(Voodoo Boy POV)
The stale air in the commandeered Biotechnica greenhouse complex tasted of rust and synthetic proteins, but after three years, I'd gotten used to it. My fingers danced across the holographic interface of my tablet, cross-referencing the new servo specifications with what we'd managed to salvage from the old agricultural systems. The ghost-blue light from my display mingled with the perpetual twilight that filtered through the grimy greenhouse panels overhead.
"Ti Malice, check these actuator readings again" Baptiste called from across the warehouse floor, using the nickname I'd earned after a particularly nasty virus I'd coded took down a Militech patrol drone. "Something's not syncing with the neural pathway mappings."
I pulled up the wireframe in my neural hub, the familiar tingle of the interface jack warming the base of my skull. The robot—our robot—materialized in augmented reality before me, fifteen feet of salvaged potential. Its skeletal frame resembled something between a human form and the old military mechs from what looked like before the DataKrash, all angular joints and reinforced titanium bones. We'd been slowly resurrecting it from where Biotechnica had buried it, probably after some black project went sideways. Typical corpo move bury your failures in the protein farms and hope the worms eat the evidence.
"Actuators are reading within parameters" I responded in Creole, watching the diagnostic data stream across my vision. "But the proprioceptive feedback loops need calibration. The thing doesn't know where its limbs are in space yet."
Around us, the warehouse hummed with quiet activity. My brothers and sisters worked in their element some deep in the Net, their bodies slack in worn cooling suits while their minds danced through cyberspace, others bent over security drones we'd repurposed from Biotechnica's old stock. Someone had music playing, a low throb of electronica mixed with the synthetic beats popular in Pacifica's underground clubs. The rhythm helped us work, a reminder of home, of identity, in this place that reeked of corporate abandonment and industrial decay.
Marie sat cross-legged near the eastern wall, her eyes rolled back, silver tears of coolant running down her cheeks as she maintained our ICE barriers. Three others flanked her, their neural links pulsing in synchronized patterns our watchers, ensuring NetWatch hadn't found this particular nest. We'd learned the hard way that you could never be too careful when it came to the dogs and their government leashes.
The massive greenhouse stretched around us, row after row of empty growing chambers that once churned out SCOP proteins for Night City's masses. We'd gutted most of them, turning the facility into something between a fortress and a laboratory. The remaining functional units we kept running as cover if anyone did aerial surveillance, they'd see normal heat signatures and activity patterns. Just another piece of the Biotechnica Flats grinding away at feeding the city its processed worm meat.
I walked closer to our prize, my modified optics automatically adjusting to pierce the shadows. The robot lay in a specially excavated pit we'd dug when we first found it, half-buried under tons of industrial waste and expired protein substrate. Its chest cavity stood open, revealing the hybrid processing core we'd installed last month, a beauty we'd liberated from an Arasaka transport that had taken a wrong turn near Pacifica. The Voodoo Boys didn't usually deal in physical theft, but for this project, Maman Brigitte had authorized the exception.
"The motor cortex simulators are integrating well" I noted, checking the neural mesh we'd woven through its frame. Each strand of monofilament carried enough bandwidth to rival a small corporation's data pipeline. "Once we establish the consciousness bridge tonight, it should be able to interpret movement commands, even if it can't execute them yet."
"How much longer until the kinetic systems are operational?" Pascal asked, not looking up from the drone he was modifying. His cybernetic arm whirred softly as he made microscopic adjustments to its targeting array.
"Three weeks, maybe four" I replied, pulling up the project timeline in my hub. "The main hydraulics are shot. We need to either fabricate new ones or find compatible units. The military-grade stuff from the 2060s isn't exactly lying around."
That's when the music cut off.
The sudden silence hit like a physical blow. Every head in the warehouse turned toward the entrance, hands instinctively moving to weapons or quick-hack modules. We all knew what that meant. Bossman had arrived.
He walked in with the controlled power of a predator conserving energy, his massive frame seeming to bend the light around him. The cooling suit he wore was top-tier, military-spec, with heat dissipation vanes that gave him an almost winglike silhouette. His eyes, enhanced with combat optics that cost more than most people's homes, swept the room once before focusing on the robot.
"Music off means work time" he said in Creole, his deep voice carrying easily through the space. Behind him, four of his crew carried in a massive crate, their enhanced muscles straining even with the exoskeleton assists. "We're doing a Blackwall test tonight. How far along are we?"
The question was directed at me, and I felt the weight of every eye in the room. Placide didn't tolerate excuses or half-measures. In the Voodoo Boys, you either delivered or you became a cautionary tale.
I pulled up the complete diagnostic array in my hub, letting the data flow through my consciousness as I formulated my response. The core was stable, running at 15% capacity to maintain baseline functions. The neural mesh had achieved 78% integration with the frame's sensor network. The bridge protocols were compiled and ready, waiting only for initialization.
"The robot will be able to support a consciousness tonight" I said carefully, meeting his gaze. "Full neural integration is possible. It'll be able to think, perceive, even dream if the consciousness makes the transfer successfully. But movement..." I gestured at the prone form. "Without functional hydraulics and proper kinetic calibration, it's a brilliant mind trapped in a paralyzed body."
Placide nodded slowly, processing this. "Show me the integration points."
I led him to the excavation pit, my AR overlay highlighting the critical systems as we walked. "The primary consciousness housing is here" I indicated the quantum core. "We've created redundant pathways through the entire frame if one section gets damaged, the consciousness can reroute, maintain cohesion. The sensor suite is military-grade, full spectrum from infrared to ultraviolet, with electromagnetic sensing capabilities we're still trying to fully understand."
"Marie thinks she can channel one of the lwa through the quantum core. Use our traditional practices to invite a spirit into the machine. It's never been done on this scale, but the quantum uncertainty at the core's base level might serve as a gateway."
Placide stood silent for a long moment, staring at the robot's skeletal face. Its optical sensors were dark, empty sockets waiting for the spark of awareness.
"Prepare the options and run a early test." he finally commanded. "If that succeeds, we move to the blackwall The lwa..." he paused, "that we save for when we're certain the vessel is worthy."
The crew that had brought in the crate began unpacking it under Placide's supervision. Inside were components I recognized immediately, neural processors the kind you'd find in advanced combat cyborgs. Black market value: enough to buy a city block in Pacifica.
"These will accelerate the timeline" Placide said, noting my expression. "Begin installation immediately. I want the breach started within the hour."
_______________________________________________-
(Bryce Mosley's POV)
The Militech Behemoth's suspension groaned as it absorbed another pothole in the broken roads leading through the Biotechnica Flats. I kept my balance easily, one hand gripping the overhead rail while my free hand cycled through tactical overlays on my optics. The armored transport's interior glowed with the soft blue of NetWatch displays, each operative's face underlit by their personal HUDs as they ran final diagnostics on their gear.
Six years with NetWatch, and this feeling never got old. The electric tension before a major operation, the weight of responsibility knowing we were the thin blue line between order and chaos in cyberspace. My neural implants were lighter back then, just the essentials: military-grade ICE breakers, a Netdriver Mk.3 (not the Mk.5 I'd eventually upgrade to), and enough cooling to handle extended netrunning without frying my synapses. The facial reconstruction and heavy combat mods would come later, after... well, after nights like this one.
Through the reinforced window, I could see our escort vehicles two more Behemoths flanking us in tactical formation, their spotlights cutting through the industrial gloom of the protein farms. The greenhouse complexes stretched endlessly in every direction, their panels reflecting our convoy like a thousand broken mirrors.
"Listen up!" I called out, tapping the tactical display on the Behemoth's wall. The holographic projection sprang to life, showing a three-dimensional map of the target facility. Twenty-two NetWatch operators turned their attention to me, their faces a mix of veteran determination and rookie anxiety. "Final briefing before we hit the breach point."
The map zoomed in, highlighting heat signatures and network activity. "Intel cracked their encryption twelve hours ago. We've been monitoring their data streams ever since." I pointed to a pulsing red node in the facility's center. "The Voodoo Boys think they're clever, hiding in plain sight in this abandoned Biotechnica complex. They've been here for years, according to our analysis, slowly building something big."
Operative Chen, one of our best field netrunners, raised his hand. "What exactly are they building, sir?"
"That's the trillion-eddie question" I replied, expanding the display to show quantum processing signatures. "Whatever it is, it's pulling massive amounts of data from their subnet. But here's the critical part—" I highlighted a series of time stamps. "In approximately eight minutes, they're planning to breach the Blackwall."
A collective tension rippled through the transport. Everyone here knew what that meant. The Blackwall wasn't just some firewall it was the only thing keeping the rogue AIs from the Old Net from flooding back into our systems. The Voodoo Boys' obsession with contacting whatever lurked beyond it wasn't just illegal; it was potentially apocalyptic.
"Our mission parameters are simple but critical" I continued, pulling up the tactical overlay. "Three teams, synchronized breach. Alpha team....that's us hits the main entrance. Bravo team breaches the eastern greenhouse. Charlie team covers the western perimeter and cuts off any escape routes."
Lieutenant Morrison, a grizzled veteran with more field ops than anyone else in the truck, spoke up. "Rules of engagement?"
"Lethal force authorized if necessary, but priority is securing their systems intact. We need to know how deep this rabbit hole goes." I switched the display to show individual target profiles. "Priority targets: Placide, second-in-command of their Pacifica operation. Marie-Claire, one of their top netrunners. And this one—" I pointed to a grainy image captured by aerial surveillance, "—unknown operative, goes by 'Ti Malice.' Suspected to be their technical specialist on whatever they're building."
The Behemoth's driver called back, "Two minutes to target, sir."
"Gear check!" I commanded. The transport filled with the sounds of weapons being charged, cooling suits activating, and quick-hack modules coming online. I ran through my own checklist: Militech M-179 Achilles precision rifle with smart-link, backup Unity pistol, three EMP grenades, and most importantly, my netrunning suite loaded with enough black ICE to flatline any Voodoo Boy who tried to jack into our systems.
"Remember" I said, meeting each operative's eyes in turn, "the Voodoo Boys aren't just street thugs with decks. They're some of the most dangerous netrunners outside of corpo black sites. They've got home field advantage, they know we're probably coming, and they're desperate enough to punch a hole through the Blackwall. That makes them unpredictable and extremely dangerous."
The tactical display updated with real-time feed from our surveillance drones. "Thermal imaging shows approximately thirty hostiles inside. Half of them are currently jacked in probably trying to speed up their Blackwall breach now that they've detected our approach."
"Sir" Operative Williams called out, her voice tight with concern. "If they're already attempting the breach—"
"That's why we're going in hard and fast," I cut her off. "No time for subtlety. We hit them before they can complete whatever insane ritual they're attempting." I pulled up the building schematics one more time. "The Behemoths will ram straight through the perimeter walls here, here, and here. The impact alone should disrupt their local network long enough for us to establish a foothold."
The convoy began to accelerate. Through the window, I could see the target facility looming larger a massive complex of interconnected greenhouses, their lights flickering in patterns that suggested heavy network activity. My enhanced optics picked up details invisible to the naked eye: jury-rigged antenna arrays, military-grade signal boosters, and the telltale shimmer of optical camo trying to hide defensive positions.
"Thirty seconds!" the driver announced.
A mechanical whirring filled the Behemoth as armored panels on the roof slid back. "Missile systems online" the weapons operator called out. The launcher arrays rose into position with hydraulic precision, their targeting lasers painting the facility in a web of red light.
"Fire!" I commanded.
The Behemoths unleashed hell. Twelve Militech "Hellhound" smart missiles streaked from our convoy, their contrails drawing phosphorescent arcs through the night.
—BOOM-BOOM-BOOM—
The facility's front walls into expanding clouds of superheated debris. Glass from the greenhouse panels vaporized instantly, creating a glittering mist that hung in the air like deadly snow.
The trucks accelerated harder, engines screaming as they reached ramming speed. Through the smoke and flames, I could see the Voodoo Boys' defensive positions some scrambling for cover, others already returning fire with stolen military hardware.
"Breaching charges ready" Morrison confirmed, his Zetatech Sandevistan already primed—I could see the telltale neural pathway indicators glowing beneath his skin.
I activated my tactical suite, feeling the familiar cold rush as combat stims flooded my system. "NetWatch ICE protocols engaged. Everyone slave your systems to mine I'll coordinate our cyber defense."
One by one, my team's neural signatures appeared in my HUD. Chen's Netdriver Mk.4 was already spinning up attack protocols. Williams had her Raven Microcyber loaded with defensive quickhacks. The rest bristled with various combat cyberware from Kerenzikov reflexes, subdermal armor, mantis blades, gorilla arms. We were a fusion of flesh and technology, built for exactly this kind of assault.
"Ten seconds to impact!" The driver's neural interface flared as he engaged his own Sandevistan, his perception of time dilating to navigate the debris field at maximum velocity.
Through the flames, I caught movement a Voodoo Boy netrunner's eyes suddenly glowed purple as they initiated a Contagion quickhack. The viral attack spread through our local network like digital wildfire, but my ICE caught it, quarantined it, and traced it back. I countered with a System Reset, watching the netrunner collapse as their neural pathways forcibly shut down.
"They're quickhacking! Defensive protocols, now!" I uploaded a Cyberware Malfunction to three enemy netrunners simultaneously, their decks sparking and smoking as the malicious code fried their circuits.
Five seconds. The Behemoth's reinforced prow burst through the smoke cloud. The driver jerked the wheel, sideswiping a concrete barrier that exploded into chunks, then correcting to hit the optimal breach point.
One second. "BREACH! BREACH! BREACH!"
The impact was catastrophic. The Behemoth didn't just hit the rubble it demolished it, continuing another twenty meters into the facility before grinding to a halt against a massive support pillar. We'd driven straight into the heart of their operation, debris still raining down around us.
Before the vehicle had even stopped rocking, Morrison had blown the rear doors with breaching charges. The shaped explosives turned the armored panels into projectiles, clearing a ten-meter radius behind us.
We poured out into hell.
The warehouse was bigger than our intel suggested, stretching up into shadows that our tactical lights couldn't quite penetrate. And there, in the center of it all, was something that made my blood run cold—a massive skeletal form, fifteen feet tall, partially excavated from the floor. Cables ran from it like synthetic veins, connecting to dozens of jury-rigged servers and quantum processors.
"What in the hell—" someone started to say, but their words were cut off by gunfire.
The warehouse erupted into a technological nightmare of modern warfare. Muzzle flashes strobed through the smoke like angry lightning. I saw Operative Chen's eyes roll back white as he engaged in full netrunning combat somewhere in cyberspace, he was fighting a desperate battle against Voodoo Boy netrunners, their quickhacks colliding in cascades of hostile code.
"Contact left!" Williams screamed, her Projectile Launch System firing a volley of micro-grenades that turned a catwalk into twisted metal and burning bodies.
A Voodoo Boy dropped from above, mantis blades extended, moving with Sandevistan-enhanced speed. Time seemed to fracture as multiple operators triggered their own time-dilation implants simultaneously. The air itself seemed to thicken with temporal distortion as a dozen different timestreams collided.
Morrison met the attacker mid-leap, his gorilla arms cybernetics giving him the strength to grab the Voodoo Boy and hurl him into a server rack with bone-crushing force. Sparks erupted as the impact destroyed thousands of teraflops of processing power.
I initiated an Overheat quickhack on a cluster of enemies taking cover behind overturned tables. Their cyberware began cooking them from the inside cooling systems overwhelmed, neural implants reaching critical temperature. One tried to rip his burning cyberdeck from his skull, screaming in Creole.
"Short Circuit spreading through their subnet!" Chen announced, his consciousness partially returned to his body. The hack propagated through every connected device. Security cameras exploded in showers of sparks. Automated turrets went haywire, firing at their own forces. The lights flickered and died, replaced by the hellish orange glow of fires spreading through the facility.
A Voodoo Boy netrunner's eyes flared neon green—Weapon Glitch. Half our team's weapons suddenly jammed, smart-link systems going offline. Someone elseon our side compensated instantly, his mantis blades extending with a sharp SCHNICK sound as he carved through two enemies before they could capitalize on our vulnerability.
"Countering with Reboot Optics!" Williams shouted, her quickhack blinding a squad of Voodoo Boys who'd been lining up shots. They stumbled, firing wildly, their enhanced vision systems showing them nothing but static.
Then the wall to our left simply ceased to exist.
I shook my head in a daze trying to figure out what had happened.
it came from the adjacent building, the blast wave hitting us like a physical fist. Concrete and rebar turned to deadly shrapnel, and I watched in horror as Operative Hendricks, standing right next to me, suddenly screamed. His eyes literally burst into flames actual fire erupting from his sockets as a Voodoo Boy's Overheat quickhack cooked his ocular implants from the inside out. He dropped, his screams cutting off as his brain literally boiled in his skull.
"MEDIC!" someone shouted, but there was no time. Through the thirty-foot gap torn in the wall, absolute chaos spilled into our space. Bravo Team was there, locked in savage close-quarters combat with more Voodoo Boys. The firefight had devolved into something primal cybernetic limbs tearing through flesh, quickhacks turning friend against foe, the air itself seeming to ripple with conflicting time dilations.
A Voodoo Boy netrunner tried to upload Cyberpsychosis to our entire squad, but Chen countered with a Suicide quickhack that forced the enemy to turn his own weapon on himself. The netrunner's head exploded in a shower of blood and burning circuitry before the hack could complete.
"Push forward!" I roared, my rifle spitting death as I advanced. A cluster of Voodoo Boys had taken cover behind overturned server racks, their return fire turning the air into a lethal storm of superheated plasma. I primed a frag grenade, arm cocking back—
CRACK!
One of them, moving with Kerenzikov-enhanced reflexes, shot my grenade out of the air. The explosion knocked me sideways, shrapnel pinging off my subdermal armor. My ears rang, but my combat training kicked in. The rifle clicked empty—no time to reload. I mag-locked it to my back in one smooth motion while drawing my Militech Lexington auto-pistol with the other hand.
The pistol barked rapidly as I put rounds into anything that moved wrong. A Voodoo Boy's head snapped back, brain matter painting the wall behind him. Another took three rounds center mass before his reinforced ribcage finally gave way. Bodies were dropping everywhere—mostly theirs, but I could see at least three NetWatch operators down, their cooling suits sparking where plasma bolts had punched through.
"MOSLEY, GET DOWN!" Morrison's voice cut through the chaos.
I didn't hesitate, diving behind a fallen concrete beam as the real cavalry arrived.
Through the gap in the wall, Charlie Team poured in, but these weren't just operators they were our heavy assault unit. The first through carried military-grade blast shields, The transparent energy fields shimmered as they absorbed incoming fire, creating mobile cover. Behind them came the heavy weapons specialists.
"SUPPRESSING FIRE!"
The rotary blasters opened up with a sound like ripping fabric amplified a thousand times. These weren't standard rifles but they were Militech M-179 Devastators, six-barreled nightmares that could put out 3,000 rounds per minute. The stream of plasma was so dense it looked like solid beams of light, carving through everything in their path. Voodoo Boys, equipment, walls nothing could stand against that kind of firepower.
Behind the shield bearers, operators wielding what looked like modified heavy blasters stolen from Arasaka and tech reverse-engineered from old combat droid designs laid down precision fire. The heavy bolts punched fist-sized holes through cover, through bodies, through anything foolish enough to be in their path.
The Voodoo Boys tried to rally. One uploaded a Weapon Glitch to the rotary blasters, but the weapons had redundant systems they kept firing even as their primary circuits fried. Another tried to breach the shield bearers' defenses with a Sonic Shock, but the shields were hardened against quickhacks, their frequencies constantly rotating to prevent penetration.
The warehouse had become a slaughterhouse. The air stank of ozone, burned flesh, and melting plastic. Through the smoke, I saw a Voodoo Boy try to activate a Sandevistan, but a NetWatch sniper with a tech rifle put a round through his skull before he could even begin to move. The round kept going, punching through two more enemies behind him.
Suddenly, our Behemoth's driver Collins, kicked open his door and rolled out, a massive grenade launcher in his hands. The weapon looked like something out of a war crimes tribunal, six chambers loaded with 40mm smart grenades.
THOOMP-THOOMP-THOOMP!
The grenades arced through the air, their micro-processors calculating optimal detonation points. They exploded in sequence, turning a Voodoo Boy strongpoint into a crater. Bodies or parts of bodies flew through the air.
"ONE MINUTE!" Collins roared over the carnage. "BREACH PROTOCOLS STILL PROCESSING! WE NEED TO ADVANCE BEFORE ONE MINUTE!"
One minute. In this hell, it might as well have been an hour. But something was wrong through all this chaos, through all this death, I couldn't see him anymore. Placide. The massive Voodoo Boy commander who'd been orchestrating their defense had vanished. And that terrified me more than all the firepower being exchanged around us.
"Where's Placide?" I shouted into comms, but got only static in response.
A Voodoo Boy came at me with mantis blades, moving in that stuttering, time-dilated way of someone pushing their Sandevistan to the limit. I put six rounds into him before his momentum carried his corpse past me, his blades sparking as they scraped the concrete.
Through the smoke and chaos, I could still see the robot that massive, skeletal thing at the center of it all. And worse, I could see it was moving. Not much, just tiny twitches, servos testing their range of motion. But it was enough to know that whatever they were doing to it was taking hold.
"Morrison, we need to get to that robot NOW!" I commanded, ejecting my pistol's spent magazine and slamming in a fresh one.
"ALL UNITS, CONVERGE ON MY POSITION!" Morrison's voice boomed through comms, his command authority overriding the chaos. "SHIELD WALL FORMATION!"
Within seconds, NetWatch operators from all three breach teams began falling back to our location, creating a defensive perimeter. The shield bearers from Charlie Team formed up in a tight phalanx, their energy barriers overlapping to create an impenetrable wall of shimmering force. Behind them, the rest of us checked weapons, reloaded, and prepared for the final push.
"ADVANCE!" Morrison bellowed.
We moved as one organism, the shield wall pushing forward with mechanical precision. The Voodoo Boys, realizing this was their last stand, threw everything they had at us. But this wasn't random desperation they'd prepared for this moment.
"DRONES INCOMING!" Chen shouted.
The air filled with the angry buzz of combat drones Militech Wyverns that the Voodoo Boys had somehow acquired and reprogrammed. Six of them burst from concealed positions in the ceiling, their rotary cannons spitting death. The shields held, but barely, the energy fields flickering under the sustained barrage.
"Griffins launching from the robot platform!" Williams called out, marking two larger combat drones that rose from behind the massive skeletal frame. These were military-grade, armed with micro-missiles and plasma cannons.
But worse was coming. From hidden alcoves around the robot, panels slid open revealing Robot R Mk.2 units defense drones that moved with predatory grace. Eight of them, their optical sensors glowing red as they acquired targets. Behind them, heavier footsteps announced the arrival of what looked like modified security mechs, each one seven feet tall and bristling with weapons.
"They've been preparing for this" I muttered, then raised my voice. "TACTICAL PATTERN DELTA! CONCENTRATE FIRE!"
The firefight that erupted defied description. The warehouse became a three-dimensional battlefield. Wyverns strafed from above, their cannons turning the air into a lethal crossfire. The Griffins launched micro-missiles that exploded against our shields in bursts of blinding light. The Robot R units moved with inhuman coordination, flanking our formation while the security mechs laid down suppressing fire with arm-mounted rotary blasters.
Chen's eyes rolled back as he went full netrunning, his consciousness diving into the drone network. "Attempting override... their ICE is military-grade! These aren't standard units!"
A Wyvern broke through our defensive fire, diving straight at the shield wall. Morrison leaped up, his gorilla arms grabbing the drone mid-flight and crushing it like a tin can. Sparks and oil sprayed everywhere as he hurled the wreckage at a Robot R unit, knocking it off balance.
"EMP GRENADES!" I ordered. Three operators pulled the specialized explosives, lobbing them in synchronized arcs. The electromagnetic pulses rippled outward, and two Wyverns simply dropped from the sky, their circuits fried. But the larger units had hardened systems—they kept coming.
Collins, still wielding his grenade launcher, put a 40mm smart round directly into a Griffin's center mass. The explosion was spectacular, raining burning debris across the battlefield. But the second Griffin responded by launching a full salvo of micro-missiles at his position. He dove aside, but not fast enough—shrapnel tore through his leg, dropping him with a scream.
"MEDIC!" someone shouted, but we couldn't stop. We had to keep pushing.
The shield bearers advanced step by step, their barriers absorbing punishment that would have killed unprotected operators instantly. Behind them, we picked our shots carefully. I put three rounds through a Robot R's optical array, watching it stumble blind before a rotary blaster cut it in half.
"FIFTEEN SECONDS!" came the countdown from our breach protocols.
We were close now, maybe twenty meters from the robot. The Voodoo Boys had formed a final defensive line, their remaining fighters taking cover behind hastily erected barriers. But they were out of tricks, out of drones, out of time.
That's when Chen made a desperate decision. "I'm jacking directly into the robot's core! Cover me!"
"Chen, no!" Williams protested, but he was already sprinting forward, his cooling suit's heat dissipation vanes glowing white-hot as he pushed his neural systems to the limit. A Voodoo Boy tried to stop him with a mantis blade strike, but Morrison intercepted, his remaining gorilla arm catching the blade and snapping it off before putting a bullet through the attacker's skull.
Chen reached the robot, slamming his palm against an access port. His body went rigid as his consciousness dove into the quantum core. For three seconds, nothing happened. Then—
"AHHHHHHH!" Chen's scream was both physical and digital, broadcast through our comms as Blood burst from his nose, his eyes, his ears. He collapsed, his neural pathways completely fried.
"Chen's down! The robot can't be hacked!" Williams reported, dragging his body to cover. "It's not running on any system we understand!"
"TEN SECONDS!"
"Fuck the hack" Morrison growled. "We do this the old-fashioned way. DEMOLITIONS TEAM!"
Three operators rushed forward carrying military-grade explosives—EMP bombs designed to fry any electronic system within fifty meters, and military surplus thermal detonators, the kind that could vaporize a city block if you used enough of them.
"Plant them on the structural supports!" I ordered, providing covering fire as they worked. A straggling Voodoo Boy popped up from behind a server rack, but I put him down before he could get a shot off.
The demolitions team worked with practiced efficiency, mag-locking the charges to the robot's legs, torso, and the quantum core housing. The thermal detonators went on the main support beams—if we couldn't destroy it, we'd bury it under tons of concrete and steel.
"CHARGES SET!" they reported.
"FIVE SECONDS!"
"ALL UNITS, FALL BACK! FALL BACK NOW!" Morrison roared.
We ran. Not a tactical withdrawal, not a fighting retreat—we simply turned and ran for our lives. The shield bearers abandoned their positions, the heavy weapons teams dropped their equipment, everyone sprinting for the breach holes we'd created.
Behind us, the robot's eyes flared brighter, and I swear I heard something—not quite a voice, not quite static, but something that made my teeth ache and my neural implants burn.
"THREE SECONDS!"
We dove through the gaps in the walls, operators pulling wounded comrades, nobody left behind. Collins, despite his mangled leg, was hauled out by two of Morrison's team.
"TWO SECONDS!"
I could see the Behemoths, their engines already running, drivers ready to evacuate us. The remaining Voodoo Boys were fleeing too, the mutual desire for survival overriding our conflict.
"ONE SECOND!"
Morrison grabbed the detonator, his thumb hovering over the trigger. "This is for Chen, you mechanical fuck."
"ZERO! BREACH PROTOCOLS COMPLETE!"
Morrison hit the detonator.
The world went white.
_______________________________________
((V's)Valerie's POV)
The worn pages of The Art of War rustled beneath my fingers, Sun Tzu's ancient wisdom somehow more relevant now than ever. "In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity," I read, though the irony wasn't lost on me. We'd found opportunity, alright—the opportunity to reduce civilization to radioactive ash in the name of market dominance.
I closed the book gently, treating it with the reverence it deserved as one of the few physical texts to survive the electromagnetic pulses. My gaze drifted to the window on my left, the reinforced transparisteel offering a view that never failed to remind me of humanity's capacity for self-destruction.
Night City or what remained of it stretched out like a massive graveyard beneath the amber sky. The Corporate War had lasted only six months, but it had been enough to turn the jewel of California into a desert of glass and twisted metal. Where megatowers once stood, only skeletal frames remained, their burnt-out husks reaching toward the perpetually dust-choked sky like the fingers of buried giants. The sand had reclaimed most of the streets, transforming the urban sprawl into dunes that shifted with the radioactive winds.
Three years had passed since the final exchange when Militech's orbital kinetic bombardment met Arasaka's tactical nuclear response, when the NUSA's military intervention collided with the Free States' desperate chemical weapons deployment. The war that started over water rights and tax havens had ended with nobody left to claim victory. The government forces and the corporations had destroyed each other so thoroughly that the distinction between them ceased to matter.
I thought about how it had escalated, how each side had crossed line after line until there were no lines left. First, it was corporate espionage and sanctions. Then assassinations and sabotage. By the time the shooting started, both the federal government and the megacorps had invested too much pride and too many resources to back down. The doctrine of mutually assured destruction had failed because, in the end, nobody believed the other side would really do it.
They were wrong.
My neural implant chimed softly, pulling me from my reverie. I blinked, activating my HUD with a thought. The Arasaka interface materialized in my vision, its red and black design as austere as everything else the corporation produced. Schedule for the day: already completed my analysis of the Pacific Rim economic projections, reviewed the bunker's defensive protocols, and submitted my report on the viability of reclaiming the Sacramento ruins. Nothing else pending.
Time for physical maintenance, then. In this world, a sharp mind meant nothing if the body couldn't keep pace.
I stood, carefully placing the book on the shelf alongside the other recovered texts assembled over a century and a half of corporate warfare, both metaphorical and now terribly literal.
The transition from the study to the bunker proper always struck me. The illusion of normalcy books, furniture, windows gave way to the harsh reality of our existence. The corridor beyond was pure military pragmatism: two-meter-thick walls of reinforced concrete lined with lead and electromagnetic shielding. Every surface was designed to withstand assault from without and rebellion from within.
The bunker complex occupied the foundation and sub-levels of Arasaka Tower Tokyo, one of the few megastructures still standing and functional. While the upper floors maintained the facade of corporate normalcy, down here we lived in what was essentially a militarized city-state, complete with its own water recycling, food production, and power generation. Three thousand souls, all that remained of Arasaka's Japanese operations after the war.
I'd made it perhaps fifty meters when I encountered him.
Saburo Arasaka moved through the corridor with an energy that belied his years. The longevity treatments had frozen him at what appeared to be late fifties or early sixties his hair completely white but still thick, his face lined but sharp, his movements deliberate but never frail.
He wore a traditional black suit, but I knew the fabric was woven with carbon nanotubes, capable of stopping shrapnel and absorbing energy weapons. His eyes, enhanced with military-grade Kiroshi optics that cost more than most people's homes back when homes still existed tracked my approach with paternal recognition.
I stopped and offered a slight bow, the gesture both familial and formal. "Grandfather."
"Valerie-chan" he replied, the warmth in his voice reserved only for family. "Perfect timing. Walk with me."
We fell into step together, our footfalls echoing in the sterile corridor. We passed through several security checkpoints, each scanning us despite our clearances paranoia was survival now.
"How have your studies progressed?" he asked, though I knew he received reports on all my activities. This was about something else.
"The economic models suggest recovery is possible, but not for another generation at minimum" I replied. "The radiation will persist for decades, and the bioweapons Militech deployed have created self-sustaining ecological dead zones. We're looking at a fundamental restructuring of human civilization."
"Hmm." He nodded thoughtfully as we entered one of the bunker's observation areas a reinforced dome that offered a 360-degree view of the wasteland. "And what of your other studies?"
"The consciousness mapping proceeds well. We've achieved 96.2% neural fidelity in the latest trials, though emotional response problematic."
"Always the intangible elements that prove most difficult" he mused, stopping to gaze out at the ruins. In the distance, I could make out the skeletal remains of what had once been the NUSA embassy now just another monument to hubris. "Tell me Valerie, what do you think truly caused this?" He gestured at the desolation.
I considered carefully. With Grandfather, every conversation was both personal and a test. "Pride. Neither side could accept being second. The government couldn't accept that corporations had grown beyond their control, and the corporations couldn't accept any authority above profit. They'd rather rule over ashes than serve in paradise."
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. "Your Western education serves you well. But you're only partially correct." He turned to face me fully. "It was fear, Fear of irrelevance. When the climate wars started, when resources became scarce, everyone knew the old order couldn't survive. The question was who would shape the new one. And rather than risk losing that power..."
"They destroyed everything to deny it to their enemies," I finished.
"Precisely."
We resumed walking, passing through the hydroponics section where genetically modified crops grew under artificial suns. Food for three thousand, sustainable indefinitely as long as the fusion reactors held.
"What news from the surface expeditions?" I asked.
His expression darkened. "Mixed. The team we sent to the Kyoto ruins found the imperial bunker intact the Emperor and his family survived, which complicates matters. The Osaka reconnaissance discovered that Militech's bioweapons are mutating, becoming more aggressive. And the Night City expedition..." He paused.
"What did they find?"
"Activity. Someone is rebuilding in the ruins, using technology that shouldn't exist anymore. The radiation levels should kill anyone within hours, but our drones detected heat signatures, electromagnetic emissions, even what appeared to be manufacturing."
My blood chilled. "Survivors?"
"Or something else. Which brings me to why I was looking for you." We'd reached the medical research wing, its white walls and humming machinery a stark contrast to the bunker's grey concrete. "We need to accelerate the Soulkiller program."
My heart rate spiked. "The consciousness preservation project?"
"More than preservation" he corrected. "Revolution. The war proved that human bodies are too fragile, too vulnerable to chemical weapons, radiation, biological agents. But consciousness itself..."
"The government and Militech fought to control the old world," Grandfather said, his eyes gleaming with ambition. "They destroyed each other over scraps. But we will transcend their limitations entirely. Imagine, consciousness without the weakness of flesh, immortal, incorruptible, infinitely reproducible."
Dr. Taaka emerged from the lab, his chrome hands clasped professionally. "Arasaka-sama, Valerie-sama, we're ready for the test."
"Test?" I looked between them.
"A preliminary run of the memory preservation system" Grandfather explained. "Non-destructive, completely safe. We need baseline neural patterns from someone with the Arasaka genome, someone whose consciousness we fully understand. You."
I thought about the wasteland outside, the billions dead because two powers couldn't coexist. "You're planning for another war."
"No" he said firmly. "I'm planning to make war obsolete. When consciousness can be copied, death loses its finality. When minds can be uploaded, geography becomes irrelevant. The corporations and governments destroyed each other fighting over physical resources and territory. We will make both meaningless."
"Is Soulkiller almost ready?" I asked, unable to hide my excitement despite my apprehension.
"It's progressing smoothly. But this test will accelerate our timeline significantly. With your neural patterns as a baseline, we can optimize the system for the Arasaka genome, ensure our family's survival regardless of what happens to the world above."
"What about the other test subjects?" I asked as we approached the laboratory's reinforced doors. "The previous consciousness transfers what happened to them?"
Grandfather's expression remained neutral, but I caught the slight tightening around his eyes. "The early trials were... educational. We learned that consciousness is more fragile than we anticipated. The first three subjects experienced what we call 'echo degradation' their engrams became increasingly unstable over time, losing coherence until they were just noise."
"They dissolved?"
"In a manner of speaking. But each failure taught us something crucial. The fourth subject maintained stability for six weeks before showing signs of deterioration. The fifth..." he paused as the laboratory doors hissed open, "the fifth is still viable after three months, though we've detected personality drift."
"Drift?"
"The engram's personality parameters shifting from the baseline. Becoming someone else, essentially. Dr. Hellman can explain it better."
As we entered the lab, I immediately spotted him Anders Hellman, Arasaka's celebrity scientist, the man who'd turned Soulkiller from a weapon into a tool. He stood hunched over a holographic display showing neural pathway mappings, his fingers dancing through the data streams with practiced precision. His appearance was deliberately unremarkable medium height, brown hair already showing grey at the temples despite being only forty-three, a lab coat that had seen better days. But his eyes, when he looked up, burned with the intensity of someone who believed himself to be rewriting the rules of existence.
"Anders" I called out, offering a slight smile. We'd worked together before on a different project, and despite his ego, I respected him.
"Valerie! And Arasaka-sama" he straightened, offering a deeper bow to my grandfather before turning his attention back to me. His smile was genuine, if distracted. "Perfect timing. I've just finished calibrating the new neural capture algorithms. We should see a 3.7% improvement in synaptic pattern retention."
"Only 3.7%?" I teased, knowing how he prided himself on dramatic breakthroughs.
"Every percentage point at this level of fidelity is exponential" he replied, not catching or choosing to ignore my tone. "We're not just copying data, we're preserving the quantum states of consciousness itself. The difference between 96% and 99% is the difference between a recording and a resurrection."
Dr. Taaka appeared from behind another workstation, his chrome hands carrying the neural interface crown. "Shall we begin the preparation, Hellman-san?"
Anders nodded eagerly, already moving to the primary console. "Yes, yes. Valerie, if you'll take your position in the chair. This new version of the capture protocol should be much more comfortable than the previous iterations. I've reduced the electromagnetic interference by—"
That's when it happened.
The lights flickered not just dimmed, but completely cut out for a fraction of a second. Every holographic display wavered, data streams fracturing into static before reforming. The background hum of the laboratory's equipment stuttered like a massive heart skipping a beat.
Then again. Longer this time.
The emergency lighting kicked in, bathing everything in a harsh red glow. Anders' hands flew across his console, his face paling as readouts flashed warnings across his screen.
"No, no, no!" he muttered, fingers dancing desperately across the interface. "The containment fields if they fluctuate—"
Grandfather's transformation was instant and terrifying. The grandfatherly warmth vanished, replaced by the cold fury of a man who'd built an empire through sheer will. His hand slammed down on the nearest console with enough force to crack the reinforced polymer.
"What is the meaning of this?" His voice, usually so controlled, came out as a snarl.
Dr. Taaka was already at another terminal, pulling up the building's infrastructure diagnostics. "It's not just our floor, Arasaka-sama. The entire tower is experiencing power fluctuations. The fusion reactors are showing anomalous readings—"
Another flicker. This time, I heard something else—a deep, resonant thrum that seemed to come from the building's bones themselves. The kind of sound that bypassed your ears and went straight to your primitive brain, the part that still remembered what it was like to be prey.
"The backup generators?" Grandfather demanded.
"Engaging, but they're struggling to compensate" Taaka reported. "Something is drawing massive amounts of power from the grid."
Anders looked up from his console, his face ashen. "The engrams if the containment fields fail for even a microsecond at full capacity"
"They won't" Grandfather cut him off, but I could see the concern beneath his anger.
The lights flickered again, and this time, they stayed off for three full seconds. In the darkness, I heard the distinctive whine of equipment powering down, the desperate beeping of backup systems struggling to engage. When the red emergency lighting returned, several workstations had gone completely dark.
Grandfather stood perfectly still for a moment, his face illuminated by the crimson glow like some ancient war deity. Then he turned to me, and I saw him forcibly reassemble his composure, though anger still radiated from him like heat from a forge.
"Grandaughter" his voice was controlled again, though barely. "I apologize, but we must postpone the test. This... irregularity requires my immediate attention."
"Of course, Grandfather" I replied, already stepping away from the neural interface chair. Part of me was relieved the idea of having my consciousness copied while the building's power grid was unstable didn't exactly inspire confidence.
He turned sharply to the door, then paused, looking back at me. "The rest of your day is free. Perhaps use the time to review the Hellman's latest reports on engram stability. We'll reschedule once I've dealt with whatever incompetence has caused this."
With a gesture, he summoned three of his personal guard elite Arasaka soldiers in full combat armor, their faces hidden behind tactical visors. They moved with the fluid precision of enhanced reflexes and years of training, falling into formation around him.
" Taaka, Hellman, lockdown all sensitive systems. Nothing goes in or out of until I return" he commanded, then swept from the room, his guard matching his pace perfectly.
The laboratory fell into an uncomfortable silence, broken only by the hum of emergency power and the distant sound of similar disturbances throughout the building slamming doors, raised voices, the general chaos of a perfectly ordered system suddenly experiencing setbacks.