A second later, his retinal HUD filled with motion. A swarm of angular silhouettes cut through the rain-slicked skies — matte black drones, hundreds of them, shifting in precise formation above the western industrial blocks. Their eyes burned cold blue, synchronized like a hive.
Mary's voice tightened. "Designation: MX-84 strike models. Autonomous suppression units. Nonlethal loadouts — initially."
Max didn't miss the word initially. "They'll switch to lethal once someone throws a rock," he muttered.
On the feed, the swarm split into triads, descending toward the outer protest zones. They weren't broadcasting Militech markings. Just blank black hulls — plausible deniability.
Kade's voice came in sharp. "They're moving toward Dock 9. That's—"
"Yeah," Max cut him off, tone flat. "That's your people."
For a heartbeat, silence hung heavy across the comms. Then the sound of the crowd below surged up through the static — a chant turning into a roar as the first drones appeared overhead.
Mary piped in. "If they deploy taser rounds in dense civilian zones, we'll have fatalities. Heart arrhythmias, crush injuries—"
"I know." Max's hand flexed unconsciously, metal fingers whirring. "Patch me into their command frequency."
"Already on it," she said. "But there's encryption — Ghostlink-grade. That's not just Militech standard. Someone's running this manually."
"Show me the control node."
A map unfolded across his vision — a glowing spiderweb of data points converging toward a single pulse in the western district: a convoy hub parked under an abandoned mag-rail interchange.
"Found it," Mary said. "Command relay truck, shielded core. Local net suggests on-site operator."
Kade's voice cracked through again. "You're going there, aren't you?"
"Yeah."
"Then I'm coming too."
"No," Max said, voice hard. "You stay with the people. You wanted to matter? Keep them alive. I'll cut the head off the swarm."
He turned, coat dripping, eyes fixed west. The wind picked up — sharp with ozone and the hum of engines warming far below.
Mag-Rail Yard, Western District
The air stank of coolant and burning plastic. Militech's convoy sat like a crouched animal under floodlights — armored vans linked by fiber conduits, the central one glowing faintly where the relay pulse bled through its hull. Drones hovered above in holding patterns, awaiting orders.
Max dropped from the shadows, silent as the rain. His augmented eye flickered through spectrums — infrared, EM, trace-line overlays. Guards moved in routine sweeps, but the hum of the relay filled the space like a heartbeat.
Mary whispered in his ear, "Two sentries front, one patrol rear. Internal guards unconfirmed. I can loop their optics for ninety seconds."
"That's plenty."
He moved — a ghost slipping between metal and light. One guard turned, catching a flicker in the corner of his eye, but Max was already behind him, a quick nerve strike dropping the man before he could breathe. The second folded a moment later, taser-wired silently against the wall.
Inside the truck, the glow was almost organic — a soft pulse of red and white data flow feeding from the relay sphere. Max felt it the second he stepped in: the psychic static of a living system.
"Mary," he said quietly, "this isn't just machine code. I can feel feedback."
"That's because it's not fully autonomous," she replied. "They're using wetware. Someone's mind is slaved to it."
Max froze. A voice — faint, layered with distortion — rippled through the open frequency.
"Unit Seventeen... signal recognized."
He went rigid. That voice wasn't synthetic. It was human — filtered, broken, but unmistakably aware.
"Who are you?" Max asked.
"You know me. You were the prototype that walked away. I was the one that didn't."
Mary's diagnostics spiked. "Bio-signature confirmed. Neural pattern overlap with archived Ghostlink unit data… oh no. Max, that's—"
"Unit Zero-One," Max finished quietly.
The relay flared brighter, its pulse quickening.
"They rebuilt me. Improved me. I don't hesitate anymore. You taught them how to fix that."
Max clenched his jaw. "You don't have to do this."
"I don't get to not do this."
The hum rose to a scream as the drone swarm above shifted formation, now aligning for strike deployment. Across the city, Mary's feeds lit up with emergency pings — civilians scattering, signals jamming.
"Mary!" Max barked.
"Working it— firewall burn in progress, but he's locking me out! He's using your neural ID to authenticate command chains!"
Max cursed under his breath, then slammed his metal palm against the relay sphere. "Then we fight it from the inside."
"You'll lose," Zero-One said, almost sadly. "You were made to be me — and I was made to replace you."
"Yeah," Max growled, jacking a line from his wrist into the relay port. "But I learned how to disobey."
For a heartbeat, the world went white.
Mary's voice dissolved into static as Max's consciousness slammed into the Ghostlink architecture — a labyrinth of data and memory. He wasn't standing anymore; he was falling through streams of code, ghost images flickering around him — screaming soldiers, bright corridors, experiment logs. The memory of creation.
And at the center stood Zero-One: a tall, silver specter with eyes of shifting code.
"You can't stop the swarm," it said. "Militech will rebuild us a thousand times."
Max's voice echoed like thunder through the data-space. "Then let's make sure they don't have anything left to rebuild from."
He lunged — data clashing, code shredding like lightning across the void.
Outside, in the real world, the drone swarm faltered — midair units freezing, then spiraling out of formation as feedback arced through their network. Explosions dotted the skyline where control links overloaded.
Kade, watching from Dock 9, stared as blue fire rained down over the city. "Mary! What's happening?"
Her voice, strained but alive, answered: "He's winning."
Inside the relay, Zero-One screamed as its code fractured, collapsing into static. Max's signal flared — overloaded, burning bright, until the entire relay sphere detonated in a pulse of EMP light.
Hours later, the sky above Night City was eerily quiet. Drones smoldered in the streets. The protests hadn't stopped — they'd turned into vigils.
Mary's voice came through the static, soft and raw. "Signal trace reestablished. Max?"
A shadow moved through the smoke. His coat was torn, one cybernetic eye darkened — but he was walking.
"Yeah," he rasped. "Still here."
Kade's relieved laugh broke through the comm. "You crazy bastard. You did it."
Max looked toward the horizon — the broken Militech tower flickering in the rain, the words projected across it by unknown hands:
"NO MORE GHOSTS."
He smiled faintly. "No," he said. "Just people who remember."
***
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