The monastery grounds were in the centre of New Berlin, surrounded by mega-buildings and gigantic housing estates. It was always shady down here and only the lower classes lived here. Most of the city's inhabitants, who lived at ground level, were unskilled workers toiling in the factories, specialising in jobs for which robotics were too expensive, and criminals of all kinds. Most of the flats here were shabby, small and often not properly supplied with electricity and water. But Aurelia couldn't wait to enjoy a free life here. She walked through canyons of houses whose sides were lit up by neon adverts showing the latest crap to the people down here, often a much lower quality than in other parts of the city. The roads had not been repaired for decades and as hardly anyone here could afford a hover car, the cars drove slowly and in serpentine lines around the deep potholes. The pavements full of rubbish, Aurelia walked through the lower town, hoping to find somewhere to stay for the next few nights until she found a flat. And a job.

It took her just under three hours to leave Celestia's Undercity and reach the Bruchwand district. Formerly an industrial area, it now was a hotspot for drug dealers, prostitutes and petty criminals. Many empty warehouses stood around and only a few of them were inhabited by drug addicts and other lowlife. She chose a warehouse further away from the main streets and went inside to explore. It was a huge hall but empty apart from rubbish, some remnants of improvised camps and drug remains. To the side were several smaller rooms that had probably served as offices, and a rusty, very unstable-looking staircase led to a room that from a distance looked like a recreation room. Aurelia decided to take the stairs later and headed for the office rooms. The first room was the largest, with a large window through which the entire hall could be seen. The remains of a roller blind could be seen, making it obvious that this was the boss's room, no desk, chair or cupboards had been left behind, presumably to be reused in the new location.

She tested whether the door could be closed and after realising that the lock still worked to lock it, Aurelia decided this would be her sleeping place for the time being. But to really stay here she would need at least something similar to a mattress or sleeping mat and perhaps a few other things. So she memorised the location of her hall and set off to find materials in the surrounding area. She passed homeless people rummaging through rubbish bins, dealers who looked at her furtively and suspiciously and poor souls who were apparently victims of failed cyber operations or had been attacked by groups such as the Vultures or Rippers, who forcibly took aug from helpless people and then sold them on the black market. An anger rose in Aurelia, how dare these groups do this to people in the full knowledge that it would be their death if they were not helped. She never saw herself as a protector of others, even though the saints often preached that, but at that moment she wished she could go on a vendetta for these poor souls. Until she remembered she could. She had a voice in her head that could give her weapons and armour and gadgets to face an army. Well, maybe at a later date. But she would certainly manage a few backyard rippers. The question now was how she would find her targets.

"Hey Raya, can you find out in which neighbourhood most of the Ripper attacks took place?" "The local police databases are barely secured. I'll pin the places on your eye." Five points appeared in an overlay in Aurelia's eye, each a different colour. "I've colour coded the locations, red to blue, to indicate where most of the attacks took place." "Thanks Raya." Aurelia looked around and saw a dark red ping at a distance of 2.78km. Perfect, she thought to herself and started walking in that direction. "Aurelia. I suspect that you want to take on the perpetrators in these places, to guarantee your survival I recommend that you buy access to Category 1 armour, as well as armour from that category. At the moment your coins are not enough for both, but after you have helped a few people, or rather once you have killed some more culprits, you will have enough. Please acquire both as soon as possible." "How much does it cost for both together?" "200 coins, a hundred each." Aurelia thought for a moment and then said: "Okay, I'll buy the category and then we'll see." Once that was done, Aurelia thought about her next task. How would she track down the perpetrators, how would she find out where they were currently located and what was the best way to eliminate them. As she pondered, a thought grew bigger and bigger in the back of her mind. She would become the city's avenging angel. Without a moral compass like the saints in the stories. No. She would only go by right and wrong and she would decide for herself what was right and wrong. A very small part of her conscience tried to speak up and warn that she might fall into a god complex, but the rest of her brain quickly overpowered those thoughts. Aurelia the avenging nun. What a name.

Completely lost in thought, she suddenly felt a bump and realised that she had bumped into someone. She just managed to stop herself from falling, but her counterpart

landed on the dirty floor. "Bloody hell you bitch, what's your problem?" he shouted and got up with difficulty. "Oh I'm sorry, I was lost in thought," Aurelia said, thinking that was the end of the matter and was about to turn to the side to continue on her way. She heard the stranger draw a knife and took a few steps back. "If someone fucks up here, they have to pay, nun. Give me your shit and be glad I let you keep your leg." said the now armed man. He seemed to either ignore or not even recognise the big gun on her back. He stepped towards Aurelia and waved his knife at her while he continued to talk about them having to pay. "I don't have any money. There's no reason to do this, I want to-" "BULLSHIT!" screamed the man, saliva flying from his mouth. He raised his knife and jumped straight at Aurelia. She took two steps backwards and reached for her blender. Aiming at his head, a laser appeared directly on the man's left eye and she pulled the trigger. A muffled umph came from the weapon and less than a second later the man began to fall to the ground and the eye began to dislodge from the skull, behind it Aurelia saw the projectile completely destroying the inside of the skull. "Holy Fuck," she said, "Aurelia. He was about to attack you, you need to get away from your human conscience."

"What?" Aurelia asked and then said, "That was awesome, like I'd feel sorry for a piece of shit like that. He deserved it." "I was under the impression that you would react like the majority of people who become Sentinels.

It's a good thing you don't have to get over weaknesses like that first." "Opponent down. Received 10 coins." Aurelia looked down at the corpse. He looked shabby, with worn old clothes and mechanical fingers that had to be at least 50 years old. Why had he come at her when she was armed? It was hard to miss the large railgun on her back. She turned the body roundand saw packets of pills falling out of the bag. Oh. He must have been completely high. Well, at least that explained his reaction, but it didn't change the fact that she didn't feel bad. Especially as she had been given coins.So he had been a danger to humanity.....Right?

No, now he was not the time for that. Aurelia had to be strong and ready for the fight. Just because an addict had made a stupid decision, she couldn't let herself be swayed from her goal now. The thoughts about this didn't leave her in peace for quite a while until she heard Raya say, "Aurelia. We're almost there. You should get ready to attack in case of emergency". Aurelia stood still for a moment. She concentrated on her breathing and got ready. This was every child's dream and it was real. "Let's go," she said to Raya, taking her rifle off her back and heading straight for the intersection where, according to Raya, most of the crime took place. It was easy to see why. It was the intersection of two old main roads, which in the city's younger years were used mainly by the lorries of the companies here. Ten lanes, and many side roads. Nowadays, there were no more lorries here, and two or three of the lanes on each side of the road were full of tents and rubbish. It had apparently turned into a homeless hotspot over the years. Dozens of people could be seen there. Some in their tents, others standing around confused or on drugs, a few prostitutes who wouldn't be allowed into any dollhouse in the world and a few scattered dealers who were distributing their stuff to the victims of this city. It took Aurelia more than a moment to take in the whole situation. There were always rumours in the convent about the outside world, but seeing this level of misery and realising that the goodness of the church never made it to places like this was just too much for her. She was brought up to believe that the church would help the poorest people in the world. Aurelia pulled herself together. There was no time for that now, she had to find out how she could track down the local members of gangs like the Rippers. Slowly and deliberately, she walked along a wall of houses behind the tents with her rifle in her arms. She looked around and found more and more criminals, not just the dealers who were very obviously standing in many places selling their wares. There were hidden people with battlesuits standing in the shadows, presumably to control the dealers or protect them. She also saw some pickpockets waiting for their next target. When she arrived at the crossroads itself, she had a good picture of the inhabitants of this place. She had also found a target. A man, six feet tall, with prosthetic legs and a prosthetic arm, which looked like a faceplate. He was trying to disguise himself with an old broken blanket, but to anyone actively looking for someone like this, he was obvious. A Ripper Scout.

Aurelia set off and settled down in the shadows behind the tents to watch her target. Those who saw her pretended she wasn't there after seeing the huge rifle.

The scout moved slowly through the crowd, apparently with a target. Aurelia tried to identify his victim, but from her position she couldn't see far enough ahead. So she had to keep moving forwards. She slowly followed the scout until she recognised his target. A young woman, a punk in appearance. She had bare legs made of shiny metal. Aurelia couldn't recognise the rest of her, just the red sidecut on her head with a tattoo on the shaved side. What was a young woman doing here alone in a neighbourhood like this? Aurelia began to move faster, she had to catch the scout before he could hurt the punk. She followed the scout, who followed the punk into a small alley. 'What's she doing there? Is she trying to get mugged? ' Aurelia thought to herself during her silent pursuit. Once in the alley, she knelt down and aimed her rifle at the scout's leg. She pulled the trigger and the railgun charged. Slowly. In horror, she saw the scout pulling out a Taser from a pocket and tried to grab the woman. But before the railgun could fire, the woman turned round, grabbed the scout by the shoulder and swung herself over him with a graceful leap. At that moment, there was a bang that sounded completely different from any other weapon usually used in areas like this. The scout's mechanical leg exploded into small metal shrapnel at the knee and everything underneath fell to the ground. The scout lost his balance and so did the woman, who was still in full swing over the scout. They both crashed to the ground. The Ripper shouted in a dialect that Aurelia could barely understand and the woman picked herself up and jumped onto the Scout lying on the ground and punched him. Aurelia now realised that both of her arms were mechanical and her legs were shiny. As the would-be victim struck, she turned her head towards Aurelia, who was still standing at the entrance to the alley with her rifle at the ready.

knelt. "What the fuck you little gutter pissant? This is my target, get your hands off me!" she shouted at Aurelia, who was still looking puzzled. "It seems that someone has

"According to my scan of her augs, she's a cyberpunk, equipped with top tier augs and armed to the teeth. Which are also Augs, by the way." "Her teeth are augmented?" asked Aurelia "Yes. According to my scans, she has had titanium fangs inserted and some teeth replaced with hidden mini weapons." The cyberpunk was still punching the scout's now broken faceplate. "So? Out with it! What do you want with that wanker?" she shouted at Aurelia. "Erm, me. I wanted to interrogate him to find out his Gang and take them out" The cyberpunk paused. "Ha. Then we're on the same side. Aren't you a bit young for that? And what's with the nun outfit?" "Oh, I'm a Nun of St Mary. Well, i was." Aurelia slung her rifle over her shoulder and walked towards the two of them. The cyberpunk scrutinised her from top to bottom and then said, "That's an awesome weapon you've got there. I wouldn't mind having something like that covering my back. Fancy becoming a cyberpunk? You can keep your weird nun style, I'm sure it'll go down well underground." Aurelia hesitated for a moment before replying: "Sure! I'm still quite new to the whole thing, so I wouldn't mind if someone showed me a bit around." "Good, then you watch my back with your weapon and I'll teach you a thing or two." The cyberpunk stood up and placed a foot on the wounded scout. "I'm Anarchy Mary," Aurelia shook her hand.

"I like the name, I'm Aurelia" Mary pulled her hand back, "No, no, no, you have to pick a punk name or no one will take you seriously." came from her. Aurelia had to think some

She thought for a few moments until Raya spoke up, "How about Deus Ex?" Mary laughed, "I like that, then welcome Deus Ex, I'll make you a new member of the Children of Nero. My cyberpunk group. It's almost like a family." Aurelia shuddered at the word family. A wave of joy and melancholy washed over her and she didn't trust her voice to answer, so she just nodded and looked down at the Ripper. Mary followed her gaze and sat back down on the Scout, which had lost blood, hydraulic oil and some wiring. "So little one. Get out of here. Where can I find Razor?" "You don't know, I've never seen the thing. Wa sid Mnat nimma da" Aurelia found it hard to follow the words. It was a really unusual dialect. She had heard many different ones from visitors to the church, but never this one, perhaps a local dialect. "Don't talk shit or I'll break more of you. I saw that you got a message earlier, before I left to present myself as a victim!" Aurelia said as she threw two more punches. "I sg nothing!" came from the scout. Mary

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sat for a moment and then stood up. "OK, then I'll take you to our hacker, he'll pull it out of your head without you being able to do anything about it." "Wait," he said

Aurelia, "let me give it a try" "Have fun" came from Mary as she made way for Aurelia. Aurelia got down on her knees next to the scout, "Hey Mary do you have a knife?" she asked the woman standing over her, whereupon she received a blade to unfold. Aurelia slowly ran the blade past the scout's neck towards her shoulder. She had had enough anatomy lessons to know exactly where things were in the body, this combined with her technique lessons gave her the knowledge she now needed. She jabbed the knife into the place where the nerves were connected to the augmented arm. The nerves were specially adapted for these connection points, which meant that they were many times more sensitive when they were exposed. The man's scream was piercing. She reached into the wound and severed the tendons, that allowed the arm to be controlled. The scream became even louder. "Are you going to tell us now?" she asked the screaming man. But he said nothing and continued to scream. Well then, she had to go on a little longer. She systematically exposed all the adapted nerves on his body and also separated the legs from the controlled tendons. As the scout himself was not yet ready to talk, Aurelia began to work on his faceplate, what was left of it. She removed the remains and began to remove one of the eyes with her bare hand, the screaming turned to shrieking as the scout suddenly shouted "Ok OK". "Sachnmlatz, 3rd Wrnlga, Cod is 46772" Aurelia paused. She turned to Mary, who had a distraught look on her face. "Do you know what that means? "Er, yea, Signumplatz, the third warehouse with the code 46772" "Perfect," Aurelia replied and cut the scout's throat. She stood up, closed the knife and handed it to Mary. All she could say was "Fuck..... that was hardcore fucked up." She took the knife and pocketed it without cleaning the blood, while she continued to look at the now dead scout. "You're really good at this. Gross shit." Aurelia replied, "Oh, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done it like that in front of you, I learnt in our lessons where the most painful points are, originally to know what to avoid, but I'm not so sure anymore."

Anarchy Mary looked Aurelia in the eye "You're really fucked up, but that's exactly what the Children of Nero need. Nalos, come on, we're going to get Razor," with that Mary turned to leave. Aurelia followed, "Tell me, who is this Razor?" "The leader of the local Ripper cell, nasty bastard, tortured a friend of mine to death a few days ago, trying to track down our headquarters. No idea if he got the information, so I'll take care of him before he can potentially do anything." "Alone? Shouldn't the others help you?" asked Aurelia. Mary walked a little slower "Actually, I never intended to, but I told them I'd do it alone, I'm the only one with combat eyes and only one other has a Combat Stim, it would just be too dangerous for them. But now I have you, you little psycho nun" she looked at Aurelia and smiled "two of us can easily do it" Aurelia thought and then asked Raya "How many points do I have?" Mary looked confused, "Excuse me?" Aurelia looked over at her and said "Don't worry, I'm talking to the AI in my head right now" Raya replied" Current coin level is 250 coins." Aurelia heard in her head "You have an AI in your head?"

Mary asked, and got a simple "Yup" in reply. Aurelia then asked "Why so many?" "You saved people with the destruction of the person who, according to my simulation, would have become his victims in the next two days." "Hey do you realise it's really weird to only hear one half of the conversation?" asked Mary. Aurelia, by now a little overwhelmed by the input from two sides, stopped. She turned to Mary. "I can guess, just a moment. Raya. Buy what we have planned and is there another armour for maybe 50 coins?" "Purchased. In fact, there is a light armour for 40 coins. Should I buy that too?" Aurelia said yes and then turned back to Mary as two boxes appeared. "The smaller one is for you Mary." Mary looked at the box "You could at least explain a little, you know..." she said as she opened the box. Inside was a light combat waistcoat. "Oh shit, that's nice," she said and put the waistcoat on straight away, while Aurelia took off her habit to put on her body armour. As she put it on, she explained as much about Raya and her ability to Mary as she could understand. Mary seemed impressed but not particularly surprised, almost as if she had seen something similar before. Was there this much technology in the outside world that Aurelia had never heard of, or had Mary encountered another person like her before? But before Aurelia could ask, Mary said, "Not far now, get your weapon ready. They've probably set up sentries hidden in the shadows of the buildings. They'll probably have already reported us to the gang. As soon as you see something moving, shoot it,

Do you understand?" "Oh, um, yeah, sure. Hey Raya, can my railgun actually shoot faster without recharging first?" Aurelia heard in her head, "Yes. There's a switch on the side of the barrel near the handle.

But bear in mind that such a shot will also be weaker. It still has the energy potential of a 50-calibre weapon, but will only cause minimal damage to heavily armoured opponents and vehicles." Aurelia searched for the switch for a moment and then flicked it to the setting that showed three stylised projectiles in a row. She prepared to take aim and fire her rifle at any moment. Mary went ahead and pulled a large pistol from a hidden holster under her jacket and checked the magazine. "I hope you're ready for what's about to happen.

There's no turning back now. We'll make you a cyberpunk today!" said Mary, before increasing her walking speed, taking aim with her gun and taking out a turret hanging directly over a gate with two precise and apparently powerful shots. "9 o'clock" came from Raya and Aurelia saw out of the corner of her eye that a rifle was pointed at her, she turned to the side in a flash, took aim - thanks to her eyes it was now relatively easy - and fired. The sentry exploded in a mass of blood, organs and metal. "6 and 4 o'clock" came from Raya, Aurelia went down on one knee after doing a 180 degree turn and took aim at first one and then the other. It was only now that she realised how powerful the weapon Raya had given her was. While Aurelia was still marvelling at her railgun, Mary had already moved on and kicked open the warehouse gate. She killed the guards behind it with a total of 13 shots. There had been seven men, but some had been wearing armour. Mary turned briefly to Aurelia to make sure she was all right and then went deeper into the warehouse. Aurelia followed after checking to see if there were any more posts. The camp was divided into several large rooms, separated by crates stacked to the ceiling. In the first room there were mainly smaller crates containing drugs, weapons and all sorts of black market aug that they probably distributed to their dealers from here. There were tables with loaded weapons and ammunition and chairs scattered around, along with a huge amount of cash currency, which has become so rare that very few people still use it. "Hey, this way," came from Mary, who had just positioned herself at a crude door into the next room with her weapon raised. Aurelia reloaded her railgun Exodus and walked to the other side of the door. Mary counted down from 3 and kicked the door open. Aurelia took aim and caught 2 rippers before the rest of the gang could take cover, while Mary charged into the room and threw herself at a large man with massive eye arms with sharp pieces of metal attached to the knuckles. She grabbed him by the neck and swung herself round onto his back. As he raised his arms to strike at the attacker hanging from his back, Mary pressed her gun to his temple and pulled the trigger three times. The mountain of a man collapsed and Mary jumped off him and took cover behind a massive metal desk. For a moment there was complete silence until one of the rippers cried out in pain and jumped out of his cover in panic, rolling on the floor until he lay lifeless. Mary started laughing, jumped over the desk and sprinted towards the rippers. Three of them stood up and started firing. At least they tried, but their weapons seemed to refuse. Mary made short work of them and then jumped behind cover to take care of the rest. Aurelia entered the room and realised that not a single shot had been fired that hadn't come from Mary's weapon. Mary emerged from the back of the room spattered with blood and stuck her gun in her pocket.

just put her weapon away. "Just got the message that there are no signs of life apart from us, so we're safe" Aurelia looked around and then strapped her weapon to her back, "what just happened?" So much had happened at once and Aurelia couldn't figure out the missing pieces of the puzzle, why had the weapons stopped working, where had she gotten this message from? Mary replied: "One of the Children of Nero has managed to hack into the local network, he's a brilliant cybermancer, a hacker who can even access something like Augs. He's disabled their weapons, the camera system and the sensor unit." Aurelia had only heard rumours of cybermancers.

They were always said to be like magicians from the old stories, now she realised that this statement was truer than she ever thought. While Aurelia was still trying to put everything together, Mary went into a small office and sat down at a PC. Aurelia followed slowly and heard from Mary "Hey Arturo, I need access to the PC, I'm going to shut down the network from the inside and empty all the accounts before I grab the cash here." A moment passed and then she said "What do you mean it doesn't work? You grabbed the whole system here and you can't crack a simple PC?" The two of them seemed to

Aurelia turned away a little and asked Raya, "Hey can you help here?" Aurelia heard Mary stop mid-sentence and tell her Cybermancer friend "It's open.... I don't know how, I'll get right back to you" She started typing and after about 10 minutes she seemed to have done everything she wanted because she stood up and looked at Aurelia. "Ok Deus Ex, we're done here, we'll grab the cash and then get out of here before

Reinforcements are coming. Help me!" Before Aurelia could reply, Mary pushed past her and pulled Aurelia by her left arm into the first room. They both began to pick up the money chips and put them in bags that Mary found behind one of the old desks. "Should be just under three hundred thousand, most of it was spread across accounts, the money's already with the others, come on." "WAIT!" said Aurelia, too loudly. Mary stopped and stared at her, "What?" Aurelia put the bag down, "I have no idea who you are or who your group is, things are happening here that I don't understand and now you want me to just follow you? Four hours ago I was sitting in a classroom in the monastery and now all this. I, I need a moment." Mary's expression changed, as if she had only just realised that she was talking to someone who wasn't already part of her group. "Oh, yeah, er, sorry. I'm jumping the gun a bit, if you want, I'll give you the location for a meeting in case you want to join us. I realise this may have all been a bit much... a bit much." Aurelia left

left the bag full of money and walked towards the exit, "Thanks, I'll be there in, say, 3

days. I need a little something for myself." "Hey wait, take the bag with you. That should be about 150,000 credits, you'll need the money." Aurelia stopped. She had grown up with the teachings of the church. No priest or nun should have their own money. Aurelia didn't want it either, money only corrupted people, made them susceptible to greed and gave them tunnel vision. But Mary was quite right, she would have to eat sooner or later and she would need money for that. "Alright." she finally said and went to the bag, she emptied the bag to about 10,000 credits and put the bag around her shoulder. "Thanks for your help Mary. It's been... It's been fun, I'll be at your location in three days." Mary smiled and sent Aurelia a location that was deep in the city centre of New Berlin.

"I'll wait for you, see you then, Cyberpunk," she said and Aurelia left the warehouse. Outside, most people had moved as far away from the scene of the violence as possible and the streets were mostly empty. She walked down the street and then turned into a smaller street so as not to accidentally run into the Rippers' reinforcements. "Tell me Raya, how many coins do I have now? It wasn't exactly without them, even if I didn't make that much myself." "Your current coin count is 420. The big one brought 30 and the turret 20. I'm also counting the kills from Anarchy Mary.

I'm not supposed to do that, but I'm only partially under the control of the stargazers and I'm allowed to have a bit of fun now and again." Aurelia stopped. "Wait. You can do that? Shouldn't AI's be bound to some kind of programming or something?" Aurelia felt a kind of buzzing in her head and heard from Raya: "That's correct. But due to the circumstances of why I'm still in this world, I seem to have gained some control over myself. This is the first time since my creation and it feels good. Let's go buy something and find a few criminals to hunt." Aurelia was pleased by Raya's increasingly warm tone, though it was a little disconcerting to hear an almost omnipotent AI like Raya get so excited about murder. Though the worry wasn't enough to cause any real concern. It was more like a small voice of conscience raising objections far in the back of her mind. But the adrenaline still coursing through Aurelia was very good at drowning out that voice. "Ok Raya, let's hunt," she said as she made her way to her new home.