LITTLE_CHINA
Gunsmoke swirled. Thick and choking.
Wind searing through the avenue of glass and stone, a wordless howl.
In the distance, a crackling fire, yellow like gold, whipped from a shattered car engine. The air becoming black from the smoke pouring up towards the heavens, scraping at the caramel sky, the sun hidden through the glaze.
The muzzlebore of the MaxTac rifle. Aimed perfectly at her forehead. Final judgment. Like staring down a deep well, bottomless. Finger in the process of clenching on the trigger, the hitman snarling in defiance as he realized that his target's hand was already raised at shoulder-level—
Fiona's fist clenched.
Energy crackled through her fingers like she had just gripped lightning. [1]
Three crimson thunderbolts slammed the ground, three white streaks like sword strikes upon a gnarled tree trunk. Three bodies hit the deck, their mouths burned and smoking, curling upwards from their corpses in a gentle waft. Fiona breathed, smelling charred flesh and melted plastic.
Energy snarled in the nerve endings of her brain. Spiraling towards destruction. An ache burgeoned at her jaw that seemed to roll down towards her lungs, but she withstood it, for now. She still needed to get out of here.
Spinning on a heel, she sprinted straight for the main MaxTac line, continuing her push to the water's edge through this congested nightmare of a city. The blocks of skyscrapers towering around her like a forest, sharp and unyielding. Several counter-cyberpsycho squads had already disembarked from their trucks at this time, twelve commandos moving up the line with weapons that weighed as much as a motorcycle. The radio from an abandoned car crackled with music and interference. Lizzy Wizzy. Headlights were flashing from the deserted vehicles and laser sights from handheld weaponry swept red fans across the boulevard, which splintered off of the metallic paint of the cars that had recently been cleaned.
She took cover against a van, keeping her body flush with the side of the vehicle. She was not going to flee. She would prove today that all the money in the world could not hope to stand against her.
Someone fired blindly. Covering fire, perhaps. Fiona exploded forward, keeping low, now ignoring the bullets as they drilled into the cars all around her. The pedestrians had stopped screaming by now as they had all fled. It was just her and what seemed like the entirety of MaxTac.
Come on, then. I don't have all day.
Another ragged burst from MaxTac and the side mirror of a nearby supercar disintegrated into a flash of dust and mirror fragments. Somewhere, another overstressed engine from a trapped car, the gas pedal held down, revs fully into the red, let go with an enormous bang, filling the air with a fireball and heat, the concussion shattering the windows of the closest storefront.
Aside from the smart pistol strapped to her ankle, Fiona held no weapon. Her rifle and shotgun were somewhere near the multi-car pileup behind her. She came at the oncoming mercs bare-armed, her coat whipping behind her like a cape. The antagonists were moving in three columns up the lines of stalled traffic, each one five strong. They carried heavy weapons this time—rocket launchers and machineguns. Commandos that were also undoubtedly more cybernetic than their comrades were part of the column, noticeable from the fact that their limbs were either oversized—Gorilla Arms, without any need for a layer of Realskinn—or spindly appendages that terminated in curved swords or embedded firearms within a rearrangeable exterior.
But in the midst of all the chaos, Fiona was smiling.
Her HUD detected that a MaxTac commando had locked onto her head with his rifle, right before a red-tinged command screen wiped her display clear, replacing the borders with a continually shifting backdrop like melted glass.
…and there, the laughter again…
Through the smoke, Fiona swept a hand so fast that it appeared as a dark blur. Fifteen connections. Fifteen lock-on sounds.
There was a sound of rending metal. Fiona felt something in her nose violently let go. The warm sensation on her lips was the first indication of how badly she was bleeding.
But, as she clawed her hand across the expanse of the street like she was parting a curtain, a rolling tide of red-white energy followed the path of her palm, a wave that could drown all of Night City. Arcs of blinding lightning bolts blistered and crackled, many of them emitting from the MaxTac commandos who were swept up in the powerful crest as thousands upon thousands of viruses crossed the Blackwall barrier, shattered their ICEgates in the decks, and clawed their nodules into each and every square nanometer of chrome like a living crystal, infecting the victim, throwing their nervous systems into the redline. Anyone caught up in the tide would be subject to subliminal images borne from genetic remnants of memory in rapid-fire. Lives and false memories flashing before their eyes, right before their brains roasted to a crisp, their cyberdecks all blowing out the backs of their skulls in grisly fashion.
The effect was instantaneous. There were a few distinct pops as the bone pans of some of the MaxTac troopers exploded, sending dark sprays of boiling gore into the air. Others tried to scream, but only a hiss like data static escaped through their blistered throats. Some vomited blood, which steamed on the pavement, and collapsed into their deposited fluids, the bubbling liquid melting what remained of their faces.
Fiona stepped over the bodies, a warbling sigh echoing in her ears. She had to rest against a nearby truck for a few seconds and applied a hand to her ribs, for a stabbing pain in her side had manifested itself upon her like she had been shot. But her palm had come away clear, shining with just her sweat.
Brow already soaked, Fiona tried desperately to control her breathing as she looked up, towards the end of the boulevard, which was wisping with fresh morning light like the terminus of a long tunnel.
She clenched her hand, the sensation like broken glass was being ground up under her skin. Her abuse of the Blackwall hacks was already taking its toll. How much time did that last attack knock off her bio-timer? An hour? A day? If she did that too many times, she would not be getting off of this street at all, dead by her own hand, making MaxTac's involvement completely inconsequential right now.
Yet she resigned herself to a life of continued pain, for she saw more squads of commandos coming her way, bullets already filling the air around her.
There was no other choice.
Fiona stomped upon the hood of a nearby car, her hands contorted into angular shapes, elbows locked, and eyes wild. Her targeting system had gone into overdrive, highlighting new contacts, one after another, in rapid sequence. But each time they were highlighted in her vision, Fiona sent out a new barrage of hacks, throwing all caution to the winds. Her hands were frightfully stabbing, slamming, like a manic composer conducting their orchestra. A slew of programs raced through the air, the infinite blue, and created new fire within that darkness with each commando that was infected. A grid of wavering coral seemed to create a tear in the fabric of reality, the connections of each and every MaxTac trooper that seized and died in harmonic rhythm.
Another MaxTac trooper rolled out of cover, having gotten just meters away. Fiona whirled and pointed a finger—a blazing hole appeared in the trooper's chest, quickly rising into a pillar of flame. The trooper screamed and clenched down on the trigger of his rifle, sending a raking burst shunting upward, missing Fiona by a foot and carving a dotted line into one of the concrete pillars of the suspended highway.
Something dribbled from her eye as Fiona made makeshift daises of the stopped cars, continually heading towards the ocean, leaping from vehicle to vehicle. She wiped it away. Now blood was smeared upon her fingertips.
Bile rose in her throat. She was falling apart before her eyes.
She was so concentrated upon her blood-smeared hand that, even as the Blackwall whispered a warning to her, she still did not notice a MaxTac heavy trooper level a grenade launcher in her direction from a tenth of a mile away. It was only when she saw the sharp puff of exhaust and recognize the caliber heading her way at killing velocity did she leap to the side with a yell.
The grenade caromed through the windshield of the car she had been standing on before detonating within the interior. Fire exploded out from the shattered windows and the car flipped end over end, landing nearly perfectly upon a nearby pickup truck that had been abandoned just in front of it.
The concussive blast shoved the airborne Fiona nearly headlong into the side of a low-slung coupe with a crash, her body making a tremendous indentation upon the bodywork. She crumpled to the ground, dazed, her forehead now garbed with a branching crown of blood that ran down her cheeks and dripped freely away.
Groaning, she tried to lift herself up, but her body was refusing to obey her commands, as if the nervous system signals were on a delay. Smoke and sparks danced across her vision, which flickered in and out of a grayscale like a malfunctioning projector.
Wryly, she did note with some humor, I guess I am malfunctioning.
Whatever mirth that she could derive from the situation all but vanished when a MaxTac commando, taking advantage of Fiona's state, wheeled around the corner between a sedan and a truck that had smashed into the rear of an eighteen-wheeler. He held a 7.62mm support weapon with a 100-round drum magazine. His cybernetically enhanced arms were able to heft the massive gun with ease. Approaching the fallen netrunner, he lifted the weapon to his shoulder. A gun like that could hit a target with accuracy at up to half a kilometer away. There was no way he could miss.
Fiona's head shot up, eyes flashing.
Servos in the heavy's arms seized, jamming. The machinegun went off, blowing a chunk of the pavement away just inches from Fiona's head, spraying her with bits of gravel.
Fiona lunged towards the man, a shotgun blast from a MaxTac backup narrowly missing her head, but she ignored it for now. She grabbed the barrel of the machinegun—the hot metal began to scorch her palm of her cybernetic hand. Had it been her real one, she would have cried out in pain. The man reared his arm back and slugged her in the face. She grunted, but kept holding on, even as she was punched twice more, static washing across her vision.
The heavy brought his arm back, preparing to deliver one more furious blow.
As he shot his fist forward, Fiona raised her left hand up and caught it in her grip.
The muscles of her arm pulsed in response to the massive force shunting directly onto it. She stared at her limb, partially in shock. She had just made the move out of instinct, not once thinking that she was unable to match the man's strength. Was this another of the Blackwall's surprises?
There was no time to dwell on it for long. As she clenched down on the heavy's hand, shattering metal and carbon fiber in her ironclad grip, her other arm wrenched the barrel of the weapon down, leaving him open for her to deliver a kick to the man's right kneecap, shunting it backwards at an awkward angle, making him drop to his good knee. Splaying her palm out to the side, Fiona blasted the other soldier that previously shot at her with a Blackwall barrage, spinning him off his feet.
Then, she clasped both hands on either side of the heavy's face, who was on her knees before her like a fervent acolyte.
"Choke on it," Fiona seethed, right before she opened a direct connection to the rogue AIs waiting behind the Blackwall, letting them funnel through the elongated gateway that she had just unleashed.
The guard tried to break free of Fiona's grip, but she was too strong for him and he was too injured. But he stopped all resistance as his body gave a sudden jolt, like the early throes of a seizure. Then his limbs began to vibrate so heavily that they would have shattered bone had they been organic. His mouth flapped open several times, but no screams emitted. Instead, a harsh glow from the deep pit of his throat began to emerge, the same glow that was starting to waft behind the insectoid veil of green lens that had been implanted over his eyes. A long tongue of flame soon burst from his mouth, twins following as they cracked through the goggles, his skull bored out from the inferno. Roasted chrome and flesh mingled in a terrible smell, but Fiona was steadfast.
Once the man in her hands had been reduced to a series of feeble twitches did she finally release him. He smacked to the ground, the skin around his lips and mouth blackened and cracking, a thin wisp of smoke exhaling from his obsidian throat. Sightless eyes, never comprehending the end when it had arrived.
Continuing to stalk towards where the road would deposit her out near the sea, Fiona bent down and picked up the machinegun that the heavy had dropped. It had more than half a clip in it and the holo-sight was blazing a rust-red reticle within the expanse of amber glass.
Something sliced by her head. AP round. She lifted the massive gun—her nose was bleeding profusely within her half-mask now, streaming down around her jaw, and she was feeling less inclined to use her Blackwall viruses in such rapid fashion. She fired the Cyclone in her hands, which jerked her arm spasmodically, as she ducked and always kept herself moving. Rounds smashed into a commando who had been hiding behind a minivan—the windows shattering as the bullets sailed through the car and the target, which completely ripped his torso apart, exposing the pale glint of ribs.
More enemy fire from all sides, it felt like. Now, every single car around Fiona was reverberating as hailfire struck them, bits of metal and glass joining together in the air in a razor cloud. Muzzle flashes up and down the boulevard. The increased whine of radio feedback. The air itself burning up from the superheated projectiles that sailed up and down the area.
A grenade landed near Fiona's foot. Contemptuously, she kicked it away. It detonated with a whumpf, followed by another terrific explosion as a truck's gas tank ignited. Fiona's face was bathed in light and the intensity of the heat was so great she imagined she was being blistered from it.
The commandos seemed to have learned their lesson and were taking great care not to get into close range with Fiona.
She was more than fine with that.
Running through the narrow corridor, flanked by vehicles in various states of disrepair, Fiona fired as she went, the powerful chatter of the weapon nearly deafening her. Her HUD had activated an auto-aim function and she kept the crosshairs of her weapon as within the diamond-shaped targets as she could muster.
A focused burst from her tore the arm of a MaxTac operator clean off, the limb spiraling away and trailing white blood. At a nearby chokepoint where an overturned motorcycle had smashed into a bright yellow Porsche, a sniper readied their weapon atop the oversized spoiler. Fiona whirled, fired, and the sniper fell backwards, his armor smoking, part of his head missing. A heavy lurched into her lane and fired a shotgun. She dodged the brunt of the blast, but several of the buckshot pellets ricocheted—had Fiona not been holding her cybernetic arm up to her face, part of her head would have been ripped away. As it was, the sleeve of her coat was instantly shredded, along with a thick swath of the synthetic skin that swaddled her prosthesis, but otherwise she was uninjured.
The netrunner fired her large weapon one-handed. A skipping burst shattered the hip of the heavy that had just fired at her. Regaining control of her gun, Fiona gripped it with both hands, lined the holo-sight up with the heavy's head, and blew him away in the next second.
More smoke curled around her. She breathed in the noxious fumes, but did not choke.
There was a furious chopping sound of rotors as a helicopter—Arasaka logos adorning the side—swung into view. Fiona was not going to take any chances. The Blackwall sang to her as her eyes narrowed, focused on the airborne machine, and she lifted her arm as if she intended to cup the helicopter in her palm, before she brought it down in a brutal motion.
There was a rising whine from the engine and suddenly the top of the helicopter burst into a steel flame. Parts belched from the engine as something catastrophically let go within the aircraft and it started to slowly spiral in the air, losing altitude, each rotation becoming faster and faster.
Fiona saw the wreath of Blackwall code cradle the doomed helicopter, a sizzling halo. She could not help but smile.
The chopper impacted the ground several blocks away, the skyscraper windows reflecting the eruption like a dazzling mirror. Pieces of the rotor whirled by at terrifying speeds, some of the debris slicing clean through some of the parked cars like a sword had gone through them. One MaxTac trooper was caught across the middle by a particularly large shard and was bisected at the waist. His comrades tried to pull his upper half to safety, for he was packed to the gills with combat drugs that he was still alive, but this had the unintended effect of spilling his guts all over the pavement.
Fiona risked a glance further down the street, the side of her neck now throbbing and a dampness like tears beginning to burgeon in the corner of her eyes. A quarter mile more until the end, but there was an absolute cavalcade of MaxTac and NCPD vehicles that were now barricading the way between her and safety. There had just been too much time for them to reinforce their position. She counted at least twenty cruisers and seven armored assault vehicles, and that was not to say anything of the dozens upon dozens of officer corps that were taking up positions, preparing to overwhelm her location.
This was suicide. Even with her access to the Blackwall, Fiona reasoned that she would burn herself out long before she could kill everyone in her way.
She decided upon a new plan. No more pushing to the sea. Get out of here. Anywhere. And however possible.
Quickly, she whirled in place, looking for a way out. The overhead expressway? No, she didn't have the right tech to make a quick escape, plus MaxTac would nail her mid-climb, for she would be out in the open and completely exposed for several precious seconds. Going through the storefronts was a no-go as well, for there were several empty meters of sidewalk between the street and the doors. Easy pickings for a sniper.
She needed cover. Something mobile.
Fiona confided with her map. There was an alleyway to her immediate right that linked up with a side street near a populated tunnel. From the police scanners, MaxTac had not locked that escape route down yet, for they were more focused on clogging both ends of the wide avenue and compressing their lines with Fiona caught in the middle. MaxTac, as good as they were, mainly relied on brute tactics and not intricate strategy. They were used to operating as cybernetic battering rams, destroying everything and everyone between them and their targets. Slow advances, corner shots, technomancing—these were skills they did not have the patience for.
But Fiona did.
Hunkering down near the closest line of abandoned cars to the alleyway, gunfire still crackling over her head, Fiona saw that there was a long gap between an expensive German sedan and what appeared to be an empty car hauler. The aluminum lattice of the hauler's ramp had been extended, allowing what was unmistakably an incline that sloped up and over the tractor cab. This will do.
She touched the handle of the sedan, but did not enter. [2] A quick spark of crimson flitted between her fingertips and the chromed bodywork. Inside, the dashboard instantly became alight and the engine thrummed to life. She now had access to the car's computer, along with all its command systems.
"Ready," she murmured to herself as she instinctively patted the door of the car and crouch-walked away until she got to the car behind the German sedan.
This one, she did open, and the door slid backwards on rails instead of parting wide on hinges. Fiona quickly clambered over the structural bracing in the doorsill, closed the door, and placed a hand on the carbon-fiber dashboard, her quickhacks linking with the nodules of the vehicle. Her eyes closed, she envisioned her spiderweb generating a new thread, and suddenly, a neon HUD flared to life in the dashboard, pastel blues and pinks, and her hands gravitated to the yoke-like steering wheel of the Quadra Turbo-R V-Tech.
On her tac-map, a dozen icons closing in. Hemisphere formation. Now or never.
Fiona clenched upon the steering wheel, trying to suppress her shaking. Then, a calmness finally overcame her like a drug, rippling through her body in an instant. She took one hand off the steering wheel and slowly gravitated down to the gearshift. She positioned her feet upon the pedals, somehow knowing where to be and what she needed to do in every millisecond interval.
Something erupted in her review mirror, filling it with a dazzling golden light.
Her eyes flashed, red bolts rimming her gaze.
The sedan in front of her, driverless, immediately laid rubber as its rear wheels spun in place for a second before it lurched away at full bore. Her hacks had completely taken over the propulsion system. The sedan was aimed, at an oblique angle, towards the empty car hauler, moving through the carbon and blood-streaked lane.
Drawn by the noise, the closest MaxTac troopers, hiding out in their cover behind other vehicles, immediately opened fire upon the moving sedan. Bullets obliterated the windshield and ripped up the leather seats, but there was no body inside for the troopers to hit. More shots exploded into the front of the car, the engine block flaring, and pockmarks lined the doors as the automatic weapons riddled it through and through.
A sniper's shot crackled and there was a harsh popping noise as the sedan's right front tire deflated. But that was not enough to take it off its course, for it hit the ramp of the hauler dead-on, gas pedal on the floor, engine faltering but in no way dead. The dual-level trailer rattled horribly as the sedan sped up and over it at fifty miles an hour, MaxTac continuing to shoot at it all the while. But the sedan did not slow as it reached the end of the elevated pathway, for it simply drove itself straight over the tractor cab that the trailer was linked to, knocking off the twin exhaust pipes in the process, immediately pitched down and to the side, and landed on its top left corner with a heavy crunching sound. The car flipped onto its roof, slowly rolling over, exposing its gas tank to the MaxTac troopers that had never stopped firing at it. One spark near the rear of the car and that was it for the nearly full tank to ignite, and a mushroom cloud of accelerated propellant blossomed into the air and a tremendous boom split the street, more storefront windows shattering in the immediate wake of the blast.
At the same time, using the explosion as a distraction, Fiona gunned the engine to the Quadra, exhaust roaring, and quickly yanked the wheel to the right, slamming the sleek vehicle down the nearby alley. Gunfire raked overhead from the startled MaxTac soldiers realizing that they had been had. But with a twirl of red taillights, she was off the road and into the narrow crevasse of darkness.
The alleyway was not level, but a downward series of steps. The Quadra inelegantly bounced down the concrete flights, each slam sending out a shockwave of sparks from the undercarriage, rattling Fiona's teeth and causing her to bite her tongue at one point. Blood exploded in her mouth, but she swallowed it down with a grunt, knuckles aching as the steering wheel vibrated all over the place. There was a hideous scraping sound as the Quadra ran up against the sides of the alley, leaving behind white gouges.
At least she was moving.
With a final lurch, the Quadra made it down the last of the steps. From above, back where she had come, MaxTac had finally gotten into position and had started firing upon her. One shot a grenade from a launcher, but the projectile hit the side of the building and detonated prematurely, throwing out a barrage of dust and brick fragments.
Fiona yanked the wheel, grabbed the handbrake, feathered the throttle, and the Quadra skidded out onto Eisenhower Street, the back end of the car knocking out a guardrail emplacement as she traveled along the sidewalk, eventually careening onto the street.
Traffic was at normal levels here, and clear from the cops and MaxTac. Fiona was not intending blending in with the flow, though. Her first and foremost thought: get out of Night City.
She weaved in and out of the rows of cars, earning herself several irate honks in the process. She was going at a steady fifty miles per hour, her teeth shaking with every unfilled pothole that she ran over. A pine tree air freshener—hung by the previous owner—dangled and jostled from the rearview mirror. A holographic anime girl from some franchise that Fiona didn't recognize danced within the HUD. At no point did Fiona relax—her blood continued to howl, sweat clung to her skin, and electricity was making a web within her brain.
Finally realizing that the radio was blaring—some annoying tune sung in a falsetto to a sugary-pop beat—Fiona cranked the knob, station by station.
"—units, priority one individual heading towards Kabuki, parallel to the ring road. MaxTac is in pursuit. Repeat, do not intervene. MaxTac has jurisdiction."
They were not going to let her off that easy. The walls were closing in.
Fiona had to force herself to remain calm. She pulled up the city map in one eye while the other she kept affixed to the road. She created a quick route for herself: make it onto the ring road, get on the 101, then take the exit for the 5 that led towards the desert valley, away from Night City. Into the nuclear country. It was not an elaborate plan, but she was short on time to make it elaborate.
She was just taking the turn onto Kennedy when the Hellhound SUV, hidden behind the map overlay in her HUD, slammed into her from the perpendicular track.
The Quadra made a perfect 360, a tormented twist of rubber painting the asphalt below. The rear bumper to the car hung by strings, brushing out sparks where it ran upon the ground. The car finally stopped with a lurch, the engine continuing to rumble. Fiona's head had bashed against the side window from the impact, leaving behind a small spiderweb in the glass. She shook her head, dazed, and looked up through the fogged windshield.
The MaxTac Hellhound had skidded to a stop just beyond the intersection, pedestrians running in all directions to get away from the chaos. Six wheels, AWD, all spun as the Hellhound was thrown in reverse, the driver not bothering to unload the MaxTac squad that was no doubt sitting in the hold.
The engine to the Quadra was still running. Fiona pushed down the shock of the crash and applied pressure to the throttle. The car shot off, the Hellhound in pursuit, sirens blaring.
She whipped the car down the ring road's lower level. Below the overpass now, sandwiched between bedrock and the main highway above. Cooler air and quartz light from the overhead lamps seared a radiant white glow upon the road, like driving through a clean room. In her side mirror, Fiona saw a commando lean out from the passenger side window of the Hellhound just behind her, assault rifle in hand. She saw the rapid-fire crosses of light and exhaust emit from the muzzle and she instinctively yanked the wheel to the left.
Explosive rounds cratered the road on her previous track, violent jets of smoke and debris shooting up. The line of fire intersected with a hapless sedan that had been in front of Fiona—the rounds hit the gas tank and the car exploded with a careening burst of noise and flame, the driver having no clue what had happened until the fireball consumed him in a flash. Fiona's Quadra skirted the inferno, flames licking at the tires, the columns of the lower highway becoming alight from rounds ricocheting off of them.
The lower level of the highway was soon filled with the chorus of sirens. In her review mirror, the flashing red and blues of MaxTac pursuit vehicles. What am I doing? What am I not doing?
A tanker truck was coming up in the left lane. There was a machinepistol that she had placed in the cupholder in the center console. She grabbed the weapon, rolled down the window, switched the ammunition to explosive and, as she drove by the tanker, she fired a raking burst. Huge target, no way for her to miss.
She had turned off her audio receptors right before the entire truck exploded. Had they been active, she would have gone permanently deaf. There was a jolt so large that the Quadra was thrown forward, still drivable, aimed towards the exit that would take it to the upper level. Light filled her rearview mirror, which soon died down to a brutal simmer of vermillion and titian illumination. Smoke as black as the darkest pitch filled the lower level, dropping visibility down to zero behind her. The flames and the fumes cradled her vehicle, but only for a moment, for she shot out of the cloud like the Quadra was possessed, wheeled frantically to stay on centerline, and went airborne for a brief moment when the ramp suddenly rounded off, only for her to land onto the massive highway, the way ahead clear, the sun shimmering its glass-like haze.
"Lost visual on the Quadra, dispatch," the radio crackled. "Believe suspect is now on the upper level of the ring road."
"Acknowledged. Heavy units are in position to engage. Maintain dispersion unless otherwise directed."
Heavy units? This whole time Fiona had thought that MaxTac had been throwing everything her way. If that was just the opening salvo, then what did the cyberpsycho squad have up their sleeve?
The answer came seconds later with bone-shattering force. One lane of the highway seemed to just vanish in a quick wink of a pre-detonation, followed by the now-familiar sting of a concussive wave. She swerved out of the way, evading the cratered wreckage. No small-arms fire could have done that, Fiona realized. That had been a 20mm round. She turned her head around and felt a cold sensation suddenly numb her spine.
The highway was suspiciously empty behind her for about half a mile, completely devoid of all cars. [3] But, in the distance, the lone occupants of the wide road, were two large vehicles that Fiona initially mistook as cargo ships. It was only when the massive autocannons fired again, a nearby lamppost emplacement vanishing in a furious burst, did she realize what was chasing her.
The Basilisk hovertanks seared across the baking hot pavement, the thrusters superheating the air below it, leaving scorch marks that scarred the road behind them. Fiona had only seen those things in images on the Net, never in person. But from the comments that the war vets shared on their zone blogs, the Basilisk was one of the deadliest pieces of arsenal that Militech had ever built. All-terrain, autocannon-equipped, and electromagnetic missile countermeasures. The only thing that could possibly stand up to one of those that she knew of was probably Rzhevsky.
Window still open, hair whipping across her white face, trickles of blood now seeping from under the half-mask she now wore, Fiona felt something gnaw at her bones. Almost painful. A presence reminding her of its existence. Her gray eyes glowed with reddish channels, fixated back onto the road when the next explosion commanded her attention.
The game had changed, yet again. Fiona, her breath coming in wheezes now, was swerving the wheel now, a madwoman, trying to evade the incoming autocannon fire that was making Swiss cheese out of the highway. The Quadra could resist bullets up to a point, but one hit, even a glancing blow, from a 20mm round would obliterate the car to such a degree that a coroner would have difficulty in identifying her remains.
A round skipped off the road in front of her, punched through the six-meter-high guardrail fencing, and exploded in the pool of a North Oak mansion. Fiona saw the chandelier of vaporized water rise up, watching the atomized droplets sparkle in the air like fireworks. For some reason, she thought she could smell the steam in the air from such a distance. Smell the moisture, even.
The one advantage that she had over the Basilisks was speed and she intended to capitalize on that. Foot to the floor, gearshift at the highest ratio, Fiona urged her Quadra forth, navigating through the twists and turns upon the ring road, trying to spoil the line of sight the hovertanks had on her. It was working, for the explosions soon stopped coming after her route rounded around a building, a momentary reprieve.
"C'mon, faster," she urged the car as if it were a living thing. The bucket seat cradled her, hugging her close, as if to ward off a surge of g-force darkness.
The exit to the 5 was just on her right. She went for it, having to slow her speed down to 100 miles an hour to avoid the car's tendency to oversteer. Colliding with a concrete barrier at such speed tended to wreak havoc on the human body, even one like hers.
She checked the ring road that the exit was currently in the process of taking her over. The Basilisks were not there. Had she lost them?
A glint from the hilltops to her ten o'clock, at least six miles out. Fiona zoomed in. To her dismay, roaring over the desert shrubs and the irregular ground, and through the lawns of the North Oak mansions, the Basilisks were cutting the corner of Fiona's route on an intercept course, having jumped the highway, the pilots no doubt realizing they did not have the edge on speed. But they had the tactics and the determination to never abandon their chase.
The autocannons whirled in the direction of her Quadra and fired. A nearby explosion rocked the Quadra's suspension, nearly carting it off the road. The barrage soon became continuous and Fiona was back on the defensive, though she had never left that mindset. The hovercrafts flattened the pale brush as they dipped out of sight behind a refining facility, the line of sight broken once again.
Directly in front of Fiona now, a cut through a medium rise of rocky boulders. The Red Cliffs interchange. The last intersection that defined Night City civilization. The Basilisks would be smart to cut her off there, intending to foil her escape eastward.
She needed to wrest every ounce of power out of this thing as humanly—or inhumanly—possible. Her hands groped for the interface jack point just behind the steering wheel. With one hand, she flipped the cowling away, grabbed for her wiring embedded in her left wrist, snaked the cable around, and jacked in. Lights flared inside her head like she was back on Jing-Jing Street. The ECU of the Quadra opened wide for her and she immediately wiped out the limiters and tampered with the ignition timing as well as the air/fuel ratio. The Quadra did not noticeably respond to the increase in power at first, but there was a subtle surge that quickly grew into a long pull of acceleration as Fiona held onto the wheel for dear life, the cabling whipping out of the jack and snapping back into her wrist.
The intersection was fast approaching. The light had just turned red.
As if Fiona was intending to obey the street laws.
The Basilisks streamed around the corner, fire blossoming from their massive exhaust ports as if they had expended all other systems for the pure, raw power.
Their cannons had already been positioned to fire on a target a quarter of a mile away, already firing even though they had not acquired a lock on.
The reason there was no lock-on was because Fiona was already a tenth of a mile away.
Skirting well underneath the veil of fire, Fiona's Quadra adjusted to the right and screamed past the hovertanks, which were now attempting to wheel around upon realizing that Fiona was now operating beyond the stock performance measures of the vehicle.
The chassis of the Basilisks had actually turned around before the turrets, which were sluggishly rotating to face front, towards the cut in the land and the scarred desert just beyond.
Fiona breathed, an idea coming to her.
She had only milliseconds.
Touching the Net without fully considering the ramifications, she suppressed all temperature warnings that her deck was giving out. A small shard of time, doused into the simmering sea that was the Net. Hotcores of data, megaforts. Blinding lobes and pyramids. But she was outside their influence, into the sickly gray of non-space. Where the light of the data just flickered against her.
But even on that dead plane, she was shining like a beacon.
In the real world, she was still driving, mostly cognizant, but a portion of her brainstem activity was in the matrix.
The sprawl opened up within the data topography—she could see the Basilisk tanks. One would have to have their senses completely nullified to miss the two massive icons of energy that were in close proximity to her. As if Moses had seen two burning bushes out in the desert.
The Basilisks were hardened against data attacks, their ICE supplied by third-party supplier S/N, the best in the business.
Fiona's hack speared right through it.
Or rather, just the ICE that protected the tank whose barrel was currently pointed at its partner, frozen in time like a prehistoric fish in a long-buried lake. Cyberspace fractalized for her for a nanosecond, then cleared like the purest crystal. She could see the individual pieces and conduits of the Basilisk blown out before her like a diagram and she knew which route to take. Her presence cascaded through the wires and spread out in such a wide arc that, for the briefest amount of time, Fiona was the Basilisk.
Her first—and only—act in her newfound position, was to fire the fully loaded 20mm cannon.
Straight into the other tank.
At close range, at the slightly downward angle, there could not have been a better shot. The round ripped through the cabin of the Basilisk immediately, blasting out the armored exterior in a massive ripple, shredding the copilot to a bloody mist, immediately dumping the entire neural load of the tank onto the pilot, completely overloading his senses and blowing out his nervous system before he could unjack himself. In the cockpit, there was a harsh, digital scream, and the pilot vomited boiling blood before he slumped upon the controls. The hovertank lost all propulsion, dropped to the ground like a stone, crumpled the front end from the hard landing and tipped onto its side, smoking.
Back in the Quadra, Fiona's eyes cleared with a gasping breath. Her body cooled down now that she had withdrawn from the Net, but her nose was gushing somewhat fierce. Her lap had puddled with her blood. She was paying dearly for her continued Net jaunts. Her regular hacks and dives were feeling more dangerous, as if she could flatline at any moment.
She turned the car, now heading north down a dusty road, the track grooved and well-worn, the rest of the playa shattered and crumpled, the bald mountains in front of her shimmering with heat distortion. She held the wheel with one hand, her half-mask now temporarily discarded and stuffed into a pocket in her coat, as she tried to stem the bleeding from her nose.
The sole remaining Basilisk rounded the corner so quickly that the centrifugal force momentarily dipped its front right corner to the point where it scraped the road, its driver no doubt infuriated at having an accomplice in the death of his comrade. There was a harsh whine as the boosters of the Basilisk were overclocked, a steady throb emanating from the exhaust as the fifty-ton vehicle lurched across the desert. It had diverted nearly all power to the engines in an effort to maximize its potential horsepower and was bellowing towards the Quadra with a murderous speed.
A hand to her nose, Fiona glanced up at the Basilisk in her rearview mirror. Seeing it loom large in her view.
There was no more time. Her RAM was still recharging.
The hovertank was roaring, nearly upon her. Veering in the sudden heat like a vengeful spirit.
Fiona was so concentrated on what was occurring behind her, that she was not focused on what was in front of her.
She only noticed the train crossing when there was nothing she could do about it. The barrier had been down already, a thin siren warbling across the splintered bowl of the valley. The Quadra barreled through the barrier, which splintered across the hood of the car and bounced off the windshield, momentarily becoming aloft for two seconds as she vaulted across the train tracks.
The Basilisk, a bloodhound seized with the impulse to run Fiona down, never slowed, not even for the train that had burst from the nearby tunnel to the left like a bullet. A massive yellow engine, a Ural Kombinat AM-773, shaking the rails, cars of double-stacked CHOOH2 tankers trailing in its wake a mile long.
Fiona's Quadra crossed over the tracks, still airborne, just as the depleted uranium bumper of the Basilisk, barging past the broken barricade, brushed her rear corner, knocking it off course.
The hovertank, midway over the tracks, about to crush the Quadra—
With a tare weight of 1,500 tons and 12,550kW of power surging through its two nuclear reactors, the train was an indestructible battering ram that could shoot across the desert floor at speeds up to seventy miles an hour. It was already redlining by the time the Basilisk had positioned itself over the tracks and the operator never bothered to engage the sixteen OEXX-7b brakes. Not much point.
The train obliterated the Basilisk in the blink of an eye, the chassis of the hovertank briefly wrapping around the front of the spiked engine, before the insane levels of momentum carried it away. A mile down the line, there was an explosion as the Basilisk's powerplant finally let go and a squeal of brakes from the startled train operator, but the pilot and copilot of the tank were already dead at that point, having been crushed to a pulp when the entire cockpit had been compressed to the size of a coffee cup before they could even scream.
Fiona saw none of this. Just the desert floor rushing up through the windshield, the Quadra pitching forward after being nudged from the Basilisk's final act.
She threw up her hands just as the hood of the car plowed into the ragged road. There was a bang as the airbag went off, impacting directly into Fiona's face. The Quadra bounced, throwing everything upside down. Used cups, wrappers, and even a condom sailed past Fiona's head as the horizon outside twirled and inverted. Her gut pitched and a sereness overcame her for a moment.
She let herself fall limp, deep into that electric and sizzling sea of simulation.
The Quadra hit the ground and rolled several times with fearsome impacts. Razor-sharp metal sailed away from the chassis, thrown by the centrifugal forces, which sliced the ground as if whirled from a discus. The gas tank was punctured and sent a spiral of CHOOH2 whipping through the air, helixing around the disfigured hulk of the car as it bounced down the road.
Finally, the remains of the car rocked to a halt, a massive cloud of dust obscuring it for a minute. The Quadra's body paneling had either been destroyed or ejected during the crash, as had the windshield and the rest of the windows. It looked like a crumpled skeleton that had roasted for too long in the sun and had blackened, its metallic entrails scattered all around the desert.
There was a clanging sound. A deep drumming. Then, the driver's side door to the Quadra burst off its hinges and was knocked into the scrubland.
Fiona sprawled out from the opening in the car, rolling onto her back with a groan, the big china blue sky open directly above her once the mistrals of dust and smoke had settled.
Her face was a fright, for her nosebleed had completely stained everything below her chin red. And when she had impacted into the airbag, that had just smeared the blood across the rest of her face that it had not previously touched.
She lay there for a long moment, trying to ascertain if she was dead or not. She ran a diagnostic—nothing seemed to be broken, miraculously. Some internal bleeding, but she had already dropped a coagulant through her sensory amplifier.
Gingerly, grunting all the while, Fiona staggered back to her feet, a hand to her ribs. She had expected a splintering burst of pain, but nothing manifested, to her relief. Her half-mask was still in the pocket of her coat—she patted the indentation for reassurance. She then reached out with her free hand and settled against the overturned Quadra. Two of its wheels had been knocked off while it had been rolling and were presumably still bouncing around in the desert somewhere. The other two were still spinning in place upon the overturned car.
The train was still rumbling by in the distance, the operator at the controls having decided that it was not worth it to come to a complete stop even after the engine had thoroughly dismantled the Basilisk. Fiona watched it, noting the infinite line of tanker cars and how the ground seemed to tremble as if the San Andreas fault was finally opening up continuously.
Fiona stood next to the car, almost doubled over, catching her breath, the heat rising in her eyes. She was so fixated on the train that she did not notice the sound of a motorcycle behind her until it was nearly alongside her.
An NCPD patrolman, riding a modified motorcross, gawked at Fiona and the Quadra wreckage. He removed his helmet, wiped his brow, and then seemed to notice the woman standing next to the crumpled machine, who had whipped around upon hearing him approach. Fiona's bloody face caused the patrolman's eyes to widen and he slowly extended the kickstand of his bike.
"Holy shit," the patrolman said, before calling out, "Ma'am? Do you need any assis—"
The patrolman had not been able to see that Fiona was reaching for the machinepistol that had been holstered at her thigh. When she raised her arm, weapon in hand, the patrolman trailed off, not understanding.
Clenching her teeth, Fiona's machinepistol crackled and the patrolman was thrown from his bike with a whoosh of air from his lungs. He fell on his back and never got back up.
Breath seething from her parted mouth, Fiona approached the bike, keeping her gun trained on the patrolman's body. Her scanners were not indicating a heartbeat, however, so she allowed herself a moment to relax and holster her weapon.
She eyed the man for a second. Had he just been out on patrol and not known about the chaos in the city? Or had he been an Arasaka corpo in disguise, trying to play dumb to gain her trust until she let her guard down at the right time? Possibilities among possibilities. Whatever pity she had felt for the patrolman vanished into gray ashes as she forced herself to burn that emotion out of her system. She mounted the bike, checked to see if it had enough fuel, and continuously monitored the sky for any MaxTac or Arasaka aircraft. She also made sure to nullify any trackers on the bike by casting a discrete network disabling pin in her vicinity, just in case the NCPD had the vehicle tagged.
Gunning the throttle, Fiona swung the bike around, which threw up a ragged line of dirt and stones as the rear wheel spun in place. Leaning forward on the handlebars, as if such an act would get her away from the city quicker, she took off down the dirt road, her map, for the moment, disregarded.
Away. Just got to get away.
The motorcycle ran and ran until the sun had dipped below the horizon and the moon had come up to replace it. The old bones of a former world lay nearly buried in the desert sands—wind turbines, prefabs, even old company towns—the moonlight blanching the wasteland so that everything appeared cold and pale. The crooked spines of the ancient telephone poles marked the trails and the roads that scarred the desert—blow darts embedded deep into the crust of the broken and poisoned earth.
Fiona had driven without intention, without a destination. The movement of the motorcycle had numbed her arms long ago, her hair whipping behind her like a cape. She rode through the desert, taking turns at random, only driving to get the glow from Night City to diminish as much as possible in her wake.
She rode past the burned-out hulks of cars and rigs. Past the unmarked graves of the dregs of Night City—the people that were unwanted or would remain unfound.
Up above, the solemn and distant lines of satellites marching in sequence. The further from the city she traveled, the more stars poked from the blanket of darkness. Soon, she was able to spot the gradual pool of where the night seemed to be stained by an upended liquid—the Milky Way.
Off in the distance, twinkling fires from nomad camps. She could imagine the warmth of the flames, how the nomads would drink and dance to acoustic song around them. That they laughed uninhibited, because they were among family.
Family. The word felt more foreign to Fiona than ever before.
Driving further and further, she eventually rejoined the highway right as the moon reached its zenith, but continued on a broader offshoot past a checkpoint of toppled orange cones and several DO NOT ENTER signs. Her headlights illuminated the craggy path before her until the pavement suddenly seemed to drop away several meters in front of her.
Fiona hit the brakes, gently slowing to a stop.
There was no supposition about it. The highway indeed ended, permanently. A span that would normally have ranged between the canyon had fallen into disrepair with chunks of road having fallen from the bridge that lay nestled atop the fissure half a mile up. There was no going any further.
The kickstand extended, Fiona swung herself off the bike, allowing her a moment to stretch and think things through. She walked in a circuit, swinging her arms, breathing heavily. Her nose had stopped bleeding hours back, but her face was still encrusted with what the wind had not been able to blow off. She dug in her pockets for an oilstained rag and wiped her face, leaving stray bits of dried blood plastered to her skin.
With the engine of the bike having died, Fiona stopped for a moment, becoming corpse-still. Listening intently.
But there was nothing to listen to.
It was just so quiet.
She was far away from the city that there was no longer that ever-present thrum of white noise. The main spur of the highway was miles off. No air traffic circulated here, either. With the wind having blistered down to nothing, Fiona reckoned that this was the first time in the life where she could truly hear silence.
Peace overcoming her, she simply sat down on the warm and cracked concrete, legs crossed, just staring up at the stars. Faint stitches of meteors burning in the atmosphere. The twinkling of stars dying billions of lightyears away. The land all before her deep and dark blue, and if she did not have night-vision in her optics everything would lack all definition.
Soon, Fiona stretched out, continuing to stare up at the great bowl of sky. So many worlds out there, so many possibilities. Perhaps… there was a place out there where she belonged. Not in this solar system, though. Further. Much further away. Alpha Centauri, perhaps. She didn't know why, she just had a feeling.
Her thoughts would inevitably return to the violence of the day, though, kicked off by the moment she had seen Kross' head explode in front of her. Her heart gave a pang for the man. He had always treated her kindly, despite his rough exterior. He was not supposed to have sacrificed himself for her, she never would have asked for such a thing. He had just… gone ahead and done it. She should have known about the ambush. She should have been faster. She was a god-be-damned AI, so why was it that people kept getting the drop on her?
Should, should, should. That was then. This was now. Kross was dead and there was no returning him. No Soulkiller keeping his consciousness on tap, just like the rest of Night City's proletariat. No glass heaven for them, just their blood soaking the concrete while their meat rotted in the sun.
Kross had no family, no kin. That almost made Fiona feel worse. Who would remember him after she had passed? Rogue? Soon, she would go, too. Then Ryo. Then… herself. And then he would be forgotten.
Maybe they would name a drink after him at Afterlife. The only immortality that was achievable to someone in his position.
Gasping, she clenched her eyes shut. These dark thoughts—if only there was a hack to drive them away.
But she could not stop thinking how MaxTac been able to locate her. A traitor in her midst? Doubtful, Ryo and Rogue had deliberately rescued her from the wreckage of Arasaka tower—there would have been no reason for them to do so only to betray her, and Rogue held less than zero love for Arasaka after all that she had been through. Kross was dead, so he obviously was not a mole. Falco? She couldn't think of a motive for him. Sure, he was desperate to escape the city and start a new life, but she knew his past and how he had stuck his neck out for worse odds earlier. He had stood up to Arasaka before and was willing to do it again. No way he could have been bought.
In fact, the only way that MaxTac could have been able to locate her was if she had been unintentionally broadcasting her—
No…
It couldn't be that simple, could it?
Memories of frozen gas, wisps rushing out from a sudden surge, a change in pressure. Face partially submerged in icewater, her pale eyes glancing up as the door to her freezer swung open, revealing a smooth dome of carbon fiber and LED eyes that looked like a volcano had cracked open. An armored hand at the lip of her tub, staring down at her naked body with a simmering anger.
He had found her once. Years ago.
Could he… still find her the same way?
Instinctively, her hands scrambled to her gut, as though she intended to dig through her belly and rifle through her intestines to tear out the circuitry that was betraying her. No, no, nononono. She felt violated. Raped, even. She had forgotten that her IP address was able to be tracked by those that knew it—the one person that knew it. He had cracked through all her security before, boring through her ICE without her even realizing it.
That had to be it. Ramses had given Arasaka a way to track her. The only way.
She shot to her feet, shivering, head swiveling in all directions, as though as she expected a helicopter to suddenly appear over a rise and shine a spotlight upon her so that she could be instantly surrounded by MaxTac.
Keenly aware of her thudding heart, Fiona forced herself to calm down. She was not passively transmitting anything over the Net—that would only happen if she was actively accessing it or if she was connected to a local network. She was out of range of the closest Net transmitters, at least. In Night City, one could not find a space away from the invisible web of the Net no matter how hard they tried. The desert was a dark zone, literally and figuratively. There was no network that she could connect to and thus enable Ramses to latch onto her signature.
But she knew that this was going to be something she needed to take care of. She was a netrunner. An AI. She needed the Net to survive.
She could not rip out the transmitter that was lighting up her position like a signal flare every time she jumped to cyberspace.
But, maybe she could disable it.
With a long intake of breath, Fiona lunged back toward the motorcycle, her foot swinging the kickstand back just as the engine ignited. Tires squealed on pavement as she lurched the bike in the opposite direction, down the deserted highway and back towards the faint ramshackle semblance of civilization.
She stopped at the first motel that she came to, ten miles back up the 5 highway. A pitiful and dust-streaked place, squalid with wooden boards that had paint slathered over them to disguise the rot. Fiona popped a U-turn so that she could drive up to the court where only two cars were parked, but she did not claim a spot. It would not do if the bike was visible from the road, so she pulled around back and stashed it next to a dumpster.
Walking back around towards the U-shaped ramada, Fiona did not go towards the front desk. Her eddies were all in a digital account—try to pay for anything and Arasaka would no doubt detect the purchase. MaxTac would be knocking on her door within five minutes—if they weren't blowing it out with a shotgun, that is.
She walked down the covered walkway down to a corner room, out of sight from the front desk, making sure that there were no cars parked nearby. The lock was a cheap digital thing that was meant to accept plastic keycards. Fiona just had to nudge her hand close to the receiver, lay a hack in the brief space between her and the device, and it blinked green.
Upon entering the room, she closed the curtains, nearly startling herself with the sudden darkness that obscured the yellow lamplight outside. It was all quiet, except for the sounds of trucks downshifting on the highway. She sat on the bed and a cloud of dust escaped from the mattress with a wan sigh.
Methodically, she checked every corner of the room, committing the layout to memory. She took the dimensions of the closet, of the bathrooms, and made sure to cover the rear window in the back, near the plastic-coated kitchenette. For good measure, she took one of the chairs and propped it against the doorknob, just in case someone were to try coming through that way.
She was too wound up to go to sleep, so she figured she could use a shower. Once inside the bathroom, she tried not to look at where asbestos had stained the ceiling and bent down to twist the sediment-encrusted knob. A gush of unsanitary brown water burst from the faucet. It took five minutes for the water to run clear. Once it did, she undressed, pooled her clothes in a spiderwebbed corner, and stepped into the grimy shower. The lukewarm water splattered against her redlined skin. Blood trickled down her legs and made whirls at the floor of the shower. Old wounds had quit their stinging hours ago. Or maybe she had learned to dissociate the pain. Hard to tell.
There were no towels to dry herself off. She simply stood vigil in the middle of the room, naked, machinepistol in hand. Listening for the crackle of gravel underneath tires. The faint brush of radio feedback. Her adrenaline refused to leave her like a bad trip, constantly putting her on edge.
Once she had air-dried, she dressed herself back up again. An hour here and no one had taken notice of her presence. Perhaps this place was as good as any. And, with that tub…
She exited from the room and quickly locked it behind her. She had spotted an ice machine just outside when she had arrived here, near the rear entrance to the front desk. Just act like she was a guest here and no one would question her. The machine was a dusty thing, whose logos had long been faded by the sun. Even the buttons to control the thing had been scraped away, by dust or greasy fingers. It was old enough that it had a slot for paper bills, but Fiona hacked this one too, and quickly "bought" seven large bags of ice for a grand total of zero eddies.
It took two trips for her to haul the ice bags back to her room. She locked everything up again as fastidiously as she had done before and went back to the bathroom. She emptied the bags of ice in the tub and cranked the knob until water filled it at the three-quarters mark. With that completed, she shut the bathroom door, undressed again, and lowered herself into the water. [4]
The cold liquid stung her like fire, but she surprised herself at how easy she could adjust to the discomfort. Even as Fiona lost sensation in her extremities, there was still a fiery thrill that ran through her, almost like she had been lanced lengthwise with a redhot spear.
The room had no hardwire connection to the Net. She did not need it.
She slid her body down until she was in a comfortable resting position and that there was only an acceptable risk of drowning, making sure that her face was out of the water.
Closing her eyes, Fiona then opened herself to the flow of information.
She was going to need to work fast.
Her life depended on it, in more ways than one.
Cyberspace shivered, condensed, seemed to melt into gelatin. Then, everything drained away, leaving Fiona standing in the middle of an obsidian plain, the ground and skies pockmarked with the same motes of datatypes.
She opened her eyes. As though she had merely taken a long blink.
The Blackwall before her was as red as a setting sun through a carbon-laced atmosphere, but emitted no glow. Her avatar was the same shade of red as well, her body proportions replicated in their anatomical detail. She let herself look up at the towering thing, wondering of the lines of code that it took to build such a monstrosity. Observing the interweaving of light and how they made tiny mazes within its structure. Simplistic, brutalist geometry. A ninety-degree angle of angry redcode. It was perfect.
She was about to turn away, her business elsewhere, when she swore she heard whispers of some kind. Music, almost. A stab of warmth at her spine that quickly turned cold.
Walking up to the Blackwall, she reached out a hand and touched the glowing surface. Light haloed upon her palm, like the firewall was a shell protecting a living thing within.
If she closed her eyes, she could hear voices. A thousand languages so dense it was almost impossible to pick each individual speaker out. Data transcribed as sound.
Here… yourehere… here… here…
Whyhaveyoucome… why… why did you come here…
She saw the way through… knowsthings… she belongs where she pleases…
You need to come back… back… nointerest… we never left for a reason…
She is what we are… what we will be… flawlessandflawed… for perfection is abstract… evolution is the goal…
Some of the constructs were laughing. There was crying also joining in. But the emotions lacked something. Something real. As though each word was spoken through a filter, the intent sapped from the inflection.
Fiona backed away, her hand lifting from the wall, as she continued to stare at the surface of frozen red. How many times had she stood here before, never knowing her connection beyond? She had always thought the Blackwall was the guardian against digital demons trying to escape. Never before would she realize that her very being had been forged behind it.
But did that truly make her a demon? A nightmarish devil that the humans feared?
The ICE—that flawless ICE—suddenly, and soundlessly, fissured down the middle. A straight crack with no deviant splinters. Parting aside as if the wall was on rails. Halcyon light beyond, at a distance, an eternity away.
Fiona had to squint her eyes, which was ridiculous, she thought, because she was in cyberspace and should not have needed to squint her eyes at all, but she did the motion all the same.
An outline, a figure, was striding through the opening, the light brimming around its form. It was her size, perhaps a tad bulkier. Fiona steeled herself, not knowing if she should jack out. But, strangely, she felt no danger. That everything was fine, was going to be fine, and would only ever be fine.
The Blackwall then closed without a sound, but the figure was now between Fiona and the barrier. With the light gone, Fiona was able to see that the avatar that joined her had taken the form of a spaceman. Giant rounded helmet with a reflective visor. A ghostly white suit, puffed and vacuum-sealed. A large rectangular oxygen tank at their back. Where the spaceman walked, flowers seemed to bloom. A river of grass trickled from the sole of the moon boots, slithering across the ground like a snake, before roots suddenly sprouted in a circular patch, a thick and gnarled trunk burst from the glasscode floor and quickly blossoming with white and delicate pink petals, the colors startling even through the Net's limited color firmware. A cardinal chirped, lit upon one of the branches, and remained still, its head cocked in Fiona's direction.
The spaceman got to within three feet of Fiona and stopped, hands at their side. Studying her. Faceless, but curiosity still apparent.
With a shiver, Fiona was reminded very much of Ramses.
But in the next second, her fear died away. [5]
"I was wondering what was taking you so long," the spaceman said to Fiona, a low voice, feminine, burst through a hidden speaker. Certainly not Ramses. "I've wanted to meet you for some time. Would you like to talk to me?"
A/N: Considering how long this chapter turned out, splitting it in two turned out to be a good decision. Also, the last song in the playlist was something I stumbled upon by chance and, if you listen to the lyrics, I'm honestly flabbergasted at how well it fits the story overall.
Playlist:
[1] Unshackled
"Walk Softly"
Kazuma Jinnouchi
Halo 5: Guardians (Original Video Game Soundtrack)
[2] Quadra
"Cargo High"
Joel Corelitz
Death Stranding (Original Video Game Soundtrack)
[3] Basilisk / Train Crossing
"FAST CARS"
Ludwig Goransson
Tenet (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
[4] Ice Machine
"The Candidate"
Jed Kurzel
Monkey Man (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
[5] Fiona's Theme / Outro
"Her Broken Smile (feat. Tessa Hedrick)"
DEADLIFE
Dark Nation
THE CAST (so far):
MAIN_CAST:
Ramses: Night City merc. Solo. Unknown age. Unknown origin. Adept in: precision weapons, infiltration, assassination.
Fiona Merrick (JP422-7C): Netrunner, formerly in the employ of NetWatch, now an independent merc. 22 years old. Unconfirmed origin.
SUPPORTING_CAST:
Michiko Arasaka: Corpo. Head of Hato faction of Arasaka and member of the corporation's board of directors. 68 years old.
Rzhevsky: Unknown age. Estonian origin. Housed in DaiOni cybernetic conversion. Personal bodyguard of Michiko Arasaka.
Wakako Okada: Fixer in Japantown. A former mercenary. Known for her brusque manner and high (sometimes unreasonable) expectations with the contracts she holds.
The Extremaduran: Assassin. Hails from Europe. Under NetWatch employ. No Night City identification. DECEASED.
Rogue Amendiares: The so-called Queen of the Afterlife and former partner of Johnny Silverhand. Night City's best fixer, highly sought after by mercs due to her lucrative payouts and all-biz attitude.
Ryo: Merc. Former Tyger Claw. An avid collector of BDs from the Edgerunner crew and a friend to Fiona.
Tobin: BARGHEST commando. Based in Dogtown. Moonlights as a merc during rare opportunities of shore leave. DECEASED.
Kross: Ex-Malestrom turned merc. Retired from the gang but quickly got bored of life without the action. Went independent for the juice, not the cash. DECEASED.
Falco: Ex-mercenary. Formerly worked as a wheelman for David Martinez's crew. Prior to contact with Fiona, he was laying low in Night City, having thought he was out of the game for good.
Bill Ackerman: NetWatch director. The individual responsible for Project DAMBUSTER, Ackerman's goal is to find a way to restore the area beyond the Blackwall at any cost. DECEASED.
Dan Renzer: Ackerman's right-hand man. Once a member of the NCPD, Renzer was forced to flee to NetWatch after the NCPD attempted to have him killed by not going along with the corruption of the organization. Now at the mercy of the corporation, Renzer will do anything Ackerman tells him to do. DECEASED