"Stop."

Lucy thanked the high heavens. Halfway in and she stopped trying to hide the fact that her running just ain't what it used to be. She was the only one who was wildly out of sync, from her arms to her strides, even how her hair blew in the artificial wind. But it seemed like everyone except Mari was indifferent. And even the redhead, her hair neatly done up in a bun for this exercise session, seemed to be focusing on something else.

The whirring of the treadmills gradually slowed down. They were built into the glass-like floors and there were no handles or control pads separating each runner from one another like the gym Lucy visited that one time. No, they were lined perfectly parallel to one another with about three feet of space between them. In front of them, all they could see was darkness. Somehow, the gym space was perfectly lit in a cool blue whilst there was darkness all around them. Lucy felt like she was suffocating and not just because of the exercise. This whole corporate space was too clean and precise and controlled. She never thought she'd say this, but she would do anything to see a dead body right about now. In all its red, chaotic beauty.

"Five minutes a mile. I expect ten seconds off tomorrow. Dismissed."

Lucy was still hunched over and panting like a dog. "Five minutes...per mile...?! Jesus Christ...," she huffed. The path in front of her lit up and each Netrunner trickled out of the glass gym one by one, some with towels over their necks and some suckling on silicone water bottles. Leaving Lucy alone to be silently judged by the coach who finally looked up from his tablet.

"Kushinada," he called. "I expected better from you."

"Oh yeah?," she panted. "What were you expecting?"

"Better. The proficiency of a Netrunner is directly tied with their physical body, this is common knowledge."

"It helps when you've got the latest cyberware."

"It does indeed," he smiled. He walked towards the exit and turned around at the doorway. "Formally, you're employed as a contractor by the Arasaka corporation and aren't legible for cyberware," he said. "However, it seems that Mr Hayashi has taken a liking to you and is willing to bend the rules a little bit. Report to medical at 1200 and they'll get you fitted."

He walked off and Lucy sighed. There was a part of her that was secretly giddy about her getting the latest synth-lungs or cheetah legs, but she scorned the feeling with passion. Every day she was losing a part of herself and this was one step closer to total conformity. To total non-existence. To the reduction of a cog in the machine, even if she was a very special cog indeed. And when she stepped off the treadmill and heard the echo of her footsteps, her legs crumbled under the pressure. The trauma of her enslaved past came back to haunt her once again and she was sure she wasn't asleep this time. She was on all fours, gasping for air, remembering the time when kids were so badly beaten for underperforming that colors she had never seen before blotted their skin like a twisted Pollock painting. It would happen right in front of her, still strapped to her chair. And when they were taken away all that she could hear was the total silence of everyone around her and the echoes of heavy footsteps coming back. And that wasn't even the worst of it.

Needless to say, this place- with all its glass walls and straight edges was driving her mad.

She yelped when she felt a boot kick her ribs. She looked up to see Mari, fresh out of the shower and already dressed in her Netrunning uniform plus her ponytail. As much of a bitch she was, she wasn't one to be wasting time.

"Rat. Get up and walk," she snapped.

Drool dribbled onto the floor. "I...can't...breathe...," Lucy gasped with wide eyes. But Mari sounded more annoyed than ever and kicked her in the face. The action sent the poor girl flying backwards and clutching at her jaw in a curled up ball.

Mari crouched down with her hands behind her back. "Can you breathe now?," she asked coyly. She looked left, right and behind her and thought it clear to further torment Lucy by grabbing a fistful of her pastel hair and lifting her head up by it. She winced through her teary eyes- they were half open and it was enough to see Mari's expression. It was cold, soulless and devoid of life, save for a frown on her lips.

"Lucy," she sighed. "Just quit. You obviously don't belong here. You obviously can't hack it with the rest of us. Why torture yourself like that?"

"I...can't...," she breathed.

"You can't?" When Mari got up, she dragged Lucy up with her, before promptly kicking her in the stomach. Lucy cried out in agony. "Why not? You wanna be like us? That badly?"

She went completely limp. Her cheek was on the cold floor, like the many times she was drunk in the bathroom except much worse. Everywhere was hurting all at once that her body didn't have the energy for a proper gag reflex. Instead, this morning's breakfast gently leaked out of her mouth as a brown pool around Lucy's face. All the while Mari kept driving her bootheel into her torso.

"I...fucking...hate rats like you," she articulated with each kick. "You don't even deserve to breathe the same air as me. And they think its funny to make me babysit you? I'll show them what-"

"-24." She snapped to attention at the voice behind her. The suit waited until Lucy was fully on her feet with her arms behind her back as Mari was. "Leave us."

"Yes sir," Mari said before bowing and walking off. The suit spared no time or sympathy towards Lucy.

"Follow me. You're running late for your appointment.


The first thing that Lucy noticed was the smell. Once she passed through the enormous glass doors of Arasaka Tower's medical wing, she smelt something similar to the inside of a new car and the smell of brand new electronics, combined with a faint hint of antiseptic. Most likely intentional, some science smell that has a practical effect such as make the machines work better or stop viruses from spreading so easily or make everyone concentrate better or something. It was quite the departure from the hospitals and ripperdocs she's visited over the years. Blood, sweat and motor oil is what she usually smelt. Oddly enough, the place she was in now was even more unnerving because of how fake everything looked. Offices were sectioned off with glass that went frosty on a whim, and the ones that Lucy could see through had powered off machines in the center. Specialty stuff. Ones for eyes, ones to install Sandevistans, ones to install new limbs.

She walked up the curved stairs with the suit, passing by a row of immaculately well-groomed pink Sakura trees. Visually, they were the only thing that stood out against the glossy greys and whites, apart from the red exit signs maybe. Passing by a row of offices and climbing a few more steps, they stopped at a deep brown mahogany door with 'Keitaro Hayashi' engraved in it. The suit held the door open and when she entered, shut it behind her.

A man with greying hair and glowing orange eyes stood up from his desk and shook hands with Lucy. "Miss Kushinada. Pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise. You took a liking to me?," she asked suspiciously.

"Quite. But not just me. The Arasaka Corp considers you our long lost darling child, and we're glad to see you've come around."

She cringed at the creepy undertones in his voice. Like he was moments away from putting a rag over your mouth and shoving you in the back of his van, despite his pristine white Arasaka lab coat and slender bionic arms. "Righhht. So what're you gonna install first?"

"Nothing too drastic. We're going to upgrade your brain connection interface. We've noticed you've been bottlenecked by its less than stellar transfer speeds. Sit down and we'll get started," he explained, gesturing towards the dentist-like chair.

"Let's just get this over with," she thought, sitting down and hoping this nightmare would end. The little robotic arms immediately went to work- first nipping Lucy in the neck with a local anaesthetic before coating her metallic plug in the back of her head with a cold gooey substance that loosened skin from metal almost immediately. ZZT! ZZT ZZT! She heard the sounds of the microscopic screwdriver bounce from her left ear to right.

There was this rolling tray of tools and equipment next to the chair that Lucy was lying down on. She saw that the doctor walked up and half-sat on it while pulling the monitor close to his face and tapping a few buttons. His fake smiling persona disappeared. He looked behind him to check that the door was shut and the glass had current flowing through it, making it turn cloudy white and impossible to see through.

"What are you doing?," Lucy asked, trying not to panic.

"My part."

"W-What does that..."

She heard a click in her neck, the click of a shard being slotted in, and red code sputtered on her biomon. The first thing being displayed was code art of a skull, followed by 'VOODOO BOYS WILL FREE YOU'. Classic. She let the thing install itself onto her system while staring into his widened eyes. He almost looked scared.

"Lucy. We're countin' on ya. Find him. Find the exploit. Get us out of this nightmare."

"I won't fuck this up," she whispered.

They stared at each other. There was no hiding that they were both terrified out of their skulls, fearing what might happen if Arasaka were to find out. When Lucy had walked in, he saw a picture frame of him, his wife and two children barely older than four- she couldn't believe he was gambling with their lives. Whatever the Voodoo Boys said to him must've been God levels of important. End of the world, end of the corpos, reunification of every major superpower kind of important.

The procedure didn't take longer than five minutes. She barely felt the little arms prodding inside her brain, yanking out cables and replacing them with better ones.

CLICK! The last drop of sealant was applied and the mechanical arms finally let go, letting the full weight of Lucy's new Saka BCI hang from her neck. It was smaller, lighter and extremely intricate-looking, when the doc held up a mirror behind her as she sat up. There was a ruby in the center of the titanium plated input jack. Instead of her usual two, there were six hexagonal divots surrounding the input jack this time, all used as locking holes to make sure the jaw never comes loose during a dive. And Lucy could see the slightest skin-engraved triangular patterning on the bottom right of the BCI, with her ID and 'ARASAKA' laser engraved on it.

"We're all done. Do you like it Miss Kushinada?," he asked with a smile.

She ran a finger against the different materials. "It's perfect. Thank you."

"If you feel nauseous during a dive, make sure to come back immediately." She nodded and walked towards the door. "...good luck."


The redhead was leaned against the digital wall with her arms crossed, away from the congregation of runners who had met up in cyberspace for a meeting. She watched in spite, hoping that somehow her glare would make Lucy's head explode while she gave orders on top of an elevated position. She waved her hand and brought up a diagram large enough that all of the one hundred Netrunners would be able to see it. But Mari didn't bother giving it a second look, muttering something about 'fresh meat' and 'thinking you're hot shit just because you did some gigs.' It was true, the corporate Netrunners had been keeping track of Lucy's escapades and found out she was capable of sheer and utter chaos if she felt like it. In fact, they thought that their ICE intrusion was her act of revenge after the death of David and her Cyberpunk gang, but they were surprised that she off and went to the moon to live as a hermit.

But now she's here, giving orders to runners ten years older than she was, and to runners who had sacrificed their entire lives for this profession. Mari felt like ripping Lucy's stupid little new BCI straight from her skull and shoving it down her-

"Mari."

She blinked and stood with her arms behind her back upon hearing the familiar gruff voice. "Father."

The Netrunner and suit were stood side by side. It was uncommon for him to jack in due to his work. "Pay attention. You could learn a thing or two from her."

"Yes sir."

They waited until Lucy was finished giving orders. Internally, the common highways connecting routes 4A and 7J would be shut off for the time being, seeing as that was the quickest way to the heart of the data fortress. There would be a minimum of thirteen Netrunners keeping watch for any suspicious activity at all times. The rest would be posted to different sections of Night City, going undercover and searching for any data regarding the Ghost. Considering the Netrunning community and the Voodoo Boys seemed to have known about his existence for a long time now. And when she was done, she jumped off the block and was approached by two runners for further questions.

"Father, forgive me for asking...," Mari began.

"Go."

'...are we sure we should be putting a stranger in charge?"

He grunted. "That is not your concern. Your job is to watch her closely. Report back to us if you see anything suspicious."

"W-What about the Ghost? I swear I can-"

"-that is not your concern."

She was verbally punched in the gut once more. All those years of training...all those years of being told she would be the most capable runner...led up to her doing a fucking escort mission. He towered over his daughter with one of the meanest looking frowns Mari had ever seen.

"Stop acting like a child. I'm not assigning you to this because I think you're incapable. We have our doubts, as always. One of them, being that Lucy might be responsible for all of this. That Kushinada might be the Ghost herself."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but was she not off world when we detected the first intrusion?," Mari asked.

He shook his head. "Minutes prior. She broke our ICE, got scared and ran to the moon, is what they're claiming."

"I understand."

He sighed. The only thing bad about the net was the missing cigarette pack when he reached into his inner suit pocket out of habit. It was time to leave anyways. "Keep a watch on her."

"Yes sir."

And with that, he blinked out of the net to go smoke a cigarette and deal with the never-ending paperwork created by the Ghost's intrusion, while Mari could let her shoulders loose and glare at Lucy through a new lens. Her father had lied to her in the past, too many times to count, but this time it made sense. Lucy could have broken ICE. There were reports long thought destroyed, of Lucy staying up late to chip away at the wall when she was a kid enslaved by Arasaka. Maybe a week ago it finally paid off- but Lucy didn't expect it, panicked, and skipped off to the moon where Arasaka's reach was limited. Space was still "res nullius" after all. Lucy walked up to her.

"Who was that?," she asked.

"My boss," Mari replied.

"You tell him how much of a saint I am?," Lucy snorted sarcastically.

"Yeah. You've got flowers shootin' out your anus. Come on, I don't like wastin' time."

She nodded and the two of them started their day, expecting something of interest to occur but it never did. The Ghosthunter ran silently in Lucy's mind like a daemon on a work computer, and yet the Sakanet seemed as normal as it always had been. It's lines still glowed a blood red on top of a black nothingness, code was still used to colour in objects and data flowed through colorful wires like water in a river. 'What the Hell?,' Lucy thought. Her mind raced with suspicion as she and Mari walked through sub-level 2's data forest. Each branch of each tree representing the directories and sub-directories of Arasaka's logs dating back to 2020. Although Lucy couldn't view one without the redhead inspecting it first.

"Was the software real?," Lucy thought, jumping over a small stream. "Why wouldn't it be? It makes perfect sense to lie to me about what it would do...maybe it was a virus and I'm the carrier. Maybe the Voodoo Boys made that whole Ghost stuff up because they knew that it was the only way I'd take the bait."

She climbed up a rock without bothering to help Mari up.

"Or...maybe he's just not here at the moment. It would be stressful. He knows that the wall isn't getting patched anytime soon. How can you fix a perfect system? If he could come and go whenever he pleases...if I were in his shoes? I'd wait for all this to blow over, then stop by every month to get what I need and delta."

Mari huffed. "You're really startin' to piss me off with that muttering."

"Move back then," Lucy quietly uttered.

"Just shut the fuck up. What're we even doin' here anyways?"

"Are you blind? What's it look like?"

There was no sentence that could be exchanged between the two without spit flying in both their faces.

"It looks like you're wastin' time. Walkin' all slowlike, lookin' for logs that don't exist."

"Yup. You got me. That's exactly what I'm doing. Because everyone knows in order to get a promotion you've got to-"

"-promotion? Phah. That's rich. Cut the bullshit, we all know you're not here to climb the ranks."

Lucy turned around. "Okay, so what do you think I'm here for then?," she asked, getting irritated.

Mari shrugged. "Definitely not that."

"God damn it." They kept walking and Lucy absentmindedly spoke. "You never had any friends did you?"

"No," Mari immediately countered. "Unlike you, I was actually climbing the ranks."

Lucy wished that before she would leave this Earth, she would get the opportunity to strangle Mari until her lips turned purple. "What. We're. Doing here, is checking for fraudulent logs. Duplicate logs. Incompatible logs. The 'doesn't make any sense realistically' logs," Lucy explained.

"I don't follow."

"I'm guessing he uses some kind of spoofware to intercept the real logs as they're created whenever he does something in the Sakanet, and replaces or deletes it with his own," Lucy continued.

"And what, this is just a hunch? Some kind of slum-scum practice I've never heard of?," Mari asked.

"No you bitch," Lucy spat. "The alarm. Never made a log. But yeah, I also did it all the time."

"Typical."

Lucy pointed at a leaf on the end of a tree. The redhead plucked it, read through it and handed it over to Lucy. "Y'know...I feel quite sorry for you," Lucy said while reading. "No friends, no 'family'...I'm guessing you're a virgin too."

"So?"

"So, you're stuck in the rat-race. Nothing more than a pawn to be disposed of once you've lost your value. That's why you hate me, right? I make you look bad?"

Mari's default was anger, however she remembered what she was told earlier this morning. And the more Lucy spoke, the more it made sense.

"To see someone go through life without ever once becoming their own person, that's sad," Lucy said.

"You think its sad?"

Lucy nodded and pointed to another leaf. Mari skimmed the log and again gave it back, still keeping her eyes glued on the Cyberpunk. "You know...," Mari began. "Nothing you say makes any sense. You say you want a promotion. You're a total suck up to the boss. Yet you think its sad to give your life to the corp."

She didn't reply.

"In all my years of working at Arasaka, do you know how many people have families? Or friends? Or care about anything except the corp? A handful. And those are the ones at the very top. You don't land a spot here otherwise. We don't think it's sad to sacrifice your life for it, quite the opposite. And maybe you can think that because you're just a contractor. But in that case, you shouldn't even be wanting a promotion in the first place- you couldn't even get one if you tried. You know that, don't you?"

She stepped back when Mari towered over her.

"Well? You gonna say something?"

Lucy kept her cool and continued bullshitting. "I don't think it doesn't make sense," she insisted. "I can think that its sad and want to climb the ranks at the same time."

"How so?," Mari asked with narrowed eyes.

"What makes you think people care about anything other than the corp? What if they're doing this for someone else?"

"I've read your file. You have no one. No parents, no friends, no nothing. The only reason why you'd want to climb the ranks is to burn it all down."

Lucy winced. Her mind was still deep in the log she was reading. "That's some pre-tty heavy conjecture Mari. You sure that wasn't a Freudian slip I just heard?" But she did a double take. There had indeed been some changes, none that she could remember. She placed a finger to her right ear. "Control, has anyone besides us been in the log room the past two days?," she asked.

"Negative. No one in or out."

She was right. Someone or something had been here. But she kept her cool and restrained herself from sprinting all over the forest in search of the Ghost, seeing as Mari was already suspicious of her as it was. Instead, she kept walking at her usual pace but a little faster. And when the path stopped at a dead end, Lucy still pushed through the foliage to explore further. Even though she wasn't actually checking the logs as she went, rather choosing to follow her instinct. The flat plane grew increasingly steep and it was more like a hike than a run at this point. As fast as they could run, the forest was larger- about ten times the size of the Amazon and like it, each square metre was populated with distinct, unique foliage.

Lucy saw movement in the distance.

"What is it now?," Mari groaned.

"I wanna check one more log," Lucy replied. She went over to a nearby tree and gave Aiden the side-eye while she read. She had a full view of his eyes and face. The software worked after all. He was hunched over at the base of a tree, clutching his stomach with both his arms. He was relatively short- about five foot two, caucasian and has rough brown hair that was clumsily self-cut with scissors. He was skinny. Not bone skinny, but Lucy could see rib. He looked like your average kid who was silently groaning in pain. He looked up and his piercing orange eyes immediately locked with Lucy's. And from the look of horror in his expression, that was no accident.

"Well?," Mari asked. "Any breakthroughs?"

"No. Nothing to report. Guess you were right."