ever. The few halls left between me and my goal were littered with shredded metal and disembodied limbs. Some spots in the walls were blasted open by explosives, but I didn't stop to scan what kind. When I finally spotted the door, I hooked my hand on the open door frame and whirled into the data center. The room was cramped, with towers of storage drives forming a floor-to-ceiling grid. Pipes of liquid nitrogen clung to the ceiling, feeding the towers with probably life-saving coolant. At the bottoms, gas pipes fed into the floor from each tower.
Must get pretty hot.
My kiroshis highlighted the port I needed as I looked around. Stopping before my first target, I ripped the cuff of my right sleeve back and pinged my subdermal pocket to open. The slot opened up and dumped out its contents. I jammed the adapter into the port, fitting the ancient tech into it a little more gently, and let the virus do its work. After a few seconds, the whole room died and went dark.
That’s one.
I yanked the gear out of the access point and dropped it back into my arm, sealing it as quickly as possible. The doorway stood out, a beacon in the dark room, giving me an easy vector. I fixed my sleeve and bolted off again, heading for the only other node on this level and my second target. Blinking lights and strobing lamps rushed past me as I weaved my way through the maze-like hallways, my suit barely managing to keep my body cool with the strain I was under. Only a few more feet from the doorway to the node, I took a left and ground to a halt. At the other end of the hallway, with a Yukimura Automatic Smart Pistol trained on me, was Red. His suit was ripped along the waist and he was panting, but he was sturdy.
“What the hell are you doing here?! Are you the breach?” He demanded, shouting down the hall with a tired scowl. My hands shot up, metaphorical tail between my legs. My mind scrambled for what to say. I was brand new, clearly not a corpo regular, and kitted with a rare piece of japanese cyberware meant for corporate assassins. My options were shit. Mr. Smith’s patience waned, taking a step forward. I heard footsteps travelling down the hallway to his left, probably additional guards, and I started to deflate.
So much for the Major Leagues. Sorry Jason, sorry Sonra, sorry-
KABANG!
With a deafening boom, Red’s head exploded into a mist. The shot came from his left, judging by how his body slumped over like a sack of chrome. The shock of the kill sent lightning through my already adrenaline-spiked blood. Not waiting to meet the killer, I bolted into the doorway silent as a fox shitting itself. Heavy boots began the song of getting-way-too-fucking-close-to-me and I jammed the stick into the next port.
“Hands up.” A female voice barked from behind me, accompanied by the click of a revolver’s hammer. My hands shot up again and I turned slowly. Once my eyes had cleared my skull, I saw a bloodsoaked face I recognized. “Wait, Cyren?!” Indy lowered her cannon and inch, taking a step towards me. Just then, the malware killed the node, and the lights went out.
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I apparently cannot add anything else right now. The full, up-to-date series is at the URL in my signature.
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