CyberPunk Solar Eclipse
Prologue: Embers of Rebellion
Disclaimer: I obviously don't own Naruto or Cyberpunk 2077 or Edgerunners. This is a fanfiction.
Arasaka Hidden Laboratory (Somewhere in Nevada) 2068
Cold metal and solid concrete were all that Naruto Uzumaki knew from a young age, The sterile walls of the Arasaka Laboratory that he and the other two dozen children here called home. But it wasn't a home, the grueling and oftentimes brutal training that the Arasaka Corporation put them through saw to that. Raised and trained to be the greatest Net-runners possible just so Arasaka could trawl the Old Net for anything that the mega-corporation could make Eurodollars from.
Although they were well fed and cared for medically, Naruto knew that he and the others were expendable. He learned that the first day they were sent into the Old Net, braving the dangers of Rogue AI, Daemons and Malware just for the hopes of finding, in the words of the Arasaka supervisor, anything useful. Naruto remembered the horror of watching Jonah and Iris be attacked and decimated by feral AI only to be found blood leaking from their noses and mouths once the data dive was over.
He remembered how he and the other children would make a dog pile of blankets and pillows after each dive late at night, taking comfort from each other as children only could. He remembered Hubert's bad jokes and Lucy's clever quips being used to soothe and calm everyone after a long day of hiding from whatever cruel evils they would come across in the Old Net. But most of all he remembered the day he found his courage.
It was like any other day in the Laboratory, he and the others (only 9 left now) were once again escorted to their chairs by the security staff and lab technicians. They all had their Neural Interfaces checked and then they were jacked in. It was a slow day as he and the others were wary of pushing too far after losing Mai two days ago to Daemons. Naruto had been combing a small sub-net that had belonged to some media corporation way back before the DataKrash when he stumbled across the small set of audio files. Audio Files were always low priority according to Arasaka guidelines but Naruto's curiosity got the best of him. Cautiously Naruto checked the files for Malware and Daemons before he cautiously opened one of the files.
Immediately loud drums and guitars kicked in before being followed shortly by dulcet tones of a man's voice.
It was loud and chaotic, everything Arasaka hated. The music was full of hope and rebellion of dreams of freedom and loss and Naruto thought it may have been the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard. Quickly making some subtle red herrings for the Technician's monitoring him, Naruto downloaded the files and hid them deep down in his system files before encrypting them as best he could. Certain that they wouldn't be found, Naruto left the sub-net and moved on. Arasaka hated wasting time after all.
That night after the security staff had locked them all in their dorm and turned the lights off. Naruto sat in amongst the dog pile of blankets and his friends, (Lucy using his leg as a pillow, Hubert and he sitting back to back) before he quietly opened the file he had tucked away earlier that day before resuming it from where he left it.
"🎶A thing of Beauty ~ I know ~ Will Never Fade Away ~ What you did to me I know ~ Said what you had to say ~ But a thing of Beauty ~ Will Never Fade Away ~ Will Never Fade Away~ Will Never Fade Away~🎶"
