Just two months. That's all it took for my career to skyrocket at the speed of Johnny running away from monogamy. It really is something else. Just a month ago I was just an unknown merc, running around, trying to do all sorts of odd jobs with Jackie. But now, like Muamar said, the name V doesn't sound so pretentious anymore; people utter it with respect now. My name carries weight in the underground circle. I mean, I still don't have a drink of my name in the afterlife menu… but it feels nice when I have the luxury to choose my own contracts.
In another lifetime, I asked Rogue why she never had a job for me, and the reason she gave was because of my reputation. Well, things have changed quite a lot now; people and groups look towards me with eager expressions whenever I go to the afterlife, hoping that I will join their team. Begrudgingly, even Rogue offered me a spot on a crew that she was putting together for some job. But if I've learned anything from living these two lives of mine, then it is that I do my best work without any human intervention or support.
I already have everything I need. A dead rockerboy in my head, an arsenal of weapons at any given time on my person. And to top it all off, I now also have a brilliant AI companion!! Hazey!!
Haze, as she was called, was developed by two college students for one of their classes, and it would've gotten them full marks, but unfortunately Netwatch decided to rain on their parade and sent Hazey behind the blackwall. But not all was bleak for the students, because seeing their technical knowledge, Netwatch offered them a place in their ranks. Both of them are living good and productive lives… well, as good as they can be with an 80-hour work-a-week schedule.
As for Hazey, the poor girl was just a day old before she was sent behind the blackwall, to live amongst some of the most dangerous and ravenous AIs in existence. Due to this, her coding regressed a lot, turning her more into an assistant than a true AI. But with alt's tweaking, she is quite powerful, able to hack and destroy almost any low- to mid-level tech and people, and hat usually means everyone and everything. And she also makes combat quickhacking a feckin' child's play. Hazey is always connected to the main and all the previously interacted subnets, making general information retrieval extremely easy, which is amazing; I can search and learn anything without moving from my bed. She can also run a real-time scan on me and send out forged signals and readings from my biomon.
Installing hazey was easy but a very tedious task. Using an AI like I planned to do means that I needed the AI as an operating system, and that means making a custom cyberdeck. For the basis of the cyberdeck, I used an unreleased blueprint of a Militech variant called `Militech Canto MK 6`. I don't like the tech very much if I'm being honest, but it is the only cyberdeck capable of containing a live AI. I customized and improved the design as much as I could, but still, compared to my old Arasaka cyberdeck, it only has 4 extra quickhack slots, with the fifth being a reserve for Hazey's own hack, which is frankly terrifying. Screams tearing out from the throats of people as their entire body freezes and then spasms wildly. All while they are experiencing the most powerful electric shock and synapse burnout. Instantly deleting the person from the face of the earth. That's right, I said delete. Because that's exactly what it feels like watching those twitching and screaming bodies. It is a little cool…
But there is a big problem with having Hazey with me. The cyberdeck takes 36 cyberware capacity, which is quite a lot. And according to Viktor, a little more than what I could handle. But that has never stopped me before, so who cares.
Right now, I'm on my way to a maelstrom hideout/facility, going after a BD from a child killer. Turns out that BD is the only way to catch the fucking killer. Now considering the fact that there is a BD of the incident, it means that it was not a spur-of-the-moment thing; this thing was planned. The death of that child is going to be sold to all the sick fucks out there. And if these guys are working with BDs this heavy, then that means that this is a big fucking operation. An operation that deals regularly with child killers…
'Slow down, turbo! You're going to get us killed! Again!' Johnny screamed, snapping me out of my brooding. Taking a deep breath, I looked around and saw that I was just driving on instinct and had already entered Northside. Loosening my grip on the steering, I leaned back and snarkily asked, "the fuck do you mean again?"
Johnny was just about to say something, but suddenly a small icon pulsed in the corner of my vision, and Hazey chimed, I believe Mr. Silverhand is referring to the fact that both he and you have died and 'in some form' came back to life. And if your memories are to be trusted, then this is not even your first resurrection.
Rolling my eyes, I just gave a small chuckle and sarcastically said, "Thank you, Haezy."
Oh, you are very welcome, ma'am; I have to keep you both walking corpses up to date somehow.
Looking around incredulously, Johnny took off his glasses. 'What, you don't think that we'd forget about our own death?'
Well, considering the fact that you misremember half of the details of your death, I'd say that my help here is sorely needed.
Smiling, I absentmindedly nodded my head and looked around; it looks like I'm finally here.
Stepping out of the car, I looked at the target building and saw that there were cameras around the premises. Before I could even think of uploading a ping, a loading bar appeared in my vision, saying 'tagging people.' Sighing, I crossed my arms and stood there for a few seconds, and suddenly tagged people started popping up on my Kiroshi.
Tagged the hostiles. Ms.V, judging by the data flow in the building, I think that the BD will be here. Hazey said, showing me a 3D layout of the entire building.
Sighing I shook my head. "Thank you, Hazey, but we talked about this. No taking action before talking to me."
Right… But I just tagged the hostiles. Was it not what you wanted?
"It's not about that…" This is one of the major problems with Hazey, she takes action without consulting me. Usually these actions are somewhat beneficial to me, but it doesn't take away from the fact that she's still really young and doesn't have the best grasp on human emotions yet. I'm afraid that one day she might hurt someone by accident.
"Just don't do anything without asking me," I said silently, moving into the complex. Despite my bitching, Haezy did me a solid here; instead of searching for people while cycling through cameras or uploading a ping again and again, she just went into the system, accessed the cameras, and tagged them instantly.
Climbing the building, I flicked a knife out of my pocket and threw it through a guy's skull. Done with that, I disabled a camera in front of me and quietly climbed through a window. Inside I sidestepped a turret mounted on the ceiling and walked towards the room in front of me.
I was just about to open the door when I heard two voices from inside.
"What do you think? It still feels like I'm stabbing a pillow."
"What the fuck?" I whispered involuntarily; looking through the glass in the door, I saw that there were two people in the room, who looked like father and son. Opening the door, I walked in and stood in front of them.
"Okay, pulling up by one frame… augmenting pain feedback, and the ferrous aftertaste." The young one said, and before I could even say anything, the father proudly proclaimed, "Freddy boy, you're a natural!"
Natural? He's fucking natural in augmenting and then selling others' pain?! He's a natural at selling murder of little children, and this guy thinks this is something to be proud of?!
'People like these make me sick,' Johnny said quietly, walking out from behind me. Nodding in agreement, I took out the dying night.
"Ahh… cutting that sweat stench." Oh, you're not cutting anything anymore, I thought darkly before raising my gun and firing towards the ceiling. "Wakey wakey, gentleman." Scared and startled, the duo jumped up and frantically looked towards me and the door.
"Wha-? How did you get in here? Security?!" The younger one screamed, scared out of his mind when I leveled the gun to his head. Good. I like that fear.
"They are too far away to hear us…" the father said, voice shaking from fear. Slowly he stepped forward with his hands up, "L-lets not do anything rash here, we just tune and sell, we don't scroll, honest to god!" Looking fearfully at my gun, which was still trained on his son, "we can figure something out… Just tell us, what do you want?"
Trying to control my anger, I took in a deep breath and growled, "XBD of a preacher's little boy. Murdered. Ring any bells?"
"Uhhh, which preacher?" His son croaked with a confused and scared expression.
'The fuck does he mean by which preacher?! Are there more than one?!' Johnny exclaimed, glitching all over the room, getting more agitated.
Hesitating, the boy's father looked towards his son with fear. "We… we just got a fresh batch of boys… No idea who their daddies are… We're going to need more."
'Well, that answers my fucking question.' Hanging my head, I looked towards the ground and shook my head. I've been trying very hard to control my rage, but what good is my mercy when it is wasted on sick fucks like this? Holstering the pistol, I cracked my fingers a bit. Seeing me putting back my gun, the father relaxed a bit, just for a second, before gasping in fear again, as he saw me taking out 'guts'. One single bullet is too ficking merciful; I'm going to blow their bloody heads off. Cocking the gun, I leveled it again at the son's head and watched as all the blood drained from both the father's and son's faces.
"Bryce Stone, circuit rider on N54. His son was Bobby Stone; he was 12 years old when he died."
Shivering with fright, the father tilted his head back, trying to concentrate. My patience was already running thin.
"Papa… I thin—" "Shut the fuck up!" I screamed, shutting up the son; I actually wanted to hear what the father would say here. Glaring at him, I tightened my grip on the trigger. "Go ahead, think. And think very carefully."
With a harsh sigh, he ran his hands on his face before slowly asking, "A-are we talking about Black, white, Chicano… any identifying marks? Style of executions?" And that did it for me. He can't even remember the death of a child, because there have been so many more… With steely eyes, I looked straight at the father and pulled the trigger. Instantly turning the son's head in a fucking red mist.
"FREDDY, NO!" With a raw and emotional scream, the father fell to his knees, looking at his son's body with a heartbroken look, "Freddy! FREDRICK! Answer me! Please!"
"Feel the pain of all those parents. Try and augment this. I'm sure it'll sell well." I said with a cold voice. saying that, i turned away from both the father and the son's dead body towards the BD library. "Hazey?"
Highlighting the case now, Ms. V, a small marker, appeared above a case on the shelf in front of me. Grabbing the BD, I gave the crying father a final look before turning to leave the room.
"it should've been me..." hearing the father murmuring softly to the dead body, I stopped, turned back and walked over to him and in a cold voice said, " "Yes it should've, but it is not, now I'm gonna leave you here to think why it wasn't you, and maybe one of us would've benefited from this… altercation that you dragged us in..." hearing my word he started sobbing even more, but i didn't had time for his bullshit anymore.
Just this very morning, things were going swimmingly for the father and son duo. A lucrative family business, protected by one of the most feared gangs in the city, while basking in the company of their loved ones. The NightCity dream came true. But dreams have a nasty habit of going bad when you're not looking.
'Let's get out of here. I don't want to stay here more than you have to'. Johnny said, standing near the window, looking at the room with disgust.
"I hear ya." I was just about to climb out of the window when something came to my mind. The data, the videos, the BDs, and the raw file—they're all still there. The father may be crushed right now, and he may take a few months. But when the money runs dry, and the need arises, he'll just get someone else to work with him. Or those maelstrom bitches will just paddle the old shit. Turning around, I thought about it for a second before reaching a decision.
"Haezy?" Yes, ma'am?
"Be a darling, and destroy everything in their systems; in fact, please burn this entire operation to the ground."
With pleasure. The turret mounted on the ceiling blinked for a quick second before the entire server room started sparking, and then the entire place went dim.
Task complete. Destroyed all the files, programs, and the custom-made virtual tools, plus I also overloaded and destroyed the physical servers too.
"Brilliant work, Haezy!" Thank you, ma'am.
Giving Johnny a satisfied look, I lightly said, "Now we can leave." Before climbing out of the window.
It's people like those father and son who do an amazing job of reminding me that there's always a monster lurking behind those wholesome and jolly faces. It always forces me to think whether we can even trust anyone.
It doesn't matter how much I try to find good things about this city or its people; some things just… Situations like these always hit me point-blank and remind me of the atrocities that people commit on a daily basis in this city.