[Demons of NC] Chapter 88

I paced the apartment while Lucy sat in silence, staring at the table in the dim light.

"Well?"

"I'm thinking about where to start," she said. "Where do you think I was born?"

"Hm… no solid info on that."

"Take a guess. You were trained in counterintel, right? Try profiling me. Analyze what you know, and I’ll tell you how close you are."

She stood up slowly, moving to the bar counter, where she grabbed a dark green bottle of absinthe. Poured herself a glass, added some ice, but didn’t drink. Looked like she was saving it for after the story—to dull the sting.

"Alright," I said, piecing it together. "Let’s say you were born in Japan. Grew up in some slums, maybe near one of those toxic rivers—like Takemura’s story. Tough, joyless childhood. Lived on the streets. Then, someone picked you up as a promising candidate, but instead of military training, they tossed you into that hellhole of a research facility. Close?"

Lucy shook her head and poured herself more absinthe.

"Aim for the sun, hit the moon," she muttered.

"Alright. Maybe profiling isn’t my strongest skill. Where did I fuck up?"

"Not Japan. Warsaw. And not the slums. Far from it. My family had a villa. Winter garden. A pool under a glass dome."

"Shit. Didn’t see that one coming." I smirked. "I stuck you in the slums, but your childhood was fancier than mine. In both of my lives."

"Yeah. There was plenty of luxury," she said, leaning on the counter. "Christmas flights to Tokyo, vacations across Europe, private schools. I remember all of it, V. That life. It’s still in my head, all bright and jumbled, like a dream. Sometimes, when I’m freezing under a bridge, I wonder if I just made it all up. Some street rat pretending to be a princess.

"But no. It was real."

"I see. And your parents? Celebrities? Private netrunners? Or…"

I let the last part hang, but she understood.

"Or. My father was a corpo. He commanded Arasaka’s garrison in Poland."

"And what happened to him? Internal investigation? Corporate purge? Power struggle?"

That would explain her whole attitude toward Arasaka. Maybe her father’s enemies were still after her.

"You’re picking logical options, V," she said, finally sipping her drink. "But the world? It lost its mind a long time ago.

"He was doing great. At least, last I heard. Even got some fucking medal a couple years back. Some kind of honorary recognition for the Fourth Corpo War or whatever."

"Wait," I frowned, rubbing my chin. "Then how the hell—"

"He locked me in that facility himself!" she snapped, her eyes meeting mine. "Sent me there so I wouldn’t ‘wander the streets’ and ruin his reputation. When he realized he was losing control of me, he decided to just get rid of me."

Damn.

Father-daughter conflicts were practically a curse in Japan.

Wouldn’t be surprised if backstabbing your own kid was a corporate promotion requirement in Arasaka.

"And he’s the one who chased you all over Europe," I guessed.

"Yeah. Probably figured killing me would clean the stain off his perfect record."

Makes sense now.

At first, I thought Lucy must’ve taken out someone high-profile during her escape or pissed off the project leads.

Turns out, it was worse.

"When I was seven…" Lucy started, then hesitated, gathering herself.

"Take your time," I said. "It’s in the past."

"It started with curiosity," she continued. "You know how it is when you first start exploring the Net. Snooping. Peeking at private messages. I managed to hack my dad’s personal terminal.

"He had a journal. Photos. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands.

"He wasn’t just some corporate soldier, V.

"Prisoners. Interrogations. ‘Filtering operations.’

"Stuff he did with his own hands.

"And he didn’t keep it for work.

"He collected it. Like a fucking hunting trophy. You get it? Like mounting a deer’s head on a wall."

"That’s when the two of you fell out?"

"Yeah. Should’ve just pretended I didn’t see anything. But I was a kid. I ran to him, crying, screaming, asking why.

"He just stared at me. Didn’t say a word.

"And it was like… like a mask slipped off.

"All the care, all the warmth—gone.

"He wasn’t even angry.

"He just… stopped pretending.

"Looked at me like I was some annoying fucking insect."

I didn’t know what was in those photos.

Maybe her dad was a legit sadist.

Maybe it was just regular corpo-military operations.

Either way, she saw it too early.

And maybe he overplayed the whole loving father act. Built an illusion too perfect—one that shattered all at once.

Kids of antivaxxers suffer.

So do kids of Arasaka officers.

Now, at least, I got why she was so well-trained as a netrunner.

Her foundation had been laid long before that research center.

Lucy took another slow sip of her drink. Savoring it. Using it to distract herself.

I stepped closer.

"Listen. You were afraid of him before. That’s normal. And now I get why you want to run as far away as possible.

"But here’s the thing… I can protect you now. Protect us."

"V, I—"

"You don’t trust me yet," I said calmly. "Still hesitant. Still scared. That fear’s buried too deep.

"But let’s think rationally—your father’s a big deal in Europe. But Night City? This place has its own power structure. He can’t just waltz in and order people to burn resources tracking you down."

I wondered if Michiko had known about all this when she talked to me.

Probably.

"We’ve already pulled off the impossible. Abernathy. Konpeki.

"We barely made it, yeah. But the hardest part’s over.

"The ladder to the top is right there.

"And if not a ladder… then at least a rope." I smirked.

"What are you getting at?"

"The biochip."

"Oh, that," she muttered, her voice already slurring slightly. She dropped her empty glass on the counter. "Your holy grail. Yorinobu’s stolen little toy. What’s your plan? Sell it for a few mil? Ten? Twenty? Sure, money’s great—I’ve figured that out by now. But money doesn’t stop power, V. It won’t stop us from getting crushed."

"I know that. Otherwise, Kaoru Fujioka wouldn’t have been so easy to erase."

I leaned against the wall.

"I’m not selling it.

"I need it for something else."

"Oh, mysterious plans," she chuckled, pouring another drink. "And you’re actually gonna tell me this time?"

"You know what?" I grabbed her wrist, taking the glass away. "Yeah. I will.

"Hold your horses," I smirked. "This is something you’ll wanna hear sober."

"Alright, fine. Surprise me."

I took a sip myself—strong shit.

Then, pacing the room like a lecturer, I began:

"Since the dawn of time, it’s always been the same battle—man against the system. And almost every time, the individual or small groups lost to the collective.

"Cyberware changed the rules a little. You can mod yourself, perfect your skills, buy combat drones. Take out whole gangs alone.

"But corps? You still lose to them. Even Bartmoss lost—though he went out in a blaze of glory.

"But the world keeps changing...

"New tech means new battlefields.

"And this little thing?" I pointed at the chip’s container.

"It’s about to change the game again."

"You rehearse that speech?" Lucy snorted.

“A whole lot of fuck-all minutes.”

“And about as many answers. Is there just an engram on this thing?”

"Not just any engram. A next-gen engram, and not just anyone’s—Johnny Silverhand’s."

"Cool. Think it’s got some unreleased tracks?"

"Don’t give a shit about the music. Johnny’s my key. You’ve heard of Alt Cunningham, right?"

"Of course. Fought the corps, lost. Another genius chewed up and spat out by the machine."

"Lost?" I smirked. "Not exactly. And this chip—it’s the way to reach her."

"Alt’s alive?" For the first time, Lucy actually sounded surprised.

"Yes and no. Her body’s long gone, but her mind made it out. She became an engram, broke through the Blackwall."

"You sound too fucking sure about this. Where’d you get your intel?"

"Some from stolen files, some from the other side. Put the pieces together, and suddenly the whole picture came into focus. The one the corps don’t want anyone seeing. Alt’s out there. Netwatch and Arasaka are both trying to wipe her out, but they can’t. This chip is my way of making contact. My way of making a deal."

"The more you talk, the more this sounds like some batshit conspiracy theory. You telling me Misty’s prophet guy was right?"

"Gary? Half-right. I know what Alt wants. I want to cut a deal—get my hands on Blackwall tech. She built Soulkiller, the program Arasaka uses to rip engrams from people’s minds. But I don’t want to sell it or make copies of people. I want to integrate an empty biochip into my own brain, merge it into a stable system."

"Like extra storage?"

"Among other things. This chip can hold an entire human personality. Imagine what else it could store—programs, subroutines, analytical systems. The processing power alone would be insane. I could build and adapt scripts and viruses in seconds, predict enemy moves, stay ahead of them before they even realize they’ve lost. Hell, I might not even need to fight anymore."

I let that sink in, watching Lucy’s eyes clear despite the alcohol.

"If anyone else told me this, I’d tell them to fuck off or get a prescription for sedatives," she said, voice steady. "But you took out Abernathy, walked out of Konpeki alive. So tell me straight, V—are you sure this is possible? Sure it won’t kill you?"

"Absolutely. Back on the lookout, you told me I was building an empire. You weren’t wrong. Power, strength, safety. But what if I don’t need to lead a corpo to get all that?" I tapped my temple. "What if my empire fits entirely inside here? An internal empire."

Lucy exhaled slowly, watching me. "And where do we start?"

"I’m diving into the Net soon. Deep dive. Need you covering me in the real world."

"Got it. When?"

"This morning. I’m ready now."

"Figures. And here I was looking forward to getting drunk." There was no real disappointment in her voice. Looked like my plan impressed her more than it scared her.

"One last thing," I said, stepping closer. "Let’s make sure this shit doesn’t happen again. I’m not trying to control you, but when we follow my plan, we stick to it. You wouldn’t grab the wheel from Falco. You wouldn’t tell Becca how to mod her rifle. Planning’s my job."

"Alright, alright, I get it—"

"Do you?" I caught her chin, tilting her face up. "Say it."

"Yeah. Yeah," she muttered, not exactly thrilled but giving me what I wanted.

"Good."

I sealed the deal with a long kiss. For just a moment, that emptiness inside—the one gnawing at me since Konpeki—was gone. It was just me, Lucy, and the dimly lit room around us.

By dawn, we started prepping for my dive. Nerves were still raw after Konpeki, but I didn’t expect trouble with Alt. She wanted Mikoshi. I wanted the biochip and everything it could give me. No conflict of interest.

We set up everything at home, spent hours going over safety measures.

"I’ll be monitoring your vitals," Lucy promised. "Try not to get yourself fried in there."

"Yeah, yeah," I muttered, adjusting the chair.

She injected me with a heat-resistant booster while I moved to the chip’s container, smirking.

"Something funny?"

"Just thinking. When we first met, we had this whole dynamic—street thief and corpo suit. But turns out you were the one born into the high life. Villa. Pool."

"That was a long time ago, V," she said, a bitter edge in her voice. "That girl’s gone. She froze to death in some abandoned squat. I had to become someone else to survive."

"Well, now your survival’s in my hands too. You can relax a little."

I popped the lid off the container.

"Just make sure you come back first," she muttered. "Then you can brag all you want."

"Don’t worry. Here we go."

I pulled the chip from cold storage and slotted it.

‘Hello, Johnny.’

Nothing happened. No sudden surge, no glitches. The chip wasn’t treating me like an empty slate waiting for overwrite. At least I didn’t have Dex standing over me, waiting to put a bullet in my skull.

Settling into the chair, I waved to Lucy before diving in.

At first, the usual—darkness, flickering lights of cyberspace, the weightless sensation of slipping past the real world. I landed in our small, private digital safehouse.

"Everything okay?" Lucy’s voice echoed in from the real world.

"Yeah. Feels normal. Chip’s stable. Not trying to kill me."

I ran a scan on my connected devices. There it was—the chip. Small, unassuming, but inside? A fucking mountain of data. Now I just had to figure out how to interact with it safely. With my defenses, it shouldn’t be an issue.

Ten minutes passed in the real world—felt like much longer in the Net—before I got a response. Data started flowing, first in fragments, disjointed and chaotic. Concerts, booze, bar fights. Noise, bright lights, raw emotions. It felt like getting slammed with a heavy, unfiltered black-market braindance.

Then, the biochip fully woke up. Its signal stabilized, clear and uninterrupted.

Focusing on the data stream, I felt myself pulled into a small subspace, a simulated environment. Blue light flickered as lines of code reshaped themselves into something recognizable—a recreation of an old Arasaka Tower floor, complete with a Japanese-style garden at its center.

Time to see what’s on the other side.

"Fuck, I need a smoke…" a disembodied voice grumbled. "Shit, I’d kill for a pack right now."

The scattered signals from the chip began to take shape, forming a figure that just about everyone in Night City would recognize—the ghost of a dead rocker. Or at least, his phantom-like manifestation in the Net.

Glowing red points flickered in the digital darkness, tracing out a shape.

"Hey, you awake in there?" I asked. "Can you understand me?"

"Who the fuck are you? Who sent you?!" Johnny’s voice snapped back, laced with hostility.

His emotional state was far from stable, though I couldn’t exactly blame him. Early resurrection doesn’t do wonders for the psyche. Took me months after coming back to even start feeling human again.

"The name’s V. Currently unemployed. We’re in Cyberspace right now. What’s the last thing you remember?"

"Arasaka Tower. Wait—no. Fucking Saburo was there too. We’re in the Net?"

"That’s right. Physically, we’re in my apartment. I jacked in to talk to you. I need to meet with Alt. Think we might be able to help each other."

"That so? Hate to break it to you, choom, but I must’ve lost her number somewhere between getting fried and winding up here."

"That’s not a problem," I smirked. "See, Johnny—you are the number.

"Time to call the other side of the Blackwall."