Chapter Text
Chapter 3: A Stranger I Remain
It was a cold September morning in Toronto. By a school bus stop were kids of a variety of ages, the younger ones with their parents being ready to wave goodbye to them when they got on the bus. Next to her dad was a 5 year old girl named Bella. The weather was always the same in the fall; go out with winter clothes because it’s 9 degrees celsius, come back looking like you came out of a sauna because the weather suddenly jumped to 18 degrees celsius.
This was Bella’s normal routine though. Granted, this time is going to be a little different, but her dad always said that big girls are girls who grow up, and she wants to be a big girl like her mom! ‘Where is mom?’ She asks herself as she waits by her bus stop.
She looks up to her dad with a look of worry, but he smiles and pats her head, “D o n’t worry! Your first day might seem rough, but school is going to be fun, especially in grade 1!” He assures her, although that’s not the only thing she’s worried about.
“Is mom going to be here when I leave?” She asks her dad, while he pats her head again, his smile growing even larger than before.
“Of course she is, sweety! Just let her get out of her tub and get dressed. You know how hard she works, right?” The dad says as Bella nods, meanwhile a woman is getting out of her ice tub after a recent dive, “Great. Why don’t you go play with your fr i ends? I’ll tell you when the bus is coming, ‘kay sweety?”
As Bella plays with her friends, the woman starts to get dressed and wonders where the others are. ‘Wait!’ She thought as she checked the time, it was reading 7:51. “OH SHIT!” She yelled out loud as she took her breakfast and began to run to the bus stop, realizing she would be late for her daughter’s first day at school.
As the woman ran, with only her house clothes on, mind you, she noticed the bus was stuck in traffic, ‘Good,’ She thought, ‘It’ll be late, but I won’t let Bella down!’ Just as it was her turn to cross, she makes a run for it and gets near the bus stop.
While all this was going on, Bella and her friends played until their ball got kicked into the street. As Bella goes to get it, she doesn’t notice a car turning at just the right moment. “BELLA!” She hears from her side, and she sees her mom running towards her.
“ M om!” She says as she goes to hug her, not noticing the car about to run over her.
Suddenly, Bella is on the sidewalk right next to her mom. As she hugs her mom, she notices where she is, “Wait, how did I get h ere? What happened to the ball?” She asks her mom as she looks around and sees she’s on the sidewalk.
“Head s up!” Bella hears from behind her, and she sees her dad throwing her the ball. He then looks towards her mom, “There you are Lucy! I was scared for a minute there, you almost missed Bella’s first day of school!”
Lucy grins as she keeps hugging her daughter, “David, honey, please. I would never forget a day like today!” She says as Bella nods in agreement while David looks at her with a raised eyebrow.
“Then why are you wearing those clothes?” He asks as Lucy looks down and her eyes widen into the size of dinner plates, realizing she’s only wearing a white t-shirt and blue jeans.
Just then, the school bus finally arrives, ‘Oh thank god.’ Lucyna Martinez thought as she waved goodbye to her baby girl, Isabella “Bella” Martinez.
When the bus left and all the parents did too, David made a snarky remark, “Thank god I still had my Sandevistan with me. I wonder what would’ve happened if, I don’t k now, that ripper took it out of me?”
“Fine, you were right.” Lucy sighs in defeat as David cheers, “For once in your life.” She sneakily adds, not going unnoticed by David.
“Hey! I was right about Toronto too!” David says as he and Lucy begin to walk home.
“Yeah,” Lucy giggles, “Yeah, I guess so.”
*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*
Lucy wakes up and still feels miserable.
Before there was at least some light still left in her eyes, saved for the important things in her life. Light for her dream, light for the moon, light for David, but those are gone now. ‘If only I killed them all.’ She thought of the netrunners sent after David, and the people they worked for. Arasaka, Faraday… ‘Kiwi’ She thought in anger. Lucy still has not forgiven her mentor for betraying her and ESPECIALLY the crew. ‘She talked about trust? SHE TALKED ABOUT TRUST? WHAT ABOUT ME? SHE TOOK ME IN AND SHE STILL DIDN’T TRUST US?’ She angrily thought as she grabbed her coat, ‘Well, she’s about to regret it.’ She violently thought as she looked over the image of a younger Kiwi and a man in his early 30s. He had the same hair color as the 13 year old Kiwi.
Just as Lucy walked out of her hotel and started to do something she would regret, she got a text. It was from an unknown number, and that scared Lucy. It scared her because her ICE wasn’t broken.
Lucy uses what is essentially a private VPN. It did what VPNs would normally do while also giving her what essentially amounts to as an invisibility cloak against any foes, but it’s invisible to the average scanner/netrunner. It works off her own ICE, which would take an extremely skilled netrunner AND technique only AIs could pull off. Lucy has both of those, or at least was trained by the world’s greatest netrunner. It’s close enough.
So, if this text breached her cloak without breaking ANY ICE, that means the person is a netrunner of the same calibur of Alt Cunningham (and Lucy can only name one other person alive who could come close to Alt), or it’s an AI from the Blackwall from before the DataKrash.
Lucy knew she shouldn’t do it. She knew how risky it was. But at the same time, she knew about Alt. She knew the AI was still alive, helping V and probably (hopefully) still cared about her. ‘If it’s just another AI, I guess dying isn’t so bad.’ She thought as she opened the message.
Inside were two recordings, and Lucy immediately recognized them, her eyes widened. ‘These are-’ She thought as she looked over David proposing to her on the moon and her and David waving goodbye to their daughter. There was a message that came along with the two videos.
“ LUCY!”
“MIKOSHI!”
And the username of the messenger? D@v1d
Lucy leaned against the wall, and started to cry. Not tears of sadness, but tears of joy.
/./
It is 6:30 in the morning, and V is tired. “If you’re tired, just go back to bed. They said 8, that’s gonna take a while. ‘Sides, useless doing recon when you're tired.” Johnny complains as he leans on the roof.
V takes his head away from his binoculars, “So you would rather go into this obvious trap blind? You literally complained about how this has Arasaka written all over it.”
“Yeah, I did. We also both know that Arasaka is always on time, and never uses a lot of security when it comes to back alley deals like these. Fuck’s sake V, just take a fucking break!”
“Johnny, please, shut the fuck up.” Was all V said before using his binoculars again.
Sure enough, V was lying down, scouting the docks to see where this mystery person would show. V knew the chances of it being a corpo was basically 0, but that just means it could be anyone else.
“Look, it’s pretty common knowledge that I came back ‘cause of the chip. We’ve got Arasaka to thank for that.” V says as he thinks about how Arasaka’s stock prices soared after it was discovered that V came back because of the relic. It didn’t take a genius to put together Konpeki Plaza, V and the relic. V knew from his corpo past that whoever came up with that PR move was getting a promotion, a fat bonus, a new house, a new car and a raise. “The thing that bugs me is that they also knew about you, Johnny. I can count how many people know about you on one hand. If this mystery man knows who you are, they could be a lead into Mikoshi.”
“Why do we even need another one? We already have Alt.” Johnny complains.
“Yeah, but we don’t know where Mikoshi even is.” V counters back.
“... Fuck.” Johnny whines before laying down next to V, “I’ll take watch, you sleep. I’m not budging on that.”
V wanted to protest, but then he began to hold back a yawn. He looks into a broken piece of a mirror, and sees shadows beneath his eyes. “Fine.” V said, before leaning against a wall and falling asleep.
/./
1 hour later
The halls of Militech were abuzz. Interns were running their legs off trying to refill their boss’ respective coffee cups, said bosses were pulling their hair out while also creating entire files in mere seconds with just their fingers, albeit the synth-skin has more than just fallen off, it’s completely evaporated!
But why is Militech more razzled than a hornet’s nest? Simple. A hacking of Arasaka technology happened in a Militech database. This makes all of Militech hyper, but it especially spells a crappy day, or let’s be real here, crappy week for the Militech executives.
“Arasaka is on line 1, they’re saying we have to apologize or else they call off the peace treaty.” One exec said as almost everyone else was running rampant in the top room.
“Just got a call from the lawyers, they say we could be facing fraud, inciting war and treason. That means 30 years for everyone in this room, even if we pay off the jury.” Exec #2 said.
“Shareholders called in, they’re claiming misleading the shareholders too.” Exec #3 added to Exec #2’s statement before calling in someone from stocks, “Keep the stock alive for now. When it drops below 50, cut it.”
Sitting at his desk at the front of the room was the CEO of Militech himself, Lucas Harford. As everyone else constantly talked over each other, he was deep in thought. ‘This clearly isn’t Kangtao. They hate Arasaka, but they wouldn’t want to deal with us too. Netwatch is always neutral, so they’re out. It could be from Arasaka, but that’s implying Yorinobu wants to start another war. Not his style. Besides, that zipperhead hates Arasaka more than I do. So, if it isn’t a megacorp, I wonder who they really are?’
“Shit, they halted it.” Exec #3 said, referring to the stock.
“Luke,” Exec #2 said, “We have to make a statement.”
Lucas thought about what to do, and then he began to smile. ‘Well well well, I’m going to have to get my hands on them first before anyone else.’ Then, he called an old friend.
“This is the White House, may I ask what the point of your call is?” The secretary on the other line said.
“Leanne, great to see you!” Lucas greeted the secretary, “Mind if I speak with Donald? I have something VERY important for him.” Lucas casually said as he waved his hand at everyone else in the room, motioning them to leave. As everyone left and he was sure he was the only person in his office, he activated the soundproof blinds, making sure nobody can hear the upcoming conversation.
“With all due respect sir, Mr. President is not currently interested in buying anything, sir.” Leanne quickly shut him down with as much respect as she would give the president.
“Ohoho, I’m not selling anything. If anything, I’m the one buying.” He grinned as Leanne admitted defeat and put him on hold. ‘Same old, same old Leanne.’ He thinks back to the numerous times he had brought the secretary back to one of his places for a job well done.
After a moment, the line went back on, and Lucas stiffened up, saluting even while on call, “At ease, Lucas. You talked about buying. Are you talking about him?” Donald Lundee, the president of the New United States of America asked. Lucas nodded.
“Yes sir. There is something that has happened in Night City, and I am looking to take advantage of it, sir.” Lucas said.
“Do you have any idea what you’re asking? Luke, what could possibly require you to need The Hammer?” Donald asked in bewilderment.
“It’s because we’ve been hacked.” Lucas said before grinning, “Not by any megacorp, but by a sole runner. And they tried to start a war between us and Arasaka.”
This got Donald confused, “That isn’t a good thing, Luke. If you were able to get hacked, that means we could too. Why are you smiling?” He asked before realizing, “God dammit Luke.”
Lucas quickly went into damage control, “Just give me some time with them! They probably knew what they were dealing with, so working for us would essentially be them getting off easy, at least in their minds!” The Militech CEO said, trying to get the president to change his mind on giving him one of the NUSA’s biggest assets.
“So you're telling me that you intend to hire the hacker to make Militech’s hardware stronger against data attacks and just expect the hacker to keep working for you?” The president asked the CEO, looking at him like he was insane.
“With all due respect sir, you use our hardware too. If we could get hacked, so could you.” Lucas pointed out, “Additionally, the hacker would not betray us if they knew about The Hammer, hence why we need him back.”
Both parties were silent for a moment. They knew that each other had a valid point. On one hand, hiring the netrunner who could get into both Arasaka AND Militech in a single day without getting caught would be a good play, but who’s to say they wouldn’t betray them? ‘But if we use him as a way to threaten them,’ Donald thought, referring to The Hammer before internally sighing, “Alright Luke, you can have him back. Make sure you get that runner though.” The president very clearly says.
“Thank you, sir. Trust me, you won’t regret this!” Was all Lucas said before turning off the call. ‘Alright, now to find out who you are.’ Lucas thought as he turned his office back to normal and all of the Militech executives flooded back into the office.
/./
“-? Hey, V?” Was what V first heard as he began to wake up, “‘Bout fuckin’ time ya got up. C’mon, it’s about time we actually do some recon.”
“Ngh, Johnny?” V asked as his eyes adjusted to the light. He noticed that the time was 7:45, and the view towards the ocean confirmed it for V. The morning sun’s rays reflected off of the water, making a pretty beautiful view for V to wake up to. As he gathers his senses, he turns on his Kiroshi scanner and looks around for anyone. “Anything new happen while I slept?” He asked Johnny.
“Nah, nothing. A few bums came around here, but I doubt they’re our mystery man.” Johnny says as V takes in the rest of his surroundings. “Look, let’s just go down to the docks. If it goes to shit, we ice ‘em and delta.”
“Wow, an actually good idea from you. Who knew?” V rhetorically asked as he went down to the docks and waited. He was the only person near the shore, everyone else was further back by the bridge or vending machines. When V got to the docks and leaned on one of the pillars, he noticed a new person enter the area. She was white, had pastel hair, wore a cut out netrunner’s suit, and wore a green jacket with the letters ER spray painted onto its back. “You don’t think that’s her, Johnny?” V asked the ghost.
Johnny looks at V with a confused face, “The fuck’re you talking about, V?”
“Someone picks up quickly.” A voice came from behind V. V turned around and saw the same girl, even though she was and still is by the bridge. Suddenly, the girl by the bridge starts to fizzle out into data, getting V to widen his eyes. “Surprised?” She cheekily asks as V gives her his full attention, “Of course you are, you’ve probably never even heard of this stuff. Let me tell you, it was not easy to make.” She says as she looks to V, then to the ocean, “Follow me. This may be Pacifica, but there are still a few Voodoo Boys remnants out here. I think it’s safe to say that none of us want to deal with them.” She says as she goes down to the beach and into a nearby garage.
As they both got inside and the girl closed the door, V notices the setup she has. For one, there’s a massive machine that’s connected to multiple netrunner chairs in the center of the room. In the furthest corner, there’s a kitchen with running water, a computer and an ice tub. ‘Why would she need an ice tub if she’s already a good runner?’ V asked himself as he kept looking around. The last thing he noticed before it all clicked together were the turrets and the guard bots on stand by. ‘Wait a minute,’ He thought to himself, ‘this is where I fought that VDB cyberpsycho!’
“I guess introductions are in order,” the girl says as she sits down on her chair next to her computer, “My name is Lucy.” She says as she reaches her hand out to V, who shakes it. Johnny feels like he’s heard that name before, but brushes it off.
“V,” He says before taking a seat while Johnny leans on the fridge, “But you already knew that. Hey, how did you make that hologram?”
“My my, aren’t you clever. Well, that hologram was actually just a daemon. One you won’t find on any market.” Lucy cheekily says, getting V to roll his eyes.
“Are you just going to bullshit me here? We both know a daemon like that shouldn’t exist, megacorps would be all over whoever made it!” V said, using his experience in Arasaka that Lucy should know about.
“Oh please, humans aren’t the only ones who can create daemons.” Lucy smugly says before turning her chair to the right, “Isn’t that right, Johnny?” She says. Both V and Johnny struggle to hold back their laughter.
“Talk about flying too high.” Johnny says as he is in the complete opposite direction where Lucy turned to, “She’s definitely not corpo, but she might as well be. Let’s delta the fuck outta here. Still got that Peralez shit to do” He says, V nodding in agreement as he gets up to leave.
Lucy sees the solo begin to leave and realizes what just happened. She sighs, “Wait, I’m sorry if I pushed too hard back there.” She apologizes as V stops at the door and turns his head to her.
“It’s not just that. You clearly don’t know shit about Mikoshi, you even turned the wrong way at Johnny.” V calls Lucy out, “You’re a good runner, I’ll give you that, but if you keep up with that whole corpo attitude of ‘I’m the one in control, bow before me!’ then you just aren’t worth my time. I have better shit to do AND a way into Mikoshi.” V says as he continues to leave.
As he opens the door, Lucy sees David instead of V. As he turns his back towards her, he walks off into the sunset, Lucy being helpless about everything again. “No…” She whispers out loud, “I… I KNOW ABOUT ALT!” She desperately yells, stopping V. “Look, I’ll just get down to the detes, but I really think we could work together. We both want to get to Mikoshi.”
V closes the door and faces her, “Why do you even want to get to Mikoshi?”
“Because of David Martinez. He’s in there, and I want to get him out. I NEED to get him out!” She reveals to V and Johnny.
Just then, it clicks for Johnny. “Fuck, that’s where I remember him from!” He realizes, V turning to him in confusion. “V, let’s hear her out!” Johnny says in a complete 180 shift from his previous personality. V noticed this too, given his confused face. “Look, it’s not about her, it’s about the guy! I knew him from Mikoshi!”
“How do you know he’s in Mikoshi? You sure it’s not just a feeling?” V asks both Lucy and Johnny simultaneously.
Lucy answers first, “I know it sounds crazy, but he called out to me, both last night and two nights ago. I noticed a new message when I woke up. It was a recording of both of my dreams, except some parts were scrambled. Those scrambled parts were an anagram that spelled out Mikoshi.”
Johnny answers next, “Because I met him there! Fuck V, we were cellmates! He couldn’t stop talkin’ ‘bout his output Lucy. I’m telling ya, she’s the one.”
V thinks about what he heard before making another question for both of them, “Got any proof?”
Lucy hesitates for a minute, before ultimately deciding it’s worth the risk. “Here,” she says as she sends V a screenshot of the text messages. As V reads through them, he ultimately decides to help her.
“Fine then, hear you go!” Johnny says, unaware of V’s decision.
“WAIT JOHNNY!” V yells but it’s too late.
He wakes up in cyberspace.