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Chapter 269 c
🕑 Added 2025-06-05 15:01:11 +0000 UTCChapter 269 c
Johnny was clearly stunned. “How the hell do you know that name?”
“Remember our little Konpeki escapade? It all started because the Voodoo Boys wanted Evelyn to record a braindance inside, but she ended up orchestrating a city-wide heist.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Then that chick Evelyn got her brain fried by a netrunner.”
“You better not let Judy hear you say that—she’ll rip you a new one. Anyway, the name Alt? It came from the Voodoo Boys. From the beginning, their goal with the relic seemed to be using you to find Alt.”
“I’ve been dead for half a century, sorry, I can’t just snap my fingers and serve up answers on a silver fucking platter.”
Leo looked doubtful. “You’re saying you don’t know anything at all?”
Johnny’s tone was clearly irritated. “Jesus. Alt Cunningham—she was my girlfriend, alright?”
“I know she was your girlfriend. Half the reason you went after Arasaka was for her. But don’t tell me you think she’s still alive.”
“She’s gone. She’s dead. Arasaka took her from me.”
That matched exactly what Leo had heard. Alt Cunningham, the netrunner who had developed Soulkiller, had been killed by her own creation—used by Arasaka. That incident pushed Johnny Silverhand, already furious with Arasaka, past the edge and led him to join the Militech-backed assault on Arasaka Tower.
Which, of course, ended with the nuclear bombing of the tower.
But based on what the Voodoo Boys had said, they not only knew that Johnny Silverhand’s engram was inside the relic, they also believed Alt was still “alive” in some way.
That would explain the line: “We need to find Alt through Silverhand.”
As Leo was mulling this over, a new voice came from the other end of the line—it wasn’t Johnny anymore. It was Rogue.
“Leo, it’s Rogue. If you’ve got time, swing by the Afterlife sometime soon. I need to talk to you.”
“Is this about Johnny?”
“Hmm.”
“Alright, I’ll head over this afternoon.”
…...................
.........
.
After lunch at Judy’s place and being warmly hosted, the three of them—Leo, V, and Lucy—left Judy’s apartment a bit past one in the afternoon. Leo called a Delamain cab for V and Lucy to take them home. The two had wanted to go with him, but he turned them down.
He was just heading to the Afterlife to see Rogue. No need to bring the whole crew.
Instead of calling another Delamain, Leo summoned his long-unused Fenrir motorbike.
…
“Hey, Rogue.” Inside Rogue’s private booth, he found her seated, a data pad in hand. A cable ran from the pad into the neural socket at the back of her neck.
“Sit,” she said, pulling out the cable and setting the pad on the table. “I heard that little sex doll who nearly got you all killed finally woke up?”
“Yeah,” Leo replied bluntly, then gave her a quick summary of the two braindance recordings he’d seen at Judy’s place. Finally, he asked, “Alt Cunningham—do you remember that name?”
“How could I not? After Johnny and I broke up, she was the next one he went for.”
An awkward silence fell over the booth.
But Leo didn’t flinch. He looked perfectly at ease. “Do you know much about her? I need information. Anything will help.”
A glimmer of nostalgia passed through Rogue’s cybernetic optics.
“Altiera Cunningham. She was the city’s top netrunner. It was her who helped Arasaka develop Soulkiller.”
“She was kidnapped by Arasaka, and then Johnny came to ‘Atlantis’ to find me… You probably don’t know what ‘Atlantis’ was. Just think of it as the Afterlife of fifty years ago.”
Leo nodded. “Got it.”
“Good. So, where was I… Right, Johnny came to me for help—to rescue his girl.”
Leo didn’t interrupt, just listened quietly.
“I don’t know what the hell I was thinking back then. No woman in her right mind would go risk her life to save the woman who stole her man.”
Leo placed his hands on his knees and looked at Rogue. “But you went anyway?”
She nodded.
“Yeah. I owed Johnny. Plus, he offered to pay. Back then, I wasn’t some ‘Queen of Fixers’—just another merc. If there’s money, you take the job. That’s how it worked.”
“And there was another reason: Arasaka’s people followed Johnny to me. They got in my way. Maybe that’s why I joined the mission.”
“But when we got to the Arasaka complex… we were too late. Alt was already gone. That loss pushed Johnny over the edge. Not long after that, he joined Militech’s strike team to plant a tactical nuke inside Arasaka Tower. That’s how he died.”
The booth fell quiet.
Rogue said no more.
Leo stared down at the clear glass table, his mind spinning. Alt Cunningham… she had developed Soulkiller for Arasaka. She’d been attacked while returning with Johnny and taken by unknown assailants—who, based on the outcome, had to be Arasaka agents.
But from how Rogue described it, it didn’t sound like Alt was taken to be used as a hostage. Soulkiller was already complete at that point.
So why did Arasaka take her?
Leo’s expression hardened. “Rogue, when you and Johnny broke into the Arasaka facility, can you describe exactly what you saw?”
“You mean that moment?” Rogue thought for a second. “She was wearing a white netrunner cooling suit, lying in a chair, hooked up to all kinds of gear—wires running into her everywhere.”
“Anything else?”
“There was a corpo suit in the room. He said, ‘I suggest you don’t disturb her. I’ve given her a project that could last a lifetime.’”
“And then?”
“Then Johnny blew his fucking head off.”
Seeing Leo’s contemplative look, Rogue asked, “You thinking something?”
Leo answered slowly, “Maybe Alt wasn’t dead yet.”
He remembered the incident at Lilith’s House, when the cult had summoned something from the other side of the Net. They had managed to stop it, but what came through hadn’t been alive in any conventional sense, nor could it be called dead. It had simply existed, beyond normal classification.
Rogue blinked, visibly surprised. “Not dead? That’s impossible. We checked her. She was still warm, yeah, but no pulse, no breathing.”
“That’s because her consciousness was in Mikoshi—the Arasaka data fortress.”
“You’re saying she entered cyberspace? I’ve seen runners do that.”
“No, not diving. I mean full detachment. She used Soulkiller to rip her consciousness from her body. A full mind split.”
Rogue looked confused. “You’ve lost me, Leo.”
“I’ll explain. Might be wrong, but it’s what I think.” Leo pointed at the water glass on the table. “Anyone touched this?”
“No. It’s clean.”
Leo took a sip to wet his throat. “Ever since the Old Net collapsed, it’s been filled with treasure. Every corp wants access to its buried knowledge. Arasaka’s no different. They’ve sent wave after wave of netrunners in—most don’t come back. Even the best can barely survive.”
“But maybe… just maybe, they found a solution. Turn Alt into an AI—or something close—so she could explore the Old Net freely.”
“She created Soulkiller. She knew how to strip consciousness from the body. That’s why she had no breath, no heartbeat.”
“So what you’re saying is… Alt didn’t die?” Rogue still struggled to believe it. “But that’s all just theory.”
“It is. But I’d say the odds are pretty high. She was probably still ‘alive’ then. But once Johnny ripped those cables out and took her body, she had no way to come back.”
Rogue paused, then said, “Leo, don’t tell Johnny. He won’t be able to take it.”
Leo nodded. He understood perfectly. “Yeah, I know. You don’t have to worry.” He glanced around. “Where is he?”
“He’s not here. Just left.”
“Left?”
“Don’t make that face. I know what you’re thinking. Don’t worry. I had Crispin take a few people with him,” Rogue sighed. “I can’t keep him locked up 24/7.”
By 2077, braindances were already insanely immersive. Megacorps actively pushed them to distract and numb the lower classes. But even so, no one could stay immersed twenty-four hours a day. That would make them a complete vegetable.
And someone like Johnny Silverhand? No way. Back when he was stuck in Mikoshi, dazed and unaware, time passed quickly. But now he was back in the real world—there was no way he’d agree to being locked into braindances all day.
Still, if Rogue had sent people with him, Leo didn’t worry too much. If anything, Rogue was more motivated than he was to keep Johnny safe.
On the way over, Leo had been thinking things over.
If Alt had really died back then, how were the Voodoo Boys planning to reach her through Johnny?
They were netrunners, not necromancers.
Even in fiction, necromancy usually required a body to summon the dead.
So Leo considered another possibility: Alt might not be dead at all—she was just alive inside cyberspace.
That’s what the Voodoo Boys were really after.
Then Leo suddenly remembered—Rogue had called him over but hadn’t explained why yet.
“Rogue, why’d you call me over?”
“I’ve got a job.” Her fingers tapped the glass tabletop, as if weighing the idea. “If you don’t want it, that’s fine.”
“What kind of job? Let me hear it first”
“I want you to find out what the Voodoo Boys are really planning.”
Leo paused, thinking. “You came up with this job because I told you the Voodoo Boys were trying to reach Alt through Johnny, right?”
Rogue didn’t deny it. “Exactly.”
“I’m in.” Leo agreed without hesitation.
He had no problem dealing with the Voodoo Boys. Not only had they screwed over Evelyn, Leo had personal grievances with them. These assholes loved to send threatening emails—‘Pay or we fry your brain’ stuff. Leo, V, Lucy, and Jackie had all received several.
Before Evelyn’s incident, Leo had just treated those messages as spam. Block, delete, done.
But after what happened to her, he took them seriously.
After all, Cloud Club was Tiger Claw turf, and their ICE security wasn’t weak.
And yet the Voodoo Boys still burned out Evelyn’s chip.
What would’ve happened if it were someone else without that level of protection? It wouldn't be a surprise if this was how they earned their money as a gang. It wasn’t protection money in the old gang sense. It was protection for the mind. No broken windows needed—just the threat of a burned-out neural link.
Comments
ZeroLink21
Time to kill some tech necromancers and find out what the assholes are really doing lol tftc
