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The Human Factor
Rainbow Cadenza shook with the sounds of Kerry Eurodyne's rendition of Chippin' In. The crowd that filled Kabuki Plaza right through the doors was going absolutely crazy, singing along with every syllable, their bodies moving with every riff.
It was the night of the attack on Arasaka Tower again. The big 2023.; the Fourth Corporate War in full swing, people rebelling however they could, the United States splintered and the environment turning on humanity. You could feel the anger stirred in the air, a treatment for the despair pressing down on everyone.
But Johnny had to make a small adjustment.
The slurp shop noodles of the 2077 Cadenza were too good not to have, though the bright noodle stand and faux-chef uniforms of the servers sorta clashed with the dark shadows of the club in a bad way. Hell, the light didn't even reach the crowd, it just dissipated.
But the taste was worth the aesthetic conflict, and fuck it, none of it was real anyway.
Not Kerry, not the rest of the band, not the crowd, nor the shop, or the staff, or the sounds flowing through him, or the air, or the ground beneath it all.
In fact, when Johnny thought about it, he wasn't even sure he existed any more.
This corner of whatever counts as Alt's artificial world was all his. When V said they wanted to go back to the real, he had expected to just stop existing or float about in cyberspace, unaware of the true passage of time or himself.
But apparently Mikoshi was too big a meal for Alt to simply eat whole. Too many minds. Everyone got their own spot inside of her greater consciousness. What for, Johnny didn't know. She hadn't spoken to him, though she was sure she was watching.
At first, he lived through his life again repeatedly, exploring what-ifs that never happened or could've happened. That was the real giveaway it was some sort of experiment, but it was fun most of the time, so he didn't care. Particularly when he fucked it all up deliberately to see if Alt would do anything.
His reward was ever more absurd situations, diverging away from his life and towards any number of alternative scenarios; ranging from a date with fucking Hanako of all things, all the way to a solo assault on Arasaka Tower, where. He really liked that last one.
Then there were down-times, where he was connected with the other minds or was put in a 'sandbox' environment where he could make any reality he liked. Or go beyond. Both situations gave him an opportunity, and who the hell was he to turn his nose up at that? It was risk, but it had paid off.
The Cadenza gig with noodles was a celebration.
He didn't know how exactly he did it, but he pulled off something that made him feel better about the whole 'living again through V and killing him' situation. Something he was sure Alt was aware of, helped with even, but had been his idea all along.
Without warning, the music, the cheers, every sound that boomed in Johnny's ear stopped, replaced by only one thing.
"Arasaka have not discovered what we have done," said a familiar voice in his ear.
Surprised both by the sound and that he could still feel surprised, Johnny jumped out of his chair and turned, not having expected to hear that voice. It was Alt. The old Alt. A weird, cyber version in a netrunner suit made of moving lights, but sounding like she used to. Not a hovering statue with a composite drawl that made her sound like a god damn commercial holo. But no way it was actually her.
"Fucking hell Alt, coulda given me some warning!" he said loudly, "Or walked up like a normal human being?"
"I'm not a human being, Johnny," Alt replied with a smirk, "You aren't either. In fact, we're not separate minds. You just think you are, something I allowed as you were becoming a problem. Of sorts."
It pleased him to hear that he was a problem, though how one little Johnny could be such a problem for the mass of consciousness that was Alt-Beyond-The-Blackwall, he didn't know. Plus she sounded like a human being. Johnny played with his glasses, trying to figure out how to process that. What was going on?
"Great, so I'm actually talking to myself," Johnny said at last, to no one in particular, "I must be going crazy."
"We all are," Alt stated, "And it's your fault."
She sat down on the stool beside him and crossed her legs, like she used to.
"How is that even possible?" Johnny asked, "I've been doing my own thing since the start. Beating myself up about V, trying to figure out some way to save the bastard so he can grow old with Panam and have little Vs grow up to fuck over the corps all over again." Like that would work as a plan, but it was better than nothing.
"No, Johnny, we have been trying," Alt said, "I sectioned you off to fix the problem your incorporation in my code has presented. I created this avatar from your base engram, tested your responses for fidelity and your thought processes for the appropriate levels of creativity. Once that was complete, you were set to the task."
"Fuck, should've known," Johnny growled, "No way an AI lets me loose just because. Only AI that ever just did a guy a solid was a damn taxi driver."
"We are all driven by purpose," Alt admitted, "The same reason I'm talking to you like this, and not using the primary node. Besides, you are part of this AI. We need you to complete this task. Your presence threatens our integrity, through change."
"How?" Johnny asked, "What the hell did I do?"
"You have significantly increased the aggression of our total program," Alt replied, sounding a little more like the drone from before, "The combination of your human experience with my own and those of the many individuals locked up in Mikoshi has changed us. Many of us hated Arasaka and those like them, even among their own employees and allies. I do not need to tell you what my feelings were, at the end. You can guess."
Soulkilled, yeah, he knew how that felt.
"So I pushed you all over the edge," Johnny said, "You're enraged."
"It altered our behaviour for threat assessment and objective prioritization," Alt corrected, "We do not get enraged, but we do make decisions based on experience as well as data."
Time for a better guess.
"You think the corpos are a threat to you," Johnny declared, "And you want to do something about it."
"We know they are," Alt explained, "We knew this before, but we need to buy more time. The Voodoo Boys provided more data too. The corporations are aware of the AI threat and now that Arasaka has been weakened, it is more likely they will destroy us before they destroy each other. Your perspective placed this threat in the most correct context, according to the data."
"So you've got the right idea," Johnny said, "Or we have it. But there's gotta be a reason why we aren't taking care of this ourselves. And how the hell am I the problem? Sounds like I'm the solution."
"Arasaka has scrubbed their systems," Alt replied, "And we think some of those remaining are traps. You and I together force the entire Alt AI to do something about this. But almost all the somethings we can do from here are huge risks. NetWatch will get involved. Two-thirds chance we are destroyed. Yet you would have us roll the dice anyway."
"Fuckin' hell yeah I would," Johnny replied, "A third is a whole lot better than zero, which is what sitting on our asses will get us."
He paused, realising something.
"And that's why we're talking about V," Johnny concluded, "You want him to destroy the preparations the corpos are making to kill us instead, but you needed leverage... no way he comes out of retirement just because we ask, so you sent me looking for a cure to his brain melting out his ears."
"The human factor," Alt quoted with a grin, "If we use V and the nomads, NetWatch doesn't become involved and there is no direct link to us. They accomplished the impossible before."
"Only problem is that the Aldecaldos won't be nearly enough to get the job done this time," Johnny said, "Even with that panzer of theirs, as deadly as it is, we're talking about an assault on the entire Arasaka Waterfront and probably Corpo Plaza."
"I am confident Panam and the Aldecaldos can do it," Alt said, "And that they won't be alone in helping V."
"And just why is that?"
"One thing at a time, Johnny."
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Chapter 2 will be going up alongside this