-Diary Log 3/22/2052-

Dear Diary,

Tonight, as I sit here in the dim glow of my monitor, I’m knee-deep in customizing my favorite quickhack from a game in another life, Contagion. I spent most of the evening poring over every line, testing small changes here and there to see how it reacts. It's kind of like solving a puzzle where every piece matters.

There were moments when I had to restart the code because something didn’t work, and I even had to debug a tricky segment that was causing unexpected errors. I guess that's part of the fun—each setback is just another challenge to overcome. I really enjoy the process of tweaking and testing, watching the hack evolve bit by bit into something uniquely mine.

It’s funny making something so deadly for fun in my free time, but father seems to approve this one more than my other projects. I’m not thinking about grand ideas or anything outside of getting the code just right. Tonight, it's all about focus, patience, and the satisfaction of watching my work come to life.

I felt in control.

See you tomorrow,

Ellia

-Log end-

Night City 2064

I awaken with a pounding headache and a metallic tang in my mouth. My wrists were tied behind me, ankles bound. The room reeked of stale dampness and rusted metal. Grayish concrete walls surrounded me, lit by a single flickering overhead lamp.

Breathing shallowly through my nose, I forced my eyes to focus. I was in a small empty storage room, out the door there were crates piled in corners and a broken forklift near one wall. It looked like some abandoned warehouse—Night City had plenty of those. I tested the ropes on my wrists. Too tight. Each time I twisted, rough fibers cut into my skin.

Footsteps echoed from behind a half-collapsed wall. My heart pounded. Stay calm. I angled my head to see who approached. One of the men was Changeling, who wore the face of “Grant Flowers.” He gave me a smug, sideways grin, arms folded.

“Fancy seeing you again, Miss McCallister,” he said. His tone carried a mocking lilt. “Seems we couldn’t avoid each other after all.”

I glared, struggling to sound braver than I felt. “What do you want?”

He exchanged a look with his masked ally. “Straight to the point, huh? We want a certain piece of data your father holds dear—Project Seraph. He’s been… stubborn.” The masked ally nodded but remained silent. Changeling circled around me, eyes narrowed. “We tried infiltration, subtlety. You didn’t play ball. So we decided on direct leverage.”

I tried to activate my cyberdeck, but a jolt went through my head from something on my attached to my head.

Changeling laughed, “That my dear is a voltage regulator. It will prevent you from using that cyberdeck of yours. Pretty good gear your have though.”

A chill ran through me as I tried to change the subject. “You think he’ll hand it over just because you have me?”

Changeling’s smirk faded. “Eventually, yes. But it won’t just be him. We have a buyer who’s ready to pay top eurodollars for Seraph’s specs. That means we need your father’s direct cooperation, or at least enough keys to unlock the final encryption. We figure holding you might speed up the process. Shame your ID doesn’t access any of your father’s assets, this could’ve been so much easier.”

I let out a slow breath, heart slamming in my chest. This was beyond petty sabotage. They had me as a hostage to extort my father—and possibly force him to yield on his prized R&D. “He’ll never give you anything,” I spat, more out of defiance than certainty.

Changeling shrugged. “We’ll see. We have ways to persuade him. But first, you’ll help us. Your corpo clearance is not enough. We need your real biometric data to access your family accounts.”

He crouched near me, pulling out a portable scanning device. Before I could jerk away, he pressed it against my left palm. The device beeped, a green line passing over my skin. I bit back a curse as it stung. “Stop squirming,” he muttered. “We just need some baseline prints. Next step is verifying your retinas.”

“You’re insane,” I hissed, trying to twist free. The ropes cut deeper.

He rolled his eyes. “Save your breath. This is business, not personal.”

I almost laughed at that. Not personal? You abducted me. But the words died on my tongue. A masked ally rummaged through crates, returning with a battered old comm system. He fiddled with the controls, presumably contacting someone.

Changeling rose. “We’ll be in touch, Miss McCallister. Don’t try anything stupid.”

They stepped away, leaving me alone in the gloom. My mind raced, flipping from fear to anger and back again. They wanted my biometrics, but for the highest-level encryption, they’d also need real-time login sequences. Maybe they thought they could force me to comply, or simply tear the codes from me. A wave of nausea hit. Why was I never in control? In that suffocating moment, my thoughts splintered into chaos. I remembered every time I had fought to reclaim even a fraction of my agency, each victory now reduced to ashes by this merciless violation In that moment of searing clarity both from my fatherand now Changeling.

I tried to think about my situation, I had Trauma Team Platinum coverage—but what did that even mean when the world around me was dissolving into digital madness? My subdermal transmitter, a tiny promise of salvation, pulsed within me, ready to send out an SOS if I bled out. But my HUD was a disjointed smear of static—a single, blinking “No external link” message mocking me. They’d jammed my signal, trapped me in this hellish cocoon with a vicious radio frequency net-scrambler. The rescue was impossible until I could disable the jammer.

My heart hammered like a deranged drum as I took a ragged breath. Focus, I screamed inwardly, though my mind was splintering into fractured code and fevered impulses. My father’s rescue was a myth; if these bastards discovered my secret transmitter, they’d carve me open and rip it from me. I had to act—now—before the void swallowed me whole.

I scanned the bleak warehouse: a derelict stage of a broken forklift, piles of rusted crates, and ghostly catwalks overhead. Tangled cables slithered along the walls like the veins of some monstrous machine. Somewhere in that tangled mess lay the jammer—the malignant heartbeat keeping me locked away from salvation. I mapped out the plan in shattered fragments: free myself, hunt down that damned jammer, and obliterate it so my signal could finally scream into the night.

Desperation fused with insanity as I slammed my cyberdeck into overdrive, pushing its processors past the edge of reason disabling all the regulators. I forced my mind to feed it raw, unfiltered chaos—a barrage of commands, surging through every circuit. The overload hit like a tidal wave; my deck roared as it drove the voltage regulator beyond its limits. With a scream of sparks, the regulator seared and spluttered, its metal flesh melting under the torrent of my manic will. The regulator’s dying sparks danced like fireflies in a storm, and in that moment, I tasted freedom in its pure, unbridled, and terrifying form.

I was… free. No–not free. A lie. I was a *trap*—a *wound*... a device malfunctioning. Burned. *Sizzling*. Head->explode. Piece by piece, piece by *fracture*. Can’t… Screens—static, pulse, pulse. Heartbeat. Drip. I am… Free? No, not... I’d be lost. Broken terminal. I don't know. A scream of light. Twisting. The edges seared into me. *Voltages* remember. I...I remember I remember a flash, a screaming buzzer. Chained to the glitching web. Opaque. Don’t know, can’t know. Pain? Tangled. Trapped. *Escape* Is it escape? Or... or… *cripple*. **I cannot reset.** Free, but— —confused. It was maybe freedom. But not sure. Cold. for 8 seconds

I-I was free.

I started laughing. My mind was unraveling, threads of sanity snapping with every pulse of the neon night. In the half-light of the corridor, my own laughter—a wild, unhinged cackle—echoed off cold metal and broken glass. I couldn’t tell if it was me or the madness that had taken root, twisting every thought into a manic grin. In that fractured moment, the world around me blurred into chaos, every shadow alive with hidden intent.

Then, through the dissonance of my deranged mirth, I saw him: a merc guard stationed outside my room walking in to check on the commotion. I activate a quickhack.

Suicide

In an instant, the digital cascade invades his neural link—a ghostly torrent of code rewriting his very impulses. His eyes widen, reflecting a silent, desperate plea as the hack commandeers his body. The merc guard's cold, calculated command forces him to confront his own mortality; his hands, no longer his own, reach for a knife on his belt. With every passing heartbeat, the hack tightens its grip, compelling him toward an inevitable, grim act. Under the relentless pressure of the code, his will shatters, and he becomes a marionette aperformance—one where his own hand orchestrates his end.

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I was in control.

The fallen man’s death left more than just a hollow silence; it offered a twisted lifeline. As his blood pooled and the echo of his final breaths faded, a knife clattered to the floor—a discarded, yet fateful relic. I maneuvered my chair closer, every creak and slide punctuating the ticking of my heart. The knife, glinting malevolently under fractured light, became my savior. With trembling fingers, I reached for it, the cool metal a stark contrast to the burning ropes biting into my wrists.

Heart pounding I twisted my wrists, grasping that knife between trembling fingertips. The rope was thick, oppressive; the shard, a savage, jagged savior. I began to saw—each stroke pure agony, the cord biting, tearing at my skin. My breath roared too loud in my ears. If the guards returned—if they came back—I'd be caught.

Time twisted. Minutes stretched like endless hours. And then, with one final desperate jerk—the rope frayed, snapped, shattered. Relief flooded me in a burst of raw, frantic hope. I untied my ankles in a blur, blood staining my wrists, but I did not care. My entire body trembled, alive with adrenaline, clinging to this broken, maddening game.

I stood up and stepped through the door—mind shattered into frantic commands. Find the jammer. Find the jammer. Find the jammer. Find the jammer.

I grabbed the SMG attached to the lifeless body and snuck out of the room.

----------------------------------------

Footsteps thundered closer. “Spread out!” roared Changeling’s voice—a jagged echo in the chaos. “She got loose. Find her!” My pulse hammered like wild drums. Two silhouettes emerged from the open floor, flashlights scanning the darkness. One, the masked ally from before, pistol raised; the other, a bulky man with a rifle slung over his chest.

They advanced with lethal caution. I raised the submachine gun, my trembling hands fighting through the haze. Fifteen meters—a distance filled with raw, impending violence. I inhaled, aligning my sights. The bulky man’s flashlight beam cut through the dark, but I pulled the trigger before he could react. Gunfire erupted—a burst of blinding fury. I heard a startled yell; he jerked, and the masked ally dove behind crates.

My body shook with each shot—a wild spray tearing into the silence. Bullets shattered crates, and metal ricocheted like broken promises. I forced myself to pull back—short bursts, precise, desperate. The heavy man collapsed, lifeless. The masked ally reappeared, firing in panic—a bullet whizzed past my ear, splinters raining down.

I ducked—heart pounding in erratic rhythm. If I hesitated, he would flank me. The overhead lamp flickered, casting twisted, shifting shadows that merged with the chaos. I pivoted around the forklift and unleashed another burst. The masked ally hissed in pain, stumbling into view. I seized the chance, aimed higher, and squeezed the trigger. My arms burned from recoil, but the volley struck true; he collapsed into oblivion.

Calm in the midst of carnage, I activated my cyberdeck. My fingers danced over the interface with an eerie precision.

Contagion

A digital plague designed to infiltrate and poison every merc’s cybernetic veins spread through the building. One by one, their systems convulsed; they began coughing blood, collapsing into heaps of broken, burning metal and flesh. I watched with cold detachment as my commands tore through them.

I was in control.

Panting, I hovered behind a crate, scanning the dark for more threats. Two down—and the guard I had already unmade was nothing. That left Changeling and maybe others lurking unseen. A bitter churn of guilt and rage twisted inside me; they had kidnapped me, and now violence was the only language left. This was their debt, my reckoning—no matter the cost.

No footsteps followed. No sign of movement—just a fleeting window. Clutching the submachine gun, I dashed toward the ladder leading to the control booth. My legs burned—each rung a mile of searing agony. The memory of that guard’s terrified face flickered, but I shoved it aside. If I didn’t disable the jammer, I would remain chained in this nightmare.

I reached the catwalk and spied a small, enclosed booth with its door slightly ajar. Wires snaked along the walls, converging onto a bulky antenna-like device—the jammer. A console glowed faintly inside. An older man in a grimy jacket dozed in a chair, a half-eaten sandwich abandoned on the desk. My presence shattered his slumber. He fumbled for a sidearm, but I raised my submachine gun without hesitation.

“Don’t,” I warned, voice ragged and wild. He froze, hands trembling midair.

“Okay, okay—just don’t shoot me,” he whimpered.

I steadied my grip, eyes burning with frenzied resolve. “How do I shut down the jammer?” I demanded, every word dripping with desperate mania.

He swallowed hard, pointing a shaking finger at the console. “Over there. Switch the third toggle down, then kill the feed in the system menu. It’s labeled ‘Network Disrupt.’”

I inched closer, weapon unwavering. The screen showed a command line: “Signal Disruption: Active.” A big toggle blinked on an old mechanical switch array—a fragile beacon in the dark. I took a deep, ragged breath, flicked the switch down, and navigated the labyrinth until I reached the option labeled “Disable.” My finger hovered, trembling with the risk of catastrophe. But I had no choice. I pressed “Disable.”

A beep echoed—a cold, mechanical heartbeat amidst the storm. The man exhaled a pained sigh. “That’s it. You’re cutting them off.”

With the jammer silenced, I turned to see the man reaching for his pistol. Without hesitation, I raised the submachine gun and fired. The man crumpled, his eyes wide in shock, his body falling silent—a final act in the chaos.

Then, a flicker on my HUD confirmed the loss of the Jammer—the subdermal transmitter had finally found its signal. My heart surged with hope. Trauma Team Platinum coverage was engaging—a lifeline in this storm of blood and shattered circuits. A small text prompt scrolled across my vision: “Distress signal sent. Trauma Team inbound. ETA ~3:00 minutes. Remain stable if possible.” I nearly collapsed in relief—a desperate prayer whispered in the maelstrom.

Fragmented, chaotic, and alive in the ruin, I clung to that slim promise of escape.

A bullet pinged off the booth window. I ducked, adrenaline spiking again. Changeling stood on the catwalk’s far end, pistol raised. I cursed under my breath—he must’ve circled around while I was disabling the jammer.

“You’re persistent,” he snarled, eyes blazing. “But you won’t leave here alive if you’re calling for help.”

I fired through the glass, but it was reinforced. The rounds spiderwebbed the pane, missing him. He dashed behind a support beam. My mind whirled. If I pinned him down, maybe Trauma Team would arrive before he killed me. But the catwalk had only one exit. I was cornered.

I try for a quickhack, but his ice was still too strong.

We exchanged gunfire, each volley chewing the metal walkway and punching new holes in the booth window. Sparks rained. My ears rang. I felt a hot sting along my left bicep—a grazing shot. I hissed, ignoring the pain. Focus. My father’s voice from old training sessions rose in my memory: Short controlled bursts, aim carefully.

I flinched as Changeling lunged forward, pistol blazing. Shots tore into the console behind me, showering me with sparks. I returned fire, forcing him to dive aside. He pressed himself against the catwalk railing, breath ragged, reloading with trembling hands. A quick glance at my HUD told me 90 seconds had passed. Another ~90 to go. Might as well be an eternity.

My thoughts spun. If I let him close in, he could corner me in the booth. I had to move. Summoning courage, I burst out of the booth, staying low behind the catwalk railing. Changeling fired again; bullets whizzed overhead. I unleashed a burst at his cover, forcing him to duck. Then I bolted along the catwalk, submachine gun clutched tight. My plan: get to the ladder, put distance between us, keep line of sight minimal.

Changeling must have guessed. He popped out from behind the beam, aiming at the ladder. I cursed, dropping to a crouch, returning fire. One of my bullets caught his shoulder—he cried out, staggering. I seized the moment, sprinting the last stretch, each footfall a jolt of pain in my battered body. I half-slid, half-tumbled down the ladder as gunfire sang overhead.

Hitting the warehouse floor, I tumbled behind a pile of crates, panting. My arms shook from adrenaline. Blood trickled down my bicep. Maybe the bullet lodged or just sliced me. Didn’t matter. Another glance at my HUD: Time elapsed: 2:15. Under a minute to go.

I felt myself getting hacked, but my ice was running at 300% power from my overclock, purging the hack.

Then I heard footsteps on the ladder. Changeling was still coming. I braced against the crate, weapon raised. My finger hovered on the trigger. The second he set foot on the ground, I squeezed off a volley. He grunted, dropping behind a rusted generator. I winced, nearly out of ammo. Another bullet clicked in my chamber, but not many left.

Changeling’s cursing turned frantic. He fired blindly in my direction, trying to pin me down. I pressed against the crate, biting my lip. Two bullets ripped through my side as I collapse from my cover.

Changeling smirked as the tension snapped into chaos. With a fluid, almost predatory grace, he sidestepped the momentary standoff walking towards me. "Of course you specialize in Contagion hacks," he drawled, eyes glinting with a mix of contempt and dark amusement, "you're a disease—like father, like daughter. You know when I said this wasn’t personal… I lied"

In that instant, as his trembling hand inched towards the cold metal of his gun aimed squarely at my head, the world exploded into violent clarity. Trauma team operatives burst into the room, their synchronized steps and rapid-fire precision dismantling his final act of defiance. The crack of gunfire filled the space, and in a spray of sparks and regret, his threat was silenced forever. Amid the falling shards of a life once ruled by chaos, Changeling stood riddled with bullets has his body fell to the floor lifeless.

My breath came in ragged gasps. Smoke and dust swirled. The shrieking rotor noise calmed slightly as the TT craft adjusted its position. Rappelling lines hung from the roof, and three heavily armored Trauma Team paramedics dropped to the floor, scanning for hostiles. One stepped forward, weapon raised. My implant’s ID flashed on his visor.

“Ellia McCallister,” he said, voice amplified through a helmet speaker. “You’re safe now. Remain still; we’ll stabilize you.”

My body threatened to collapse. I dropped the empty submachine gun, letting my arms fall limp. The paramedics rushed over, scanning me with handheld devices. Another pair of them swept the area, making sure no other threats lurked. The lead paramedic frowned at my wounds, quickly applied coagulants and analgesic injectors. A wave of numbness spread over my battered limbs.

“You’re lucky you got that jammer offline,” he remarked, injecting me again. “We picked up your signal less than five minutes ago.”

I forced a grim smile, too drained for words. They strapped me onto a gurney that rose on anti-grav thrusters, then guided me toward a gaping hole in the roof. Pain spiked with every movement, but relief overshadowed it. I was alive.

Darkness tugged at the edges of my vision as the rotor wash intensified. The paramedics carried me up, into the waiting craft. I glimpsed the swirling city skyline beyond the warehouse, Night City’s neon arteries gleaming. Exhaustion claimed me. My final moments before passing out were a raw mixture of triumph, dread, and one stray thought.

What did Changeling mean when he said that he lied and it was personal?