Ah shit here we go...
"Fuck..." I plopped my aching body onto my bed. I hadn't slept in, what time was it again? I tried to turn my phone on but it probably died at some point during my all-nighter. "Fucking smasher, I'm about to come to kill your ass again, and this time it's personal." Delusion had caught up to me after a twelve-hour shift of sitting in front of code and blue light without breaks. Then I binged Edgerunners because I finally finished the game yesterday, I'm regretting it knowing I'm gonna have to wake up in 2 hours but y'know what they say...
" Fuck it we ball."
I brought my exhausted ass from my bed and to my computer set up, to start my second game of cyberpunk after the new DLC. My speakers roared with the soundtrack as they usually stayed on full blast. 'Difficulty huh? I only played it normally before but very hard mode shouldn't be too bad now that I know what I'm doing.
*Click*
*BzZrtzZip*
||\\CYBERPUNK 2077 3d83runn3r5 edition//||
"What.
The.
Fuck."
*BOOOOM*
\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|
Night City, CA, Year 2070
PACIFICA
"Augh..." I groaned, voice weirdly younger," My fucking head is bass-boosted right now." It fucking stunk in whatever fucking cubicle I was in. Did I kick the bucket and I'm just smelling the inside of my coffin? I don't know why there's so many trash bags around me though.
I thrust my arm up and felt a metal cap that moved pretty easily and grasped the metal edge of what I'm pretty sure was a dumpster by now. I hoisted myself
*rattle**rustle*
"What the fucking hell..." Right over a bridge covered in ads for things that shouldn't even exist, more lights than I saw in the polluted sky right now. It was nighttime but everything was so bright ... Like a fucking acid trip rave but just lining buildings. I turn my head the other way and see, nothing... not a thing but trash and barely held-together buildings, and what looked to be a mall where people with- Is that fucking metal, like in most of their faces, weird.
"Just like home huh? Not with that stuff though." Then I glanced back to the giant tech city that looked eerily familiar and saw a symbol that looked like a...frog foot? In a circle with the bold words.
"ARASAKA. So I'm either dead or in a coma and I wake up in the last thing I saw before an explosion. Hmm... " This is one fucked up fever dream, but might as well have fun with it.
*Thud, Splshh*
My muddy black shoes hit the ground and I looked in my reflection to see a face I couldn't not know. It was mine but I still had my short dreads from my freshman year barely reaching my ear. New additions though like the slots in my neck and the weird metal thing on my hand. The face flooded me with memories of the past 14 years of who was apparently a parallel version of me. Brat was supplying BDs and got caught cutting himself extra money trying to pay his way into an academy like his older sister wanted him to. The dude who let me move them didn't take it too kindly and that's how a couple of goons zeroed him and dumped his body in a dumpster.
Gonna have to get them back, I'm too petty to let my own death slide.
*Sigh* I'm wearing the same clothes as when I keeled over so it should be here somewhere. *rustle* There it is. The perfected notebook I crafted after years of reading dumbass Fanfics. Hey, I did have fun in high school you can't blame it on that it was afterward was really boring so that was my neet phase before mechanical engineering school.
(A/N no more wall smashing for you)
*HOW TO STRIVE IN A REINCARNATION STORY Cyber Punk edition*
I write one for every anime that immersed me enough. Hopefully it helps.
Well, it's time for Jax Pulser to start stepping toward the edge huh?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Year 2075
3rd person POV
"Haha... Finally here. Fucking subnet's a damn maze just to get to it but I finally found it." Said the dark-skinned man standing in cyberspace, right in front of the forbidden zone. A.K.A The black wall, the prison the old net was put in to stop it from taking all of it over after the data crash.
A place that most net runners wouldn't dare go near. But this specific dread-head voodoo boy stood unwavering and aloof.
" It's been three years sent I put you on Operation Ghost. I hope you remember why I sent you in there," The man said as a form of code came from the wall, and stood up, simply looking like a skull wearing a cloak made of neon blue data.
" Of course choom you programmed me to be reliable remember, so I got it done. Arasaka, Militech hell even NUSA itself had some dirt back there. Nice Tech designs too we can make them better though. " The now evidently A. I spoke with a gravel deep voice.
" But someone wants to talk to you, kinda have to or she might fry you worse than whatever BLACK-ICE you melted through to get here." His words rang true as a much larger Data form made from the same color as the Black Wall itself emerged. It was in the shape of an infamous 2000s netrunner known to many and an idle to some.
" Alt Cunningham I presume. It's a pleasure to meet you even if you are an engram. Must suck to be hit with the update to the code you made huh?" The man still stood uncaring as he insulted the A.I. that had single-handedly ripped a portion of the old net as her kingdom after subsuming hundreds of A.I.
" So you did your homework. Good, otherwise I wouldn't entertain this deal your little buddy here mentioned." Her voice sounded ethereal and glitched at points. The man sighed in trepidation as the next part of his plan was coming into play.
" I want what you learned back there, I want you to teach me everything you've learned about how to net run through the old net. And update my buddy Skullz here with what makes you rouge A.I. so strong. " The former rouge A.I. now queen of them looked confused and a bit skeptical about where this conversation was going.
" And why should I give to you what I ripped for myself on that battlefield? What could you possibly give me worth something no one can buy?" A grin split the man's face, a whisper leaving his mouth, one that changed the course of Night City for a lot of people.
The woman, reflecting on her previous life on what she could get back, reset the clock. " Fine, If you can truly bring me his engram from Arasaka then we have a deal. I'll make you better than Rache Bartmoss wishes he could be, but when the time comes I want him here. Whatever is left of him is better than this loneliness ..."
The man already had incredible training from the voodoo boys just different motives. He had followed his plan specifically path three: Net runner Tank version. His notebook had his own instructions on how he could progress should he end up where he did because it meant easy training with his appearance and knowledge of who to talk to.
This was his next step to harness the black wall and everything beyond it. It would cost him a hell of a lot though, like sneaking into Arasaka tower to steal a certain Biochip. His... more greedy tendencies thought of a way to monetize it too.
'I'm gonna scroll a fuckin' heist on Arasaka and make some fuckin eddies, then I can scratch BD editor off my list.' He thought.
"Time to show Night City a new shade of crazy! Pacifica is too damn calm for me." A grin split his face even wider at just how interesting things were getting.
The floating data woman" Then let's start, get in a cooling suit for your next deep dive because you're coming with me for your first lesson soon." His new teacher fazed back into the black wall as Skullz walked up to meet the man with a dap-up and report. "I got some schematics that I'll put on your Memory Recoup, advanced versions of the things you told me to look out for."
A chuckle escaped the man's lips, " Thanks choomba, I knew I could count on you for these new Marionette Gauntlets now this little Corpo snag'll be a breeze."
His partner in crime snorted, "Yeah partner let's boost it before old Uncle Arasaka makes its rounds. I do have to say it wasn't just other A.I. There were runners in there, the ones you mentioned before."
The man grimaced as he blipped out of cyberspace with his companion. He wouldn't pull them out.
Not yet until he had to at least hire a team to pick them up after he used them to get into the more secure subnet across the world.
*FphzZzsZSs*
"*sigh*" The man rose from his chair in real life, " Can't believe I'm already here... seems like yesterday I was pestering Placide for him to get me lessons. Brolic bastard was a bitch and a half to convince but... I just feel like that maybe..." The man's eyes glowed an eerie royal purple as he looked to be in thought or looking through something else.
" That maybe the main city isn't for you?" A robotic skull with glowing green eyes about the size of a softball floated next to him and asked curiously. It was always exciting for the A.I. when dilemmas like this arose. He always got to see a new facet of human emotion, a new variable to observe and emulate within itself to further evolve like was programmed into him.
" No, no I couldn't back out now. Not after all the bullshit to even get here. I'll be fine but..." The man sighed and looked back at his companion. " if HE'S anywhere near me I'll rip his head off regardless of my respect for his son. The bastard had no right to drag the kid in."
" What happened while I was away?" The robot's curious tone turned more concerned as his best friend's hand clenched till blood ran from his palms.
'RAGE.'
The A.I. cataloged the reading he felt from his connected link to his partner's neural cyberwear. The emotion wasn't a new one, it was just one he had seen extremely rare for who it came from.
"Take a look you know I scroll all my jobs in case it's ya know..." An unsaid understanding passed as the thought of all the dead cyberpunks now gonks in the wind during a job going tits up.
" After that, let's get to cleaning those corpo cow's hidden eddies on the net. The man held out his hand as the skull landed on it and a small thread-thin cord came out of his hand and latched itself to a port on Skullz. "Dumbasses won't think anyone would take them and they can't cry to their corp because it's fucking embezzled. Sorry son's a bitches they got as their runners won't know what hit 'em. Enjoy the movie until then, 'K?" The man's calm was back as the bots eyes glowed the same royal purple from the man earlier.
Then the eyes of the bot dimmed as he dove into the memory file as the man disconnected and started setting up the conditions for a deep dive of the net, in a cooling suit and preparing an ice bath to make sure whatever happened he could at least survive the heat.
~~~~~~~~
B3y0nd Th3 6l@ckw@||
Finally,
Someone with their sanity still intact.
She could finally not be alone. She didn't regret devouring the other mad A.I.'s it was akin to putting them to rest. But she had at least had the fighting to distract her from the fact that she could live by herself for eternity, it had been Eons because time flows differently in a universe made of wavelengths and code.
She would enjoy teaching more than she would ever want to admit to her new pupil, incomprehensible the amount of solitude she had endured to birth joy from something so simple for her to do when she had figured out so much.
She began moving pieces of data with her will it seemed as she prepared to setup an appropriate training environment. This little drop of light in her shadow of solitude would be crafted into the best Netrunner the world had ever seen.
But now wasn't the time to think about herself anymore, Johnny either. This little punk of hers is going to have to break into Arasaka Tower. A preem spot to die for unprepared gonks. She had time so she probably could compact the most helpful tech she could to help the kid out. To help Johnny get out.
While her knowledge was an ocean and the data of that little engram was but a molecule, that little engram to her was worth any price, it wasn't like she could've used the tech anyway right?
She really had been deprived in here, hadn't she? I would've paid to keep him away before but now?
She felt that sense of familiarity could bring her back. Back to Alt Cunningham and not this amalgamation of data. The probability of that happening wasn't high, in her own calculative thoughts. But a sliver of her hoped it wouldn't be too late before she stopped being her.