Perhaps from all the travel lately—or simply from boredom with her current assignments—Vera dozed through most of the trip to Night City. When the AI flight attendant made the arrival announcement, her subordinate gently woke her from her brief rest.
With her mind cleared, Vera leaned back, then sat upright at the sound. Through the porthole, she watched Night City gradually come into view beneath the night sky.
This was her turf.
Night City International Airport lay about 15 kilometers from Corporate Plaza in the city center—a route Vera knew like the back of her hand.
"Application's been submitted. Now we wait."
After touching down, she took an aerodyne to Arasaka Tower. There were mission reports to hand off, logistics to notify about equipment and supply losses... After wandering the office for a bit, she eventually left and headed home, feeling little enthusiasm.
Beep.
"Welcome home, Miss Vera."
Back at her apartment, she stepped off the landing pad as soft music began playing in her ears. Having detected her arrival the moment she re-entered Night City airspace, the humanoid robot that had been waiting stepped forward and bowed with practiced grace, taking her briefcase.
Six months in, every one of Vera's home security subscriptions was fully operational.
She might've been gone on field assignments more often than not, but skimping on home protection wasn't an option—especially now that her position within Arasaka had risen significantly.
Corporate community security was solid, but Vera wasn't about to get careless when it came to personal defense.
Caroli's latest home security bots were part of the equation. Designed more for domestic support than combat, they could still hold their own. They cooked, cleaned, even played piano. Vera liked their reliability—and had bought several.
For real combat support, she used her Arasaka security executive status to buy a squad of five Arasaka combat bots at discounted internal rates.
She'd even acquired an Arasaka automated combat mech, parked neatly on the landing pad in her back courtyard.
Then there were the extras: intrusion countermeasure units and network firewalls ordered from NetWatch, Kang Tao's AS-1 sentry turrets positioned at key locations throughout the apartment, and Rayfield's upgrade service for her personal aerodyne...
Money flowed like water.
If not for the Russell family's deep pockets—plus her high salary and generous bonuses from field ops—she couldn't afford this kind of lifestyle.
The security division was dangerous, sure, but the pay was sweet.
During peacekeeping missions, the goal was to eliminate destabilizing elements—gangs and the like. Their accounts and assets? Split among Vera and her Arasaka troops according to certain... unwritten rules.
Some of it kicked back to Arasaka, naturally. But not all. The company still needed boots on the ground willing to bleed for results.
Most importantly, Vera didn't just burn money—she made it.
[Danger Gal, 2074 Business Partner Annual Dividend]
Her optic implant blinked orange-red.
Here came more cash.
Danger Gal might've been small-time compared to giants like Arasaka and Militech, but their annual profits were still astronomical for an individual.
Vera watched the digits jump in her Arasaka Bank account. She counted the zeroes three times before nodding slowly, her mood improving by the second.
Click, click...
Kicking off her office flats, she stepped barefoot onto the soft carpet. She loosened her jacket collar, tossed the coat to a waiting housekeeping bot, then undid the hair that had been tied up all day, letting it fall in a cascade.
Whoosh.
Right on cue, the service bot wheeled in a food cart, loaded with ingredients sourced from biotech farms. It set the table and began plating dinner with silent precision.
Time to eat.
After a hearty meal, full and recharged, Vera dropped onto the white sofa, letting her body melt into its plush softness.
Crossing her legs, she synced her neural link to the wide-screen TV. With a mental command, the channel switched to News 54.
"Good evening, and welcome to this special edition of News 54."
"I'm Gillian Jordan, bringing you local updates for everyone who calls Night City home. First, some unfortunate news from the Badlands..."
"A Militech humanitarian convoy was brutally attacked by a group of criminal nomads—"
Tch.
Vera smirked unconsciously at Militech's misfortune.
Occupational reflex. Militech was Arasaka's biggest rival in the arms industry. The backstabbing and underhanded moves between them were too many to count. After years on the Arasaka side, she'd be insane to feel any sympathy for Militech.
Unless she planned to jump ship.
She dismissed the news quickly. Hoping for others' failure wasn't half as useful as finding new ways to rise higher.
Multitasking, she skimmed through recent Night City headlines from while she'd been away.
...
Maybe it was the tension of waiting. Vera lay back, hands behind her head, eyes fixed on the high-tech chandelier above. Her thoughts drifted in silence.
Until Tokyo HQ responded, there wouldn't be new field assignments.
Staying in Night City gave her both the time and reason to expand her partnership with Danger Gal.
If Umbrella's next-gen products kept advancing, the high-end biotech and medical tech they were developing would soon demand raw materials derived from T-virus byproducts.
Those materials didn't exist in this world.
At least not as far as Vera knew. It wasn't like she could find Stairway of the Sun flowers in the Ndiyamabila tribal ruins of cyberpunk Africa to extract the progenitor virus.
So—
After all the buildup, all the prep, it was time to act.
Vera's languid expression sharpened.
Whoosh.
She stood, ascended the stairs to her private bedroom, and stepped into the washroom.
The lights came on automatically.
She stared into the vanity mirror.
Loose tie. Sharp features. High nose bridge. Muscle lines carved in with subtle prosthetic modifications—both beautiful and efficient. Slightly upturned lips. The look of a high-level corpo ready to command at any moment.
But Vera wasn't admiring herself.
She simply gazed.
"The call from the void… I know this will work."
Her calm face shifted—subtle, but unmistakable—as she made up her mind.
There it was again: that tug. A quiet, almost spiritual pull forward, like an invisible hand pushing her one step closer.
She saw herself, clearly.
Standing in the mirror. Wearing a red and white umbrella pin on her collar. Eyes deep, resolute. A presence that seemed to stretch across time and space, as if a parallel self stood beside her—touching something deep inside her soul.
"Give me," Vera said, extending her hand.
Her reflection moved, reaching forward with an A4 sheet of paper.
One hand—subtly grooved with prosthetic lines—reached forward.
Another—flesh and blood—offered the sheet.
Contact.
Paper.
In that moment, an emotion surged through her. Excitement. Fear. Maybe exhilaration.
Like a braindance peaking at the climax, a strange exhaustion hit her—mental, emotional, almost spiritual—but she could endure it.
There was no pain.
"How remarkable."
Breathing deeply, Vera rubbed her temples and looked down at her palm.
Where an unreal black-and-white aura slowly faded—
There it was:
A single, wrinkled A4 sheet of paper.