This memory must have meant a lot to Gotoda; it was still going, and now, Saboru Arasaka had entered the office, sat behind a vast, dark expanse of Izu mulberry, the Tokyo skyline shimmering behind him.
Although Saboru was younger here, he still looked old, like a well-rested middle-ager, and wore a dark silk Jinguji suit, his graying hair neatly combed. The spooks were discussing Ayako. Saboru interrupted them. "The Uncle Sam AI is of small concern to the company right now," he said. "Though," he continued, "I will not entirely disregard it. But I have other plans I wish to pursue with the project's aggregate data." Saboru paused, gently pouring himself a green tea from a custom-made kyusu, somehow making the small, mundane gesture look like elegant theater. "Relic," he finished, and set the kyusu down on its induction pad.
Gotoda looked at Saboru like the name meant something to him. "You are going through with this, Saboru-sama?"
"Commercializing the onryō engrams—with the careful excision of their assassination protocols, of course—will foster untold profits for Arasaka among the vain Western elite who seek to prolong their lives," said Saboru, and sipped his tea as artfully as he'd poured it. "And," he continued, "I have my own vested interests in the project. Vested interests that Relic will pay for. My granddaughter will help you. The clone is en route from Biotechnica as we speak."
Yuji frowned, exchanging a guarded look with Takemura. "Will she agree, Saboru-sama?"
"She will have no reason not to, Yuji-san," said Saboru. "Her engram has been… edited. Not much. But enough to ensure her cooperation—and her ignorance." He finished his tea, set the cup down on a glossy coaster. "She is waiting in Mikoshi."
V glanced at Ayako to gauge her reaction, but Ayako maintained this cool, stoic air that, on some level, unnerved V. Had their roles been reversed, V would've been freaking out about this.
"What will be done with Ayako-sama's original body, Saboru-sama?" asked Takemura, hesitantly.
"Her hardware is one of a kind. It will be utilized for Oiwa."
"The AI?" said Yuji, furrowing his brow. "But Saboru-sama, it—"
"I will not have our efforts with the onryō engrams be wasted, Yuji-san," interrupted Saboru, regarding him coolly, like the guy meant to turn Yuji to stone. He straightened in his chair, squaring his shoulders. "We put great labor into the onryō series, and an even greater labor in creating Oiwa from my granddaughter's engram. Ayako was a Shinobi before she died. Her skills will serve her well as an onryō." Saboru paused, leveling a look at Yuji. Then, "We cannot afford to waste more time. The project has yet to produce a viable biointerface. This will change. What we will learn from Oiwa will be invaluable for the effective implementation of Relic."
Ayako turned away from Saboru and his spooks. "I've had enough of this scop," she said, and left the room, V right on her avatar's heels.
Out here were corridors of light: bright lattices of logic coruscating against the non-color void of cyberspace, distant pyramids of corporate dataforts sprawling toward the nowhere-horizon of the matrix. They walked a gridline: silent tightrope-walkers easing their way toward the nearest ingress into the subnet's core, the dog-whistle whine of the Net ringing their phonics like tinnitus. "Ayako?" said V, peering at her. "You okay?" It was a stupid question, and V regretted asking it.
"I'll be fine," said Ayako, but there was something insincere in her tone. She shook her head. "Fuckin' 'Saka. They put their experimental AI in my original goddamn body. Edited my memories, my engram." She stopped walking and turned to V, suddenly looking scared and sad all at once. "How much of what I think I know is even fuckin' real?" she asked. "How much did 'Saka tweak? They fuckin' brainwiped me, Val! That's worse than just brainwashin'. Brainwashin' can be undone. Brainwipin' can't."
"You remembered some stuff, ain't you?"
Ayako said nothing.
"Look," said V, "I know what it's like havin' your head fucked with. But you remembered somethin'. Whatever 'Saka did, it ain't irreversible." She paused, then said, "Some corpo wanted t'do the same thing to Lizzie Wizzy. Edit her engram, I mean. The chick he was talkin' to, she said it wasn't possible—not exactly, anyway. They ain't got the tech t'override conscience, Ayako."
"That's why she created me," chimed Mochi, the small cat winding around their ankles before settling on her haunches, peering up at them. "I'm her tether," meowed the cat. "A thing that means something to her. Like forgetting something important, then seeing something that brings it all back. That's part of my function."
"Were you the one showin' us this stuff, Mochi?" asked V.
The cat shook her head. "No," she said, "that wasn't me. It was Gotoda-san. Sam hasn't destroyed him yet."
"Why would Gotoda show me this?"
"I don't know, Ayako-sama," said Mochi. "But I can conjecture. Perhaps it's his way of seeking absolution?"
The environment started to shift again, data breaking down and reconstituting itself. They were standing in a Northside parking lot now, just outside Red Dirt, the bassy throb of rock music muffled by the bar's grimy, graffiti-scrawled brickwork. Juan and Gotoda were there under the sodium floods, arguing about something. "Biotechnica reneged on their deal," said Gotoda, smoking a Fuji cigarette. "They are holding Ayako-sama's clone, Juan-san. They wish to obtain the aggregate data from Uncle Sam and Relic, but Saboru-sama will not give it to them."
"I get that," said Juan, hands on his hips, pacing a rut into the concrete, his scroll-jacket running a colorful artesanía pattern of Aztec geometry. "It's just—"
"She is being kept in Twin Mesas," interrupted Gotoda.
"Shit, don't they do virus research there?" said Juan, grimacing.
Gotoda nodded, took a long drag off the cigarette.
"All right," said Juan, after a moment. He smoothly kicked a crumpled beer can into a nearby dumpster overflowing with sticky garbage bags, then looked at Gotoda. "We get her body," he agreed, hooking his thumbs in the pockets of his scroll-jacket. "Then you're gonna help me get her outta Mikoshi."
"That is the plan, Juan-san," said Gotoda, nodding. He finished his cigarette and flicked it to the tarmac, grinding it under a plastic zori.
"How much does she remember from before?" asked Juan suddenly, eyeing Gotoda. "How bad did 'Saka fuck her head?"
"They couldn't erase who she was," assured Gotoda, in the kind of tone people reserved for soothing irritable pets. "They could only bury these things, Juan-san. She still remembers much. She still remembers you."
Juan relaxed. "Good," he said, and nodded. "That's good, amigo. Muy bueno." He paused. "So when we gonna do this?" he asked. "Head to Phoenix, I mean."
"Soon," said Gotoda. "Then we will bring the body back to Night City and download her engram to it. Then we will go."
"And we need to go," said Ayako, sounding distracted. She scratched at the corners of her insets. "C'mon, Val. We gotta get to the core." She looked at Mochi. "Mind leadin' the way, Mochi?" She glanced at Gotoda and Juan, her gaze lingering on the latter for a stretch of time. Then, "I've seen enough of this."