They crawled forward, the air down here close and uncomfortable, thick with the reek of hot machinery. The ARM, represented by a bright vector of light, instructed V to proceed forward for a few hundred meters, highlighting a hatch.

"Electrical room's just ahead of us," she told Judy and Panam, subliminal machine-hum whining in her phonics. V was sweating from the heat down here, from the adrenaline circuiting her system. She didn't know what to expect, once they emerged from the crawlspace. V had seen what AIs could do, unchecked; Alt had fried the collective systems of an entire building's personnel, turned Arasaka's own defenses against them.

Gripping the hatch, V pushed, hauled herself out of the crawlspace. She leaned into the hatch, heaved up Judy and Panam.

The walls of the electrical room were paneled in holodisplays, each one tracking a datafeed of the system's various subroutines. Cables crawled along the ceiling and walls, connecting into dataterms. The ARM was pointing her to the door across the room.

"V," said Lucy on the neuro, "someone took out the cams and turrets." She sounded like she was in pain. "Watch your ass. Definitely wasn't Militech; moved too fast—definitely not your standard setup."

"Lucy, y'good? Sound like you're hurtin'."

"Yeah, well, netrunning against a fucking AI isn't exactly easy on the brain. But I'll work through it. Gotta go." Lucy cut the call.

V looked at Panam and Judy. "Might have an unexpected guest," she told them.

"We can handle it," said Panam.

Judy nodded. "Yeah, we're good, babe." She smiled, took off her Militech cap and tossed it aside, running her fingers back through her hair in an attempt to smooth it out. "Let's just focus on reachin' that dataroom."

V stepped through the door, cautious. Hallway was filled with Militech bodies, all of them blown to shit. The ARM was pointing her down the corridor, the vector of light turning a right corner at the end of the hall. Their unexpected guest had neatly, surgically, slashed the turrets and cameras; and there was only one person, V knew, who had a sword, and she hadn't brought hers. "Oiwa mighta reclaimed her body," she said to Judy and Panam.

"Great," said Judy, sounding about as enthused by the prospect as V felt.

"Fingers on your triggers," said V, unholstering the Malorian from its rig, following the ARM. Hugging the wall when she heard the thump and rattle of something heavy shuffling around, peeking around the corner to see a patrolling Minotaur, the mech's LEDs bright red. "Fuck," she swore, and looked at Panam and Judy, "bitch has control of a Mino."

"Likely has control of everything inorganic," corrected Panam, pressing herself up against the wall beside V and Judy.

If it was a normal Mino, one that wasn't under the control of an AI, V figured she could quickhack it, crack the ICE, easy. Maybe still could, V thought, if she toggled the Masamune.

She was just about to try when the Minotaur suddenly shuddered and exploded, tumbling apart into sparking, uneven halves. Through the smoke, the reek of burnt circuitry so thick in the air that V could taste it in the back of her throat, a figure materialized, blade extended, its carbon-steel edge glittering with a bright lattice of code, like a sliver of dataterm monitor.

Oiwa looked at them, and V whipped the Malorian out, firing. The bitch moved in a Sandevistan blur, reappeared in front V, smoothly disarming and shoving her to the ground, kicking away the Malorian. "Would you fuckin' chill?" said Oiwa in faintly accented English, the nanocircuitry in her oculars glowing with blue computer-light. "It's me, dumbass."

V's brain felt jammed. "A-Ayako?"

"No, Adam Smasher," replied the borg, rolling her blue eyes. "Yes, numbnuts. It's me." Her back opened, transforming like the wings of some elaborate, experimental airplane, then folded over the sword in quick machine-staccato, leaving only the hilt visible over her shoulder. "I took my fuckin' body back from that bitch. Gonna take a little gettin' used to, but honestly? I fuckin' like it." She grinned. "The hardware I had before's got nothin' on this stuff. Arasaka added some upgrades, sure, but nothin' I can't remove or mod later." Ayako laughed like a woman who'd finally been liberated from her tribulations. "Fuck," she said, "I feel like myself again, Val. Whole. The real fuckin' me." Ayako shook her head, gathering herself. "But we can talk 'bout that later," she told her. "Gotta get you to the auxiliary port, so you can jack back into the subnet."

"What 'bout the neural matrix?" asked V. "Should we just trash it, now that y'don't need it? Keep it outta Militech's hands, permanent-like."

"No," said Ayako, "hold onto it. Might have a use for it."

V didn't like the idea of hanging on to something like that, especially with Myers and the whole of Militech on their asses. Too many chances for the thing to wind up in their hands. But Ayako seemed determined to keep it, and V wasn't sure if she liked that. "Sure, Ayako," she said. Then, "If y'gotta body now, why have me hit the subnet? Make more sense if you did it. You're the better netrunner."

"Sure, but you ain't gonna get better if I do everythin'," said Ayako. "Told you before, I need to make you into the best 'runner I can. You gotta be prepared."

V frowned. "Prepared for what?"

"Nothin' you gotta worry 'bout right now," said Ayako, and gestured for them to follow. "C'mon, the dataroom ain't far from here.

They followed Ayako in uneasy silence, all of them sensing something was off but not wanting to know why that was, because ignorance was bliss. But V had learned that blissful ignorance was no way to deal with anything, and said, "How'd you get Oiwa's body? Goto took her down in Event Horizon."

"How do you think?" said Ayako, looking at her. "Militech took her body. Wanted to study the tech."

"Back in Goto's memories, remember Saburo mentionin' your tech was black clinic stuff," said V.

"It is," she said. "But I designed it."

"With help?"

Ayako stopped, regarded her with an unreadable look. Then, "Does it matter?"

"Who was it, Ayako? Your co-designer. Were you actually workin' with the clinic, or somethin' else?"

"Two things can be true at once, Val," said Ayako, holding up two fingers for emphasis. "Used clinic resources to design my chrome. Told you, got special privileges for bein' a 'Saka."

"You were workin' with 'em, the clinic," said V.

"Yes and no," said Ayako. "I was their guinea-pig, but the clinic gave me everythin' I needed to be the best guinea-pig I could be."

"Some fuckin' technoanarchist, usin' corpo-resources to design your chrome." V hadn't meant to sound like such an asshole, but something had changed in Ayako, or maybe it had just finally bubbled to the surface, and whatever it was, V didn't like it. "All that talk 'bout 'fuck Arasaka and corporations', and you were usin' corpo-money to bankroll your cyberware."

"Wasn't 'Saka's money. Was the clinic's," said Ayako. Seeing the puzzled look on V's face, she elaborated, "Who do you think owns the black clinics in Japan, Val? Yakuza. Couldn't let 'Saka know what I was up to, so I took cold cash from the Yakuza to do what I needed to do, and I ain't sorry for it."

"So where'd your chrome come from?" asked V. Then she added, "Sure, you designed it, and sure, the clinic helped you make it. But your shit is beyond anythin' I've seen on any market—commercial or otherwise. Something helped you design it. Was it Mochi? Is Mochi even what you said she was? Said you'd made her with code from beyond the Blackwall. Or did she just find you there?"

"What do you think?"

"Fuck this Socratic Method bullshit," said V. "Answer the goddamn question."

"I don't gotta, 'cause you already know the answer."

V did, and she would have given anything to be wrong.

"Listen," said Ayako, "we don't got time for this shit right now. Lucy's keepin' Oiwa distracted the best she can, but pretty soon, the best she can ain't gonna be enough, and Oiwa's full attention is gonna be on us. So let's hustle before every single robot and turret in this place is on our asses."

V frowned. "Tired of kickin' the can down the road."

"Dog-ear it for later," said Ayako. Her optics flashed. "Got Militechs incomin'. SpecOps. Linkin' you three into their comms."

"Contact. Arasaka agent on the premises confirmed," came a garbled voice over V's neurowire. "She's likely working with the terrorists."

"Roger that, Alpha Team," replied another voice, a woman's. "Proceed."

Then Ayako's back unfolded like origami wings, and she vanished, weaving smoothly and precisely between the Militechs, her katana severing bodies and heads before any of the soldiers even realized they were dead, blinking back into existence at the end of the hall. One of the Militechs turned around with effort—then slid apart in delayed recognition that they'd been cut in half, the pieces tumbling to the quartz-glass floor in a spray of arterial blood.

"We lost contact with Alpha Team," said a woman's voice over the neurowire. "Beta Team, proceed to their position. Threat level has been elevated to red. We have confirmation: we're dealing with an onryō."