Arasaka tower Sublevel -10/City Centre/ 18:29/04/09/2078

Jade was still unconscious hours later. Arasaka had to know what to do, maybe? I had checked my desk, surprised that it hadn't attracted dust, scrolling emails for any clue about Tanaka. All I found was that my medication price had gone up, again. My bonus was really coming in handy now. I was still on a positive income, earning fifty more Eurodollars than I spent monthly, after rent. Not counting the ever rising inflation, which was 91 years of work before I could but myself a body not including repairs, weapons or ammunition. It was better than Sam, Samson parts were expensive, she was in the negatives. Not that it mattered to her. The metal carcass was in Tanaka's old office. Okada's eyes hidden behind black round spectacles attached to her face, running scans on her terminal. I couldn't make sense of all the numbers.
"How's Sam looking?" The fingers occasionally twitched. I leaned over to stare into the lens that the Samson model used for sight. Immobile and cloudy, swaying my hand left to right the lenses didn't follow. "Is she even awake?"
"No. Four's status is classified." It was all classified. Okada sighed and turned back. Seeing the computer screen swap to the Vitruvian man, with monitors for brain activity. "You handed over the chip the prototype to those two Gomi what happened to the chip?"
"I don't know." Okada watched the graph spike.
"Lie." Okada pressed a button, and I heard a crack. My brain felt a jolt. A two-hour long Migraine had been condensed into a second. I dropped to my knee's scratching at my synth hair. "Lying's pointless." If I revealed Lucy no doubt she'd fry my circuits, I inhaled and stared up.
"Destroyed, probably." Another lie, almost. I watched the graph spike before it settled down. A message from an unknown contact.
'Thank me Later. L.'
"Not great, but better than them having it. We will however have to take the price out of the destroyed resource out of your bonus. Dismissed." L had to be Lucy. I got the N-Cart and maybe a bus to Santo Domingo.

My disconnection from Arasaka was always painful, It happened when I crossed the threshold into the residential side, with semidetached bungalows and if a person was lucky a second floor. Plastic laws with synthetic garden flamingos was what I saw before my vision glitched. I hissed in pain, baring my teeth. A simple sign that made those scared for their life walk to the other end of the bus. If I lost it here, they'd have a better chance jumping than staying in this metal box. I kept my head low, all the way to the old warehouse, untouched there was no sign of any life. I raised my hands and kicked the door down. There wasn't even a speck of dandruff. The computers and chairs had moved and all marks I had made first time, erased, I was standing in an empty room.
'Looking for me? I can't have you revealing my secrets. Room 104 DewDrop in.' She didn't answer any of my questions I texted afterwards, A blank piece, she had prototype technology to ransom with and control of me. If I were to snuff her out before she made all my circuits pop and spark, I'd need to be quick if she didn't say what I wanted. Relying on Axle was to do the wet work was unwise, unpredictable human assets, and also looking after Jade. It meant that I had to stand outside the dewdrop in. It was one of those Motel's that stayed open because of business I was about to engage in, and the smell of glitter, it wasn't my business. I stepped over cracked tiles, past the receptionist with a criminal record, checking her nails. My boots muffled on torn carpet, the lights broken and kept that way for secrecy. Room 104 wasn't an improvement. Lucy was on the balcony smoking. She stubbed it out and turned around. It was a room I wouldn't search with a UV light, a mattress with springs pushing out of it, stains on the wall and a broken chair in the corner. A rhytmic thump and moan came from next door, I hoped it was someone getting pummelled.
"What are Arasaka seeing?"
"When you entered Santo Domingo you went to watch the watch the city from the dam." I leaned against the wall. The thumps were growing irritating, and humans moaning, probably a mess of fluids, disgusting. I banged on the wall.
"Fists going through the wall next." They were quieter, but my audio receptors still picked it up, she "My acquaintances gave you the prototype. Jade's been sleeping but it messed with her chip. I need you to run a diagnostic, use that Netrunner stuff to see, or tell me what this thing can do to their brain."
"It overrides a doll chip, forces different behaviour's."
"Bullshit. None of us have that in us."
"How do you know?"
"I know my systems."
"Then insert this program, and if you don't have some form of doll chip in you, tell me." I swiped the little piece of plastic and copper, putting it near me head and I paused. I held it to Lucy.
"You first." She pushed it into the base of her skull. I waited a minute as her eyes hadn't even changed colour passing it over to me. It hovered near the access port, she had survived. "Not trying to kill me?"
"You're still seeing if David's an engram?" I nodded my head. "Then I'll keep you safe. As our goals align." I inserted the shard.

"Do I get a choice?"
"We all have a choice."
"Sign or die?"
"Correct."
"Fine."
"You won't die, Five others are an astounding success."
"Just fix me doc."
"Please, call me Tanaka, I will lead your rehabilitation."

My eyes shot open in a familiar part of the Badlands Lucy was smoking atop the ruined trailer tipped on its side, the blow-up doll in my arms, deflated. I threw it to the side and forced myself up feeling where the shard should be, but it was in Lucy's grasp.
"I have the footage if you'd like to see." The sound came from the wind a howl over the dunes as I did not speak. Empty beer bottles lay ay my feet, as I kicked them against the fence, watching them shatter into piece's. I tore up the plastic, crushing it in my hand until it broke, and when I was done, I was standing above rubble, torn up dirt and other pieces. I wasn't done, how could I be done? I wanted to shove it all in the trailer and light it on fire, Tanaka included. No Not just Tanaka, Yorinobu and Michiko Arasaka she. She wasn't to be touched. The thought of her burning, screaming with a delicate hand reaching out what was she no eighteen? It was enough clarity to stab the hypo-stim into my arm as my brain turned foggy, unable to think of the burning pyre. Lucy leaned closer, now, stubbing the nicotine stick into the trailer.
"I know that look in your eyes. Cyberpsychosis."
"Fixing it, or Tanaka will when I find him."
"How are you feeling now?"
"I'm a fucking doll, Memory loss wasn't a side effect it was the goal!" My fist pierced the side of the trailer, wasn't as satisfying as Tanaka's head in a box. I closed my eyes for a second. "And I can't take it out." The rush, what happened to Four? A wave of emotions and memories would speed up my affliction. Had Lucy not injected me.
"So Jade's fine then?"
"She was gone a year, I assume not as a killing machine, and not as chromed as you, but I simply don't know." I nodded and sat down in the dirt, I knew I wasn't always chrome, yet the words I remembered, the reprogramming slipped a few memories through what was blocking them. I wasn't a solo, or some rebel captured by Arasaka. I was…nothing, a walking corpse. I touched the faceplate, it wasn't me. A memory of a sensation ran through the fingers attached to the Arasaka owned hand, connected to a branded arm, with wires leading to a brain pink fleshy and weak, it was mine. The gunshots from the Badlands snapped me out of my spiral as I sat up. It was instinct, reaching for my weapon. Lucy's monowire slipped from her wrist, just in case
"Regina jones then. I did some digging into her security after it blocked you out."
"Don't remind me."
"It's made to repel Arasaka specifically, even the classified things, you. They'd have to know."
"So Jones and Tanaka are linked?"
"It's suspicious."
"If they're working together, she wants psychos alive. Tanaka's not the kind to sit about, he'll want work, parts."
"And when you find Tanaka?"
"We'll find out. I need to find Axle first."
"I have a ride."

Lucy waited in the van. It was a Net runner special, most of her kit in the back. She rode with no music and there was no reason to talk. I was left with my thoughts looming on Tanaka, trying to piece together the memory, there wasn't any reveal or location, just voices in the void. Tracks covered well enough to the point I hadn't been turned off and an Araska recall team sent after me, headed by One most likely. They were back in N.C after guarding Yorinobu in Neo-Tokyo, making sure Arasaka had muscle where it was needed, with fading influence, nothing screamed power like a room full of corpses and the weapon standing over them. Faster than Sam, not physically stronger when there were missiles on their shoulder it didn't matter. I could listen to Axle's music about Buck Ravers, or Jade talk about him taking the corner too sharp, it distracted me from the thoughts of Four in the chair, and Jade in bed. Stuck as a maid? That awful attempt at a French accent, that wasn't Jade, the one that made me listen to jazz, the soothing trumpet. Lucy waited in the carpark.
"You're walking through city centre; I'll make the footage catch up to you?"
"Leaving?"
"Can you? Hang around? Just in case?" Lucy Nodded her head, she lingered behind taking the elevator up the megabuilding in city centre had slightly less crime, the drug dealer was better dressed when offering narcotics to those needing escape with enough money to make cops look the other way. The grey block's concrete floor's dusty but lacked the stains of alcohol and blood from the weekend, and the megabuilding in Japantown. My apartment door swung open with Axle still there, staring at Jade. Her chest rose and fell with soft breaths. A phone in Axle's hand.
"Regina sent us a text."
"She waits. If something happens to Jade, we lose our fixer." Axle was about to talk as we argued there was money yes, but that was a quick fix Jade was not. I checked Jade's pulse, still steady and breathing. It was Lucy's voice, as she opened the door that stopped out argument.
"I can watch." Lucy stepped through the door I'd locked, or I thought I'd locked. "Call Trauma Team, if needed, you can't let this chance slip by."
"What Chance?" Axle was confused. Jade's phone buzzed, co-ordinated to a psycho attack. He didn't have many questions when it came to money. I turned to Lucy, this was my best chance, she nodded her head and Axle and I were out the door.

Author's note

A short chapter, but I feel like it needed to be it's own with a rather important story beat, I want to Keep Arasaka soulless while yes in Edgerunners their evil bastards, in the Game Cyberpunk 2077 they always struck me as pragmatic, not the "good guys" by any means but not evil, only seeing people as tools.

As I read through this I realised I struggle with transitions to other places as I tend to plonk them down and go "they're here now" I'll accept any tips, but I can always claim, I don't have bad writing it's just my "style" (I am joking) It being from Six's perspective does mean though things might be a little confusing, like the sudden cut to flash back