In cyberspace, Lucy pivots to jack out the instant the enemy hacker speaks. Too late.
He laid a trap inside the room's subnet ahead of time and hard-locks her, fencing her inside the local grid. "Well, well. A few bugs slipped into Konpeki Plaza. Director Abernathy called it. Watching these 'employees' was a wise move," he says. Rocky and Jackie hear every word over the link.
Lucy faces the Arasaka hacker, fear and anger cutting through her calm. "Arasaka dog. Let me go."
She thrashes against the control, but Arasaka-grade hardware makes it a mismatch.
"Do not bother. Security will find you soon. Before you die, let me harvest something useful. Director Abernathy should like what I pull. Might be worth a bonus," he says, already sweeping data streams toward their subnet.
Rocky and Jackie hitch in the suite as two quickhacks slam their systems: Short Circuit and Synapse Burnout. A wall of EM noise races through muscle and chrome; their knees dip toward the carpet. The soldier-serum conditioning earns its keep. Nerves hold, resilience spikes, and both men catch themselves on their hands before the floor meets their faces.
"Now I get why you hate hackers," Jackie grits. The next pulse burns the joke out of him.
Connections between chrome and personal link overheat; the synaptic layer sizzles. The reinforcement slows the damage but does not erase it.
"You are right, Jackie. This is why," Rocky says, drawing a green vial from his left palm and setting it in his thigh.
Warmth floods him. Melted synapses knit. Power Stimulant Type I, amplified by Advanced Soldier Serum, does more than steady the line; it spikes the recovery curve. He palms a second vial into Jackie's arm. Breathing clears. Hands unclench. The pain backs off. "Thanks, L. Way better," Jackie says.
In netspace, the Arasaka hacker clocks their recovery and jolts. With both targets conscious, a clean deep dive is out. Fine. Let security bag them. Lucy, though—Lucy is pinned and fading under the flood. He shifts his scrape to her.
"No source data? Figures. Night City edgerunners leak nothing," he mutters, frustrated—then brightens. "Hold on. What do we have here? This girl used to be Arasaka property. Interesting. A defector. No wonder she slips ICE with scrap-tier gear. That is a real find. If I report—" He breaks off. Two red dots blink somewhere else on his grid.
The room is empty. Rocky and Jackie have vanished from the subnet as if they were never there. The map resolves: network monitoring room. His room. He rips out of a deep dive. A fist fills his vision. Reality confirms what his HUD refused to believe.
…Earlier, as they steadied from the hacks:
"Lucy is trapped in netspace and in danger. We find the hacker and end him," Rocky says, eyes gone flat.
"How? Our hacker is pinned," Jackie says. Without Lucy, they are blind. Even opening the door is a problem.
"Stay with me." Rocky flips through modules in his head. He planned for ambushes, so he dared to come to Konpeki.
He chooses, materializes a dagger-like device, and slots it into his left cyberhand. A red dot pops onto his internal map. "Enemy position revealed," the prompt says.
{ Apex Legends: Ash Skill Equipment Pack Module }
{ Contents: three skill devices from Ash. }
{ Death Mark: Data Knife. Stab into a target to reveal the attacker's location. Usable on a corpse to reveal the killer's last position. In a pinch, stab yourself to trace the source that hit you. }
{ Arc Trap. A thrown EM snare that binds the nearest target and inflicts damage. }
{ Phase Rush: Phase Knife. Tear a phase rift to any point within range and execute a one-way teleport. }
{ Price correction: bundle special minus 30 percent }
{ Item module: 35,000 euros }
This module embodies Ash's kit as physical gear, without game-nerf limits. The data knife lets him back-trace the hacker who struck them. The phase knife ignores walls inside its range and opens a portal directly to the chosen spot.