-Diary Log 4/11/2052-
Dear Diary
I’m beginning to notice that the edges of my memories are fraying, details from my previous life and the game that once meant everything are slowly fading away. It feels like each day, more of that past slips into obscurity, leaving me with only vague impressions of people, places, and experiences.
Last night, I rummaged through my old files and realized I was losing access to moments I once cherished. In an effort to reconnect with those lost memories, I repaired an old 2030 laptop, a clunky relic that I had found lying in the trash. I spent hours carefully repairing it, restoring its battered circuits and coaxing its grainy display back to life.
This old machine might seem outdated by today’s standards, but it’s become my personal archive, a reminder of who I was and the world I once knew. All the details I remember from the game are on that laptop, and for now, it’s my only link to the past, a fragile bridge to memories I fear is slipping away.
See you tomorrow,
Ellia
-Log end-
-Night City 2064-
The air in my father’s office was sterile, scrubbed of any scent, any hint of organic decay, as if the room itself rejected the messy chaos of life. Biotechnica’s obsession with order wasn’t confined to pristine labs; it seeped into every polished surface and rigid protocol, a silent edict that even our souls were subject to control.
I stepped inside, the automated security scans, a barrage of heat signatures, biometric verifications, and micro-expression analyses, reminding me once again that I was never truly alone in this fortress of corporate precision. Every step echoed the relentless hum of machinery, a constant reminder that even in silence, the system was always watching.
At the far end of the expansive, minimalist space, Ian McCallister, my father, remained engrossed in the cold glow of his holo-screens. The blue light carved harsh shadows along the sharp angles of his face, etching lines of exhaustion and duty that he’d long since learned to hide. He barely glanced up as I approached.
“You have something for me?” he asked, his tone clipped and businesslike,a voice that brooked no nonsense.
I placed a small data-shard on his immaculate desk with deliberate care. “The research team isn’t compromised,” I said, my voice steady despite the turbulence inside. “They’re dirty,cutting corners, inflating results, committing minor fraud to keep the higher-ups smiling. Nothing big enough to justify a full-blown breach.”
My father looks through the data shard and pauses.
“And?”
I leaned against the chair across from him, arms folded as if to guard the uneasy truth I’d uncovered.
“Someone who calls themselves songbird has been digging through our files.”
At that single word, I saw a subtle shift in his posture, and then he leaned back and cursed.
“You already knew,” I said flatly, the words hanging between us like an accusation.
He exhaled slowly, the sound measured and heavy. “We’ve been tracking that name. We have a full cybersec team monitoring this project, and she somehow still slipped through,” he admitted.
I crossed my arms tighter. “So you know who Songbird is?”
Ignoring my question, he finally drew the shard toward him and began a full security decryption.
“How much did you find?”
I shook my head. “Not much. They were covering their tracks too well. I only got the name because I happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
Turning back to his display, he continued, “Songbird isn’t just some rogue netrunner. They emerged out of nowhere this year and immediately began to disrupt our operations.”
I stiffened. “How big of a problem?”
He tapped a command, and a list of project designations filled the screen. Most were indecipherable codes, but one pattern stood stark: multiple military projects had been delayed beyond 2069.
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“Every time we near the finalization of a military contract, our data… just vanishes,” he said, his voice low and measured. “No breach alerts. No external access logs—nothing remains but empty data fields.”
I stared at the list, disbelief mingling with dread.
“How is that even possible?”
“That’s the problem,” he replied. “There’s no pattern, no consistent method. And it’s not just us—our contacts in Arasaka, Zetatech, and Kang Tao in the free states have all reported the same phenomenon. Their high-priority R&D projects disappear from their systems, leaving only broken progress reports and ghostly echoes of what was meant to be.”
A chill crept up my spine.
“And the only common thread?”
He paused, letting the silence emphasize his next words.
“The name Songbird.”
I let out a slow, measured exhale, my fingers tightening against my arms.
“So why haven’t you stopped them?”
He sighed, his gaze darkening as he met mine once more. “Do you think we haven’t tried?” His tone was weary, laced with a resignation that made my stomach twist.
“We’ve thrown every resource at it—top security specialists, forensic netrunners, internal spies. Every time we close in, the trail evaporates. It’s like trying to catch a shadow.”
I leaned forward, studying the shifting list on his screen.
“And no leads beyond the name?”
His eyes narrowed. “No lead, but a pattern.”
I tilted my head. “What?”
“Militech.”
I blinked. “Come again?”
My father tapped the screen again, pulling up a separate list. This one detailed Militech’s ongoing projects, each with its pristine status indicator. Not a single delay. Not a single compromised file.
“They’ve been completely unaffected,” he stated evenly. “Every other major military-tech corporation has had their R&D progress crippled by this anomaly. But Militech? Not one project shows a disruption. Nightcorp also seems to remain unhacked, but if they got hacked, we’ve got an even bigger problem on our hands.”
I exhaled slowly, the implications settling like a weight.
“So either Songbird is working for Militech”
“Or Militech somehow has better cybersecurity than all of us, which is extremely unlikely,” he finished his tone void of any pretense of alarm.
A long silence stretched between us, heavy with unspoken truths.
This wasn’t merely corporate espionage—it was a glitch in the very fabric of the military-industrial complex, a prelude to something far larger.
I took a step back, my mind racing.
“So what do we do?”
He leaned back in his chair, his eyes locked on the endless streams of data.
“You stay where you are,” he said simply, as though my presence in cybersec was the linchpin in a puzzle I had yet to fully comprehend.
And for the first time, I realized:
Songbird wasn’t just wiping data. She was delaying something. Waiting.
Something big was going to happen in 2069.
----------------------------------------
The neon gloom of Night City softened as I retreated into the quiet isolation of my apartment. I slid open the battered drawer where I’d hidden my old 2030 laptop. Its scuffed casing and dim, flickering screen were constant reminders of a past life—a time when I clung desperately to every scrap of digital memory.
“Songbird,” I murmured to myself. I knew that name well. I powered on the deck in complete isolation; it wasn’t connected to any network, and its solitary SSD stored all the fragments I remembered from the game. The familiar, grainy interface loaded slowly as I began scrolling through a dossier filled with names I vaguely recalled—V, Jackie, Rebecca, Lucy, Maine, Mokoto, and others. I paused to run some names through the Biotechnica database on my main laptop.
“Who the fuck is Mokoto Kusanagi?” I muttered. The Biotechnica intelligence database I had access to due to my job revealed she was a three-year-old child of some Tiger Claw edgerunners. “She wouldn’t even be an adult by the time 2077 rolled around,” I thought, then shrugged and continued.
Eventually, my cursor landed on a file labeled “So Mi.” Opening it, I was drawn into a meticulously compiled dossier detailing Song So Mi—alias Songbird—a major character from Cyberpunk 2077 DLC: Phantom Liberty. According to the data I’d written, Song So Mi was a brilliant netrunner and intelligence analyst for NUSA, serving as President Myers’ right hand. What grabbed me most was her signature technique: in the game, she was notorious for using the Blackwall to hack robots and take down targets—literally dismantling defenses and eliminating foes with ruthless precision.
In that moment, I understood how she was erasing data so cleanly. She was using the Blackwall. I ran a series of diagnostic scripts on my main rig, watching lines of code cascade across the screen as I pieced together the evidence. The patterns were deliberate—every byte of sensitive information vanished as if it had never existed. It wasn’t merely a defensive trick; she had mastered using the Blackwall offensively, ensuring that every hack left no trace behind.
A bitter irony tugged at me as I recalled how much I’d forgotten since being reborn into this corporate nightmare. Songbird was just a character in Cyberpunk 2077. It had been 25 years, and I’d lost many details that once defined who I was. Yet the enigma of Song So Mi stirred something deep within—a reminder that the game was slowly bleeding into reality.
Suddenly, I paused. My father had mentioned that every project was delayed past 2069. Why was that year so important? My heart pounded as I dug deeper into the DLC files. Dogtown? Pacifica—the tourist resort under construction? Then it dawned on me: in the game, Pacifica was a wasteland because of the Unification War—the conflict between the New United States and the Free States of North America.
Well, shit.