The Corpo
She woke up to the obnoxiously loud beeping of her agent. Her eyes, having been programmed to do so the night before, snapped open on their own, ripping away any potential comfort that could draw her back to sleep.
"Ugh." Valerie Price groaned, feeling like she had been ran over by a truck.
"Really should have stopped at the fifth shot." She mumbled "Fuuck."
As always, she briefly contemplated flipping Arasaka the bird and just sleeping in for once, but good sense won out as it did every time before then, and she rolled herself over, misjudging the distance and promptly plopping face-first onto the floor.
"Fu-!" She was fully awake now, and sighed in annoyance "Why me?" Before pushing herself up and tossing her blanket back on the bed.
Despite her still feeling like she could sleep for a week straight, she was feeling a bit lighter today. Last night was fun, even if it ended up being a rollercoaster of excitement and adrenaline instead of the drinking binge she expected.
She allowed herself a small smile before her biomonitor decided to ruin even that.
[Detecting high stress fatigue levels in the User's neural network. Recommend extended rest and recouperation to avoid long-term health risks.]
Just as the words registered, the room began to spin but she quickly shook the sensation away, her ever so lightly trembling hand, that was also fucking dented now, reaching for her end table.
She inhaled the synaptic booster as if it were a lifeline, and her world immediately returned to full brightness, even if she was forced to ignore the acidic taste she knew would stay with her for hours.
Of course, her biomon had something to say about that as well.
[Detecting higher than recommended adrenal enhancer concentration in the user's body. Further overuse without professional treatment may result in long-term health risks for the User.]
"Fuck off." She snapped at nothing before sighing and rubbing her face "Not like I have much of a choice."
Jenkins, the fucking psycho, had been riding her ass ever since she got back from Mexico.
It wasn't even an important delivery she failed to get, but she did fail and the both of them knew it, which meant the fucker could make as many demands as he wanted until she 'cleared her name.'
Even just thinking about the slave driver made her consider going back to sleep again, but she forced herself to move on and trudged over to the bathroom, absently brushing her teeth as her mind wondered over the events of the previous night.
The NC street kid she failed to kill had somehow managed to convince her to remain in contact even when he took her prize, and to her surprise he actually kept his word and called her every few days after that, just to chat.
It felt naive as hell to even conceptualize but how long has it been... since she could afford a friend?
She shook her head at the pathetic train of thought.
The corpo rat race was exhausting, and the naive gonk that Jackie Welles was, he was surprisingly genuine in the way he acted, which gave her a tiny lifeline to pull on when she needed a break from her world.
And it wasn't long before the Latino managed to convince her to use one of her few free days to spend the evening at Lizzie's.
He was persistent, and she secretly enjoyed the place, even if someone of her 'station' shouldn't be caught dead in there.
And there she met them.
Or him, if she was being completely honest.
The little Mox had spunk but she was ultimately just another random if loud face of NC.
No, the one that truly caught her attention was her partner.
How Jackie thought it was a good idea not to inform her about what was probably the only unknown FBC in Night City whom he was somehow chooms with, she had no idea, but the fact that she survived trying to gut him at least spoke to his stability.
Hell, she'd go so far as to say he was just as genuine and interesting to talk to as Jackie if not for the dozens of fresh backdoors he violently shoved into her systems while they were fighting!
She tried doing the same, but whatever ICE monstrosity the borg had obviously outclassed hers to a ridiculous degree, and she wasn't even a full netrunner to begin with.
It was like feeding data to a black void that ripped apart anything it touched.
Still, by the time she was done putting on her uniform, she was pretty sure she had expunged all of the viruses, hopefully.
Reasonably sure she wasn't about to get shot for being made an unwitting mole, she left her luxurious upper floor apartment in H12 and made her way for what was probably another sixteen hour workday at the Arasaka tower.
All the while the memory of her cyberware being simply switched off seemingly at will refused to leave the back of her mind.
-----
The sun had barely started to rise by the time she reached the tower, the doors of the AV behind her shifting closed as the AI driven flier left for its next customer.
She looked back at the sleek Arasaka aerodyne with a satisfied glint in her eyes.
Whenever she doubted her choices, all it took to remind her of her goals was the sheer wealth her drudgery afforded her even now.
She'd keep climbing in the rat race, and one day she would be the one at the top.
"Get your head back in the game, V." She whispered and schooled her expression, turning deadly serious as she marched into the tower.
She ignored the guards like the mindless mooks that they were, and took great satisfaction in the cautious steps her civilian coworkers 'subtly' took away from her as she reached the elevator, glaring a lower ranking member of the PR unit into shuffling out before she rode her way up the immense building.
The Arasaka Counterintelligence Division offices on the upper floors were dimly lit, the dark decor almost seeming to drink in the morning light which left the entire place looking like a city at night in miniature.
She ignored the jealous, calculating, or cautious looks her actual colleagues shot her as she made her way to Jenkins' office, and waited for the scanning process to end.
Only when the automated counter-hacking system detected nothing did she allow herself the briefest instant of relief, before clamping down on it with an iron grip.
"V, early as always." Arthur Jenkins, CO of Arasaka's NC Counterintel division greeted her without looking up from his computer as she entered his office "Had... fun on your break?" His sneer was not visible, but it was certainly audible.
"Yes sir." She answered, keeping her tone carefully deferential and professional.
"Really?" Jenkins looked up, those empty eyes pretending at amusement "You prefer slumming it with street rats to doing actual work?"
V's fingers went to clench into a fist but she just barely managed to keep them from twitching.
Jenkins shook his head with 'sad' derision "I suppose a... native like yourself." His lip curled slightly "Can't help but feel nostalgic."
He was baiting her, hoping she'd start making excuses, looking for a crack in the armor like he did for everyone working under him.
She gave him none.
The fake amusement in his eyes dimmed "Very well, since you are feeling so nostalgic I have a new task for you."
She spoke before she could stop herself "But what about the-"
Jenkin's look instantly shut her up "The Biotechnica trade will be transferred to some of my less capable subordinates."
She had spent a full week on that sabotage plan!
She bit the inside of her lip as she seethed "Yes sir."
"Good." Jenkins 'smiled' and took a datashard out of his computer "There is trouble brewing in Watson between the Maelstrom, and our associates in the Tyger Claws. I want information on everyone involved, names, places, everything that could be of use to push Arasaka interests."
He was making her do grunt work, she realized in anger.
"We cannot afford to operate securely on a wider scale while our own home base is on fire." Jenkins went on as if he didn't extract enjoyment from every tiny reaction she made "So I want this done quickly and efficiently, V. And no more fuckups. Understood?"
"Yes sir." She forced out.
"Good." Jenkins nodded "Take the shard and get to work."
She was more than happy to, but still made sure to appear as outwardly calm as possible as she took her leave.
"Ms. V." Her assistant greeted respectfully as she entered her cubicle "I have the files you requested-"
"We've been reassigned, Smith." She cut him off coldly as she took her seat "Get me everything you can on the Maelstrom in Watson instead."
The man scowled but hid it quickly.
'Pathetic.'
"Yes ma'am." He nodded and immediately got to work.
While he did that, she decided to start her own investigation on the Tyger Claw side of things.
The gang was for all intents and purposes just an extension of the megacorporation, but both sides made it a point to pay lip service to their independence, which made them passable deniable assets.
'And the Emperor definitely prefers it that way.' Valerie thought as she finished typing out the parameters of exactly what she needed before files upon files of every single known Tyger and their associates in northern NC appeared before her eyes.
She began scrolling through them rapidly, familiarizing herself with the subject matter before she chose where to focus her efforts, only to suddenly pause, her hand hovering slightly above her mouse as she saw something... unexpected.
There, within the list of Captain Isamu Okada's, or Jugo's as he was known to prefer, associates was an image taken only two days ago, of a familiar cyborg, looming over a bowing Tyger Claw as another group of gangoons were carrying large packages through the megabuilding floor gates behind him.
Her eyes narrowed and she immediately began typing out more instructions to the compiler AI, and soon her screen was covered with all the information Arasaka had on the cyborg.
But all she got from it was an official Tyger Claw associate, a ripperdoc and netrunner who did a lot of work for the Captain, and apparently moonlighted as a mercenary for some quick cash.
'But why does the system have nothing on him being an FBC?' She wondered, frowning 'Doesn't every known model get flagged automatically no matter what?'
Just then, the internal tower AI updated the list and more images began popping up. The program was an advanced tool available only to the more important sections of Arasaka's NC presence, and it quickly scoured the entire district's localnet without drawing any attention, gathering every single mention of the name Magos.
And the picture it painted was far less pleasant than just some random associate of Captain Okada...
Namely that the cyborg was also a rising Afterlife merc, and one of the most terrifying netrunners in Night City, one with a reputation for literally dancing around other netrunners in increasingly cruel and unusual ways to troll them.
She wisely ignored the fact a good number of them used the 'safe' outcome as live practice.
And to top it all of the borg unofficially held a tiny strip of territory as well.
'Just how did Arasaka never hear of you then?' She narrowed her eyes, scrolling through more and more mentions and images, of which there were suspiciously few.
No one could just appear in Night City like that. And she refused to believe he was a native who somehow got his hands on FBC tech, as well as the expertise needed to use it!
She was barely a few hours into her shift and she already had a headache.
The elite netrunner obviously knew how to keep his trail properly clean, even if he inevitably failed to contain all information due to the simple density of surveillance devices spread all over Night City.
'But to do it to this extent.' She allowed herself a moment to be genuinely impressed before she focused fully again 'He might be a massive problem, or an asset...'
An hour flew by her as she tunnel visioned into gathering as much information as she could from the safety of her seat, and by the time she was done she was feeling both impressed, and incredibly frustrated.
Except for a few known sightings during mercenary gigs, and a few known non-mercenary or non-gang contacts of whom only Doctor Viktor Vektor, and Yoko Tsuru were notable in any way, the latter much more than the former, the cyborg was practically a ghost.
She was just about to pause her research for a bit when a random memory violently inserted itself into the front of her brain.
His output had called him Mike, Valerie realized, and for all the care the cyborg took with his own words, others were not so focused.
And that was all the information she needed to start another round of searching, which after she lucked out and finally got a match between the hundred or so Michaels who lived in H11, eventually, after a lot of dead ends, led her down a near-comical rabbit hole of Arasaka employee backstabbing and incompetency.
Apparently, the Director of Accounting fucked up and made his up and coming assistant into his fall guy, abusing company policy to 'reappropriate' his cyberware and thus execute him on the spot without Counterintel being able to properly investigate the matter.
The man was already dead and they had better things to do with their valuable time.
But a bit of usual corporate drama and backstabbing wasn't enough to draw V's attention.
No, it was the apparent series of requests and bribes made by the long dead assistant for high level home education material for his son.
'Education that he should not have gotten access to without the kid signing a long term contract...' She realized with narrowed eyes but quickly waved that bit of light corruption away in favor of the real elephant in the room.
The son in question was a deformed mess who never should have survived infancy, much less lived long enough to actually succeed in making use of the information.
She wasn't even trying to be callous there, it was a simple and honest statement of fact.
And yet Gregor Sobronov's attempts for more learning material were made at such a frequency and risk to the man that it could only ever be explained by either Gregor being an idiot, or his son being so ridiculously intelligent he blew through decades of information in mere years...
And the choices of subject matter made his goals rather self-evident.
V leaned back in her seat and let out a quiet exhale as all the information she gathered strung itself together into a coherent whole in her mind, and she came to the inevitable conclusion.
There was someone in Night City who managed to build a fully functioning, and probably high grade cybernetic body from barely more than scrap... And he was not even twenty yet.
And to think all of that was hidden from Arasaka just because the head of Accounting was a lazy fat coward!
She was almost tempted to laugh out loud at the sheer absurdity of it all.
But the mirth left her just as quickly as it came.
She knew the mess that would be caused if she were to ever share this with the rest of Arasaka, and quickly used her clearance to delete everything she had dug up from the backup files as well as the history of her doing so.
She discarded the possibility of informing Jenkins of the potential asset without bothering to think about it for more than even a second. There was no way in hell she was giving the asshole that kind of prize.
Someone like Magos, or Michael Sobronov to be more exact, was likely to burn down half the city in the attempt to stay free from the heavy control Arasaka would no doubt place him under, and the megacorp would burn even more to get their hands on him.
V had much more... productive ideas when it came to this new golden goose. The first of which namely being how to ensure his presence remained hidden, and helped her deal with Jenkins' most recent attempt to humiliate her.
'An asset both for my current job.' She considered with a look that would seem almost wistful if not for the calculation in her eyes 'And hopefully even after that.'
Also, for all his standoffishness, he seemed friendly enough, and she didn't want to immediately betray Jackie by proxy like that-
The lunch break alert startled her from her thoughts and she felt her everything ache under a fresh wave of fatigue.
"Survive first." She muttered as she inhaled another booster "Get monster borg to work for you later."
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The cult is back, and so too is the stone tax!
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