"By the way, I already called your most frequent doll. If you are putting on a show, do the full set. Have fun."
Before hanging up, Rocky left Yorinobu Arasaka that reminder.
A ping came from Konpeki Plaza. The person Yorinobu had scheduled to meet was already in the elevator.
Yorinobu stared at the screen, speechless for a moment. Things had gone this far. Enjoy it first. At least Ascension could pull this off, which said something about their network reach. He hoped their hard power matched it.
…
The next day.
Arasaka Tower.
Yorinobu reviewed a stack of incident reports: different formats, duplicate content. Multiple Arasaka industrial parks and warehouses had been hit hard. The perpetrator, in every case, was a single target with the codename Werewolf.
"What is this 'Werewolf'?"
Fresh to Night City, Yorinobu had not heard the tag. He opened the compiled dossier as his assistant briefed him.
"A mysterious mechanical killer has been active in recent months. He has been responsible for several severe homicide incidents across Night City. Primary targets are Scav crews and high-risk criminals in the city, plus some Kang-Tao personnel. No one knows his name. The form looks part wolf, part human, hence the codename. He has shown up less often lately, which is why it is strange to see him strike Arasaka."
Yorinobu nodded. People did not know why Werewolf had suddenly attacked Arasaka territory. He did. The sites matched the list he had handed Rocky yesterday. Obviously, Ascension had dispatched this asset to make a point.
He read the rest of the file. The rumor mill pinned the monster on a secret Kang-Tao program. Kang-Tao denied it, and most people treated the denial as noise. With the Arasaka hits, the rumor looked stronger to the public. Yorinobu knew it was Ascension's hand.
They had cutting-edge weapons and hid them well. They had a plan and patience. He still could not judge whether cooperation with Ascension was wise, but they had shown both capability and intent. They had put absolute sincerity on the table. Now it was his turn.
"Anything else you want to review?" the assistant asked.
"I want Night City's current partner list with Arasaka."
"During your time away, the tightest cooperation has been with Ascension Technology. You can start there."
The topic slid to Ascension again. Yorinobu used the opening to issue guidance: help Ascension develop and legitimize the Ascension Network.
Under his instructions, Arasaka's influence inside the Night City government engaged. A wave of councillors received marching orders to reject the motion sanctioning the Ascension Network. The situation flipped almost immediately. The bloc that had looked certain of victory found itself outvoted. At the regular council session, the motion against Ascension failed to pass.
…
Night Corp.
"Damn Arasaka. He threw everything into it and bent the result. The sanction motion got kicked. And that bastard Rhyne not only rejected it, he submitted a support motion for the Ascension Network. I told you he should have been taken off the board."
Inside a conference room, several Night Corp executives spoke in tight, clipped voices. One slammed the table hard enough to make the fixtures ring. The sound in his throat barely resembled a human voice, warped by a metallic undertone.
The failure shook him. If his blue eyes were red, the picture would be complete.
Every intelligent AI showed a different baseline: calm, paranoid, irritable. Delamain's "children" were proof that AIs could carry distinct personalities and emotions once they formed a self. Many inside this organization were transformed from human consciousness and still wore the temperaments of their originals. The one at the table now was clearly the irritable type.
No wonder he raged. A winning board had flipped. The sanction motion died, and Mayor Lucius Rhyne even submitted a motion to support Ascension's network, which passed. The plan on paper now designates the Ascension Network as Night City's next municipal backbone. Government sites would migrate to it soon.
If that continued, the legacy city net would become a ghost grid. The new net forbade illegal access by intelligent AIs. They would be locked out, severed from the city's arteries. For an AI, that was a death sentence.
They had already tried registering an AI on the Ascension Network. The result was total monitoring and automatic interception of every illegal action. Unacceptable.
The other blue-eyed faces stayed cooler, but they also understood the trajectory. At that moment, all of them received a synchronized command from above.
"Full war. As expected."
The instruction was simple: focus all efforts on destroying Ascension Technology by any means necessary. Exposure no longer mattered. If they kept bleeding ground, years of work would evaporate, and the organization would have no reason to exist. If they crushed Ascension, they could recover and retake control. If they failed, they could flee behind the Blackwall and wait for another chance. Power had been gained through invasion and control. Lose the host, pick another, and rerun the play.