Groggily I try and fail to open my eyes.
Man, that tetra pack of grape juice must have been in the fridge for a while if it managed to give me such a headache.
Among the pounding in my skull I hear a static sound in my head, and when I finally manage to open my eyes, there's a fucking HUD layering over my vision. I'd have freaked out, if I wasn't so damned bonked in the head right there.
Despite it being a few months since I played the Game the last time, I recognise the design within the split of a second: Cyberpunk! The bug-riddled mess of a game that I loved despite all the bullshit CDProject put me through when playing it.
But I guess not everyone knows what that HUD looks like. So let me tell ya.
It's cyberpunkish, if that even is a word, with mostly dark backgrounds and neon colours for the frameworks. It's very simple and straightforward. Anyone with a little experience in gaming will find everything they need to know there and then on the first glance.
There's a neon red Health Bar in the upper left with 22 neon blue RAM, and an apparently very detailed Minimap in the opposing corner.
Beyond that, there's only one thing that stands out.
A Job right below the Minimap, written in neon red lettering.
It's fairly forward, I guess. Says, [Read the Shard].
Shards in Cyberpunk, by the way, are a (super fucking far-more) advanced version of USB Sticks, I guess. Just to give you an idea of what we are talking about here. They can contain anything from a simple text message, over whole books or malware to hack whatever you need to hack, up to terabytes of data. The game never really specified their limits.
But what Shard?
I sit up, kick off the bedding and frown. Those are neither my clothes, nor is this my bed. I wiggle my toes. Yep, those are mine, including the painted toenails my niece graced me with.
I look around the quite austere room, which by the way, I don't recognise, and find a small, inconspicuous black stick laying on the metal nightstand next to the bed.
I pick it up and frown as — what the fuck happened to my hands?! — never mind, never mind. Calm. Calm, I am calm. Zen. Deep Breath. Yeah. Let's ignore that for now! The Shard!
Let's focus on getting more information!
I hold the Shard up to get a better look.
Looks like the Shards from the game, but... heavier than I expected, truth be told. There's also that it has the Arasaka Corp logo on one side, in dark red.
Again, for the uninformed: Arasaka Corp is basically one of the main Mega Corporations in Cyberpunk.
They create everything, from Shards, over Cyberware (cybernetic implants, basically), drones, robots, true A.I., militaristic stuff that would have the US-Army wet themselves, up to Arasaka's pen-ultimate creation: the Engram. A digital copy of what makes people unique (read: the soul).
Sounds like a real piece of work, yeah? Because they are.
Anyways. If this is a real Shard, and if the HUD I am seeing is not just a very elaborate hallucination born from very rotten grape juice, then there must be —
I shift the shard from my right to my left hand and begin to feel around my neck and the back of my head. I curse when I indeed find metal surrounding a hole in my skin. What's even more strange is that I can feel the touch through the metal.
I take the shard and push it in; there's a tingling sensation travelling down my back, like sweat running down between my shoulder blades, or as if someone touched me with a cold, misted can of soda. Then I feel a jolt race up my neck and into my head.
I shudder. That felt like that one time I decided to lick the electrified fencing behind our house when I was a child. Look, I know how this sounds. I wasn't stupid, okay? I was curious. Just curious. A very curious, adventurous child! Not stupid!
A popup appears. It's a loading bar that zooms past before I even have time to read what it was doing. But a fair guess would be that it was the Shard unloading.
A chime sounds in my head, and I can feel the Shard ejecting. I pluck it out and plonk it in my lap, while I watch engrossed first how the Job updates, then how a new window appears in the HUD.
Said window is filled with a long-ass list of hexadecimals. Above it, a quickly filling loading bar appears, showing that decoding is in progress. Once the bar is filled, the hexadecimals flicker and the window disappears. In its place a video frame appears.
[Watch the video], the Job says now.
"How— How do I start the video?" I mutter.
Just as the words leave my mouth, the black of the video frame fades into a dimly lit back alley.
"Nevermind," I mumble.
"Hey, how the fuck does this shit wo— " says a familiar voice.
Then a face comes into view.
"Right, now I've got it. Been a while since I did this. "
Sunglasses wearing Keanu Reeves stares at me, a tired smile on his lips. But then the camera shifts in his grip and I spot chrome from down his left shoulder.
It's Johnny fucking Silverhand, the character Keanu Reeves played in the Game.
"Hey there Samurai," he says and lifts a cigarette into view. After taking a quick puff he glances off to the side, then back at me. "If you see this, then I guess shit's worked out."
"I guess?" I offer, but the reply continues unbothered.
"By now you'll be wondering what's happening. Maybe even freaked out a little."
"No kidding — "
"You were decommissioned," Silverhand explains. He lets that sit for a moment while puffing on his cigarette.
"I— Wait, I was what?"
Silverhand, as though predicting my confusion, gestures with his cigarette holding hand at the camera. "Do keep up man. I ain't got all night to explain shit to you!"
He glances to the side again, and this time the camera swings with him. There's a group of people in the background, they look familiar, somehow. The distance makes it a bit hard to figure out why. One of them is waving towards Silverhand.
"Yeah!" he hollers at them. "Be there in a few more secs!"
He flicks the cigarette toward them, then turns back to face the camera. "All right, let's make this short. I got a gig in a couple minutes." He pushes his sunglasses down and I am startled by the unnerving look he gives. "You were dead. I pulled you out from the deep end. A bit longer and the Pit would have consumed you whole."
My mouth flaps open and I do as that magikarp meme-dude from Australia's Got Talent does, and gape. I don't compute. At all.
"Now that that's out of the way: I want your help," he admits easily enough, and that makes me magikarp all the harder.
"Don't look like that!" he says while pointing at the camera, as though knowing my exact reaction. "I gave you two great gifts. First: you were dead, now you live again with a body that does not age, fitted to eclipse the peak of humanity. A body that you know how to use to the best of its abilities. Second: a stash with everything you might need, including your favorites. All I want in return is your help."
The camera moves quite suddenly, there's a bang and the frame shakes. Looks like he dropped the camera. It spins around briefly, and then comes to a halt revealing the skyline of what I recognise as Night City.
I'm now forced to look up at the rockstar turned terrorist. There's the iconic Malorian Arms 3516 strapped to his hip, looking just as fancy and deadly as in the game.
"How's that saying go? Right, right. Biz is biz, and revenge is expensive biz. Sent you a message. Deets attached. Don't disappoint me."
Silverhand walks off, following the group into a building.
The replay finishes, the frame closes and a new one appears on the left side of the screen.
[Johnny Silverhand, About that biz...]
No idea how to react to that.
Dead, huh?
I shake my head. Whatever. I'm just a guy who's always been in over his head, nothing's changed. Let's keep it simple, yeah? This is just like having to decide what to do with my life after being yote on my ass on the street by my parents after graduating and not knowing what to do. Just another situation I have to wing. No big deal.
Having decided that, I follow up with what I'd be doing in the game.
"Open Contacts," I try, and promptly a new window appears, listing my one contact: Johnny Silverhand.
A letter icon shows that I got a text from him, and just as I think of it, the text opens. Huh, neat. Thinking beats speaking.
"As you might have guessed, this is not your reality. But don't sweat the details. This isn't about you. It's about me. It's a matter of the principle, V. Something was stolen from me. I want it returned. Secure what is mine. Get rid of the masterminds behind. Call me when you are done. You have one week."
"Holy shit!" I exclaim when an overwhelming amount of information unloads into my HUD; dozens of pictures of multiple people pop open, are followed by uncountable small windows with text and more pictures, which are followed by even more windows popping up.
There's a crackle of static in my head, and a sudden wooziness makes my head feel like someone stuffed it full with cotton, set it on fire and then pissed on it.
STOP I think, and all windows disappear at once.
Flashing light draws my attention. My Health Bar has dropped by 1% —
"V is confused. It hurt itself in its confusion." I huff a laugh and groan at the increasing pounding in my skull. Fucking grape juice.
The Job has updated, I notice.
[Locate the Harbor before nightfall], it says now.
"All right," I mutter to myself. "This is real. No reason to panic. Just got isekai'ed. Can't get much worse."
I get up and almost jump and stumble from how easy it is. The pain's gone too; my knees don't hurt, my back doesn't ache. I lift the shirt I wear — Hell, even the scars from the time where I was riddled with tubes are gone.
Instead of scars on my chest and belly, I now am a (probably proud) owner of Cyberware. I can see some sort of mesh under my skin, and there are metallic protrusions that leave the skin, showing shiny metal surfaces, lines and such.
It's odd... having artificial things in your body that still feel real.
I mean, I've had my fair share of dental crowns, a few bolts in my elbow, and even the aforementioned jejunostomy and suction tubes before this shit here happened. Running my tongue along the metal or feeling the screws through the skins, or touching that piece of plastic jutting out of my abdomen and rib cage? It always felt off. They didn't feel natural, didn't feel like they belong, you get me?
This here, the chrome in this body? It feels like it's my own flesh, feels like it belongs.
That's when a strange stray thought hits me smack in the face.
Is everything the same as in the game?
I mean, I'd be lying if I'd that I never thought about what it would be like to have a vagina, but...
I look down at my baggy sleepwear, particularly the crotch.
Hesitating at first, I finally muster the courage to pull the trousers down and breathe a hell of a sigh of relief when I find that I am indeed graced with a bonafide cock, cut and long as shlong. If I had to guess, then I'd say that this is the almost maxed out settings cock. Jackpot!
I love me some big dick, on me, or others, I don't care! It's hot!
Moving my body around a bit I watch my large Johnson flap around. Heh, I love that.
Ehm... Anyways! Let me just pull my pants back up.. There, done.
That out of the way, I look around for the stash Silverhand mentioned. The room is visibly empty, which makes the search rather short. But that leaves not many options.
Flipping the sheets and mattress yields nothing, and so my thoughts return to the game Cyberpunk, and that's when an idea hits me.
Inventory I think, and voilá, it appears, a new window in my vision. I reach up and I can feel something where my hand touches what my HUD can see.
It's hard to put into words, but at best I'd describe the feeling as touching foam that's running a quite low current; not enough to hurt, but enough to nostice.
There are a couple of items equipped, namely the clothes I wear. They don't have any stat rating at all. Just plain grey sleepwear. Nothing special.
In the right upper corner are Weight Limit and Cash positioned. The former sits at 600, which I can't quite recall if it's the same as the game or not. The latter, however, I note with frustration, is the exact same as the game. It sits at idle 12 Dollars, the remains of my last shopping spree before autosave fucked me over.
I toggle the Backpack, and see a couple of rows of items.
It's everything my last save game contained, basically. From Smartlink guns and rifles over the ballbusting shotguns; prominently amongst the rows of items sits the Archangel, an iconic revolver that took me almost four hours to get due to an impossibly annoying glitch that required me to sit through dozens of reruns of the same mission. But its stats made the effort so much more worth it.
I have a shit-eating grin plastered over my face as I toggle all the important items in the Backpack and equip them.
There is no real transition. One moment I am wearing grey sleepwear, next I'm standing in dark brown leather pants, black biker boots, a mockup of Johnny's Samurai Jacket, flaming devil emblem and all, and of course red-black pilot sunglasses.
The full Johnny Silverhand outfit, upgraded to legendary rank, including the iconic Malorian Arms 3516 pistol holstered and strapped to my thigh and Archangel sticking out from a holster in my waistband.
The clothes feel perfect. Neither too large, nor too short or too tight.
Even the mods are the same as I used in the game as well: a mix of legendary Armadillo to ramp up the armor stat, one of each immunity mods, such as Antivenom or Cool-It. The boots come with Soft-Sole, reducing any and all sound from jumping and landing. I never really saw the need for other mods, seeing as how my Archangel basically had a crit-rate of a hundred percent and Smartlink weapons were more or less gamebreakingly overpowered.
In the game the sum of that meant that I could tank dozens of people shooting at me without having to worry overly much over my health, and that even a shot to the body was guaranteed lethal. Can't say for sure how it would work out in this world, but ... there's a certain amount of confidence in me that I'll be fine; besides, unlike with the game, if I die, I'm dead. Big brain.
Thinking of mods reminds me of another thing, though. I return to the previous menu and select Cyberware. Immediately the menu changes, and I am presented with mostly empty slots.
A quick browse through the empty slots reveals that I have the full serving of rippedoc merch available to me. I make quick work of equipping the empty slots, and replacing the others with my favorites.
Once that's done, there isn't much left for me to do here. I'm not exactly on a deadline, but the sooner I get this done, the better. This isn't a game, where I can ignore the main story in favor of side Jobs or exploring.
"Let's get going," I tell myself, and throw one last glance around the room. Yeah I have everything on me. Nothing left behind. Perfect.
I leave through the only door of the room and find myself promptly in a rather dull looking concrete tunnel. It's completely dark once the door falls shut behind me.
Humming, I pull one of the uncountable packs I stashed away inside the inventory out and slurp the surprisingly tasty fruit drink. A small icon appears in my HUD, showing that a temporary buff is now being applied.
While thanks to the Cyberware replacements for my eyes I can see in the dark well enough to avoid walking against the occasionally protruding metal bits and things littering the floor, still it's rather discomforting that suddenly everything has a green tinge; wiring and tubes along the walls, and even small rodents however are outlined by bright yellow lines. Somehow this doesn't make it any easier to accept that this isn't a game, but reality now.
The tunnel ends after about a minute or two of walking in a tall bolted solid steel door blocking the way. There's a small access panel on the wall to the left of it.
Giddiness makes me tremble when I extract the plug from below my wrist. I feel some sort of tingling as I pull it out, but that's about the only discomfort; expected worse, really. I can't really put it into words; it reminds me a bit of that one time I got a suction tube removed from my ribcage. I didn't exactly feel pain, but I felt the movement inside of me all the same. Just fucking weird, honestly.
Unlike in the game, the access plug is not reminiscent of an Ethernet plug, instead it looks like a tentacle alien, or facehugger, only made of thin silvery and golden wires.
Holding it to the access panel causes the wires to surge into every nook and cranny like a predator chasing after prey, and promptly the Breach Protocol opens up in my HUD.
It doesn't just look the same, but the process is exactly the same as the minigame from Cyberpunk.
I complete it in a few seconds; but seeing as how it's just a door and basically still the prologue of my story, I think I'll pass on feeling proud of it.
The door unlocks audibly and springs open with a metallic whine when I pull at the bolted handle. Behind lies a narrow, round tunnel heading upward, with rusted metal steps jutting from the wall. There's water running and dripping down the walls and stairs.
After chancing a glance up and seeing dulled natural light, I grip and step on the metal stairs and begin my ascent. The rusted metal feels like sandpaper on my palms, and I'm sure it would be piercing my skin and drawing blood if not for the modifications I'm equipped with.
As I reach the top, I note that the exit is blocked by a drain cover with rotting leaves and twigs sticking through some of the holes.
The metal under my soles groans threateningly as I cock my arm back, make a fist and punch with as much oomph as I can muster. A small shower of sparks kindles the moment my fist makes contact with the metal, the drain cover tears free from its mounting and soars high into the sky.
Only when I hear it plonk down on the ground with a heavy thud someplace nearby do I finish my ascent and pull myself out of the tunnel.
As soon as I am out, I take a deep breath and watch as it fogs before me on the exhale while rubbing at the back of my hand. A quick look down reveals that there's not a scratch; there's not so much as a tingle.
It's snowing, I quickly notice; not badly, mind you, seeing as how there's not even a thin layer on the ground yet, but the sky is cast over, and it seems just a matter of time before the heavens open their flood gates and piss on my parade.
A quick look around reveals that I exited from a slab of concrete surrounded by barren shrubs and trees. Not sure why there would be concrete in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, but I can hardly boast a great knowledge of the necessities of infrastructure. Though in the distance I can see active smokestacks poke at the sky —
"And where there are factories, there's a city," I finish audibly.
I zip up the leather jacket, stuff my hands into the side pockets and go full turtle until my chin disappears in the round collar, and then quickly make my way through the pokey thicket.
It doesn't take long until the sounds of cars driving past at a steady speed become audible, then grow louder until I finally reach the road they are driving on. The surprise of seeing four lanes on each side, crowded and moving like a giant caterpillar, bumper to bumper, doesn't last long, and I begin my trek along the breakdown lane.
On the HUD, the Minimap begins showing a route the moment I step onto the road. With about as much enthusiasm as anyone stuck in a snowstorm can muster, I get going.
Can't tell whether the honking as cars pass me by is because I am technically not allowed to walk over the bridge, or because people are driving too slow to keep the waltz of steel moving. But I honestly don't care. I'm too busy humming a tune to keep my spirits up, though the weather is doing its darndest to make that a futile task.
By the time I reach the city limits I have to squint to keep the snow from blinding me momentarily. The buildings shooting up high into the sky further inside seem to offer at least a little reprieve from the snowfall, but here out in the open on the bridge, nothing's stopping the wind; still, one thing catches my eye before I move along.
"Hah, I was wrong." I say and bark a laugh that lacks any and all humour. "It can get worse."
There, staring down at me, is a weathered and slightly tilted town sign. It's white colour is blended by dust and dirt into a smudge of grey, but the black letters stand out like the finger of the reaper itself pointing at me.
GOTHAM CITY, it reads.
The weak yellow light illuminating the sign stutters; it blacks out for a second or two, then flickers alive again and makes the scene all the more haunting.
As I pass it by, my Cyberware runs scans that reveal graffitis below the dirt clinging to the reflective sign. They are highlighted much like the graffities were in the game. One of them stands out to me.
"Don't stay, keep going," I read and frown.
Yeah, that seems fitting from what I recall of the city and its people, which admittedly isn't much. I know of Batman, of course. I know that there are, were or will be multiple Robins, of which I know two by name. I know some villains, but their motives or drives are beyond me.
That's it.
My jaw muscles clench somewhat painfully as I try and fail to ignore how fucked I feel.
Yeah, it's more or less unavoidable that my rudimentary knowledge is going to come and bite me in the ass at some point. It's probably just going to be a matter of how much of a bite it's going to take out of me and whether I can walk away afterwards. And isn't that an entertaining thought? No? Yeah, well, whatever.
With a shake of my head to push that ominous feeling away, I push ahead. There are a few things that come first before shit is allowed to hit the fan. What? Well, I'm soaked, cranky and in fucking Gotham: I need a good fucking plan, some place to stay, and while I'm at it, I tack money on to my list. Can't ever go wrong with money.
As an afterthought, I pull a bottle of Armagnac Massy out of my inventory to wash away that sour taste in my mouth. I remember that stuff from the game. The catchphrase of that product went, 'Don't drink it. Savor it.'. Hah, fuck that. I unseal the bottle and tip it to my lips.