Interlude: Rogue

The living Legend and Queen of the Afterlife Rogue Amendiares finishes reading her report while holding her Johnny Silverhand in her left hand while with her right hand, she grabs another piece of fried chicken, courtesy of her new partner Mark Henderson, known by the city as the enigmatic Engineer.

"A headache and profit in a single package, it almost reminds me of you." The Queen murmurs under her breath.

The poultry came from a farm far away from Night City in the Badlands, meant to supply Wube Inc. workers with fresh, organic food. The supply of Organic Chickens is currently limited, however, with her connections and allies, she has access to those products among others. Wube Inc. plans to enter the food market in the future, but the regulations placed on that industry would make him an enemy of both Biotechnica and Petrochem, depending on the focus. At the moment, Wube Inc. is studying the possibility of expansion and gearing up for a potential legal battle, but that's a distraction from the main accomplishments of the company.

Rogue connects to her agent and opens the photo gallery, a relic that most casual users don't bother at the current age. She glances over the various photos sent by Mark from his Space Station.

"Not going to lie, this is the ugliest thing I have ever seen." The woman takes another swing of her drink as the photo enters into focus.

The Space Station is composed of a single Command Center over a set of Space Platforms that grows outwards from this initial structure. On top of the station are strange "asteroid catchers" that grab micro asteroids and other space debris into their hungry maws, spewing items into conveyor belts set on top of the Space Platforms. How none of the items that aren't bolted into the platforms don't fly off carried by their momentum, is not a piece of information that Rogue is privy to.

"It's almost like he's taunting the other corporations."

The station also has some of the mysterious Assemblers™ that appear in a rare video recorded inside the Factory of Pacifica. Amateur astronomers sold the recording on the net for those curious to see the Engineer's equipment in action. Some people claim the Engineer had stolen the blueprints of nanoforgers from the corporations, forgetting that Wube Inc. itself is a corporation.

Unfortunately, there are no known records of a company called "Wube Inc." ever existing. However, after the Datacrash it is difficult to access old records, with the only evidence of something's existence being a living person's memory. That quality is part of what makes Rogue a Living Legend.

According to her observations, Mark has access to an advanced, mature technology that sometimes looks like magic to the uneducated eyes, though she heard one of her Techies call the equipment shown by the Engineer an example of techno-sorcery. In Rogue's opinion that's an exaggeration that doesn't need to be spread, the Queen doesn't need to give Mark a bigger head.

Rogue flicks over another photo, this time with Mark on the moon, holding a flag with the symbol of Wube Inc. standing like the old photo of Neil Armstrong standing on the moon. She flicks another photo, and she sees the strange doll that Mark occasionally carries around. According to him, when he needs to decide on a course of action, instead of talking out loud to sound the idea, he tries to explain it to an imaginary audience to determine the feasibility of his plans. If he can't articulate his thoughts to a plushy, then the idea needs revision or will be scrapped as a bad idea.

Rogue shakes her head in indignation. "I wonder what counts as a bad idea in his book."

After the first Space Station, Mark quickly launched a second "seed" into space that quickly grew, and he claims this new Station will become a spaceship. She's not an aerospace engineer, but she's certain that spaceships look nothing like what Mark currently has in space. The abomination currently looks like a factory floor with three rocket engines strapped to the "stern" waiting for fuel and building materials to make its maiden voyage.

Rogue closes the album and brings another report with the minerals extracted by the moon colony. There are plenty of rare metals, noble gases, and unprocessed ore that Wube Inc. uses for themselves while selling the excess. That's not abnormal, and the volume extracted currently can be considered small, but Wube Inc.'s costs are almost none making the extraction extremely lucrative.

Already, Rogue receives offers to spy on the Engineer or to provide intelligence on his operations, with enough eddies to allow her to retire for the next century in luxury. She almost sent a team of Edgerunners to those middle managers who don't know their place, but that's acknowledging the existence of a walking corpse since corporations don't admit this kind of blunder in their ranks. Rogue might not work as a Solo anymore, but she was already on the camp of "Fuck the Corpos" before they were born.

Finally, Rogue picks the datashard containing Mark's request for a job, which is the reason why she's drinking a Silverhand in the middle of the day: an infiltration mission on Biotechnica to investigate their servers and offices for potential dirt. Mark found circumstantial evidence that Biotechnica might be in trouble, or at least Night City's office. If they can find further proof, he can hit the corporation where it hurts: the investor's wallets. Mark is currently sponsoring the chrome and retraining of Maine's Crew for this mission, but he also wants extra help to deal with the corporation, this time focusing on investigating the alleged experiments on Megabuilding Hospital 04, MH04, and to prevent a tragedy in the future.

"Speaking of tragedy, I didn't know those deaths affected him so much."

During the Engineer vs Pacifica Incident, the renamed impromptu gang war started by Dex DeShawn, one of the Hate gangs targeted a small homeless camp set up by the Engineer, and that was enough cause for him to seek revenge on the late Fixer. Personally, Rogue approved of that attitude and sense of justice. She's not unfamiliar with collateral damage and innocents being caught in the crossfire, but deliberately targetting civilians for no other reason than to cause pain and suffering? She made a small fortune hunting those people, and now Rogue pays others to clean up the trash.

The Queen of Afterlife is impressed by the Engineer's vengeance. His plan starts by isolating the man in the Afterlife, creating a sense of unease, and then excluding DeShawn from contracts and other jobs until his invitation to the Afterlife is revoked. Afterward, a psychological campaign of terror drives the former Fixer into a corner, and when he's ready to escape the Engineer catches Dex and executes him.

The Engineer made sure to release an edited video of the Fixer execution on the Net for the Edgerunners and others to see how much of a coward the Fixer was, and to show his nature as a rat. New evidence appeared, revealing DeShawn's treatment of the crews on his payroll as disposable fodder to pad his record and maintain an inflated reputation. Rogue doesn't interfere with the relationship between Fixers, Edgerunners, and Clients, however, DeShawn actions were skirting the line.

The Engineer even convinced her to make a cocktail in honor of the late Fixer. The DeShawn is a cheap drink pretending to be sophisticated, recommended to Edgerunners who survived bad jobs and betrayal. To "get a DeShawn" is quickly becoming synonymous with being a sucker.

Rogue brings her drink to her lips to sip the last remaining liquid before making a few calls. She will recommend trusted specialists for the job at Biotechnica, but it will be up to Mark to decide how to run the operation. Once that is finished, she returns to other matters that require the attention of the Queen.