I couldn't help but let out a burst of nervous laughter as shit went from zero to a hundred in no time flat. "What the fuck?" I snorted, as the suited cyberpsycho raised his arm at me, and the barrel of a missile launcher unfurled from his forearm. My eyes snapped open and my dismayed smile froze. Without thinking, I dived to my left.
The chair that I had been sitting in exploded into splinters and felt, and my meal hit the ground with a thwap. I heard screams as the man next to me fell off his chair and curled up under the table. All around me, people began to panic. Some ran. Some hid. I even saw one faint in her chair, slumping in her seat before then falling off.
My hand reflexively went to my side and an unintelligible noise of fury exploded out of me as it grasped empty air. Stupid, stupid- Of course the fucking restaurant had to have a no-gun policy! I pulled up my coat and an inventory window snapped open inside, and I ripped out my Overture. Fuck it. If they wanted to know how I snuck this in, they could ask me later, if they were alive.
I heard gunfire, and my head whirled around to see as the bartender at the back began to unload with a spray of small missiles from a compact submachine gun. Tiny rocket trails burned as the projectiles raced through the air, battering the cyberpsycho to little effect. The unkempt borg's other arm unfolded into a missile launcher as the original concealed itself from sight, and a larger payload streaked through the air, shredding the bar and blasting the bartender into pieces.
I got to my feet quickly, taking aim and delivering an Overture shot right at his visor, and his head jerked with the impact, though he seemed unharmed otherwise. I unloaded three shots at his head, only for him to suddenly accelerate, throwing off my aim and sending the fourth into a window, which cracked up. Quick as a whip, his arm directed itself at me. [Reflex] tore the moment into two, giving me just enough time to harden my skin before a bolt smashed into my chest, erupting in shrapnel and fire.
[Buff Gained: Iron Skin - Minor Armour Stack]
[Health: 416/800]
I was sent skidding across the ground by the blast, my back slamming into a table. I heard a muffled sound that sounded like a scream cut short, and I blinked blearily as I looked at a woman with a ridiculous hairdo with her hands clasped over her mouth, just… standing there?
"Geddown, idiot." I slurred, shaking my head and sitting up. The club staff were giving it as good as they had. Waiters with pistols and other small arms were peppering the psycho from all sides, and I even recognised the bald man from earlier holding something that looked like a cross between a designer handbag and a pistol spraying the cyberpsycho. Despite its looks, his gun seemed to actually be doing damage, scoring gashes in the exposed metal of the psycho's arm as it curls up around his head protectively. Some sort of coilgun, maybe?
Unfortunately, his aim left much to be desired, and much of his spray went wide around his head and did nothing. The cyberpsycho suddenly accelerated, dashing towards the center of the room and firing everything it had.
Carnage ensued. The bald man's left side hit the ground, blackened and smoking meat speckled with red gore. A sudden wave of shrapnel, utterly unlike the missiles which it had used up until now, turned three waiters into limp ragdolls. The door to the kitchen suddenly exploded into flames, and reinforcements going through shrank back as a screaming woman hit the ground, desperately patting down her uniform as she rolled.
I'd done my research. A factory-standard Mark 1 Sandevistan could just about double a man's speed for four seconds before having to shut off for half a minute, and the psycho's acceleration had just run out. I had a chance.
I lifted my Overture, before thinking better of it, upending my gun and letting shells both spent and not hit the ground. Normal fire was clearly doing nothing. I needed my clip of armor piercing rounds. I only had six left, and I cursed myself for not thinking to get more before now. If- When I got out of this, I was going to stock up properly.
With a flicker of sleight of hand, a new loader appeared in my hands and I immediately slammed it home, shoving the cylinder into the gun. The cyberpsycho turned to look at me right as I turned to look at it. With his cyberware still inoperable, I was faster on the draw.
The recoil on the Overture was as powerful as it was for a reason. The armor piercing bullet slammed into his visor, sending out a spray of sparks as paneling flew off. The psycho staggered… but kept moving. I could see the lenses on the visor still whirring and clicking, and a hole in his head that did not bleed, not even a little. Either he had some form of skull plate or his dome had been entirely replaced with metal.
The moment that he had staggered gave me an instant to act before his arm raised at me. I seized ahold of a chair and flung it at him as hard as I could. The chair snapped in half around him as he was forced back a step, buying me a few seconds to find cover.
I dashed to the side, stepping onto and making a running jump from a chair in my path, diving behind the counter of the bar. I slammed into the ground with a grunt, the air knocked out of my lungs. Various drinks mixed with blood stained my clothes and the body nearby wasn't exactly good company, but the bar had survived an impact where the rest of the club had not. This would have to do.
A rocket smashed into the bottles on display, and I snarled as I was showered with glass, shrapnel and alcohol. A spike of pain sliced through my face and I flinched in shock. My sight briefly glitched out, but soon amended itself, though there was a new crack running across my field of view from my damaged cybereye. Mana flowing through me partitioned, diverting to flow through my mind and sharpen my focus.
[Buff Gained: Concentration - Minor DEX Multiplier]
I yanked a inhaler from my inventory and took a quick puff, and my seared and shredded flesh began to quickly reknit itself, shrapnel falling out of my wounds as flesh made whole pushed them out. I shot up to my feet, and another AP bullet smashed into his head with unerring precision, only for it to do nothing but piss him off.
[Buff Gained: Bounce Back Mk.1 - Minor Health Regeneration]
I hit the ground, my mind running a mile a minute. I needed a plan. Fast. Apparently my armor piercing rounds weren't armor piercing enough. What else did I have? None of my guns were good for this. Grenades? I had a few biohazard ones, and some frags, but there were fucking civvies right there. An inventory window opened up, and I flicked through them with grit teeth as screams continued to sound out. C'mon, c'mon, is there anything I could-
I froze as I stared at a slot with five EMP grenades shoved in. I'd looted them from some Scavs a few weeks ago and promptly forgotten about them. One appeared in my hand, and I ripped it from my inventory and…
…I stared at the device in my hand with confusion. How the hell did I use it? There wasn't a pin I could pull, at least, not as far as I could tell. There was some sort of dial I could fiddle with, and a tab I could pull back. Incomprehensible numbers and display elements were laid out on a small screen. On the side, a number of warnings were laid out, "Do not disassemble", "Do not dispose in fire", "Always read manual before use…"
Wait. Right, active cyberpsycho. Experimentally, I pulled the tag back, expecting something to happen. Nothing seemed to, so I twisted the dial. The display didn't even change. I then realized that I might have been holding a live grenade in my hand like an idiot, and then I threw it behind me over the counter.
After a few moments I heard the sound of something light and metallic hit the ground, I glanced over the counter to see the cyberpsycho kicking the grenade away, over to where a small crowd of corpos were huddling. There was frantic shouting as they scattered, and everybody in the room, including me and the expectant looking cyberpsycho, stared at the small blue device as we waited for it to go off.
Then, I lifted my gun, adjusted my aim, and fired. Instead of going to the head again, I went for the throat, and was rewarded for my steady hand and change in tactics by a spray of white synthetic blood that splashed over the ground. The absurdity of it all caused me to snort in laughter, "I meant to do that!" I yelled over to the cyberpsycho, before I took aim again, only for the psycho to straighten up, uncaring of the dribbling wound in his throat.
[Reflex] burned through my skull, straining like an overworked muscle as I watched panels of artificial flesh with armor panels underneath slide away, and synthetic metallic muscles become exposed to the light. A small cannon-like device slid forward on a rail along the interior of his arm, the barrel extending outwards and twitching slightly as it aligned itself with me. I made dead-on eye contact with the barrel, the crosshairs of my synthetic eye and the ironsights of the Overture aligning perfectly.
I pulled the trigger, and the cyberpsycho's arm exploded as the ordinance inside was struck by my bullet. After the explosion cleared, I saw the results of my shot. The firing mechanism was wrecked and the paneling was hanging on by a thread. The psycho's outfit was burning, but he didn't seem to care, instead staring at his barely-functional arm in shock before looking back at me.
The two of us made eye contact. I couldn't discern his expression, with half his face being covered in damaged technology and bullet holes, but I could feel the uncontrollable grin on my face spreading wider as I glanced towards his other arm expectantly and made a beckoning gesture.
Instead of giving me a shot at his other arm, he turned his head, scanning the room before laying his eyes on the high-tech gun that the bald man had used. He went for it, his body blurring as he suddenly accelerated. His Sandevistan was back online. "Fuck!" I spat out to myself as I re-aimed, only the last desperate burst of [Reflex] letting me keep track of his movements, and only for a brief moment.
The first shot slammed into his back, and the second into his hip, but the impacts barely even staggered him, and his functioning hand grabbed ahold of the submachine gun and raised it at me.
[Health: 292/800]
I tried to jerk out of the way and was only partially successful, a deadly fan of bullets ripping through the counter and then my shoulder as if neither were even there. Pain exploded through me, and my teeth grit as I dropped down, my mind desperately fumbling for an answer. Too many witnesses. Witnesses that I couldn't justify silencing. According to the HUD on my cybereye, I only had one left in the chamber.
My health was regenerating, but I doubted I'd be able to survive a hit dead on. [Reflex] was too exhausted. [Mana Barrier] would be cut through like swiss cheese. [Sorairo Days] moved too slow. [Hamon]…
[Hamon]? [Hamon] was energy generated through steady breathing, capable of enhancing physical attacks or delivering shocks of energy, similar in a way to electricity. I remember scenes from a certain anime of all sorts of things being weaponized by running hamon through it. Hair. Spaghetti. Shot glasses. I heard pacing as the psycho approached the bar. I began to fumble through the drinks under the counter. [Sorairo Days], show me where he is.
Through my slowly mending cybereye, I could see an orange outline coming towards me through the counter. Faint crackles of electricity raced over me as power reminiscent of the sun's rays began to course through my veins. My hand closed around a bottle of NiCola Sakura. My face twisted. I preferred classic, but what could you do?
A cord of orange circuitry wrapped around the bottle, and I pulled out even more, giving myself some slack. I gave the approaching psycho a glance through the counter. Ballparking the angle, I tossed the bottle up onto the counter, where it landed on its side.
I didn't have the control that the source of this power originally had, but I could ape his techniques alright. "Jojo reference." I muttered, then chortling and letting loose a surge of that crackling energy through the orange circuit. The bottle violently erupted, and the cap fired out with a pop that sounded like a gunshot. The orange outline's functioning hand listed to the side, and I hopped the counter as he tried to bring it back to bear, lashing out with a kick that sent the gun sliding across the floor.
When his head snapped away from the gun to turn back to me, I was sitting on top of the counter with one leg thrown over the other, turning over a bottle of Tamalpias Crimson Vintage in my hands. "2040. Good year. Personally though, I think the 20s had their charms." I said with a smile of nostalgia.
Then I glassed the fucker, expensive wine spilling over his crumpled suit as the bottle disintegrated on impact with his head. As he staggered back, I tugged another from under the counter, I lifted it over my head with a grin, only to pause at the notice that popped up.
Sake Utagawa
The perfect gift to yourself. Top quality alcohol imported from the Land of the Rising Sun.
+4 Mana/Sec
-10 Dexterity [Blocked By Body Defense]
Effect Duration: 10 Minutes.
…I shoved it into my inventory for later and kicked him in the chest, throwing him back a fair distance. I hopped off the countertop, grabbing ahold of a stool. A surge of [Power] allowed me to rip it out of the ground. I gave it a twirl as I approached the cyberpsycho. It's eyes twitched erratically as I started to run forwards, before it tensed.
The psycho aimed his suddenly-unfurling arm at the ground at my feet, and I jumped as the floor exploded. The shockwave of force threw me even further up, and fragments shredded my toughened skin, but it didn't stop me from bringing the stool down with all the force I could muster, a loud metallic crack echoing throughout the room as he was smashed into the ground.
I grimaced at the stool, before tossing it off to the side. Hitting him with it hadn't been even remotely satisfying. I needed something with a little bit more weight to it, and maybe a more clublike shape. I had some baseball bats, but they were made out of wood, so I doubted it'd hold up well to my strength. I stomped on his still unfurled functioning arm, and leveled my Overture down at it before firing my last bullet, tearing off his arm at the elbow with a spray of sparks.
Despite all the damage I'd done, he was still moving, and what was more, we were halfway to his next Sandevistan burst. He was down most of his cyberware, but I had no idea how to kill him, except… I could let the environment do the work for me.
Embers was thirteen floors up. That would have to do. I brought my foot back and delivered a [Power Strike] to his head, sending him into the cracked windows, shattering them and causing a blast of hot Night City air to enter the club as he fell.
I then immediately realized how terrible of an idea that was as I felt something crack. I sucked in a pained breath as I clutched my leg, resisting the urge to bounce up and down while swearing. I landed on my ass, rubbing my leg as the pain slowly subsided, the health regeneration from the Maxdoc slowly mending me.
I relaxed slowly, looking out the shattered window. The view was beautiful. I could see countless elements of the Night City landscape from above. Countless windows lit up on massive and dark skyscrapers, while holographic advertisements scrolled up to the pitch black sky. In the distance, I could see two holographic goldfish, one red, one blue, circling each other over the park at City Center.
[Gained 4000 EXP]
[Level Up! You are now Level 14.]
[You gained 5 stat points.]
I dismissed the popups and took a deep breath. In the distance, I saw aerodynes flying towards me, rapidly getting closer, some black, some white. Maxtac and Trauma Team. An electronic howl blared out, and warnings in red flashed into existence, projected onto the interior of the club by lasers from the aerodynes. I quickly backed away, looking around the destroyed Embers.
Of the small crowd that the night had started with, only half weren't dead, slowly getting up from the various hiding spots and corners where they had been huddling, but besides them, little else had survived intact. Everything in Embers was some measure of scratched up, damaged by gunfire, torn apart, scorched, or shattered.
…Fuck, was I going to get charged for damages? I didn't do any of this, but it certainly seemed like the sort of shit that would happen in modern-day America's corporation-ruled shitscape of a legal system. After all, the less corporations could pay, the better, right?
Fuck. Jimmy, you infinite gyre of cunt! "Fucker stuck me with the bill!" I snarled out, whirling around to where the flames had long since burnt out near the kitchen door. I dashed away from the incoming law enforcement, ripping the door open and searching for the exit.
The staff inside had long since fled, and the kitchen was darkened. [Sorairo Days], give me a route! How far did he get?
An orange glow highlighted a door that was previously obscured by shadow, and shoved it open, staring down a massive flight of stairs. There was barely any time to think. I hurled myself over the railing and hit the steps below, absorbing the impact the best I could.
And then I did it again. And again. Over and over, I'd hop to the next set of steps below, doing my absolute best to catch up. On the map, I could see Jimmy's icon. He was still close by, his icon nearly next to my own. How long had I fought the psycho? How far could he have gotten?
Not far enough. It didn't matter how far he went, I wasn't sleeping until he was dead for this horseshit.
[Health: 417/800]
I was bruised and battered by the time I hit the ground floor, my legs aching from the constant absorption of shocks. I shoved open the fire escape door to the outside, seeing a highlighted trail of circuitry directing me out to the street. I raced after it, chasing down its objective. I weaved my way through the crowds, sounds of surprise being shut out of my mind as I rounded the corner to an underground parking lot.
I saw him across the lot, a distant figure that I could only identify by his fur coat. As he turned his head in my direction, I shook my fist at him as I ran, yelling. "JIMMY YOU BITCH, GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE!"
He did not get his ass back here. Instead, he turned and began to run towards what I presumed to be his car, but I hadn't grinded my stats for nothing. I closed the distance quickly, and right as he reached the door, I lashed out with [Sorairo Days], orange wires wrapping themselves around him. He strained and wriggled, trying to get towards the car door, before slumping in defeat as I came close.
"I must say, I hadn't expected for you to catch up so quickly." He said with a sneer as he rolled to face me. "How did you like my little gift?"
"Nearly killed me. Pain in the ass to fight." I spat. My stamina rapidly recovered, and I straightened up as I stared down at him. "Seriously, the fuck did I do to merit a fucking hit?" I demanded.
Jimmy gave a snort. "Is it really so difficult to comprehend? If I couldn't watch your end from your perspective, I'd take someone else's. If I couldn't see you lose yourself to cyberpsychosis, I'd accept your death, instead." He gave me a crooked grin and a shrug. "Perfect is the enemy of finished, after all~"
"Don't you go acting like an actual fucking artist." I muttered as I looked around for witnesses. When I found none, I grabbed him by his coat, lifting him off the ground.
"There are a great deal of buyers who suggest that I am!" He cheerily said before I shoved him in the passenger's seat of his car. "-Oof!"
The Rayfield Caliburn was a luxury. A sports car with a sleek and aerodynamic profile. Jimmy had not opened the doors by himself, they had slid open by themselves as he approached, and I stepped in quickly before the door slid shut. The interior of the car was dark. There were no windows, instead there was something called a CrystalDome, a set of interior screens. They'd probably display the outside once the car was started, but for now they remained switched off.
I sat down with a huff on the leather seats, feeling slightly dismayed at the fact that the stains on my clothes were probably being imprinted on the beautiful interior. It really was a nice car. A bit too high-end for my taste, but I could appreciate the aesthetic and the feeling of opulence.
I'd read about these things in a magazine, back when I was in the middle of my honeymoon phase with Night City. I'd work out, and then read through one of those magazines, and then work out again with thoughts of flying cars, polished silver skin and smart guns occupying my mind. It helped offset the boredom, imagining myself soaring over the city.
I shook my head, dismissing the memories. Jimmy was staring at me with amusement, the two of us only slightly illuminated by faint lights from the car's dashboard. "Well? What are you going to do? Turn me in? Take me hostage? I'm afraid I don't have a particularly great deal of money on me at the moment, so you'll have to give me some measure of trust before I can turn out my account for you." He said, flashing a smile.
"No need." The CrystalDome was meant to provide absolute privacy and protection to the wealthy owners of cars such as the Caliburn, so there was nobody who would see what happened next. I fetched my agent from my pocket, and tapped it, opening up an application that I'd only ever tested, and never had found a chance to properly use. A kaleidoscope of lights and fractals appeared on the screen, and I turned it towards Jimmy without a word.
The man sucked in a breath, his face illuminated by the light of the screen. His eyes widened as far as they could go, and he began to stare at the screen in silence. He slackened in the grip of the circuits, and I carefully watched him for signs of him faking it for a few minutes, but as far as I could tell, he was utterly entranced.
"Hey Jimmy, don't try anything when I let you go, okay? Just take this agent and look at the screen. Got it?" I said, softly and quietly.
Slowly, the man nodded. [Sorairo Days] dissolved, and he slowly reached up and took hold of my agent, setting it on his lap and staring at it.
I breathed out a sigh of relief. Now that the [Hypnosis App] had him, he'd be easier to manage. My control wasn't perfect or anything, but so long as I didn't startle him too badly or shake him out of it, he'd be under trance, and a lot more pliable.
"So." I muttered, staring at the car's interior. It looked a bit like a cross between a spaceship and a theater seat. "How do you start this thing again?"
"I simply will the car to do so." Jimmy muttered.
I looked at him. He looked at the screen. I sighed. "Can you please start the car?" I said, wearily.
There was a flicker of a smirk on his face as he snapped his fingers. The screens came on, revealing the parking lot, and a screen on the dashboard spat out figures that I couldn't make heads or tails of.
I made a short exhale of air through my nose. Show-off.
I cautiously prodded a pedal, and when nothing happened, I pressed the other, causing the car to make a slight shift. I held it gently, and the car began to crawl forwards. I turned the steering wheel to the side and put a little bit more pressure on. As a result, the car began moving forwards at the pace of a brisk walk. "Okay. I think I've figured this out. Mostly." I muttered, looking around. "Now where the hell is the exit?"
"You're going the wrong way~" Jimmy lowly sang.
"Shut it." I grumbled, looking around. "...Wait, am I really?"
Jimmy mimed his mouth being zipped shut.
----------------------------------------
Eventually, I figured my way out of the underground parking space, though much to my embarrassment, I had done so on the wrong side of the road. The sounds of the engine, the city, it was all quiet. Hell, I could even mute the outside world and only listen to the rumble of the engine if I chose to, but I kept it on for safety's sake.
I carefully navigated my way through Night City's streets, sticking to about forty kilometers per hour or so, though the digital speedometer being set to miles made it hard to tell. I'd dug the location of his studio out of him after a frustrating bout of questions, and was headed there with the guidance of the Caliburn's on-board computer.
As it turned out, being entranced into treating me as a trusted confidant didn't cut down his bullshittery. If anything, he was even more of a jackass than he was at the restaurant.
Case in point.
I crushed the loud demand that I wanted to shout, doing my best to keep from startling the man out of his trance. "What do you mean, you weren't listening?" I hissed.
"I was watching the elevator, waiting for my gift to arrive." He shrugged limply.
I sighed. It was all stuff that came out of the cuff. I'd simply said what felt natural, I put a little thought into it, but not much. "I could, if I remembered half of what I said. Something about… insecurity, I think?" I muttered. "And society. And the fact that we live in one."
Jimmy's head tilted slightly. "I don't remember anything about insecurity."
"That's because you weren't listening." I hissed through clenched teeth. I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, thinking. "I think it was about how companies were contributing to insecurity with marketing and that made it so that…" I snapped my fingers. "Right, then I was saying that since people were so insecure about their place in life, they'd buy cyberware, put value in it, put less value in other people and that's… not the cause, but maybe a cause of cyberpsychosis, what do you think?"
"According to my experience…" Jimmy paused, seeming to think. "No."
I let out an explosive sigh, throwing a hand up. "Fuck, and here I thought I was on to something, too."
Jimmy didn't reply. It seemed like a toss up, trying to get him to reply whenever I wasn't asking a question, which made it tough to carry a conversation.
As for why I was even having a conversation with the guy, well… what could I say? His passion for his craft touched me, if only just a little. Of course, he'd burned through whatever goodwill he'd built up with the whole cyberpsycho stunt, but I could still admire qualities for what they were.
Speaking of the cyberpsycho… "Who even was that guy, anyways? The one who attacked me?" I probed.
Jimmy shrugged, his eyes locked with the screen. "I don't know."
My face twisted in annoyance. "Where the hell did you even find that guy?"
He shrugged. "Around."
We came to a stop at a red light, and I turned to stare at him. He was looking at the hypnotic display on my agent with a bored look on his face. I raised an eyebrow, "Elaborate."
"I hired some Scavs to pluck someone off the street. As for where they got him, I have no idea whatsoever." He explained.
I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. "Your average joe doesn't have a projectile launch system and a Sandevistan chipped in." I stated. "Did you have them installed?"
"Indeed. He came without accessories." He muttered, a hint of personhood leaking out through the trance. "So I had to have some chipped in for tonight. It all cost a pretty eddie, you know." He said with a casual air. "The rest was easy, though. All it took was one romp through an unedited encounter with you and… pop." Jimmy spread his hands open for emphasis.
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
I stared at the ever-so-slightly animated look on his face, realization striking me like lightning. "You put him through the scroll of me against the cyberpsycho. Douglas."
"Several times. I wanted to be sure he'd focus on you, rather than allowing you to escape your encounter." Jimmy confirmed.
"...Why?" I demanded. Honestly, I didn't get it. What the hell did I do? What the hell was it that made him so goddamn fixated on killing me?
Instead of answering right away, Jimmy seemed to take a moment to come up with an answer. "Your movements." He finally stated.
I waited for him to continue, and a few seconds passed. I got ready to ask him to elaborate, but he suddenly seemed to find the words. "There was this… lightness to your footsteps as you came up to me. It was remarkably smooth, the way that you approached. It reminded me of… of ballet."
I blinked. "Ballet?" I dully repeated, utterly baffled by the direction this conversation had taken.
There was a slight grin on Jimmy's face. "Yes. Like ballet. I remember going to a ballet performance once, a touring performance. The dancers, there was this… curve to everything they did. This smooth curve that rounded out everything. But there was something else to it. This strange quality. You seemed like you were… gliding, almost. Like you were on ice, but there wasn't any sort of momentum to any of it. You just stopped like-" He paused. "And then… stillness." He breathed out.
I felt faintly disturbed by not only his recounting, but also his tone regarding it. He seemed enraptured somehow, and not by the hypnosis app. I hadn't noticed anything different about myself. Did anyone else? I cast my mind back to David, Rebecca and the crew that night. They had seemed strangely nervous, but they didn't say anything about skillware, not like they had with the voice before. Rebecca would call me out for it if she noticed anything weird, wouldn't she?
"And then there was the voice." Jimmy hissed, leaning forwards. "And it just… cut through the haze. I could hear a beating heart in it. Succulent. Dripping. The scorn. The elation. Then the crushing disappointment. How could I be so dull? The most important moment in my life, the ultimate chance to deliver… and I hadn't been ready." He paused for a long moment. "I couldn't stand it."
"I hated it. I hated myself even after I took off the wreathe. I wanted to edit the scroll, to sell it. I'm still not sure whether it would be a standalone or part of a series like 'It's Alive Not', but it didn't seem right to keep going. Not without making up for that night." He despondently whispered.
A short beep muffled by the Caliburn's padding startled me. My head twisted ahead, and I noticed that the light was green, I glanced back at Jimmy and breathed out as I realized that his head was still turned to the screen. I slowly accelerated again, my thoughts somewhat jumbled. "Not my best moment." I muttered.
"On the contrary. You looked far more painfully awkward staring around at Embers." He said with a hint of his usual smarm. His previous unhappiness was nowhere to be found.
My face twisted. "I was admiring the decor." I grumbled. Honestly, it looked okay on its own, part of the reason I liked it so much was the novelty of the restaurant's style. I'd never seen anything else in that style. Part of me wondered if other high-class clubs were like that.
Jimmy remained silent. My mind was still stuck on what he's said before, though. I hadn't expected to have that impact on anyone, he seemed like a pompous jackass before, but there had been a palpable aura of need for something I couldn't name. It honestly worried me a great deal. I was going to have to make sure I kept a handle on that. I thought of how to change the subject. "You mentioned you thought I was on the brink of cyberpsychosis." I remembered. "What made you think that?"
"You're an Edgerunner." He said with a shrug. "A path like that can only end with Cyberpsychosis. Either that, or you die first."
Yeah, this seemed like knowledge derived from experience that was worth examining. "What makes you think that?" I asked out of curiosity.
"A decade of experience. I can confidently say that I've spent more time examining the intricacies of cyberpsychosis than anyone else in Night City. I've even had Maxtac request my expertise."
I blinked in surprise. "Maxtac? Really?" It seemed insane, imagining him working with Night City's finest crimefighters, especially considering the links he had with the criminal underworld.
"It's how I started out." He muttered. "Examining BDs of agents on the field and composing after action reports for members of Maxtac enforcers who wouldn't or couldn't."
My face scrunched up. "Couldn't?"
"Some Maxtac agents are equipped with Behavioral Inhibitor Programs. Or a chemical injection system with a whole suite of psychoactive agents." Jimmy shuddered. "Sifting through minds like those was like digging through nightmares."
…The fact that the NCPD apparently had brainwashed cybercops on their payroll somehow didn't surprise me. I remember reading something about them capturing cyberpsychos and re-deploying them as members of Maxtac back home, and it seemed hard to believe. This made it a little easier to take at face value. "And that's how you got your start?" I raised an eyebrow.
"Indeed. There was a market to feel rich, I knew that much, with all the celebrity BDs floating around. There was an unfulfilled niche to feel powerful." He answered. "It paid far better than I thought it would. I thought it'd only be a side hustle at first, but then…"
"You made goddamn bank." I finished for him.
He nodded, slowly. "I still have contacts from my time there, though I find far more use out of my network in City EMT. Those ones are more willing to get their hands dirty, digging through cyberware for scrolls."
"I see." A moment of silence passed as I continued to drive. "Aren't there Maxtac officers that retire, though? Not like they can keep going forever, right?"
"They do, sometimes." Jimmy acknowledged. "But they have psychosurgeons who hold them together until then. And when they quit, Maxtac rarely lets them keep the mil-spec cyberware they have, especially when it could be put to better use." Jimmy grinned. "And even then… I remember seeing a report of a former Maxtac officer strangling his spouse. Whether it was the effects of the chrome…" He shrugged. "Who can say? I certainly never got a BD out of it all."
I sputtered. "A man chokes his wife to death and all you can think of is how you can sell it?"
"Well, I imagine that it would sell." He admitted, rubbing his chin. "I mostly want an answer, though. Was it the hole in his soul where the metal was?"
… "That's pretty fucked." I stated. I still had a personal interest in this conversation, however. "That all being said, how does having mil-spec cyberware in your system affect your thinking?"
"It depends. I've seen all sorts of cyberware affect all sorts of people differently. One man with subdermal armor lost sight of the consequences to his actions, and attacked his boss. Managed a paltry two deaths before he was killed by a high-caliber turret installed in the ceiling. Another was so terrified of catching a bullet that chipping in the armor only worsened his fears. He managed a much more respectable eight before the NCPD located his den in the sewers." Jimmy chuffed. "Though, in that case, the deaths were so far apart editing them together and making them flow seamlessly was a challenge."
I tilted my head and gave him a brief glance. "What about Sandevistans?"
A sneer came out in full force, despite the glazed look in his eye. "The Sandy… now that's a piece of metal that was never meant to go with meat. The jitters are one thing, but that's nothing compared to the end result. Your 'ganic body will try, and it will fail to keep up with the chrome, because no matter what anyone tells you… nobody can."
He shook his head. "But no one ever learns. Eventually, all that's left is a pathetic, limp waste of meat, still trying to race lightning." There was an almost guttural tone to his voice.
The way he spoke of it sounded like Edgerunning in a nutshell, really.
In my case, I was pretty sure that I'd be able to adapt. Fractures, cuts and wounds all vanished from my body as my health bar rose back up. Hell, even the crack running through the vision in my cybereye was gone, and if that didn't say something about how I worked now, nothing would. And as I suffered that damage, I'd adapt to it until I could have it running constantly.
That wasn't the part that I was worried about, though. "But what about the mental aspect? Doesn't it mess with you to see people moving slow when you're faster? Make you think of them as… inferior, or something?"
There was a soft snort. "You think this city doesn't make you do that on its own?" He shook his head. "Naive."
I took a quiet glance at Jimmy Kurosaki. Illicit braindance editor, former maxtac analyst, rich man and probably a psychopath. I was pissed at him, I couldn't lie, but my anger had cooled. My feelings towards him were strangely mixed. I could respect his knowledge, his passion, hell, I could even respect his opportunism to an extent. That being said, the idea of him not paying for what he'd done sickened me. It wasn't just that Jimmy Kurosaki needed to go, it simply didn't seem right for him to continue on.
Was that the city? It didn't feel like it. It felt like a conclusion that I'd come to on my own, based on whatever passed for my idea of karma. Or justice. Or what was good for humanity in general. Sure, I had been going to do so anyway as part of a plan, but… the guy had tried to kill me for the pleasure of watching me die. There was only so far my self-reflection could dig before it hit the bedrock, the lizard part of my brain that dictated in simple terms. 'Try to kill me and you die.'
I still had to ask, though. "Don't you think that constantly editing BDs of Edgerunners having gone cyberpsycho might have made you a little biased?"
"Perhaps." He freely admitted. "But what else could be at the end of the Edgerunner's road? The edge moves forward faster than any man can catch. They transform themselves, seeking to become the cutting edge, but every time they dig into their bodies with scraps, the edge has already moved on. And as they become aware of their mortality, and they realize what's at stake… they accelerate. And then off they go, screaming over the brink."
I nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense. Nobody can be all of the future at once. Honestly though, as a guy looking from the outside in? You'd think it'd be netrunning that fucks you up and not cybernetics, right? I mean…" I chuffed. "Jacking in and wandering about cyberspace? Seeing the ones and zeroes? Grabbing ahold of and messing with data? That would be what cracks the human brain if nothing else. Then again, I guess all the people who go crazy thinking that they're actually AI simply starve to death in their chairs, but still."
Then, it quietly hit me what I'd just said. Outside looking in? Fuck. Fuck! …Fuck. Why the hell did I have to say that? At least he's going to forget all this when the trance wears off.
…Whelp. Might as well get this load off my chest. Not like I could tell anyone else. "Did you know I didn't… come from here?" I hesitantly asked.
"It was very obvious." Jimmy said.
I blinked. "It was?"
The look on Jimmy's face was flat as he stared down at the screen. "You were talking about the fat in steak." I quietly palmed my face as it struck me. Goddamnit. "Really, you couldn't have been more obvious if you tried." There was a hint of amusement in Jimmy's tone.
"...You know what? Fair enough." I sighed. "I'm essentially an alien vampire-slash-parasite." I paused. "From the past."
A long moment of silence spread out. A heard a snort that broke into a fit of giggling as Jimmy curled over. Was that a tear I saw in the corner of his eye? "What?" He wheezed.
I couldn't help giggling a little myself. "I'm serious! I'm not- I'm not even from this planet at all!" I was desperately holding back a cackle.
"That… no. You're not. You're insane." Jimmy shook his head, exasperation leaking through his dull voice.
"Is it really that hard to believe?" I said with a grin. "I actually grow a little stronger with every bit of lifeforce I take, you see. And Night City… it's just filled to the brim with the morally reprehensible. And nobody even cares!" I chuckled, before sobering a bit. "Well, not that I had a choice coming here, though. And that aside, if I actually hit the thousands or something, people are going to start paying attention, but until then, it's smooth sailing. And honestly, once I get to that point, who the hell could stop me?" I paused. "Well, maybe humanity would be able to stop me with a continuous nuclear barrage at my general location, or something."
Then again, wouldn't my Vit eventually grow higher after taking all that punishment? It's not like I'd permanently die from a nuke, anyways. Christ, when you put it that way, it made me feel like a mini-version of a certain Spider from Mercury(?). …Huh. Come to think of it. I even sorta had the webbing, with [Sorairo Days].
And goddamn did that make it sound unfair. Not the kind of unfairness that I hated, though. I would respawn forever, but I could still experience defeat. I wouldn't just be some sort of invincible hedonist in a world full of toys. The things I would get up to… I shuddered, before shoving those thoughts in a box.
Jimmy just groaned. "This is who I've been looking for all along? A schizophrenic dreampainter of a eurocrat?"
My face twisted. "What makes you think I'm from Europe?" I hissed out the word like a curse.
"Your naivete? Your lack of cyberware yet remarkable agility? What could that be, if not the work of Swiss clinics?" He asked, genuinely baffled.
"I keep telling you. Alien vampire." I paused, as I made a turn. "That being said, I am a Brit."
"What." His voice was even flatter than before.
"Yeah, God save the Queen and all that." I tilt my head slightly. "Actually, is she still around? I always wondered if she'd end up some sort of immortal techno-lich or something."
"Victoria the second?" He said, sounding somewhat confused. "Well, I heard she was getting on in years, but…"
Victoria? Now, I might be stupid, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't the right name. "No, no. I meant Elizabeth." I stated.
"...Who?"
"Oh. Guess she's gone here too, then. Well, I never particularly liked her, anyways. Not like I wanted her gone or anything, but I never saw what the fuss was all about." I made another turn. "Still don't understood why tourists went to see the palace so often. Whelp. Guess Victoria's in charge. Hope she doesn't strike any deals with the space bats and sink London or anything." I paused. "Or kill a star."
Complete. Dead. Silence.
"So yeah, I'm sorta European, I guess." I freely admitted.
"The UK isn't even part of the EEC." He stressed. "It hasn't been for decades!"
"The what?" I blinked, staring at him.
Jimmy was still staring at the screen, but he looked like he was having a conniption. "The United Kingdom?"
"No, the other thing. The EEC? The European…" I trailed off.
"...The European Economic Community." He said, sounding utterly spent. "I actually find it easier to believe that you're an alien, now."
"That's because I am." I said. There was a moment of silence, as I dug into my other set of memories "…Oh, so that's why everybody uses eurodollars, now?" I asked.
Jimmy made a sound like he was being strangled. I couldn't help but let out another burst of giggles.
----------------------------------------
I pulled into what seemed to be an abandoned warehouse somewhere in the middle of Watson as the call ended. I paused as I glanced around at the crumbling architecture. It didn't seem like it had been occupied before. "This the place?"
There was a beat of silence. An eyeball opened up on the side of his head and glanced towards the warehouse. "Indeed it is." He said.
"Uh huh. And I don't suppose that there are some armed drones inside, are there?" I said, raising an eyebrow at him.
…
"There might be." A slight smile spread over his face. "Maybe you should go and check."
I sighed, suddenly feeling more tired than I could ever remember being. "Do you or do you not have armed drones in your studio, Jimmy?"
"What's it to you?" He said with a vaguely smug look on his face.
"Worth a bullet." I declared, prodding my Overture into the side of his head. I considered the thought for a moment, before speaking, my voice dripping with smarm. "It's important to me, Jimmy my pal. My friendo. My choomberino."
"Oh." He muttered. "Then yes, I do have armed drones in my studio. And… don't call me that again."
"Fan-fucking-tastic." I took my hand off my gun. "Call them off, will you?"
"And leave my studio and work vulnerable to all sorts of street scum?" He said, seeming vaguely affronted at the very idea.
"Oh, that's nothing to worry about." I mimicked his tone earlier in the evening with a lazy grin, before it vanished. Right. The time was coming to do the deed. Clock hands were slowly ticking towards midnight.
After a little pushing and some promises that the drones were, in fact, one hundred percent called off, we got out of the car. I stopped before we left it alone. The Caliburn was sleek. Beautiful. And what was more, I was absolutely certain it'd be worth a great deal of money.
The only question was… how the hell would I hide it? Jimmy's place was about to be Compromised with a capital C, and if I drove it anywhere, chances were it was going to turn heads, and I doubted I could leave it alone for a second without some jackass trying to klep it.
There was an obvious answer. The inventory. That being said…
[Item Too Large]
Yep. Figured.
But it didn't make much sense, when you thought about it. I was carrying a fuckton of hardware, and I wasn't joking about the ton. I'd been collecting not just dozens of guns and bullets, but also other items I might find useful. Explosive canisters, bundles of rope, even furniture, like chairs and mattresses and the like. I wasn't sure if all of it put together outweighed a car, but the point was, it wasn't like I felt any strain with what I currently had. And the notice still referred to the car as an item. That probably counted for something.
So what was it that stopped me from moving the car in? Well, the size of the inventory was one of those things, but [Sorairo Days] wires could stretch in for meters and meters, and there didn't seem to be any difference between the wires and inventory window in terms of substance, so… why not stretch out the windows?
An inventory screen snapped open, and I grabbed ahold of it, I moved it around a little, getting a feel for handling what was essentially a part of my soul. When I didn't feel anything, I began to pull it outwards slowly. I managed to pull it out to an arms length before feeling some real resistance holding the window from expanding even further.
I briefly thought about what tearing it would mean, and I stopped. I experimentally broke off a tip of the window, and the piece in my hand crumbled into disintegrating orange circuitry before it faded away, and I watched as more circuits filled in the 'wound' before solidifying into a window. Having felt no ill effects yet, I took a deep breath, and I began to pull it out with more force.
Putting everything I had into it, I managed to stretch it out as far as my arms. I grit my teeth as I strained, holding it open for a moment longer… before I released it with a huff. Quickly at first, but then slowly, the window began to shrink again. Okay, it still wasn't large enough to fit the car, though. That being said, there were still avenues I could go to.
I took a few deep, steady breaths, and energy began to fill my body. A soft golden aura shone over me that slowly grew brighter and brighter. I took one more deep pull before I seized my inventory window and pulled.
With my enhanced strength from the energy, I pulled it out as far as my arms could go, but that wouldn't be enough. [Sorairo Days] began to glow and spark as well, cords crawling up the walls and securing themselves before reaching towards the inventory window. One by one, the circuits latched on like webbing, and together, we pulled it out even further.
It felt like I was pulling on [Reflex], but different, like it was my body rather than my mind that was being put under stress. Slowly, the window yawned wider and wider as I let go, [Sorairo Days] now doing all the pulling. Messing around with [Mana Barrier] helped a little, though I was pulling something apart rather than pinching it together.
I went behind the car and began to push. It was easier than I expected, though I wasn't doing it particularly quickly. Really, the problem was getting the traction for it, but [Hamon] helped with that, helping me hold my foot to the ground with enough force to keep it moving.
As the car slowly entered the crackling window, I began to feel more and more physical strain, something like a combo of heartburn and muscle aches running through my entire body. The physical wellness and strength derived from [Hamon] helped me handle it, but it sure as hell wasn't something I wanted to suffer through any longer than absolutely necessary.
With a grunt, I shoved the last of the car in, and I hit the ground. The window snapped shut and vanished as I lay there, panting. As expected, a notice popped up.
[Inventory Weight Limit Exceeded. Speed Lowered and Sprint Disabled.]
[Vehicle Tab Unlocked]
Yeah, I didn't feel like sprinting either, [Sorairo Days]. I groaned as I flipped over, and slowly hauled myself to my feet. I felt like I was walking around with a set of weights tied to my shoulders.
Well, on the bright side, I think I've figured out a new strength grinding trick!
[Strength: 49 > 50]
…Goddamn, that felt nice to see.
Of course, it hurt like a bitch, but what was gain without effort? What was sweat if not fat crying? I blinked as I felt a drop slide down my face. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd felt myself sweat. I wasn't even sure that I could, with [Gamer's Body].
Seems like even it had limits, though I imagined those limits would slowly rise as I did this sort of thing. I wondered what it would be like. Maybe I'd actually turn into some sort of video game character, bleeding pixels instead of blood? That'd be sort of cool, even if it'd be hard to hide.
I staggered into Jimmy's office, and slowly I began preparing my ambush, laying grenades around the doorway and taping them down to the walls and the door. I dug an explosive canister out of my inventory and set it next to the door. And then a few more for good measure.
I wanted to be damned sure that the data was absolutely unsalvageable.
"You sure this is where Tanaka is going to come through?" I asked him as I dragged a canister next to the door.
"I'm quite sure."
I stared at the veritable minefield I'd set up. "You think this will be enough?"
Jimmy snorted from his place on the stairs, staring at the agent he held in his hands. "With that level of prep, it feels like you're hunting a cyberpsycho, not an executive. What's he done to deserve all this?"
"Technically nothing." I paused, then I thought about the reasons why and I caved. "Well, he's gathered some data that he shouldn't have."
"And just like that, a blueblood bites the dust?" He let out a soft sigh. "Remarkable. It seems like you can't do anything in this city without stepping on the wrong toes, no matter who you are."
I huffed as I got up from where I was done taping one last incendiary grenade to the ground. "Let's not count our chickens before they hatch. And remember, it was your bright idea to take a swing at me directly, especially when you thought I was some sort of superhuman ballerina."
A map flickered into existence ahead of me, and I stared at it as an icon drew closer and closer. This was it. End of the line.
"Hey Jimmy?"
"Yes?" He said, not turning from the agent.
"Do you think you can turn over a new leaf?" I glanced over towards him. According to what I knew, everything since he started being entranced would be forgotten. He'd probably be startled out of trance by me killing Tanaka, but I could probably put him back under trance right after. Issue was the escape. I could probably slip away by myself with the aid of [Covert Talent]. Problem was, there was still everything before that point. The cyberpsycho. The XBDs.
Jimmy was a bastard, plain and simple. But if he could change… well, I felt behooved to at least ask if he could, even if I wasn't sure what I could do about it.
He paused, seeming to think about his response. "Why would I change?" He asked.
I genuinely didn't have an answer, for a moment. "Because you drove a guy insane, loaded him up with cyberware and threw him at me in an attempt to kill me, and it… was a risk you didn't need to take? Why can't you just edit XBDs and live the high life? You'd be contributing to the fucked up state of Night City, but…" I helplessly shrugged. "I just don't get it. Why the murder?"
"Because it'd get me what I want. And because… I was bored." He simply replied. "Finding the scroll for Lieutenant Colonel was swell… but I've scrolled it a hundred times already. Silly of me, I know. I should have spread it out more." He shrugged. "But what could you do? It was a slow week."
I stared at him without words.
Jimmy raised an eyebrow. "Don't you feel the same?"
I thought about it. It struck a strange, fucked-up cord with me. I remembered only a while ago, I'd been going out to grab EXP in order to break up the monotony of grinding my stats. In retrospect it seemed a lot more fucked to think about. "Sorta?" I tried.
He nodded slightly. "I imagine you feel it, like I do. The boredom. Or at least, you did." He amended after a moment. "...Whatever life you lived was on the lap of luxury. Steak and stories. I can't think of anything else that'd leave you this soft."
There was a quiet intensity to his gaze. "I worked my way up to this level. I put myself through the worst Night City had to offer, and I learned how to package it, to sell it to people like you, people who wanted to experience some sort of color, some meaning in their hollow lives."
That word caught my mind like a hook. "...Do you have any meaning to your life, now?" I couldn't help but ask.
"I…" Jimmy paused, and thought for a long, hard while. His gaze narrowed. "I want to see… truly interesting examples of cyberpsychosis."
I thought about it for a moment. So like a sort of hedonism, except it came at the expense of others. Especially when you were egging them on. "Well, it's something, I guess." Something vile, but still something. What did I have in comparison? A slow, steady climb to the top, which was good and all, but Jimmy had made his own climb, and he was in a way living a facet of the life I wanted.
If I got into the same position as him, what would I have? Just… vacuuming up EXP and grinding forever? Doing the same in new and interesting places? Climbing to the top, again and again like some sort of Xianxia light novel that didn't know when to stop, and eventually dying when I pissed off some multiversal devourer of realities or something?
Ah, the question that broke Meti's student. God-emperor, master of thousands of worlds, bearer of the fires of creation and complete simpleton, according to Meti herself. What then?
…Well, I figured it was something that I figured out on the way up, right? Jimmy probably didn't care about exploring the depths of cyberpsychosis like he did now, back when he was starting. It seemed a little like procrastinating, staving off the question for the future, but finding a purpose right now seemed like I'd be rushing it instead.
The meaning of life aside… "When you kill someone, there's other things to take into consideration, like whether or not the guy on the other end should die, right? Don't you think about that? At all?" I asked.
There was a hint of pondering in his voice. "Well, I do sometimes consider whether someone would be worth more alive than dead."
…Okay, yeah. I really wasn't seeing much of a reason Jimmy should stay alive. It was almost hilarious how fucked in the head he was. Like it was too justifiable to end him. "Have you really never thought about the inherent value of a human life or anything along those lines? Ever?" I tried.
"Maybe I once did." The tone in his voice seemed wistful. "But honestly, I can't remember."
There was a strange pang of melancholy as I stared at him. Then, I heaved a deep sigh. I spoke up wearily. "Turn around, Jimmy."
As he did so, I quietly began to screw on a silencer. Outside, I could hear a car pulling up to the warehouse. Tanaka was here. Last chance to ask anything I wanted to know. It felt like I had a thousand questions, but one in particular bubbled up in my mind over the others. "...You mentioned dreampainting before. What is that?"
"Theft. Plain and simple." He muttered. "Goldenboys and Goldengirls looking at the Edgerunner way of life and seeing the legend and style of those who hit the major leagues, and aping it. Poorly." There was a snarl to his voice.
"How so?" I questioned.
"They'd build legends." He spat the word out like a curse. "Form up into little pantheons of their own. The solo, of course. The runner, the media, the fixer, the rockin' euro, the eurocorpo." He shook his head lightly with obvious disgust.
"They looked at the legends built here, saw something they didn't have, and thought they could do better. Pah." He sniffed. "Then though, the movement trickled down. The streetkids started getting ideas. Finding ambitions and sharpening them like shivs. It's no quest for the edge, but I suppose a dream is a dream." He finished with an odd note in his voice.
"A dream is a dream." I tilted my head. There was something here I could only barely decipher. But I didn't have time to think. There could only be the last thing I needed to know. "Have you ever thought about your last words?"
"Not particularly." He said with a shrug.
"Mm. Figures." I lifted my Overture at him, and my Nova at the door. I heard heavy footsteps slowly approaching, and I took a deep breath, feeling life itself course through my veins, fighting back the strain on my system.
See you, Jimmy. Past the wild, pale yonder.
----------------------------------------
She felt cold, and naked. This was always the case when it came to cyberspace, but it was more intense the further from her body, and the deeper she went. Diving through subnets was one thing, but running in a mainframe felt like she was constantly sinking. The silence was suffocating, and the walls were only ever closer together.
Blocky, hideous and obsolete systems parted around her with a flicker of thought. Firewalls dissolved, and Lucy took another step closer to the core of the computer's database. She snatched ahold of the contents, and drew it towards her, like pulling a cord. A stream of data flowed. There was a lot here, mostly XBDs and scrolls. She'd have to content herself with everything up to last year, she just didn't have the space for anything more.
She glanced through the data as it flowed in. There were some files that she could quickly scan for any hints, but there was no way that she could interpret the rest of it like she was now. BDs were meant to be played on wreaths, not in the middle of a deep dive. She'd have to go through it later, though she did not like the prospect of digging through Kurosaki's latest hits for a hint. Maybe she could have Pilar do it instead?
Her eyes narrowed. No. Pilar's apartment was compromised. Pilar himself was probably compromised. Rebecca and David went without saying. Maine would ask too many questions. Dorio would ask Maine. Kiwi would figure out something was wrong, and if she dug into him… Lucy suppressed a shudder at the thought. No, it had to be her, only she had anything close to the chrome for it.
She'd dug into Ron Robinson a short while, checking his story, and the files fit. The story rang true.
But then they'd met again, and she'd seen a clue of what was under the mask.
---
"Preem!" Rebecca said with a cheery smile as she withdrew her gun from Pilar's face. Lucy was just flabbergasted. What the hell was even happening? She couldn't be this blind to danger, could she?
Except that she absolutely was. Lucy thought to herself with a groan. It was always action before thought with Rebecca. Emotion over logic. She'd had to hit the 'snooze button' on her plenty of times before because of it.
Fine. Let Rebecca be the distraction while she worked. It was a dynamic that fit the two of them well enough. Lucy reached out with her mind, and tendrils of data flowed forwards towards the unaware Ron. She already had his SIN, what else would be useful? His agent, obviously. He might have a well-hidden internal agent, but his genuine agent could still be a thread to pull at. Consumer electronics were simple, no matter what the slogans said. All she'd have to give one little push and-
[ACCESS DENIED]
She was in cyberspace, staring at a monolith, black, smooth and featureless. She was staring at a scarlet sword driven deep into the ground, dripping with the blood of the city. She was staring at herself, a furious reflection with razor monofilaments stretched taut around herself, a deathtrap.
It towered over the jagged, buzzing labyrinth of Night City, taller than even the pillar in the center. It stretched upwards to the sky, unbound by gravity and logic. It reached the moon and passed it.
She could not see the top.
---
She did not know what she'd seen that night, but it was like nothing she'd ever seen before. Zilch. Nada. She could not imagine what it would be like to dive into that thing masquerading as an agent, but the idea of it alone caused her to break out in hives.
Razzle wasn't a pawn. Sixty beats per minute. When he walked. When he ran. When he fought. When he slept. When he laughed. When he lied. Never did the thing that looked like a heart miss a beat. Whatever he was, he was too… wrong for her to ignore, or for her to not worry about for long. So she'd put him under watch, a program that tracked him whenever it could find him on the city's CCTV as she rifled through his life story looking for answers.
If only she'd found any.
Which begged the question. What the hell had Jimmy Kurosaki wanted from him? And more importantly, what the hell could he want from Jimmy Kurosaki?
The digital walls around her jittered for a moment, before returning to normal. Lucy's head snapped up, and she glanced at a progress bar that she pulled up. 97%... 99%... Done. She ripped the cord of data out of her and vanished from the mainframe, emerging into the structured chaos of the local net.
Signatures were approaching from the distance. Stark white programs as recognizable to her as the Zetatech Atlus aerodynes they were hosted on. Trauma Team. But in the distance, she could see something else. Lucy's vision flickered to a CCTV camera on top of the building they were in, noticing quickly that the camera at the door was offline, and hissed to herself as she saw smoke.
What the hell had happened?
She followed the trail of data back into the system, and drank. The seconds wound back on the footage, and events flowed in reverse. A flash reconstituted the front door, and blood and guts reincorporated into a familiar face.
Chairman Tanaka.
Lucy wanted to tear her hair out. Why was he here? Was this all somehow related to the Tanaka job after all? Was that the reason why Razzle had dug his hooks into half the crew? God-fucking damnit, why wouldn't Faraday tell them what they were looking for?!
She pushed down ruthlessly on her frustration, shoving it deep into the recesses of her mind. To hell with it, the Tanaka job was a bust, whatever data Faraday wanted, he could see if the EMTs could piece it back together. Just as well, too. Poking around Arasaka business in their backyard had always been a risky prospect, now she could wash her hands of it all.
The question though, was what could she get out of this. Kiwi's lessons flashed through her mind. There was little the more experienced Netrunner could teach her with regard to hacking, but she'd learned everything about being a Netrunner under her wing. And the first thing she'd learned was that the essence of Netrunning was buying, trading for and selling secrets.
And the data she had spooling in her hands was a secret of the deadliest kind, but only if it'd remain so. She turned to look at the distant pillar of light that was the Arasaka tower. She could see flickers of red crawling outwards, making their way towards her location. She sneered at them as she clutched her footage tightly, and flicked a wrist at the warehouse.
All at once, the local netspace ignited with a chalk-colored flame that crackled like electricity, hungrily devouring the data. Meanwhile in reality, a computer terminal lost use of its cooling system, and began to smoke as electronics began the process of irreversibly melting into slag.
She turned and left the burning system behind her. It didn't matter how little she knew if Razzle knew nothing about her. In all the time that she'd watched him, it'd become clear to her that he didn't have a clue that she was watching. And now… she had something else over him. An ace up her sleeve. Possibly two.
One was a solid chunk of footage that she'd have to edit down, starting from Razzle chasing down Jimmy Kurosaki, abducting him in his own car, and a long chain of CCTV feeds, detailing his route to Watson, topped off with Tanaka's violent death at his destination.
The second she'd have to parse through to find out, but given the two Trauma Team aerodynes making their way here, there was something well worth her while, in the pile of files she'd extracted from JK's computer. She wondered if it were the BDs or something else that had provoked Razzle to action. She couldn't help but look forward to finding out.
Lucy allowed herself a cold smile as she lifted up a red diamond and a black arrowhead of data, watching as they slowly orbited each other over the palm of her hand.