"Whaddya think Trevor meant? That user-sig," said V, walking alongside Ayako toward the elevator. Sam had been quiet since their encounter, the odd robot or drone aside. V guessed it was trying to keep things friendly, secure her cooperation through a show of peace. Or maybe the Digitales had managed to wrestle control back from Gotoda. "S'fuckin' weird, but I don't gotta tell you that."

"Not sure," said Ayako, shaking her head. She thumbed the elevator's touchscreen, looked at V. "Shouldn't be a fuckin' user-sig comin' through Sam's port." The elevator dinged, the doors sliding open, silent, on their induction track. "Hopin' Trevor can suss out more details."

They stepped into the elevator. V tapped the touchscreen for the topmost floor. "I don't fuckin' like it," said V.

"Sounds like spook-shit," agreed Judy, leaning against the chromed wall of the elevator, a television above her head looping the Orbital Air logo. "Think maybe Militech's got somethin' to do with it?"

Ayako looked at her. "Could be. Maybe Myers?"

V considered that, then shook her head. "Nah," she said, because her gut was telling her something different, "think it's someone else. Nobody we know."

The elevator lurched, started to smoothly ascend. It was pretty cramped in there, with Buster taking up most of the space. V could feel the heat coming off everyone's chrome, pinheads of sweat beading on her nape.

"God," said Panam, "it is fucking hot in this elevator." She shrugged off her racer jacket and tied the sleeves around her waist, gripping the molded plastic stock of her sawed-off.

"No shit," snickered Ayako. "Enough chrome in here to build a fuckin' car outta."

The elevator suddenly stopped, its emergency lights coming on. The Orbital Air logo disappeared from the television, in its place the strobing wireframe armature of Gotoda's face, his eyes burning like narrow headlights.

"Ah, hell," said Buster, frowning. "Asshole's back. And he's stopped the elevator."

"Really?" said Panam, looking at the borg. "I could not tell."

Buster grinned. "Bite me, CHOOH-chugger."

Panam laughed, then turned her attention to the television.

"Valerie-san," said Gotoda, his mouth moving in exaggerated animation, like the frames were skipping. "I have managed to rebuff Uncle Sam. For a time. I have encased myself in military-grade ICE, but it is only a matter of time, perhaps minutes, before he is able to cut through it."

"Goto?" said Judy, turning to face the television. "That really you?"

"For now it is, Judy-san."

"You keep callin' Sam 'him'," said Ayako, staring at Gotoda.

"Because it is him , Ayako-sama," said Gotoda, as though he expected them to understand. When it was clear that none of them did, the netrunner rubbed his temples, then said, "The user-sig that Trevor-san found, it is a Militech sig. A Militech sig that belonged to Donald Lundee."

"Did a netrunner gain access to it?" asked V, watching Gotoda fidget nervously on the screen. "And," she continued, "still don't explain how there's a user-sig comin' over an AI's connection."

"I cannot explain how, but you may know of a condition called DIDDO—"

"Dissociative Identity Defective 'Dance Onset," interrupted Judy. "V texted me 'bout some choom of hers in Dogtown havin' it."

"Yes," said Gotoda, "well, this situation is something similar. You once joined two neural tracks together in a braindance, Judy-san. Yes?"

"How d'ya know 'bout that?" she asked, furrowing her brow.

"It does not matter," said Gotoda, shaking his head. He paused, then continued, "Donald Lundee befell a similar fate. A sort of mix of these conditions, I suppose—it is the closest comparison I can make for a condition that has not been documented before. His neural network became entwined with that of Uncle Sam's. Like DIDDO, the AI has adopted traits of Lundee-sama's, and Lundee-sama has adopted traits of Uncle Sam's."

"Whoah, whoah, whoah," said V, throwing up her hand like she was trying to stop all that information from hitting her. "You're tellin' me Lundee's alive, but he's become part of this fuckin' AI?"

"I do not know if he is alive in the sense that you are thinking, Valerie-san," said Gotoda. "But his neural imprint, his engram, has fused with Uncle Sam's code. That is why Uncle Sam wants its war. It wants the war that Lundee wanted. He wants revenge against Arasaka, and for the NUSA to take its place as the world superpower. He wants to destroy his competition so that there is none left who would oppose Militech's international domination. And he has agents, acolytes I suppose, who would see this done."

Buster said, "Wonder if Myers happens to be one of those acolytes."

"I cannot say for sure, Buster-san," said Gotoda. "Lundee-sama had many followers who believed in his Transcendentalist ideology. Perhaps there are more now." He paused. Then, "Ideas are very hard to kill, Buster-san. They are the closest things that we, as humans, have to immortality." Another pause. Gotoda sighed, almost wearily. "I have to go now, gomen . Valerie-san, please, hurry." He vanished, the Orbital Air logo resuming its subtle looping animation.

The emergency lights guttered out, the elevator resuming its ascent to the control-room.

"Holy fuck," was all V managed to say, still struggling to wrap her head around the revelation. Everyone but Ayako seemed to share her disbelief. She looked at Ayako, then asked, "How ain't you fuckin' gonkin' 'bout this?"

"Spend enough time behind the Blackwall like I have, nothin' surprises you anymore," answered Ayako. "Besides, Lundee was Saboru's enemy. I don't give scop 'bout this Militech-'Saka shit." She looked at V, adding,"Just 'cause I'm a 'Saka by blood don't mean their rivalries are genetic, choom."

"Fuck the rivalry, I'm talkin' 'bout the fact Lundee's literally part of a goddamn AI."

"Like I said," said Ayako, "you spend enough time behind the Blackwall, nothin' surprises you anymore."

The elevator stopped, and they stepped out into the control-room. Dataterms, net-chairs, and monitors ringed the room. Huge glass windows overlooked the launchpad and the spaceport tarmac, and the sprawl of The Flues beyond the spaceport's chain-link. V could see the spot where Fabrika used to stand.

Below the tower, Nomads, Technomancers and Modernos warred with each other on the tarmac, trading lead. Several of the Moderno AVs had been blown out of the sky, lay crumpled and smoking all around the terminal like immolated horseflies. One of the Technomancer AVs had been smashed into pieces against the concrete. Dead bodies from all sides were lying under the harsh glare of the floods, whole or in pieces, in glittering pools of liquid ruby and synthblood the color of old milk.

V hoped none of the Nomad bodies down there belonged to her chooms. She saw the Basilisk slewing laps around the spaceport, hosing down Modernos in white-hot deluges of its heavy-caliber autocannons, so V knew, at the very least, Mitch and Cassidy were alive.

"Valerie," said Ayako, waving her over to a dataterm, a padded net-chair in front of it. She pointed at a neural interface port on the console. "Connect here."

"Why's there a NIP on a fuckin' dataterm?" she asked.

"OA Netrunners were supposed to link in here," explained Ayako, hooking her thumbs in her obi. "Proprietary OA soft would've let 'em direct traffic with their neuralware via the flight-control isolate in OA's subnet." She shrugged, looked at V. "They were gonna test-run the soft in Phoenix, but when they pulled outta here, Nairobi decided to trial it in Night City instead."

"How stable y'think the subnet's gonna be?"

"Knowin' Gotoda's codin' skills, probably pretty stable," said Ayako. "He's a damn good netrunner. Better than me, I'd even say. Much as I hate to admit it."

"No way," said Judy. "You're like Bartmoss-levels of preem, Ayako."

Ayako laughed. "I wish. But 'preciate the vote of confidence, Jude." She shook her head. "If anyone's as good as Bartmoss, it's Gotoda." She frowned, gazing at the dataterm with an expression that might have been regret. "I took him for granted, and now? Shit."

"You could come with me," offered V. "Probably 'nother NIP y'could connect into. Doubt they'd have just had one netrunner directin' traffic, especially when that traffic's goin' to space."

"I dunno if I can," said Ayako, and sighed. "I'm gettin' weaker, Val, the more this sporeware's growin'. Dunno if I could do it."

"It ain't like y'can infect the system," reasoned V. "Sam's already in it."

Ayako considered that. Then, "Y'know, maybe. Maybe I can do this. I owe Gotoda that much for everything he's done for me."

"I'll do the heavy liftin'," V offered, smiling. "Just leave the ICE and shit to me."

"I can help you," said Ayako. She was quiet for a long time. The control-room was soundproofed, probably to cut out any distractions to the netrunners that would've worked here, so the silence felt pronounced, eerie and uncomfortable in its tangibleness. "I already fucked up with Juan," said Ayako, finally. "Don't wanna fuck this up, too."

"You'll be fine," said V. Then she amended, "I'll make sure you're fine."

"Ladies," said Buster, something urgent in his tone, "you might want to look over here."

V looked. Froze. She'd been so focused on other things that she'd neglected to notice Gotoda lying in one of the other net-chairs. He wasn't breathing. Faintly, she whiffed cooked meat. "Is he—?"

"Dead," said Buster. "Flatlined. A surge cooked him inside-out." He looked Gotoda over for a moment, inspecting the damage. Buster extruded his personal link, which was built into the wrist of his cybernetic arm, and connected it to Gotoda's neuroport. "Going to run a diagnostic real quick," he informed them. "He's gone," he said at length, disconnecting his personal link and sliding it back into its housing. Buster was sweating, like running that diagnostic had taken profuse effort. "His hardware's been fried. Some of his cortical implants are still firing, but it doesn't matter. Braindead. But Jesus Christ, the ICE on him is potent."

"He was talkin' to us," said V, disbelievingly.

"He's gotta WNI," said Ayako from behind her, staring at Gotoda's corpse. She paused. "Fuck," she said, scratching at her Akasofus, "how did I not see him there?"

"You got a lot on your mind," said Buster. "We all do."

Ayako stepped past V, leaning over the body. "God," she said to Gotoda, "I'm sorry, man." She noticed the neurobank in his hand. Gently, she pried it from his rigid fingers. Stared at it, turning the little black cube over in her hand. "He didn't plug his neurobank in 'cause he wanted us to take it." Ayako stopped, holding it up to the light like an egg she was inspecting for fertilization. Realization dawned on her features. "This… holy shit."

"What?" said V.

"It's a fuckin' neural matrix, Val. Smallest one I've ever goddamn seen."