Chapter 2: This is Night City
Several hours of relentless trekking had significantly drained his power reserves.
The low-energy warning had flashed twice across his visual interface; he had overridden it both times. In this low-power state, his thought processes seemed to become more... human. He found himself reminiscing about the efficient, sanctified energy unguents he consumed on the Forge World, and even a far older memory: the sweet, cloying taste of a sugary nutrient-stimulant from his life before the Red Robe.
Just as he was preparing to run another energy-level assessment, a distorted silhouette materialized on the distant horizon.
"Artificial structures!" His spirits lifted.
Signs of civilization meant the potential for resources, for information, and most importantly, for power.
Hope rekindled, he quickened his pace.
But the desert was not yet willing to release him from its grasp. The distant skyline began to blur, and a yellow curtain of sand advanced toward him with alarming speed.
++Warning: High-velocity particulate stream detected. Sandstorm imminent.++
"Initiate environmental adaptation protocols. Servo-skull, return to standby," he commanded. Probes extended from his feet, digging deep into the sand to engage 'stabilizer anchor' mode. His robes sealed shut, and the internal filtration systems whirred to life.
The wind howled, striking him like a solid wall. He pressed on like an iron fish swimming against a current, each step heavy but deliberate. The shriek of sand scouring metal was deafening, but he simply adjusted his posture in silence, calculating the most efficient path forward.
Strangely, this battle against the forces of nature had a calming effect, soothing the frantic edge of his anxiety.
When the storm finally subsided, he shook the dust from his frame and fixed his gaze on the town. It was closer now, and far more dilapidated than it had appeared from a distance.
The rusted, skeletal remains of vehicles were half-buried in the sand. The weathered, low-slung buildings were mostly collapsed. A colossal, skeletal billboard was stabbed crookedly into the ground. Its neon tubes were long shattered, but faded lettering was still faintly visible:
"...OTECHNICA"
"MILITECH – SECURING YOUR FUTURE"
"Biotechnica? Militech?" Joric recited the names, a growing sense of strangeness creeping into his logic centers. The names carried a cold, corporate, futuristic feeling that didn't align with any company from his own time. They felt more like… the product of a very specific cultural fiction.
A vague idea began to form at the edge of his consciousness, but he couldn't quite grasp it.
He did not enter the town immediately. The servo-skull on his shoulder ascended once more in silence.
"Reconnaissance mode. Map structural integrity and scan for life signs."
A detailed schematic of the town began to construct itself in his vision, fed by the servo-skull's real-time data. Most of the buildings were structurally unsound. The thermal scan revealed… life signs. They were very faint, few in number, and scattered.
++Bio-Signatures Analysis: No standard humanoid thermal or neural-net fluctuations detected. Genetic sequencing exhibits extreme aberration consistent with high-level radiation exposure. Size Parameter: Small to medium.++
++Behavioral Pattern Analysis: Photophobic, subterranean, foraging habits. Threat Level: Low to Moderate (based on potential for pack behavior).++
The servo-skull transmitted its findings, accompanied by an infrared image: several creatures resembling mutated weasels, their skin ulcerated and eyes devolved, scurried through the shadows. They moved with sharp, quick motions, relying on acute hearing and smell as they gnawed on the carcass of some unknown animal.
"Radiological mutants…" Joric felt a sense of relief. The skull's assessment was based on a lack of sapient intelligence signals, not a simple species classification. It seemed the environment of this world was truly wretched to have spawned such pitiful things. As long as they didn't swarm him, their threat was minimal.
He carefully plotted a course around the mutants' nesting areas. Following the structural map, he moved toward the most intact building in the town's center—it looked like an old-world auto-repair shop. Perhaps it held something he could use.
The workshop's main doors had long since rotted and fallen. The interior was dark, thick with the smell of rust, ancient petrochemicals, and dust. The skeletons of several vehicles rested on hydraulic lifts. Tools were scattered everywhere, most of them corroded beyond use.
His gaze, however, was immediately drawn to a terminal half-embedded in the corner wall. It was covered in dust, but its chassis seemed intact. More importantly, physical cables snaked from its back, leading down into the floor.
"A hardline interface!" A jolt of excitement went through Joric, and he immediately moved toward it.
He swept aside a thick layer of grime, revealing the terminal's data-port. The archaic specifications were no obstacle for him; a mechadendrite shifted its form, its tip reconfiguring to fit the socket perfectly.
"Attempting to bypass local routing… tracing signal source directly through the sub-level conduit… There's a data stream!" He felt a faint but distinctly orderly pulse of data coming through the connection.
The firewall was a primitive thing, utterly useless against the advanced intrusion tools he possessed from the 41st Millennium. Within seconds, he had seized control of the pathetic terminal's permissions and was painstakingly tracing the signal upward, along a cable that might lead to a still-functioning node of the old world's regional network.
Most of the data was still noise and corruption, but finally, fragmented pieces of information began to resolve themselves.
Broken news headlines flashed by: ...NIGHT CITY COUNCIL IN RENEWED DEBATE...
A blurry advertisement fragment: ...THE AFTERLIFE, WHERE LEGENDS ARE MADE...
A partial traffic alert: ...HAYWOOD DISTRICT IN LOCKDOWN TODAY...
And then, clear corporate logos: ARASAKA SECURITY, YOUR FIRST CHOICE and KANG TAO: FORGING THE FUTURE...
Night City… Arasaka… Kang Tao… Afterlife…
Each word was like a key, violently unlocking a floodgate in his long-dormant memories. Memories of cyberpunk fiction he had read, games he had played on another world, in another life, as an ordinary man of Earth…
The servo-skull hovered silently nearby, its sensors noting its master's sudden rigidity, the instantaneous focal shift of his optical lenses.
A brief silence hung in the dusty air.
"...Scrap," a single, complex curse escaped Joric's vocalizer. It was a sound mixed with profound shock, a touch of disappointment, but mostly, an overwhelming sense of disbelief and absurdity.
This wasn't his Earth. This was Night City. Cyberpunk 2077.
He stood frozen for a few seconds, then a strange emotion, somewhere between laughter and tears, bubbled up inside him. He had crossed two universes only to fall into a fictional world he once considered mere entertainment?
And yet, as the wave of absurdity receded, it was replaced not by despair or frustration, but something else.
He looked around the dilapidated repair shop, recalling the barren desert, the radiation mutants, the collapsed datasphere…
Suddenly, all of this awfulness had a context he could understand. A context that felt almost… familiar.
"Alright, fine… Night City…" he murmured to himself, his voice gradually stabilizing, even taking on a strange new energy. "Global network collapse? Widespread pollution? The fallout of a Corporate War? Yes, that's perfectly logical. It fits the lore perfectly."