JohnnyZ
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[Demon of NC] Chapter 50
🕑 Added 2024-12-07 20:38:16 +0000 UTCAnd so there we were, the three of us gathered in Cyberspace. Canvas, brushes, paint. Welcome to the fucked up masterpiece.
Jory wasn’t fully here. Most of him was still behind the Blackwall, but like some of the engrams from Cynosure, he’d managed to throw an autonomous fragment into the New Net.
"Hope I’m not interrupting anything too important?" he said in that overly polite but grating voice. "Just thought I’d check in on an old friend, but seems like I walked into a lovers’ spat."
"We’ll have time to talk," Lucy interjected, her gaze locked on Jory’s phantom. She could tell it was some kind of proxy construct, but she didn’t seem to realize who was pulling the strings.
"Didn’t know you had ‘old friends’ in the Net," she said, directing the comment at me.
"He doesn’t talk about himself much, does he?" Jory smirked slyly. "A man of mystery. But yeah, we go way back."
"At Arasaka?" Lucy asked.
"Yep," Jory confirmed cheerfully. "Exactly there."
Alright, so he wasn’t spilling all my secrets just yet. Made sense. Leverage, not petty revenge, was his game.
"We were both part of a project on human-engrams interaction," I explained. "We were selected for experiments. A long time ago—years back."
"I see," Lucy said, her expression hard to read in her virtual form. Was she buying it, or just avoiding a deeper argument? "Was it you who helped him with the corpo?"
"Nah. I just dropped by for the fireworks," Jory waved a phantom hand dismissively. "And what a show it was. You wouldn’t believe the ice he burned through… oh man. Not even wild AI could chew through it that fast. Secret tech—something worth killing for, maybe even starting a war over. And V? He used it to handle some personal beef. That’s just him. A stubborn, narrow-sighted egoist with an unyielding will. Once he sets his sights on a goal, he won’t stop. Bit by bit, he’ll grind through marble and swallow granite if he has to."
"Whose tech was it?" Lucy asked.
"How the hell should I know?" Jory shrugged. "I stay away from those kinds of dangerous games. But V’s trip past the Blackwall? That took a toll. He still can’t get back into his body."
"This will pass, right?" Lucy’s voice betrayed her worry.
"It has before," Jory nodded. "V’s risked it all before and come out on top. I told you, the guy’s relentless."
"Lucy, let’s talk later," I cut in. "I think Jory wants to have a word with me privately."
"Secrets, always secrets," Jory chuckled. "Gotta love it. Don’t take it the wrong way, sweetheart. V’s great—mature beyond his years. Slippery as hell, though. Can’t pin him down with a vice grip. All compliments, of course!"
"Yeah," I muttered. "You’re such a damn charmer."
"I’ll leave you to it," Lucy said with a nod, her tone off in a way that didn’t sit well with me. It felt like things between us were starting to slide in the wrong direction. Mistakes piling up, doubts festering.
A few seconds later, her avatar vanished. I scanned for traces of her presence, then encrypted my connection with Jory.
"What do you want?"
"Same thing as always, V. Get me out of here! You made it through the Blackwall—you can do it again. And your new friends definitely know how. I saw you flying through that protected tunnel, Vincent," his engram smirked. "Smooth as hell. In and out. I just need to cross over, one way or the other."
"It’s not that simple."
"Well, you’d better figure it out, pal. I sent that girl, and a couple of other interesting people, some encrypted emails. Each one’s full of your secrets, V."
"Encryption can be cracked," I said, my tone ice-cold. "You’ll get nothing from me if your dirt gets out."
"Relax, friend. The encryption’s solid. We made it together, remember? It’d take a supercomputer to break. The messages need a password—two, actually. Depending on which code they enter, the contents will change. Help me, and I’ll send the safe password to your girl. It’ll wipe everything. But you’d better hurry. If no password’s entered, the emails unlock themselves in four months, and you’re not gonna like what’s in them."
"Blackmail?"
"What else can I do? Let’s call it… an unpleasant deal. Four months is plenty of time for someone with your packed schedule."
"Yeah. I’ll pencil you in. Now get lost."
"Sure, sure. Just don’t forget about me, V. Don’t forget old Jory. Get me out of here, help me with a body, and I’ll disappear from your shiny new life forever. Shiny new life… ugh, just thinking about it makes me sick with envy."
"You don’t have a stomach right now," I shot back. "Now get the fuck out. The sooner I recover, the sooner I’ll help you."
"Alright, alright. Just don’t forget about me, V. Don’t leave old Jory hanging. You’ve gotta pull me out and help me with a body. Then I’ll finally vanish from your shiny new life. New life… Damn, my stomach twists just thinking about it. So jealous…"
"You don’t have a stomach yet," I replied. "C’mon, get lost. The faster I recover, the faster I can help you."
Jory’s phantom grinned wide with his unnaturally long teeth before melting into the darkness of Cyberspace. Four months… Nothing. Even if I can’t pull him out, I’ll figure something out about those letters. Who else did he send them to besides Lucy? The Watchdogs? Corpos? Could be.
A little while later, Lucy messaged me. Just one word: “Talked?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “You can come back.”
She did return, noticeably calmer than during our last meeting.
"What the hell does that creep want from you?"
"Didn’t like old Jory, huh?" I smirked.
"He’s disgusting even by corpo standards."
She thinks he’s still a corpo. Amusing.
"Jory’s out of Arasaka too. More like a test subject than an employee, and the experiment didn’t do him any favors," I said, half spinning a story. "But yeah, hard to feel sorry for the bastard. He’s one of those guys who probably shot stray dogs with a BB gun as a kid. All he wants from me is money and help."
"What’s in that damn letter?" she asked. "Maybe just tell me yourself?"
"Blackmail material, probably. My old corpo exploits. The issue is, he didn’t just send it to you. But whatever, I’ll handle it."
"Who helped you crack the Shield? Arasaka?"
"No. Not their tech. And no, I didn’t cut a deal with some other corp either. It was a person, acting against their bosses."
"And in return, you promised…?"
"Promised," I said vaguely, then added firmly, "But it’s over, Lucy. We won. I’ll deal with my debts later."
"Remember us on the dam after the club?"
"Of course."
"I thought I had you figured out back then," she sighed. "Who you are, what you want. Now it feels like there’s another layer, and I’m not sure it’s the last."
"You can be sure of one thing: I’ll always have your back. Always."
"I hope so. See you on the other side, V. Come back soon."
"I will."
I stayed in the embrace of Cyberspace for about two days before finally managing to digest bits of my stash and regain control of my body. Damn, everything was stiff as hell.
"Shit, you’re alive!" Becca exclaimed when she saw me wake up.
She nearly knocked me over with a hug. My head was spinning, but my mood was solid. Even while still jacked in, I’d kept an eye on the news. The Crimson Harvest claimed responsibility for Abernathy’s death too, and the big players pretended to buy it. Everyone benefited: the terrorists got free publicity, and the corpos got a convenient excuse to push for tighter security measures, maybe snag a piece of city budgets.
Funny thing—if I walked into the NCPD next week claiming the Harvest had nothing to do with it, and that I offed Abernathy myself, odds are they wouldn’t even believe me. They’d just call me nuts.
That evening, I finally crashed in my own bed. Lucy said she’d erased all files about my job on Linda Sherman. No more bounty. Nobody needed Vincent Price anymore.
Well, except the Voodoo Boys, some wild rogue AI, and Militech’s top netrunner.
Alright, what’s the situation? The Abernathy problem’s closed. Now I just need to collect the rewards and process the data I stole.
Songbird? There’s no getting away from her now. I’d told So Mi about a neural matrix capable of extending her life. Told her Kurt Hansen was sitting on it but couldn’t use it because he lacked the code key that only the Cassel twins had.
Maybe someone else from Cynosure had a key stashed away, but I only knew about the twins. Aurora and Emerek. Ex-corpos, now international criminals.
Hmm.
If things went like I remembered, next year So Mi would try to strike a deal with Hansen behind the scenes. Hijack the NUSA president’s shuttle and land it in Dogtown. Backstab her boss. And, of course, try to double-cross Hansen too. Delightful woman.
But there’s no guarantee events will play out the same way. I’ve already interfered. Spilled the beans early, pushed So Mi to deceive her bosses. Myers trusts her, but a suspicious failure like her last made up mission might put her under scrutiny.
So Mi’s a risky contact, but damn, the potential payoff is huge. Besides the Blackwall’s secrets, she’s sitting on a treasure trove of tech. Better not dwell on it before bed, though, or I’ll drool all over my pillow.
Military-grade software, classified chrome blueprints, combat programs, and the ability to rewrite data on Arasaka’s biochip—So Mi could turn me into a monster if we had enough time and she had enough reason.
Still, I can’t forget how dangerous she is. She’s like a damn Smasher among netrunners. Even Lucy and I aren’t on her level yet.
But that’s a worry for later.
As the saying goes, I slept too soundly for a killer. Didn’t wake up until noon. Then I walked out of my megabuilding and called a robotaxi.
Needed a little drive around the city to clear my head and pick something up.
Soon enough, the car was speeding through Night City’s streets. The heightened police presence was gone. The massive chaos downtown was now just a fading headline, shoved to the end of the news cycle. Night City has a short memory for big dramas, and few would mourn Abernathy.
I closed my eyes and saw David Martinez’s face. Once a skinny kid, now a mountain of muscle and chrome. His face bore shadows of exhaustion and grief, poorly masked by a still-unfamiliar veneer of cold professionalism.
"I… I really need a day off. Two, maybe three days, ma’am. I just…"
"Out of the question," Abernathy interrupts. "Out of all of them, you’ve been the most useful."
I remember her words like I’d said them myself—the tone, the emotion. David irritated Abernathy, but she also recognized his potential. In her head, she called him "Momma’s Borg" but wouldn’t let him go home.
Susan had been feeling death creeping closer in those final days. Her usually steely nerves wouldn’t settle. She’d faced countless threats before, but our attempt with the AV had come the closest to succeeding.
She looked like she’d seen a preview of her own death when Panam’s bullet took off David’s poor girlfriend’s neck. Abernathy didn’t rule out my involvement in the op, which is why she upped the bounty. But Sue didn’t really believe I was a serious threat on my own. She figured Kan-Tao or maybe… the FIA was behind all the chaos. And honestly, in the last attempt, the FIA did have a hand in it, indirectly.
"Kill him quickly. None of that cheap Tiger Claws drama," her cold, even voice echoed in my head, passing the sentence onto Jenkins.
She’d known for a while she’d have to get rid of him. First, she played him as a rival. Then, as a potential scapegoat for some major screw-up. But it didn’t work. Arthur started struggling too much, too loud, and became dangerous. So, Sue beat him to the punch.
Fragments of her memories slowly dissolved into me. Like fragile sheets of paper, flaring bright for a moment before crumbling to ash. Some pieces tried to cling together, as if fighting for their existence. It felt like Abernathy was still dying inside me, right now. But Jory was right—I could digest granite if I had to. And you, Susan? I won’t leave even your bones behind.
The car stopped at an anonymous storage unit. No surveillance. All automated. Punching in a code I’d pulled from Sue’s memories, I retrieved two cases.
Sadly, her accounts were out of reach—millions sitting there, unless the corp had already swooped in. But this little stash? That I could take.
Funny. Susan had set it up years ago for the same reason I had, once upon a time—just in case she ever needed to run.
I opened one case. Credit chips, data shards, documents, contacts for underground clinics in Latin America. Among the haul were three small gold bars, stamped with the logo of some Swiss bank. Maybe worth five grand total—a fraction of what Abernathy used to blow on dinner. But once upon a time, she’d started from the bottom too.
I froze, staring at the case. Her thoughts, especially from five years back and earlier, were disturbingly similar to my own.
Surprising…
She’d considered running once, too. Left herself an escape route. But judging by her last thoughts, Abernathy wouldn’t even entertain the idea of a transfer to another division. That would’ve been a demotion.
Over the years, she’d become that corporate monster I’d feared, the one who terrorized me and countless others. The sheer determination… incredible. Like me, she’d clung to Night City with her teeth, to the opportunities and brutal beauty of its merciless lights.
I’ll have to get drunk sometime soon and think it all over. Try to learn from her mistakes.
I opened the second case and grabbed a few data shards filled with valuable intel. The rest? Trash to me. I burned it. Photos, personal mementos, certificates of merit. From the colorful paper, a young woman stared back at me—serious, twenty years old, with her whole life ahead of her.
“Take me to the dam overlook, Del,” I ordered.
Half an hour later, flames danced in a rusted barrel in front of me.
“Need more wood, mister?” asked some kid—either an orphan or a runaway—I’d paid for the makeshift bonfire.
“Yeah. Another fifty if you find dry branches or paper. No garbage.”
“Yes, sir!” The kid saluted with his plastic cap and shuffled off to scavenge more.
I tossed in more photos, keepsakes, certificates—burning someone else’s past while organizing the critical stolen data in my head. I’d need to dump it in secure storage later for safekeeping.
It was hard to even guess the value of my haul. Names of dozens of Arasaka agents embedded in corps, governments, and gangs. Locations, passwords, code phrases. Dirt on top managers and counterintel operatives. Sue had often set traps, dangling bait to catch her prey. Steal a thousand, pay back ten or even a hundred times that.
I could sell this or use it for my own schemes.
I opened a secure line, shooting a message to Jago Sabo:
“It’s done. Ready to meet and discuss further cooperation.”
I wasn’t too worried about my safety. Arasaka had already pinned the blame elsewhere. Selling me out didn’t make sense for anyone now. Besides, with the data I had, I could tell and show them plenty of "interesting" things—for a fair price, of course. From a problem to a resource.
Opportunities, man. An ocean of them.
One day, I’d settle all my debts, but for now, it was time to shape my fate. I’d pulled it out of the fire, and now? I had time and room to work.
