Chapter 7: Ripples

I crouched under the table as I saw another figure walk past. I slipped past the guards as I took the elevator up the stairs before keeping to the shadows. I pulled on my hood above my head as I walked right past a couple of guards without them ever even glancing in my direction. 

I took a shortcut through a locked hallway by typing in the password…which was ‘NOTTHEPASSWORD!'

Finally I had arrived.

I carefully sneaked up behind the figure, ready to pounce as her attention was held inside the braindance. I rubbed my hands as the path told me exactly what I needed to do. No matter what anyone said, this was necessary.

“BOO!”

“HOLY FUCK!” Judy screamed as she grabbed the braindance editor rig off her head and swung it behind her, into my face.

The path stepped in to carefully tangle my fingers into hers as it stopped the sharp end of the rig from hitting my head. I took the chance to lean into her and wrapped her hand around me as I did a little twirl and sit (onto her lap).

“Hi” I said, maybe a little too smug. I brought up a bag to my shoulders to show her the contents. A couple of BDs, a bottle of vodka and some mixers. “You left me hanging, so I had to come. You got any cups in here?”

… 

I ended up helping Judy close the shop early before following her home to Charter Street in Kabuki, Watson. I hopped into the shotgun seat of her van as she drove me to her house. We shared a little bit of useless chatter while I caught up on her day to day job with the Clouds and her own old Tech store. 

In the two weeks since I’ve met her, we came quite far. Well, it was mostly me spamming her with messages and trying to keep her mood up but Judy quickly took the initiative on the holocalls and texts. The conversations changing from simple questions about my day to questions for advice, for dolls, for BD adjustments, and finally…

‘Can you come? I think I need you’

I followed her up stairs of the blue building before she led me inside. Following her lead, I took a seat at the bar table before slouching down with my hands holding up my face, my cheeks getting slightly squished.

Judy brought my bag to the table as she gently took out a bag of chips, three big glass bottles of vodka, some orange juice, cranberry juice, and a couple of NiColas (taste the love). She set aside the stacks of BDs to the side before taking her seat across from me.

I gave her a glass before pouring out the drinks and stirring them into a nice simple cocktail. In silence, we clinked our glasses before taking a sip.

“Huh, this real orange juice?” She asked.

“Concentrated.” I replied. “But yeah. Real oranges.” I smiled at her. 

“And the Vodka?”

“Bought it straight from BioTechnica.”

“Huh, didn’t know they made this Vodka brand.”

“Me neither. Apparently they only sell these to high end Corpo bars.”

“How’d you get it then?”

“I told them I was a high end Corpo bar.” I smiled inwardly as I saw Judy trying to suppress her own smile at my joke. Well, she thought it was a joke but I had been nothing but honest to her. Every word, she just didn’t believe me yet.

“Still trying to take over the world and make it a better place then?” Judy’s voice was laced with sarcasm as she downed her glass, quickly reaching for a refill.

I poured another two shots into her glass before popping a NiCola Blue and passing it to her.

“Yup, just got Rache Bartmoss’s frozen corpse delivered to my doorstep. Quite simple convincing the Cryogenic freezer company to ignore a couple of contract details from fifty years ago if you oil the gears with some eddies. Going to scan and turn his frozen brain into an incredibly advanced VI for my next step towards creating-”

“-Your super secret but benevolent shadow government which will control everything. Yes, of course.” She giggled before downing her glass again.

We sat in silence for a bit longer as I tried to wait out the awkwardness that my path insisted was necessary. On Judy’s fourth refill, I took the bottle away from her and held it hostage as I looked at her in the eye. She almost looked like a kicked puppy but I couldn’t just let her drown herself.

She needed to talk.

“Come one, spill.” I put my glass on the table. “First you text me that and then you’re trying to avoid the topic.”

“When did you get so bold~?” Judy slurred. “You were like a shivering little kitten when I found you~”

I held up my answer and swirled it gently. The ice softly clinking around the edges of the glass.

“The Nutty Professor! I love it.” She smiled softly, but her face quickly fell. She gripped her empty glass with two hands before

“And I’m talking to Mary Poppins.” I sighed. I reached across the table and grabbed her glass before giving just a small drip of vodka. Mixing it with some Cranberry and soda before pushing it back to her.

“Last glass.” I warned. “Now talk.”

Judy downed the glass, again. I might need to ask the path if Judy’s liver was still in good health later.“I dunno just, I just…I dunno where to start.”

“The beginning’s usually a good place for that.” 

“I told you that I’m in a thing with Maiko, didn’t I?” I nodded back at her. “Mmmhmm, the thing is I helped her get where she is, ya’know? Her performance at Clouds? It’s thanks to my work on her Doll chip.”

“Let me guess. She got what she wanted and decided to cut ties?”

“I haven’t got to that part yet.” Still, I heard her whisper under her breath *typical fucking corpo behavior*

She slid her empty glass across the table. I filled it with some NiCola and handed it back to her, which she didn’t seem too pleased with. “No surprise Maiko got promoted. Always had a way with words, ya’know? And with the boost in performance from my gift to her? No surprise. Really. No surprise.”

I opened my bag of chips and began munching on them silently. Grabbing a handful first before putting the rest onto the table.

“Ever since she’s gotten to that position…it just hasn’t been the same! She’s…she’s.” I could tell she couldn’t say it herself, but she didn’t need to. I already knew.

But beyond that, I needed that somebody needed to say it. Judy needed to hear it.

“Judy, just answer me this. Was it Maiko or was it Clouds?"

She stayed silent for a while as she nibbled on a potato chip before dropping it back onto the tabletop. “…I don’t know. Could’ve been both.”

I stayed silent as I motioned for her to continue.

“I tried going to see Maiko today but…but her security wouldn’t let me through. Those fucking gonks! They know me! It was her call, I fucking know it. Damn bitch and her goddamn procedures.” She snarled. “Doing it for both of us my fat ass.”

I raised my eyebrow as I leaned off the table a little bit and hmm examined her posterior in an incredibly obvious manner. “I wouldn’t be so sure Judy, Maiko might have some truth to that. That fat ass looks like two-”

*bonk* “Aww, christ! Ow!” I held my head in my hands as I tried to quell the pain. 

“If you’re trying to joke to make me feel better, well it’s not working.” She glowered at me…before her mask cracked a smile. “Maybe just a little.” 

I smiled back as I leaned forward a little bit. “Well, share some holo-text then. What’d she say ‘bout all of this? Knowing you, you would’ve interrogated her for answers.”

“Did she ask to calm yourself.”

“Yes.

“And what’d you say?”

Judy crossed her arms, leaning forward as well. “I told her to fuck off.”

“Hmm, and?”

“I told her this was over.”

I slammed my glass down on the table making a startling Judy. I ripped the glass from Judy’s hands before filling it to the brim with Vodka before filling my own the same way.

“HA!” I laughed out loud. “Enough of all this sadness and mopey stuff. You need some Preem chaos right now.”

“High five you bad bitch.” Shoving the glass into her hands, I raised my glass up high. “We’re throwing a fucking party tonight.” We clinked glasses as I finally saw Judy laughing for once.

“We can cry together once we’re hungover.” I screamed.

“You…! You!” But I could tell this was working, Judy was laughing along with me now.

“Whoooo!!! Congratulations of being single! Breakup PARTY!!” I threw the bag of chips up into the air, letting the chips fly everywhere. I’ll regret that decision tomorrow morning, but that didn’t matter right now.

As I began to run around the blue apartment with my crush on my heels trying to tackle me…things were perfect.

I looked further into the future…and this time, I began laughing from my heart.

… …

arasaka

Ever since I joined I always wondered why a corporation which focused so much on dominance would use a lowercase font as their logo.

Yet, my curiosity wasn’t what was important right now. This was.

“So, thoughts? V?”

I looked up from the corporate tablet to my direct superior, Jenkins. We were inside his office, separated from the rest of the Counter Intel department. It was a rather nice place, with the Arasaka building a little older than a year, the entire place looked sparkly clean. Although I doubted that this look would ever fade with time, Arasaka being Arasaka even the janitors would lose their souls working here.

“From this? Nothing.” I replied back. “This is all we have from the Netrunner department, Special Operations, and the Intelligence?”

Jenkins tapped his pen onto the tablet. “All I’ve been able to get my hands on.”

“Which means it’s damn near everything they have anyway.” I grumbled. “Seems like Special Operations department has a special way of saying they don’t know shit.”

“Fucking Abernathy-“ Jenkins began. I wisely cut him off before he could begin his rant again. It was two years since I had been hired as an intern into the Arasaka corporation. In fact, I was one of the first hires since Arasaka’s official re-entry into North America (NUSA).

“Yeah, you told me. Osaka.” I scrolled through some of the numbers provided by the Netrunning department. “Whatever Ms. Abernathy has on yo, I doubt it’d be enough to slander you if you can untie this unholy mess.” 

“Hmm” Jenkins poured himself some bourbon he took out from underneath his table. “I’d bet. Netrunner department’s undergoing a purge initiated by the Emperor himself.” Purge, as strong as that word was, it was nowhere strong enough to describe what was actually happening.

“Fuck…Saburo Arasaka-sama?” I said in fake awe. I already knew this, I had dug up on this before Jenkins had ever passed me that tablet. It wasn’t a purge in the Netrunning department, it was genocide. Saburo Arasaka had taken it upon himself to fly all the way to Night City to personally oversee the interrogation, torture, and execution of the entire Netrunning department, save some very few.

Jenkins nodded as he swirled the contents in the glass, the whiskey stones clinking slightly against the crystal glass.

“Counter Intel isn’t what it used to be V.” He slowly stated. “After that bitch slandered the entire department in front of the Administrative board, we’ve had our budget cut, our authority decreased, and for a while we were a laughingstock across the department.”

He took a sip as he savored the elixir in his mouth. “But this? We can flip all of that. Whatever Soulkiller 1.9 was, Saburo-sama obviously took great care for it. We bring him answers, he gives us power.”

“And how are we going to find those answers then?”

Jenkins raised an eyebrow. “I was hoping you’d have some answers, V.”

Ah, so this was how it was going to be. A typical Corpo deal…the subordinate does the work, the superior gets the credit and prize. If the subordinate proves herself to be capable to produce such results again, the superior will share a little itty bit of credit and drag the subordinate with them promotion after promotion.

And that was exactly how the last two years went. A short job in Japan where I had managed to catch Jenkin’s eye and served him loyally like a fucking dog. It payed off, however, as Jenkins too was rewarded for my efforts. Putting him all the way at the top of the Counter Intel department and with me as his closest advisor/human relation/ or really anything.

Nobody else could put up with his bullshit like I did. High function psychopath or not.

“Arasaka’s not going to provide answers, especially not from other departments.” I answered him back. “It’s almost guaranteed that Abernathy’s thinking exactly what we’re thinking.” I emphasized the we in the statement. Whether he liked it or not, we were in this together. I was his golden egg lay goose. Kill me, betray me, and he’d get no further. In return, he takes me up with him each time.

“I’m going to need some independent sources. Some good independent sources.”

“Ah, the queen then?” Jenkins asked. “Our kind, we’re not welcome there.”

“When you’ve got nothing, you swallow your pride and open your hands.” I replied. “Besides, I’ve got a connection to get me inside.”

“Good.” Jenkins stood up as he straightened up his suit. “You bill me for anything you need. I’ll make sure that nobody else has a single chance of starting their investigations.”

As we met eye to eye, I knew we understood each other. I would do as he said but I’d damn well double check that he’d actually be protecting me from the inside. No doubt he would do the same to me.

As the saying went. “Don’t trust anyone.”

It was the one code which didn’t fail in a corporation. But even I had an exception. Someone who went against all of my codes, all of my beliefs. Someone who I trusted wholeheartedly despite my training, my senses screaming at me to sever them.

I called him.

“Heyyy, Chica! What’s up?”

“Jackie.” I replied. “You up for a gig?”

… …

“GOD FUCKING DAMN IT! WHERE THE FUCK IS IT!” zi3lona, the head of NC’s Division of Netwatch threw the glass off the table before throwing it against the wall. Shattering into a thousand fragments. In front of her, the new recruits and the employees sat silently as we witnessed her rampage. From what I could tell, zi3lona had managed to hold back a little as the wall hadn’t broken down.

Like most NetWatch agents, and most of all a regional director, zi3lona was a tier 5 Netrunner. She had undergone a full transference and was a ‘full Borg’. All parts of her body partially opened up to reveal the cyberware underneath and her ‘face’ now a mask meant to replicate what she once looked like. The dozens of cables climbing up the inside of her neck and into her brain showing exactly what little humanity she had left inside her.

“There’s a FUCKING CYBER NUKE inside the Citi-net borders right now! Search goddamit search!!” She screamed, the vents on her back opening up before releasing steam all across the net runner station. The ventilation system on the ceiling went into overdrive as within moments, the station was clear again.

It was worrying, quite. Day after day the regional director was quick to resort to expressing her anger, or rather displeasure. Her voice, once purely human, was becoming more and more automated and mixed as if losing her own identity. 

“Predictive Combat Software! A level of Mass Breach we’ve only dreamed of! Not to mention a Trap disguised as a Data Fortress to tie down the likes of SoulKiller!”

“Miss, shouldn’t we be raiding Arasaka’s network for breaching the treaty of Mexico for the development of Sou-“

“AFTER WE FIND THE FUCKING PROGRAM!” She screamed at the new recruit who was dumb enough to question her while she was on one of her phases.

“*huff* *huff* Double the security on the Blackwall. Black ICE on any unidentified programs or constructs which even comes near that damn thing. Am I clear??!”

“Yes Ma’am!” We said back.

“My senses are telling me that this is the work of an AI. It’s that…or…”

She held her breath as if she didn’t even want to consider the alternative.

“Or…we have another Bartmoss on our hands.”

… …

POV Tesha

Fully under the influence of the path for this step, I moved in perfectly calculated movements as the heated blade completed its work. Gently with gloves on, I took the frozen severed head of Rache Bartmoss from the delivered freezer onto the pre-setup station.

Placing the entire head into the scanner and stabbing the cyberware into the side of the heads in just a way to avoid harming the essential parts of the brain, I changed into my net runner suit. Connecting the port and jacking in, I felt my consciousness drift deeper and deeper into cyberspace as my surroundings melted away into a world of data.

My digital icon formed around my mind as my hands tightened on a chain. A chain leading to the chained form of a roughly dog-shaped SoulKiller 1.9.2, completely tamed.

A movement of my hand connected the scanner in realspace to this realm as the port connected to Bartmoss’ frozen brain appeared in my vision. I looked down at the dog.

“Bite.”

The program, eager to please its master, rushed at the port and bit down, activating SoulKiller through the connection. 

I could only watch in glee as I witnessed the process of a new construct being created in front of my eyes. Strange memories and random facts at first, before its main senses, until it gained something close enough to a consciousness. I wasn’t done, however, as I began releasing program after program towards the newly constructed Bartmoss construct turning it into something entirely different.

Enhancing its cognitive abilities while dimming and rewriting the parts regarding its sapience. Chains of code going through the very nerves inside the brain making it entirely tied to my existence and whims.

Eventually, it was done as Soulkiller let go of the port and returned to my side. The whirling mass of energy wagging its tail like a happy dog.

{What…am I?}

A shapeless blob of numbers and data floated in front of me. This was once the greatest mind to have ever existed, this was once the fear of entire corporations. This man, with nothing but his mind and some simple machines managed to write his name so deep into history that there was not a single net-user on this world who didn’t recognize his name.

{Who…am I?}

I put my hand on the construct as I gave it

[PURPOSE] Something deep inside me resonated.

{PURPOSE} The created intelligence pondered its existence. {AGREEMENT} it responded.

The shapeless blob shifted, creaked, changed as new code was written into existence. I recognized what it was doing, it was creating its own Icon. It grew and grew in size until it towered over the small shelter that I had built. Metal scales appearing on its skin before it expanded. Its metallic look growing to include wings before turbines and massive engines grew within its body. Finally, a snakelike head protruding from the main mass before its jaws opened wide to reveal a combination of teeth and cannons.

“Can you think?”

{I can}

“Do you exist?”

{I do}

“Then who are you?”

{I think therefore I am. A quote from Rene Descartes}

{This means that Who I think I am, I am}

I metallic reptile lifted lowered its head until its maw touched the ground, its ruby eyes looking into mine at eye level.

{I am what remains of Rache Bartmoss. I am the creation of Tesha Comtesse. I am the work of your ambitions.}

{I will be, I can be, I am}

{Dragon}