2078: Highriders - Chapter 21 (Patreon)

She stared through the crystal glass of V’s SSTO as Luna increasingly swallowed the forward view.

Her first night as a free woman behind her, Aria Hensley couldn’t help but feel that the walls of expectation that she thought she had left behind by heading to Elysium was once again catching up to her. The irony was that by leaving one cage of expectation, which had been put around her since she was old enough to think by her father in Dallas, she had jumped straight into another more literal cage. One made by Kane.

Only now, with the moon a single engine burn away…

Am I really going back to that?

The treacherous question.

Her time on Elysium had felt like a lifetime of its own, due to the re-education pod. Every day it had ground slowly onward as the braindances wore her down. Experiences and manufactured memories that hurt to even recall. Eventually she couldn’t even trust her own perception of time.

The worst had been the BD which presented her own life right back to her, except every tender childhood memory of her father ‘rewritten’. Him calling her ‘the best asset I had ever made’. She lived through the eyes of her childhood self as a little girl, running towards him. Only for him to coldly calculate her market value out loud while petting her head like a prized horse. That memory always ended with him handing over a contract for her to Kane, written in her own blood.

It was clearly a ridiculous scenario, but it had just enough purchase to stick. It poked exactly at the secret fear that her father might actually see her this way.

That BD was usually followed by the one she called Perfect Daughter.

In it she was trapped in a looping montage, where she was the ideal, obedient version of herself; smiling, compliant and gratefully kissing Kane’s ring while her feather beamed with pride in the background. What was worse, the BD wasn’t completely on-rails, she was given enough agency to rebel in it, yet every time she was subdued with increasing violence. It had quickly gotten to the point where assassins would appear out of optic camo and simply ‘kill’ her. Only for it all to start again, with the scenario tweaked just enough to bring her back to that moment of kissing Kane’s ring.

It hadn’t ended until she forced herself to say the words Kane wanted, “Thank you for freeing me from my father’s cage.”

They could naturally tell she was lying and in punishment, the next BD was living as a low-level oxygen serf for a full 14 hour work cycle. She felt the constant hunger, the radiation sores, the fear of being spaced for the slightest inefficiency and the humiliation of bowing to Courtiers that wore the faces of her past self.

The punishment BDs continued after that, still trying to break her. To force her to say and truly believe the words that Kane wanted.

Her skin crawled and she hugged herself, unable to stop the memories from surging to the fore.

Slowly tumbling in the void outside the station, watching the rotating torus drift away forever. No suit. No comms. The vacuum miraculously did not kill her because that would’ve been an escape from the crushing certainty that no one was going to rescue her.

They liked to leave her in that one for what felt like subjective hours. Then as if that wasn’t enough, that was usually followed up by…

She’s forced to watch as Kane personally spares her life during a public loyalty trial, then immediately spaces the person standing next to her. Someone who usually wore the appearance and face from her childhood; mom, dad, her best friend from corpo school, anyone who had mattered to her at all. Kane smiled, “See, I’m not a monster. I only punish the ungrateful.”

Aria clenched her fists and tried to forget, but it just didn’t work. The BDs on Elysium wouldn’t let you. Before her imprisonment within the Pod, she knew that BD’s on the station were far superior to anything that was being done on Earth, but it hadn’t hit home how dangerous it was until they were tailored and forced on her.

“Aria?”

V’s voice mercifully broke through the fog of torturous memories and brought her back.

I am sitting in a chair on the SSTO Wraith. I am on the way to Luna. I am free of Kane. This is not a BD, she thought furiously to herself and focused on the Edgerunner who had done the impossible, her savior.

V floated into the cockpit, gracefully bringing her legs down to lock her mag-boots to the floor and in her hands held out a folded silvery vac-rated skinsuit. The merc was now wearing a matt-black skinsuit in highrider style, with aqua blue lines running along it and a few holo-tattoos glowing on the arms and shoulders. Her Agent quickly brought up an analysis of one in particular that indicated the patronage of a very powerful workgroup within the Highrider Confederation.

“Gonna be needing this soon, Aria.”

She took the clothing and nodded in thanks, turning over the physical garment in her hands.

How long had it been since I’d worn something that wasn’t holo?

Ever since she’d set foot on Elysium, she’d quickly learned that it would just get in the way and so had transitioned to holo-attire that was just so more versatile and could be switched off with a thought.

Getting into the skinsuit, rather embarrassingly, needed a bit of help from V. She hadn’t been in full zero gravity for a long time. The chore done, she pushed herself back into the pilot chair and couldn’t help feel a mild bit of claustrophobia at the slight pressure over almost every inch of her skin from the suit.

“I’m going to lift our EMCON. Ready?”      

No, I’m not.

She switched on her social cyberware with a thought. Instantly, the highs and deep lows of emotion tapered off, stabilizing and she felt her face settle into the cool mask she presented to the world. “Go ahead.”

The signal strength indicator in her optics went from the dull flat line, to instantly registering 70% as her Agent picked up the general signal from the nearest Petrochem satellite. It generally preferred getting a carrier wave from them, but there were also public ESA ones in range that gave better signal at the moment.

It didn’t take another second for a deluge of automatic notifications to arrive as Aria reconnected back to her own digital identity.

“Filter out everything from before today,” she hissed to her Agent.

That thankfully brought things down to only one notification, a single text message from her father.

She stared into the small icon in her HUD optic, feeling a sheer dread at the content that could be within. As much as she thought she had beaten off Kane’s attempts at social manipulation and brainwashing, the trauma went deep nevertheless.

A thought and twitch of her eyes towards the icon, and the text chat opened with a simple message.

Ari, I can’t imagine what you have gone through. All I know is that you can come home. It’s not a request or an order. Call me when you feel you are ready.

Dad.

She stared at the words in her vision as they hammered home. The sheer relief that he still cared, that he was actually giving her the choice. That he wasn’t the demon Kane’s BDs had tried to frame him into.

Twitches from her eyes cycled through the menus, until she was presented with his icon and number, labeled simply ‘Dad’.

The thought of making the call stalled before she could even think of it.

What would she talk about? What was there to say?

Sorry that I ran off, dad. Sorry, that I walked right into the lair of the worst monster in LEO. Sorry, that you had to squander an undoubted fortune in eddies to rescue my ass from it. Sorry, that I didn’t know how much I had in life, until I had absolutely nothing. Sorry, that the daughter you knew and loved died on that station and in her place, now there’s only this wretched, wounded thing.

“You’ll never be the same.”

V’s statement broke her out of her spiraling thoughts again.

Aria’s anger spiked and she glared at the merc looking at her with knowing eyes.

“Don’t,” she said flatly.

The merc shook her head, “Not trying to headshrink you, Aria. Just stating facts. Be glad you have a father who still gives a shit. You know how rare that is in corpo families.” 

She couldn’t dispute that and now she could finally ask her Agent to compile a full profile on the merc. It didn’t take more than a few seconds until an initial report was available.

“You were Arasaka?”

V nodded, “Three generations of my family lived and died for Arasaka NC, until my firing. You don’t have to guess that I was hardly welcome at the dinner table after that. Strap yourself in, first descent burn is in a minute.”

She automatically grasped the four point harness and slotted it in, reading further as her Agent began filling in more entries into the profile. She almost gasped despite her emotional cyberware dulling her astonishment.

…killed Adam Smasher during the Arasaka Tower Incident, Night City, November ‘77…     

It had happened during her imprisonment on Elysium, which might as well have been its own universe and deliberately kept isolated from Earthside news.

When she asked her agent to elaborate on the ‘Incident’, she almost wished she hadn’t.

A ringing tingle of fear echoed up and down her spine, she was just feet away from a woman who had a confirmed body count in the triple digits and counted the most feared mercenary of the century among her kills. A woman who had mowed through an entire building of the best corpo security in the northern hemisphere, which had also been her former employer!

And this was the woman who also saved her from Elysium.

‘Uh, let’s tread a bit more lightly, Aria,’ she thought to herself, her stomach cringing as the Gs of the main engine burn pushed on her and the muffled roar that she felt through the ship’s structure instead of hearing it.

This lasted for just under two minutes before the invisible weight sitting on her vanished and the roar faded.

“Burn was good, we’re on course for descent.”

Aria’s Agent wasn’t exactly the best configured at the moment for space travel, but it did highlight an oddity as it interpreted the flight data. “We’re not landing at Tycho?”

“Let’s just say that this ride is mine by de facto, and its former owners will not take kindly to me openly landing in Tycho with it. I’d rather not deal with the headache of fighting off a Militech black ops squad for as long as I can.”

She said it so casually that Aria was once again stunned at the sheer gall of the edgerunner.

The descent to the surface of Luna was made in a contemplative silence, which she spent mostly reading through the publicly available data on V and the more classified details that Petrochem’s own Intel Division had managed to scrape together.

Her full access to the company had been restored just nine hours ago.

‘Thanks dad.’

Her personal accounts were also out of limbo, so she would at least have the means to support herself on Luna. The only problem was the legality of her presence with the highriders.

They were well beyond Tycho when the forward view blacked out and all the flight indicators vanished from sight. She also twitched as her Agent was partially disabled.

“Apologies Aria, but our landing location is classified.”

She gritted her teeth as the sheer control that V had was plainly demonstrated. “No… I understand.”

It wasn’t long after that she could feel lunar gravity begin to take hold and the SSTO shuddered as it finally came to stop.

She was directed to put on a full helmet and life support pack before V led her to the ship’s small airlock.

“All right, small EVA till we get to my rover. It’s parked only fifteen meters from the nose of the ship. You haven’t walked on the moon before, so I’m going to teach you the bunny-hop. Engage your mag boots. Hold my hand.”

The merc held out her left hand, which Aria took reluctantly in her right.

The airlock cycled and the outer door opened to near complete darkness outside, only broken by a small island of flood lighting that surrounded the SSTO. The odd stilted walking of her mag boots thumped through her body and into her helmet, contrasting to the soundless void that surrounded her.

It was only when she looked up from the clear lunacrete landing pad that she realized they were in a huge excavated cavern with its mouth open towards the distant edge of a crater in the far distance, being lashed brightly by the sun.

The education that followed in learning to ‘walk’ here was as interesting as it was humiliating, especially when V had to catch her from either faceplanting or pushing off too hard.

Inside the armed rover, everything was blacked out as well and it seemingly came alive with power on its own as it repressurized.

“I think we’ll keep our helmets on for now,” V said as the rover lurched forward into motion. “At least till we’re out of the crater.”

She felt the rover lurching downward at a steep angle as they moved out of the cavern. “This thing has a good autopilot.”

V chuckled and tapped her head, “Not on autopilot. By the way…” Her muted Agent received an encrypted code packet, which unfolded into an authentic tourist visa from the Highrider Confed. “I figure a 30 Earth-day visa should be plenty enough?”

Aria could only nod, “Thank you. I was worried about that.”

The edgerunner sat back in her chair with folded arms, “Just part of the service. I’ll unlock your Agent again when we’re closer to Tycho. There’s a food fridge behind your seat and we have a three hour drive ahead of us, so you can either sleep or the entertainment system is right in front of you. I’ll be aware of you but I have a few things to take care of in cyberspace.”

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I left Aria at the main entrance of the Lunar Crown.

It was the single most exclusive hotel in the Earth-Luna system that was built into the upper floors of Tycho’s largest surface dome. It was deliberately positioned so that every suite had an unobstructed panoramic view of the surface and on this occasion, the guests were even afforded a full view of the distant blue marble of Earth hanging high above.

This was not a hotel for corpo executives and I couldn’t walk in there on the basis of my bank accounts. It was a place for trillionaire heirs, board members and the ultra-famous.

I could see the interior through a myriad of stealth daemons I had left sequestered in the hotel systems to keep a discrete eye on Aria. The physical security here was adequate but their net dweller was hardly up to my standards. She would continue to enjoy my protection until her father finalized payment for the gig.

There was already a commotion among the staff as they scrambled to accommodate the surprise arrival of the Aria Hensley.

I took a seat at a nearby public bench, taking in the stellar view on this level of the hab dome for a few moments before sending out a call.

“V, is she all safe and tucked into bed?” Rogue asked seriously.

“She just walked into the Lunar Crown. I have many eyes on her.”

My business partner smiled with satisfaction, “Good. The payday on this will make for a new Afterlife record.”

“The eddies flowing in are always nice. Anything else?”

“Yes. The Beast finished its refit yesterday. Its transport is arranged and should arrive with the Aldecaldos in three days, four at most. Authentication keys are already arranged and you should be able to take control when you connect.”

“Excellent, thanks Rogue.”

“Panam said they have more recon to do before their attack. Knowing her you should expect it to occur in five days.”

“I’ll clear my schedule.”

“Good job, kid. Now get some downtime for yourself.”

“I’ve had plenty on the trip back.”

She grunted with annoyance, “Keep forgetting the distances you’re dealing with in the black.”

I let my image give her a casual wave before disconnecting.

A few moments later I was calling Johnny.

His holo glyph appeared in my vision, which was now personalized towards his Hollow persona - two crossed sniper rifles with a large red rose hanging between, dripping blood onto the barrels.

The ringing tone repeated itself five times before he accepted the call.

“V.”

His tone of voice was strange and I picked up that he was under a mild bit of stress.

“Hollow, just checking in to let you know I’m back in Tycho. Gig success. How are things going with Kaori?”

“Things are… fine.”

That sent up quite a few red flags. “Really? Just… fine?” I asked skeptically.

“Yeah.”

I wearily rubbed my face, “Hollow, I’m going to find out either way. Just say it.”

“Fine, you see… it all started when she wanted to go out on the town and relax a bit…”

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“Come on, Hollow! We’re going to be late!”

Johnny let himself be awkwardly dragged by a painfully energetic, very excited Kaori Matsui and wondered just how this bubbly Japanese woman had managed to talk him into accompanying her in person to her little party.

It turned out that there was a slight gap in the scientist’s personality profile - she eventually blew off steam by going to one of the upper floor clubs, inviting friends, friends of friends, acquaintances and co-workers from Mitsubishi for an evening that was all put on her tab.

She had also dragged him to a boutique beforehand to play dress up!

Now he was ensconced in a silver party dress, with a sling halter top that displayed his back all the way down to just above his ass and custom mag-high heels. His long hair flattened yet styled in just the right way according to Kaori’s taste.

He had to admit, it was good taste and if he had seen himself now during the old days, he’d definitely be rocking a boner and first in line to approach.

Kaori’s own outfit was no less of an eyecatcher; a super tight, white, one-piece with strategic cutouts, a plunging neckline down to her navel, the upper part of which was partially transparent with Sakura blossom patterns obscuring her ample chest. Her legs were mostly covered with thigh-high mag heels. She had all the right curves that mattered, but there was a mild fitness look to her legs and core.

However, the majority of his mind was thoroughly going through the IDs and threat analysis of the patrons currently inside the Rêverie club.

As all such establishments were, it had a spot in one of Tycho’s surface domes, situated in the city’s south-west.

The place was pure corpo indulgence squeezed into 190 square meters, multi-leveled tiers that looked out onto a central dance floor. Tables were low to the floor and the seats were silk cushions. Glowing synth cocktails were served in spherical glasses by lanky highrider waiters who showed off their low-G maneuvering skill whilst the ceiling offered a perfect view of the distant Earthrise. Soft blue and silver lighting made everything feel like you were drifting in a dream.

Johnny resolved to stay quiet in a corner, look menacing and do his bodyguard job. The plan died within a minute as Kaori insistently pulled him into a cushioned seat right next to her. He could’ve easily resisted her, but it would’ve been a bad look and he could read the party like a book.

“No, you do not get to be broody in a corner, Hollow!” she declared over the thumping, ridiculous music. What was it with this era’s musicians?! The dress forced him to sit sideways as she pushed a cocktail sphere into his hands.

He looked down at it, smelled carefully and took a sip.

“Good, eh?”

He nodded and met the eyes of a very amused Lucy Kushinada sitting across the table.

Kaori grabbed her glass of glowing green cocktail - that he quickly scanned to make sure there wasn’t anything nasty inside - and raised it, addressing the entire table.

“Minna… arigatou! (Everyone… thank you!) For standing with me, when things seemed so bleak. For believing in the work even when the corp wanted to pervert it. Tonight, we’re not just colleagues. We’re the ones holding the line!”

She lifted her glass slightly higher, eyes shining with determination.

“Kanpai… to the ones who refuse to let the universe break us. To survive another day on this rock. And to making gravity do what we want, for once. Kanpai!”

“KANPAI!” The entire table roared, raising their glasses. Johnny found himself joining in the shout and downing the cocktail in one go with everyone else.

It was damn good. A mix of flavorful notes that rolled across the tongue, before the satisfying burn of alcohol hit.

The evening wore on, with a steady stream of cocktail trays coming. Johnny had made sure he left the black clinic with modern liver cyberware, which carefully regulated alcohol levels in the blood, giving the pleasant buzz in the mind but minimizing the downsides of inebriation. The majority of his thinking and cognition was on the Relic 3.0 anyway.

He tried his best not to be the visible ‘bodyguard’ in the room; laughing when appropriate, drinking when the table drank, keeping his eyes casual across the room or down into his drink. Yet he saw everything in the club through the hacked security cams. Rêverie’s net didn’t have their own dedicated dweller, but there was one who was managing this entire section of the dome in a general sense. Johnny thought about just leaving the guy a note, but decided to keep his stealth. Never knew if the dweller could be compromised in some way. Lucy was also in cyberspace, her avatar hovering visibly over the club’s position in cyberspace like a giant sentinel.

A huge platter dish was brought in by two waiters.

It was a massive multi-tiered platter served on a special tray that slowly rotated; it would be completely impractical anywhere else, but on Luna it was easily maneuvered. It featured an extravagant mix of real-Earth imported delicacies and lunar sourced ingredients designed to impress. Johnny could practically see the eddies dripping off it. How long did Kaori have to save for this? This was definitely a special occasion.

The centerpiece was a whole roasted Wagyu striploin! A scan and reference in the club’s public brochure indicated that it was flown in weekly and there was a lottery system to select who would even get the right to pay out of their ass for it. Surrounding it were lunar-grown greens; baby spinach, rocket and flowers from Tycho’s hydroponic gardens, dressed in a vinaigrette. Lab-cultured ‘Moon Kobe’ short ribs (genetically optimized for low-gravity farming) and grilled eel from Earth stock, glazed with a sweet-savory tare sauce.

The side dishes were exotic; small bowls of wasabi and fresh grated ginger, charred shishito peppers, crispy tempura of Lunar mushrooms - descendants from Earth morels and chanterelles, modified for low-gravity.

As a finishing touch, a small side of rice, which his scans indicated was a short-grain Japanese koshihikari, steamed to perfection.

Johnny almost didn’t want to eat, but again the party wouldn’t allow for it.

So he used the provided small bowl and chop sticks to begin pulling at the platter’s offerings.

He took advantage of a slight lull in the myriad conversations as all the party’s mouths were busy with the food.

He moderated his voice just enough to carry over the music. “We celebrating something, Doc?!” 

Kaori chewed on a juicy piece of beef with delight and nodded, scooching slightly closer until their shoulders were almost touching. “Not exactly the place to talk about it, but we made a significant breakthrough in a big problem we were having. I felt it was worth bringing everyone together and splurging a little.”

He gave a wry look and held up another piece of beef.

She rolled her eyes, “Maji de!? (Seriously?) No, Hollow, I’m not that rich. What you see here is the result of most of the science team pitching in together. We don’t exactly have much free time to spend our own money in. Now…”

Suddenly, she was hovering just a little too close for comfort, her glowing optics bright with curiosity. “Now do tell me. You and V, are you partners beyond business?”

Johnny stalled answering by reaching for a sip of the latest cocktail. There was literally no words to describe how close he and V had been near the end. It hadn’t been anything gooey, romantic or the like, yet when you lived in someone’s skin, felt their every emotion, hormone and tactile sensation as if it was your own for months on end. At first, they had hated each other’s guts, even tried to futilely kill one another, then with time that swung a full 180. Two souls forced together to fight tooth and nail in the trenches for survival, who became close friends that respected each other and could talk about anything. What was that?

“We are biz partners, but also chooms,” he let his tone impress the magnitude of it. “We trust each other enough to carry very deadly weapons and watch each other’s backs.”

“Naruhodo… (I see),” she mused in a sing-song thoughtful tone that also brought across that she was mildly wasted from the drinks of the evening so far. “She’s not seeing anyone back on Earth?”

“No,” he answered as neutrally as he could. Judy and V were in his eyes, as perfect a match as could happen in Night City. And if he could snap his fingers to bring those two together again, despite everything that had happened, he’d do it. He’d done his best to stay as far back as possible in V’s mind, during that first night in Laguna Bend, but there had been only so much that could be done. Over the following months that ability had weakened - so of everyone on the planet, he knew just how well those two had clicked together.

Then the city did what it does best.

“Is… is she actually happy in the Gemini?” 

That was honestly a good question.

“I’d say she’s happy to not deal with the medical complication anymore that forced her to go full borg. Beyond that, you’ll have to ask her yourself.”

Mercifully, she backed off slightly, staring into her drink, fingers absently tracing the rim of the cocktail sphere, “My mind keeps going back to her. The way she moves in that full-conversion frame… so precise, so powerful, so kirei! (beautiful) I wonder if there’s still something… human left in there. I stare at her eyes and am I seeing the spark of her mind, or is it just clever mimicry?”

Johnny gulped half of his cocktail down in one go. “You’re the only one who can answer that, doc.”

“Nee, oshiete. (Hey, tell me.) V wa… watashi no koto, tama ni hanashitari suru? (Does V… ever talk about me sometimes?) Baka mitai datte wakatteru n da kedo… (I know it’s probably stupid, but…) dōshitemo, kanojo ga watashi no koto o hanashite kureteru n ja nai ka tte, kitai shichau no.” (I can’t stop myself from hoping… that she mentions me once in a while.)

At this point Johnny knew that Kaori wasn’t someone who held her liquor well at all. “Doc, you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me. You’re asking me whether the chrome killing machine has a crush on you?”

Her cheeks flushed faintly and she looked up towards the distant Earthrise. “Baka mitai datte wakatteru. (I know it’s ridiculous.) Kanojo wa… marude ikiru densetsu mitai. (She’s… larger than life.) Tsuyokute, sukoshi kowai kurai, shōjiki. (Strong. A little terrifying, honestly.) Demo, ano shigoto no toki ni watashi o mamotte kureta toki… kanojo no ugokikata, tamerawanakatta ano sugata… Nanika o kanjita no. Honmono mitai na, nanika. (But when she protected me during the gig… the way she moved, the way she didn’t hesitate… I felt something. Something real.)

Johnny had survived Arasaka Tower twice, though he knew the first time didn’t really count. He’d ridden shotgun in the head of someone who had seemed to be the unluckiest merc Night City had ever produced on dozens of gigs. He had survived the digital hell at Alt’s side beyond the Blackwall. Now here he was, giving relationship advise on the fucking moon to a gravity nerd who was crushing on V!

“Look doc, V doesn’t do the whole ‘talk about her feelings’ that well.” It occurred to him that Kaori didn’t really know that he was actually a guy, partially stuck in this female meat and chrome suit. She probably thought that they did the whole female gossip thing all the time. He eventually decided to throw her a bone, just because she looked too much like a puppy at the moment. “All I can say is yeah, she definitely noticed you. Your passion about your work, the way you light up when talking about gravity. V might be a netrunner first, but techie is close second. So she respects the hell out of what you do and are trying to achieve.”

Kaori’s face lit up with a small, cute smile that mildly infuriated Johnny. “Really?”

He downed the last of his drink, grabbed another slice of beef and only answered after swallowing, “Yeah, really. Ask her on a date, see how it goes. Now can we please talk about literally anything else-”

Across from him Lucy stiffened in alarm and Johnny was already diving left with Sandy engaged.

Kaori was pushed out of the way just in time as a burst of railgun slugs cut straight through the air where they had been.

The shooter was on the opposite side balcony of the second floor.

One round had clipped Lucy in the arm, blood erupting behind her and almost tearing the limb completely off, whilst the rest dug into the thin wall behind, where three unfortunate club staff members were killed instantly, until the bullet finally ran out of energy and dug itself to a stop in  a stove.

Johnny’s hand blurred as his right thigh split open to produce the heavy railgun pistol, bringing it up and around to track the shooter.

The slowed, stretched sounds of thumping dance music, the screams of fright assaulted his ears and the shooter’s speed as he ran towards the balcony edge closely matched Johnny’s enhanced Sandy perceptions.

Every cam he was looking through tried to get a bead on the asshole’s face, but a distortion hack blurred it and only now he perceived that there was enemy action happening in cyberspace as well.

He refined and tracked his aim, also keeping his left hand on Kaori’s back to keep her down.

In the next few moments, he had a shot, but it wasn’t clean… the calculation showing he’d kill at least two more behind the asshole.

That’s what he hated about railguns, overpenetration and the limits of what materials could go in them.

The shooter had now vaulted over the railing and jumped straight for the packed dancefloor below.

Johnny would only get one small window to shoot in mid-air without collateral damage.

Then Lucy’s avatar in cyberspace, which had been flickering, abruptly solidified. She started trading hacks and daemons with an opponent. The enemy had compromised the club’s systems, both were fighting over possession of the hidden defense turrets.

Tough as nails this chick, he thought. Practically had her arm shot off and she was still giving it 100%.

He left the runner to do her thing.

In the next 0.2 seconds, the shooter finally moved into Johnny’s sightline, the low gravity feeling like it was taking forever to pull the asshole down…

He pulled the trigger.

An eruption of blood and meat appeared around the digital blur, spraying a section of the lowest floor bar display. The bullet still had enough energy to go straight through and smash a very expensive bottle of tequila before stopping in the solid lunacrete wall.

Johnny kept his Sandy running, popping a coolant cell to extend the time even further as he scanned for more threats.

How the shooter had evaded his threat analysis program was worrying, especially because it had been written by V.

The dead shooter, who had the build of an Earther, landed hard on the dancefloor and rather painfully on a few club patrons who had the wind knocked out of them.

He furiously ran an adjusted threat program, also scanning the crowds the old fashioned way, his head twitching from right to left.

Movement in both neighboring booths drew his attention.

A woman standing stiffly, raising a pistol to aim directly at them. Her shot was only obscured by the thin walls, but it clearly didn’t matter to her.

He managed to pull the trigger first, sending his shot through the neck and dropping her.

With a single light push off the floor and a shifting of weight, he managed to get his legs around in a sweeping kick that deflected the mantis blades of the third attacker off target, with his left foot on the flat of their leading blade.

A quick adjustment of the angle of his pistol and he pulled the trigger twice in the middle of his movement as his leg’s momentum carried them out of the way.

The bullets went straight in underneath the attacker’s chin, the head of the utterly emotionless, corpo attacker - another Earther - erupted upwards as blood, brains and a fair bit of his skull was introduced to the ceiling.

Johnny brought his legs under him as the weak Lunar gravity demanded its due and finally let his Sandy lapse into a proper cooldown as his feet touched ground.

The music of the club, the screams and whimpers of all the civvies resumed their normal speed, leaving him in a ready crouch next to Kaori with his pistol and multitude of cams tracking.

“Wha- what the-”

“Stay down, doc!” he shouted harshly. Thankfully all her friends and colleagues from Mitsubishi also took the same advice and were by now keeping themselves firmly prone on the floor.

Unfortunately, others weren’t as wise and there was already a stream of people bunny-hopping in panic to the exits. The highriders or those who knew better also stayed put. A low grav stampede through a door was not a place anyone with sense wanted to be.

The whining of motors from above had his pistol trained on the two nearby ceiling ports where he knew the security turrets were.

Lucy’s fight in cyberspace was still ongoing and he had to admire the cojones on display.

She had enough internal cyberware to actually stop her bleeding, sealing off the main artery in her ruined arm and kept fighting through the pain.

“Got you, fucker!” she hissed.

She unleashed a nasty daemon bristling with Black ICE tendrils that seemingly shot into nowhere, but it quickly wrapped around the enemy runner, whose stealth failed at that moment.

Johnny felt the harsh digital scream that was abruptly cut off as the runner’s generic ID-less humanoid avatar derezzed.

Lucy winced and stared down ruefully at her ruined arm as she leaned back against the wall.

“You gonna be all right?”

She waved him off, gritting her teeth, “As long as I get to a ripper in the next hour-”

“Kuso! Chikushō! Fuzakenna?! (Shit! Damn it!  Are you kidding me?!)” Kaori exclaimed from the floor, her hand now clutching a holdout railgun she had produced from her handbag. Her optics flashed with anger, “Kono kuso yarō-domo, watashi o neratteta no? (Were these fuckers after me?)”

The turrets under Lucy’s control finally popped out in readiness.

“First shots were at your back, doc. So that’s probably the case. We’re gonna stay put for the cavalry and escort you back to a secure location. We have to assume there’s more sleepers out there.”

“Maji ka yo! Kuso! Fuck! (No way! Shit!)” It was only now that she seemed to become aware of Lucy’s condition, raising her head enough to check on her co-workers and friends around the table. “Lucy!”

“Stay where you are, Kaori,” the wounded netrunner hissed. “I’ve already sent the emergency signals. TPD and Gakulu’s men are on their way.”

Johnny hated to point out, “What if they're also compromised?

“We’ll go on that ride if we have to. I got a good peek at the ‘sleepers’ in cyberspace, I’ll know.”

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“Sleepers?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Fit with what I knew at the time. All three were complete randos V. No connections that I could tell and none that Gakulu’s boys or TPD have found since. No reason for any grudge against Mitsubishi or possibility that they knew anything about the grav research. Yet they all showed up armed at that club and took multiple shots at Kaori.”

“Send me all the data.”

“Done.”

The compressed data packet hit me in cyberspace a moment later and I let it unfurl within.

My attention immediately went to the autopsies on the so-called sleepers. Two of which were utterly normal with no anomalies that stood out, however the woman who had tried for close range shots in the left booth was different and began to explain the results of the others.

“What the fuck?”

Her name was Dina Blomme, a Belgian national and mid-level corpo account manager employed by EuroBank in their Orbital division. Nothing about her stood out or would explain why she would want to kill Kaori. Her history and profile, as clean as any in her position could be, with the usual amount of corpo skullduggery. The smoking gun was in the autopsy and it revealed a brand new, unknown cyberware in her head.

It was like looking at an intricate, delicate spiderweb that had encased her entire skullsponge, that all led to a solid implant no bigger than a pinky nail at the base of the spine.

Doc Njeri had done the autopsy and it was so sophisticated, yet fragile to direct manipulation that she couldn’t even untangle the implant without damaging it to an unacceptable level.

They had instead kept the brain completely intact and in cryo storage for continued research.

“That brain implant, no corp signature and the architecture…”

“Yeah, I saw it. Think this might be Lilith?”

I scowled at the thought of that Wild AI. 

“Maybe, but there would be others who are also trying to get their tentacles off Earth along the same reasoning she has. Won’t know more until that sleeper implant is cracked open, which I have little hope of being successful. It probably has Wild AI Black ICE all over it.”

“You could do it, V.”

I laughed ruefully, “Really, Hollow? Go in on the software level? I appreciate the vote of confidence in my abilities but-”

“I concur with Johnny,” Butcher suddenly declared from within.

In my cyberspace instance, I turned to my AI partner with some incredulity.

“You’re seriously not kidding,” I said after interpreting Butcher’s data flows.

“No. We have been developing weapons for precisely this reason, V. There is a chance a fork of the responsible AI is in there. You can engage it and see how you fare. I will be with you.”

The apprehension and fear bubbled up from my core.

Could I really do this? Now?

I didn’t feel ready, or was this the human part of me talking. In my head, logically, it made sense. What better opportunity was there to square up in the ring and see how I did in a relatively controlled environment.

“I’ll… consider it. Give me a day and I’ll make a final decision. How’s Lucy doing?”

“Got fixed up with a brand new arm, already back at it. She’s deep diving the sleeper’s backgrounds and trying to track down the runner who supported the attack in the background, hoping to get lucky. She fried him but is trying to trace his location in meatspace,” Johnny shrugged. “Waste of time, as the AI has definitely already used another patsy to sanitize.”

“Does she know?”

“Only that there’s a powerful threat to her friend’s life. She saw the sleeper implant and it won’t take her long to come to the conclusion by herself. Might as well read her in at this point.”

I could only agree with that notion. Having a runner as capable as her crossing the Rubicon to Relic 3.0 and becoming a Hybrid AI was a no brainer, but it had to be her decision with all the facts laid out.

“All right, Hollow. Good work.”

“Later, V.”

Johnny disconnected.

I became aware at this point that Aria was booking not just her own suite in the hotel, but also arranging for me to enter as her bodyguard, paying the associated costs.

It wasn’t like it was truly necessary, but I appreciated the sentiment and called her number.

“V? I was about to call. You now have full entry rights and an attached suite to my own. No need to slum it out on the street.”

I really considered politely refusing but the eddies had already changed hands. She could reverse the transaction, with penalty fees but I wasn’t gonk enough to commit that corpo social blunder, especially to a Texan.

“Thanks Aria, I’m on my way.”

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A/N: Poor Kaori just can't seem catch a break. And the wild AI threat is beginning to show its fangs in meatspace.

Enjoy your weekend and stay awesome chooms!