Chapter Text
David strolled out the front gate of the warehouse compound like he owned the place. None of the Sixth street guards had even noticed his intrusion, all too busy shooting the shit with each other to do their actual jobs. Not that he was about to complain, since that had only made his gig all the easier, but he thought they’d have higher recruitment standards, being such hardasses for military discipline and all.
Crossing the street and slipping down another alleyway, David deactivated his camo and sent a message to his fixer, informing him that everything had been handled. Only one guard had even suspected anything was amiss, and that was because he had to toss a spare magazine down the hall to get the guy to leave his computer chair so he could upload the spyware and get out the same way he entered. A clean gig by any standard.
A call popped up on his link shortly after. The man wanted to chat, apparently.
“Mr. Martinez,” his employer greeted him professionally—not that he had expected much else.
“Padre,” he returned with all due courtesy.
“Cormac was correct about you. Your work is admirable,” the old man complimented him, ever the kind and gentle grandfather.
David didn’t believe it for a second.
“Thank you, I do my best,” He demurred humbly, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Continue to do so, and you’ll have much more work sent your way,” Padre offered, though David didn’t miss the unsaid threat. He didn’t think he’d be given the carrot and stick so quickly. It might’ve been a bit early to speculate, but he wondered how long it would take before Padre tried to permanently poach him from his other Fixer—assuming he didn’t catastrophically fuck up a gig in the near future.
“Thank you, sir, I’ll keep my schedule open,” he said politely. Even if the man was playing an angle, having one of Night City’s largest fixers on his good side was too valuable an opportunity to let go to waste.
The line was suddenly silent for a few seconds. He contemplated asking if there was a connection issue, but before he got the chance, Padre addressed him again. “…Actually, I have something now. I’ve just been informed that a man in an NCPD uniform has started firing on some of my boys, as well as the locals. The man appears to be acting alone, without police jurisdiction. Go and subdue him, and I’ll give you half again what I just paid you.”
David glanced over at his digital wallet, noting it to be a good six-thousand fatter than it was a few minutes ago. Another nine to handle one guy was easy money.
“I’ll be there, just tell me where to go,” he agreed.
“My contact is sending you the coordinates. You will find your target across the highway from El Pinche Pollo. Be swift.”
“Understood,” he complied, ending the call and plugging the coordinates he received into his LPS before reactivating his camo and taking off with a running leap.
He arrived not long after, having taken the direct route via the rooftops, and he could smell the bloodshed long before he saw it. Overlooking the street from the top of a run-down building, he found that the scene didn’t disappoint, either.
Multiple vehicles below the highway had been overturned, a few of which had landed on top of some unlucky civvies, blocking easy access to the intersection from the west. Mangled corpses lined the interior of the makeshift blockade, brutalized to the point of unrecognizability, their blood smeared all across the street. Burning wreckage dotted the east side of the road, including the totaled remains of a police carrier, behind which stood a man in a crimson-stained uniform, rifle clenched tightly in hand, waving the muzzle around as if he was still surrounded. The rifle itself was even bloodier than his clothes, especially on the buttstock.
Someone’s been busy.
From what David could tell, the officer seemed to be sweeping the area for something. He wasn’t sure what, but the man was dedicated to patrolling the blockade regardless, pacing steadily back and forth, ever alert. The officer’s mouth was moving, but David couldn’t make out what he was saying over the blaring car alarms and the roaring flames that had spread to one of the nearby structures. He’d have to get closer.
David dropped down from his perch, crashing into the pavement like a meteor, throwing chunks of asphalt in all directions as he hit the ground. He approached the flaming barrier of overturned cars, brushing off some of the dust and debris that clung to him, not even bothering to activate his optical camo. Even with the blaring car alarms and roaring flames all around him, he had no doubt that the officer had heard him land. Stealth would be pointless here.
He considered skipping the conversation entirely and just eating the guy, but he quickly decided against it. He didn’t have a complete grasp of the situation just yet, and while it was easier to just consume him and rifle through his memories rather than try to wrestle an honest confession out of him, it was probably a poor idea to start solving all his problems by eating them. That was a slippery slope with serious repercussions—one wrong call and he could end up consuming a potential ally.
Shoving a car out of the way, David broached the police officer’s circle, hailing him with a wave, his hands up and visibly unarmed. The officer startled and immediately pivoted towards him, eyes unnaturally wide, rifle at the ready. The man was still muttering something to himself, though he still couldn’t quite hear what. Something about how “they” were everywhere? Hard to say. David could barely hear the guy as it stood. No need to jump to conclusions just yet.
Given the state of him, David wasn’t sure if he’d get any answers at all. The officer didn’t exactly seem stable.
“Excuse me, officer! You alright?” he asked as he approached the man, keeping his hands visible at all times. The guy was already rattled, no need to startle him further and risk conflict.
The officer pulled the trigger twice.
“Fuck!” David swore as two rounds hit him center mass, lodging themselves in his torso. He threw himself to the side to avoid taking further fire, catching a bullet in the leg as he rolled into a crouch behind another overturned car. He quickly expelled the lead shrapnel inside him as the officer dumped his entire magazine into the side of the car he was using as cover.
The man’s gun clicked empty, and David threw himself over the vehicle, closing the distance between them before the officer could finish reloading. He knocked the rifle out of the guy’s hand and swept his legs out from under him, at which point he collapsed like a bad bridge. David restrained one of the man’s arms and set one foot on the man’s chest to keep him from going anywhere.
“Hey!” he barked. “The hell was that for?! I’m tryin’ to help here!”
The officer continued muttering to himself as if lost in a daze. It was like he’d lost the ability to recognize his surroundings at all. David wondered what the hell was going on in the guy’s head.
Cyberpsychosis?
“Alright, seriously,” David insisted, trying to grab the officer’s attention again. “What the fuck’s going on? I heard you zeroed a couple gangoons out—”
The officer interrupted him by slamming his head into David’s, which did little to him, but left a crack the officer’s skull, judging by the nasty crunch he heard when their foreheads hit. The man’s muttering became more slurred, his eyes entirely unfocused. What few words he could make out seemed to be an attempt to call for backup, as far as he could tell, though he doubted anyone was listening. The guy clearly wasn’t reaching anyone else, otherwise NCPD would’ve been swarming this place by now.
Unfortunately, the officer was unlikely to survive long with a fractured skull, and a cop’s corpse meant a lot more heat coming down on him than he was comfortable with. He wasn’t particularly enthused about consuming a psycho, unsure how the deranged man’s memories could affect his own mental state, but at the same time, a cop’s memories could come in handy at times—assuming he had enough of his memories intact to give David anything useful. Plus, he could tell Padre more about the situation if he knew what had happened firsthand.
If he were being honest with himself, though, he was curious as to what drove a man like this to psychosis. What pushed a man with a pension plan to chrome up hard enough to spiral out of control and destroy everything he’d worked for.
“I’d apologize for this, but you shot first.”
David raised his arm and plunged it into the man’s chest.
His biomass devoured the officer from the inside out, converting every bit of meat and bone into twisted, mutable flesh. Cyberware was consumed just the same, the metal shells hollowed out and stripped of everything usable. The faint gnawing hunger at the back of his mind was quiet once again, temporarily sated. A rush of memories flooded his mind, overlapping and blurring together into a slurry of incomprehensible sights and sounds. Only the most important events were observable. His parents passing, getting married, being inducted into the force, his kids learning to walk. Everything else was a blur, a cacophony of sounds and scents.
But his most recent memories were…strange.
Something about the last few hours was…wrong. Like what he was experiencing didn’t match up with reality, and he knew that, deep down somewhere, but he didn’t know how to see clearly anymore. All he could “see” were enemies. In front of him, behind, on all sides, everyone was out to get him, they were coming for him, they had weapons trained on him, they were going to kill him, he had to run, he had to get away, he had to fight, he had to survive, he had to kill! He didn’t want to, but it was him or them, they were all around him, they wouldn’t let him leave here alive, he was pinned, there was no escape, he wasn’t making it out of this, but he wouldn’t go quietly, he’d kill every last one of them—
He was ambushed. He fought back. He lost. He died.
It was painful.
He’d kill him too.
David shook off the dregs of the man’s last thoughts as he pushed himself to his feet. He could sort through the man’s memories later. Police would be here soon enough; he needed to delta before they arrived and found him with an MIA officer’s iron.
He twisted the gun into an unrecognizable shape and tossed into the burning wreckage, then stole away into an alley and fled the scene, sirens already wailing in the distance.
The distinct crack of a new bottle of tequila being opened filled his apartment. The strong, burning scent of alcohol wafted across the apartment as David poured himself a glass. The officer’s memories—Brian Rosenstock, he recalled—were in worse shape than he’d feared. He hadn’t known what to expect when consuming the cyberpsycho, but he’d hoped that the memories would be at least somewhat comprehensible. Still visible, but twisted by whatever affliction had taken hold of him, the truth still buried somewhere inside, able to be puzzled out with enough effort.
That was not at all what he’d found.
Large chunks of the man’s memories were simply missing, as if they had been torn out of his head. Looking through the man’s past, David found that various memoirs were cut off abruptly, only to begin just as suddenly days, weeks, or even months later. Some days were whole and intact, but many more were fractured and unintelligible, if not outright missing. And it got worse and worse with each passing memory. Only his early childhood remained remotely intact.
Stranger yet, many of the man’s more recent memories were blatant fabrications. There was a kind of static or film over the scenery, denoting each of them as damningly unnatural, with no clear indication as to when Rosenstock had actually experienced them. The false memories existed entirely on their own, in the empty spaces of his mind, floating in solitude where something else had once lived. Others were overlaid atop his true memories, not quite hiding the truth, but obstructing it, like watching one holovid through another. Not a single one fit properly.
David absentmindedly downed his drink and poured himself another glass.
Nothing made sense. Nothing added up. The deeper he delved, the more difficult it became to piece together a coherent timeline. Even the false memories failed to formulate a consistent story; all of them seemed to be from different times. Some of them were even from different people. David almost wondered if the man had gained an ability to steal memories similar to himself, but he quickly dismissed the possibility. His own biology stole people’s entire lives, whereas Brian’s false memories were fragmented and incongruous. They were inflicted upon him.
David pushed himself off the couch, set his glass down on the manufactured table and meandered over to the bathroom. He had delved too far into the memories; he needed to ground himself.
Turning on the sink, he cupped his hands under the faucet and splashed his face with water, relishing the sting of the cold on his cheeks. The sensation helped to reassert his identity, reminding him of who he was and pulling him out of the jumbled memories that were so easy to get lost in. David hadn’t found it nearly as difficult to separate himself from the memories of the other mercenaries he’d eaten, or those of the doctor. Maybe something about the fake memories jumbled in with the real, fractured ones made it hard to determine where he himself ended and where they began. He would have to avoid delving back into those memories in the near future if he wanted to stay confident in his identity.
Then he looked up into the mirror, and as the gaunt, haunted face of Brian Rosenstock stared back at him, he realized he may not be so confident in his identity already.
David slowly reached up towards his face, running his fingertips across his jawline and feeling the coarse, thick stubble that had never grown on his own. The man in the mirror did the exact same thing, even down to the bewildered expression he knew he was making just as well.
The man was him, David knew, but he still had a hard time believing it.
He could feel the hysteria seeping into his bones. Was he no longer David Martinez? Was he stuck as Officer Rosenstock forever now? Or would he eventually become the next mentally unstable person he devoured, trapped in an infinite cycle of new identities? He desperately prayed that he could become himself again, eyelids screwed shut, hoping against hope that either God or his mother could hear him. He just wanted this nightmare to end. It was bad enough that he had become a monster. Now he was a monster that no one would even recognize.
Opening his eyes again, David was unimaginably relieved to find his prayers answered. Gone was Rosenstock’s sunken visage, and in its place was his own familiar face again. He slumped against his sink, nearly breaking down crying in relief. Clearly, someone was still looking out for him.
He allowed the roiling emotions to wash through him, letting them run their course before slowly composing himself and looking up into the mirror once more. His clothes melted into his skin almost subconsciously, leaving him naked and exposed. For the first time since his mother died, he truly looked at himself.
To say his body was unfamiliar was an understatement. The skin tone was correct, and his face was similar enough, but nothing else about his body reminded him of what he used to look like. The short, scrawny teen he remembered was long gone, and in its place was something more reminiscent of a weapon of war than a young man. Tall, lean and dangerous, David could see every individual muscle stretch and contract under his skin. The veins along his arms were so dark he could almost believe they pumped oil rather than blood, and his muscle mass rippled and shifted as he flexed and contracted, condensing wherever he strained his body. He tried to shift the extra mass away from the muscles under tension, just to see if he could, but immediately the veins under his skin rose into tendrils of biomass, and so he aborted the attempt prematurely. Clearly, he still lacked fine control over himself.
Having calmed down a bit, David reflected on what he had just seen in the mirror. He’d never thought about it before, but clearly, his biology could imitate more than just cyberware and memories. But could he transform on command, like with his replicated chrome, or did specific circumstances need to be met for it to happen? And was the cloning process only skin-deep, or could he copy other traits as well?
Only one way to find out.
Immersing himself in what remained of Rosenstock’s memories once again, David honed in on the formative experiences that shaped the man into what he was: his family, his colleagues, his oaths, his trials. How an unsolved…something drove him to become a detective. How the laziness of the higher-ups pushed him to climb the ladder in hopes of changing the department from within. How he forged a close friendship with another up-and-coming detective, and how he fell in love with a woman he’d met at a stall in Japantown.
And before his eyes, his skin twisted and warped, ghoulishly rearranging itself until Brian Rosenstock was once again the man in the mirror.
Seeing someone else’s face in the mirror still freaked him out, in all honesty, but now that he understood that it was something he had control over, David could look at the transformation more objectively. To be blunt, the potential of this ability was effectively unmatched. Between the transformation and the memories, there was no organization, circle or safehouse he couldn’t infiltrate. If he could imitate more than just the look of the people he consumed, then there would be no way for anyone to tell that they were in the vicinity of a monster wearing someone else’s skin, rather than the person they thought it was.
David had a sinking feeling that Blackwatch’s higher-ups knew all this already. If so, it would make sense why they would be willing to risk Arasaka’s attention to scour Night City for him. If Arasaka found out about his true potential, they’d stop at nothing to either capture him or replicate the experiments that made it.
“Do I sound—holy shit,” David interrupted himself, shocked. He remembered what Rosenstock’s voice sounded like from the man’s perspective, but to hear it come out of his own mouth was surreal. Not just the sound, too: the vibrations of his vocal chords felt radically different than his own.
…Actually, this is kinda fuckin’ nova.
If he thought his infiltration abilities were incredible before, they were unparalleled now—and he already had an idea of how to test them.
Rosenstock’s memories might be missing, but the NCPD almost certainly had a log of his patrol routes, as well as anything he may have called in. If David could get access to those, he’d have a better idea of where Rosenstock had been and what he’d been doing before his sudden onset of cyberpsychosis. With that, he could retrace the man’s steps and look into what had happened to him while out on patrol.
The only issue was that Officer Rosenstock’s psychotic break was a pretty public event. Massacring an intersection was hardly a quiet event, and if the Valentinos all knew about it, then the cops were certainly just as aware. Rocking up to a police station as a guy who’d had a notable psychotic break just a few hours ago would be enough to invite a lot of suspicion. Even if they wouldn’t necessarily assume it was an impostor wearing Rosenstock’s face, they’d still try and lock him in an interrogation room. He needed someone else to do it for him.
David racked the man’s brain, searching through spotty, incomplete memories of his time with the force, trying to find anyone seemingly honorable or loyal enough to put themselves at risk for a fellow badge. No one came to mind at first, but a face eventually surfaced: a bald, deeply tanned man with a single turquoise earring and a cybernetic eye. Some detective. The name escaped him.
David thanked God that Rosenstock’s personal link hadn’t been damaged too badly.
Scrolling through the man’s contacts, he eventually found the man via facial ID. From what Rosenstock could remember, the guy was infamous for hunting down leads, even if it meant butting heads with some of the top brass in pursuit of the truth. If there was anyone in the department willing to help him out under the chief’s nose, it was him. All he had to do was convince the guy.
David mentally prepared himself and hit the call button, waiting for the line to pick up. He stared aimlessly at the “transmitting” icon, counting the revolutions while he ran over what he knew about the guy in his head. After five spins, he answered.
“Brian?” the detective’s tentative voice crackled in his head. The man sounded older than he remembered. “Is that you?”
David swallowed. Showtime.
“Hey, River,” he greeted, adding enough warble into his tone to adequately replicate Rosenstock’s paranoia.
“How the hell are you alive, man? The department just declared you zeroed a few hours ago.”
David chuckled nervously. “Listen, I need your help. We can’t talk here. I don’t know who could be listening. Can you meet me at Tom’s in twenty?”
“I don’t—” River stammered, evidently bewildered at the sudden curveball he’d just thrown into the man’s life. “Hold on. What happened? Are you still on the force?”
“Can’t explain right now,” David cut him off, not giving the man any time to think things through. He needed River off balance if he wanted this to go smoothly. “I’ll be at Tom’s in twenty. Be there quick, I can’t stay too long.”
“Brian!” the detective snapped, trying to regain control of the conversation.
“You’re the only one I can trust, River. I’ll see you soon.”
David hung up the call before River could get another word in. The bait had been set. Now all he needed to do was to see if the detective would bite.
He sat down in the far corner of the diner, police uniform purposefully tattered, covered by a large, dilapidated overcoat worn specifically to give off the impression that he was trying to pass himself off as inconspicuous. He had snagged it off some secondhand clothing line on his way here, ignoring River’s repeated calls all the while. Only after five or six went unanswered did the man get the message.
David ordered a black coffee as he waited, going over everything he knew about Rosenstock and River in his head. They were never partners, but they had worked together on at least a few cases involving the murders of other badges and certain corpos. Ward was competent, but his stubbornness had made his fair share of enemies in the department, despite the general sense of loyalty fostered between badges. He and Rosenstock’s partner rarely got along, from what David could see, but Rosenstock’s partner had been pretty lazy, so that was sort of a foregone conclusion.
His partner’s name escaped him, though—as did his fate.
Another thing to ask Ward.
Soon enough, the man of the hour pushed into the diner with all the grace of a sudden storm hitting the coastline, his heavy coat fluttering behind him. Sweeping his gaze over the premises, Ward locked eyes with him and quickly made a beeline towards his table like a heat-seeking missile, waving off the waiter as he dropped into the seat across from him. The old imitation leather creaked and groaned under his weight, betraying a level of cybernetic enhancement that otherwise wouldn’t have been obvious by just looking at him. Probably why he wore the coat everywhere.
“Where’ve you been, Brian?” the detective opened, clearly not one for pleasantries.
David swallowed another sip of coffee, eyes wide, playing up the part of the scared man on the run. “Hey River. It’s…it’s good to see you. Been a rough day.”
“Yeah, looks like it,” River acknowledged, glancing down at his stolen coat, something almost like pity in his one ‘ganic eye. “What happened? Why’s the force say you flatlined?”
“Fuck if I know. Haven’t checked in since…I don’t know. Since whatever happened to me, probably,” David shrugged.
River’s brow furrowed, small stress lines running down his forehead. “What do you mean, ‘whatever happened?’ Do you not remember?”
“I don’t,” David dropped. “There’s probably a lot I don’t remember, to be honest. Woke up over in Heywood earlier this morning. The local news was saying there was a cyberpsycho badge running around. I assume that was me.”
“That’s what the force reported, too,” Ward agreed. “You seem sane now, though. Do you know how much you’re missing?”
David shook his head, scratching his chin. He wracked his mind for Rosenstock’s most recent undamaged memory.
“…My partner,” he eventually spoke. “He’s still alive, right?”
River made a face at the mention of the man. “Jetsen? Yeah, the bastard’s still kickin’. Was already reassigned, from what I heard.”
He took another sip of his coffee, nodding uncertainly. “Yeah. Alright. Last I really remember is…I think it was the 6th Street case? You were workin’ it too. McBride or something?”
River’s expression became significantly more concerned. “The June McBride case?”
“Think so, yeah.”
“Fuck,” River swore. “That was over a year ago.”
David blinked.
“Fuck,” he agreed.
“…Why don’t you come back to the force? I can vouch for you if you need me too. Hell, Jetsen probably would too.”
David immediately shook his head. “Can’t. Like you said, they already reported it. If I go back, they’ll know I’m alive.”
River narrowed his eyes, once again the bullheaded detective. “Who’s ‘they?’”
David shrugged. “Whoever fucked with my memories, probably.”
“You think someone actively messed with your head?” River inquired. “What makes you think you didn’t have some kinda cyberpsycho episode?”
“Last I heard, psycho episodes don’t implant fake memories into people.”
“Alright, now you’re yankin’ my cord,” River gave him an unimpressed glare.
“I wish I was,” David sighed, slumping over and staring down at his half-empty mug. “But since this morning, I’ve had memories of doin’ shit I know I didn’t do. They’re just…I dunno, they’re floating around in my mind, totally out of place. There’s no context for them. And I get that my memories are kinda trashed right now, but I don’t believe that they’re my memories. There’s just no way. They didn’t happen, full stop.”
“You’re a hundred percent on that?” Ward asked, concern beginning to well up in his ‘ganic eye. He seemed to be getting somewhere with the man after all.
“I know it,” he confirmed.
The detective exhaled heavily, sinking back into the bright red booth. Concern and suspicion warred on his face as he stared into the coffee mug in front of him, running over every bit of information he’d been given and struggling to come to a conclusion.
“Please,” David begged, choking up a bit to extract every drop of sympathy that he could. “I just need my patrol route and what time I went dark. That’s all. I can take it from there. But I need to find out what happened to me.”
River chewed the inside of his cheek, unable to meet his eyes. David could see his resolve cracking.
“…There’s no guarantee there’ll still be any evidence left by the time you go investigate.”
“Yeah, but it’s the only lead I got,” he shrugged.
Ward nodded in understanding. “What do you plan to do if you don’t find anything?”
“I dunno,” David admitted. “I’ll figure somethin’ out. Someone had to have seen something.”
River mulled it over in his head for another minute, only pausing to thank the waiter for bringing him an extra cup of coffee.
“…Fine,” he eventually capitulated, a grim expression on his face. “I’ll help you. But you report anything you find directly to me, or I’ll track you down and drag your ass back to the station myself. Got it?”
“Got it,” David smiled, genuinely relieved this time. Getting that info would have been a pain had River not agreed. “I’ll let you know if I catch wind of anything.”
“Alright, I’m gonna delta, then. I’ll send you the detes when I get them,” River moved to stand, fishing his wallet out of his coat pocket and tossing a few eddies on the table for the coffee. “Stay safe out there.”
“I will,” David lied through his teeth, finishing off his own coffee before exiting the booth as well. “And again, thanks, River. I really appreciate all this.”
Ward snorted dismissively. “Thank me by letting me know what you find. I’ll be in touch.”
The man walked out of the diner without another word.
David exited the diner through the kitchen staff door, ignoring the protests of the chefs as he pushed past them and out the back door. Only once the door had closed behind him did he allow the mask to drop. Brian Rosenstock melted into amorphous biomass as he remade himself in his own image, and David Martinez existed once again.
He had briefly considered not investigating the guy’s memories at all. Rosenstock’s fate had nothing to do with him personally—he had only even encountered the man because of a gig. Some random badge’s fucked up memories had nothing to do with him. David had bigger things to worry about.
However, ruminating over the man’s condition brought a memory to the forefront of his mind: one of Joseph Cooper’s. The Blackwatch agent, newly inducted into the org, had been talking with one of his fellow soldiers, a combat netrunner. Cooper had asked the man if there were any hacks that they were developing that could erase people’s memories or anything similar for covert ops to avoid dealing with witnesses, and had been told explicitly that there was no way to alter the memories of a ‘ganic mind with any known tech, let alone a cyberdeck.
That conversation happened over a decade ago, and technology had improved since then, but the principle remained the same: it was impossible to alter an organic mind with only cybernetics.
…David sent a quick text to Lucy just to be sure that still held true.
The way she worded her response made him think that she thought he rode the short NCART to the academy, but she did confirm that no technology that she had ever heard of could purposefully alter someone’s memories. It was possible to alter a sufficiently chromed person’s visual and aural implements, and a netrunner could also damage their victim’s brain via overloading any cranial cyberware they might have, but there was no guarantee what parts of the brain would be altered or damaged from such an attack. The hacks weren’t precise enough to allow the user to control what parts they affected.
Which meant the only thing he knew that could access memories was…well, himself: the undefinable biological weapon whose capabilities even he still didn’t fully understand.
A biological weapon made by Blackwatch.
And clearly I wasn’t the only experiment they were working on.
He felt like he was beginning to see the true scope of Blackwatch’s goals. They weren’t building a bioweapon to turn people into man-eating monsters, as he’d initially believed. They were making the formula for a super-spy: someone able to perfectly infiltrate any corporation, any government, and perfectly extract accurate information by way of devouring the right target and taking their place for as long as it took to get what they needed, whether that was the information in the victim’s head, access to some sort of database or facility, or close proximity to a more valuable target.
And that’s why Blackwatch is so tight on security! They’re all kept out of the larger loop because the higher-ups fuckin’ knew they’d be a security risk if something got out!
It was nice to finally have an answer to one of his questions, but that didn’t make it any less annoying to have to work around.
But whatever their memory tech used, and however it worked, it was clearly incomplete. Good enough to fake someone having a cyberpsychosis episode, but not enough to convincingly alter someone else’s memories. Strictly a defamation and witness erasure tool in its current stage. It was only a matter of time until they developed a more sophisticated version, though, and if they were comfortable using it on an NCPD officer, he doubted that Brian was anywhere close to the first person in this city that they had used it on. It was too convenient of a way to destroy and discredit anyone that got too close to their operations for them not to abuse. More and more victims would undoubtedly be afflicted the longer they were allowed to roam the city unimpeded.
However, more important than the collateral, it was a lead. David now had an idea of their methods, and if River pulled through for him, he would have a location. From there, all he had to do was follow the trail they were so kindly leaving him.
The virus under his skin rippled in anticipation. David could feel the storm brewing in the air—the pressure steadily building against the base of his skull. He welcomed it with open arms.
One step closer to the truth.