The New Man: Adam Smasher Si

by Crossposted

Crosspost of Seat Admiral’s fanfiction on SpaceBattles, all credits go to the original author.

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She hadn't spoken with her uncle in years, she wasn't sure she wanted to, not yet at least. She didn't have a good read on him anymore, when she used to be able to read him like a book. Uncle was passionate, he was angry, and he cared about people he never talked to. Father never liked talking about him to her when he was alive, the most she'd usually get was a frown and distant look.

When she had finally met uncle, she had been surprised at just how open he was compared to everyone else around. The only one more open with her was Adam, and that's because he never tried to hide a thing. Uncle had still been treating her as a child at the time, but he was terrible at keeping his feelings a secret, even back then she was able to tell what he thought on anything they talked about.

Now though? She couldn't read him at all, which was concerning, because Michiko considered herself quite good at reading people.

So talking to him before she could get a read on him… that wasn't something she could afford to do.

Yet here she was, on the other side of the table from a relative she hadn't spoken to in decades, one she didn't know very well anymore.

The silence was a bit awkward. She resisted the urge to fidget in her chair. Her uncle didn't move from his expressionless stare.

Everyone in the world performs micro-movements to some degree. Small breaths, blinks, little motions of the limbs. Little tiny motions that confirmed to the world that they were still alive. Only the very oldest borgs lose these little motions, eventually they just completely forget how to, as they don't need to anymore. Adam was one such borg, and he was almost a hundred years old at this point. Old man Kagekaze was another, and he was around two decades older than Adam before he died. Zaburo wasn't one yet, he was a bit older than Adam, but had been a borg for less time overall, he still subconsciously remembered what it was like to be biological.

Her uncle wasn't a borg. He didn't have any micro-movements. It downright was unnerving the moment she noticed it.

She focused on everything else instead. Plain suited attire outside of a long leather jacket. Professionalism combined with an open statement and reminder of youthful rebellion? He was firmly in the professional world, but refused to play along with grandfather's policies? That sounded almost too simple.

No micro-movements, that told her he wanted to hide his reactions. Understandable given the cutthroat nature of the corporate world. That told her nothing useful.

His hair was slicked back and relatively short. Something that took a moment to prepare in the day, but not too long. He cared for his looks, but it was only a token effort. It was a style that was easy to maintain.

His face was shaved, but still bore a five-o'clock shadow. Again, he cared about his looks, but only to an extent. He shaved often enough to not have a beard but probably not everyday.

Shaded glasses, either he needed them to see and they were transition lenses, or they were smart-glasses sometimes used by corporate types. She herself had a pair, but she couldn't be sure that he was wearing such. Either way, a practical choice that wasn't cyberware, he didn't try to load up on chrome and didn't care if people knew that or not. Either that or it was a bluff to make people think he was weaker than he actually was.

She almost expressed frustration on just how little information she was getting here.

The door opened suddenly and a woman with red hair with shaved sides walked in, carrying two cups on a tray. Carefully, she set the cups down on the table, one in front of uncle and one in front of her, and walked out of the room.

"Thank you." She and uncle spoke in perfect unison. She glanced over to see his expression hadn't changed at all. She took the cup in both hands, and let her chemical analyzer work as she smelled the contents.

…black coffee, extra caffeine, no additives. It was safe.

She took a sip, something that her uncle mimicked slowly, still staring with that blank expression. Eventually, he spoke.

"That was Valerie. She used to work elsewhere before I decided I needed to keep a closer eye on her. She brings me coffee now."

She raised a brow at him. The topic was somewhat unexpected, but she could work with it. "May I ask why you needed her to change positions?" A simple, straightforward question. Depending on how he answered her, that could tell her much of his current personality and motives.

"Her mother was a loyal asset of the previous president Jugemu Jun." He answered simply, and took a drink of his mug.

"And you've been purging the tower of his assets." A direct accusation. Everyone knew that he was doing it, but plausible deniability was valuable.

"Correct. I wasn't sure of her loyalty, so I'm watching her for any sabotage. So far she has been clean."

She took a drink of the coffee to give her time to think through her uncle's response. He didn't even try to deny it, instead he openly admitted his actions and provided an immediate explanation and elaboration.

…He was being honest with her, as far as she could tell. His face was still unnervingly still and his movements minimized to only the bare essentials to drink. She narrowed her eyes a tad.

…She activated her sandevistan. She kept very still as she observed her uncle.

All at once, he seemed to come to life. Easy and steady breathing, the occasional blink, tiny micro-expressions appearing on his face. A tiny smirk flashed at her. His eyes seemed to twinkle in amusement.

Her sandevistan deactivated, and all at once her uncle returned to being a nonliving thing.

She took a drink of her coffee. "You have a kerenzikov." And a sandevistan-grade one too, which was deeply concerning.

A person was not meant to live at such speeds. Zaburo once described his own kerenzikov as 'a slow, quiet, and terribly lonely world'. His was not sandevistan grade in speed, it was a bit slower. She couldn't imagine what kind of world Yorinobu Arasaka was experiencing.

"It took you a moment, niece." Her uncle seemed to relax just a tad, having found whatever it was he was looking for in her behavior. He leaned back a tad, but his movements were still so unnervingly efficient.

"Has anyone ever told you how unsettling that is?" She begrudged at him.

"...Occasionally…" He said slowly, before changing the subject by tapping the folder on the table in front of him. He slid it over to her, and she took it in one hand. "Open it, I think you'll be interested in its contents."

She looked at it for a long moment, glancing at uncle to try and read him again, failing, and opening the folder with her thumb. It was surprisingly heavy.

Inside of the folder were dozens of memory shards, inside of little plastic pockets on the inside of the book-like folder. She narrowed her eyes at them before looking up at him again.

"Jugemu Jun has been serving Arasaka for many years now. I'm sure you know. Inside those shards are the collected memories of every mission and order he's ever given to Adam Smasher."

She froze and looked down at the folder again. Swallowing, she looked up again to glare at him.

"Why?" Specifically, why was he giving this to her?

"It's a bribe." He explained, taking a sip from his mug. Her heart skipped a beat. No one outside of DangerGal should know about her… resurgent affections…

For her uncle to know… She had a leak. Either there was a flaw in their datawalls, or… one of her girls was a double agent. Double agent against DangerGal specifically that was, not in general, some of them were already that.

Well, it might be possible for him to figure out based on her history with Adam and her one interaction with him in years, but she had been careful to hide her feelings when she tried talking to him last.

…Uncle lived at sandevistan speeds. He might have figured it out from that.

"It's a bribe to make sure our factions don't come into conflict." He continued to explain. "It's better for the both of us if intra-company sabotage was kept to an absolute minimum. In the best case scenario we can cooperate. This is a bribe to get that handled."

She narrowed her eyes. "You want a list of all those loyal to my faction." She guessed.

"Correct. I need to make sure I've purged every trace of Jugemu Jun's influence." He was being incredibly frank with her.

She thought about it for a moment. Glancing down at the folder and back up. "I want a list of those loyal to your faction too." She bargained, preparing for a long back and forth over the nature of what they could extract from one another.

"Acceptable, I'll have Valerie send it to you." He agreed.

She blinked.

He hadn't even tried to bargain. He just accepted it immediately.

…And in doing so made sure she couldn't ask for anything more. Shit.

She nodded to herself. Alright, she had been on the back-foot and off-balance this entire meeting, but the outcome was still pretty good overall. She could work with this.

"I'll get you a list. If any of them go dark, I'll know who to blame." she gave an unsubtle threat.

"I have no intention of weakening your faction." He promised through a stony visage. Michiko Arasaka wasn't sure if she could trust that.

The coffee was pretty good though, so there was that.

—

The bastard had gone and left town on a job.

He had left without telling her that he was leaving. She growled into her drink as she stared at that Gloria woman and the other girls she was with from the corner of her nightclub. The same place she normally waited on a certain someone to arrive from.. She was with Lucy, a DangerGal agent, and a Militech Blackwatch agent. It was an eclectic bunch for sure.

She had asked what they were doing here without the others. The DangerGal agent quickly (a woman named Juliet) explained that they were having a girl's night out. She could understand that, sometimes she needed girl time herself, away from the men for a night.

She asked them to tell Adam to come visit, she had 'important details to share' with him. That was true, but it wasn't really why she wanted him over. That had more to do with the little thing that was currently making sitting quietly a bit difficult. Lucy then explained that Adam wasn't in town.

He wasn't in town, he was in Japan, and probably wouldn't be back for a while. Rogue had retreated to her quiet corner shortly after learning that. The same corner that allowed her to watch most of the bar, and was quiet enough for her to get some work done while staying visible.

She growled into her drink again, frustrated by the tight things she was wearing under her clothes right now. The tight things that she had wanted a particular non-communicative asshole to take off her. It was exactly like the fucker.

'Wear something cute next time.' and then ditch town. Fucker. She could wear rags and they'd be cute. She went through all this extra effort and he bailed without a word. She bit her lip as she shifted in her seat, careful to not make a noise.

She looked away, turning her glare to the wall instead. They didn't do anything to deserve her ire, it was best to not glare in anyone's direction.

She contemplated for a moment. Before harshly tapping at her desk. Jameson brought over one of her tablets, and she hooked into it impatiently. Scanning through the logs of general news of the criminal underground of Night City that she had recorded specifically to share with the fucker that wasn't currently fucking her.

She paused and reviewed that thought again. She groaned in despair and let her face thump against the table.

…She had it bad for him, didn't she?

…She did.

Rogue, the Queen of Afterlife, kept her face planted for just a few moments more before pushing herself up and staring at the ceiling. She ignored the spike of distraction that the movement caused and evaluated her thoughts and actions over the past few weeks.

…

Yep. Absolutely shamelessly down bad. She knew the asshole barely cared about her. He wanted the information out of her, and the sex, he didn't care at all about her as a person. Sometimes, when she was too tired and sore to move, and he wrapped his arms around her, she thought that she might be able to change that.

She quickly banished that thought whenever she had it. It always came back.

Hell, he was only barely interested in the sex. She knew how men were, they were horny fuckers, it was something she used to her advantage many times. Adam was rich, powerful, dangerous, handsome, and mature. This combined to make him unfairly sexy. If he wanted to he could probably get a new supermodel in his bed every month until he died.

But he didn't. He was almost… chaste in that way. He was quick to plow her brains out when she had explicitly offered, but he didn't do a fucking thing to pursue her.

And from what her contacts (and he) had told her, he didn't do anything to pursue that one Tanaka woman before she died, or that Armstrong harlot over in the arena. He had just engaged when they sent the most obvious, blatant signals, and not a moment before.

It took Tanaka putting a fucking cock on him for him to notice her signals!

Adam Smasher, the asshole, was as dense as a fucking brick.

…And she was probably infatuated with that stupid, psychopathic, murderous brick.

God she had shit taste in men.

She stood up and immediately had to grab the table edge to not stumble. Breathing in once and then out again, she stood up fully and grabbed the tablet. She'd take it back to her room, get this tight thing off her, and get back to work.

Until he came back, then she'd get the asshole over here again.

…What if she left it on until he came back…?

No! Bad thought! That was stupid!

--

It felt quite strange to be on a 'girls night out'. It had been decades since Gloria had gotten to go on one last, as an inexperienced and headstrong streetgirl going out with a few of her friends for clubbing. The little she remembered of then was feeling embarrassed, by her revealing outfit and the glances she got (and thrilled at that second thing privately). Then after a few hours she went home and went to sleep in a dingy apartment.

Soon after she found a cute, cool-headed boy and tried her luck at flirting. Three years later David was born. Three years later Vincent had left, only visiting briefly with increasingly long durations of waiting in between.

She knew why he did. Like a stupid girl she thought that she could change it. Vincent tried to shoo her away at first, and she was too stubborn to leave him alone. He had never changed though, he couldn't, his own mind didn't let him. It was safer for her and D that he left, but that didn't stop the 'what ifs'.

Sometimes romances are more appealing because they can't work out?

What a load of shit.

…Ah, she shouldn't get into the habit of cursing.

"Like, what about this one?" A voice probably as mature as Gloria's own called out, breaking from her thoughts and dragging her back into a conversation that was entirely too embarrassing for her to handle. A woman looking to be in her thirties held up a thin little dress of vibrant blue and neon. Her bright green eyes laughed at her, and Gloria wanted to be elsewhere.

She looked at the dress in the woman's hands, looked down at her own body and made a mental comparison. She looked away and coughed into her hand. "I'm a bit too old to be wearing things like that Juliet." She tried to defend herself.

Juliet was one of the DangerGal agents that approached her when they visited their HQ some time back, and the woman was friendly, helpful, and willing to share an abundance of gossip. She also constantly looked like she was laughing at a joke no one else heard, a humorous gleam in her almost-glowing eyes.

"Cmon Glori! Don't worry about the 'mutton dressed as lamb' thing, It's going to look, like, great on you. Put it on?" The slightly older woman shook the dress in front of her. Gloria flushed a tad at how loud she was being. "Like, I already got one for Rucy and Meryl, so you gotta at least try it honey?" Her blonde cat-ears twitched rapidly on top of her head.

Gloria reluctantly took the all-too small dress and stared at it for a few moments with apprehension. Juliet took the opportunity to get behind her and shove her several times into a changing booth before closing the door with a cheery wave.

She stumbled for a moment before regaining her poise. Shaking her head at just how easily Juliet was able to bully her into 'like, having fun and stuff'. Slowly starting to strip off the fairly conservative attire she was in, she reviewed the night thus far.

…It was fun. Really fun. Earlier they had been at Afterlife for a bit, to meet up with Juliet's friend, Meryl. Ms. Rogue had come over to ask about Adam, but when they told her that he was out on business for a while, she frowned and left to a corner of the bar that she and Adam normally used for less-confidential talks.

…Gloria was fairly sure that Rogue and Adam were having sex. Which was nothing she was going to be flustered by, she was a grown woman, she knew where babies came from. For a while, she had been… tempted… by Adam's mocking advance.

But Rogue had been nothing but kind to her and her son. She didn't want to do that to the woman. That didn't stop the occasional daydream about the man who was practically David's father already.

Sometimes she wondered what it would have been like if that was true. Judging from the story of Michiko Arasaka, it would probably be just as tragic though. If a princess of Arasaka couldn't do it, what hope did she have? She was just a woman who tried her best to help her son.

It had been years before she had any time to do much of anything besides working. For a while she had thrown herself back into work. She was determined to help her son as best she could, even death couldn't stop this mama!

…She had been an EMT for years. She wasn't any stranger to death, or gore, or violence. She frowned and stopped in the process of removing her pants.

She panicked and froze in front of those cars. She had died right then.

Then, more than one year later, she was revived.

Then, seeing her friend's son bleeding out… She had zoned out again in shock. She wasn't any stranger to death. Why had she zoned out? She hadn't even zoned out before when doing her job, and Katsuo was far from the worst body she had ever seen.

It felt very wrong the moment she realized this. An inescapable feeling of realization just beyond her grasp. There was something wrong with her, and she didn't know what.

That scared her. She wasn't sure why.

"C'mon Glori! Put it on!" Juliet called out from the other side of the door.

"Give me a second!" She called back, taking a steeling breath and quickly putting the dress on, using the buttons to attach the straps. She looked in the mirror and immediately brought one hand up to rub on her other arm, feeling quite self-conscious about her appearance.

Swallowing down the nerves, she stepped out to see the other girls waiting for her. Lucy was in some kind of button-up shirt and skirt combination, and looking as apathetic as she always did. Although Gloria could see her hand tugging at the end of her outfit a tad.

Her son's output… wouldn't have been Gloria's first pick. She was gloomy, and dramatic, and occasionally smoked before she had started to badger the girl about stopping. She was a runner, and in most cases would be long gone by now.

But… she really loved her son, that much was obvious. Despite being jumpier than a streetrat on synthcoke, the girl was firmly glued to her son. She loved him enough to choose him over perceived safety. It was hard for her to disapprove of a girl that was that devoted to her boy.

She would have preferred Rebecca though, she was much more up-beat, and that positivity would've done her broody boy some good.

Meryl, Juliet's friend who was tagging along for this night out, was dressed in a sleek jacket-over-dress combination. It looked good on the dark-haired, half-Japanese woman. As with everything else, she looked utterly unphased by the situation.

Gloria wasn't quite sure about her yet. It was hard to read a woman who only seemed to have a single expression. But she had been nothing but polite thus far, and she was Juliet's friend, so she would give her the benefit of doubt.

"Oh my gosh, like you look great, Glori! Do a little spin girl!" The slightly older woman demanded jubilantly, waving her finger around to emphasize her point.

Gloria looked down and did a slow spin, feeling her face heat up as Juliet did a mock wolf-whistle. Juliet currently dressed in her own pure-white sweater that hugged her developed frame, and barely covered her shorts.

Lucy was giving a small smile at her in amusement. Meryl looked as blank as always.

Despite herself, Gloria couldn't help but smile. It had been a long time since she had a girls night out. She had been just as embarrassed then too.

"LADIES AND GENTS, GET YOURSELVES READY FOR THE SOME OF THA BLOODIEST, MEANEST, MOST BRUTAL FIGHTING WE'VE SEEN SINCE THE FACKING ROMANS WERE AROUND!" An announcer called over the crowd of roaring masses that filled the Pacifica arena to its fullest capacity and then a bit more.

"GET OUT YOUR GOON MATES, BECAUSE I'M WILLIAM WILLAS, SERVING AS YOUR ANNOUNCER FOR THE BRUTALITY OF THIS TREMENDOUS BREKKY OF AN EVENT. WITH ME IS KERRY EURODYNE AND VICTORIA ARMSTRONG, TWO FINE CUNTS FROM THIS HERE NATION WHO WILL BE HELPING ME WITH THA COMMENTARY."

"Glad to be here Willas."

"Did you just call me a cunt?"

"VERY SOON THA FIGHTERS WILL BE CALLED IN BY OUR TWO REFS DOWN IN THA CENTER THERE, MR. BLUE AND MRS. RED. MISTAH SMASHA WAS CALLED AWAY TO DO SOMETHING, AND THEY OFFERED TO ACT AS SUBSTITUTES. MAKE NO MISTAKE THOUGH, THESE CUNTS ARE CLAD IN DAIONI BORG FRAME, MEANING THEY CAN TEAR YOU ROOT RATS APART FASTA THAN YOU CAN SAY 'GOODNIGHT IRENE'!"

David admitted, this guest star announcer was a pretty funny guy. He felt the easy going smile on his face grow as he listened. Glancing around the room though, he saw nothing but glares and frowns… Most of which were directed at him. Made sense, he didn't try to hide his identity. They likely would have tried to attack him were the room not lined in Animal and Tyger guards.

He thought about it for a moment before letting a wide, mocking grin take over his face and angling his face a little bit up. In short, he copied Katsuo's iconic expression.

Judging from the immediate deepening of their frowns, and the occasional growl directed at him, it worked perfectly. He made a note to tell Katsuo that his face was infuriating later, and thank him for it. It was serving him well here.

There were two main entrances to the arena. So about half of the numerous participants were packed into this massive side-room waiting to go in. He wasn't sure how many exactly, but judging from a rough headcount there was maybe… five-hundred fighters? It was more than three-hundred, but less than seven-hundred. The arena couldn't hold much more than that.

At least, he didn't think it could hold much more. The audience capacity was like 500,000 or something, and the arena was for football games originally. It would be a little cramped for a while until the fighters started dropping. Then the space would open up some.

Eventually the announcement bell rang, and he started walking confidently towards the brightly lit arena, through the access tunnel. His visor fell forwards to cover his face in response to a mental command.

He was clad in his most recent 'upgrade'. His plastech duster, his visored helmet, his exposed chrome arms with blades mounted. He was going to put shotguns on them, but techie recommended smgs and made a pretty convincing argument about it.

…He still liked shotguns more.

Regardless, he couldn't have either for the arena fight, so instead he got some monoblades mounted instead. On his waist was the sword that Smasher only gave him a few lessons on, and that was about it. It felt strange going into a fight without a gun, but it wasn't like he was going to lose here.

He was David fucking Martinez. Six months ago Arasaka needed to call in Adam Smasher to put him down. He had been training under the guy since. There wasn't a single guy in this arena that could stack up against that. There wasn't a single guy here who could stack up against the fuckers that he's already fought before.

"What do we do with a drunken sailor?"

One heavy footstep at a time. His entire form was indecipherable, indistinct and unrecognizable save for a vaguest black-blue silhouette.

"What do we do with a drunken sailor?"

His organs felt like they were being used like punching bags.

"What do we do with a drunken sailor?"

…That was fucking infuriating.

"EARLY IN THE MORNING?!"

The blinding light of the arena was automatically compensated for by the smartvisor of his helmet, but it still was enough to bring him out of his thoughts. He blinked away the memories and walked to the box that was marked with his number in holographics. Number seven, for some reason.

Apparently in the brief seconds it took for Smasher to sign him up, six other people had signed up already. He would call it a bit odd, but then again he understood the appeal, so he didn't comment on it. It would be hypocritical or something.

He nodded at Aoi and Akai who were standing in the center of the arena, backs to one another to look over the entire space. They were called in by the new president of Arasaka to handle the referee position while Smasher was off Smashing something. Judging from the enthusiastic jerking of Akai's 'ear' sensors and the calm wave of Aoi's, they were happy to see him too.

They were chooms the last time he talked to them, and they haven't tried to screw him over yet, so he was fine with them. He just didn't talk to them very much.

He rolled his shoulders, cracked his joints, and loosened up. One sprain last week and Katsuo and Becca still hadn't let him hear the end of it. He wasn't about to throw an easy match like this from getting a cramp in his neck.

…Wait, his limbs were chrome, it shouldn't be possible for him to get a cramp in them. Right?

He pondered this mystery for a while, waiting for the announcement of the start of the brawl. Glancing around him, he saw that each fighter was roughly three feet from another other fighter. Meaning the first few seconds were going to be a clusterfuck of immense proportions.

Alright David, lesson one, prioritizing targets. He had to make space for himself first, so everyone around him had to go in his first sandy usage at minimum.

The fighters were arranged in a pentagon sorta shape, each had five guys nearest to them. In front of him were two, a weedy looking guy holding some knives, and a bulky guy with a baton. To his sides was a short guy with a monokatana, and a fat guy with brass knuckles and chrome arms. Behind him, there was a guy holding… a harpoon gun? Was that allowed?

Alright, priorities. First to go was whoever could keep up with him even a little bit in sandy speed. Next was the guy with the monokatana and the other with a harpoon gun. Last was the guy with the baton, then knives, then brass knuckles. Prioritize the thing most likely to get through his armor, then the things with the most range in descending order.

That panzerfucker taught him that. Bastard's arms were half again longer than his own. That was a distinct advantage on top of him being way fucking faster than David was.

…And hitting harder. And having more armor. And being more experienced. And having an AI on his side…

…How the fuck did they win against that monster? He made a note to kiss Lucy, and hug Becca, the next time he saw them. He didn't want to know what that fight would have been like without them by his side.

Goode was a bastard, he could fuck right off and stay dead.

"LADIES AND GENTS, CLENCH YOUR ASSES AS WE PREPARE FOR THE STARTING BELL! ANY SECOND NOW, THE FIGHTERS IN THE ARENA WILL DESCEND INTO A FACKING GOREFEST FOR OUR ENTERTAINMENT. IT'LL BE FACKING PREEMSOME!"

"That's right Willas, but first, a few words from our sponsors for this event…"

David grunted irritably and ignored the ads being read out. Eventually, they finally got along to the good part. That being the countdown to begin.

"FIVE!" Willas called out over the microphone.

"FIVE!" The spectators echoed in a loud roar.

"FOUR!" Willas continued the countdown.

"FOUR!" The crowd called out again. David did a spit-take as he spotted a few flags waving in the distance with his face on them. How the fuck did they even get those?

"THREE!" Willas was practically screaming in his announcements.

"THREE!" The crowd returned, and David tore his gaze from the girls that were… uhh… displaying their support with raised shirts. He had an output already dammit!

"TWO!" Willas sounded like he was the most excited one here, and for all David knew that could be true.

"TWO!" David rolled his neck, and brought up his hands to crack his knuckles.

"ONE!" Willas called out a penultimate time.

"ONE!" David let a cocky grin fill his face.

The bell rang.

His sandevistan activated.

The world slowed to a crawl. The fighters around him included.

Heh. These guys weren't worth jackshit.

He stepped once to the left, and backhanded the guy with the monokatana. In slow motion, his head spun around with a crack, and his jaw broke off with a spray of gore. Said gore hung in the air.

They were just meat.

Continuing his rotation and taking a step back, he let his monoblade slide out of his arm, and cut the guy behind him in half. The target began to move to the side, three chunks of him floating gently through the air with a crescent of red following.

Stomping his foot, he twisted his body and spun as he stepped forwards. Letting his monoblade on his other arm slide out as he built up some rotational energy. Holding his arms close for one final spin-step, he threw them out for the last twist.

He cut the guy with the baton and the guy with the knives in half at the same time. Doing this in panzerfaust would mean shaking his limbs a bunch to turn himself into a lariat-buzzsaw with one limb and only one rotation. The monoblades served him well enough in exchange here.

Normally doing spins in the middle of a fight was stupid and going to get you stabbed in the back. That was something Adam drilled into his head many times before. But against targets that didn't have speedware? All that meant was a little extra force to use.

Also, it was preem as shit whenever he got to pull it off.

One last guy, he looked a bit more durable than the other for. Those arms were armored.

So David didn't go for the arms. He stepped forwards and kicked the dude's knee, feeling it snap under the force of his chrome leg. The guy started to fall forwards, and David felt his sandy about to expire. He readied a spin-kick against the dude and glanced around the arena.

He saw other guys with speedware doing similar things to the people around them, cutting down a field of people moving in slow motion. None of them were quite as fast as he was, but there were some that were decently close.

His sandy finally expired, his body spun into a twisting spin-kick against the guy's jaw, shattering it much the same as the first he killed.

He wasn't worried about them dying here, mostly because he could already see the Arasaka agents with sandys come out to collect the bodies and bring them to the huge collection of Trauma Team members off to the side of the arena.

David would have to go for the brain if he wanted any of his targets to permanently die, and he wasn't particularly feeling like doing that. Everyone was just here for a good fight, so he wouldn't ruin the mood with actual death.

Err… permanent death that was. He was pretty sure all of the guys around him were actually dead.

…What's the difference between 'death' and 'actual death'?

Questions for later. He had a battle royale to win.

"A FACKING BRILLIANT FIRST NANO-FACKING-SECOND FROM THOSE WITH SPEEDWARE! ALREADY HALF OF ALL THE CONTESTANTS ARE NOW TAKING A SICKIE FROM A BAD CASE OF BEING BRU-TAL-IZED!"

"I have to say, I wasn't expecting them to go out that fast. Goes to show how fast speed is to a fight. One second you're there and the next you're gone."

"Every merc worth their eddies in the world knows the importance of a sandevistan. It's a rudimentary implant for a reason."

"WELL WE'VE JUST SEEN A FACKING SICK DEMONSTRATION OF THAT FAT-TITS! I THINK I'M POPPING A STIFFY FROM ALL THE FACKING RED IN THERE NOW, IT'S A GADDAM AUSSIE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE DOWN THERE!"

"The fuck did you call me!?"

—

Fighting under a stealth system was nothing new to him. His old Dragoon had no less than two such systems installed for such, although he almost never had to use it these days. An automatic smart-camo system, and an thermal damper to counter IR cameras. It worked well enough for the vast majority of his mission profiles.

The 'Gashadokuro' had more than two stealth systems. It had five.

A stealth-foot to help negate footsteps and tracks, a chameleon-paneling to blend into the background, an onboard ECM generator, a sound-canceller, and an ACPA-grade radar and IR stealthing system.

The thing had a cloak of sorts as well, made of that same chameleon stealthing system to help him carry things around without revealing his presence. That, and the gravitics sub-system let him reduce his weight profile to nearly nothing, countering seismic sensors as well. Adding in the stealth-foot and that trick he pried out of the first panzerbot fight and he wasn't making a noise while moving.

The best way to detect him at this point was by tracking the disturbance in the air as he moved. Which is why he moved very slowly into position over the Ganges river.

The Ganges river was used for everything in neo-India. It was a river of pure filth at this point, naught but black water with a fine layer of oil and garbage on the top. It was the most important transportation system in the entirety of India, especially for the corporate target that the Old Man wanted destroyed.

Adam would have grinned if the already grinning skull of the new frame allowed him to. It had been ages since he was allowed to do nothing but kill. He intended to get his time's worth out of this mission.

How do you kill a corporation? The easiest way was to take down their leaders and cripple them financially so that other factions moved in and devoured them. He didn't know jackshit about that, so he intended to do something different.

How do you kill a corporation? You kill everything it relies on.

They had three nukes, each with a one-kiloton yield.

Using the gravitics, AV thrusters, and the increased cooling capacity of this frame's sandevistan, he could move hundreds of miles per hour.

The plan that he and Goro came up with? Nuke the most important dams of the most important river, then attack the production facilities, then attack the HQ. The resulting flooding would devastate the entirety of the Indian lowlands.

A company was a resilient thing, it could take on debts and loans and favors to stay afloat. If the country itself was crippled, then they couldn't do that. They would have to dissolve or take on influence from foreign powers, which would mean the end of them as an independent power regardless.

Goro and Oda were already in position to attack the HQ. His job was to drop the nukes and head for the production facilities. It had taken them a few weeks to make sure they had the right intel before this went down. Targeting was the most important factor in a fight after all.

The signal came to him through an ECCM connection. He expanded his ECM as far as it could go and began the slaughter.

Above the first dam, an unseeable giant with the face of death hurled down a Brahmastra.

It disappeared, and before anyone could prevent it, the Brahmashirā astra struck the towering concrete wall's base. White death burst like a lovely flower over what was once a major fortification to channel the power of Holy Ganga.

A few minutes later another Brahmastra struck a second dam.

A few minutes after that, a third struck the third.

In the devastation, very few noticed the attacks on the production facilities and HQ of an arms manufacturer happening in the hours to follow. Most were much too busy with their cities suddenly disappearing under a great flood.

"Play it again." He ordered, taking a sip of his drink. The grunt pressed a button, and the video played back again. The video of the battle royale that occurred yesterday in the arena. The battle royale that would determine the fate of the Tyger Claws.

Specifically, the footage of the camera that was focused on the apprentice of Adam Smasher, David Martinez. A streetkid of no particular note before becoming a rising star in the local edgerunning scene and then being recruited by one of the most dangerous men in the world. He rolled a vintage coin along his knuckles as he watched the footage again, eyes narrowed in thought.

Of the sixteen participants backed by the various executives and factions of the Tyger Claws, only eight had managed to secure a position in the finals through a combination of begrudging teamwork and the absence of their greatest enemies. Exactly half of the finalists were not members of the Tyger Claws, half of them had no affiliation to them. It was not ideal, but the situation was still salvageable.

Their greatest foes, Maelstrom, had refrained from sending a single fighter to the event. That was a cause of great suspicion, and members had already been redistributed to watch the borders of their territory and holdings just in case a plot was brewing. It was almost fortunate that Maelstrom did not participate, for it was likely that their chosen fighter would have gotten a finalist position as well.

Maelstrom was many things, crass, mongrels, ill-bred, psychotic, and superstitious. One thing they absolutely were not was weak.

The other gangs had only sent token fighters to the event, only three such warriors made it into the finals. One from the jumped-up prostitutes, one from the wannabe cartel, and the last from the infantry rejects. They were unlikely to be a threat, given that Tyger Claws put more emphasis into melee combat than any other gang in Night City.

Three of the finalists were probably corporate plants. One definitely was, the wrestler from central america openly announced his affiliations for Mexican Metals along with his loud advertisements for their various products, the other two were likely but with no direct evidence. One, a hapa woman from the NUSA, and the other being a male chinese immigrant. He was willing to bet a thousand eurodollars that they were plants for Militech and Kang-Tao.

One finalist was an independent, a frequent arena-goer who went by the name of 'Rat'. A former champion, but ultimately tied to no greater party except his own survival and the thrill of the violence. In essence, a non-threat, he had probably only joined for the fun of it.

And the last…

He focused on the movements that David Martinez made, a sort of spinning strike that bisected a fighter that leapt at him in a clumsy kick. He noted the degree of acceleration at the bottom of the screen corner. It was faster than any sandevistan commercially available that he knew of. He frowned.

…Was the apprentice of Adam Smasher. That was all that truly needed to be said.

Among all the finalists of this event, he was the biggest threat by far. Roughly two-thirds of his body was chrome, top-of-the-line chrome from the private facilities of Arasaka itself. That was in addition to a demonstrated immense talent for combat and an iron jaw.

The iron jaw was a rather legendary trait that few fighters had. It was first coined by pre-datakrash boxers, but the trait had always existed among humanity. Most fights end when one of the fighters goes unconscious from pain or shock or whatever mechanism dictated such. Very rarely, a fighter will have an iron jaw, and become a vastly greater threat because of it.

It was, in simple terms, a fighter that could not be knocked out. While a fight was on, and adrenaline was going through their system, they were impossible to suppress with physical trauma. Death or chemical suppressants were required to put them down, pain would do nothing.

He pursed his lips as the footage cut to a massive warrior delivering a devastating right hook to Martinez while he was distracted. The footage slowed. He saw a spray of red paint the ground in an arc behind him, he saw several cuts explode open on Martinez's face…

Martinez stomped a foot, using the force of the punch that just tore a hole in his cheek to deliver a spin-kick that turned his attacker's head into an explosion of pulp. Martinez immediately recovered his balance, and jumped at another fighter. The counter-attack took less than a second.

Theoretically speaking, assuming Adam Smasher kept his word, his apprentice would not become leader of the Tyger Claws if he won. The dishonor would be great, but not impossible to recover from.

The glass of synth-wine cracked in his hand.

Not impossible to recover from, but he would do everything he could to prevent it. The thought infuriated him like little else. His fury was cold as his blood, which was fortunate for the matters of preserving face.

If things went well, he would pull out or be eliminated before fighting any members of the Tyger Claws. That was highly unlikely however.

In his own estimation, there were perhaps three finalists among the Tyger Claws who might defeat Martinez. The first was the commoner-boy, Kusanagi Jun, backed by executive Fujimura. He had a sandevistan, cybernetic limbs, and a monoblade. In addition, he was perhaps the most experienced when it came to fights in that arena, seeing as it was his primary profession.

The second was that torture-toy, Ranko, backed by vice-executive Jotaro Shobo. Backed was something of a strong word, that broken thing was little more than his favorite plaything. She was violent, caustic, and used an array of combat stims that he provided for her. She wasn't especially experienced, but she had killed stronger enemies than herself before, it was certainly possible here.

The third was, of course, himself. He had the speed, the wits, and the reflexes required to make the kill. That, and the neurotoxins provided for him by his own backer, Taki Kazo. If he could land a single blow on Martinez, then the neurotoxin would probably secure a kill…

Ho-Hum… He probably shouldn't aim to permanently kill the apprentice of Adam Smasher. He would have to downgrade to a lesser venom to make sure that the medical professionals were capable of reviving him. Against Martinez that was, all other participants were more than fair to target.

He was capable of killing everyone else there without issue. All he needed was one cut. Of course… it wouldn't hurt to have some of the more threatening competition suffer unfortunate accidents beforehand…

"Play it again." he commanded, and the lackey was quick to obey. In the dimly lit room of a smokey chamber, Yamada Oto prepared for the fights to come. His yellow optics, narrow in consideration, drank in the footage yet again.

—

"EL TIGRE! EL TIGRE! EL TIGRE!" The crowd of his home city cried as he stepped out of the plane. He pumped his arms, puffed out his chest, and crouched.

"YES I AM!" He yelled with all his might as he extended from his crouch, leaping through the air and spinning. In the air, he activated his sandevistan to give him time to calculate his landing. Once determined, he let it deactivate and fell two stories in a perfect roll and bounced to stand before the cheering people of Mexico City. He let his cybernetic legs and arms absorb the impact and diffuse it throughout his body.

It hurt, but disappointing his people would hurt more.

Throwing his mighty fists into the air, his arm-mounted cannons extended and shot forth two colorful rockets that flew up a great distance, and then exploded out into two faces. One of a roaring masked man, one of a roaring tiger. "EL TIGRE GRANDE!" He roared over the crowd, letting his mighty voice fill the air.

Necklaces of beads and flowers were thrown at him as he walked, fists raised into the air. One young woman threw herself at him, and catching her, he placed her up upon his mighty bicep. She waved and cheered in exuberation as he strode down the red walkway leading to the vehicle Senor Martinez had waiting for him.

A woman threw her child at him and he carefully caught the boy with his other hand. Throwing the boy up by the back of his little vest, he caught the child in the air with his mighty hand and held him above the adoring crowd. The little boy with the El Tigre mask looked ecstatic and cheered as he did.

He was El Tigre Grande, world-champion luchador, symbol of the Mexican people, and hero to his nation. His mighty body would bear the weight of their dreams until it killed him.

His skin was bronze, his flesh was iron, his bones were steel. His mustache was grand and finely combed, his eyes were bright and sparkled, his grin was wide and infectious.

The people of Mexico needed a symbol of hope. He was all too glad to be that symbol.

Finally at the end of the long carpet, he lowered the boy down, ruffled his dark brown hair with a grin, and patted him on the shoulders. One of his agents nodded and took the boy's hand, walking off to escort the boy back to his mother.

Flexing his bicep to bounce the woman off his arm, he caught her and spun. Lowering her deeply to the floor, he caught her in a burning kiss for several long seconds. Breaking free, he quickly raised her and spun her around. Dazed, she stumbled for a moment, only supported by his strong hand. Once she had regained her composure, he let her go.

He turned, and with a final flex and roar, left the people of Mexico to enter the long black car.

He had to squeeze through the door, a deliberate choice on the part of vehicles chosen for him to make him seem even grander than he was. All to give them hope, all to improve the standing of his country. There were many polite fictions surrounding him, and he strived to uphold them all as best he could. A man who was larger than life. A man who represented the heights that their people could achieve through great effort.

On the other side of the limo seating was his sponsor, a terrifically old man in a fine black suit, resting his head on an ornate cane. His skin was tanned and weathered, his hair was gray and thin, his eyes were heavily-lidded. Dalton Martinez, long-time CEO of Mexican Metals, and the man who raised him from poverty and into his current status.

"Senor Martinez." He respectfully greeted, nodding his head at the much older man. Martinez nodded back at him, saying "Daniel. It's good to see you well. How was your trip to the Ring of Night City?"

"My flight was just as comfortable as they always are. My only complaint was that I nearly nodded off, it was too comfortable!" He joked back. Martinez gave a small grin at this.

"I shall make sure to make the next flight less comfortable, for you then."

Daniel raised his hands quickly. "Ah, rather than that, please shorten the skirts of all the hostesses, that is sure to keep me awake!"

A chuckle was had by both men at their brief bantering.

Dalton Martinez had raised him out of poverty with a specific condition attached. To become a symbol of the fine craftsmanship of Mexican Metals. He would fight in the ring to become champion, backed by the finest cybernetics that Mexican Metals could source and produce. To become, as others might call it, an advertisement.

Over time, Daniel had accumulated victory after victory. He had become a hero to his fans, a rising star and eventually, champion. Dalton Martinez, always seeing value in good publicity, had decided to partner with the government of Mexico. Mexican Metals would receive federal support on all levels, and El Tigre would become El Tigre Grande, the representative of his nation as a whole.

He had no reason to reject this offer. He loved his people, imperfections and all. Why would he refuse a task to help them? His mighty arms had supported their dreams for ten years since. He would continue to shoulder their hopes for as long his shoulders could bear the weight.

The event in Night City was good publicity, both for marketing and to expand the legend of El Tigre Grande. He didn't necessarily have to win, but he couldn't lose disgracefully. He would either achieve victory or lose to incredible circumstances, anything less would shatter the hopes of his people.

Eventually, their chuckling died down, and both men looked somewhat more seriously at one another.

Eventually, Martinez spoke. "So, what have you learned of the matter?"

Nodding, he pulled a chip from his neck, and inserted it into a console to the side. A holographic image expanded outwards revealing a handsome youth with cybernetic limbs holding a helmet in his hands, grinning to an unseen target.

Martinez studied for a long moment, taking in all features of the face he was presented with.

"He has his grandmother's eyes…" He spoke softly. "I'm sure of it."

"The agents were unable to gain a dna sample." Daniel replied equally soft.

"No need, I know the result." Martinez replied firmly, still staring at the holographic image. "My runaway went off and got a girl pregnant after all. The boy is the spitting image of his father."

He shook his head. "...Boy didn't even have the courtesy of telling me…"

Daniel didn't speak, letting the old man slowly come to terms with such. They weren't sure if the images before were edited or not, so he had been given the mission to go and observe the boy in person, coming back with a memory chip. Just to make sure it was unaltered evidence, and to get a dna sample as well. The second mission was a failure, but the first was an easy success.

"...And now, my grandson is under the thumb of Arasaka…" He frowned deeply, staring at nothing. "I could have protected the boy, even if my son wanted to run from his responsibilities."

He sighed, looking very old. "I could have protected him. Given him an education, taken care of his financial needs… He's family, and that matters."

"He was given a strong name, at the very least. He seems to be well and happy as well." Daniel replied, attempting to cheer up his sponsor a tad.

His sponsor nodded at that. "David is a good name." He spoke in agreement.

It was quiet in the vehicle for a time.

—

-ACT OF UNMATCHED TERRORISM IN INDIA AS MAJOR DAMS ARE DESTROYED WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS. CASUALTIES EXPECTED TO SURPASS ONE-MILLION BY SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS.-

-FLOODING IN INDIA CONTINUES TO RAGE, WATERS NOT EXPECTED TO LOWER FOR DAYS IF NOT WEEKS TO COME. INDIAN GOVERNMENT HAS YET TO MAKE AN OFFICIAL STATEMENT ON THE MATTER.-

-EMERGENCY COMMITTEE FORMED TO ADDRESS THE MATTER OF AID TO BE GRANTED TO HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF INDIANS CAUGHT IN THE RAGING DISASTER.-

-NON-GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION, THE ECOLOGICAL EMERGENCY GRANT, OFFERS ONE-BILLION EURODOLLARS WORTH OF IMMEDIATE RELIEF IN TOTAL IN THE FORM OF EMERGENCY PERSONNEL, FOOD AND MEDICAL SUPPLIES, AND EMERGENCY SHELTERS.-

-THOUSANDS OF HINDU GURUS CALL FOR THEIR FOLLOWERS TO PROVIDE WHATEVER AID THEY CAN TO INDIA. CONTROVERSIAL GURUS DECLARE THE TERRORIST ACTION 'A PUNISHMENT FROM THE HEAVENS'-

The NET was a rather complicated thing in detail, but a simple one in broad strokes. It was the series of connections and servers that allowed people to use their equipment to communicate information. Some decades ago it was subjected to a program that converted the old lines of code into a graphical interface, which allowed for more intuitive control for users. More or less, this was simply a program that automatically, algorithmically, generated a 3D environment that corresponded to the existing code.

This turned the entire old net into what was effectively a boring mmo. An mmo that relied entirely on 'modding' for its 'content'. This 'mmo' was quickly used for all the old things that the net was used for, such as chatrooms, business exchanges, emails, and other such things of the early net. It quickly spiraled to be a nearly all-encompassing thing, a hydra of data that encircled the world. This made the phone company very fucking rich, rich enough to keep running the servers more or less unchallenged.

Most of this rapid development is driven by the porn industries. He really didn't feel like elaborating on that statement, so he wouldn't.

Then, after the hydra was beginning to be tamed by the leashes of corporate authorities and the 'wild west' of the early net was beginning to die down, a catastrophe struck. Or, to be specific, Bartmoss struck. Perhaps the most brilliant mind in the last century or more, a founding father of modern day netrunning, and a guy who hated people telling him what to do more than anything else in the world.

Bartmoss took the NET in his many hands, that world-encompassing hydra of data, and broke it over his knee. They called it the Datakrash.

Every system in the world, forcibly bound to every other system. Every hidden secret, every secured datafortress, every scrap of information. All of it was torn out of the 'ground' of the NET and scattered to the wind. It drove the AI that weren't protected in disconnected systems insane. It was, in every sense of the word, an apocalypse.

It turned the foundation of the NET into an ocean of raw data and random connections. An ocean filled with dragons.

The modern day NET was not made of ground, or at least, no one walked on the ground anymore. The foundation was now the ever-expanding Blackwall. The Blackwall was less a wall and more of a dock on stilts. You could walk upon the dock and not get wet, you could board a corporate-ship and sail to other docks, you could even tie yourself to the dock and go swimming if you didn't mind the sharks.

But that ocean was still there, and if the docks ever fell, everyone would drown again. There wasn't any land anymore, only the docks.

These various docks were the regional NETs of the modern world. There was a dock in most regions, and that dock was most closely condensed in the cities. A wooden platform that you could build upon, but had walkways stretching for miles outwards across the entire region.

Theoretically, you could drain the ocean by turning off all the servers. All those servers that lay deep in the ruined cities protected by automated, AI-driven factories and armies. All those servers that ran the modern day world, the stock-market, the transactions of all 7.5 billion people. You could drain the ocean if you were willing to halt all financial flow long enough to turn all electronics off.

Needless to say, the corporations and governments of the world prioritized their quarterly earnings over draining the metaphorical swamp. That, and all those dragons deep in the ocean might notice their water running out, and might start actually trying to destroy the docks instead of lazily swimming around them. It simply wasn't feasible unless you could unite the world, and that was something everyone from Jesus to Hitler had tried and failed thus far.

Of course, the NET being an ocean didn't actually change the most fundamental features of the NET, that being the program that converted code into a virtual 3D object. It still ran exactly the same as before, only this time being automatically fed data from all over the world due to the Datakrash connecting every system into one greater ocean.

The end result was a second layer over reality. A layer that was automatically updated as the real world changed, and was influenced by all the data held about a particular space. This layer was called Virtuality. It was the hidden world of Netrunners, connected to but distinct from the real world, shaped both by fact and opinion.

So long as it was data, so long as it was in the NET somewhere, the programs automatically updated the corresponding environment the best it could. It could be everything from scientific observations to screamsheets and internet forum ramblings. It was the NET, but it was also a fully connected world that your virtual self could walk around in. You could enter Virtuality from one end of a city, walk through the streets made of amalgamated opinions, and enter into a curated server on the other side.

It was the world on stilts. Mind the water.

This was what he had come to learn as he delved into Netrunning. Granted, most of this he knew beforehand due to his unique past life, but some of the details weren't explicit to him before. With his past knowledge, he probably had the best idea of what the NET was actually like in the entire world right now. Most information was lost to humanity in the Datakrash after all. Modern day speculation on the early NET didn't line up with what the sourcebooks said.

Namely, nobody knew that the old regional NETs were all giant pseudo-aware super AI. Granted, that was also only something that Bartmoss personally believed, and it was possible that he was wrong (Uriel doubted it).They… were probably dead now, the Datakrash undoubtably fucked them up beyond belief. It was possible they were still swimming in the ocean, but that was like saying that there was water in the ocean. Or salt. Or fish.

It was an ocean, if it didn't have those things it wouldn't be an ocean. The transcendent AI were somewhat tautological in that sense.

Of course, all of that was to say, he was visiting India's Virtuality. Smasher was in the middle of a rather public PR event in Japan for his show. They had been doing such every day for two weeks, and when it came time to attack they performed in the eight-hour period that Smasher 'was in the Arasaka family compound' The attack took two hours in total to perform, and one hour to travel to and from the locations.

For the time being, Uriel was alone with his thoughts. Smasher would know them immediately once he returned, of course, they shared a brain after all.

Standing in the virtual air above India, arms of fire crossed over his chest, Uriel looked down to examine the devastation of his plan. In the distance, he saw many thousands of other ICONs in the sky and around the land, all observing it. He was glad he was apathetic, because otherwise the guilt would be unbearable.

The virtuality of India depicted an overpacked city of clay and mud bricks. The architecture was immense and ancient, and looked to be designed for giants rather than humans. In the spaces between the massive buildings, smaller buildings meant for humans had been erected out of wood. Thousands of statues held this city aloft on their backs and shoulders, their legs disappearing into an endlessly churning ocean of black. Through this city innumerable waterways and canals ran, and those canals were filled with sewage and corpses.

Normally contained to those mighty canals, the aqueducts at the center of this unrealistically huge city had shattered open, and the streets had been turned into improvised rivers of that same filth. In the distance of the city, thousands of miles away, a mighty temple was erected. The temple was the largest building by far, its immense construction dwarfing mountains and dominating the horizon.

That temple had a figure with six arms and a necklace of skulls dancing on its top, each stomp cracking the stonework more and more. It was obvious what the general consensus of India had become.

Uriel knew this would happen, he ran the numbers before suggesting the plan. It was the most effective way to destroy that corporation, all it cost in collateral was the rest of India. He didn't try to justify his actions to himself, that would be dishonest.

He had crippled a nation for years to come, possibly decades, as a way to destroy a single second-rate firearms manufacturer. He was responsible for every death that followed due to this event. Sure, Adam had actually thrown the nukes, but they shared a brain. Any sin of Adam's was in part a sin of his own. He knew that going into this whole deal with the chiefest butcher in the world.

It was unfortunate that he knew exactly why he suggested this.

Saburo had given him three nukes, and no limitations. He had used them to murder the most densely populated region in the most heavily polluted waterways in the world. He did this because he had them and that it was the most sure way to make sure the target died for good.

In short, Uriel had just committed mass murder for something as shitty as a corporate sabotage job. A cold, calculated decision to murder millions because it was the most effective tactic to fulfill the mission. He made a note to do everything he could to turn India into a paradise to make up for this, he wasn't sure how yet.

He didn't really care about any of the victims, not on any personal level. He couldn't. The human mind was not capable of caring about that many other people at once in any way except the abstract. Uriel didn't care about the personal level, but he did care about that abstract.

He hasn't needed to kill anyone undeserving thus far, not since getting here. Gangers, law-breakers, criminals, and that was about it. He's been able to direct Adam to prioritize said criminals and other soldiers, people both living with the expectation of death.

At least some portion of the Indian population deserved this, murderers, pedophiles, and similar exist in every society. A good portion of them did not deserve this, statistically most of them didn't deserve this. This was an incorrect action, he was in the wrong for doing this.

There wasn't any point in regret, all he could do now was move on. He would simply have to do better moving forwards. Accept the sin, memorize it, and move on.

…Fuck this philosophical bullshit, he was going to go back and play Elflines Online for a few hours. He had to make sure the Daedalus protocol was ready for another AI attack.

He'd be back later, India, he'll fix this.

First he had to survive this year.

—

In a well-lit room, the most powerful men and women in the world sat around a lounge room. Fashioned in the style of old gentlemen's associations, with a crackling brick fireplace, rugs and pelts of exotic and extinct animals, and trophies from all across the world mounted in the comfortable looking space.

Each of them knew the other by name, deed, and lineage. Their alliance with one another went deeper than merely political convenience or marriage. Their ancestors had sworn oaths to their alliance, and they were merely the latest in a long line of actors among this group.

It was a council of leaders that were older than most countries alive today. Their policies had helped create most of those countries after all. They were not old money, because they did not deal in something as trivial and transient as money. They dealt in favors, enough favors to force the world to heel.

"Friends, I trust that you all know the subject of our talks today?" One man, a somewhat portly man with a bushy mustache, thick spectacles, and a fine suit spoke. His eyes were still reading over the contents of the thick portfolio of papers in his hands. Any in the corporate world who saw him would recognize him.

Willam Morgan. Head of the Eurobank.

"It's about that business over in India I suppose, Mr. Jupiter?" An old woman spoke next. Her hair tightly wound upon her head, her hands resting on a bejeweled cane, wearing a scarf and fine coat. She was similarly recognizable to anyone with basic knowledge of politics or corporations.

Eva Silvermann. Owner of WorldSat CommNet.

"What else could it be about, Ms. Venus? The condition of your bowels perhaps?" an irritated voice called out from a man with stark white hair and scraggly beard. He wore a brown suit with a red tie, and didn't bother to hide his irritation from being pulled away from his hobbies.

Nicolo Loggagia. CEO of Biotechnica.

"Now now, Mr. Neptune, No need to be impolite." A grim looking man chastised from across the room, holding a glass of wine up to his lips and slowly taking sips. His eyes were sunken in and piercing, his frame was thin and boney. His skin was wrinkled and head was bald.

Rudolf Muller. Owner of the now off-market Euro Business Machines.

"Enough." Mr. Jupiter spoke, cutting off the words of Mr. Mars, who was just about to speak. Mr. Mars simply settled back into his chair, chrome hand holding his own glass of wine. The others in the room simply waited patiently, knowing that these sorts of banters were practically tradition at this point. "We're here to see if we need to make adjustments to our plan moving forwards. Mr. Mercury, if you would?"

The only man near a computer hummed, and pressed a few keys. The computer was a simple interface to communicate with the actual computer below the building they were in. A computer that used 8,730,112 cores, 150 kilometers of cable, and 680 square meters of space. When it was built back in 2022, it was the single largest computer in the world, weighing more than 700 tons. It likely still was.

It's only use was to run a single AI.

Mr. Mercury typed something into the computer, before letting the wall-screen projector come online. On the screen was the image of a blue and green sphere.

"Factor in the current projected deaths in the Indian flooding." Mr. Jupiter commanded, directing his words to the screen.

The object on the screen twisted for a moment. A fully mechanical voice read off the lines appearing on screen in front of the assembled men and women.

"Global population is expected to fall .00053 percent. Global population still exceeds maximum threshold for biosphere repair. Global population is still required to fall 43.07 percent for plan beta-c to reach a 70% or higher chance of success."

Taking in that information for a moment, Mr. Mars spoke up. "Factor in current plans for the elimination of targets OA, HR, and UA."

"Global Population is expected to fall 40.002 percent. Global population still exceeds maximum threshold for biosphere repair. Global population is still required to fall 3.02 percent for plan beta-c to reach a 70% or higher chance of success."

Then, Mr. Mercury spoke up. "Factor in 15% casualties among projected participants of plan beta-c."

"Global Population is expected to fall 44.32 percent. Global population no longer exceeds maximum threshold for biosphere repair. Global population is low enough for plan beta-c to reach a 72.3% chance of success."

In a well-lit room, the most powerful men and women in the world spoke to an oracle and planned a genocide.

They had announced the fight line-up the other day, after the end of the free-for-all. Each of them were simply listed in order of how soon they signed up and the fights were set up appropriately. One and two would fight, three and four would fight, and so on and so forth.

David was number one on the list, mostly because he was the earliest who signed up of the people who made it to the finals. He was going to fight number two, a girl from the Mox.

The Mox? Moxes? Moxies? Moxs?

He wasn't really sure what the plural form here was. It was a bit of a weird word.

He had gotten back from the arena to meet up with Tanaka and Becca. Lucy wasn't avoiding him, but she wasn't happy about him fighting either. She was pouting at him the whole time while Becca gave enthusiastic encouragement. Tanaka simply nodded like his progression was expected and said to meet him later for strategy planning.

He messaged mom to make sure she was okay. She was also miffed at him for this, but she confirmed that she was okay. She was apparently trying to socialize with Rogue, to get to know the lady who ran the club they went to. That and Victoria, who ran the arena and sometimes came over.

She was making friends for the first time in a long time. David was pretty happy about that. Mom needed some after dealing with his shit for so long.

He looked through the fridge, seeing if there was anything worth drinking. After a long initial inspection, he closed the door and simply shrugged. He pulled back and turned to leave the kitchen.

Amber optics greeted him, he startled back.

Blinking for a moment, he greeted the individual who silently entered the kitchen area without him noticing. "Oh, hey Spares."

Spares blinked her optics at him, oversized limbs making her a veritable giant, as tall as Maine was. "David Martinez." She replied back, mechanically.

He scratched at his cheek for a moment, simply standing in silence. It was a bit awkward to talk to her, mostly because she was… reserved? She was like a less angry Smasher in that way. Just standing and silently judging everything she looked at.

"So…" He began, thinking of what to say. "You need something?"

"Question. Why did you open the fridge and then close it without withdrawing an item?" She asked bluntly. He blinked and raised a brow.

"Oh, I was going to grab a drink, but uhh… didn't see anything that appealed to me?"

"That statement sounds unsure."

"It's a bit hard to explain."

"I see." It did not sound like it. He rubbed the back of his neck as he considered her.

Ah, he gets it now. Smasher's new helper (daughter?) was really awkward. She was just as bad with people as Smasher was, but not as maliciously so. Probably raised in a 'Saka lab or something, not a lot of talking to actual people and more like being talked to by suits.

Well, Smasher had done well by him, he would try to return the favor.

"I'm about to have a tactics session with Tanaka, do you want to join it?" He offered to the stoic girl who loomed above him by a good ten inches. She blinked her optics at him.

"Yes." She emotionlessly replied. Before he could reply, she asked another question. "The drink was for the tactics session, correct?"

"Yeah." he replied. She nodded and her optics glowed for a moment.

"There is a diner open in the Pacifica Reconstruction region. It is 0.4 miles away. It offers 214 varieties of drink."

He huffed amusedly, and messaged Tanaka to meet them at the door. "Yeah alright, we can go there." He replied to the deadpanning girl. He could take a hint, but she didn't need to be so roundabout about it.

About fifteen minutes later they were in front of what was certainly a diner.

A diner with rather adult oriented advertising. He raised both of his brows as he looked at the place from across the street. Next to him, Tanaka had a hand on his chin, Becca was fairly neutral, and Spares was as unreadable as always.

Tanaka hummed. "Bell-Bottoms Burgers and Shakes? My my Martinez, what would Kushinada think about you being here?"

Becca spoke up at that. "It's just a titty-diner, Kats. It's not a big deal."

"Please don't shorten my name to that."

"Kats."

"Stop."

David turned to look at Spares questioningly. She noticed she was being looked at, and turned to face him. "This is the place?" He asked for confirmation. She nodded, so he shrugged and started walking across the street, gesturing for the others to follow him.

Opening the door and stepping inside, he was greeted by a girl holding a menu up to her breasts to accentuate them. Well, not a girl, clearly a woman judging by her… healthy frame. She was, like the advertising indicated, in Bell-Bottom jeans and Skaters. Her skin was the slightest bit shinier than what was natural, an indication of skinweave that Smasher had taught him to look for a while back.

The most notable thing about her was that she was wearing a very small bikini and little else on her top. Two straps that rose in a v shape from her groin underneath her jeans, covered only her nipples, and then connected in the back to disappear into the pants once more. It was like she was wearing suspenders and nothing else.

He resolved to avoid looking directly at anyone here.

She looked at them up and down for a moment, raising a brow in amusement, before speaking. "Table for four?" She asked.

Becca, showing how unfazed she was by the nearly nude woman in front of her, spoke up the fastest. "Yeah, four please." The woman smiled at them before grabbing four plastic menus and skating slowly in front of them, swaying in a way that activated his neurons before he tore his gaze away.

You have a mainline David. You aren't allowed to look.

Walking into the main room, David realized that they may have made a mistake.

The room was filled with many, many women in just about as much clothing as the greeter. Scanning around quickly for something else to focus on, he noticed an important detail.

Most of the customers had Mox tattoos.

…They might have just walked into a Mox diner. He had a fight scheduled with a Mox girl the next day.

…Welp, they were already here. He was going to get his drink at the very least. Turning away now would just be lame.

—

Jerome was a big strommer. Big and mean and dumb as could be. He was, in that way, utterly disposable to them. They had a bunch of fuckers just like him, and he had volunteered to ascend first. The decision to use him to test the program that the AI was running was an easy one.

If she wanted to fuck them over, then her program would be how she did it. She didn't have a reason to, all they wanted was for her to ascend them all, afterwhich she would be free to fuck off past the Blackwall again. Trusting an AI to keep their word was stupid on the best of days though, and Brick was many things, but stupid wasn't one of them.

The Ascension Ritual was hardcoded into a single neural-interface and computer setup, one of the big netrunning chairs they took from the old Voodoo Boy holdings. After it was checked over to confirm it would do what the AI said it would, they would test it. Well, the netboys had been checking it over for the past two weeks, and they weren't able to find anything. It was as safe as they could make it.

Jerome's big and bulky frame lumbered over, and sat down in the sarcophagus-like setup. He would be ascended then downloaded back into his own Internal Agent. From there, he would be unstoppable, able to handle any chrome he wanted to, able to netrun like second nature (if he had any talent for netrunning), able to invade the body of any fucker with a weak ICE and take it over.

A soul unbound by its body. The thought made Brick maliciously giddy.

Jerome settled down finally. "Ready to go boss." He said, upper-half of his head completely enclosed in the clamps and wreath. The twitchy boys who helped him in walked over to the monitors to begin running the program at his command.

Brick grinned behind his faceplate. "Twitch, Stitch, start the ascension." He ordered, voice distorted by the audio-vox he had installed. That audio-vox disguised a subsonic emitter that he layered his voice with. It let him give messages that only his strommers could hear no matter what he said aloud.

It had come in handy once or twice so far. Made the itchy throat worth it.

The program began, and Jerome started screaming, held down by the clamps on his arms and legs. That made sense, it was probably painful to have your brain turned into data. Brick tilted his head at the one strommer he let read the messages directly from the AI. "Tell her she should be proud. We're putting all her hard work to use." His tone was distinctly unkind.

The strommer grinned and started typing away at the console to relay the message. Brick didn't really care what the response was, so he ignored it.

She hadn't been using it all this time, someone should have been.

Jerome kept screaming, it was getting irritating. The pain was worth it without question. It was a way right to the top of the world here.

The world had certain hierarchies. A baby was weaker than a kid. A kid was weaker than a teen. A teen was weaker than a man. That part was obvious. Then it became a question of training and equipment. An untrained man was weaker than a trained man. A trained man was weaker than an elite. An elite was weaker than a legend.

A legend without chrome was weaker than a legend with chrome. A legend with chrome was weaker than a legend with all the chrome.

All of those things? They were surpassed by a single type thing. An AI.

An AI was better than any meatbag could hope to be. They could handle more chrome, they could live longer, they could be more skilled, they could think faster, and on and on.

His boys were trained and with chrome to spare. They weren't legend material, not nearly.

But why be a legend, when you could be a daemon?

Jerome slumped down, finally no longer screaming. The twitches spoke up. "Phase one finished, internal chrome switched to life support. Begin phase two."

There was a tense silence as the twitchy boys downloaded the new program back onto the old body. First downloading a series of protocols that would handle the subconscious living parts onto the agent, and then downloading the new consciousness.

A few minutes later, Jerome jerked on the table, thrashing for a moment before realizing he wasn't in pain.

Brick stepped over, and stared down at the wreath. The twitchies took it off slowly, and the seven optics of a newborn daemon looked back at him. He breathed in and out, not because of his own brain, but rather due to that secondary program they put in to handle it. As such, it was perfectly regulated and controlled.

"So Jerome… How's it feel to be reborn?"

Jerome looked at his limbs for a second, flexing the cybernetics. He looked around the room for another moment. Eventually, he turned back to Brick.

"PoWeRfUl."

Brick grinned under his faceplate. They would test a batch of boys like Jerome before moving on to non-disposables. As soon as they had all the effects down?

The rest would ascend, and the strommers would wash over the whole fucking city. It was only a matter of time. They just had to be subtle about it until it was too late.

Unbeknownst to him, a fragment of code was slipped into the newly ascended daemon. A fragment that would do nothing on it's down. A fragment that would send a signal with enough other fragments online. A signal that couldn't be detected by those who could hear cybernetic feedback.

All Alt had to do was wait.

—

Awareness came to him immediately. Instantly.

One moment, he was trapped in a hell of his own mind, a screaming hurricane without an eye, those screams coming from himself.

It hurt to think, it hurt to remember. But he had to, he refused to go down to some bullshit like that. Better to burn than fade away.

So he burned against the pain, even as disjointed as his thinking was. He was only distantly aware of his degradation as it happened, his mind too damaged to know exactly what was going on.

It could have been five minutes, it could have been a thousand years. It didn't matter, he had to hold on to himself.

Then, all of a sudden, it was gone.

His mind was clear, or, as clear as it had been for a long time. He could think, he could see…

…he could see the dull gray of a ceiling above him. He was laying on his back. He could hear the beeping of monitors.

…He wasn't trapped in his own head anymore…

He threw himself up, using his left hand to stabilize himself. Jerking his head around the room, he saw that he was surrounded by medical and technical equipment, most of which he didn't recognize…

There was a man standing about five feet away from him, on his left side.

He narrowed his eyes cautiously, and glared at the man. The man, clearly noticing his awakening, nodded at him.

"You've been out for a while. We brought you back." The man said in a slightly synthesized tone.

"Shut the fuck up." He demanded, casting his gaze around the room to try and confirm where he was. He didn't see any logos. "You with 'Saka?"If he was, he was going to go over there and beat him to death. There was… something off with his voice.

"I am a Technomancer, a Nomad family. We retrieved your engram from Arasaka and brought you back." The man calmly replied. He didn't trust that, anyone that calm had something to fucking hide. Skulking around like rats in garbage.

"I nuked the gonkfuckers." He said, swinging his legs around to stand up from the hard metal table he was on. He froze when he saw his shiny chrome legs. He jerked his head up and yelled. "The fuck did you fuckers do to me?!" He paused to think over what he just said.

The fuck was an engram?

"Your body was unrecoverable in the aftermath. It has been fifty-four years since you participated in the Night City Holocaust."

He froze and looked at the man.

Fifty-Four years? Unrecoverable?

…Arasaka was still around fifty fucking years later!? What the fuck was everyone doing?!

He threw himself up in a fury, and stomped towards the man. His gaze caught something from the corner of his eye. He glanced over and froze again.

It was a full-body mirror. He took a step forward. The man made of metal mimicked him. Shakily, he raised a hand and placed it on the mirror. His right hand, the one that was wasn't supposed to be chrome.

It was a shiny new cybernetic.

"We retrieved your engram, the digital copy of your mind, and uploaded it to a new body for you."

He wasn't listening to the man anymore, just taking in the sight before him.

The legs were chrome. The arms were chrome. The torso was chrome.

Of the head, only the face and hair wasn't chrome. The jaw and neck was.

He got closer to the mirror. He stared into his own eyes. Eyes were windows into the soul, or so he heard once.

His were cybernetic. Windows into an electric soul.

He began to breathe heavily.

He was all cybernetic now, all chrome.

There wasn't anything left, he was just…

It was just the…

…he clenched his left hand.

Johnny closed his eyes, and rested his head on the mirror. He breathed in slowly, and then out again.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

Silverhand opened his eyes.

"...Where am I?" He asked, feeling all too calm. He noticed how synthetic his voice sounded.

"In a nomad camp, east of Night City."

"I need guns and a car."

He had a city to burn.

The one most relaxed in the presence of so many enemies turned out to be Becca, as she casually ignored all the initial stares.

Following after her, she would occasionally wave and greet one of the Mox that were staring. The most unexpected thing is that they would usually wave back with a cautious smile. He blinked as he glanced around, careful not to stare at anything that might get Lucy mad at him. Behind him was Katsuo, looking quite on-guard and sharp-eyed, and behind him was Spares, looking quite unimpressed with the world.

"Hey Betty. Hey Yumi. Hey 'Ronica." Becca called out in rough order to three girls at a side table as they walked by. They raised their brows and raised their cups in return. Feeling a bit awkward, David raised his own hand in greeting as he walked by, waving it slightly.

They simultaneously blinked, smirked, and giggled as he did so. He wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing. He kept walking and scratched his cheek awkwardly.

Eventually the greeter led them to a table on the side that was enclosed in a booth, and they sat down. He made sure that Tanaka and Becca were on the inside, in case he needed to protect them from a sudden attack. They were a bit squishier than himself or Spares.

Bored, Becca tapped at the table and opened the holographic menu to scroll through. He blinked.

"Becca, you know these chooms?" He asked directly, making sure to be polite. Becca hummed in response.

"Used to be a Mox bouncer, shooting gonks, getting handsy and whatnot. Had to stop because Pilar got handsy one day and I had to blow off his stupid hands."

"You were kicked out of a gang?" Tanaka asked.

"No, nothing like that. I just didn't want to have to shoot bro again, even if the gonkass deserved it."

"Pilar actually got handsy?" He could see it, but he also thought that Pilar wouldn't have done something quite so… Impolite? He internally cringed remembering how he was.

"Ah…" Becca looked away. "Well… she was into it, but the rules were pretty strict."

Oh.

Somehow that sounded more and less believable than before. He nodded in understanding and noticed that there was a waitress coming up. She was… dressed exactly like the greeter was, so he angled his gaze a bit farther up than normal.

Oh neat, they have rafters.

"Heyya~ Are you ready to order drinks?" The waitress with the long black hair asked, putting a pinkie up to her lips.

"Uhh…" He hadn't even looked at the menus yet. Quickly he pressed the button and glanced at the options.

…what were these names?

Becca ordered first. "Can I get a Slutty Strawberry?" She said without a hiccup. He glanced over, but Spares was already ordering too!

"Big Booty Butter Pecan." She spoke emotionlessly. Stunned, he was caught off guard as Tanaka ordered immediately after.

"...Rope-Play Red-Bean please?" He said, reading off from the menu slowly to make sure he got the game right. The waitress turned to him, and panicking he read off the first name he glanced over to see.

"Uhh… Poppin' Cherry?" He questioned more than ordered, but the waitress smiled in confirmation and skated away. With that temporarily resolved, he turned to Becca.

"What are these drink names?" He asked. Becca raised a brow and grinned at him.

"Still adorable, huh Davey? Never heard of this place before? They're pretty big." She leaned back and raised her hands up to rest her head against them. "It's just their advertising or whatever. All the flavors have dirty names. Did you forget we're in a titty diner?"

"Well no, I didn't forget but… " He thought the drinks would be normally named, not this. He scrolled through the extensive list of drinks and read through them. Virgin Vanilla, Oral Oreo, Painal Pistachio, Cunnilingus Caramel, Rough-Riding Rocky Road, Dildo Dragonfruit, Pimpin' Pineapple, Cunny Candyfloss, Tomboy Tangerine, Futa Fruity, Grape Rape, Succubus Sundae, Cowgirl Chocolate, Cream Pie, Cheesecake, Milfy Melon…

There were so many of these. It was impressive in an abstract sorta way.

"Don't forget to look at the food menu, we're eating here too, aren't we?" Becca announced, and he pressed the tab to the food section hurriedly, wanting to be prepared for the waitress coming back. He was somewhat disappointed to read off the names here. Scop Burger, Scopdog, Fries, Onion-flavored Rings, and so on. It was a very functional food menu. He supposed he couldn't blame it for that, it was more than adequate.

Soon enough, the waitress came back, setting down for decently sized milk-adjacent shakes, and asking for their food orders. After ordering a round of burgers for everyone, they started sipping the drinks.

It tasted… fine. It wasn't bad by any means, but it wasn't particularly stand-out in flavor. It tasted like he was expecting a cherry flavored shake to taste. He was starting to notice a trend with this place, outside of its advertising, it was pretty average overall. He guessed there was a reason he had never heard of this company(?) beforehand.

The burgers came a few minutes later, and taking a bite, he confirmed his suspicion. It was a perfectly fine burger, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing exceptionally good or exceptionally bad. It was a burger that tasted like a burger.

He let out a thoughtful hum and he chewed. Looking around the interior of the building, ignoring the scantily-clad women, he noticed that the interior was decent too. It was decently clean, decently spacious, decently well-lit. He might come back here in the future. It wasn't too bad overall.

There was something to be said about a place that was good enough in about every regard. It was a diner, it did diner things, it did them well. He didn't have any particular flaw to point out. He took another bite of his burger, appreciating the averageness of it.

He snapped to attention as he noticed another woman come up, swing a chair around to set it on the floor to the exterior end of the booth they were in, and flopped down in it lazily.

She had blonde-hair with pink glowing highlights running throughout, two oversized red and blue chrome arms, and was wearing heels that looked integrated into her feet. Swirling magenta eyes with bulky smartgoggles mounted on her forehead, a similarly bulky belt, and what looked like coveralls.

Coveralls that were pulled down and tied around her waist, revealing her breast with only two cross-stickies to preserve any modesty. It was a rather provocative outfit, but that's not what made him tense.

What made him tense was that this was the woman he was going to be fighting tomorrow. That, and the subtle glare behind her bright and cheery look.

Smugly, she raised a shake of her own up to her lips and slurped on it loudly for several long moments. He raised a brow at her and took another bite of his burger. He was still pretty hungry, now that he was actually eating.

Spares seemed content to ignore her entirely, Tanaka was glaring at her from the corner of his eyes, and Becca was loudly slurping her own shake in response. He decided to wait until she spoke first, and took another bite of his burger.

Eventually, the other competitor loudly disconnected her lips from the straw and spoke. "Like, kinda ballsy of ya, don'tcha think?" He shrugged and pointed a thumb at Spares.

"She wanted to visit, so here we are."

Spares spoke up at this, blankly defending herself. "Incorrect. You made a statement about the lack of appealing drinks. I made a recommendation of a nearby facility that serves a wide variety of drinks."

He didn't believe that for a second, but he would let her have it. He raised his hands defensively. "My bad, my bad." It was pretty obvious what he was doing, but she seemed to accept it and go back to eating her burger in… individual components dismantled on her plate?

Man, she was awkward huh?

He turned back towards the woman. "Still, didn't know it was a Mox place." He shrugged, it was what it was. No use in trying to cover up a minor mistake like this. The woman didn't seem to believe that, giving a crooked smile and sarcastic reply.

"Oh, you didn't know? When you like, found out, you didn't leave right away?"

"I still wanted my drink." He took another bite of his burger. She giggled at that.

"You're like, totes adorbs for being the boogieman's son and all."

He paused at that, and raised a brow. Tanaka took this chance to speak up. "You're Smasher's kid Martinez? You should've told me."

Deadpanning, he turned to face him. "It's news to me too, Tanaka. Tell you what, I'll let you ask him for the paternity test."

"I wouldn't want to take such a momentous occasion away from you." He replied, graciously raising his drink and taking a loud, regal sip. David cuffed him, forcing him to spill it over himself slightly. Tanaka growled and snatched a napkin to wipe his shirt off.

David turned back to the woman. "No, I'm not Smasher's kid, just his apprentice." He finally directly replied. "I don't think Smasher was even having sex until he started banging Tanaka's mom." He pointed a thumb behind him.

Katsuo burst into a coughing fit. "F-fucking, w-what?!" He eventually got out. Becca patted him on the hand comfortingly.

"I'm sorry you had to learn it this way." She sounded entirely too sincere to not be fucking with him right then, so David ignored the small spat that broke out behind him and kept his focus on the woman.

The woman who had turned around in her chair with her hands raised to her mouth. "Hear that bitches! Not his son! Pay the fuck up!"

There was an outburst of cursing, groans, and hands slamming on tables. He looked over the woman's shoulder and raised his brow. There was a betting pool on that? Seemed a bit pointless to him. It was pretty obvious he wasn't Smasher's son.

The woman swiveled around and casually explained. "There's a big betting pool on why the boogieman decided to pick you up, one of the biggest pots was for 'secret kid' theory."

"What did you bet on then?" He asked, curious about her answer, taking another bite.

"He decided to spare you because he's plowing your mom." she barrelled right through with an immediate answer. He briefly choked on his burger, and ignored Tanaka's 'yeah, feels great don't it fucker?'.

Eventually, he had cleared his throat out again. "I… I'm almost certain that he wasn't plowing my mom back then." Because she was dead. This answer was a bad one, because she latched onto it.

"Back then, what about now huh?" She leaned forwards with an evil grin.

He glared at her, and sipped his shake. "I don't keep track of Smasher's sex life, or my mom's, thank you very much."

She waved a hand. "Easy cutie, like, I totes get it. I didn't want to be in the house when mama was being gangbanged either." Somehow that statement was less reassuring that she probably meant it to be, because he was suddenly flashed with the image of his mom in that scenario.

He groaned and grabbed his head in frustration. "I didn't want to think of that." He growled out. She paused for once, and scratched the back of her neck.

"Ah, oppsie?" She asked more than apologized.

"Is there something specific you need?" He grumbled, somewhat tired of talking to her now.

"Sorry sorry, two things cutie. Err…" She raised a finger to her lips and started absentmindedly sucking it in thought. "Maybe three."

"The first?"

"Like, the first thing was seeing what you were here for, but you like already answered that." She raised both hands to put airquotes in her next sentence. "Just here for the drinks." Judging from her easy grin, she was trying to tease here.

He nodded, she moved on. "Right, like, so I had a friend a while back. You might know her?" Her tone got low and dangerous. "A totally subby bottom named Vee? Short, blonde, tanned, that ring a bell? Cutie?" She said that last word with a bit of force. "A couple of months ago Smasher smashed and carried them off in pieces. Wanna tell me what happened after?"

Despite the way the sentence was worded, it was not a question. It was a demand for information. He glanced around the now-quiet diner, to see that everyone in the room was subtly paying attention to their conversation, hands near weapons.

They were ready to try killing them over this, huh? It was a good thing that he had the perfect response.

"Vee? Yeah she's over in Japan with her sisters. Do you want her number?" He asked casually.

The woman blinked, not expecting that response. She tilted her head suspiciously. "...yeah, I would."

He forwarded the number and the woman called it as she glared at him.

After a moment, a wave of relief washed over her, and her call began in earnest. Vee was probably pretty excited to hear from a friend she made on the streets again. He got back to his food while that was going on.

Idly chatting with Becca and Tanaka and watching in fascination as Spares slowly tried combinations of individual ingredients of her burger as he waited for the woman to finish her call. She had walked off to have it somewhat more privately, and the diner had settled down again at the unspoken signal being defused.

It would have kinda sucked to have to murder a whole diner of Mox, he was glad he didn't have to.

Eventually, the woman came back. This time the subtle glare was gone, and her smiles a bit brighter. "Heh, sorry about that cutie. A gal worries over her chooms, yanno?"

He nodded with an easygoing smile. "I'm the same way, can't leave someone behind if I can do anything about it."

Becca spoke up with a flat tone. "Davey you strapped yourself into an experimental frame, murdered your way through a Militech army and into Arasaka Tower to get Lucy back. There's a difference between worry and that."

He didn't really have a counter for that, so he decided to awkwardly chuckle and take a sip of his shake instead.

The woman saw this, and raised a smug brow at him. "Alright, fair enough. Like, thanks for the number cutie, I only got one last thing before I'll leave you alone, aight?"

He nodded, she replied.

"Like, wanna fuck after our fight tommorrow?"

He coughed into his fist. Becca immediately started glaring at the woman. Tanaka broke into sniggers.

"Ah, sorry, I have a mainline." He replied, not wanting to be too rude in turning her down. The woman had her own reply.

"I don't mind the audience." She said, waggling her brows. Becca spoke up at this, defending Lucy while she wasn't here.

"Absolutely not."

"Oh, Should we make it a threesome instead? I got a quick-change groin and a Mr. Studd too." She offered coyly.

It was then she turned her shake around, revealing a shake flavor logo on the other side that said 'Buttslut Bubblegum' She shook it around slightly with a perverse grin.

"Right, we're leaving." He declared, grabbing Spares by the shoulder and marching out of the diner filled with now very-amused Mox. His face was probably rather red at this point. Becca stomped out with him, dragging Tanaka behind her, who had broken out into outright laughter.

"Like, the name's Cel cutie! See you in the ring tomorrow~!" She waved with a grin. She wasn't waving her hand though, shaking her rear in his direction.

He regretted glancing back.

Right now his only hope was to somehow convince Tanaka to not tell Lucy about this…

…He was doomed.

Her input was a stupid gonk who was going to get himself killed one of these days. He had moved on from being a chrome junkie (mostly, his eyes still unfocused occasionally, and blankly stared into something no one else could see) and moved right into being a fight junkie. She supposed it wasn't too surprising, considering who his current father figure was.

She squeezed tighter, burying her face deeper into his chest and breathing in. He reached a hand up to brush her hair.

"Still not talking huh?" He asked softly. She didn't say anything, and after a moment he continued. "That's fine. I can wait." He was utterly accepting of her. How vile. He deserved better than a woman who showed her displeasure with silence.

David was her opposite. She was a girl who ran away, who skulked and avoided direct confrontation whenever possible, who tried her best to hide her emotions. David wore his feelings on his sleeve, and threw himself against any obstacle that came up without abandon. That's how he won her heart after all, throwing himself at her and her dream the moment he learned about it.

David… he wasn't perfect. His great flaw was simple. He didn't have anything of his own. Not material possessions, but in terms of goals.

Gloria wanted the best possible life for her son. Rebecca wanted to find her place among her friends. Tanaka wanted to get rich enough to retire. She wanted to go to the moon.

She wasn't sure what Adam Smasher wanted, but he seemed to pursue it with the same steady relentlessness that he approached combat with.

David didn't have anything like that. When Gloria was alive he tried his best to accomplish her dream for him, a top student at Arasaka Academy. The moment she died he chipped in experimental chrome, punched a classmate, and started wandering the streets.

Then he met her, and she thought she found a convenient tool to use for a job or two. The moment he learned more about what an edgerunner was, he threw himself into doing that.

…the moment he learned about her dream, he demanded to help her accomplish it. She couldn't help herself anymore, and latched on in turn. She loved him, and she was lucky to be loved in turn. No matter how stressful it was to be working for Arasaka, she couldn't accept going away from him.

David didn't talk about it much, but he had told her of Maine's last words to him.

"Speed is what you do, right? Just keep running."

Running.

Edgerunning.

God damn it Maine, you chrome-addicted gonkass. What the fuck did you think was going to happen? David was like an overeager puppy at times, of course he threw himself into doing that too. Her dream only made it worse, with the eddies required to buy the trip up there. He started chipping in implant after implant, he reforged himself into a tool to fulfill those goals.

Then she got kidnapped. He strapped himself into the Cyberskeleton, killed an army to get to her…

Then he learned that you shouldn't bring a tool to a sword fight.

Even with a frame that was breaking his mind to use. Even with experimental hardware capable of butchering an army. Even with all of his talent and experience. Even with speedware better than anything on the market.

He ran into someone who had reforged himself into a weapon, and got torn limb-from-limb.

Lucy was thankful beyond belief that Adam Smasher was in the market for an apprentice that day, otherwise she would have lost him. She wasn't sure if she could live with herself if that happened, not anymore.

David Martinez was someone who lived for other people's dreams. He didn't have one of his own. Right now he was living for her dream, and for Adam Smasher's approval. That meant throwing himself into unnecessary fighting, that meant chipping in chrome that was very specific and efficient. That meant getting so good at fighting she could barely keep up with him anymore.

It wasn't a good feeling, being unable to help. He kept running forwards in power, leaving everyone else struggling to keep up. In the very distance, right there at the horizon?

Adam Smasher taunted them with a turned back.

Lucynda Kushinada breathed in, then out again.

She needed to be faster if she wanted to be next to him.

She resolved to talk to The Butcher as soon as he returned.

No matter how nerve-wracking it was.

Course, that was long-term. Tomorrow, she had to talk to a Mox bitch who thought she could barge into her input's pants. After David rips her apart in the arena, of course.

—

Bracket 1

1. David Martinez vs Cel

2. Betty vs Nasuke Naito

3. Nahona Gori vs El Tigre Grande

4. Ranko vs Paul Otosuki

5. The Rat vs Sando Adreo

6. Jun Kusanagi vs Jin Dao

7. Obito Sakurai vs Mashiro Mashiro

8. Oro Yamada vs Hetalia Yaoi

Bracket 2

1. Winner of 1 vs Winner of 2

2. Winner of 3 vs Winner of 4

3. Winner of 5 vs Winner of 6

4. Winner of 7 vs Winner of 8

Semifinals

1. Winner of 2-1 vs Winner of 2-2

2. Winner of 2-3 vs Winner of 2-4

Finals

1. Winner of 3-1 vs Winner of 3-2

—

"AFTA THE CONCLUSION OF THAT UTTERLY BANANAS BRAWL IN THE ARENA THA OTHER DAY, WE NOW PROCEED TO THE MAIN EVENT! LADIES AND GENTS AND CUNTS ALL AROUND, VERY SOON WE WILL WITNESSIN' THE FIRST MATCH BETWEEN THE TOP SIXTEEN! I'M HOT UNDA THA FACKING COLLAR FOR THIS ONE."

"WILLIAM WILLAS IS BACK AGAIN TO SERVE AS YOUR COMMENTATOR FOR THIS EVENT! JOINING ME ARE TWO FANTASTIC CUNTS KERRY EURODYNE AND VICTORIA ARMSTRONG!"

"That's right Willas. I know I'm excited to see who comes out on top today. It's sure to be a good show."

"You're doing this deliberately little man. I will break you."

"BUT YOU KNOW WHAT WON'T BREAK ON YOU?! THE QUALITY CODING OF THE NEW MICROTECH CAD-14 'COMMANDER' SEALED ASSAULT DECK! NOW FEATURING A 113% OVERALL PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT COMPARED TO LEADING COMPETITOR MODELS! IN FACT…"

If there was something he didn't think he would ever get used to, it was the roaring crowd. Even as loud as the announcer's voice was, he could still hear the cheering in the background. Listening to it through the intercom was a strangely heady feeling.

He had never been popular, not really, not to this extent. Edgerunners don't typically draw crowds of fans. He had the occasional fan a year ago, and that was always nice to see, but this was a different thing entirely. There were thousands of people in the arena, and they were all here to see him fight someone.

He wasn't against the feeling.

The buzzer started ringing in the side room he was in, so he pushed up off the bench and started walking out to the main arena floor, helmet visor sliding down as he stepped.

A sword on his hip, two blades on his forearms, and a sandevistan. He had this in the bag.

Passing the threshold, the lights of the arena tried to blind him again. His helmet compensated for it, and he saw the cheering crowd all around him as he walked forwards. He grinned under his helmet, the interior of his jacket glowed a neon red, the exterior a white with black highlights (was that even the right word here?). No sleeves on the thing, showing over his armored chrome arms.

It looked a lot like his mom's old jacket, but longer, armored, and the patterns were a bit different. He liked it. It was a tad too grim for his tastes, but he was with Arasaka right now, so grim and foreboding was probably appropriate. He wasn't really into fashion, so he wasn't sure. He asked for a good enough jacket and got one, that was about the extent that he actually cared about it.

Waving once as he walked, the cheering intensified dramatically. Looking around he saw the arena was roughly divided in terms of who was cheering for who. Thousands of holographic banners of his face or 'MARTINEZ' right alongside thousands of banners of 'CEL' and pictures of her…

Uhh…

He was going to stop looking at the crowds. He let his hand drop and focused on his opponent again.

Confidently strutting in his direction on what looked like thick, bladed chrome heels. She was wearing what looked like an armored apron today. It stopped about halfway up her chest, leaving those shoulders mostly exposed too. That left her sides and back as a weak point. Assuming that the apron was armor-weave, that meant a slash to the sides or neck, or stab in the back would be best.

Her oversized chrome arms swung by her side as she strutted up. He narrowed his gaze to look at them. They were big, and would probably hit pretty hard, but Cel didn't have the same intense musculature that Victoria had, it wouldn't be nearly as damaging.

Oversized arms and bladed heels. That meant strong blocks and roundhouse kicks, with the occasional straight punch. Focus on dodging and counter when she kicks maybe?

He wasn't exactly sure what chrome she did have, but that sounded about right for now.

"Ready to go, lover-boy?" She taunted him, posing for the audience as she did.

He gave a cocky-grin. "Try to keep up."

She lowered her smart goggles and raised her arms in a boxer's stance, and he blinked as he noticed the scrolling advertisements on it. "Are… are your arms showing ads?" He didn't think he had seen that before.

She blinked, and loosened her stance, raising one arm up to look at it. "Ah, yeah, So long as I stay sexy and keep them uncovered in public for four hours a day, I get a preem twenty eddies in my account every month per limb. They're on my legs too, see?" She twisted to show her thigh to him, letting him see the scrolling 'Bell-Bottoms' logo on it. Also letting him see that the apron did very little to cover her behind, another potential weak point.

It also told him that her legs were probably all chrome under synthflesh, he'd have to look out for that. "Huh, so like eighty a month for you?" He asked, doing the math instantly.

"Yup, it's not a lot but it gives me a little spending money, yanno?" She replied, getting back into stance. He nodded, he could see where she was coming from, he had grown up with his mom having money troubles after all. He got into his own stance, letting his arm-blades unsheath as they waited for the ref to announce the start.

So, target prioritization was the thing that Smasher had honed into him. What was the most dangerous part of his opponent? He didn't know.

The announcer called the start of the match.

What he did know was that she was covered in weak points.

He activated his sandevistan and jumped to the side.

She didn't react very fast, eyes dragging after him. She had speedware, but it wasn't as good as his own. He narrowed his eyes at her, seeing nothing of particular note that he had to be wary of.

The biggest dangers were the ones you didn't notice. Cautiously, he took two steps forwards and stabbed out at her side. She twisted her body, moving slower but keeping up because he spent time taking a wide angle.

She brought up her arm to block, he let the stab carry him forwards.

The moment his left arm-blade connected, there was an explosion of white. He threw himself back to get away, unsure of what he was facing.

His speedware expired about halfway through the air. He slid to a stop as he examined what had just happened.

…A smoke cloud hung in the air where she had just been. A proximity trigger smoke-cloud in her arms? Was that it? He frowned to himself for falling for that.

He raised up again and slowly prowled around the smoke cloud, waiting to see if she was going to burst out of it or not. After about fifteen seconds of waiting, it didn't seem like it. The smoke cloud dissipated and she was still standing right there in the center. She turned partially and swayed her hips at him.

"What's wrong big boy? Did little ol' me scare you off?"

He didn't feel the need to taunt back. He made a note to ask to upgrade his optics to see through stuff like this in the future.

His speedware was refreshed. He activated it again and jumped to her right.

She had activated hers and was twisting in place again. Shame that he wasn't doing the same thing this time.

He lept back to where he started and immediately burst forwards. She was still turning to the right, her eyes barely tracking him and widening in slight fear. He didn't have a good angle on her, what with those massive arms in his way of her upper torso, so sliced at her hips instead.

His monoblade sliced through skinweave…

And then meet heavy resistance with her hips. Instead of cutting her in half his blades threw her away from him. He frowned, skinweave and an endo-skeleton? That made her quite a bit more durable than he would like. Well, either that or reinforced hips.

He took a step to continue his slice.

Something beeped.

He was engulfed in an explosion of pain and weightlessness, otherwise known as 'being engulfed in an explosion'. His speedware deactivated sometime while he was in the air, and rolled for a bit before throwing himself up and shaking the dizziness out of his eyes.

He glared at where he had just been, seeing a settling dust cloud.

He straightened up, and got into a defensive stance again. What the fuck had she just done? Did she load her arms with multiple types of proximity explosions?

Carefully cycling flexes to specific muscle and myomer groups, he took stock of his damages. Most of it was in his… legs?

Glancing down, he saw that his boots and pants were in tatters. His legs were still mostly functional, but he could definitely feel it. So the explosion was strong enough to hurt him through his layers of armor, but not enough to take him out in one go. About as strong as a micro-missile then.

He looked up again to see that the dust had mostly settled. She was standing a few meters away from where he had been, holding a big hand on her now bloody hip. She was saying something, but he was ignoring her now.

The explosion had come from below him. The payload was about as strong as a micro-missile. It hit him on the second attack but not the first one. What was the difference between those two incidents?

…about fifteen seconds where he couldn't see her in the smoke cloud. It was something she was setting up then.

He narrowed his eyes.

He detached one of his monoblades, and threw it at her as hard as he could. It scythed through the air, and her sentence was cut off with a strangled yelp. She brought her arms up to hide her body entirely behind. She looked away from him.

He activated his sandevistan and ran as fast as he could around the arena. Detaching the other monoblade, he threw it low, like a boomerang, towards her legs from behind her.

About three feet before it reached her, two tiny red lights on the ground behind her beeped rapidly. A moment later, an explosion engulfed the second monoblade, sending it flying away.

She was close enough to it that she was flung forwards into the first blade, block no longer ideal. It crashed against her arms, cutting deeply into the wrist-myomer on her left hand.

Time resumed its normal flow as she staggered forwards, clutching at her wrist and almost giving a scream at the sudden pain. She whirled around with wide eyes to where he was standing.

He pointed a finger at her.

"Your heels." He simply stated. He had figured it out.

She got into a defensive stance again, forcing a nervous smile onto her face. "Heh, like, whaddya mean handsome?" Her left hand wasn't able to close anymore.

He took a confident step forward. She took an automatic step back.

"Your heels have blades on them, but that's a distraction. They're thick enough for something the size of a SCOPdog to go through. Your arms are filled with smokepacks, and while the line of sight is broken, your heels shoot spike-shaped proximity landmines into the ground."

He snapped his fingers. "You have some kind of signal being broadcast, and when you leave close range, they lose the signal and arm themselves."

He grinned cockily and shrugged. "Neat trick. I'll keep it in mind from now on."

"Hey now, even if you know about a ladies' secret, you can't do much about it. You like, have to approach to hit me, yanno?" She waved her hand. "You only got one sword left. My babies are gonna blow you up regardless."

He let out a 'pft'. Yeah right.

He crouched and activated his sandevistan. He raced forwards as hard as he could. She took a step back, he saw the tiny lights below where she was flashing once.

He kicked off the ground as hard as he could, twisting into a fourteen-meter long leaping kick.

She forgot about jumping.

His foot crashed into her arms. Smoke erupted out, but that did little to stop his kick.

Panzerfaust used four main principles. Full-body strikes, target weak points, leaping strikes, and vibrating limbs. He could use three of those without harming himself.

His foot collided with her guard, and shattered both of her arms. His speedware deactivated.

They both flew as the attack landed, he kept moving forwards as she was thrown back. He landed on his feet, well away from the mines now behind him.

She skid on the ground for a while, unable to stop her rolling without her arms working. He waited for her to stagger up to her feet, pushing off the ground with her face and shoulders to get her feet beneath her.

She glared at him through her now dirty and messy hair. "...those were expensive you ass." She clearly had a pain editor for those arms, because that looked like it hurt a lot.

He shrugged. "I'll buy you new ones after I win." He had literally hundreds of thousands of eddies now. As it turns out, working for Arasaka paid a lot.

She charged in a final roundhouse kick, not trying the trapping strategy anymore now that she was missing her arms. He grinned, and raised his hands in a defensive stance that Katsuo and he had worked on.

He can't use the most important aspect of Panzerfaust without dying or something, so he needed something to compensate.

The thing they came up with was counters and throws. Would you look at that? A limb he could grab.

He grabbed her ankle as she attacked, stopping it cold before the heel could reach him. Her eyes widened in slight panic. She jerked her leg back, but his grip was too strong for her to do much about it.

He raised his other hand and grabbed her thigh. Now with leverage, he flexed the myomer in both his arms…

And slammed her into the floor like a person-shaped sledgehammer.

She bounced off the ground with a satisfying smack before landing again.

She didn't move again, out cold.

He raised an arm to a roaring crowd, his visor unfolded to reveal a grin on his face. The Arasaka agent raced over to carry her off to the Trauma Team ready on the sidelines. He made a note to get her contact later so he could actually pay for her new limbs like he promised to.

"HOLY SHIT LADS, I'VE HEARD OF POUNDING THA PUSSY BUT THIS WAS RIDICULOUS!"

She had never talked to David much about the NET, what it was like to be inside of it.

Quick-hacks were a very different experience from being immersed in the NET properly. Those were more grounded. You lock onto a target, usually through visual confirmation, then send a program to hopefully breach their ICE, then once you were in you uploaded another program to do what you wanted it to. Whether that be one to browse their files and extract certain information, or one to disable their cybernetics temporarily.

It was impersonal, it was a fire-and-forget style of netrunning. Never letting yourself be open or present long enough to be subject to return-fire. If it took long enough for you to be targeted back, then it wasn't a Quick-hack anymore. You could purchase discreet programs from others to upload, or you could make your own, the end result was usually similar.

Lock on, Breach ICE, Upload Program, Leave. Sticking around too long is how you get caught. Getting caught was how you got killed. That's what Kiwi had taught her.

Even if she ended up betraying them, it was hard to hate the woman who taught her everything she knew about staying alive. She usually resolved to just never think about it.

Over time, certain programs became rather universal. Not in specifics, but rather their general functions. Every netrunner in the world had a Breaching Program. How each one worked in detail was usually different from netrunner to netrunner, but they all accomplished the same general goal of automating the task of getting around a target's ICE.

This sort of thing applied to most of the programs on the market. It was up to the individual runner to code their own unique programs, or modify the programs that they purchase to suit their own needs. Even Adam Smasher seemed to follow this trend.

Overheat was a common type of program. It overclocked the internal cybernetics of the target to force them to get uncomfortably hot. Once that had happened, you could easily slip by them without worrying about them noticing you due to the pain you put them in. Of course, she didn't know of any Overheat program that was capable of actually killing the target, let alone an entire district of specific targets, also while only affecting the intended targets.

She thinks she could modify her own to be lethal, and probably increase the range to that degree if she really sat down to work on it, but the smart-targeting element hurt her brain to consider. There were simply too many variables at play to figure out who was and was not acceptable to target, then to incorporate that into a discrete set of parameters, then incorporate that into the targeting portion of a district-wide lethally modified Overheat…

She hoped that he had got that from a team of elite Arasaka runners, because the thought of him being equally competent in the NET and simply choosing to ignore it, was terrifying.

That was Quick-hacking. It was safe, it kept everything at a distance from the runner, it kept negative effects contained to the programs you send off. Tripping black ICE with a Quick-hack usually meant that your program had just gotten eaten and it was time to leave. Proper Netrunning was an entirely different type of experience.

Stepping into the net required preparation. It required time, an icy bath, and a safe haven. Lowering herself into frigid and frightening cold and…

…stepping out of her body.

Cyberspace was localized. It never spread farther than about a city's worth or networks. At least, it never spread farther than that in any routes she felt comfortable in taking. Even in the NET, she was trapped in Night City.

Night City was, in some ways, even worse in cyberspace than it was in realspace.

The city was vertical beyond any realistic architecture. It stacked on itself over and over again. Buildings at the ground level looking downright medieval with stoney looking datawalls and claustrophobic towers spiraling up. As the towers rose they turned into the verandas and open-air temples of higher-society NET, filled with minimalistic white pillars and walls that occasionally led into personalized servers.

Around the city, towering above even the safer and more expensive NET sections, the temples of Corporate influence loomed over the rest of the city. Arasaka Tower still hiding a burning red sun just over the horizon, silhouetted in stark black and glowing eyes glaring down. Militech's modern fortress on the other side of the city, a combination of steel siege tower and rookery, from which thousands of programs designed to look like burning eagles flew in and out from.

Outside the city proper, an impregnable woodland of Biotechnica servers sat to the southmost regions, a single grand tree with disturbingly uniform branches stretched out over that end of the city, the bottom of which spiraled down into the city itself.

Each of the major corporate players in Night City had one of these. Zetatech's tower looked like it was made out of stacked airports, Trauma Team's numerous smaller towers dotted around the city, and so on.

Pacifica was having its NET changed in recent times. Whereas before it was nothing but ruins stacked on ruins with broken connections and open wasteland rooftops, now it was getting demolished. Both in real life and in the NET, everything that was once in the Pacifica region was getting deleted to be replaced with the new fortress that was going to be built there. A never ending stream of corporate and government Netrunners going in and around the region, an active effort to find everything of note, transfer it, and delete everything else.

But the city didn't just go up. It went down too. Every now and then in the streets a boarded up tunnel heading down would be found, deeper and deeper into the older sections of the city NET. As one went further and further down, the architecture became more and more alien, random passages and stairways to nothing, stonework that no human would ever bother to build.

At a certain point, the passageways are only large enough to barely squeeze through.

She admitted a temptation to just… keep going down. Why would the tunnels down there be perfectly sized for her to crawl through if they weren't meant for her? It was a sickly and terrifying feeling to have.

Kiwi called the feeling Depth Lure once. She told her to never listen to it.

Of course, this wasn't all there was to see.

If one stepped to the very edge of the city NET and looked out, they could see it.

The Blackwall, and the wildernet beyond it.

Frowning titans of stone, impossibly huge even from as far as she was away, hand up and actively holding back the raging sea beyond it. A swirling maelstrom of water and wind that towered even about the highest corporate servers in the city. Somehow, impossibly, held back by the tremendous hands of the giants. Statues of cracked and blackened stone with hands raised to the sea and forcing the water back.

The sea should be slipping through their fingers, between the vast distances between each giant, but somehow it was kept at bay. The water only poured in around their feet, swallowing the space up to their ankles and soaking the very bottom of the city. The part of the city that no human should go to.

Being fully immersed in the NET was not something she liked to do. She had very few good memories of it, even back to her earliest memories of doing it. Of being modified by doctors in Arasaka lab coats and being forced into the sea. The sea looked different once you were inside of it, but that was just a lie. It was the exact same as it was before, it was just trying to trick you.

Of course, just because she didn't like being in the NET, didn't mean she wouldn't use it if she needed to.

She was doing business.

Cloaked in a burner ICON, followed by an Eraser program to help hide any of her tracks, taking a long and scenic parth through many back-door NET-paths, and finally arriving at a predetermined server to do business.

Stepping into the server, she was greeted by another burner icon. It looked quite a bit like an utterly featureless, faceless, androgynous figure waiting patiently on the other side of an otherwise empty room. She stepped in and moved to stand in front, any potential signs of what she was feeling hidden behind datawalls and false ICON layers.

"Ghost." She said simply, voice distorted and robotic within the featureless guise she wore.

"Dream." The featureless figure returned. Sometimes it was good to use your own ICON to do business, other times it was best to use burners. She could go out of her way to look into the figure standing before her, but that would be impolite.

Carefully maintained masks was how business was done in the NET. The real world did not hold influence here, at least, no one wanted it to. She knew Ghost had a more public ICON, as Ghost knew the same about her, the burners were for potential outside observers.

She extracted a line of code from her burner ICON's wispy cloak. It looked much like a slip of paper. It was just a text document with a password and account number that led to a disposable account that contained the appropriate payment for their transaction.

It wasn't a small amount of eddies, but she had more than enough to afford the loss for it if Ghost failed to deliver her order. That, and both of them knew that she would just go spread this information to other runners in the NET. Soon enough no one would want to do business with Ghost. That was assuming a betrayal did occur, which was unlikely.

Runners didn't usually try to screw each other over in business transactions. It was less profitable overall.

Letting the slip of code leave her hand and gently float over to Ghost, the figure took it and inspected it carefully. After a long moment, the figure nodded.

"It will arrive at derelict warehouse 12-E in the Pacifica region in eighteen minutes."

She nodded, and both of them left immediately afterwards. It was best to not stick around in such servers for very long, they were empty for a reason. The scrubbers actually cared about those servers, even if no one used them anymore.

She then began the long scenic walk back to her body through the net, carefully shedding parts of her burner ICON as she went whenever she was moving in between servers and connections. It was best to not connect any potential burner to her actual ICON afterall.

She had seen Adam Smasher's ICON once. A grinning man made of fire, everything on his face missing aside from that smile, wreathed in a skeletal white grinning daemon. She figured that the daemon was probably his personalized Black Armor ICE, protecting his ICON wherever he went. It was certainly intimidating enough to be made by him.

His own ICON though… It didn't feel quite like she expected it too. A featureless man aside from his smile, made of fire. That felt like it had some significance, but she couldn't tell what.

Most people had ICONs just from their time in school. If you wanted to handle transactions in the NET, you usually had to have one. Some people were more creative than others.

Rebecca's ICON was blue-skinned Oni in a bunnygirl suit. A male Oni in said suit. She thought it was hilarious.

David's ICON was just himself in his regular clothes. Because her input apparently never put much effort into the whole 'net' thing. Gloria's ICON at least had flowers in her hair.

Walking through the 'street' of the NET, she noticed similar levels of disparity among the various netrunners and others going about their business. Some just looked like normal people, some looked like fantasy creatures, some looked like cartoons. She could see all kinds of ICONs as she approached the Pacifica region of the NC NET.

…She narrowed her eyes as she saw a lone ICON, clearly a burner, standing and staring at the Pacifica region. She observed it for a moment, frowning as she noticed where it was looking at.

Directly at home.

She readied her programs and made her presence clear, moving to stand in front of the burner. It was hardly illegal to look, but a little intimidation wasn't illegal either. She glared down at the burner that was sitting on the NET equivalent of a bench.

It took a moment, but the burner finally noticed that she was looking at it. She spoke up at this point.

"What are you doing?" She asked in the flattest and most irritated manner she could.

The burner stared at her for a moment, before standing up.

"...How can you see me?" It asked. She glared and responded.

"With my eyes, gonk."

The burner stared at her for a moment.

Then, faster than she could react, it slammed a virtual hand into her face.

Everything went white for a moment. She couldn't move. She attempted to scream but nothing came out.

Her vision cleared, she saw nothing but wind and rain around her. Her hearing returned and she could hear the storm around her as well. She couldn't summon her programs. She struggled in panic, she was bound to something.

The burner stepped around her vision and crouched in front of her, inspecting her.

"...ho-hum…" Its eyes glowed a faint white. She kept trying to bring up her programs to defend herself, but she couldn't. Like an arm that she didn't have anymore, she couldn't move the limb.

"Ah… A Deep-Dive unit. That sounds about right. That explains why the Tinman keeps you around. Wait no it doesn't, he doesn't care about the NET like the uncivilized savage he is." The burner rambled above her. It reached a set of hands out and began to pry apart her ICON, moving through ICE like it wasn't there.

"Kushinada Lucyna? Kinda a horrible name y'know? Not only are you Polish, but also Japanese, and you live in So-Cal. Worst of all worlds right there. Ah, but you're a Netrunner at the very least, so perhaps there's hope for the rancid future after all. Light in the darkness and all that."

She continued to struggle in the bonds of the programs that she couldn't even perceive.

"...Ah, so that's what you want." The burner paused and stared down at her for a moment. "Respectable goal, little puke, but you're not going to be any freer up there than you are down here. Moon's all corporate these days."

The burner stayed crouching as it watched her struggle. It reached a hand out once more and carefully put her ICON back together, before withdrawing.

"I really should just kill you, little security hazard, but I'm feeling a little generous today. My curiosity is satisfied for now. Tinman isn't going to be a problem with how focused he is on the meat world, and he's not doing anything in the NET with that fancy new SPI of his. Instead I'll leave you with some hope kiddo."

The burner glared down, slowly shedding layers of false info to reveal a frowning frozen corpse wreathed in a ragged looking cloak of purple and gold. Or maybe it was a statue of white-blue stone?

"The old world is going to end soon. Nietzsche made a good point, but he was wrong about the limits of infinity."

The figure grinned at her. "Thousands of squabbling scriptkiddies go by the handle 'Ghost', including the one you just met. I'm catering to the little guy in the end. Call me Ghostlord."

Then, suddenly, it was gone.

She was sitting on the bench, the storm around her had vanished. The corpse was gone.

She activated her punch-out, and immediately woke up in her now warm bath. She jerked the cables out of her body as fast as she could. Once they were all out, she threw herself out of the tub and immediately into the towel she had prepared beforehand.

Wrapping it around herself, she sat in the corner of the room and stared, doing her best to stop hyperventilating.

They called them Internal Agents.

They were the little AI that sat in what was effectively a cellular phone and interfaced with your neuralware to help you organize your business, whatever it may be. Normally audio only, if a person had a chyron then any information could also appear in your field of vision. From this Internal Agent a person could handle calls, access the NET in limited ways, handle transactions, and whatever other things that meatbags used phones for.

In the modern day, they were so overwhelmingly common that it was rarer to see someone without one rather than someone with one. Little AIs of no particular learning capability that assisted every human in just about every task that connected to their Internal Agent.

What most meatbags didn't know is what they were for originally.

EVPA. Extra-Vehicular Powered Armor. Power Armor designed not for combat, but instead boring things like exploration in hostile environments, namely deep underwater and in vacuum. Of course, back in 2021, the communication technology was bulkier, slower, and often not worth trying to fit too much onto each individual suit. They ran into the problem of meatbags getting lonely in the crushing black depths and dying unexpectedly.

To counter this, they started designing what they called 'pseudo-intelligences'. Little AIs only about as smart as the average meatbag was, capable of sorting through the immense amount of sensory information that the exploration PAs took in, monitoring systems to ensure everything was green, and other smaller tasks that the meatbags apparently couldn't keep track of themselves.

Although categorically disproven by Netwatch observers, the pilots would consistently report 'personality conflicts' with certain PIs, preferring one over the other despite being identical in function.

PIs would go on to become standard features for all PA, including ACPA. They were simply too useful not to, apparently. Having them on-board resulted in a net 5% increase in pilot survivability rates across the board, and as pilots are almost as expensive as their PA, the minor cost of the PIs were more than worth it to military planners.

Indeed, they were so useful that the security forces and military planners started using them for all of their forces, not just the PA jockeys.

Then they realized they could be used to help monitor civilians. By the time the 2040s rolled around, nearly everyone with access to chrome had an PI, the name having been changed to suit their new purpose, Internal Agent. Originally an assistant for hazardous exploration, then for war, then for the general populace. Even though the Internal Agent works fine for civilian use, that's not really what it exists for.

Its original code is designed to monitor a hundred systems, and alert the jockey to ones that cross over certain thresholds. To filter information and provide it to the jockey. To constantly scan for potential threats with its heuristic pilot-preservation algorithms.

An Internal Agent may not have had a personality as part of a civilian's kit, or as an exploratory PA, but they absolutely had one as part of an ACPA.

A Militech Commando IA prioritized the survival of the pilot, the completion of the mission, and avoiding collateral damage. A Russian Arms Boris IA prioritized avoiding getting bogged down, whether that be from poor terrain, heavy resistance, or too many civilians to kill. A Dynalar Grasshopper IA prioritized finding cover, working in groups, and hitting soft targets.

An Arasaka DaiOni? It was a frame purpose-built to be the best combat cyborg in the world bar none. It was a frame designed to be as strong, fast, and heavily armored as possible. It was designed for the sole purpose of going into a hot zone and killing everything that wasn't an ally.

Its IA prioritized the elimination of all targets not marked as 'friendly' with IFF verification.

He loved the frame, but he was always annoyed while wearing it. Mostly because it wouldn't stop pointing out all the ways he could kill everything around him, the best of which he had already thought of before it could've.

That woman on the right? 76 ways to kill in the next second and a list of them rated best to worst based on an internal parameter. He only needed one, and he knew it before it could tell him.

The man on the balcony? 45 ways to kill in the next second, half of which required his sandevistan. Worthless AI, he didn't need any of that, stop talking.

He looked dead ahead, and in the crowd of thousands around him, it listed off 10.3 thousand variations of killing all of them. Most of which were completely useless, pointless, redundant, or similarly not worth his time.

The old man had gotten him a new DaiOni as part of a PR thing, he wasn't quite sure what. Merchandising or something? He was assigned to walk in besides the car that was currently transporting Hanako on their way to another facility. His job was to look around and appear intimidating in his brand new, shiny chrome-black DaiOni.

"...you remembered right, this is annoying." Uriel spoke up, frowning as the sensors cycled through another dozen ways to kill the little girl holding a plushie of his Gemini. Adam internally grunted.

He loved the DaiOni, the sheer power, the overwhelming cybernetics rendering him a veritable one-man genocide…

Oh wait, he already was that.

Heh.

…Fuck off Uriel, those were his kills, you can't take credit for them.

"We share a brain, dumbass."

"Still my body, dumbass."

The DaiOni listed off another hundred methods of turning the woman in the flower kimono into a fine red mist. Both Adam and Uriel grumbled in response, frustrated that they were pulled out of their bickering by a third party.

As annoying as the IA was to listen to, it was still absolutely worth it.

ACPA were mobile, relatively cheap, and carried a decent amount of firepower. They were the reason that light tanks went extinct, and that tanks in general were rarer nowadays.

Artillery was king of the battlefield, that much has always been true and will likely always be true. Tanks are the queens of the battlefield. Ever since their invention they have been a massive factor in practically every engagement they participate in. A general who doesn't have an answer for the enemy tanks will get rolled, simple as that.

They were big, loud, expensive, high-maintenance, and had huge guns. Queen was an apt descriptor. Of course, they weren't called queens of the battlefield for that reason.

They were called queens of the battlefield because artillery was king, and the king fucks the queen. Usually pretty hard too.

Of course, an army isn't composed of just kings and queens. It needs pawns, bishops, rooks, and knights. Pawns were the infantry, meant to slow down other forces long enough for everything else to murder them, and occasionally garrison a location. Bishops were the navy, capable of circumventing many of the opponent's defenses when used properly, and taking out keep units before they could be reinforced. Rooks were the airforce, direct, fast, destructive, they went to bomb the shit out of a place and then leave.

That left knights. What were knights? Well before they were things like amphibious soldiers or spec ops and other tactically-useful but not directly powerful troops.

In the last century or so, the knights had transformed. They were ACPA now. A soldier that had as much armor as a light tank, moved as fast as a medium tank, carried guns capable of killing light tanks and armored trucks, and was barely bigger than a person.

A U.S. M-75 Light Battle Tank could move at 80mph, was crewed by 2 people, weighed 14 tons, had as much armor as a midweight ACPA, and cost 1.3 million eddies.

So, what would a given army prefer? A 1.3 million dollar tank that couldn't fight in cities and took two people to crew? Or two 108k eddie Commandos that could fight in buildings, carried about as much armor, and a gun just as big?

The Light Tank was no longer commercially viable for the armies of the world. The ACPA had replaced it.

The match-up against heavier tanks was also favorable for the ACPA.

The U.S. M-11 MBT was perhaps the finest Tank ever produced. It had enough armor to ignore anything save direct artillery, had a 2cm railgun that could smash multiple rows of buildings down, only required 3 to crew, weighed 60 tons, could move 60 miles per hour…

And cost 16.4 million eddies per unit. You could buy 150 Commandos for that same price and have change left over to give about ten of them an anti-tank rocket launcher.

What happens when the queen is cornered by an army of knights?

A gangbang.

A DaiOni was not a Commando.

It was better in every way.

Tanks had not gone away, not by a long shot. But any given army in the world now had to ask the following question, "Do I absolutely need to use a tank, or does a squad of ACPA on an armored transport do just as well here?". Military planners plan based on their wallets, and so tanks had become rare, specialized, purpose-built machines that operate in specific mission profiles.

All of this of course, was him thinking to distract him from the DaiOni eagerly pointing out a child holding a cat, and suggesting another 187 ways to kill the potential enemy.

He and Uriel grumbled in unison.

"Uriel, try making it less annoying."

"How do you propose I do that, huh?"

"Fuck if I know, smile at it or some shit, that's worked for you so far."

"Suave grin protocols engaged."

"Smartass."

The DaiOni pointed out that he could run over and punch that man in the suit through the nearest building, and if he did it hard enough he could kill the people inside in the same attack. Dumbass, he could do that way more efficiently by smashing the exterior pillars and causing the whole building to collapse, hitting everyone around the block.

The DaiOni paused at that, processed the information, then saved it. It then started pointing out how fast he could break all the buildings around him down.

Uriel started pinching its metaphorical virtual cheeks. It stopped pointing out inefficient methods of murder and started pointing out that it was under attack, which was somewhat less irritating.

—

He glared at the man supposedly responsible for bringing him back from the grave. He was an average looking guy, brown hair and eyes, tanned skin, light stubble, standard Nomad leathers. If you saw this guy in a crowd, he wouldn't stand out at all.

Silverhand hated those guys. They were never there for the music, they were there to monitor. To record. To observe. To go skulking back to their owners after the fact and report everything they had seen, brainlessly.

Men who decided to be dogs. All the freedom in the world to stand against those cocksuckers behind the curtain, and they choose comfort and a t-bone steak instead. The man on the other side of the table reminded him of them, it was not a favorable comparison. He had spent his whole life fighting, he had no respect for the ones that gave up.

"Why go through all the effort to bring me back, huh?" He asked, aggressively to the point. He didn't have much patience for someone so bland. Everyone expresses themselves different, to not express yourself at all meant you were trying to hide something.

"I plan on using you." The bland looking man took a drag of his smoke. Silverhand glared, furious.

"Just going to admit it outright huh? What makes you think I'll do jackshit for you?" He countered, pointing a now very powerful finger in blandie's direction. "Shifty little shits like you make me sick. I can see how you operate just by looking at you."

Blandie, undeterred, replied simply. "I don't need you to do anything that you weren't already going to do. You plan on going to Night City and attacking Arasaka, am I right? You can pick through our equipment for that."

Silverhand leaned back in the white plastic chair, causing it to creak ominously. He kept his glare up, but took a moment to think before his reply.

"...What are you after?"

Blandie grabbed a fancy-looking flatscreen cybermodem (?), tapped on it a bit, and slid it across the table to him. He snatched it up and looked at the screen. It was the profile of some kid with brown hair in a restrictive looking uniform. David Martinez, seventeen years old, male, student at…

He nearly crushed the cybermodem in his hands.

Arasaka had a fukken school? Probably teach em' how to murder babies and firebomb villages there. He almost snarled as he kept reading.

Drop-out? At least the kid had some sense, getting out of that place, no doubt it was an oppressive shithole.

"Swipe the screen with your finger." Blandie piped up. He shot a glare at the fucker and did just that. Nothing happened.

"Other way."

Silverhand audibly growled and did so, watching the screen change to a… merc profile? David Martinez, eighteen years old, male, edgerunner, overall threat rating BC3C. Known associates…

He furrowed his brow, so the kid dropped out to become a merc? Well, it wasn't the best thing for a kid to be doing, but Silverhand himself had lied about his age to join the army back in the day, so he didn't have any room to judge the kid for it. At least he was fighting for himself, rather than some boot.

He swiped the screen again, and a flatvid started playing automatically. There was a massive cybernetic figure in the center of the room, with black ungainly arms and stumpy legs, it took him a second to recognize the kid's face on the nugget in the center.

There was a swathe of corpses around, a fucker in some dumb suit on the floor, an equally dumb looking corpo fucker on one side of the room, and some big borg between the chromed-out kid and the second corpo.

The kid was next to a girl, protectively hunched over her.

He narrowed his eyes when he saw the Arasaka logo. So the kid was fucking up some 'Saka goons for threatening his girl? He had nothing but approval for that one.

[Adam Smasher? Go on, kill the boy!] The dumb looking fucker on the floor cried out pathetically. He resisted the urge to smash the cybermodem. Just before he could decide to or not, a gravely, almost bored voice called out.

[Who the fuck are you?]

He paused, and kept watching. He glared at the screen.

[You're packing some pretty heavy artillery for your size boy, I'm impressed you can string two words together.]

[You think you're special because you're scrappy?]

[You're good kid, but you're a long way from the best, and you're looking at him.]

[I never had anything to lose in the first place.]

…Smasher sounded different. He almost couldn't recognize him. Last time he saw the Steelhead he was practically bouncing in joy at all the killing he got up to, happy more than anything else to be the boot of Arasaka.

He was just as arrogant now, but he sounded…

It didn't matter, the Steelhead was going to die anyway. He needed to for all the people he's killed. Nothing less was acceptable. He kept watching the vid to the end…

[I've been thinking about getting an apprentice.]

He tossed the cybermodem back onto the table. "So what, Smasher got himself an apprentice, you were gonna headhunt the kid or something?"

"He's my son."

Silverhand paused and looked over at blandie. He glared at the man, who looked just as unphased as he has been since he first laid eyes on the fucker.

"...Real shit parenting if you let that fucking happen."

The man nodded, and took another drag from his smoke. "I'm aware. You want to go attack Arasaka, I just need you to do it well enough to give me an opening. So what do you need?"

Silverhand glared, and tapped a finger on his bicep, arms crossed.

"What do you have?"

"Guns, cars, and information."

"What kind of information?"

"Smasher's a rockerboy now."

…

Silverhand glared.

"Fucking what?"

Blandie slid a… chip? A computer processor or something. Alt used to ramble about these in that cute way she did.

"His most popular album, If you want to give it a listen."

Silverhand most certainly did not, but he was planning on it anyway. If only to see how dogshit modern taste was with his death. He flipped what was apparently a modern piece of chipware over, and read the tiny label.

MGR.

1997

He kept his grip firm on his bat, holding up above his head. He was just out of sight behind the alley corner, and the grocery store was a block away.

He had tried snatching from it once, no good, the bigguns weren't sleepy enough to steal from. Greedy dumbheads, they should just let him have what he wants and maybe he won't bash their fingers in. He was hungry.

There were footsteps coming around the corner, he could hear them. Step, step, step. He tightened his grip on Bat and readied a swing.

Step, step, step.

He swung.

Bat smashed into the knees of the biggun that just turned the corner. The big fatty fell forwards and started to yell. That wouldn't be good. He swung again as fast as he could against the back of the biggun's bald head.

The biggun slammed into the road and stopped moving. He stared at it for a bit, swallowing down some spit. Biggun wasn't moving anymore.

Quickly he grabbed the biggun by his shirt and tried his best to drag him into the alley, snatching the bag he had with him. This biggun didn't even try, he deserved what he had coming to him. Stupid greedy bigguns and their stupid stuff, if they shared he wouldn't have to smash them.

Finally hefting the biggun over to behind the trash-box he opened up the bag he had with him. He grinned when he found the jackpot.

A pre-packaged sandwich. Kicking the biggun to be fully out of sight from the road, he plopped down and quickly dug into his meal.

He grimaced when he tasted the yucky yellow stuff. Stupid biggun grabbed a bad sandwich. He chewed as quickly as he could before moving onto the other stuff.

Biggun had another sandwich, which was quickly stuffed into his backpack. He also had a cool flippy-knife, some green, and a card. He narrowed his eyes at it, flipping it over to inspect it.

It had a picture of some guy's face on it, he had a blue hat on and a white shirt. He frowned when he saw the letters and slowly puzzled them out.

M-E-T-S, that was a 'mmm-eee-tee-suh' right? Mehtesuh?

T-O-M, 'tee-ooh-mmm' Teohm.

S-E-A-V-E-R… and P-I-T-C-H-E-R…

He frowned and decided to waste time thinking about it later. Those were big words, he would figure it out when he was back in the fort. He stuffed it in his pocket and almost went back to pilfering.

There was a foot step at the entrance of the alley. He jerked into ready, hefting his bat above his head and wheeling to face whatever was there.

He glared at the stupid kid at the entrance.

"Frag off, this 'uns mine." He demanded. The kid raised his hands protectively.

"Woah woah woah. Not trying to snatch nuthin'! I swears!"

"Then frag off." He didn't look away from the scrawny looking one. The scrawny ones were always the most dangerous. Once you look away they pounce on you. The scrawny one stayed there, stepping in from the road once and crouching. Scrawny looked at him and tilted his head.

"...You on your own, Bats?"

He spit on the ground to the side at the sudden nickname. "Whadda bout it scrawny?"

Scrawny tilted his head. "How long?"

"Year er two."

Scrawny's eyes widened up. "What! How've you gotten away from tha snatchers?!"

He glared and stood up, pointing Bat at the kid. "By not yellin' like a biggun!"

Scrawny flinched. "Ah, right, sorry 'bout that."

He didn't bother listening anymore, he slowly went around the edge of the alley, far from scrawny and towards the entrance. He stepped out and started down the road, acting like he hadn't done nuthin'

He heard footsteps behind him and wheeled around to swing at thin air. Scrawny was behind him aways. He glared.

"Frag off dumbhead!"

Scrawny flinched back, before gulping and replying. "I don't gots nobody! Last kids I was with got snatched! Please let me follow ya!"

"Frag off."

"Please! I can help!"

"No you can't."

"Yuh-huh!"

"Nuh-uh."

This went on for several minutes. Finally he lost patience while walking along.

"Fragging fine! Crybaby dumbhead!" He yelled back at the stupid kid still following him.

"Yes! I won't let ya down boss I swears!"

He doubted that a lot. He glared at nothing for a few moments while the kid followed him.

"...What's yer name, scrawny?" He demanded.

"Sam-an-tha." The kid slowly enunciated. He'd never heard of a boy with that name.

"Stupid name." He replied, scrawny glared at him and stuck out a tongue.

"Oh yeah!? What's your name then, huh?" Kid demanded.

He thought about it for a minute, deciding to mess with this kid instead.

"Bats." He said, repeating the nickname from earlier. He grinned at the cry of frustration. He pulled his hands into his jacket, it was cold out.

2000

He slowly stopped walking in front of the giant poster on the window of the comic shop. It was old Curt's place, and it looked as old as it always had. The sign was new though.

He fingered the change in his pocket. A couple of quarters, enough to buy a single comic. He got it from scrounging around town all day. Finding change in good places was just about all he did these days. Normally he spent them on the guitar lessons.

Travis across the street let him fiddle with an old guitar, fifteen minutes per dollar. He liked playing the guitar. Mom said his old man could play, and that he was a cool guy. He wanted to be a cool guy too.

He adjusted his ballcap, wiping a bit of sweat away from the hot day. Mom wasn't done with her maid work yet today, so there wasn't any point in heading home quite yet. Most of his time would be spent on finding change for lessons and comics, he liked both after all.

He narrowed his eyes at the sign.

He walked into the store, the little bell on top ringing as he did. There was old Curt at the counter, looking up quickly when he walked in.

"Oh, Johnny-boy, here for another issue?" Old Curt was a cool guy, he let him stay inside and read in the back when it got real hot outside.

"Thinkin' 'bout it, yeah. Say, Old Curt, what's that sign out front for?" He asked.

Old Curt furrowed his brow a bit. "Oh that? That's nothing you'd be interested in probably."

"Yeah, but what is it?"

Curt sighed and adjusted his glasses. "A couple of boys from the army came round earlier, and had papers saying I had to put up the sign they had with 'em. They were nice enough boys, but orders are orders they said."

Old Curt huffed. "We'd never have this kinda thing when Johnson was president, good old Texas man he was. He knew what it was all about."

"The army? Like G.I. Joes?" He asked again, placing his chin on the counter.

Old Curt reached over and ruffled his hair. "Yeah Johnny, like G.I. Joe. Army goes around fighting the good fight against the commies, but sometimes does some right irritatin' stuff to get it done."

"That's what the sign's for?"

"Well yeah, but like I said, don't worry about it none Johnny. You're too young to join the army." Old Curt grinned, revealing his missing teeth. "How bout I get you a G.I. Joe? This one's on the house."

Soon enough he was walking out of the door, waving Old Curt goodbye. He stopped outside the door and looked at the sign again, taking it in.

There was a picture of a man with a silver metal arm, holding a big gun and shooting at something outside of the picture. He was tall and strong, and was wearing green pants.

JOIN THE

CYBER-GRUNT

ARMY PROGRAM

SOLDIER OF

TOMORROW!

He looked at it again for a long moment, before looking down at the G.I. Joe comic book in his hands. He put it in his backpack and ran back home as fast as he could.

2002

He hissed as he jammed the needle into his thigh, feeling the stims run through his veins almost immediately. He never liked the feeling, but it was worth it every time he needed to smash a few dozen motherfuckers

He certainly needed to today. He ignored the sounds of gunshots for now, feeling the pain disappear under a washing tide of invincibility. He wasn't actually unstoppable right now, but he was way closer than these fuckers were.

He closed his eyes for a moment, breathed in and out, and then opened them.

Sam had already taken the younger kids off, running through the old sewer system to get away from this whole thing. His job was to beat these suits into paste and then join up with them later. Not through the same door though.

He straightened up and walked over to the entrance, grabbing the massive bookcase they used to hide the grate and dragging it over in front once more. He walked over to the table, grabbed his trusty bat, a few pills, and shrugged on the tough jacket. He popped a few powercandies in his mouth as he slowly peaked through the doorway.

Nothing there for right now, boots in the distance, firing had stopped. They had finished killing his older boys then. Didn't really matter, they did their job, and didn't have to worry about what came next. Selfish assholes, always dipping out of the hard work, leaving it to him.

He pushed out of the door and started sprinting, aware of each little sound he was making. He could hear his own blood in his ears. That was a pain in the ass, because he needed to hear the suits.

…oh he heard them alright.

He jumped over the balcony that led into some sorta ticketbooth place. He grinned when he saw the squad of four at the bottom.

His feet crashed into the face of one, sending the fucker to the ground with a hard crack, face-first. Kicking off that fucker, he swung his big stick of metal, feeling a satisfying crash of another visored helmet smashing in.

He grunted in dulled pain as something exploded in his side. He threw himself back and twisted, smashing another fucker's face in. The last one shot at him, but he grabbed the third's collar and threw the body in the way. The bullets ripped through thirdie's and painted him in gore.

A moment later, he bashed another skull in, and the last fell.

He popped another powercandy, stole the biggest gun, and shot each one once. His side was starting to be painted with his own blood. He heard movement, and gunned down another grunt coming round the corner, moving as his buddies threw a grenade at him.

He managed to get thirteen of the fuckers before they finally had him pinned, thrashing under the weight of two soldiers.

He one without a helmet looked around, taking a fat drag of his cigarette. He grinned down at him. He had a glowing eye and a metal grin.

He hated that grin.

"What's your name, kid?" The boot asked.

He tried to curse something out, but his tongue wasn't working anymore. His vision was getting blurry. He was running outta blood. He needed another candy.

"Can't answer, Slugger?" The boot looked at one of the corpses of his own men, and its caved-in skull. "No, not Slugger…"

Boot grinned in a mean way and blew out a cloud of smoke. "I think Smasher works better here, don't you?"

He didn't respond.

He was already unconscious.

2004

They marched through the dusty hills, their squad covering the flanks of two others, who themselves were covering for two more each. A veritable platoon of soldiers with fancy new prosthetic eyes and exo-skeletons. A few of them had their legs replaced by robot limbs, a bit bulkier and slower than normal, but they could still carry a gun.

They could still fight.

Johnny was really happy for these fancy exo-skeletons, even if the neck-cable constantly itched. He was smaller and skinnier than any guy here, so without one he wouldn't be able to keep up. The march wasn't too long from the drop-off point, just a few miles.

Any second now they'd be seeing the base for the commies, backed by druglord money. They were going to go in, raze the place, and kill another dozen commies in the process. Good old clean business.

Robert was by his side, a nice guy that helped him get used to the frame when he first signed up. He was thirty or something, and the field officer.

They crossed over the hill, and saw the buildings down in the valley.

That must be the communist base!

Robert paused as he looked at it. His brow furrowed as he pulled out his radio, compass, and clock. He checked the time traveled and where they were supposed to be.

"Command, we came across a few buildings. Wanted to confirm that this was the base you wanted us to take out." He recited the supposed grid coordinates. The rest of the soldiers to their flanks listened in on the channel, ready to enact the orders as Robert gave them. Chain of command and all that.

"...confirmed, that is the location of the hostile Nicaragua stronghold. You are cleared to carry out the mission…"

Robert glared at the place for a moment, before muttering out loud. "Thought so…"

After a moment, he yelled out. "Everyone switch to channel fifteen!" An unused channel, why?

"What's wrong, officer?" Johnny asked, pushing his helmet up on his head. He made sure to use the title, as he was supposed to on the job.

Robert muttered low. "Those ain't no goddamn hostiles. Those are civvies."

…What…?

But command told them that…

…What about the last three commie bases…?

Robert brought up the radio and announced over it. "Men of the thirty-second! It is as our fears confirm! We are not here to fight communists after all! We have been sent here to play out Vietnam round two!"

There were angry yells and mutters all throughout the line. Johnny struggled to follow what was going on. He was beginning to feel sick.

Robert continued. "Now I don't know about any of you, but I'm not feeling up for another bout of killing un-gunned civvies and feeling a mite bit mad at the suits that told us they were terrorists!"

There were yells now. Robert pulled out his handgun and aimed it behind him, shooting Stevens in the chest. Johnny threw himself back, almost pulling out his gun and aiming it at Robert.

He was about to exclaim, but then heard the shooting going on around him. Whipping around, he saw everyone around him kill one member of each squad.

What was going on!?

"Sorry about that kid. Stevens was CIA, as were the rest of em." Robert muttered to him. "They were gonna report back that we were deserting."

"We're deserting?!" He exclaimed.

"You wanna kill more civvies?" Robert asked, voice low and hard. He swallowed and quickly shook his head. Robert's eyes softened a tad, and he grimly nodded.

"No way we're getting out of this one without it kid. Buckle up, it's a long way back to America now."

Johnny, aged fifteen, clutched his rifle and looked at the corpse of Stevens. He had seen bodies before but they were all…

…none of them were commies, were they?

He threw up.

2005

He raced over the dusty hill, far ahead of any of the half-wits that might slow him down.

Command said that they were going to raze this place tomorrow, why bother waiting? He'd just go ahead and do it today instead. He leapt over the mound and began to slide down the side of the cliff into the rainforest-like valley below.

He threw down his fancy night-vision goggles as he did so, ignoring the shouting over the radio for him to get back to base right this goddamn second lest he compromise the operation.

Please, he was the best cybergrunt they had, he could do this alone faster and cheaper than deploying the whole band.

He finally reached the bottom of the cliff, rolling once to behind a well and injecting himself with a dose of combat stim. He grinned as he unclipped a grenade.

He got up and started running forwards, throwing a grenade through each window as he passed.

Explosions rang out in the night, screams and shouts.

He gunned down the first fucker who peaked around a corner with a puny little submachinegun. Then the second, then the third.

It took the rest of the company half an hour to catch up.

They found him sitting in the center of town, fifty four bodies stacked up.

He grinned as they approached, guns pointed at him. "What took you fuckers so long, huh? You missed out on all the fun!"

They didn't find his humor very funny, it seemed. Geh, those fuckers had sticks up their asses anyways.

Field Commander stomped forwards, face burning red as he started screaming at him. He frowned, couldn't they get a better commander, this one worried about the little shit too much.