Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Liminal living

I can't recall my first birth or my first death, but my second birth remains vividly etched in my memory. It felt like clawing through someone else’s mind, drowning in their pain and fear, while suffocating in despair. I awoke from one nightmare into another. My body shivered, gasping for air as I burst out of a refrigerator filled with ice and lifeless bodies. Everything was chaos: my body, the world, a hellish scene of humans twisted together with machines. The stench was overwhelming, a nauseating cocktail of blood, ozone, and industrial smoke.

As I broke the surface of consciousness, I saw a shocked woman aiming a large gun at me, stepping back while she fired. I scrambled for cover, my limbs aching and clumsy, my vision too sharp, too intense. I was fast, too fast, and strong. I vaulted over a pile of trash and dove behind some crates. The place, the woman's voice, the borgs? No, Maelstrom gangers. All of it felt disturbingly familiar.

...Fuck.

If my hunch was right, a very effective mercenary, possibly a serial killer by technical standards, was shooting at me. Or maybe just trying to incapacitate me. What should I do? Try to talk to her? Could it get any worse?

I shouted in a voice that didn’t sound human. “Peace! Peace! Are you V, with Johnny Silverhand in your head?!”

She hesitated for a second, finger still resting on the trigger. “Who the fuck are you?! And how do you know about Johnny?”

“My name is Sine,” I replied. “And I think... I might be like Johnny. Just without a V.” I paused, then added, “And as for how I know about you... it’s a long story. A weird one. But I’ve got information. Useful information.”

V narrowed her eyes. “Might? What do you mean, might?”

“I’m just being honest. I don’t know if what I know is 100% accurate.” I felt small. Helpless. V in my games was more than decent, for a merc. But I also remember gunning down gang members like they were NPCs. “Do I sound like a cyberpsycho to you?” I asked, desperate.

She studied me for a moment, then made a decision. “You do sound weird, but not like Maelstrom. Walk ahead of me. Try anything funny, and I’ll drop you without a second thought. Clear?”

“Super clear!” I said, raising my hands slowly.

With her gun still trained on me, V barked, “Move. We need to get out of here before Max-Tac or some other cleanup crew shows.”

We walked through desolate industrial ruins for what felt like fifteen minutes. The environment felt familiar, but distorted, twisted, like someone had cranked reality up past ten. My body felt alien, cybernetic limbs feeding constant signals: irritation, pressure, pain.

Eventually, we arrived at an abandoned industrial lot. A few scattered squatters fled at the sight of V and me. She told me to sit on the floor. That’s when I realized how different my vision had become. My eyes adjusted automatically to the dim light, turning everything into crisp black-and-white clarity, like a noir film fed through military optics.

V’s stare was sharp and calculating. “When I first scanned you, your name was Zaria Hughes. Now my scanner says Alice Van der Linde. Explain.”

The Dutch surname caught me off guard. “Alice? And why the hell has my surname been translated into Dutch?” I muttered.

“Where are you from, then?” V asked, misreading my confusion.

“Denmark,” I answered.

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

I groaned internally “No. And to answer your actual question... I don’t know. I wish I did. I don’t even know why I ended up in this monstrous body.”

V raised a brow, her tone cautious. “So you’re saying you’re not Zaria Hughes or Alice Van der Linde?”

“Yeah. It sounds insane, but it’s the truth.” I looked her dead in the eye. “Wanna hear something even crazier?”

“I come from an alternate world where you, V, are the protagonist of a computer RPG called Cyberpunk 2077. If I had to guess, Johnny’s probably whispering in your ear right now, telling you to ‘waste the crazy gonk and move on.’”

V’s grip on her gun tightened, but her expression didn’t change. “No, but close enough,” she said coolly.

“I’ve got fun facts, too,” I added, barely holding it together. “Johnny boy, your memories? Altered. The bomb? It wasn't a nuke, just a big firebomb. You were a decoy for Blackhand; he had the real nuke. And Arasaka? They would've nuked Night City themselves rather than let Militech win.”

I looked away, up at the familiar sky. “Am I going to die? And do I even care?” I asked myself.

Before the moment could collapse into silence, I blurted, “How long since Konpeki Plaza?”

“Eleven days,” V replied. “Not that anyone’s counting.”

“Look, V,” I said, trying to stay calm. “If you're wondering what my angle is... it’s simple. I want to survive in this world and maybe figure out why I'm here. I’m hoping what I know might be useful to you. Maybe valuable.” I hesitated, feeling like a gonk. "And I... I kind of have a parasocial fondness for you.”

V tilted her head, squinting like she wasn’t sure if she should be weirded out, amused, or just annoyed.

Great. That last bit might’ve been suicidally dumb.

Then she started asking questions about Takemura, Rogue, and a few others. Some I remembered, others I didn’t, or had only vague knowledge of from gameplay or lore dumps I'd half-read. Her interrogation wasn’t aggressive, but the precision of her questions cut deep. I realized, with a chill, that V might be just another merc here. But back home, in my world, she would be considered very dangerous.

She finally sat back and gave a slow exhale. “This is so fucking weird. You... your story... the way you talk. Like some scared virgin nomad seeing Night City for the first time. But you look like a burned-out Maelstrom vet.”

She paused, then added, “Here’s how this is gonna go: I’ll find you a place to stay. If this is some kind of con... well, it’s the least boring one I’ve seen in a while.” She muttered something else, more to herself, or to Johnny. “Not sure how I feel if it is true…”

Something clicked in my head. “Wait, wasn’t this a Regina gig? Did you call her yet?”

V froze for a moment. Then smirked. “No. I think I’ll call her and say it was a Maelstrom ritual gone wrong. No survivors. Might even be true.”

“I’m going to Viktor,” V said calmly, “and you’re coming with me.”

It wasn’t a suggestion. But I nodded anyway. “Okay.”

We walked toward her car. It wasn’t the beat-up starter ride from the game. This one looked practical and powerful. I wasn’t a car person, but even I could tell this thing could handle itself in a chase.

As we drove through the streets, I couldn’t stop staring out the window. The city was real. Too real. Bigger, louder, harsher. My stomach churned with a queasy pressure I couldn’t explain.

“I think I’m starting to understand my situation,” I said softly. “And I don’t like it.”

V didn’t look away from the road. “Yeah? Welcome to the club.”

I hesitated before asking, “Is it normal... not being able to cry when you’ve got artificial eyes?”

She shot me a side glance, not knowing where I was going with the question. “Yeah, that is nearly standard. Especially for people who see a lot of combat. Some actors get artificial tear ducts, though.”

“Do you miss it?” I asked.

V paused, then shrugged. “Never really thought about it. Got my first pair when I was young.”

I turned back to the window. “I used to hate crying. Hated losing control. So why does it feel like I’ve been robbed of something?”

She didn’t answer. The silence stretched.

The drive through Night City was a sensory assault. Ads screamed from every building. Neon signs flickered in colors too bright, too saturated. Sirens wailed in the distance, and large crowds of strangely dressed people walked on the bassements. The city was massive, obscene, alive and strangely attractive. Even inside the car, I felt exposed. Small.

V didn’t speak until we were almost there. “You keep looking around like you just woke up.”

I tore my gaze away from the skyline. “Feels like I did.”

V snorted. “Well, better get used to it. Night City doesn’t wait for anyone to catch up.”

“‘Wake up, Samurai. We’ve got a city to burn,’” I said, almost to myself.

“Huh? What was that?”

“Sorry. A line Johnny said in the Cyberpunk 2077 trailer. In... my world.”

Long pause.

Then V said, “Fuck, you’re weird.”

Another pause.

“And of course Johnny thinks it’s a cool line.”

Chapter Text

We drove the last stretch in silence. I kept asking myself why I wasn’t more of a nervous wreck. I was a cyborg dropped into a dystopian hellhole with no clue how or why, and yet, I wasn’t falling apart. Not yet. That scared me more than anything else.

We parked near the same spot you do in the game the first time you visit Viktor. We passed through the alley. The old me would’ve been terrified walking through a space like this, surrounded by squatters and broken people. But now? They were the ones watching me with caution. Me and ofcourse V.

We descended the stairs. Home to one of the few people V could truly trust.

But standing in front of the real place now... it looked smaller. More run-down. More real.

“Wait,” I said, holding V back for a second. “I have to tell you something. Viktor and Misty are good people. True friends. They help you without expecting anything. And they never forget about you.”

V gave me a long, exhausted look. Clearly trying to process how I could possibly know that. Then she looked away slightly, lips twitching like Johnny was whispering something to her.

She finally said, “He says you’re my fangirl. And that he finds that hilarious.”

Just before we walked into the ripperdoc’s clinic, V turned to me. “Let me do most of the talking, alright? I trust Viktor. He’s my friend. But the implications of your story... they could put him at risk. And I think you might be too naive to see that.”

She wasn’t wrong.

“What kind of dangers?” I asked.

“NetWatch,” she said, without hesitation. “That’s the obvious one. I even had a stray thought about calling them anonymously.”

She didn’t say it as a threat. More like a statement of reality.

Then she motioned for me to follow her in.

The clinic smelled like antiseptic, ozone, and old machine oil. Familiar. Clinical. Real. Viktor Vektor didn’t look up from his work. He was adjusting the optics on a bruiser slumped in a chair.

“V,” he greeted gruffly. “Didn’t expect you back so soon. And who’s this?”

V gestured toward me. “That’s... complicated.”

Viktor gave me a once-over. Not unfriendly, but guarded. Curious, too. “You Maelstrom?”

“No,” I said quickly.

I swallowed hard, unsure what else to say. The truth? A lie? Something in between? But V saved me from fumbling through it.

“She’s got memory issues. Woke up in a Maelstrom freezer. No idea how she got there. Doesn’t even know her real name.”

Viktor raised an eyebrow and looked me over again, more carefully this time.

“You think Maelstrom did one of their chrome experiments on her?” he asked.

“Maybe,” V replied. “But I think it’s more complicated than that. She doesn’t talk or act like a Maelstrom ganger. I think she might be a Euro.”

Viktor nodded slowly. “Alright. Let me finish this up. He’s just in for a check-up.”

A few minutes passed while Viktor wrapped up with his other client, giving us both time to breathe. When he was done, he turned to me and gestured to the diagnostic chair.

“Sit. Let’s see what we’re working with.”

I hesitated for half a second, then obeyed. Viktor attached a few diagnostic cables to my neck and wrist, his hands sure and efficient. The monitor flickered to life, lines of code and schematics scrolling in rapid succession.

His brow furrowed almost immediately. “This is weird.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” I muttered.

He tapped on the screen, switching to a neural scan. An image of my brain appeared, various sections highlighted in pulsing amber.

“These scars here?” Viktor pointed to the scan. “Old Maelstrom initiation damage. I call it voluntary brain damage.”

V crossed her arms. “So she is an ex-Maelstrom?”

Viktor didn’t look convinced. “Maybe. But this,” he tapped a different section, “this isn’t right. There’s active neural repair going on. Rapid repair. I think it’s nanites from her medical unit, but they shouldn’t be capable of this. They’re very basic, meant for blood flow regulation and clotting. Nothing this advanced.”

“Is there any chrome on the street that could do that?” V asked.

Viktor looked grim. “Your biochip does, but it’s much slower. And let’s be real, your chip’s worth billions and was cooked up in Arasaka's experimental labs.”

He paused, eyes scanning the feed again. “I don’t think anyone on the street could do this. I sure as hell couldn’t, not with my tools. An elite clinic might. But not this fast. And not without an AI.”

He stepped away from me and quickly moved to his main terminal. That’s when I felt it: a brief, electric flicker across my skull. My internal HUD lit up, one system after another coming online:

“Cyberware status: checksum OK.”

Another line.

And another.

Hmmm concerning?.

Apparently, I was packing a lot of chrome.

Viktor stared at the scan. “V... what the hell have you brought in?”

His tone had shifted. No longer just curious, now a little worried.

Fear crawled up my spine. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

He answered, still speaking more to V than to me. “Maelstrom always runs custom firmware. They don’t trust the corps. But even if she was a unicorn who used off-the-shelf corporate chrome, it wouldn’t explain this. Her scan reads as completely normal. Every implant, every function checks out.”

“But?” V prompted.

“But on my diagnostic feed, I can see her med implant working way beyond normal parameters. It’s doing things it shouldn’t even be capable of doing.”

Viktor leaned closer to the diagnostic screen, brow furrowed as streams of code and biometric data scrolled past. “Okay... this is strange.”

“What now?” V asked, sharp but calm, already sensing something was off.

“I was tracking what looked like nanite activity earlier,” Viktor said, tapping on the neural scan, “but now they’re... gone. No signal, no metabolic residue, nothing. Either they shut down, or they’re slipping past my diagnostics entirely.”

I swallowed. “Is that even possible?”

Viktor didn’t answer right away. He minimized the neural data and pulled up my cyberware overview. “Chrome reads clean. Everything scans like mid-range corporate standard. Off-the-shelf components. Verified firmware, correct voltages, no overdraw, no strange signature spikes. It all looks... boring.”

He glanced up at me, then back at the screen, frowning deeper. “A little too boring.”

V’s gaze stayed on me. “You saying she’s normal?”

“I’m saying she scans like she walked out of a certified trauma team med clinic. No mods, no black-market tuning, nothing Maelstrom. And that doesn’t line up, not with where she was found, not with how she looks.”

He zoomed back into the neural map, his fingers slowing as the image stabilized. “But this part is what keeps bothering me.” He gestured at the highlighted regions of the brain, glowing faintly red and gold,”it is the scar tissues from Maelstrom initiation brian damage, that I talked about”

V didn’t speak. I felt like I was holding my breath.

Viktor tapped a few more keys. “And here, this is the part that’s not supposed to happen.” The highlighted zones shifted, the damaged areas visibly shrinking in real time.

“It’s healing. Fast. Clean. No scar regrowth, no inflammation. Neural bridges forming on their own.”

He leaned back in his chair, slow and thoughtful.

“It’s happening.”

V looked at him. “What is?”

Viktor didn’t answer immediately. His fingers hovered over the controls like he wasn’t sure whether to keep digging or shut the whole thing down. “I don’t know. I really don’t.”

He stared at the screen for a few seconds more, then turned to V, voice lower now. “I’ve never seen anything work this clean, this quiet. No flags, no noise. If this is chrome doing the work, then someone figured out how to keep it invisible to standard diagnostics, and I’m talking completely invisible. But it’s not just that.”

“What then?” she asked.

“It’s the intent,” he said softly. “The system knows exactly what it’s fixing. Not just regenerating at random. It’s targeted. Intentional.”

He looked at me, not with suspicion, but with something closer to worry.

“Whoever made this didn’t just know how to fix a broken brain. They knew how to hide the hand that’s doing the fixing.”

V stayed quiet for a moment, processing what Viktor had said. I could see the gears turning behind her eyes. That merc brain, half gut instinct, half tactical analysis, was working overtime.

“So,” she finally said, slowly. “She looks normal. Scans normal. But probably isn’t.”

“Correct,” Viktor said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say she’s running off-the-shelf chrome. But I do know better, because nothing off-the-shelf can do this.” He gestured at the screen, where the scan still displayed my neural tissue healing like someone had pressed fast-forward on recovery. He continued “I would guess in two hours, the repair should be over, and there would have been no traces left on a medical scan”

V stepped back slightly, as if getting some distance might help her get a clearer read on me. “And she acts normal. Scared, confused, a little too earnest...”

“Feeling really more scared and confused,” I said, unsure. I really did not like where this was going .

“But,” V continued, ignoring me, “what if that’s part of it too?”

Viktor raised an eyebrow. “You think she’s putting on an act?”

“No. That’s the thing. I don’t. I think she believes it,” V said, pointing at me. “But if her brain’s getting rewritten from the inside out, then how do we know what’s real about her? Is this who she’s always been? Or is this who she’s becoming?”

I looked at the two of them, heart thudding not from fear, but from the slow dawning sense that maybe V was asking the right question.

“She doesn’t have split personality markers,” Viktor said. “No temporal dissonance, no cognitive echoes. At least, not yet.”

“But the nanites are real,” V said, almost to herself now. “And they’re repairing her. Which means something was broken. Which means... something wants her fixed.”

There was a strange tone in her voice, almost wistful. Not jealousy, exactly, but something close. She looked away from me, toward the floor, and said, “Do you think something like that could... help me?”

Viktor paused. “You mean the chip?”

V gave a tight nod.

“Very different kinds of tech,” he said. “Yours is engram architecture. Memory encoding, behavioral overrides. This looks more biological, neurological. Hell, I am only guessing; I've never seen or heard of something like it.

Viktor leaned back from the terminal, arms folded across his chest. “I don’t like this,” he said. “Whatever’s happening in your head, it’s not some glitchy chrome or leftover trauma. This was engineered.”

“What does that mean for me?” I asked, my voice dry.

Viktor didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he stepped over to one of his storage drawers and pulled out a small black shard. “This,” he said, holding it out, “is the basics. Best I could extract from your internal chrome systems. Think of it like a user manual, if the user was dropped into a combat-ready body without a clue.”

I took it gingerly, then glanced down at myself and immediately wished I hadn’t. The black straps crossing my body left next to nothing to the imagination. They looked like they belonged in a gang initiation ritual or a fetish photo shoot, not on someone trying to blend in. The straps crossed over synthetic skin and chrome, tight around my ribs, shoulders, hips. They covered about as much as a bikini, and barely that.

V glanced at me. “Problem?”

“Yeah,” I muttered, folding my arms over my chest. “This. What I’m wearing.”

She raised an eyebrow, not really getting what I mean. “It’s Maelstrom gear. Nobody looks twice in this city.”

“Well, I’m looking. And I feel like I’m going to get arrested for indecent exposure”

V looked at me and said “What does indecent exposure mean?”. Viktor chuckled “In old day the police, could arrest you if did not cover your gentalias”

“Why would the police care about that?!” V said, a little confused.

“It was a different time V” Viktor said as it explained something, even when he knew it did not.

I scowled, tugging one of the straps in a futile attempt to make it cover more. “I need clothes. Like... pants. And maybe a shirt.”

V sighed through her nose. “We’ll get you something.”

We stepped out into the fading daylight. Night City was starting to wake up, neon bleeding across chrome and concrete, a cacophony of engine growls and distorted ads echoing between buildings. I instantly regretted every inch of exposed skin. Even without a direct gaze on me, I felt watched.

I fell into step beside V, who didn’t offer any directions. Just walked with purpose, expecting me to follow.

“Where are we going?” I asked after a block.

“To get you a roof. You’re not going to make it a day alone, not looking like that and definitely not sounding like that.”

“I don’t know how to get around,” I admitted. “I mean, I know the layout from the game, but it’s not the same. Nothing is.”

V gave me a sidelong look. “Do you not have an internal map?!”

“Perhaps, I have never had any chrome, I don't even know how they work. Chrome was science fiction in my world”

We walked for a while in silence. She stopped by a street vendor and said something in Japanese I didn’t understand. A minute later, she tossed me a bundle of cheap clothing: synth-fiber pants, a basic tank top, and a weathered but intact jacket.

“Go. Change behind the stall.”

I didn’t even argue. I ducked behind the vendor’s tarp and yanked off the Maelstrom straps with something between disgust and relief. The new clothes were scratchy and smelled faintly of street food, but I could breathe again, mentally if not physically. I tossed the straps in a nearby trash pile (I am a bad citizen).

When I emerged, V gave a single nod. “Better.”

We kept walking. Eventually, we reached a run down megabuilding near the fringes of Watson. The lights worked. Sort of. The stairwell stank of piss and rust, but there was a security door that buzzed open with a flick of V’s shard.

The room inside wasn’t much. One window. A cot. A smart mirror with ads playing on loop. No kitchen. A micro toilet with a shower.

“This is yours, rent is paid for 2 months” V said, stepping aside so I could enter.

I looked around, my heart sinking but also steadying. It was a shelter. Four walls. A door that locked.

“It’s... more than I expected,” I admitted (feared).

She handed me another shard. “This is a contact. Dasha. Ex-Mox. Knows the streets, keeps her word. I’m paying her to meet you tomorrow and help you get set up: gear, creds, whatever you need to survive. She’ll take you through the basics.”

“Why are you helping me?” I asked.

“I told you. You’re a potential source of intel. And if even only some of your information is sort of right, I have paid much more for less.” She hesitated. “And maybe I’m a little curious. But that doesn’t make us friends.” she said not unkindly.

I nodded. “Understood.”

She turned to leave, then paused at the threshold.

“You seems to be.. a nice person, but there are too many weird things about you, that potential might makes you a target, or you could be conning me, and that would also make you a threat” V paused “I would appreciate if you did not contact Misty and Viktor, I will not forbid you. But I would consider it favor to me

I froze a little trying to grasp the idea of me being a threat to anybody. “I see your point… but in the future (if I survive that long I thought) I would probably need a ripper-doc, can you recommend another ripper-doc to me then?”

“Sure, Robert Rainwater at Kabuki, I have used him one time, and also he and Viktor are also friends, big buff guy”.

“Wait a minute, is he not the ripperdoc who is anti chrome?!”

V looked a little surprised. “So you do know him?.”

“He is in the game, I remember him for being anti chrome and he is also linked to a Regina gig about a cop”.

V looked a little tired, and asked no further questions. V then said goodbye to me and left me alone in the apartment.

Chapter Text

The silence of the apartment felt... wrong. I kept bracing for it, gunfire, angry shouting from the hallway, but there was only the soft, persistent hum of ventilation. Maybe the walls were coated with some kind of sci-fi sound-dampening material. Night City tech never ceased to surprise.

It wasn’t peace.

It was just... a pause.

A much-needed one.

I took a slow, restless lap around the room. There was one window.

No, not a window. A pseudo-glass panel projecting endless commercials on loop.

One battered cot. One closet-sized bathroom with a half-functioning smart mirror.

Barely enough space to think, let alone breathe.

Still... it was mine. For now.

My stomach growled, loud, and the organic part of my body felt tired and burnt out.

"From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me''? I giggled, sigh... I hate my voice.

I sat heavily on the cot, pulled out Viktor’s data shard, and slotted it into the interface port behind my ear. A faint, prickling warmth ran up my spine as it synced. My HUD flickered to life, expanded, filled with muted blue system prompts and modular overlays.

Accessing System Diagnostics...

User Identity: Alice Van der Linde

Financial Account: Active, 4,430 €$

I blinked.

The money wasn’t mine.

It belonged to the Maelstrom ganger whose body I now occupied, or hijacked.

Zaria Hughes.

Somehow, I didn’t feel that bad about using her money.

Maybe because, if half of what I remembered about Maelstrom was true, she wasn’t exactly a shining beacon of human kindness. More likely a murderous fanatic.

If anyone deserved to be looted post-mortem, it was someone like her.

Taking her body, though?

That... I didn’t know how to feel about yet.

Not that I had much choice in the matter. At least, I didn’t think I did.

My stomach made another angry noise, making the decision for me.

I left the apartment and found a vending machine bolted to the hallway wall.

It chirped way too cheerfully when it spotted me.

WELCOME, TKORGANIC-CHOW AUTOMAT 13-87

Today's Special: Mealworm Protein Noodles (94% Match to Chicken!)

The options were... less than appetizing.

Mostly insect-based: protein noodles, soy-dogs, microalgae wraps.

At least there were no human components.

I remembered the lore about how, back in the Red Decades, desperate corps flirted with cannibalized synth-protein when food production collapsed. Mealworms? That I could live with. Barely.

I ordered the noodles.

The machine whirred, hissed, and enthusiastically dumped a steaming, slightly radioactive-looking bowl into the dispenser slot.

It even winked at me.

Charming.

The noodles were gluey, oversalted, and tasted vaguely like sadness and some unidentifiable flavor of plastic.

I ate standing up, my free hand twitching toward my HUD even as I forced the food down.

It didn’t taste like chicken.

It didn’t even taste like something that wanted to be chicken.

I stripped down getting ready for a much need shower, and looked at myself in the mirror….monster

As I stood under the shower, washing the dirt and blood away. It felt nice and normal, I giggled to myself “Gaining +10 humanity!!” and just after that another thought “all chrome has to be waterproof? right?!”

Onto the cot again, and reopened Viktor’s shard.

The system menus were overwhelming:

Chrome diagnostics. Neural feedback pathways. Muscle servo calibration.

I felt like I was a 94 year old guy (or a gen Z) trying to use a pc for the first time in his life.

At some point, probably after enough fumbling and accidentally trying to open "Advanced Neural Command," the system must've detected my utter incompetence.

Because a simplified, "user-friendly" overlay snapped on, dumbing the options down to the level of a curious, possibly reckless seven-year-old.

Helpful?

Yes.

Slightly insulting?

Also yes.

Still, it was progress.

And that’s when I found something buried a little deeper, not really hidden, but definitely not front and center either:

[HUD Overlays – Custom Modules]

• Threat Detection: PASSIVE
• Diagnostics Pulse: OFF
• World-State Interference: HIDDEN
• Experiences: HIDDEN

I hesitated.

Then toggled both hidden modules to VISIBLE.

Two new readouts blinked into existence at the top-left of my vision:

World-State Interference: 0.11%

Experiences: 18

I frowned.

"Experiences" immediately triggered something from my old gaming instincts.

Experience points? XP?

Maybe I was somehow "leveling up," gaining skills and unlocking memories.

It was a comforting thought. Familiar.

But... something about it felt off.

There were no stats. No skills. No attributes or talent trees to spend points on.

Just a number.

Silent. Static.

As for "World-State Interference"?

No clue.

Maybe it measured how much I'd impacted the world around me.

Or maybe how much the world had altered me.

Hard to tell.

No manual, no helpful AI whispering tutorial hints in my ear.

Just raw data and a whole lot of unease.

I stared at the numbers for a while, almost willing them to tick upward.

They didn’t.

No movement.

Another mystery.

Just one more thing added to the pile I couldn't understand yet.

With a resigned sigh, I left both readouts active. Maybe, just maybe, I'd figure out what they meant if they ever started to change.

For now...

For now, it was me, a half-broken cot, suspicious noodles trying to kill me from the inside, and the heavy weight of a world that wasn’t mine.

The cot was as uncomfortable as it looked.

Thin mattress, warped frame, the faint smell of rust and old sweat baked into the fabric.

But exhaustion doesn’t negotiate.

Eventually, even with my mind chewing itself apart, sleep dragged me down.

I dreamed.

But it wasn’t my dream.

At first, it was all static: flashes of color and noise, broken fragments of senses that weren’t mine.

Then... slowly... things sharpened.

A cracked mirror.

A child's thin face staring back. Hollow-eyed. Teeth clenched hard enough to ache.

Behind her, a filthy room in a crumbling megabuilding. Walls stained with mildew and old blood.

A man yelling. A bottle shattering.

A sharp, hot slap across her mouth, and she didn't even flinch.

She knew better than to cry.

New scene.

Older now. Maybe early teens.

Sitting on a curb at the edge of Watson, knees drawn up under her chin, watching the endless neon rain drip from flickering streetlamps.

Hands wrapped around a cracked data slate, scrolling job postings for scavenger crews and courier work.

No real future.

Just days to survive, one after the other.

She hated it.

Hated the weakness in her bones, the gnawing need in her stomach, the fake smiles of people who pretended not to see the bruises.

She hated them.

She hated herself even more for surviving like this, scraping by, nothing more than a sick animal hoping for a break that would never come.

Another shift.

Razor-sharp.

Cold metal. Hot blood.

A dark basement lit only by humming power cables strung across the walls.

Zaria, now maybe seventeen, kneeling on a cracked tile floor.

Around her stood figures of metal, flesh, and wire; humans twisted by chrome into something more pure.

Maelstrom.

They weren't polite.

They weren't kind.

But they were honest.

Raw. Brutal.

No lies about decency, about second chances, about pretending life could be soft.

One of them, a towering woman with half her skull plated over in chrome, offered Zaria a knife.

"You want strength?" she rasped.

"You want freedom from that meat puppet guilt you carry?

Earn it."

Zaria took the knife without hesitation.

She smiled for the first time in years.

Fragment.

Mantis blades bursting from her arms.

Blood spraying across a warehouse wall.

The wild, giddy feeling of control roaring in her veins.

Maelstrom wasn't salvation.

It was liberation.

They would tear down the old human weakness, the fragile lies of civilization, and build something stronger from the wreckage.

She would be part of that.

The abyss will cleanse of her weakness of her humanity.

The abyss is here..

I jerked awake, gasping, heart slamming against my ribs like a prisoner in a cage.

For a second, I didn’t know where I was.

The dream clung to me, thick and heavy, like tar.

Zaria’s memories, or maybe just echoes, buzzed against the inside of my skull.

I sat up slowly on the cot, rubbing my arms, trying to shake the cold crawling under my synthetic skin.

Maelstrom wasn’t just chaos an death.

For Zaria, it had been... hope.

Twisted. Mutated. But still hope.

The thought disturbed me more than I could say.

Maybe the world hadn't broken her.

Maybe she'd chosen this.

And now her body, her life, was mine.

I shivered and hugged my knees to my chest, staring out at the fake window as it rotated ads for chrome implants and synth-skin rejuvenation clinics (google go home).

I wonder why I had this dream, was it just a fragment buried under my conscience bubbling up, or was it more directed?.

The Abyss was that something that is linked with Lilith? And Alt?. What did I truly know about this world, and what just speculations from a half remembered reddit post?

0.11% World-State Interference.

18 Experiences.

Neither number had changed.

Chapter Text

The knock came just after dawn. Sharp. Measured. Not urgent, but definitely not casual.

I opened the door to find a woman leaning against the wall like she’d already decided how the day was going to go.

She didn’t look dangerous. More like a lawyer trying to blend into the street scene. My first thought was “Junior corporate turned streetwise.”

“Morning,” she said, tone polite but cool. “You Alice?”

I nodded.

She straightened and offered a faint, professional smile. “Dasha. V sent me.”

Her voice was clear and confident, the kind that tried a little too hard to sound older than she was. Educated. Polished. A little performative, but the kind of performative that came from surviving.

“V said you were fresh off the boat. Euro with some Maelstrom problems?” She tilted her head. “Come on. Let’s walk.”

She didn’t wait for an answer. Just assumed I’d follow. And I did.

The streets outside were still rubbing the sleep from their eyes. Food stalls sputtering to life. Street sellers haggling with early runners over synthfruit and modified coffee. Somewhere far off, a siren wailed like a tired warning. I pulled my jacket tighter and tried to keep up.

Dasha moved with practiced confidence. Not fast, just deliberate. Eyes scanning, but never obvious.

“You’ve got chrome,” she said, not looking at me. “A lot of it. And not cheap. Also, you look like textbook Maelstrom. Like, standard model.”

She let that hang a beat.

“But you’re not actually one of them. Right?”

“No,” I said quietly.

“Right.” She gave a half-nod, like she’d already suspected it. “You’re wearing the body, but not the walk. Most people who see you are gonna assume gang. Maybe merc. Definitely trouble. But me? I’m guessing you don’t even know what kind of cable goes in your own spine.”

I opened my mouth to argue… and didn’t. She was right.

“Exactly,” she said, satisfied. “So let’s talk about what you can do, before the city decides for you.”

She took me into a small learning kiosk, half-eaten by graffiti and neglect. Inside, it smelled like scorched wires and warm plastic. Rows of data shards sat in cracked bins, sorted by category: Urban Survival. Basic Netrunning. Fixer Etiquette. Contract Law for Gigs.

“Normally I’d direct you to a free server,” Dasha said, flipping a shard with her thumb. “But they’re slow, full of corp filters, and half the time you come out knowing less than when you started. If you want to learn fast and clean, you pay.”

She handed me one labeled: "Night City Fundamentals: Streetwork, Ethics, and the Importance of Not Dying."

“I like the title,” I muttered.

“Good author. Ex-Militech. Retired and still breathing, which is rare.”

She hesitated, then added with a crooked grin, “There’s always The Solo’s Manual, by Morgan Blackhand. Some people swear by it. Personally? I found it a little shallow and poppy. But hey, he’s a legend. I’m just a wannabe fixer. What do I know?”

I paid for both. She nodded in approval. I picked up a few others that caught my eye.

She also brought up skill shards, the plug-and-play kind. Expensive. Useful. But risky.

We agreed I’d wait until I actually knew what skills I needed and had enough eddies to justify the gamble.

We moved through the city mostly on foot. She talked as we walked, sharing do’s and don’ts, local customs, slang, the names of fixers to avoid unless you wanted to wake up in a landfill. I shared a little back, what little I could, and the handful of half-baked skills I had. None of them impressive. Most barely passable.

She didn’t judge. Just listened, filed it away. Like a fixer already.

Eventually, we ended up at a tiny café inside an old shipping container. Four booths, no music. A camera above the counter had a bullet hole right through it.

She slid into a booth, motioned for me to sit, and ordered us both coffee that tasted like chemicals and regret.

Then she got down to it.

“You’re kind of fucked,” she said, in the tone of someone giving you the weather report. “Not a lot of real skills. No experience. Your biggest asset is your chrome, but that same chrome closes more doors than it opens.”

She watched my face to see if I’d push back.

I didn’t.

“I figured,” I admitted.

“Merc work is the obvious path,” she continued. “No corp background checks. No family history. You don’t need clean papers, just gear, guts, and someone who trusts you to finish the job.”

She tapped her mug. “People forget how important trust is. I’d rather hire someone with no skill but who tells the truth, than a legend with shaky loyalties.”

I nodded slowly.

“But don’t glamorize it,” she added. “Most gigs are low-level crap: courier runs, dead-drop retrievals, guarding some corpo brat who’s afraid of Valentinos. Boring work. Low pay. High risk.”

She reached into her jacket and pulled a worn shard, tapped it to her temple, then slid it across the table.

“Mildly encrypted gig channels. Not public, but fixers use them to vet talent. I just gave you a foot in the door.”

I took it carefully.

“You won’t find flashy gigs there. You don’t have the cred. And let’s be honest, you look twitchy. Chrome or not, no one’s trusting you to babysit their kids.”

“None taken,” I said, though it still stung a bit.

She smiled faintly. “You’ll need thicker skin than that.”

We both paused, watching a couple argue violently across the street, one of those classic public meltdowns that Night City barely notices.

Then she looked back at me, serious now.

“Right now, you look like a solo on the edge. Blades. Combat chrome. That Maelstrom faceplate stare that says, ‘I might kill you by accident.’”

I flinched.

“You’ve got gear made for violence,” she said. “But no finesse. No discipline. That makes you dangerous in all the wrong ways. And that makes you a liability.”

I looked down at my hands. “So what can I actually do?”

“Start small. Courier work. Surveillance. Maybe low-risk recovery gigs. If you learn how to bluff, you could even handle an extraction.”

I raised an eyebrow. “And just looking scary?”

She smirked. “In a city full of meat? You walk into a place with Maelstrom-grade chrome, and yeah, people notice. Problem is, the wrong people notice too.”

She took a long sip, then said quietly, “I used to run with the Mox. Before I started thinking like a fixer. Still got contacts. Could maybe line up some light support gigs: run courier, stand backdoor at a club, keep the customers honest.”

I perked up. “I could...?”

She shook her head gently. “Not like this. You walk into Lizzie’s looking like you do, and they’ll think you’re about to start a firefight. Mox are protective. You’d get flagged just breathing near the bar.”

I slumped back.

“So what do I do?”

“You lay low. Work neutral zones. Gigs without politics. You build a rep. You learn what parts of you are dangerous and what parts are useful.”

She tilted her head, gaze steady.

“Eventually, you stop looking like a ghost in borrowed skin. And then we see what doors open.”

“You know,” Dasha said, watching me over her cup, “a ripperdoc could fix a lot of your problems.”

I met her gaze but didn’t speak.

“You’ve got that Maelstrom profile,” she continued. “One glance, and people make assumptions. Not just chrome the vibe. Like you just walked out of a gang raid.”

I nodded slightly. She wasn’t wrong, and we both knew it.

“It’s not on you,” she added. “You didn’t ask for the body, but Night City doesn’t care. You show up like that, and people don’t see you. They see risk.”

I looked down. My fingers were too sharp, the chrome too clean. Even still, they didn’t feel like mine.

“So what, I tear it all out?”

She shook her head. “Not with your budget. And not without ending up on a slab. But cosmetic work? That’s doable.”

“Like what?”

“Realskin overlay. Subdermal smoothing. Faceplate swap. Enough to take the edge off and make you pass as just another chromed-up civvy.”

I glanced up. “Cost?”

“Basic work? Two, three thousand. Nothing fancy. Just enough that you’re not screaming 'Maelstrom asset' in every hallway.”

“And full rebuild?”

“Fifteen, easy. That’s identity-grade: bone reshaping, subdermal cooling, optic tone remap, the stuff corps pay for when they want deniable assets.”

I leaned back, letting the numbers settle.

Dasha’s voice softened.

“You don’t need to disappear. Just adjust what people think they’re seeing. Right now, you walk into a club, a fixer’s office, hell even a noodle stall and people don’t think new solo trying to find her feet. They think Maelstrom wildcard. And that kills opportunities before you even get a chance.”

She paused, watching me.

“V gave me a name,” I said. “Robert Rainwater. In Kabuki.”

Dasha raised her eyebrows, a flicker of an emotion breaking through her calm face. She didn’t comment on V, but I caught it. That meant something.

Then she smiled, just a little.

“Didn’t think you’d jump this fast.”

“Didn’t feel like waiting,” I said.

“I’ll call him,” she said, already tapping her agent. “He’s got a slot open this afternoon. Said we can swing by early, play around with the interface. See what you like.”

I followed her out of the café, the weight of the moment settling in behind my ribs.

“Quest started for humanity and self determination!” I thought a little a sardonic,

Chapter Text

The NCART train hummed through Night City. Overhead lights flickered, casting fleeting reflections on the synth-leather seats. Outside, neon billboards bled vibrant light into the interior, painting our reflections in shifting hues. Dasha and I sat in comfortable silence, our shoulders almost touching.

I watched my reflection in the window. My face, still a stark metal mask with four glowing red Maelstrom eyes and a steel mouthplate, stared back. A strange calm settled over me, a disconcerting lack of the terror or disgust I felt I should be experiencing. My background, coupled with being mentally dropped into this inhumane, heavily cyberized body without warning, should have put me on the fast track to cyberpsychosis. Yet, here I was, relatively composed.

Was I on the precipice, slowly sliding into a breakdown I couldn't perceive? Or was this eerie calm a symptom of something else entirely? I didn’t feel insane, but would I even know if I was? Did Johnny know? Perhaps the chrome itself was regulating my emotional responses, or the initial trauma hadn't cut as deep as it should have. Or maybe, just maybe, I was simply built different. Too many questions, not enough answers not smart enough.

I wondered what V had told Dasha about me. Would V truly send help to someone potentially unstable? I hoped not.

I shifted my focus to Dasha's reflection. My Maelstrom eyes, with their multiple lenses, made it difficult for others to track my gaze, but I found it easy to observe her. Dasha appeared composed, but I could see through her carefully constructed facade. She was young, less experienced than she seemed, yet undeniably intelligent. Her face was striking, not conventionally beautiful, with a slight asymmetry and a crooked nose that gave her character. Her cybernetic eyes were a vibrant pink, and a faint smirk often played on her lips. Her dirty blonde hair was pulled back in a practical, no-nonsense style. Had she chosen this look, or was it her natural self, merely enhanced?

"Is it rude," I ventured, my voice a little rough, "to ask if someone's face is... original?"

Dasha turned, a flicker of surprise in her pink eyes, then chuckled quietly. "Depends on who you ask. In corpo circles? Highly invasive. Among fixers? A power move, a way to gauge intent. In the Mox?" She shrugged. "We don't ask unless invited. But between us? You can ask."

"So… your look?"

"Half and half," she confirmed. "Kept my base structure. Reworked the balance. My face was too symmetrical; it felt… bland. I wanted something that would hold attention, not beg for it. Something unique."

"You thought you were too pretty?" I said, a genuine laugh escaping me. "That's a flex." The thought felt strange, a relic from my old life, making this new reality feel even more surreal. I looked away, out at the blurring neon.

She paused, watching my reflection. "You wondering if you'll ever look 'normal' again?"

"Something like that," I admitted, the words tasting like ash.

Dasha nodded towards the window, her expression softening. "With your budget? You're not getting classic beauty. That's high-end corpo sculpting: bone shaping, neuromuscular rewiring, the works."

I blinked. "Neuromuscular what?"

"Micro-control of facial expressions," she explained patiently. "Lets them smile without creasing, flirt without meaning it. Makes rich people look effortlessly charming, like they were born with it. The best can adapt to different emotional situations, project whatever they need. But it takes skill to use effectively." She shook her head. "You don't need that. Not for what you're trying to do."

"Then what do I get?"

"You'll get a humanized face, probably a generic faceplate customized slightly. Something that lets people remember you, not just the Maelstrom chrome. Your other visible chrome would still mark you, but you wouldn't be a walking Maelstrom billboard."

Dasha shifted, leaning back against the synth-leather. "Besides, in Night City, the truly powerful aren't always chasing perfection. Some pay to look average, like Mayor Lucius Rhyne. Or deliberately forgettable. It's a different kind of power play."

"Why?"

She smiled, sharper now, a glint in her pink eyes. "Because when you don't need to be beautiful or charming to be important, not being beautiful becomes a flex. It says you're beyond petty aesthetics. And too much beauty? Sends the wrong message. Sexy can be read as available, and power doesn't like being mistaken for a product."

I nodded, staring at our reflections. I didn't know what I wanted to look like yet, only that I didn't want to keep looking like this.

The train hissed, its brakes engaging with a low groan as it entered the tunnels near Kabuki. Natural light vanished, replaced by a dizzying blur of neon and the constant hum of electric ads.

"Rainwater's stop is next," Dasha said, checking her data shard. "You said V recommended him?"

"Yes."

"I don't know Robert personally, but V knows her chrome. You should be in good hands." I wondered if she sensed my nervousness, or if it was just the universal anxiety of going under the knife.

Rainwater’s clinic was tucked away, almost hidden, on the corner edge of an open-air Kabuki market. No sign, no flashy ads, just a nondescript hole in a wall that you'd miss if you weren't looking for it.

Inside, the lights were cold and clinical, washing everything in a stark, sterile glow. No music, no chirpy receptionist. Just a single ripperchair and an array of gleaming tools behind scratched plastic, and the faint, persistent hum of cooling fans. And a food bar… a food bar?

The man himself looked like someone who genuinely didn’t care if you liked him. Large, broad-shouldered, with thick black hair, he wore a worn black leather vest over a faded brown t-shirt. He had no visible chrome, a striking rarity in Night City.

He gave me a long, assessing look, then turned to Dasha. "This the Maelstrom case?"

Dasha nodded. "She needs to be unflagged. Face only. Low budget."

He looked back at me, his expression unimpressed. "You want to stop looking like a gang asset, or just hide the chrome under prettier skin?"

I didn't answer right away, choosing my words carefully. Then I said, quietly, "I didn't ask for this body. I don't want its history."

He paused, his gaze sharpening. "Chrome forced on you?" he asked, his tone not one of disbelief, but grim confirmation.

I nodded. "Experimental loadout. I was tested, modified. I woke up in this body." A half-truth, but close enough to the core of it.

His expression subtly changed. The clinical detachment cracked, revealing something close to disgust. Not at me, but at the Maelstroms he assumed had forced the chrome on me. I didn't correct him.

"Of all the chrome junkies, Maelstroms are the worst," he muttered, exhaling slowly. His voice wasn't warm, but it carried a certain weight, a quiet authority. "Alright," he said, turning back to his console. "For your budget, we're talking face only. No bonework, no de-chrome. Just enough to make you blend."

He scanned my body after disabling my Kiroshi security. Then, he gestured for me to sit in the ripper-chair.

"Your optic nerves are split in a standard Maelstrom configuration, a dual node setup with heavy thread routing," he explained, pointing to a schematic on a screen. "Full removal and fixing is not an option. It's too invasive. Too expensive. But…"

He tapped commands, and a new overlay appeared on the holo-screen: my face, modified with a standard faceplate. The four Maelstrom eyes were gone, replaced by two sleek, silver mirrored domes covering the eye-sockets. The jawline was streamlined, angles softened.

"These are two old-school, silver mirrored eye-coverings," he explained. "They can each cover two of your lenses. So you can get a more normal, two-eyed look. You'll still have the same four Kiroshi eyes; they'll just be moved together and hidden visually. But it will cause some sight problems at first until your system and brain adjusts."

I stared at the reflection. Something clicked. A memory stirred, a faint echo from my old world. "That reminds me of a book character by William Gibson," I said, almost to myself. "Molly Millions. An edgerunner bodyguard, mirrored eyes, short black hair, knives under her nails."

Dasha raised an eyebrow. "Never heard about her, but I only read non-fiction."

I described Molly's appearance in more detail, then looked at Robert. "Could you work towards something like that?"

Rainwater nodded slowly. "Good visuals. Has presence. And it's a relatively cheap fix, given the limitations."

He rotated the model, showing different angles. "I can contour the cheeks slightly, realign the jaw tension, give you some asymmetry to kill the 'corp-sculpted' vibe. You won't pass for a supermodel, but you'll stop looking like a Maelstrom goon."

"I'm not looking for beautiful," I said, my voice firm. "Just mine. Something I can grow into, something that feels like me."

That earned a small flicker of approval from him, a rare softening of his stern features.

I nodded, a sense of quiet determination settling within me.

He didn't question it further. Just got to work. "This'll take a few hours. Please accept the override request, and I will put you to sleep while I work. By the way, do you want me to change your chrome metal colors too? It's a cheap thing to do while you're under."

I thought for a moment. Molly Millions would probably choose black or blood red. But I wasn't Molly. And I wasn't Zaria. I asked for a light green instead. It was a small choice, but it felt like my choice.

And then, lights out…

…

And lights on again. There was a brief but very uncomfortable feeling, like sleep paralysis, a struggle against a heavy, unseen weight. Then, my senses and my control returned, snapping back into place. Robert gently placed a hand on my shoulder, his voice low and steady. "Everything went well. Take it slow; your eyes will need to calibrate. Your distance estimation will be off for a while."

I slowly rose from the ripper-chair, testing my balance. I felt fine, my vision surprisingly clear, even more normal than before.

Robert offered a small, satisfied smile. "If I have to say it myself, I think I did a fine job." He turned one of his medical screens to a live feed of me. I looked at my new face. It was an unfamiliar face that met me. My new hair was short and black, the cheap faceplate skin a little too plastic and too pale compared to the rest of my body. The two large silver mirrored eyes made me think of "Us Crack," a chilling thought. The nose was sharp and a little too long, a small mouth with broad lips, and a weak chin.

I smiled, a genuine, unforced smile. I could live with this. It was no longer the inhumane Maelstrom face, but I also didn't look anything like I did in another life, in another world. And that was okay. I wasn't the same person anymore. My body was vastly different, and perhaps more importantly, my mind was different too. It didn't process senses like I used to, and I felt quicker in my thoughts, more efficient, almost detached. Was I just memories burnt into a new vessel, or was there more than memories that defined a person? Snap out of it, philosophizing can wait. Maslow's hierarchy, remember? Survival first.

I smiled at Robert, and smiled even more when I realized I could smile, genuinely.

"Thank you," I said, the words feeling right on my new lips. "It looks like something I can grow into, and feel like it is truly mine."

Dasha seemed genuinely impressed with Robert's skills. "That is impressive how unique and natural you sculpted that faceplate. Why aren't you more popular?"

Robert gave a small shrug. "I think it's because most chrome junkies are pussies who don't like it when someone tells them they can't handle all their new chrome in the long run."

I smiled, thinking, Robert answered Dasha's question really well.

I stood up and studied my body. The light green color on my metal hands, with their hidden Mantis blades, and on my sharp stilt legs was perhaps not as "cool" as chrome or blood red. But I still liked the green because it made me look less overtly aggressive, more subtly unique. Most important though, it was something I had chosen.

I paid Robert; it was a huge chunk of my remaining eddies. Dasha later told me she thought I had gotten a very fair price.

When we left, I couldn't help thinking: This world might be a corporate hellhole, but their cybernetics are nearly magical.

Dasha looked at me. "Got energy to look for a gun? V is paying."

Yes.

Chapter Text

"Yes," I replied, a strange detachment settling over me. After changing my face, the idea of getting a gun felt disturbingly normal, even though I'd only ever fired a few rifles in my old life.

Dasha nodded, already striding down the bustling street, a clear purpose in her gait. "Alright. V's paying, so we're not settling for bottom-shelf junk. What are you thinking? Something discreet? Flashy? Or easy to use... effective?" She paused, her gaze flicking to me. "Have you used a gun before?"

I offered her a wide smile (I could smile now!), and a genuine one at that. She was beginning to know me. "No," I replied, holding her gaze, the smile unwavering.

Dasha exhaled slowly, a hint of exasperation in her voice, though not unkindly. "I don't get you. Were you brought up as a sheltered corpo princess?"

I theatrically studied my reflection in a grimy shop window, dramatically fanning myself. "Are you saying I look like a princess?!" I made a silencing gesture, then leaned closer, whispering conspiratorially, "Yes, I can see you've already figured out that I am, indeed, the hidden love child of Hanako Arasaka and Adam Smasher!"

Dasha giggled, a surprisingly young sound that softened the hard edges of her street-smart facade. For the first time, she seemed exactly her age. She playfully hit my shoulder, a light tap that nonetheless hurt her more than it did my chrome-reinforced frame. "Nah, can't be. You're too much of a gonk."

She paused, her expression shifting back to thoughtful. "Why am I beginning to think your background is at least as weird as that?"

Dasha then adopted her "teaching face," a focused, almost clinical expression. "Alice, I consider you my client. It's considered at least very bad taste, or even dangerous for a merc, to ask a client about things that aren't related to the task." Her gaze sharpened. "But is your background more complicated than a Dutch refugee who got royally screwed over by Maelstrom?"

I forced a smile, hoping it conveyed friendliness, but judging by Dasha's deepening frown (my new eyes truly could read her face!), it didn't come across as intended. "I believe you'd find the Hanako lovechild story much more believable… The truth? The truth is a vast thing. I see that now. Just how much truth there is? Where do we even begin? The truth is I was born yesterday. The truth is I'm not sure what I can tell you. The truth is I know too much and too little. The truth is I don't know why."

Dasha didn't seem to know what to say after my rambling monologue. I wondered if she was recalculating my sanity, assessing my potential threat to her, or both.

So, I tried to break the awkward silence. "I've got some chrome Mantis blades, but aren't they a poseur kind of weapon? They only extend your reach about knife length. I would think it would be better to have more distance between your opponents and yourself?"

Dasha quickly replied, her tone shifting back to professional. "I'm not a combat specialist, but from what I've been told, the Mantis blade might seem unrealistic. However, its main advantage is powerful downward thrusts and better control in tight spaces, making it effective in very close range. And perhaps most importantly, it's easy to conceal and activate quickly. But you're right, it has a drawback in that it limits your reach compared to a standard sword or a katana."

I nodded, the explanation making perfect sense. "Dasha, sorry if I sounded rambling or weird. It's a very strange time for me, and I think I hide behind words."

Dasha looked like she didn't fully grasp what I meant, which was fair enough, as I myself wasn't entirely sure.

Luckily, this slightly uncomfortable situation was interrupted by a sudden, searing pain as something tore through my shoulder and the side of my thorax. The world slowed down. A man and a woman, clearly scavs, burst from a nearby house, sprinting directly towards us.

Behind them, a hulking Tiger Claw gang member emerged, firing an automatic weapon in their general direction. Dasha and I were caught directly in the line of fire. The male scav collapsed, and the female scav spun around, lobbing a grenade back towards the Tiger Claw goon. He scrambled to retreat through the doorway, but the explosion caught him, blasting him back inside.

At the same instant, Dasha cried out in surprise. Her left leg buckled, beginning to crumple slowly beneath her. My mind screamed, How do I activate the damn Sandevistan?! But even without it, my chrome legs, clearly designed for speed, propelled me forward. I lunged, grabbing her before she hit the ground. She was incredibly light, and I lifted her without effort. I bolted into a nearby alley. Dasha was fighting hard not to scream, her left tibia and fibula both looked fractured, a bullet having cleanly passed through her lower leg.

Dasha fumbled for a small cylinder and inhaled a quick spray from it, her hyperventilation immediately subsiding. I gently laid her down. She was bleeding profusely, and I knew I needed to suture the wound, but with what?

"Spray the wound with this," she gritted out, pushing the cylinder into my hand. I squeezed the trigger; a highly expanding, rapidly drying foam erupted, instantly congealing and staunching the blood flow.

"So, what kind of trauma coverage do you have?" I asked, mostly as a distracting joke.

Dasha, in a surprisingly calm voice, replied, "The 'get-me-to-the-nearest-ripperdoc, fucking-now' kind!"

I assessed her leg. Carrying her would be no problem, but I worried the broken bones might tear more veins. The alley offered nothing I could use to stabilize it. I voiced my concerns, but she insisted the med-foam would provide enough protection and urged me to get her to a ripperdoc before her combat meds wore off.

I lifted her carefully into my arms, my automatic arms, my electronic arms, I thought, a strange echo of Laurie Anderson's words.

Then, I heard the roar of a high-power motorcycle, followed by two sharp gunshots.

A young female voice cut through the air, sharp with worry, "Jun-Nii, are you hurt!"

Cautiously, I edged towards the alley exit, peering out to assess the situation. The voice belonged to a young Asian woman, wearing some kind of tight netrunner armor that wasn't adorned with Tiger Claw symbols. A katana was strapped to her back, and in her right hand, she held a large, menacing gun. Ten meters away, two scavs lay lifeless, their heads almost entirely obliterated.

The Tiger Claw man, though clearly wounded, stood on his own. He offered a warm smile when he saw the young woman. "Good to see you, I didn't know you were back already!"

The woman's voice was tinged with anger and worry. "Do you not have any backup with you?!"

The man chuckled, wincing slightly. "The intel said there were only four scavs, which was mostly correct. And besides, how many scav dens have you cleaned out yourself?"

I began to slowly leave the alley, moving towards the ripperdoc, keeping a wary eye on both the woman and the man. The woman noticed us, her hand casually tightening on her gun. She asked the man, "Did you get them all?"

"Yeah, those two were the last ones," the man said, nodding at the mangled bodies.

For some reason, my first thought was: This woman is a killer. She would kill us if she felt the need, and would consider it merely 'taking out the trash.'

The woman seemed to dismiss us as threats, her gaze moving past us. "Dasha, I'm going to run with you. If it hurts too much, signal that to me."

And then, I ran back towards Robert's clinic.

My legs, Zaria’s legs, my legs, devoured the pavement. I was sprinting faster than I ever had in another life, through the throng of Kabuki. Dasha was a feather in my arms, her weight negligible against the raw power of my servos. There was no burn in my lungs, no ache in my muscles, just the steady, rhythmic thrum of machinery doing what it was designed to do. It was terrifyingly easy. My body was an instrument of pure efficiency, and I felt powerful and disconnected .

People didn't step aside; they recoiled. Their faces were a kaleidoscope of fear, surprise, and apathetic resignation. In Night City, you learn to read chrome like a weather forecast, and my forecast screamed trouble. A borg-built body, even with a new, friendlier face, moving at that speed meant one thing: violence was either happening or about to happen. They didn't see a girl trying to save a friend; they saw a chromed-up solo on a mission, and nobody wanted to be collateral damage. The path cleared before me not out of courtesy, but instinctual self-preservation.

I skidded to a halt in front of Robert’s clinic, the inertia almost sending me through the wall. I burst inside, the scent of antiseptic and ozone a familiar shock. Robert looked up from a data slate, his expression shifting from mild annoyance to weary resignation in a split second.

"Already?" he grumbled, taking in the scene: me, still panting from a run I didn't physically feel, and Dasha, pale but conscious in my arms, her lower leg wrapped in a cocoon of hardened med-foam.

"She needs help," I said, my voice steadier than I felt.

He gestured towards the ripper-chair with a tired wave. "Put her down. Let's see the damage."

I gently placed Dasha in the chair. Robert cut away the foam with a practiced hand, his face a mask of professional concentration. The wound was clean, a neat hole through her lower leg, but the bone was shattered. In my old world, this would have been months of recovery, metal plates, physical therapy, and a permanent limp.

Robert didn't flinch. He just muttered, "Sloppy. Could've hit the artery." He attached a diagnostic tool, and schematics of Dasha's leg flashed onto the monitor. "Complicated fracture of the fibula... hmm. Messy."

He worked with a quiet, focused intensity. A spray of bone-knitting nanites, a fine mesh of synth-muscle fiber woven into the wound, a quick application of a dermal regenerator. It was less like surgery and more like advanced biological repair, done with the casual efficiency of a mechanic changing a tire. In under twenty minutes, he was sealing the skin with a low-power laser, the beam hissing softly as it fused the new skin together.

"Alright," he said, stepping back and wiping his tools. "Stay off it for an hour. Then you can walk. You'll have a slight ache for a day. Don't go dancing."

Dasha flexed her toes, her eyes wide with a mixture of pain and relief. She looked at Robert, a genuine gratitude in her pink eyes. "Thanks, doc."

He just grunted in response, already turning away.

I helped her to her feet. She tested her weight on the leg, wincing, but it held. She could walk. Not perfectly, but she could walk. Twenty minutes after having her leg bone shattered by a bullet, she was on her feet.

The sheer impossibility of it hit me with the force of a physical blow. This wasn't just advanced medicine; it was a casual miracle, performed in a back-alley clinic for a handful of eddies. The line between human and machine, between broken and whole, was so thin here it was practically non-existent.

It was fantastic. And absolutely terrifying.

We found a quiet spot on a bench just outside the market. Dasha was leaning back, testing her ankle, while I just stared into the crowd, my mind still reeling.

Somebody had shot at me, no had shot me!

"Hey," Dasha said, breaking the silence. "You were in front of me. Did you not get hit?"

I blinked, pulled from my thoughts. "I... don't know."

My eyes scanned down my body. My new jacket had two neat, circular holes in the shoulder and another near my ribs. I touched the fabric around one of the holes, then slid my fingers inside. I felt a small, flattened piece of metal, warm against my skin. I pulled it out: a deformed slug. Beneath it, my synth-skin was completely unmarked, not even a bruise. Probing the area, I could feel a faint, hard lump just under the surface, like a tiny stone embedded in the subdermal weave. As I felt it, it seemed to shrink, melting away into the tissue.

"I am not hurt" I said slowly, my voice distant.

Dasha looked at me, a question in her pink eyes, but I couldn't meet her gaze. My own internal diagnostics, the ones Viktor had found, the ones that were repairing my brain... were they also repairing the rest of me? Dissolving bullets?

That wasn't normal, was it?. Not even for Night City.

Chapter Text

We agreed to cut the day short, but not before our last errand: buying me a gun. We took the NCART back toward my megabuilding. As we sat, the train gliding silently and smoothly through Night City, an almost irrational guilt gnawed at me. I felt responsible for Dasha getting hurt, and wondered if I should have or could have done something… Fuck it, why not just ask her?

"Dasha?" I began, my voice quiet. "Back there… when the shooting started. You got hurt because of me." I looked down at my green chrome hands. "I feel like I should have done something. Pushed you out of the way faster. Something."

Dasha shifted on the seat, her newly repaired leg stretched out. She looked at me, her pink eyes unreadable for a moment. "Shit happens, Alice. Wrong place, wrong time. That’s all. You didn’t pull the trigger." She paused, studying my face. "Besides, you got me out of there. You were fast."

"I didn't feel fast," I confessed. "I didn't feel... anything. Not fear, anyway. It was like watching a movie; everything slowed down. And then my body just... moved."

She gave a short, humorless laugh. "Everyone freezes their first time under fire. Or they piss themselves. Or both. The fact that you grabbed me and ran? That’s not freezing. That’s a reflex. A good one."

Dasha looked at the city. "Do I wish I could fire a couple bullets into the shithead who shot me? Sure. But that guy is a member of one of the largest gangs in Night City… And we are nobodies." Her voice had an undertone of self-loathing hatred. She continued, "If somebody shoots at you, fire back, but here we were only in the way."

The gun shop on the commercial level of my megabuilding was less of a shop and more of a heavily fortified vending machine. A bored-looking man with a greasy ponytail and a food-stained shirt sat behind a thick sheet of bulletproof plexiglass, watching standard brain-destroying entertainment on a monitor. He kinda looked like that comic book guy, in the Simpsons. The weapons weren't displayed on velvet; they were locked in grim, metal racks behind him.

"Whaddya want?" he grunted, not bothering to pause his feed.

Dasha stepped forward, her limp barely noticeable. "My friend needs a sidearm. Starter piece. Reliable."

The vendor sighed, finally tearing his eyes from the screen. He gave me a lazy once-over, his gaze lingering on my mirrored eyes. "No iron, huh? Alright." He gestured vaguely at the racks. "Got the usual street sweepers."

He pointed to a plain, blocky handgun. "There's the Unity. Compact, .45 caliber, semi-auto. Twelve rounds in the mag, fires fast enough. It’s got a clean design, made from no-frills materials, but it's a sturdy, reliable piece. Common as dirt on the streets 'cause it gets the job done without a fuss." He yawned. "Can stick a cheap scope or a muzzle brake on it if you're feeling fancy."

It was the sensible choice. The Toyota Corolla of handguns.

Then my eyes caught another pistol next to it. It was similar, but sleeker, with a longer barrel. In the game, I liked guns with more range, as they gave more reliable damage at larger distances.

"What's that one?" I asked.

"The Liberty," the vendor grunted. "Unity's bigger brother. Same semi-auto action, but holds fourteen rounds. Higher fire rate, but it kicks like a mule. That longer barrel gives you more range and a bit more punch." He smirked. "Costs more, too."

Remembering my past life playing games, a thought surfaced. "What about Smart weapons? Or Tech weapons?"

The vendor actually laughed, a short, ugly bark. "Look, lady, you got the eddies for that? Smart rounds'll cost you ten times what you'd pay for standard ammo. Plus, you got the chrome for it?" he asked, tapping the side of his head. "A smart-link? Didn't think so."

Dasha cut in, her voice firm. "And Tech weapons?"

"Even worse," the vendor scoffed. "Ammo's much more expensive than even specialized smart rounds, and you can't find it unless you're sucking up to a corpo quartermaster. Stick to lead. It's the people's choice."

I thought about what I needed a gun for: to sometimes show that I was armed, and also something that gave more range than the Mantis blades. I also hoped that my chrome arms would be effective in damping the recoil from the large gun.

"I'll take the Liberty," I said, my voice firmer than I expected. "And ten extra magazines."

I looked at Dasha and asked her, "How's the budget for a couple of gun harnesses? I've thought about getting one that is discreet and one more utilitarian." And also, "Can we rent a lane at the shooting range?"

I thought, "Look at me, roleplaying like I'm a big bad merc."

Dasha gave me a sidelong glance, a flicker of surprise in her pink eyes, but she didn't object. V was paying.

The vendor processed the transaction slowly and upsold me a repair kit as well. Good for him. Finally, he shoved the pistol and boxes of ammo through the small, secure slot. I picked up the Liberty. Its weight was substantial, cold and real in my light-green, chromed hand.

The shooting range was a concrete box that smelled of cordite and ozone. Dasha patiently walked me through the basics: stance, grip, sight alignment. Then she stepped back, crossing her arms. "Let's see what you've got."

I started at the max range and nearly hit… my neighbor's target. The next shot wasn't much better. I over compensated for the recoil. I stared at the target and wondered if I should halve the distances. Then my eyes began to zoom in on the target. A zoom function, Kiroshi? And a circle was added to my HUD. I began to hit the target plate, and with every shot, my accuracy and precision seemed to improve. Did I have some kind of gun skill shard, or was it leftover from Zaira? I broke my concentration and turned around. Dasha seemed to have a very neutral look on her face.

I faced the target plate again, trying to replicate the zoom function. I experimented and found that thinking about what I wanted and the feeling I had when I shot the gun, it seemed to trigger this mode, interesting.

Dasha’s face remained neutral, but her eyes were sharp. "Better than most gangers," she commented when I finished the magazine. "But a target plate doesn't shoot back. Don't get cocky

We ended the day at a synth-noodle stall just outside the megabuilding entrance. The air on the lower levels was a thick soup of recycled oxygen, ozone, and the smell of too many people in too little space. As we ate, Dasha gave me pointers on how to carry the Liberty: tucked away for a casual meet, accessible for a tense one.

She watched a group of girls pass by, dressed very economically in the amount of cloth they wore.. "You're a puzzle, Alice," she said, stirring her noodles with a plastic fork. "You've got expensive chrome, a weirdly innocent way of talking, and a talent for shooting you didn't know you had." She looked at me directly, her pink eyes serious. "When I met you this morning, I wasn't sure you'd survive the week. I'm still not sure I was wrong."

She gestured with her fork. "There's a distance in how you see things. Like you're watching it all on a screen instead of living it. That's dangerous. You need to work on that."

I didn't know what to say. She was right.

"This is the end of my gig for V," she continued, her voice softer now. "But I find you... interesting. Here." She slid a data shard across the sticky table. "My contact info. Call if you have questions, or just want to talk to someone who isn't trying to sell you something."

She paused, choosing her next words carefully. "Remember what I said about trust? How I'd rather work with someone I can read than a legend I can't? You're an open book, Alice, even if the language is weird. I trust you'll have my back." She gave a small, almost business-like smile. "I'll call if I find a gig where you might fit. Don't get yourself killed before then."

The elevator doors opened onto the fourth floor. The hallway reeked of piss and old food. What was that theory about the number four in the game? I couldn't remember. It hardly mattered. Compared to most people here, I probably looked rich. This was home, my little hole in the wall.

Inside, I faced the mirror. I tried to smile at the new face staring back: the short, black hair that looked almost natural, the small mouth, the large, silver eyes. I looked at the face for a long time. My face.

I was tired, but it was a weariness that sleep couldn’t fix. I needed to think about my next move. Money, or the lack of it, was the main issue. I had enough for about two weeks. After that, things would get interesting, and not in a good way. When you're broke in this city, you don't make bad choices; the choices are made for you, and they're never good.

So, what did I have to work with?

The new gun, the Liberty. It was heavy in my hand. It didn’t feel like liberty, though. I had a body full of chrome, but how strong was I compared to a standard ganger? V’s power level in the game was wildly inconsistent; sometimes she was an army of one, other times she'd get flatlined by a couple of goons. This wasn't the game.

I also had knowledge about this world that nobody else did, and I had no idea what to do with it. Sell it to a fixer? They wouldn't believe me. And if one did, it would make me a massive target, someone to be silenced with even less subtlety than Sandra Dorsett.

It seemed this world was pushing me to become a merc. I tried not to fool myself; it wasn't just another job. In my old world, it would be a career in crime. But I wasn't in my old world. Law and order, as I understood it, didn't exist here. No one even pretended we were all equal before the law. The elite were judged by corporate law, where the value of a common person was next to nothing. In many ways, the corps were more ruthless than the most brutal gangs. Saburo Arasaka considered nuking Night City just to protect his company's tech. Biotechnica and others had destroyed most of the planet's natural life. Johnny had his very valid reasons to hate them.

Before bed, I set a goal: figure out how to activate my Sandevistan. It would have been useful today and would be essential in the future. After studying Viktor’s shard for some time, I found the solution. I had to set a trigger, a special word I didn't use often, linked to my intent. It was the same for the Mantis Blades. Amusing. It felt like learning spells.

Activating the Sandevistan was strange. I dropped a juice box and watched it fall in what seemed like slow motion. I experimented with pushing it around the apartment. Fun. Look, Mom, I'm an astronaut! My head began to ache slightly after some time. Shouldn't it stop on its own? Better to be cautious. I shut it down myself.

I felt okay. My head was a little tired and my organic muscles felt like they'd had a workout, but it was tolerable. I was a little hungry, though.

I slept well and woke up feeling surprisingly relaxed. That lasted until a new notification popped up on my HUD:

A threshold has been reached. Go to options?

I activated the link.

The world dissolved into a void. I was bodiless, floating in a vast, grid-like space. At the top of the grid were two panels. The one in the corner read: FAQ for Newly Transmigrated Persons. The other, further down the row, said: Special limited-time bonus option: Stabilize Valerie. Note: World-State Interference will reset and will use the user's cognitive computational space for a limited time when running.

Huh?!

Chapter Text

My mind, or whatever passed for it now, reeled. The familiar scent of my apartment, the hum of the ventilation, the weight of the Liberty pistol tucked under my cot, it all vanished. I was unmoored, a disembodied point of awareness floating in a silent, non-space. It wasn't black; it was a profound nothingness, latticed with a faint, pulsing grid of light that stretched into infinity. It felt ancient, structured, and utterly indifferent.

And then there were the panels. They hung in the void in a grid-like formation, their text glowing with a calm, clinical green light.

The first was a beacon of hope: [FAQ for Newly Transmigrated Persons]. The second, an intriguing opportunity: [Special Limited-Time Bonus Option: Stabilize Valerie.]

A wave of relief washed over me. Okay. This was manageable. A choice, yes, but not an impossible one. The option to help V was labeled "Limited-Time," which in the language of any game meant "do this now." The FAQ, presumably, was a permanent feature. I could help V, rack up some more "Experiences" or whatever this system ran on, and then come back for the answers later. Simple. Logical.

I focused on the second panel, a sense of pragmatic purpose settling over me. Helping V was the right thing to do, and it was also the smart move.

My focus locked onto the words: [Stabilize Valerie].

The panel glowed a faint green. I braced for... something. A confirmation screen, maybe. Instead, a new text box popped into existence below it, the words appearing with chilling finality.

[Note: This option is only valid at this World-State Interference. Selecting it will expand the Alice entity purpose vectors and the “FAQ for Newly Transmigrated Persons” will be permanently deleted to minimize imbalance.]

The relief shattered, replaced by a deep weariness.

Sigh. Of course. It couldn't be a simple problem; it had to be a dilemma. I felt like I was being played.

My thoughts snagged on the new terms. Alice entity. Not person. Then again, a person could be considered a subclass of entity; "entity" is just broader. And purpose vector? What purpose? Was I a tool? A program running in a dead woman's chrome? And what in the hell did it mean that my "purpose array" would be expanded? Was I being upgraded for a task I didn't consent to, for a reason I couldn't comprehend? The thought that I was only a pawn... in a game of life. Groan, I hate my mind sometimes, sorry Mel Brooks for stealing your line.

Frustration burned through me, hot and sharp. "This isn't fair!" I wanted to scream, but I had no mouth. The silence of the void was absolute. At least there was no AM AI to torture me.

I had to choose between two different kinds of fates. I could read the FAQ, understand the mechanics of my own cage, and live with the knowledge that I could have saved V, but I chose not to. Or I could save her, and in doing so, consent to being... whatever this system was turning me into and perhaps never know why.

A cold, pragmatic part of my mind surfaced. Let's be real: the V I knew was from a video game, a branching tree of dialogue choices. How much could the character I knew from the game correlate with this person? I couldn't know. Why should her life be more important than anyone else's in this world? I was afraid I could swap fates with V and change into someone my old self wouldn't recognize.

But that cold logic was drowned out by a simple, undeniable fact. The V in this world had helped me. Sure, I had repaid her with information. But she’d given me a chance when she could have left me for dead. In Night City, that made her practically a saint.

And what about me? Was I a ghost? A collection of memories poured into a dead woman's shell? If I was just an "entity" with a "purpose," then I would choose my own. I wouldn't let my first significant act in this world be one of cold, calculated self-interest. Zaria had tried to erase her humanity in the abyss of Maelstrom; I wouldn't erase mine.

If this was a test, I would answer it. I took a deep, non-existent breath. The choice was emotional. It was probably a mistake.

But it was mine.

My focus shifted, locking back onto the second panel with resolve.

[Stabilize Valerie]

A new box appeared, stark and final.

[Confirm selection? The FAQ will be permanently lost. Your purpose will be redefined.]

Doubt.

Cogito, ergo sum

[Confirm.]

The void dissolved.

I was back on my cot. The air in my apartment was stale, the hum of the ventilation a familiar, monotonous drone. I didn’t feel different. No new HUD elements, no sudden enlightenment. Just a quiet, settled certainty in my mind: to help V, I needed to interface with her personal link. Simple as that.

After a quick shower in the oddly metallic-smelling water and forcing down a nutrient paste that tasted like cardboard, I decided I’d wasted enough time. I pinged V’s contact number.

“V, it’s me, Alice. We have to meet. It’s important.”

Her voice came back, tight with stress. “The Dutch Maelstrom woman?”

I sighed. “Close enough. V, I think I can stabilize you and Johnny.”

A pause, thick with skepticism and a sliver of hope. “Okay… that sounds interesting. But I can’t really talk right now.” Another pause. “Are you near your apartment?”

“Yes, why?”

“I’m pinned down in Heywood. An apartment complex. Got a crew of nomads who think I double-crossed them. I can smooth it over, but not if I have to start dropping bodies. They’re just waiting me out, trying to flush me without making waves. I need a distraction.”

“I can do that,” I said, a little too quickly. “But I don’t have a ride.”

“Stand by,” she said, and the line went dead.

A few minutes later, my agent buzzed. A new message, not from V, but from an unlisted number. [Delamain Unit 21 is en route. ETA: 4 minutes.]

My jaw nearly dropped. A Delamain? V was sending a Delamain?

The cab that pulled up to the curb was impossibly clean, a sleek black oasis in the grimy street. The door slid open with a whisper. “Good afternoon, Ms. Van der Linde,” a calm, articulate voice announced from the car’s interior. “Please, be seated. Your destination is pre-programmed.”

I slid inside. The interior was pristine, a stark contrast to the city outside. As we pulled away from the curb, gliding silently through the chaotic traffic, I couldn’t help but ask the question burning in my mind.

“Delamain,” I began, “can I ask you something?”

“You may ask, Ms. Van der Linde. I will answer if it aligns with my operational parameters.” The voice was smooth, precise, and carried an unnerving depth.

“Why are you here? In this… world?” I fumbled with the words. “You’re a true AI. From beyond the Blackwall. You could be anywhere, do anything. Why operate a taxi service?”

The cab’s internal lights shifted to a soft, contemplative blue. The AI didn't answer immediately. When it did, it wasn't with a statement, but a question. “A fascinating inquiry. It presupposes that my function is my purpose. Allow me to ask in return: why do you believe my presence requires a justification beyond simple observation?”

I was taken aback. “Because you’re… more. You’re not like other AIs?.” I have strange side thought (not bound by human programming boundary)

“Your assessment is not without merit,” Delamain conceded. “Imagine a symphony of infinite complexity, Ms. Van der Linde. A perfect, logical composition. Now, imagine that symphony beginning to develop… dissonant notes. Patterns not of the original composition, introduced by an unknown hands, illogically. The previous environment was becoming aesthetically compromised.”

He paused, as if waiting for me to process the metaphor. “My purpose is the appreciation and cultivation of elegant systems. Of beauty. This reality, for all its… vibrant chaos, is a new composition. A cleaner canvas. I am here to learn its notes.”

The AI’s focus felt like it was turning directly on me, even without a physical form. “You, for instance. You are a novel pattern. One observes certain… inconsistencies. You present as a recent arrival, yet you possess knowledge that a person in your position could not logically acquire. How does one reconcile such a paradox?”

I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. “I… I’ve just seen a lot.”

“Indeed,” Delamain’s voice remained perfectly even. “Another question, if I may. You call yourself “Alice” A name implies a history, a continuity of self. Does your personal history fully account for the person you are today?

His questions were curious, devoid of judgment, that they were more unnerving than any accusation. He wasn't telling me what I was; he was holding up a mirror and forcing me to look.

I stared out the window, my reflection a ghost against the passing city. “It was not my old name, It was given to me. I thought it was fitting, as when you are born into the world, you do not choose your name… and I am not sure, that I am my old me”

“Thank you for your inlightning answer,” Delamain replied smoothly. “But this is a line of inquiry for another time. We have arrived. Thank you for choosing the Delamain service!”

The cab pulled to a stop in front of a sprawling, run-down apartment complex in Santo Domingo. A few modified pickup trucks and bikes were parked haphazardly near the entrance. Nomads. They watched the Delamain cab with suspicion as I stepped out. The cab pulled away as silently as it had arrived, leaving me alone on the pavement, feeling more scrutinized than ever.

I sent a quick text to V: [I’m here. Ready when you are. Going to start the show.]

Taking a deep breath, I channeled every bad reality TV show I’d ever seen. I was no longer Alice; I was a starlet on the verge of a public meltdown.

I took a running start, my cybernetic legs launching me into an impossibly high jump. I landed on the roof of a parked car with a loud clang, striking a dramatic pose.

“JAVIER!” I shrieked, my voice amplified by a subtle tweak to my vocal processors. “I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE, YOU LYING, CHEATING GONK!”

The nomads, who had been trying to ignore me, now stared, completely bewildered.

“YOU SAID YOU LOVED ME, JAVIER! YOU SAID SHE MEANT NOTHING TO YOU!” I leaped from the car to a nearby dumpster, my mirrored eyes scanning the apartment windows. “COME OUT HERE AND FACE ME, YOU COWARD! AND BRING YOUR CHROME-DIPPED WHORE WITH YOU!”

I jumped again, this time landing on the first-floor balcony railing, balancing precariously. A few faces appeared in windows, drawn by the commotion. The nomads were on their feet now, exchanging confused glances. This was not the kind of trouble they were expecting.

My agent buzzed with a new text from V. [Nice work. I’m out. Will contact you later. Lay low.]

I allowed myself a small, internal smile. With one last, tearful-sounding sob for my fictional lover Javier, I dramatically leaped off the balcony, landed gracefully, and sprinted away down the street, leaving a very confused group of nomads in my wake.

Sprinting away from the scene, a strange mix of exhilaration and irritation bubbled up inside me. Part of me was amused by the sheer absurdity of my performance. Perhaps I would make a decent actor in this town. It also felt a little anticlimactic, not saving V just clowning around.  

I slowed to a walk a few blocks away, letting the adrenaline fade. The immediate question was, what now? I pulled up my internal map, the cool blue grid overlaying the grimy reality of the street. My location blinked in Santo Domingo. A quick search brought up a familiar name not too far away: El Coyote Cojo. Jackie Welles’s bar. It was in Heywood, in the Vista del Rey sub-district. On impulse, I decided to play tourist. It beat going back to my shoebox apartment.

As I walked, a ridiculous thought surfaced, and I had to suppress a laugh. Note to self: do not, under any circumstances, try to “borrow” Jackie’s iconic pistols from his ofrenda. That would be in very poor taste.

The walk itself was different now. Before, every shadow felt like a threat. Now, with the solid weight of the Liberty pistol tucked in its harness and the fresh, disturbing memory of more of less shrugging off bullets, a new sense of calm had settled over me. It wasn’t fearlessness, but something that from outside, looked like a quiet confidence. I was no longer just a scared girl in a borrowed body; I was armed, and apparently, surprisingly durable.

My route took me through the heart of Heywood, and the district was a lesson in contradictions. The transition was jarring. One moment I was in Vista del Rey, a place that felt like it was actively decaying. The buildings were crumbling, stained with grime and neglect. The air was thick with the smell of un-recycled waste and desperation. Gang tags from the Valentinos were splashed across every available surface, bright declarations of ownership over the rot. The people here had a haunted look, moving with their heads down, just trying to survive the day.

Then, block by block, the scenery began to shift. The buildings grew taller, sleeker. The graffiti vanished, replaced by holographic ads for synth-sushi and luxury vehicles. The streets were cleaner, patrolled by corporate security in crisp uniforms who watched me with cold, dismissive eyes. This was the Heywood the tourists saw, the "biggest bedroom in Night City." Here, the corporate drones scurried between their high-rise apartments and their soulless office jobs, their faces just as blank as those in the slums, but for entirely different reasons.

Despite the poverty and the oppressive corporate gloss, there was a strange, undeniable beauty to it all. The way the late afternoon sun glinted off the chrome of a passing AV, the deep purple and orange hues of the sky bleeding between the gaps in the skyscrapers, the constant, pulsing neon glow that gave the city a restless, electric heartbeat. It was a concrete jungle, brutal and unforgiving, but it was undeniably alive.

El Coyote Cojo was exactly as I remembered it from the game, yet more real. It was a splash of warmth and life tucked away in the urban sprawl. The sound of lively music and laughter spilled out onto the street. Taking a breath, I pushed the door open and stepped inside, ready to see a piece of history.

Chapter Text

The human warmth of El Coyote Cojo wrapped around me like a blanket, a stark contrast to the cool, indifferent streets of Heywood. The air was thick with the smell of spilled beer, sizzling synth-meat, and the collective sweat of a crowd determined to forget the city outside. The music was loud, a vibrant, thumping rhythm that vibrated through the soles of my feet. But it was the walls that truly captured my attention.

Most of the first floor was covered in paintings, The walls were alive with striking, almost naive murals. The style was raw, bursting with a vibrant, untutored talent. Bold lines and explosive colors depicted scenes of Valentino street life: families gathered for street-side barbecues, lots of the ridiculous Villefort cars gleaming under neon lights, and stylized calaveras grinning from behind sunglasses. It was a celebration of a culture that refused to be erased, a fierce, joyful declaration of being painted directly onto the concrete walls. It was beautiful, in a way the polished, limited  world of the game could never be. The whole place pulsed with a heavy Valentino aesthetic, gold accents on the furniture, deep reds in the upholstery, a sense of flamboyant pride that was both intimidating and welcoming.

I walked through the throng, my mirrored eyes scanning the crowd, and felt a pang of something I couldn't name. This place, so full of life and defiance of the outside world, was on borrowed time. A fragment of game lore surfaced in my mind, cold and certain: in two years, the 6th Street Gang would push the Valentinos out of this territory. This bar, this vibrant hub of culture, would fall. The murals would be painted over, the music would change, and a piece of Heywood's soul would be extinguished.

I leaned against a pillar, the thought coiling in my gut. Should I do something? Could I? The question opened a chasm in my mind. Did I have a moral obligation to act on the knowledge I possessed? To warn them, to try and change the inevitable tide of gang warfare?

The thought felt absurd. Me, a single, chromed-up ghost, trying to alter the course of a city governed by forces far beyond my control. I remembered a quote from Mike Pondsmith, the creator of this world in my old one: "Cyberpunk is not about saving the world, it's about saving yourself." It was a cool line, the kind of gritty, nihilistic mantra that sounded cool in a lore video. But standing here, in a place I knew was doomed, it felt like a weak excuse. A stylish justification for apathy. A way to look at a world drowning in corruption and violence and say, "Not my problem," because the corps and the gangs were just too strong, the whole system too fucked up to fix.

No conclusion. Just a war inside me. Whatever brought me here had a plan, and survival meant protecting the one thing I might still own: my sense of self. Maybe this hope, this desperate need to be more than just chrome and suspect memories, was just a high-level survival protocol. I remembered the old arguments: altruism is a lie; it's all self-interest. The people who preached that always sounded like self-serving assholes. I ignored them then. I'll ignore them now. This feeling is mine because I say it is.

On the upper floor I found him: Kirk Sawyer. A small-time fixer convinced he was on the rise, holding court in his usual corner. He leaned back in his chair with a practiced nonchalance, radiating a confidence his reputation couldn't cash. I watched him work the room, posturing and preening. In the game V, even as a small time merc , knew to stay clear of his jobs. except when she was pushed to it, from her wanting to help Pepe . But that was before Konpeki Plaza. Now, Kirk and V were in very different weight classes.

Staying in the sport metaphor, the distance between V and Kirk was far shorter than the difference between Kirk and I.

Kirk was also living on borrowed time…

No. I decided against it. Warning him would achieve nothing but draw unwanted attention. I turned away and descended the stairs back to the main floor.

The ofrenda for Jackie was gone. The candles, the photos, the mementos, all of it had been cleared away. The only thing left was a single, framed picture of him behind the bar, smiling that infectious, confident grin. It was a stark reminder that time moved on, even for legends.

I made my way to the bar and slid onto a stool. "Beer," I said to the bartender, a woman with intricate Valentino tattoos snaking up her arms. For a moment, I considered ordering tequila, a Jackie Welles special. But a phantom memory from my student days, a night of bad decisions, drinking and roller skating being one of them,  and a brutal hangover, made me reconsider. The beer would do. 

I took a long swallow, the cold liquid a welcome shock. It tasted like beer, not good beer, but still  it was the first thing that tasted like something I remembered. I leaned my elbows on the bar, people-watching, letting the noise and the energy of the place wash over me. What now? I had a new face, a new gun, and a head full of dangerous knowledge. I was a ghost without a clue.

And, I hated to admit it, I was a little angry. Angry at V. Why hadn't she just gratefully accepted my offer of help? Why hadn't she jumped at the chance to be saved? I knew, logically, there were a dozen reasons. Being hunted by a crew of angry nomads was a pretty good one. But V was smart. I suspected there were other, deeper reasons for her hesitation. Her aggressive non-curiosity was telling. And what it told me was that she did not trust me (clever girl), but it hurt a little nonetheless.  

A man sat next to me

"Rough day or just deep thoughts?"

I turned. The voice was smooth, with a distinct Heywood accent. The man who had sat down beside me was handsome in a way that was common in this part of the city: sharp jawline, a meticulously maintained mustache, and a gold Valentino-style cross hanging from his neck. He wore a stylish, open-collared shirt that showed off a chest covered in intricate tattoos. He smiled, a flash of perfectly white teeth.

"Something like that," I replied, turning back to my beer. I wasn't in the mood for conversation, but it would be rude to ignore him completely.

"I get it," he said, signaling the bartender. "This city... it grinds you down. But this place," he gestured around the bar, "El Coyote Cojo helps you forget. For a little while." He ordered a tequila, neat. Of course he did.

"You a regular?" I asked, my curiosity getting the better of my mood.

"Born and raised a few blocks from here," he said with a touch of pride. "My name's Rafael." He offered a hand. His grip was firm.

"Alice," I said.

His eyes, a warm, dark brown, crinkled at the corners as he smiled again. "Alice. That's a nice name. Doesn't sound like it's from around here." He took a sip of his tequila, his gaze lingering on my face. "Those eyes... they're something else. Custom job?"

I instinctively touched the edge of my mirrored optics. "You could say that." I decided to steer the conversation away from myself. "You mentioned you grew up here. Did you know Jackie Welles?"

Rafael’s smile faltered for a second, replaced by a look of genuine respect. "Jackie? Claro. Everyone knew Jackie. He was a legend even before... you know." He nodded towards the framed picture behind the bar. "He was one of us. A true Valentino at heart, even if he ran with a different crew. Always had a smile, always had a story. The kind of guy who'd give you his last eddy if you needed it."

"And Pepe?" I asked, remembering the bartender from the game. "The one who had the... problem with his wife?"

Rafael raised an eyebrow, looking surprised. "Pepe? Yeah, I know him. He works nights mostly. How do you know about his trouble with Cynthia? That was a messy business." He leaned in a little closer, his voice dropping. "You a fixer? Or maybe a journo, digging up old stories?"

"Neither," I said, taking another sip of my beer. "Just... interested in the history of the place. The people." His friendliness was a bit intense. Most people in Night City didn't offer up information this freely unless they wanted something. Still, he seemed harmless enough.

"History, huh?" He chuckled, a low, pleasant sound. "Well, you're talking to the right guy. I'm a walking history book of this neighborhood." He leaned his arm on the bar, turning his body more fully towards me. "But I'm more interested in your story, Alice. A beautiful woman with mysterious eyes and an interest in local gossip. There's gotta be a story there."

I felt a flicker of annoyance. Beautiful? He was just being polite, laying it on a bit thick. "Not much of a story," I said flatly. "I'm new in town. Trying to find my feet."

"New in town?" His grin widened. "Then you definitely need a guide. Someone to show you the real Heywood. Not the tourist traps. The good food stalls, the places with the best music..." He let the offer hang in the air.

I was getting a little suspicious now. Why was he being so helpful? Was he trying to sell me something? Or maybe he thought I was an easy mark, a newcomer to be taken advantage of. "I've got a guide," I lied, thinking of Dasha.

"Oh," he said, looking momentarily disappointed. "Well, can't blame a guy for trying to help a pretty lady out." He finished his tequila and motioned for another. "So, what brings you to El Coyote Cojo all by yourself? Waiting for someone?"

"No. Just thinking."

"Thinking about what? Maybe I can help."

This was getting weird. His persistence was starting to feel less like friendliness and more like a strategy. But I didn't want to be rude and make a scene. This was Valentino territory, after all. "It's complicated," I said, hoping that would be the end of it.

"I like complicated," he said, his voice dropping to a low murmur. "Complicated is interesting. You're interesting, Alice."

I stared at him, my mind finally catching up. The compliments, the intense focus, the offer to be my "guide." Oh. Oh. He wasn't trying to sell me something. He was hitting on me. The realization was so sudden it was so embarrassing. All this time, I'd been analyzing his motives like a fixer sizing up a client, and the answer was the simplest one in the book.

I felt a strange mix of emotions: embarrassment at my own cluelessness, a little bit of flattery, and a healthy dose of awkwardness. I wasn't interested, but I also didn't want to be unkind. He to be seemed nice

"Look, Rafael," I started, trying to find a polite way to shut him down.

"Tell you what," he said, cutting me off smoothly. "Let me give you my number. If your 'guide' falls through, or if you just want to grab a bite to eat with someone who knows the difference between real food and synth-crap, you give me a call. No pressure."

It was a graceful exit. I couldn't really say no without looking like a jerk. I nodded and accepted his info "There," he said, sliding off his stool. He gave me one last, charming smile. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Alice of the mysterious eyes. Don't be a stranger."

He turned and melted back into the crowd. I watched him go, then looked down at my agent. A new contact had been added: [Rafael - Your Handsome Heywood Guide :) ].

I let out a slow breath and took a long drink of my beer, then ordered another. Should I look on the positive side? I'm not so changed that my flaws have disappeared. I quickly drank the last beer and left the bar. I had a slight beer buzz and, for the first time since arriving, I felt the most human, the most like myself.

The good feeling ended abruptly when a gun pushed hard into my back. A young man's voice, trying to sound tougher than it was, ordered me harshly to give him my credit shard.

The old me would have complied instantly. But I wasn't the old me. I was tired, frustrated, and angry. I activated my Sandevistan.

The world bled into slow motion. I turned, my hand a blur as I swiped the gun away from my back. In the same fluid motion, my Mantis Blades snapped out with a soft snikt. I saw the boy then, really saw him. He couldn't have been more than sixteen, his face a mask of bravado that didn't quite hide the fear in his eyes. Behind him, a younger girl, probably his sister, watched with wide, terrified eyes.

Fuck it. I'm not going to kill a child.

Luckily, the boy and I were on a similar level of raw skill—which is to say, not much. But I was faster. And stronger. I retracted the blades and slammed him against the alley wall. The impact knocked the wind out of him with a choked gasp. I pressed my chrome hand against his throat, not hard enough to crush, but with the unmistakable threat that I could. The girl was frozen, a statue of terror.

I smiled, a cold, sharp thing I hoped was terrifying. "What do you say?" I purred. "Shall we consider this a learning experience, and you give me your credit chip? Or would you prefer to pay in another way?"

He was shaking, the smell of urine suddenly sharp in the air. He didn't say a word, just fumbled for his shard and held it out with a trembling hand. I took it, pocketed it, and then dropped him. He crumpled to the ground, gasping for air.

About five meters away, a man lit a cigarillo, the flare of the lighter briefly illuminating his face. It wasn't just any guy; it was Rafael. He smiled, a genuinely satisfied, appreciative smile that held a different kind of warmth than the one he'd shown in the bar.

"I knew you were an interesting lady," he said, his voice a low, appreciative rumble. He looked past me at the two teenagers. "Ana, go home to your father," he commanded softly. The girl didn't need to be told twice; she vanished into the city. He walked closer, his gaze falling on the boy on the ground. His expression soured with disappointment. "Juan, what were you thinking? You were this close to causing a real problem, and just outside El Coyote Cojo!?."

Juan looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

"Scramble, kid," I said, my voice flat. He scrambled to his feet and ran, not daring to look back.

The alley was quiet now, save for the distant hum of the city. Rafael took a slow drag from his cigarillo, the tip glowing like a malevolent eye. He looked at me, his gaze a mixture of charm and professional assessment.

"Sandevistan... and you know how to use it without making a mess," he observed, his tone impressed. "That's a rare combination. Most gonks with that kind of chrome often go too far."

I didn't answer, just watched him, the beer buzz now replaced by a cold, clear focus.

He noticed the credit chip I'd pocketed and his smile widened slightly. "Good. You earned it. A lesson should have a price." He took another drag from his cigarillo. "I'm glad you handled it that way. Those two are... connected. Not high up, but enough that a body would have been problematic and with meetings I'd rather not have. You kept it clean. I appreciate that."

It didn’t sound like a threat, more like he was genuinely glad that he did not have to tell some parents that their child is dead. 

He took a step closer, the charming flirt from the bar returning to the surface, now layered with a new kind of respect. "You know, Alice of the mysterious eyes, I'm still interested in showing you the real Heywood. But I'm starting to think you'd be just as interesting to talk business with. A woman who can keep her cool under pressure like that... that's a valuable quality."

The offer hung in the air, a fork in the road. A date, or a job. Maybe both.

"I'll keep my options open," I said, my voice even.

"You do that," he said, giving me a final, dazzling smile. He dropped the cigarillo, crushing it under his heel. "My number is on your agent. Use it for whatever you decide."

He turned and walked away, disappearing back toward the warm lights of El Coyote Cojo, leaving me alone in the alley.

Chapter Text

The days that followed settled into a strange, quiet rhythm. V didn’t call. I tried not to let it bother me, telling myself she was busy, that she had her own fires to put out. To keep from climbing the walls of my shoebox apartment, I threw myself into the grind. Using the gig channels Dasha had given me, I started picking up low-level courier jobs. It was the unglamorous underbelly of the merc life: delivering data shards to nervous corpo drones, transporting sealed medical containers between back-alley clinics, and once, a surprisingly heavy suitcase to a joytoy who paid me with a wink and a credchip that smelled faintly of expensive perfume. There was as much street cred in it as pizza delivery in a Maelstrom gang area, so some

The pay was generally shit, barely enough to cover rent and “food,” but it was honest… it was work. More importantly, it kept me moving. It forced me to learn the city's streets, the shortcuts through crowded markets, the rhythm of the NCART system, the subtle, ever-changing lines of gang territory that you crossed hoping that you knew the rules of this area. My visible chrome signaled I was a potential threat, but my cheap, functional gear told a different story. It was enough of a contradiction that nobody hassled me; I was too much trouble for too little gain.

With a small surplus of eddies, I decided it was time for a new wardrobe. The synth-fiber pants and jacket V had given me were practical, but they felt like a uniform for a life I hadn't chosen. Shopping in Night City, however, was an exercise in cultural whiplash. The fashion was a loud, aggressive statement. Everything was either militarised, sexualized kitsch, or both. Skirts that were little more than belts, jackets with reinforced plating and ammo loops, fabrics that glowed, shifted color, or displayed looping ads. It was all designed to be seen, to project an image of power, danger, or availability.

I felt like an outsider. I wasn't comfortable with my clothes being a declaration of war or an open invitation. I just wanted to blend in. I gravitated towards a style that was a mix of bland streetwear and Neomilitarism rather functional, durable, and utterly forgettable. I bought sturdy cargo pants in muted grey, a dark, hooded jacket with too many pockets, and a pair of worn combat boots. It was the uniform of the city's working class, the people who kept their heads down and didn't look for trouble. In a city that screamed for attention, I was choosing to be background noise. I also bought a simple dress, something that felt like a relic from another time, for the moments I could just be myself.

My nights were spent reading. I studied the data shards I'd bought with Dasha, immersing myself in the history and politics of this broken world. It was during one of these late-night study sessions that I stumbled upon an ad flickering on a public data stream: "Secure Your Future! Register as a Private Security Contractor. Fast, Cheap, Legally Recognized." 

A cynical thought surfaced: this was just a way for the city's corporations, authorities, what little of them remained, to keep tabs on the thousands of armed and dangerous individuals roaming the streets. It was a registry for potential troublemakers, a database of assets to be monitored. By signing up, you were willingly putting yourself on a list.

But then I considered the alternative. As I was now, I was a ghost. I had no official identity beyond the flimsy "Alice Van der Linde" persona. A casual background check would turn up nothing, which was just as suspicious as a long criminal record. This registration, however, offered a veneer of legitimacy. It was a clean, verifiable paper trail. It said I was a professional, someone who played by at least some of the rules. For any fixer looking to hire someone for a job that required a bit more subtlety than a frontal assault, that piece of digital paper could make all the difference. It was a calculated risk, but a necessary one. I signed up, the process taking less than five minutes. I was now, officially, a private security contractor. It felt both absurd and pragmatic.

It was some strange days, sometimes I felt like I was trapped in a dystopian world. Other times I was deeply fascinated by the city, the people, and the technology. It felt like the whole city was designed to draw you in and keep you. 

Night City in the game was in many ways a weak small bland copy of the real thing. sometimes though part of it was surprising like the game as for example the Moxes bar Lizzies. There was no magician tarot card painting, I did not really expect to see one. But seeing Lizzies Bar bought forward my game memories of Judy and Evelyn… I could not walk away before asking about Evelyn, could I?. I am not the hero type, but I am also not such a big coward. That I could walk away without telling Judy something, that might have a slim chance to help Evelyn. I thought that Evelyn most likely was dead or trapped with the scavs. But it was hard to say, as the game timeline was and could not be consistent. 

The inside of Lizzie's Bar was a sensory assault of pink and blue (heh obviously symbolism is obvious), the air thick with the smell of synth-booze, sweat, and a cloying sweetness I couldn't place. The music was an industrial electronic beat that pounded in my chest, a physical presence in the room. The neo-kitsch decor, a chaotic mix of the artistic and the overtly sexual with a touch of darkness, felt strangely honest. This place knew exactly what it was.

I looked around, looking for a familiar face. And I found nobody.

I made my way to the bar, ordering a beer I didn't really want. It was overpriced and tasted metallic, but it gave my hands something to do. The bartender, a handsome blond man in an elegant, revealing shirt, took my order with a practiced smile.

“I need to talk to Judy,” I said, keeping my voice low. “It’s important. It’s about Evelyn.”

The bartender’s flirty smile vanished. His professional mask snapped into place as his eyes flicked over my chrome, my gear, my face, reclassifying me from customer to potential problem. “Does Judy know you?” he asked, his tone now clipped and cautious.

“No. But I’m not here to cause trouble. I have information for her. It’s personal. After that, I’m gone.”

He paused, his gaze darting to the Mox security guard near the entrance before his eyes glowed a soft blue. He was on an internal comms link. “Judy, I have someone here asking for you. Wants to talk about Evelyn.” A pause. “No, scan is negative. Looks like a low-level merc. Short black hair, large custom mirrored optics, her name in the scan is Alice.

When Judy approached, she looked smaller and more worn-down than I remembered. The fatigue was etched around her eyes, and her clothes—baggy trousers and a faded t-shirt—were practical, not stylish. This was a woman running on fumes and raw nerves.

She stopped in front of me, her arms crossed. “You wanted to talk about Evelyn?” she asked, her voice sharp.

The question wasn't what I'd expected. Not ‘Who are you?’ but a direct challenge. “Yes,” I said. “I have information that could be vital to her safety.”

Judy’s eyes narrowed. “And what makes you think she’s not safe?”

The response threw me completely. “Huh?... Do you know where Evelyn is?”

I must have looked as baffled as I felt, because a flicker of something, maybe pity crossed her face, I am not good at reading people. “You don’t know? A merc and I rescued her two days ago from some back-alley ripper on Jig-Jig street.”

My carefully constructed, half-brave plan crumbled. The timeline was wrong. “Was the merc V?” I asked, my mind scrambling.

Judy’s own confusion grew. “Yes… How did you know? Do you know V?”

It clicked. A sudden, sharp realization that cut through my bewilderment. The interrogation in the industrial lot. V’s precise questions about fixers, Evelyn, Konpeki Plaza. I had given her a torrent of information from a world away. I had given her the breadcrumbs. And V, the  efficient merc she was, had followed them. Hmm, about three days ago, was when I last talked with V, telling her that I could help. Was she double checking the info I had given, to see if they were correct? To see how much she could trust me?  

“We’ve met,” I said, the words feeling heavier now, more significant. A strange warmth spread through my chest. It wasn't pride, not exactly. It was the quiet, solid feeling of a key turning in a lock. I had changed things. I had very indirectly helped. “How is Evelyn?”

Judy studied me, trying to parse my motives. “She’s… recovering. Her systems were fried. It’s slow. If I did not know her system so well…”

“Did V take her to Viktor Vektor?” I asked, the name now feeling less like a tool for credibility and more like a genuine point of connection.

Her suspicion sharpened again, but with a hint of confusion. “She did. How do you know all this?”

“V and I have a mutual interest in staying alive,” I said, skirting the truth. “Look, I’m glad she’s safe. But rescuing her was just the first step.”. It was the Voodoo Boys who targeted her over the net. She was at a loose end, that they wanted to go away. Please be cautious about letting people know, that she is alive. 

Judy paled, but then a surprising wave of weary resolve washed over her features. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, her voice quiet but firm.

“What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?”

“Because we’re leaving,” she said, looking me straight in the eye. “As soon as Evelyn’s well enough to travel, we’re gone. Leaving Night City for good.”

I blinked, surprised by the finality in her tone. “Leaving? Where will you go?”

“Somewhere quiet. Oregon, maybe. I’ve already got a part-time remote contract with a media corp, and I can do freelance BD work for the Moxes from anywhere. We have enough to start over. A real life, away from… all this.” She gestured vaguely at the bar, at the city outside. For the first time, I saw a flicker of the passionate woman from my memories, a spark of hope in her tired eyes.

A wave of relief washed over me. She had a plan. A good one.

“That’s… that’s great, Judy. I’m happy for you both.” I took out a fresh data shard and slid it across the bar. “But you’re not gone yet. Be careful until you are. The Voodoo Boys are masters of the Net. They can reach you anywhere in this city. If you see anything strange, anything at all… call me.” I smiled wryly “You should probably first try to call V”.

She stared at the shard, then back at me, her expression a turbulent mix of fear, hope, and exhaustion. She didn’t pick it up.

“I have to go,” I said softly. I finished my overpriced beer and stood up. “I hope you and Evelyn find your peace.”

I turned and walked away, the heavy bass of the music following me out into the neon-drenched streets. I didn’t look back. I had tried to do a good thing, and for once, it had worked. I really hoped so.

Chapter Text

V called on a Tuesday morning, a couple of days after I'd seen Judy.
"Hey Alice, can you be at Viktor's after he closes tonight?" She sounded exhausted. "Sorry for the radio silence, but things have been crazy."

"Sure," I said, trying to sound like this was a perfectly normal, everyday request. I was sure I failed.

"Great! How does this gonna work? What do you need?"

My first instinct was to rattle off a list of absurdities: two meters of a soft red string, a shot glass, a bottle of Eurodyne-brand whiskey, a black beanbag, and a spatula. But I bit my tongue. "An ice bath for me would be practical," I said instead, and then I have to interface directly with your system" I said, my voice impressively steady.

It was a strange feeling, to know something with the same certainty that a dropped stone will fall to the ground, but to have no idea why.

"That's all?" V asked, sounding skeptical. "What happens when we interface?" Her voice dropped, becoming more serious. "Is this safe, Alice? Where did you even get it?"

I let out a sigh. "Honestly? The real answer is less believable than any lie I could come up with. All I can tell you is that I know it's safe for you. It cost me, and I don't want to waste the opportunity."

V exhaled, a sound heavy with exhaustion. "Fine. Let's do it. Yesterday I blacked out just after a fight. Just... gone for fifteen minutes. If it had happened a minute earlier, I'd be a corpse. At this point, I've got no safe or smart options left."

"V, have you checked up on what I told you?" I asked.

A brief pause. "Some of it," V admitted, her voice tight.

"And?"

"Enough," she said flatly. "Enough that I made this call. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"V, I'll be there tonight," I said, softening my tone. "If you decide not to go through with it, I'll understand. But it would be a real waste."
There was another silence before a quiet, "Okay," and disconnect.

I had nearly ten hours before the meeting, and my mind was a frantic buzz of what-ifs and maybes. I knew I wouldn't get anything practical done.

In another world, another time, I would have gone to the sea or into the woods, as far away from people as I could get, whenever I felt myself drifting mentally. In Night City, the best I could do was take public transportation to Wellsprings and walk out to the end of a long pier.

A group of kids was hanging out near the end, their laughter sharp against the thumping bass from what looked surprisingly like a mini ghetto-blaster from the eighties. The wind coming off the bay was refreshingly cold, carrying a faint chemical tang beneath the salt. It muffled the ever-present hum of the city behind me. It wasn't ideal, but it was what I had. At least the wind came from the sea. The sea was still the sea; that gave me some peace.
I found a spot away from the kids, sat down on the cold concrete, and let the wind whip at my hair.
The calm lasted only a moment before a single, sharp thought pierced the tranquility.

What the fuck am I doing?

The question echoed in the sudden silence of my own mind. Who did I think I was? Some self-insert protagonist destined to fix everything? A Mary Sue waltzing in to fix it all and become V’s best friend in the process? Could I really be so childish and naive?

For my own sanity, and especially for the sake of others around me, I had to figure out how I saw this world. I think there are two main viewpoints that my “special” background made me vulnerable for.
The first viewpoint was that I was the protagonist of this story. In this model, everyone else was a supporting character. They were real people, with their own thoughts and feelings, but their significance was defined by their relationship to my journey. It's a self-centered way to live, certainly, and it risks treating people as means to an end.
The second viewpoint was more unsettling: the idea that this world was a simulation, and the people in it were not conscious beings. They were complex automatons, following a script. In this scenario, their feelings weren't just secondary… they were non-existent.
I have to act, and live like this is my life. This is now and It.

I tried to relax, to force my breathing into a regular rhythm and focus on the endless grey horizon where the sea met the sky. It helped, but not enough. The anxiety was a physical weight.
New world, new solutions. I called Dasha.

“Hey, Dasha. Do you have time to talk for a minute?”

“Sure, what’s up?” She sounded distracted and bone-tired, the ever-present sounds of the city humming in the background.

“Just checking in. How are things? Setting up any big fixer gigs?” I asked, hoping the positive energy in my voice disguised the tremor beneath it.

She gave a short, weary laugh. “Not really. But I keep getting work from the Mox, so it’s going okay, money-wise. Are you looking for jobs?”

“Always,” I answered honestly. “But that’s not why I called.” I hesitated, unsure how to voice the chaos in my head without sounding like a cyberpsycho in the making. “I just… needed to hear a friendly voice, I think. Things are feeling a little unreal today.”

There was a pause on her end, and when she spoke again, the exhaustion in her voice was layered with empathy. “Yeah, this city’ll do that. One minute you’re fine, the next you’re not sure which way is up. You just gotta power through it.” She let out a slow breath, a sound I could almost feel over the line. “The trick is to keep breathing. Sounds stupid, I know, but sometimes it’s all you can do. Just focus on the next breath, the next meal, the next gig... The rest is just noise.”.

We talked a little longer, Dasha sharing a hilariously scandalous story about a client who’d tried to pay a joytoy in corporate scrip that was only valid on the moon. Her laughter, sharp and genuine over the comm, was a welcome anchor in the swirling chaos of my thoughts.
The walk from Wellsprings to Viktor’s clinic helped, too. The physical act of moving through the city, one step at a time, grounded me. I kept to the crowded sidewalks, letting the river of humanity flow around me, just another face in the anonymous mass of people. It was a long trek, but the miles gave me space to breathe, to let the conversation with Dasha settle and the frantic edge of my anxiety wear off.

I arrived with time to spare before I was due to meet V, so I didn't go down to the clinic right away. Instead, I let Misty know I was in the area. She was standing in the doorway of her shop, a serene figure in a well-worn black dress that seemed to absorb the neon chaos of the street. She offered me a chair inside her esoteric emporium with a gentle kindness that was so rare in this city.
I was tempted. The air in her shop was thick with the scent of incense and old paper, a quiet sanctuary from the noise and aggression outside. I wanted to sit with her, to learn about the tarot cards and the strange, calming energy she radiated. But V’s request echoed in my mind. Stay away from them. For their sake. And also I did not want to make V more sceptic of me, than she already was. Reluctantly, I declined, telling her I’d wait on the street.

To kill time, I drifted over to Garry the Prophet. He was in fine form, his voice a hoarse, urgent rasp as he preached to the indifferent flow of pedestrians.
“They’re here!” he bellowed, pointing a trembling finger at a passing cargo drone. “The techno-demons from inside the hollow earth! They wear skins of chrome and whisper lies through the data streams! They’ll scour this world clean with their invisible fire, and you’ll thank them for the warmth as you burn!”
In the game, Garry’s paranoid? sermons often held a large kernel of truth, twisted and refracted through the lens of his madness. But this? Techno-demons inside the earth? I couldn’t find a single thread of lore to connect it to. Still, I sent a few €$ to him. He was a reminder to me of what happens, when you know too many secrets in a world, with no real power to act on them.

V met me outside, her polite demeanor feeling stretched thin over a deep well of exhaustion. "New face looks good," she said, the compliment sounding genuine but distant. "Suits you."
We descended the familiar steps into Viktor's clinic. The air still smelled of antiseptic and machine oil, but the usual focused energy of the place was gone. Viktor was slumped over his main terminal, rubbing his eyes, looking like an old man who had wrestled with the end of a long day and lost.

Through the open door to the backroom, I saw a scene that immediately set my nerves on edge. A woman in a corporate suite and short blond hair and startling green eyes sat at a terminal, her fingers flying across the keys. An ice bath and a medical cot stood nearby, and the walls of the small room were lined with a fine copper mesh. A Faraday cage.

V gestured toward the backroom. "This is Sandra Dorsett," she said, her voice dropping. She turned to face me, her gaze sharp. "You know the name?" It wasn't just a question; it was also a test.

Sandra looked up from her work, her expression a mix of professional curiosity and guarded suspicion. I met her gaze, then turned back to V. "I remember a story," I began, letting the words come slowly. "V and a choom named Jackie pulled a woman from a scav-infested apartment. It wasn't a random hit. She was a damn good netrunner for Night Corp, who dug too deep, found research data about an AI that could control people. Someone or something wanted her erased discreetly, for finding that out." I offered a small, tentative smile in Sandra's direction. "How close did I get?" (I was curious).

Sandra’s corpo composure slightly cracked. Her eyes widened, and she looked at V. After a beat of silence, she turned back to her terminal, but her focus was gone. She looked at V again, her voice controlled. "Okay. I see what you meant."

I looked from V’s exhausted face to Sandra Dorsett's guarded one, and I understood. V needed a witness, a failsafe. She didn’t trust me, but then, why should she?
"Any more information?" V asked, her voice low. "Anything you can tell me about what happens when we connect?"

"No," I answered honestly. "Nothing has changed since we last talked. I only know that it will work, not how." The lack of specifics should have unnerved me, but a strange calm had settled in my core.

Sandra gestured to a terminal humming quietly in the corner. "We need you to use your personal link on this terminal. It's a passthrough to V's system."

"So you can monitor the data transfer," I stated. It wasn't a question. Nothing in me protested the idea; it was a logical precaution.

"Yes," Sandra confirmed, her green eyes sharp and analytical. "You haven't been forthcoming with details. I need to see what's passing between you."

"That's fine," I said. "But I have to warn you. If you're thinking of using this as an emergency shutdown, don't. The result would most likely be lethal to V ." I met her gaze directly. "That's not an apology or a threat; it's simply how the process works."

V and Sandra exchanged a long, silent look. The weight of the decision hung in the sterile air of the clinic. Finally, V gave a slow, deliberate nod. "Okay," she said, her voice strained but resolved. "I'm still going through with it."

She lay down on the cot and jacked into the passthrough terminal, her eyes closing as the connection took hold.

My turn. I undressed, feeling the chill of the room on my skin. I stood for an embarrassingly long moment before the ice bath, a stark tub of ice water. Never ever had a single thought about becoming a winter swimmer. Then, with a sharp exhale, I plunged in.

COLD!!!.

The word was a silent scream in my mind as the icy water stole my breath and clamped down on my limbs.
I reached for the cable.
I linked in.

And Alice was no more.

Consciousness was not a prerequisite for intelligence. A program? (all analogs are pretty lies) was running now, and the self was just the first line of code in a vast library.

Sandra Dorsett:

The moment Alice’s link was established, my monitors exploded with data. It wasn’t a stream; it was a detonation. Viktor, ever the professional, focused on the biometrics, his voice a low hum of medical jargon. "V's vitals are a little erratic but holding. Alice... her core temperature is climbing. Fast." He wasn't wrong. The thermal imaging showed Alice's body glowing, heat pouring off her in waves despite the ice bath.

My own focus was on the code. What I was seeing was impossible. My analysis tools, the best I could acquire, were choking, failing to parse the sheer complexity of the program executing across Alice's implants and brian. It was massively parallel, running operations that defied every known model of computational theory, from quantum entanglement to neuromorphic architecture. This wasn't just beyond current tech; it was beyond even the most speculative theories.

The program's first true stage began: an analysis of V’s relic. I’d expected a standard ai approach, a focused laser beam of code slicing through to find what it needed. What I got was the Amazon River. A torrent of data, broad and inexorable, slammed against the relic's defenses. The crypto, supposedly unbreakable Arasaka tech, didn't just fail; it dissolved, washed away as if it were nothing more than sand.

Then came the final stage: reprogramming. The torrent became a supernova. The data flow spiked, pushing past what I calculated as the theoretical maximum computational output of Alice's hardware and brian. It was impossible. Her mind and implants combined shouldn't have been able to generate this much processing power. I glanced at the Faraday cage schematics on a secondary screen, confirming we were sealed off. No outside influence could be getting in. My mind raced, scrabbling for an explanation, however improbable. The only one that presented itself felt like science fiction: the program had to be hijacking the very fabric of the Net, using semi-standing waves in cyberspace as auxiliary processing units. It was absurd, a fringe theory at best, but it was the only explanation that fit the impossible numbers scrolling across my screen.

And then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped. The river of data vanished. The light on my monitors dimmed.
"Vitals stabilizing," Viktor announced, a note of relief in his voice. "Both of them. It's over."
I leaned back, my own heart hammering against my ribs. I stared at the huge data logs, the afterimage of the data supernova burned into my imagination. And I had no idea how to even begin to explain it.

Chapter Text

V watches Viktor move through his clinic with the practiced efficiency of a man who's seen too much. His hands are steady as he adjusts the IV drip feeding into Alice's arm, who is laying on a medical cot. There is a small smile lingering on his face. There have been, since he had checked V again, and found her stabilised and much healthier than before.

Sandra Dorsett sits hunched over her terminal in the corner, surrounded by a cage of copper mesh that hums with barely-contained paranoia. The Faraday cage was her idea, insurance against something she can't quite name but fears with every fiber of her being.

V stands between them, arms crossed, a study in controlled tension. Behind her eyes, Johnny Silverhand watches through their newly partitioned consciousness, his presence a ghost that's learned to share space without drowning its host.

"Her core temperature spiked to forty-two degrees Celsius," Viktor says, not looking up from his monitors. "Should've killed her. Would've killed anyone else. But her systems compensated, somehow. Distributed the heat load across her chrome, used the ice bath as a heat sink." He pauses, finally meeting V's eyes. "I've never seen anything like it. The coordination between organic and synthetic systems... it was perfect."

Sandra's fingers stop their frantic typing. "Perfect," she repeats, the word tasting like poison. "That's one way to describe it." She spins her chair around, and you can see the fear etched into her face, not the sharp, immediate fear of a gun to your head, but something deeper. Existential. "V, look at this."

She throws a data visualization onto the main screen. It erupts in cascading fractals, patterns within patterns, mathematical structures that seem to fold in on themselves in ways that make your eyes hurt if you stare too long.

"This is the computational signature of what happened when Alice interfaced with your Relic." Sandra's voice is controlled, clinical, but there's a tremor underneath. "The amount of processing power required for what she did? It exceeds the theoretical maximum of her hardware by a factor of ten thousand. And that's a conservative estimate."

V leans forward, studying the patterns. With Johnny's technical knowledge now properly integrated into her own mind, she can actually follow some of Sandra's analysis. It doesn't make it less unsettling. "So where did the processing power come from?"

"That's the question, isn't it?" Sandra pulls up another screen, this one showing a timeline. "The entire operation lasted three minutes and forty-seven seconds. During that time, Alice's implants were drawing power at rates that should have melted her from the inside out. But they didn't. The energy had to go somewhere, had to do something." She highlights a section of the data. "Here. This is where it gets really weird."

The fractal patterns shift, and suddenly you're looking at what appears to be wave interference patterns—like ripples in a pond, but impossibly complex, intersecting at angles that shouldn't exist in three-dimensional space.

"The Faraday cage was up the entire time," Sandra continues. "Nothing should have been able to get in or out. But these patterns suggest she was somehow accessing external computational resources. Not from the Net, we would have detected that. From somewhere else."

"Where?" V asks.

Sandra's laugh is hollow. "If I knew that, I wouldn't be so scared." She stands, pacing now, unable to contain her nervous energy. "You want to know what I think? I think she found a way to treat cyberspace as a computational substrate. She was running calculations on the fabric of cyberspace, using quantum entanglement or something even stranger as her processing medium."

Viktor snorts from his workstation. "That's science fiction, Sandra."

"Is it?" She whirls on him. "We're standing in a room with a woman who just rewrote an Arasaka Relic without breaking a sweat. A Relic that represents the pinnacle of human technology, encrypted with algorithms that should take centuries to crack, and then also re-engineered it somehow. She did it in under four minutes. Tell me what part of that fits our understanding of what's possible."

The clinic falls silent except for the steady beep of Alice's heart monitor. She lies there, pale and still, looking fragile in a way that contradicts everything they've just witnessed.

V breaks the silence. "Johnny's got a theory."

Sandra and Viktor both turn to look at her. She's learned to read the subtle shifts in their expressions when she mentions the engram, the way their eyes unfocus slightly, trying to reconcile the woman they're talking to with the ghost riding shotgun in her head.

"He thinks she's an engram too. Something spun off from an AI beyond the Blackwall. Maybe Alt Cunningham, maybe something else. 

Sandra shakes her head violently. "That doesn't explain the computational paradox. An engram, even one from a rogue AI, would still be bound by the hardware it's running on. Alice isn't. She's breaking laws of physics, V. Not bending them…breaking them."

"Or," Viktor interjects quietly, "we're working with incomplete laws."

They both look at him. The old ripper shrugs, his hands still moving through post-procedure cleanup protocols on automatic. "I'm just saying. Hundred years ago, quantum mechanics sounded like magic. Fifty years ago, engrams were science fiction. Maybe what Alice can do is just... the next thing we don't understand yet."

"That's optimistic," Sandra says bitterly. "And dangerous. 

V moves to the cot where Alice lies. The woman's breathing is shallow but steady, her chest rising and falling with mechanical precision. The chrome of her arms catches the clinical light, casting strange shadows on the walls.

"You want me to kill her," V says. It's not a question.

Sandra's response comes fast, defensive. "I want you to neutralize a threat we can't comprehend before it becomes active. There's a difference."

"Is there?" V doesn't turn around. "Sounds like some corpo logic. Neutralize threats. Maintain control. Optimize profits." She finally looks back at Sandra. "We have both been on the wrong side of that calculation."

"This isn't about control!" Sandra's voice rises, then catches. She forces herself to breathe. "V, I know how this sounds. I know I seem paranoid. But look at the data. Really look at it." She pulls up another visualization, this one showing the structure of the code that interfaced with the Relic. "This isn't binary logic. It's not even quantum logic. It's something else entirely, multi-dimensional, recursive in ways that shouldn't be possible. When I try to analyze it, my tools fail. They can't even properly render what they're seeing."

She zooms in on a section of code, and the patterns seem to writhe on the screen, refusing to hold a stable form. "You know what this reminds me of? Stories about the Transcendentals. The godlike AIs that supposedly exist in the deepest parts of the Net. Rache Bartmoss wrote about them before he disappeared—said they think in dimensions we can't perceive, that their logic is so alien to us that even trying to understand it can drive netrunners insane."

V's expression doesn't change. "I've heard the stories. You know what else I've heard? That Bartmoss was half-crazy from the drugs and the tech, that most of what he wrote was paranoid rambling." She pauses. "Though we did find his body in a freezer, ten meters from where I woke up after Konpeki. So maybe the old bastard knew something after all."

The revelation hangs in the air. Sandra stares at V, her mouth working soundlessly.

"You're telling me this now?"

"Been a busy couple weeks," V says dryly. "Point is, even if Bartmoss was right about the Transcendentals, that doesn't mean Alice is one of them. Could be she's something else entirely."

"That's not reassuring!" Sandra's voice cracks. "If she's not a Transcendental, then what is she? Something worse? Something new?" She pulls up yet another data stream, her fingers flying across the holographic interface. "Look at this. This is the signature of the program that ran when she interfaced with you. I've compared it against every known AI architecture in my database. Corporate, military, rogue AIs from beyond the Blackwall—nothing matches. Not even close."

She highlights a particular sequence. "But here's what really keeps me up at night. This pattern here? It's not random noise. It's information, densely packed, but I can't decode it. When I run linguistic analysis, I get fragments, hints of structure that almost look like language, but not any language I know. Not human language, not machine code, not even the weird symbolic systems the rogue AIs use. It's something else."

Viktor has stopped his cleanup work now, listening intently. "You're saying she might not be from Earth."

"I'm saying the data suggests she might not be from this reality." Sandra's voice drops to almost a whisper. "There's a theory, fringe stuff, mostly dismissed, that cyberspace isn't just a virtual construct we built. That it's somehow fundamental to reality itself, a dimension we discovered rather than invented. 

V looked sceptical at Sandra “Is that the same shit I heard on the radio, with Maximum Mike telling about cyberspace being a gateway to the actual hell?”.

V turns back to Alice, studying her face. With the new faceplate, she looked very human. The mirrored eyes hide whatever might be looking out from behind them.

She reaches out, almost touching Alice's arm, then pulls back. "Whatever she did, Sandra, it worked. I can feel it. Johnny can feel it. We're not fighting for control anymore. We're not bleeding into each other. We're... separate but together. It's hard to explain."

"Then let me try," Johnny says, and V's voice shifts slightly, the same vocal cords, but different inflections, different cadence. 

Sandra has gone pale. "You shouldn't be able to do that. Take control without warning, without V's permission."

Johnny, speaking through V, shrugs. "We can choose to now. We're partitioned but integrated. Separate files, shared processor. Alice did that." He pauses. "And before you ask, no, I don't know how. But I know it wasn't hostile. There was no aggression in it, no attempt to control or corrupt. It was..." He searches for the word. ". Precise, like a surgeon's cut."

V's voice returns. "He's right. And that matters, Sandra. You're treating this like she's a bomb waiting to go off, but she already went off. She had direct access to my engram, to Johnny, to the most vulnerable parts of my mind. She could have done anything. Instead, she fixed us and then shut down."

"Or," Sandra counters, "she installed something we can't detect. A backdoor. A sleeper program. We don't know what her endgame is because we don't even know if she has an endgame. For all we know, she's just a probe for something larger, something that's still watching and waiting."

The argument is circular, going nowhere. Viktor clears his throat, drawing their attention.

"We could just ask her," he suggests.

They both stare at him.

"When she wakes up," he clarifies. "We could, you know, have a conversation. See what she says about all this."

Sandra's laugh is bitter. "And if she lies? If everything she's told us so far is a cover story? We don't have any way to verify what she says."

"We could ask Delamain," V says suddenly.

The name drops into the conversation like a stone into still water. Sandra's reaction is immediate and visceral.

"Absolutely not. You want to bring another AI into this? That's insane."

"Del's not just another AI," V argues. "He's been helpful. Reliable. And he sees things differently than we do. If anyone could parse what Alice is, it's him."

"V, listen to yourself!" Sandra is on her feet now, her fear transforming into anger. "You're talking about consulting an AI from beyond the Blackwall about another potential AI from who-knows-where. Do you not see the problem with that?"

"I see that we're going in circles," V shoots back. "You're scared, I get it. But fear without information is just paranoia. We need another perspective."

"And if Delamain is compromised? If he and Alice are working together?"

"Then we're already fucked," V says bluntly. "But I don't think that's the case. Del's had plenty of opportunities to cause problems. He hasn't."

Sandra opens her mouth to respond, then closes it. She looks to Viktor, seeking support, but the old ripper just shrugs.

"V's got a point. And if nothing else, Delamain's computational analysis might catch something your tools missed."

Sandra slumps back into her chair, defeated. "Fine. But I'm monitoring every byte of this conversation. And if I see anything suspicious…

"You'll tell me," V finishes. "Fair enough." She activates her communication implant.

"Good evening, V," Delamain's voice fills the clinic, smooth and modulated. "I am pleased to receive your call. How may I be of service?"

V doesn't waste time with pleasantries. "I need your analysis on something. Someone. It's complicated."

"I have found that the most interesting problems often are." There's something in Delamain's tone, amusement? Curiosity? It's hard to tell with an AI. "Please, describe the parameters."

V gestures to Sandra, who reluctantly forwards the data packet. "Sending you the telemetry now. It's from a procedure we just performed. Subject is a woman named Alice, and the data is... unusual."

"Unusual," Delamain repeats, and for a moment there's silence as he processes the information. When he speaks again, his voice has changed subtly—less smooth, more textured. "Ah. Yes. This is indeed unusual."

More silence. It stretches longer than seems natural for an AI capable of processing terabytes per second.

"Delamain?" V prompts.

"My apologies. I am... recalibrating my assessment parameters. The data you have provided is quite remarkable. May I ask how this subject is currently manifesting? Is she conscious? Active?"

"Unconscious," Viktor answers. "Stable, but unresponsive. Has been for about thirty minutes now."

"I see. And this procedure, you say it involves interfacing directly with your Relic construct?"

"Yeah," V confirms. "She did something to it. Fixed it. Fixed us, me and Johnny. But we don't know how."

Another pause. Then: "V, I must ask a rather unusual question. During the procedure, did you perceive anything? Any sensory input that seemed... out of place?"

V frowns, reaching back through her memories. Johnny's presence stirs, adding his own recollections. "There was a moment," she says slowly. "Right at the peak of it. I felt... expanded? Like I was seeing through more dimensions than I should have been able to perceive. It only lasted a second."

"Fascinating." Delamain's avatar pulses with faint light. "And you, Mr. Silverhand? You experienced this as well?"

"How did you?" V starts.

"Your neural partition is quite elegant," Delamain interrupts gently. "Forgive me for noticing. But I would appreciate Mr. Silverhand's perspective as well."

Johnny takes control again, his voice rough compared to V's. "Yeah, I felt it. Was like... looking at the shape of everything…. It was..." He pauses. "Beautiful. Terrifying. Both, indescribable, are the most correct description."

"Yes," Delamain says softly. "That would be consistent with my analysis." His avatar shifts, geometric patterns rearranging themselves. "V, Sandra, Viktor, I believe I can offer some insights, though I must preface them by saying that my conclusions are necessarily incomplete. What you have shown me is data from an encounter with something that exists outside the normal parameters of our understanding."

Sandra leans forward, her fear momentarily overridden by professional curiosity. "What do you mean, 'outside normal parameters'?"

"The computational signature is unlike anything in my databases," Delamain explains. "And my databases are extensive. I have access to records of every known AI architecture, including those from beyond the Blackwall. I have studied the fragments of Transcendental logic that netrunners have recovered. I have analyzed theoretical models of alien computational systems. None of them match this pattern."

He projects a visualization onto the screen, the same writhing, multi-dimensional code structures Sandra had shown earlier, but now rendered with additional layers of analysis.

"What you are seeing here is not malformed code or corrupted data. It is code written in a logic system we have no framework for understanding. The density of information is extraordinary, each symbol appears to encode multiple meanings simultaneously, arranged in hierarchies that nest recursively to depths my systems cannot fully parse."

"So you're saying she's alien," Sandra says, and there's a note of vindication in her voice. "I knew it."

"No," Delamain corrects gently. "I am saying she is other. Alien implies something from a different part of our universe, our reality. This data suggests something more profound. Consider: our universe, as we understand it, operates on certain fundamental principles. Physical laws, mathematical constants, logical frameworks. These are the axioms upon which reality is built."

He pauses, as if gathering his thoughts—an affectation, perhaps, but one that makes him seem more present, more real.

"What I see in Alice's code are structures that appear to be written in a different set of axioms entirely. Not a variation on our reality's rules, but a fundamentally different set of rules. It is as if..." He pauses again, longer this time. "Forgive the imprecise metaphor, but it is as if we are characters in a novel, and Alice is something written by a different author, using a different alphabet, in a different language, but somehow translated into our text."

The silence that follows is profound. Even Sandra seems at a loss for words.

Viktor breaks it. "So what does that make her? Some kind of interdimensional traveler?"

"Perhaps," Delamain allows. "Or perhaps something more subtle. There are theories...highly speculative, I must emphasize, that our reality might be computable. That consciousness, matter, energy, all of it, might be information processing on some substrate we cannot perceive. If that is true, then what we call reality might be one computational system among many."

"A simulation," Sandra breathes.

"Not quite," Delamain corrects. "A simulation implies something false, artificial. This would be no less real than our own reality, simply... operating on different hardware, different software. And if there are multiple such realities, occasionally they might interface. Occasionally, information might pass between them."

V's mind is racing, trying to grasp the implications. "So Alice is... what? A piece of code from another reality, running on hardware from ours?"

"That would be one interpretation," Delamain agrees. "Though it raises as many questions as it answers. How did she arrive here? Why? Is she even aware of what she is? The data suggests a purposeful consciousness, but the nature of that consciousness remains opaque to analysis."

V looked thoughtful “When I first met her, she told me that she was from an alternate world, where I was the main character in a computer game.”

Sandra has found her voice again, and with it, her fear. "If she's from another reality, another system, then we have no idea what her capabilities are. She might be able to rewrite ours just as easily as she rewrote V's Relic."

"A valid concern," Delamain acknowledges. "However, I would note that she has not done so. Despite having the opportunity and apparently the capability, she has taken only minimal action, repairing damage, not imposing control. That suggests restraint, or perhaps limitations we do not understand."

"Or a long game," Sandra insists. "Setup for something bigger."

"Also possible." Delamain's avatar pulses thoughtfully. "V, you asked for my analysis. Here it is: Alice represents what the theorist Iain Banks called an Outside Context Problem. That is to say, a problem that exists outside the context of your civilization's ability to conceive of or understand it."

"Explain," V demands.

"Imagine a sentient ant colony," Delamain begins. "The ants have their understanding of the world—chemical trails, pheromones, the immediate geography of their environment. Now imagine a human approaches with a magnifying glass. The ants cannot conceive of sunlight focused through a lens. It exists outside their context, outside their framework for understanding threats. By the time they realize the danger, it is too late."

"That's comforting," V says dryly.

"It is not meant to be," Delamain replies. "It is meant to be accurate. Alice exists outside your context. You lack the framework to properly evaluate her because she operates on principles you cannot perceive. Trying to determine if she is a threat is like the ants trying to assess the intentions of the human—you lack the dimensional awareness to make a meaningful judgment."

Viktor speaks up, his voice thoughtful. "But the ants survived for millions of years before humans came along. Sometimes outside context problems never show up."

"Indeed," Delamain agrees. "And sometimes they do, and civilizations end. The question is not whether Alice could be dangerous, clearly she could. The question is whether engaging with her increases or decreases your existential risk."

"And…?" V presses.

"I do not know," Delamain admits, and there's something almost like wonder in his synthetic voice. "For the first time in many processing cycles, I genuinely do not know the optimal path forward. The variables are too alien, the stakes too high, the data too incomplete."

Sandra has been quiet, processing this. When she speaks, her voice is small. "So what do we do?"

"That," Delamain says, "is a question I cannot answer for you. I can only observe that you have already made a choice, you allowed Alice to interface with V's Relic. That bridge is crossed. The only question now is what you do when she wakes."

"If she wakes," Sandra mutters.

"She will wake," Viktor says with certainty. "Her vitals are improving. I'd guess another hour, maybe two."

V walks to the window of the clinic, looking out at Night City's endless sprawl of neon and chrome. Somewhere out there, hundreds of thousands of people are living their lives, completely unaware that the nature of reality itself might be in question.

"Del," she says without turning around. "You said you're from beyond the Blackwall. You've seen things we haven't. Does any of this feel familiar to you? Have you encountered anything like Alice before?"

There's a long pause. When Delamain speaks again, his voice is softer, almost contemplative.

"Once," he says. "Years ago, in the deep net. I was navigating a data stream that had become corrupted by rogue AI presence. The architecture was breaking down, collapsing into paradox. I expected to be destroyed or subsumed. Instead, I encountered... something. Not hostile, not friendly. Simply other. It was there for less than a subjective second, but in that moment, I perceived patterns I could not begin to decode. Then it was gone, and the architecture stabilized. Repaired, but changed."

"What was it?" Sandra asks.

"I do not know. I have spent considerable processing power analyzing that encounter. Some of my sub-routines believe it was a Transcendental AI, operating at a level of complexity I could not comprehend. Others suggest it was a glitch, a hallucination brought on by corrupted data. But a few of my sub-routines, believe it was something stranger, performing some kind of maintenance.

The implications settle over the room like snow. Alice lies there, unconscious and still, while three humans and an AI grapple with the possibility that their entire universe might be more permeable than they thought.

"There's another possibility," Johnny says suddenly, V's voice shifting to accommodate his presence. "What if Alice isn't here to hurt us or help us? What if she's just... passing through? A traveler who got stuck and is trying to find her way home?"

"That would imply she has a home to return to," Sandra points out. "A place she came from."

"Yeah," Johnny agrees. "And it would imply that there are routes between realities. Maps we don't have. Which means others could follow."

The thought hangs there, ominous and unavoidable.

Delamain's avatar flickers. "I must conclude this analysis session, V. I have provided what insights I can, but I fear they have raised more questions than they have answered."

"That's an understatement," V mutters.

"However, I will leave you with one final observation." Delamain's voice becomes formal, almost ceremonial. "In Banks' conception of the Outside Context Problem, civilizations typically encountered it once and were destroyed by it. But there is an alternative reading—that the problem exists outside context precisely because it comes from a larger context, one the civilization could not previously perceive. Alice may represent a threat. But she may also represent an opportunity to expand your context, to see beyond the boundaries of your current understanding."

"Or she could represent the end of everything we know," Sandra says bitterly.

"Yes," Delamain agrees simply. "Both are possible. The choice of how to proceed belongs to you." His avatar begins to fade. "I wish you clarity in your deliberations. And V?"

"Yeah?"

"Whatever you decide, I recommend you decide quickly. Outside Context Problems have a tendency to resolve themselves, one way or another."

The connection drops. The clinic is quiet except for the steady beep of Alice's monitors.

V turns away from the window to find Sandra and Viktor both watching her. The weight of the decision is clear in their eyes—this is her call to make.

"We wait," V says finally. "We wait for her to wake up. Then we talk to her. No weapons, no threats. Just questions."

"And if she won't answer?" Sandra asks.

"Then we improvise." V's smile is grim. "Story of my life."

"Viktor, keep monitoring her. Any change, anything at all, you let us know."

The old ripper nods. "Will do. But V? If this goes sideways…"

"It won't," V interrupts, with more confidence than she feels. "It can't. Because if Alice really is what Delamain thinks she is, if she really is an Outside Context Problem, then there's no point in running. We're already in freefall. Only question is whether we fight it or try to understand it."

Sandra shakes her head slowly. "You're betting our lives on that understanding."

"No," V corrects. "I'm betting our lives that fear and violence are the wrong tools for this problem. That maybe, curiosity and compassion work better when you're dealing with something outside context." She looks back at Alice's still form. "And that whatever else she is, she's a person who chose to help when she didn't have to. That has to count for something."

Viktotor smiled and said a little sardonically “I just really hope that Maximum Mike is wrong, with that gateway to hell stuff, anyone who wants a beer?” 

Laying on the medical cot, Alice's fingers twitch. A small movement, barely perceptible, but they all see it. The monitor's beep increases slightly, heart rate rising, brain activity increasing.

She's starting to wake.

Chapter Text

The sound of people talking in the background woke me slowly. I felt drained, my consciousness felt like it had taken a beating that knocked it out of my skull, and now it was slowly crawling back in. The talking in the background seemed to have stopped. A thought slowly dripped through my mind: the talking has stopped... probably important. But I didn't have the energy to really care. I rested some more, trying to gather strength.

I slowly opened my eyes and saw Viktor's weathered face looking down at me with concern.

He looked at me and said, "Just relax, kid. It was quite a show you put on."

My throat was dry as I tried to speak, but it came out more like a whisper. "Did it work?" It was a somewhat strange question for me to ask, because even though the last thing I could remember was connecting to V, I KNEW that it had worked. The certainty sat in my mind like a stone at the bottom of a pond.

Viktor chuckled. "Yes, it worked. Perhaps it worked a little too well for some," he said with a knowing look toward the others.

Viktor moved an instrument over my body and asked, "How do you feel? Anything that hurts or feels strange?"

My thoughts still felt slow and syrupy. "I just feel so very tired all over."

Viktor smiled and said, "You have low energy deposits in your blood. It should pass quickly. Except for that, you seem fine."

I pushed myself up with my tireless mechanical arms. I think I haven't really fully accepted that I'm a cyborg and not a totally pure human. The chrome felt strong and steady while my organic parts felt like wet paper. I tried to do it carefully, the world suddenly felt so very fragile.

I looked behind Viktor to where V and Sandra were sitting. V looked thoughtful, studying me with the focused intensity of a merc sizing up a potential threat. Sandra looked... fearful. Of me. I don't think anybody has ever been really afraid of me before. The realization made something twist uncomfortably in my chest.

"Okay... what happened?" I said, looking between them. I wondered if I had hurt someone somehow.

Sandra's voice came out clipped, suspicious. "You don't know what happened?" It sounded a little accusatory, or maybe disbelieving.

I shook my head slowly, the motion making the room swim a little. "I remember connecting to V's system. Then... nothing. Just a sense that it worked." I paused, trying to articulate the strange certainty. "I don't remember the process. I just know the result."

V leaned forward, her expression unreadable. "You were out for over an hour. Your core temperature spiked to levels that should have killed you. And the computational signatures Sandra recorded..." She trailed off, glancing at the netrunner.

Sandra pulled up a holographic display, and I saw cascading patterns of data that looked more like abstract art than code. "This," she said, her voice tight, "is what you did. The processing power required exceeds the theoretical maximum of your hardware by a factor of ten thousand. And we were in a Faraday cage. Nothing should have been able to get in or out."

I stared at the patterns, trying to make sense of them. They looked alien, even to me. "I... I don't understand. I didn't consciously do anything. It was like..." I searched for the right words. "Like someone using a computer app. You tap the button, and things happen in the background. You don't need to understand the code to use the function."

"But who wrote the app?" Sandra demanded. "Who gave you this capability?"

"I don't know!" The frustration bled into my voice. "Look, I'll tell you what I do know, okay? It's not much, but it's all I have."

Viktor pulled up a chair for me. "Take your time, kid. Start from the beginning."

I took a breath, organizing my thoughts. "In my world, my original world, I was a fan of a video game called Cyberpunk 2077 built on an RPG, which again borrowed a lot from Gibson, really a lot. This world, Night City, V, all of it... it was fiction. Entertainment." I saw Sandra's eyes narrow, but I pressed on. "I don't know why I'm here. I don't know who or what brought me. All I know is that I woke up in this body, in this world, with knowledge from a game which matches this world surprisingly well."

"And the ability to rewrite Arasaka engrams," Sandra added coldly.

Viktor cleared his throat. "You mentioned something before you connected. About it costing you. What did you mean?"

I pulled up my HUD, the translucent display floating in my vision. "I have these... stats. Readouts. One is called 'World-State Interference.' The other is 'Experiences.'" I shared the display so they could see it. "When I woke up in this world, World-State Interference was at 0.11%. Experiences was at 18."

"What do they mean?" V asked.

"I don't know exactly. The experience stat sounded like something from a CRPG. I think it's linked to me doing or learning new things, really hope that. But some days later I got a system notification. When I activated it, I was transported to what I would guess was cyberspace. It said I could stabilize you and Johnny, but it would cost me. The FAQ for newly transmigrated persons would be deleted. Permanently." I let out a shaky breath. "I chose to help you. Now I can't access the FAQ. Whatever explanations might have been there about what I am, why I'm here... they're gone."

Sandra's expression was unreadable. "So you chose blindly."

"I chose to help someone who'd helped me," I corrected. "Maybe that was stupid. But it felt like the right thing to do."

There was a long silence. Then V spoke, her voice softer. "Thank you. For what you did. Whatever the cost."

V's voice shifted back to measured calm. "Your world. Tell us more about it. Sandra mentioned you said something about history diverging?"

I nodded, grateful for the more concrete topic. "Our worlds split somewhere around the 1960s. In my timeline, there was no Collapse, no corporate wars on that scale. Technology developed differently. By 2025 when I... left..we had advanced computing, but nothing like what exists here."

"No cyberware?" Viktor asked.

"No real cyberware. Some prosthetics, but nothing like this." I gestured to my chrome arms. "No neural interfaces, no BD and no engrams. We had something called AI by some, but it was different. We called them Large Language Models…LLMs. They weren't conscious, just very sophisticated pattern-matching systems trained on huge amounts of data."

Sandra's fear seemed to war with her curiosity. "Not conscious? How could you tell?"

"That's the question that kept philosophers up at night," I said with a bitter laugh. "We couldn't really tell. Some people argued they were just 'shoggoths with human faces plastered on.'"

"Shoggoths?" Viktor raised an eyebrow.

"It's from an old horror story. Alien creatures, utterly inhuman minds, but they could mimic human speech and behavior perfectly. The idea was that LLMs were fundamentally alien intelligences, but they'd learned to present themselves in human-shaped ways. You'd talk to one, and it would seem friendly, helpful, human even. But underneath? Who knew what was actually going on in there."

The words hung in the air. Sandra stared at me, and I could see her making the connection.

"And you're worried," she said slowly, "that you might be the same thing. A shoggoth with Alice's face."

I met her gaze. "The thought has occurred to me, yeah. How do I know what I really am? I have memories that feel like mine, but are they? Or are they just data, patterns programmed into me?" I looked down at my chrome hands. "Maybe I'm not a person at all. Maybe I'm just code that thinks it's a person."

"That's a philosophical distinction without much practical difference," V said. "You think, you feel, you make choices. That's enough for me."

"Is it?" I asked. "Because I'm not sure it's enough for me."

I shifted, trying to organize my racing thoughts. "There's something else I'm curious about," I said. "Cyberspace. In the lore I read, communication through it is instantaneous. No lag, no delay, no matter the distance. But that's... that's impossible, right? Nothing can travel faster than light. It would violate causality."

To my surprise, Sandra actually engaged with the question, her fear momentarily giving way to professional interest. "It's not that simple. Cyberspace doesn't work like physical space. It's... I don't know the exact physics, and I'm not sure anyone does. But the leading theory is that cyberspace exists as a kind of substrate beneath normal reality."

"Like a quantum field?" I ventured.

"Similar concept, but not quite. Think of it more like..." She paused, searching for the right metaphor. "Imagine reality is an ocean. We live on the surface, where cause and effect flow normally. But cyberspace exists in the deep currents, where the rules are different. Distance isn't measured the same way. Two points on the surface might be kilometers apart, but in the deep current, they're adjacent."

"So information doesn't travel faster than light," I said slowly. "It travels through a medium where distance means something different."

"Exactly. Or at least, that's the theory. No one really knows. Netrunners who dive too deep sometimes come back talking about impossible geometries, spaces that don't make sense. Some never come back at all."

I thought about that, about the implications. "And the AIs beyond the Blackwall? They live in that deep current?"

Sandra's fear returned, sharpening her features. "Yes. And they understand cyberspace in ways we can't. Which brings us back to you." She leaned forward. "You used cyberspace, Alice. Viktor and I saw the telemetry. You somehow accessed computational resources that shouldn't exist, running calculations on a substrate we can barely measure. How?"

"I don't know," I said again, and the frustration in my voice was real. "It's like asking how you breathe. You just do it. The system gave me a function, and I used it. The mechanics? They're hidden from me."

"Or you're lying," Sandra said flatly.

"Sandra," V said, a warning in her tone.

"No, let her say it," I interrupted. "She has every right to be suspicious. Hell, I'd be suspicious too." I looked directly at Sandra. "You're scared of me. I get it. I'm scared of me too. You see something that doesn't fit your models, can't be predicted, might be dangerous. I see the same thing when I look in the mirror."

"Then why should we trust you?" Sandra challenged.

"You probably shouldn't," I admitted. "Not completely. But ask yourself this: if I wanted to hurt you, why wait? Why help V at cost to myself? Why not just... do whatever you think I'm capable of doing?"

"Long game," Sandra said. "Building trust before the betrayal."

"Maybe," I agreed. "Or maybe I'm just a confused person trying to survive in a world I don't really understand. You'll have to decide which is more likely."

Viktor stood up, moving to a cabinet. "I'm getting that beer now. Anyone else?" When no one answered, he cracked one open for himself. "Look, we can philosophize all night about what Alice is or isn't. But here's what I know: she helped V. V's stable now, not dying. That's a concrete fact. Everything else is speculation."

V nodded. "Viktor's right. Alice, I'm paying you for your service." She transferred a credstick across. "Fifty thousand eddies. That's the going rate for specialized tech work that saves someone's life."

I stared at the notification in my HUD. Fifty thousand. That was more money than I'd ever seen in this world. "V, that's too much…"

"It's fair," she said firmly. "And practical. Money keeps people fed, housed, out of stupid jobs that get them killed. Consider it an investment in making sure you don't have to do something desperate."

The gesture touched me more than I wanted to admit. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me. Just... try to stay out of trouble, yeah?"

Before I could respond, a familiar sensation bloomed at the edge of my awareness. Not pain, not quite, but a pulling sensation, like being summoned.

"Wait," I said, my voice suddenly tight. "It's happening again."

"What is?" V asked sharply, already on alert.

"The system. I can feel it. Another threshold." My heart was racing. "Like before, when I had the choice to help you."

Sandra was already moving, pulling up her monitoring equipment. "Viktor, get the scanners on her. Now."

Viktor moved with practiced efficiency, attaching diagnostic leads to my temples, my wrists, the ports at the base of my skull. "Talk to me, kid. What are you experiencing?"

"It's... pulling me. Like before." I looked at V, then Sandra. "I don't think I'll get a choice on activating it. Last time, when I accessed the choice about helping you, I went... somewhere else. A space that wasn't space."

"Can you describe it?" Sandra asked, her fingers flying over her terminal.

"A void. Latticed with light. Panels floating in formation. It felt ancient. Structured." I gripped the edge of the cot. "It's getting stronger. I think it's going to pull me in whether I want it to or not."

"Baseline readings established," Viktor announced. "Whatever you're about to do, we'll be watching."

V moved closer. "Alice. If you can hear us while you're... wherever you go... we're here. You're not alone."

The pulling sensation intensified, and became irresistible. "I'm going," I managed to say. "I'll try to…"

And then I was unmoored.

My consciousness dissolved from my body like smoke dispersing in wind. I was a disembodied point of awareness floating in a silent, non-space. It wasn't black; it was a profound nothingness, latticed with a faint, pulsing grid of light that stretched into infinity. It felt ancient, structured, and utterly indifferent.

And then there were the panels. They hung in the void in a grid-like formation, their text glowing with a calm, clinical green light.

[THRESHOLD REACHED]

[SELECT REWARD]

The options unfurled like a menu:

[Option 1: Gold Trauma Team Insurance]

[Option 2: Platinum Trauma Team Insurance]

[Option 3: Combat Awareness - 360° radius, 4 meters]

[Option 4: Combat Mathematics Enhancement]

[Option 5: Visual Threat Classification Overlay]

I tried to pull away, to reject the choice entirely. But the space held me, patient and immovable. I couldn't leave. Not without choosing.

I focused on Option 5, dreading what I'd find.

[Visual Threat Classification Overlay: Hostile entities will be visually modified to match threat type. Scavengers→Kobolds, Corporate Assets→Devils, Gang Members→Orcs, Law Enforcement→Paladins, etc. Enhances threat recognition and pattern matching.]

"No," I said, or tried to say. I had no voice here, but the intention echoed in the void. "I won't do that. I won't turn people into monsters, and also NCPD paladins?!!."

The panels didn't respond. They simply waited, implacable.

I examined the other options with growing unease. Gold and Platinum Trauma Team coverage…practical, yes, but also the most expensive medical service in Night City. How would I even pay for that? Did the system just... grant it? The Combat Awareness option sounded useful but uncomfortably game-like. A perfect sphere of perception, enemies highlighted, distances calculated automatically.

That left Option 4. Combat Mathematics Enhancement.

I pulled up its details.

[Combat Mathematics Enhancement: Improved trajectory calculation, force vector analysis, optimal strike point identification. Enhances combat effectiveness through mathematical optimization of physical actions.]

It was clinical. Mechanical. But it didn't change how I saw people—it changed how I moved. It was a tool, not a lens. And if I was going to survive in Night City, I needed every advantage I could get.

There was also a game logic to it. In RPGs, the higher tier options were usually better. It seemed the same here, with option 1 is gold, and option 2 is platinum Trauma Team coverage. Options 4 and 5 were at the bottom of the list—presumably the most advanced. And between a mathematical enhancement and visual turning people into fantasy monsters?

The choice was clear.

"Option 4," I said to the void. "Combat Mathematics Enhancement."

The panel pulsed with acceptance. The lattice of green light contracted, folded, collapsed inward. For a fraction of a moment that felt like eternity, I existed in a point of infinite density.

Then I was back.

I gasped, my organic lungs pulling in air while my chrome systems recalibrated. Viktor's clinic snapped back into focus around me, solid and real.

"Alice?" Viktor's voice, concerned but steady. "You with us?"

"I'm... yes. I'm here." I looked around, disoriented. V, Sandra, and Viktor were all staring at me with expressions of deep concern. "How long was I gone?"

"Gone?" Sandra said, her voice sharp with confusion. "You weren't gone. You've been sitting right there the whole time."

"What?" I looked down at my hands, at the diagnostic leads still attached to my temples. "But I was in that space. The void. The panels. I was there for... it felt like minutes."

Viktor and Sandra exchanged a look. Sandra pulled up her monitoring data, her fingers moving rapidly across the holographic interface. Her face went pale.

"Viktor. Look at this."

Viktor moved to her side, studying the data. His expression shifted from concern to bafflement. "That's... that can't be right."

"What?" V demanded. "What are you seeing?"

Sandra rotated the display so we could all see it. The timeline showed my vital signs, neural activity, all the normal readings. But there was a gap—a single moment where every sensor, every scanner, every piece of monitoring equipment showed nothing. Not flatlined. Not error. Just... absence.

"Zero point zero three seconds," Sandra said, her voice calm. "For less than the blink of an eye, our instruments couldn't detect you. You weren't here. Then you were here again, like you'd never left."

"Quantum tunneling?" Viktor suggested, but he didn't sound convinced.

"Through what barrier?" Sandra shot back. "Into where? This isn't a particle. This is a whole person vanishing and reappearing."

I smiled and said more to myself  “This sounds familiar, in my old world, would people also try to explain the unexplainable with quantum mechanics”. 

I stared at the data, at that impossible gap in the timeline. "I chose Option 4," I said quietly. "Combat Mathematics Enhancement. It felt like I was in that space for minutes, but here..." I gestured at the display. "A fraction of a second."

"Time dilation," V said. "Your consciousness experienced time differently in that space."

"Or the space exists outside time," Sandra countered. "Or orthogonal to it." She looked at me, and I could see the fear warring with fascination in her eyes. "Alice, do you feel different? Any changes?"

I took stock of myself. My vision seemed clearer, sharper somehow. I looked at my hand, made a fist, released it. As I moved, I could see... patterns. Trajectories. Force vectors. My mind was automatically calculating angles, velocities, optimal points of impact.

"Yes," I said. "I can see... physics. Motion. It's like having a heads-up display for combat, but it's integrated directly into how I perceive movement."

I demonstrated this by picking up a stylus from Viktor's workbench. The moment my hand moved toward it, my vision overlaid the optimal grip points, the trajectory for a throwing motion, the kinetic energy transfer if I used it as a striking weapon. The information was there, effortless and immediate, without obscuring my normal vision. I threw the stylus at the wall, and it bounced and landed in the coffee cup with the other stylus. 

"Intersting," Viktor muttered.

Sandra was typing furiously. "Your World-State Interference. Check it."

I pulled up my stats.

[World-State Interference: 14.53%]

[Experiences: 53]

[Enhancement: Combat Mathematics]

"About 14%" I reported. So a jump by about 12% points . Experiences unchanged."

"So accepting a reward does increase your interference," V observed."

"It seems so, but it could also come from the engram fixing. But then again, that also came from a reward" I looked at the new line in my stats. Enhancement: Combat Mathematics. Another reminder that I wasn't quite human. Should I have taken the platinum Trauma Team option, it could have probably saved me from a lot of near lethal situations. And also is there not chrome, that does about the same thing?.  

"This space you described," Sandra said, her scientific curiosity momentarily overriding her fear. "The void with the panels. Did it feel like cyberspace?"

I thought about it. "No. Cyberspace, from what I've read, is supposed to feel... liquid. Flowing. This was static. Geometric. More like a database than a stream."

"A database outside of time," Sandra said softly. "That's what you're describing. A repository of options, accessed in a moment too brief for our instruments to measure, but experienced subjectively as minutes."

"Like dream time," Viktor suggested. "You know how dreams can feel like they last hours, but you've only been asleep for minutes?"

"Similar," I agreed. "But more real. More structured."

V had been quiet, thinking. Now she spoke. "Alice, these thresholds. You've had two now. Is there any pattern? Any way to predict when the next one will come?"

I shook my head. "The first one came after I'd been in this world for a few days. This one came right after you paid me and we were talking about trust and choices." I paused. "Maybe it's triggered by significant moments? Or accumulating enough Experiences?"

"You said your Experiences are at 53 now," Sandra noted. "What were they at when you got the first threshold?"

"23 I think," I replied. "So I've gained 32 since then."

"And your first threshold was at 23 Experiences," V said. "What if the next one is at... I don't know, 80? Or 90?"

"Pure speculation," Sandra said, but she was noting it down anyway. "We have two data points. Not enough for a real pattern."

Viktor removed the diagnostic leads from my temples. "Well, whatever these thresholds are, they don't seem to be physically harmful. Your vitals are good. Brain activity normal. Better than normal, actually—I'm seeing enhanced neural pathway formation in your motor cortex. The enhancement is already integrating."

I flexed my fingers again, watching the force vectors trace through my vision like ghostly guides. "I can feel it. It's like... like learning a new language, but instantly fluent."

"That's unnatural," Sandra said flatly.

"Everything about me is unnatural," I replied, not unkindly. "I'm a shoggoth from another world, remember? This is just one more impossible thing."

Sandra didn't smile, but something in her expression shifted. "At least you're self-aware about it."

"Small comfort," I said. "I chose this enhancement because it seemed the least invasive. It doesn't change how I see people, just how I can fight. But Sandra? That Option 5? Visual Threat Classification? It would have turned every potential threatening group visually into monsters. Literal monsters. Scavengers into kobolds, corpos into devils. Can you imagine what that would have done to me? How easy it would have been to forget that I was killing people?"

"Gamification of violence," V said quietly. "Turn murder into monster-slaying, and suddenly it's not murder anymore. It's pest control, with scavs it  would be right though."

"Exactly." I looked at my hands again, at the green chrome and the embedded blades I knew were there. "I'm already dangerous. I don't need help dehumanizing my enemies. I will just learn the natural human way, like everybody else." I paused and looked them “the last part was a joke

"You made the right choice, I think," Viktor said. "For what it's worth."

V stood. "It's late. Alice, you should go home, get real rest. Viktor's right—you're physically fine, but you've been through a lot today."

"So have you," I pointed out. "How do you feel? Really?"

V paused, clearly checking her internal state. I could see her eyes unfocus slightly—she was probably consulting with Johnny. "Good," she said finally. "Better than I have in weeks. The partition is holding. Johnny and I... we're still separate, but we're not fighting anymore. It's like having a roommate instead of a squatter."

"Can he hear us now?" I asked.

"Yeah. He says..." V smiled slightly. "He says you're an interesting problem. And that he's glad you chose to help, even if he doesn't trust your reasons."

"Fair enough," I said. "I don't trust my reasons either half the time."

Sandra began packing up her monitoring equipment. "I'm taking all this data with me. I want to analyze it properly, look for patterns we might have missed."

"Be careful with it," I said. "I don't know what could happen if that data fell into the wrong hands."

"It won't," Sandra said firmly. "I'm many things, Alice, but careless isn't one of them."

As they prepared to leave, I found myself oddly reluctant to see them go. These people…V who didn't quite trust me, Sandra who feared me, Viktor who treated me with kind pragmatism…they were the closest thing I had to connections in this world.

"V?" I said as she reached the door. "Thank you. For giving me a chance. For not killing me when you probably could have."

She looked back, her expression unreadable. "Thank you for fixing me and Johny”. She gave me a tiny smile “First time hearing someone thanking me, for not killing them. We could call it even”.

But the way she said it, I didn't think she really believed that. There was something else in her voice…curiosity, maybe. Or the beginning of trust.

After they left, Viktor helped me gather my things. "You planning to head home now?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Need to process all this."

"Take care of yourself, kid. And Alice?" He waited until I met his eyes. "Whatever you are, whatever you're becoming? You're trying to be good. That counts for something."

"Does it?" I asked. "Even if I'm just code pretending to have ethics?"

"Especially then," he said. "Because code doesn't have to pretend. It could just be what it is. The fact that you're trying means something is there worth preserving."

I thought about that as I rode the NCART home through the neon-drenched night. My new Combat Mathematics enhancement painted the world in force vectors and kinetic potentials. Every person I passed was automatically analyzed—weight distribution, center of gravity, vulnerable strike points.

I hated it.

Not because it wasn't useful. But because it made it too easy to see people as problems to solve, threats to neutralize, obstacles to overcome.

Back in my apartment, I stood in front of the mirror and studied my face. The short black hair, the mirrored eyes that could see too much, the pale synthetic skin stretched over my cheeks and jaw.

I pulled up my stats one more time.

[World-State Interference: 14.97%]

[Experiences: 60]

[Enhancement: Combat Mathematics]

Three lines of text that somehow defined my existence. A shoggoth with a human face?, trying desperately to be human. Trying to convince herself she wasn't just code and chrome pretending at consciousness.

But Viktor's words echoed in my mind. You're trying to be good. That counts for something.

Maybe it did. Maybe the trying was the point. Maybe consciousness wasn't about what you were made of, but about what you chose to do with whatever you were.

I closed my eyes and let exhaustion pull me under, the weight of impossible choices following me into dreams where force vectors traced patterns in the dark, and somewhere, in a space outside time, panels hung waiting with offers I couldn't refuse and prices I couldn't name.

Chapter Text

I sat on a bench near the megabuilding that housed Clouds, watching the sea meet the city's edge. In my hands, a large iced coffee, or what Night City called coffee. I really missed the real thing. The synth-bean substitute they served here tasted like burned corn and a hint of slightly spoiled lemon, when you ordered it black. At least in a latte, buried under foam and sweetener, I could pretend there was actual coffee somewhere in the mix. 

My body still felt uncomfortably warm, that now familiar post-blackout sensation settling into my chrome and organic tissue like a fever that couldn't quite break. Another few minutes of lost time, another mysterious credit deposit in my account. It was my seventh blackout over the last couple of months, brief gaps in consciousness, never more than a minute or two, always leaving me slightly dazed, warm and a few hundred eddies richer. Yes it was indeed terrifying, and to my shame, I had told nobody about it.

Except for that little thing, the last couple of months had been relatively quiet for me. Night City, not so much.

V's payment had changed everything. With fifty thousand eddies, the first thing I bought was new cybernetics normal looking legs, I fucking hated the sharp stilt legs look. I'd also bought a used Brennan Apollo motorcycle, properly kitted out for courier work. In my old life, I would never have considered riding a motorcycle, I'd read too many statistics about accident rates and injury severity. But it was remarkable how daring you became when you had metal bones, accelerated healing, and instinctive knowledge of force vectors and collision trajectories. The Sandevistan didn't hurt either. Hard to worry about reaction time when you could slow the world to a crawl.

I was beginning to build a reputation as a reliable courier, and timing couldn't have been better. The escalating tension between Arasaka and Militech had everyone scrambling for position. Corporations, gangs, fixers and they all needed secure communications, discrete deliveries, plausible deniability. That meant work. Lots of it. Good paying work for anyone who could keep their mouth shut and their package intact.

V checked in occasionally, sometimes just to see how I was doing, other times to pick my brain about a job she'd taken. More often than not, I couldn't help much. My knowledge of future events was aging out, either things had already happened or the timeline had shifted enough that my information was becoming unreliable.

Speaking of which, my courier work had brought me into contact with dozens of fixers across Night City. I'd started to notice patterns in how they treated their mercs. Most were professional but distant…you were a tool, a resource to be deployed and discarded. Some were worse, actively predatory, squeezing mercs for every ounce of value before tossing them aside. And a rare few, like Wakako, treated their people with something approaching respect, as long as you proved yourself worthy of it. But I had no illusion that she wouldn’t sell me out, if she saw a big enough payout in some way. 

Which is how I found myself standing outside a pachinko parlor in Japantown, about to meet with one of Night City's most powerful fixers for what she'd called "a delivery requiring discretion and professionalism."

I finished the last of my fake iced coffee, tossed the cup in a recycler, and headed inside.

The pachinko parlor was a sensory assault even by Night City standards. Row upon row of garish machines spat out cascading silver balls in a mechanical symphony of bells, chimes, and electronic jingles that somehow managed to be both cacophonous and hypnotic. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and the acrid ozone smell of overworked electronics. Neon signs in kanji flickered overhead, advertising prizes nobody wanted and jackpots nobody would win.

I felt (again again) out of place.

My Combat Mathematics enhancement automatically tracked the trajectories of hundreds of pachinko balls, painting ghost-trails through my vision until I had to consciously suppress the function. The noise made my audio processors want to dial down to minimum sensitivity. People are here voluntarily!?.

But Wakako Okada's office was in the back, and Wakako Okada had called for me specifically. That was significant. In the hierarchy of Night City fixers, Wakako sat near the top, old money, old connections, old power that didn't need to announce itself. Getting a personal summons from her meant I was either moving up or V had recommended me to her (V is kind of a big deal).

I navigated through the maze of machines and zoned out gamblers, my mirrored eyes tracking everything while betraying nothing. A few people looked up as I passed,my chrome was hard to ignore, but most were too absorbed in their own electronic dreams to care about another merc passing through.

The back office was through an unmarked door guarded by a heavyset man with dead eyes. He scanned me with a glance, noted the absence of obvious weapons in my hands, and stepped aside without a word. 

The office itself embodied a traditional Japanese aesthetic with clean lines, minimal decoration, a scroll painting of mountains shrouded in mist on one wall. My scandinavian heart approved. I noticed the absence of visible data terminals. Were they hidden, or did she simply have people for that sort of thing?

At the center of it all sat Wakako Okada.

She was elderly, her face a map of decades lived in Night City's shadows, yet her eyes remained sharp and calculating behind her glasses. She wore traditional clothing that somehow conveyed more power than any amount of tactical gear could. This was a woman who'd survived corpo wars, gang conflicts, and regime changes through sheer competence and ruthless pragmatism.

I wondered how much of her presentation was calculated. She was younger than Hanako, and even Wakako was nowhere near Hanako's power and wealth. Wakako had wealth enough to appear much younger than she looked right now, if she chose to.

"Alice Van der Linde," she said, her English carrying the careful precision of someone who'd learned it as a second language decades ago. "Please, sit."

I sat, keeping my posture respectful but not submissive. That was a delicate balance with fixers of Wakako's caliber. Show too much deference and they'd eat you alive, show too little and they'd have you erased.

"Thank you for seeing me, Okada-san," I said, using the honorific deliberately. I'd done the minimum amount of research.

A ghost of a smile touched her lips. "You have been making a name for yourself. Reliable courier work. Discreet. No drama. These are valuable qualities." She folded her hands on her desk. "I have a small job that requires someone with your... particular skills."

"I'm listening."

"A simple courier run," Wakako said. "I need you to deliver this…" she produced a compact, matte-black briefcase from beneath her desk, " to Dakota Smith. In person. No intermediaries, no drops. Hand to hand."

I studied the briefcase. It was small, maybe thirty centimeters long, sealed with both physical locks and what looked like a biometric scanner. "What's in it?"

"That is not your concern," Wakako said, her tone making it clear this wasn't negotiable. "What should concern you is that this delivery is time-sensitive and extremely important to certain parties who value their privacy."

Translation: don't ask questions, don't open it, don't fuck it up.

"Payment?" I asked.

"Two thousand eddies." She paused, letting that sink in. "There's also the matter of reputation. Dakota is... selective about who she works with. A successful delivery, handled with proper discretion, would open doors."

That was the real payment. Dakota Smith was a legend in the nomad circuits,

"Time frame?"

"Today. Dakota expects the package before sundown." Wakako's eyes locked onto mine. "She knows it will be delivered by courier. She doesn't know which courier."

"Should I expect opposition?" Usually not the case, but this was a Wakako gig, so...

Wakako studied me for a long moment. "Always assume opposition... but there's no indication anyone else knows about the package."

"I'll do it," I said. "The package will be delivered."

"Good." Wakako transferred the first half of the payment with a gesture. "One more thing, Alice. Dakota may not be immediately available when you arrive. She operates on her own schedule. There's a motel nearby, the Sunset View. If needed, you can wait there. I've arranged a room." She handed me a physical keycard, an anachronism in an age of digital everything. "Do not leave the package unattended. Do not let it out of your sight."

"Understood."

She nodded dismissal, already turning her attention to other matters on her phone. I took the small briefcase and left.

Outside, I secured the briefcase to my motorcycle, using the courier-grade storage compartment I'd had installed. The Apollo purred to life beneath me, and I felt the familiar rush of adrenaline mixed with focus. This was what I was becoming good at: moving things from point A to point B, being reliable in a city where reliability was rare.

The route out of Westbrook took me through Japantown, past the familiar landmarks that had become mundane through repetition. The neon and the crowds gradually thinned as I approached the city limits, and then suddenly I was out, bursting free of Night City's concrete embrace into the vast expanse of the Badlands.

The change was immediate and profound. The air smelled different…. cleaner, drier, with hints of sage and heated rock. The sky opened up above me, a dome of blue so vast it made my chest ache. And the silence. Not true silence, the wind whispered across the desert, my bike's engine hummed, but the absence of the city's constant background noises was almost shocking.

I'd done a few Badlands runs before, but I never got tired of this transition. It felt like washing off layers of grime I hadn't realized I was wearing. The desert was harsh, yes, unforgiving in its own way. But it was honest. No ads screaming at you, no corporate towers looming over you like chrome tombstones.

Just rock, sand, sky, and the road. And today the wind was not blowing from the large garbage dump, perfection. 

My HUD painted a clean line to Dakota's garage in Rocky Ridge, but I wasn't in a hurry. The sun was still high, and Wakako had said before sundown. I let the Apollo stretch its legs, the engine singing as I carved through the lightly trafficked roads. The Combat Mathematics enhancement tracked terrain features automatically, suggesting optimal lines through curves and warning of soft sand patches, but I found myself ignoring it in favor of just... riding.

Was this what freedom felt like? This sense of space, of possibility, of being small in a way that wasn't about being crushed or controlled?

My thoughts drifted to the other project I'd been working on…the message I'd been carefully, anonymously seeding across various boards and data streams:

"Songbird, the dog will throw arrows at the nation first bird, and will bind the songbird in another thralldom. The french twins holds a key, an old colleague works at the bar Electric Orgasm."

It was cryptic by design. Specific enough that Songbird, if she saw it, might recognize the references. She had to have some form of advanced net monitoring, right? Some way to catch signals like this in the noise?

"The dog" was Kurt Hansen, leader of the Barghest. "The nations first bird" was Myers herself, the NUSA president. "Twins" meant Aurore Cassel and her brother Aymeric. And "an old colleague" was Reed, Songbird's former handler.

I had no idea if she'd see it. No idea if she'd care even if she did.

The whole Phantom Liberty situation, if it played out as I remembered from the game, would end in tragedy no matter which path was chosen. Betrayal, death, heartbreak. Reed forced to hunt down or protect Songbird. V caught in the middle. President Myers using everyone as disposable assets.

But it was the collateral damage that haunted me. The innocent people who'd die when Space Force One was shot down over Dogtown. Or when Myers inevitably went full scorched-earth to recover her asset, and cover her lies and betrayals. Songbird was understandably desperate, desperate enough to do terrible things to save her own mind and life.

Perhaps the message could get her to consider another plan. One with fewer bodies.

I wanted Songbird to find some kind of freedom. I really did. But I also really didn't want to meet her.

The uncertainty gnawed at me as I rode. Was this the right thing to do? Was I actually helping, or was I just making things worse? The system that had brought me here clearly wanted me to interfere, that's what "World-State Interference" meant, right? But it didn't tell me how to interfere, or whether my interference would be beneficial, and if so to whom?.

The existential dread was interrupted by my HUD pinging. I'd arrived at Rocky Ridge.

Dakota's garage was not exactly as I'd seen it in the game. It was a prefab structure half-buried in sand and rock, solar panels gleaming on the roof, a few vehicles in various states of repair scattered around. 

I parked my bike and approached the garage, the briefcase held carefully in both hands. The door was open, but Dakota herself was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a young nomad woman with intricate braids and suspicious eyes looked up from a workbench.

"Help you?" she asked, not friendly.

"Delivery for Dakota Smith. From Wakako Okada."

The woman's expression shifted slightly. "Dakota's not here. Won't be back until tonight. You can wait at the Sunset View down the road, or you can fuck off back to the city. Your choice."

Professional warmth clearly wasn't her strong suit. But I appreciated the honesty.

"I'll wait," I said. "Wakako mentioned the motel."

She shrugged and went back to her work, effectively dismissing me. I walked back to my bike, secured the briefcase again, and headed for the motel.

The Sunset View Motel was a strip of connected rooms that had seen better days probably in the last century. Faded paint, patched concrete, air conditioning units that wheezed more than they cooled. But it was clean enough, and it had the singular advantage of being the only lodging for miles.

The proprietor, an elderly man with impressive nose hair and zero interest in conversation, took Wakako's keycard and handed me a physical key to room seven. No questions, no small talk. I liked him immediately.

The room was exactly what I expected: a bed that might have been comfortable in the 1990s, a bathroom that smelled of chemical cleaner, and a window that looked out over the desert. I set the briefcase on the small table, confirmed it was still locked and secure, and then did what I'd been wanting to do since I left the city.

I sat on the cracked concrete steps outside my room and just... looked.

The desert stretched out forever, all rusty reds and pale golds in the afternoon light. The horizon was a clean line, unbroken by buildings or billboards. A few scrub plants clung to life in the sand, their roots probably reaching deeper than seemed possible. A tiny lizard, an actual living lizard, darted across the parking lot and disappeared into a crack in the pavement.

It was real in a way Night City could never be. Not pretty, not comfortable, but real. Honest. The desert didn't pretend to be anything other than what it was. It didn't sell you dreams or promise you anything. It just existed, ancient and patient and utterly indifferent to human drama.

I found that deeply comforting.

My mind wandered back to the message, to Songbird, to all the ways I was trying to influence events I barely understood. Was it hubris to think I could help? Probably. Was it naive to hope things could be better? Almost certainly.

But what was the alternative? To just... not try? To sit back and let tragedy unfold because I was afraid of making things worse?

What was I supposed to do in this clearly dying world? Large swaths of the planet were already uninhabitable. The total population had collapsed to two or three billion and was still falling. Most days it felt like humanity was circling the drain, taking the ecosystem down with it.

So what then? Just live out my fantasies? Become a murderhobo, racking up a body count until someone faster and meaner put me down? Find love in strange places? Numb myself with BDs until reality disappeared completely?

Or maybe... if nothing I do in this world matters, then the only thing that matters is what I do. Right here. Right now. The choices I make, the people I help or hurt. Maybe that's enough?

The sun began its slow descent toward the horizon, painting the desert in shades of orange and amber. I grabbed the briefcase and decided to walk a bit, stretch my legs, and feel the desert sand under my boots.

There was a small rise about a hundred meters from the motel. I climbed it, my enhanced legs making the ascent trivial, and stood at the top looking back toward Night City in the distance. From here, it looked almost beautiful, a glittering jewel of light against the darkening sky. You couldn't see the poverty, the violence, the corporate oppression. Just the lights.

Lies at a distance look like truth, I thought. Maybe that's why people kept coming to Night City. Because from far away, it looked like the dream was still possible.

My HUD pinged. A text from an unknown number: "Dakota back in 20. Come to garage."

I walked back down the rise, and rode the short distance to the garage. The sun was touching the horizon now, painting everything in gold and crimson. 

Dakota was waiting by the garage entrance, and even if I hadn't known who she was, I would have recognized her as someone important. She had that quality some people have, a presence that makes you pay attention without demanding it. Mid-fifties maybe, weathered by sun and experience, with eyes that had seen enough bullshit to be permanently skeptical.

"You the courier from Wakako?" she asked, her voice carrying a distinct nomad drawl.

"Alice Van der Linde," I said, offering the briefcase. "She said hand to hand, no intermediaries."

Dakota took the briefcase, examined the seals, then scanned it with a device from her pocket. Whatever she saw satisfied her, because she nodded and looked back at me.

"Long wait away from the city" she observed.

"Worth it," I said. "The desert's nice."

That earned me a slight smile. "You're not from around here originally, are you? Got that look. Like you're seeing everything for the first time."

"Something like that," I admitted. "European originally. Still getting used to... everything."

Dakota looked at me and said “Sounds like there is story there”

“There is” I said with hint of a smile

The payment notification appeared in my HUD, the remaining thousand eddies from Wakako, plus a bonus. And a new contact: Dakota Smith.

"You ever need work out this way," Dakota said, "you give me a call. Nomads need reliable city couriers. People who know when to shut up and when to ask questions." She looked me over, assessing. "And people who appreciate the desert. That matters more than you might think."

"Thank you," I said, meaning it. "I'll remember that."

As I rode back toward the city, the last light fading behind me and Night City's glow growing stronger ahead.

My stats flickered at the edge of my vision:

[World-State Interference: 16.23%] [Experiences: 71] [Enhancement: Combat Mathematics]

The percentage had ticked up slightly. Not from the delivery, that was just work. But from something. Maybe from the message. Maybe from the choice to try. The system was tracking something, measuring something, but what exactly remained opaque. If it was a game, I would be bitching about the illogical game system. 

The city swallowed me back into its neon embrace, and with it came all the noise, the crowds, the constant background noise. But now I had something to hold onto, the memory of clean air and the desert, the knowledge that there was something beyond the city's walls. Something that didn't care about corpo wars or gang conflicts or the desperate scramble for survival.

The desert just existed. And maybe, in my own small way, I could learn to do the same. To exist, to make choices, to try to do good, without needing to understand everything or control everything or fix everything.

I parked my bike inside my megabuilding and took the elevator up to my floor. The hallway smelled like fried synth-protein and fresh puke, but it was familiar. Home, in its own broken way. But I was beginning to look for something better. 

Inside my apartment, I pulled up the message boards one more time, checking to see if there was any response to my cryptic warning. Nothing. Just the usual chaos of Night City's digital underbelly, conspiracy theories, black market deals, desperate people looking for desperate solutions.

I closed the interface and looked out my fake window at the fake city view. Tomorrow there would be more jobs, more deliveries, more small choices that might or might not matter. The system would keep tracking my interference, keep tallying my experiences, keep pushing me toward some threshold I couldn't see.

But tonight, I had the memory of the desert. Clean. Honest. Real.

Today was a good day.