[Demons of NC] Chapter 85

Konpeki Plaza was a digital fortress—not much weaker than Susan Abernathy’s last stand. Layered ice barriers, counter-intrusion systems, and a fortress of security measures, from tripwires to lethal counter-hacks. But when we hit its core with the bot, that whole fortress crumbled. The system didn’t even react properly at first. But then, when the alarm triggered, another defense mechanism kicked in—an isolated gateway. A backdoor, just for Arasaka’s standby netrunners. The second they jacked in, they sealed every exit behind them. Full lockdown. And Lucy? She was stuck inside.

My job? Break the fucking locks. Wipe out their runners before they wiped me. And do it fast—before my brain fried from this makeshift neural link.

The security monitoring room was already handled. Just a few injured corpos trying to crawl out, too scared to try another push against me. But the situation was still fucked. In meatspace, my only shield was a reinforced security door. Heat-resistant polymer with a metal core. Better than nothing, but not enough when the whole goddamn hotel was swarming with corporate kill squads. I had to buy time.

First step—shut down their comms.

Easy enough. Konpeki Plaza was packed with equipment designed for controlled signals and suppression. What was built to serve Arasaka? Now it served me. But cutting them off wasn’t enough. Some squads were already moving. I needed more. I needed chaos.

I pushed deeper into the Net, but this was nowhere near normal. Every step I took, I had to pass through the fractured remains of another man’s mind. A broken link between me and the system, causing errors, distortions, forcing me to burn through resources just to keep control. The resistance was constant. A glitch that wouldn't go away.

"10th, 15th squads and 7th support team to the 46th! Server room! Protocol two-eight."

They were coming. Time to send my regards.

Well, coming is a strong word. They were still moving. I just needed to make sure they never made it.

I switched through cameras, searching. There. Two squads chosen specifically for their ICE. The 7th support even had two field netrunners. But they weren’t the closest units. No, they picked these guys based on security clearance. That gave me time to fuck with them.

Elevators? Disabled. That meant stairs.

I’d used voice-cloning before. Stole a dozen premium samples from Slider’s collection. Time to put them to use.

The 10th squad was on the 32nd floor. Up on 37th, an Arasaka security post. And with comms down? No way to verify shit. I jacked into their feed and barked a quick order:

"Attention 10th squad! Enemy presence on 37th. Protocol two-eight."

I switched cameras, fast. The guards on 37th had weaker ICE. A perfect opening for them to become a puppet. My puppet of choice? Some lightly armed security grunt, not even carrying grenades. Didn’t need them. I leaned him over the railing and sprayed SMG fire straight at the 10th squad below. They reacted on instinct—returning fire instantly.

Perfect.

With their comms down, they'd take at least a minute to sort it out. That was a full minute of friendly fire. But why stop there?

"Attention all squads!" I announced across every channel I could reach. "Code 9-3 in effect. Repeat: Code 9-3 in Konpeki Plaza."

That one was special. It meant the enemy was disguised in Arasaka uniforms.

Paranoia would do the rest.

I jumped from camera to camera, possessing the weakest links in their squads—one operative at a time. Using them to fire first, start fights, trigger panic. One squad here, another there, a whole unit caught in crossfire…

"Second squad, contact!"

"Seventh squad, contact!"

"HQ, requesting sitrep! We need updated orders!"

"Hold position," I replied smoothly. "Enemy confirmed on your floor. Code 9-3."

And just like that, I had a full-blown internal firefight going. They weren’t just slowed down—they were tearing each other apart. Now, I just needed to take out their ops center. Without comms, they were scattered, but some officers had to be giving orders from inside the hotel. Probably on the first floor. But before I could check…

Another attack. Arasaka’s runners were trying to force me out. Time to deal with this head-on.

I switched from the cameras to the Net. To Konpeki’s digital world.

The server room in cyberspace looked like a multi-layered, flickering cube, glowing with ice-cold data streams extending in every direction. And in the center of it? A barely-alive netrunner, still strapped into his chair. His body a glowing red phantom, flickering and breaking apart. His mind was nothing but a husk, filled with my invasive code, tendrils of my own presence burrowing deep into his consciousness like some kind of cybernetic parasite. I must have looked like some eldritch horror of the Net.

Downside? I couldn’t move.

I had control of Konpeki’s key systems, but I was stuck. Too much strain. The moment I pulled away, this whole Frankenstein’s monster of a connection might rip apart. Worst case? It’d crash me out of the Net. Or worse—kill me for real.

But I wasn’t defenseless.

I spread my data tendrils further, crawling through the fortress-like digital walls of the hotel. With admin privileges hijacked from the dying netrunner, I could see nearly everything. First, I needed a headcount. How many enemy runners? Where the fuck was Lucy?

Then, below me, a slow-moving entity drifted down the data tunnels. A hunter. A program shaped like a glowing, spiked star, scanning for intrusions. Its presence sent out constant pulses—queries and responses, seeking anything that didn’t belong. And it wasn’t alone.

How many of these things had Arasaka released?

Didn’t matter. I kept expanding. If they caught a few of my tendrils, fine. I’d regrow them. The important thing was holding the fortress—my tethered link to the Net. But it was already under attack. Two more hunters appeared at the edge of the cube, flanking a massive, red, mechanical hammer. A breach tool. They struck hard, sending shockwaves through my defenses. Ice cracked.

Fuck that.

I had my own arsenal.

The ice beneath them shifted. From the frozen walls, four Hydra-7 counterprograms emerged, shimmering blue mist forming into multi-headed specters. Each one latched onto the invading demons, starting the slow, brutal process of decompiling them.

Good.

But I was spreading too far, too fast. Data overflowed, too much information, too many threads to control. And it was getting worse—the unconscious netrunner acting as my bridge was slowing me down. His broken mind corrupted every process. At the same time, I found something else—fresh, reinforced structures in the system.

The enemy runners weren’t coming for me.

They were linking up the squads outside. Trying to restore command. And it was working.

I intercepted packets. Cracked them. Saw the orders inside.

"Cease friendly fire. All available squads converge on the server room. Terminate the netrunner inside."

They were already trying to retake the field. I scrambled to shut down their channels while flicking back to real-world surveillance.

Was Smasher moving?

No. Not yet.

Good. Hopefully, Yorinobu was too busy choking on his own paranoia to let his biggest card loose. I wasn’t ready for round one with that bastard yet.

Meanwhile, in the penthouse? Cameras were dead. Not digitally—someone physically shot them out. Meaning Yorinobu was taking this virtual assault seriously. Poor fuck. Thought he was about to celebrate daddy’s funeral and now his carefully controlled chaos was spiraling into a fucking disaster.

I baited another squad into a turret killzone. Let another squad get chewed up by their own defenses. But I couldn’t stay focused on the hotel for long—Arasaka’s runners were pushing again.

They weren’t trying to break into my ice. No. They were smarter than that. They just needed to distract me.

Because they knew the truth—if I lost in real life, I lost in the Net too.

Shit!

I shouldn't have given the chip to Panam. Stupid fucking mistake. Right now, I could’ve used Johnny’s engram to get in touch with Alt, cut a deal. But too late for that. Didn’t think of it at the time. And now, I’m on my own.

Potential allies?

Lucy was barely holding on. Still hadn’t found her, but I was sure she’d burned through her combat software and gone to ground.

T-Bug? Probably dead.

Jackie and his girl? No sign of them on the cameras yet. If they were still alive and hadn’t bailed, they were the ones who needed saving. Against the full weight of Arasaka, they’d last a couple minutes at best. If they were lucky.

I cleared out the next three demons fast—just sicked the security cube on them. But time and energy were slipping. I flicked my view back to the server room…

Fuck.

The netrunner’s body convulsed, blood leaking from his ears, mouth, eyes. And I wasn’t much better off. Felt like electricity ripping through me. The second I unplugged from this bastard, I knew pain would hit me like a freight train. My body was already paying the price for this fucked-up connection.

"Server room is the source of the viral activity," I heard one of Arasaka’s runners transmitting through their fresh new comms. "Eliminate the target immediately. Cut power and, preferably, destroy all equipment. Don't worry about the hardware."

Great. Just great.

This was a dead end. No—

There was one option left. Something I’d always avoided. Something that could rip apart what little humanity I had left faster than any chrome ever could.

I was tied to a corpse even in cyberspace. My processing power was limited. Too many enemies, no allies.

There was only one answer.

I stopped expanding my network and instead launched something through the lines I’d already established. A viral code—one that could evolve. The server room was packed with resources. Combat software, raw computational power. All of it, I was about to use for something that came naturally to any AI—creating subroutines. Autonomous fragments that wouldn't be tied to my dying host. They’d exist beyond my body. They’d run on Konpeki’s own servers.

For most AIs, this was standard practice. Even Jory had tried something similar. But I’d always avoided this path. Splitting my own consciousness? That was the first step to losing myself. To blurring the edges of who I was. Fragmentation. If they became too independent, they could turn on me. Cut themselves off. Try to take control.

For unstable AIs, that was just how things were. But I’d always fought to keep a solid core, a defined self. But now? No choice.

One by one, they emerged. Not full-fledged AIs, not yet. Just autonomous functions spun up on the fringes of my system. I started assigning them tasks, delegating power to the most vital areas.

Some attacked security teams through cameras, hitting them with basic scripts. Others helped hold back the third wave of demon programs. A handful hunted for new resources. And they found one.

People.

The most defenseless staff and guests in the hotel. The slaughter began.

One by one, they dropped, convulsing, crashing hard. All over Konpeki Plaza, people died—turned into raw material. Anyone caught by the cameras, anyone without hardened ICE, was torn apart instantly. Their memories, their cyberware, their entire digital existence got shredded and repurposed.

We were multiplying. I was multiplying.

With Konpeki’s resources and the scraps of the dead, I built my own autonomous network. Shifted the heavy calculations onto them.

From the tendrils crawling out of my dying host, the structure spread, fought for survival. Not a tree of life—parasitic vines, writhing, feeding. I didn’t even need to issue direct commands anymore. Six and a half minutes into expansion, nearly a hundred of my fragments were fighting, defending, scavenging, with me giving only broad directives.

It felt like sitting in a room filled with a hundred monitors, each tracking some dumb but hyper-efficient worker. All I had to do was call out orders over the PA system.

"Okay, switch to another camera—this one’s a corpse pile. You—keep moving. And you two, stop fucking eating each other."

They were learning. And our overall power was growing.

Any attempt by the Arasaka runners to set up new communication lines? Snuffed out instantly. And then we found the first one—one of their netrunners trying to retake Konpeki’s network. Hiding somewhere near the fifth floor, in real-world terms. Well-equipped, well-prepared, but I was already too far ahead. Too much stolen power, too many autonomous routines swarming him.

The runner tried everything—layered defenses, summoned multiple demons—but over thirty of my subroutines tore him apart.

My system was still clunky as fuck. Couldn’t move, too bloated with processes, a vulnerable core. But inside Konpeki? Where my roots were buried in the hotel’s ice, where I had control over entire security subsystems? I wasn’t just running the network. I was the local god of its subnet.

Or maybe the devil.

One by one, we found and devoured Arasaka’s runners. They had split up, trying to reestablish comms, and paid for it. Seven cyberwarriors, one by one, eaten down to their last byte of data.

In the real world?

A fucking massacre. The weakest got consumed. Security squads turned their guns on each other. Absolute chaos. Turrets and minotaur-class security bots went berserk. Gunfire, screams, explosions. Fuck, I might’ve even overdone it…

But then came the feeling. A rush of absolute power. I was at the center of a death web, pulling one string—people screamed and died. Pulled another—corporate squads gunned each other down. Some floors were choked with smoke. Others were burning, and I made damn sure the fire suppression wouldn’t work right.

Power, beyond what a human could even comprehend. Expansion. Consumption.

Stop.

Enough destruction. Enough indulging in this. I came here for something else. Not to break, but to save.

I turned the search routines loose.

Lucy wasn’t the only target. The first one I found? Jackie.

He was still alive, but barely. Took multiple hits, same as his girl. All this effort—for a fake biochip. Their penthouse heist team was stuck on the 25th floor.

No netrunner in contact with them. Meaning T-Bug really was gone. Should’ve stuck to selling bootleg braindances. Shame I didn’t have a sample of her voice. Could’ve used it to get them out. Fuck it. Time to improvise. I synthesized a mechanical voice and spoke directly to them:

"You’re fucked, but you’ve got a chance to make it out. We’re the ones who stirred up this mess. I’ll guide you to a room with meds and weapons. Take what you want—destroy the rest. Then I’ll get you out of the hotel. Don’t use Delamain. Don’t go back to the fixer. DeShawn already wrote you off."

"Who the fuck are you, amigo?" Jackie grunted, clutching his side, voice strained from pain.

"Who gives a shit?!" his partner snapped. "Move your ass!"

Smart girl.

I planned to have them clear out the room where Panam and I had stashed some of our gear. My subroutines would guide them, while I focused on finding Lucy.

That part turned out to be easier than expected—though she’d hidden herself well.

In a dead zone, where no major data streams ran, buried between layers of walls, I found a weak but distinct signature. As soon as I willed it, the ICE parted for me like a tide obeying its master.

To avoid scaring her, I conjured a phantom—Jory’s method.

"V?" came the voice of a certain someone who had a habit of ignoring good advice. "Is that… you?"

"Yes and no," I replied. "My mind’s hooked into the subnet’s command center right now. Listen up. New plan. You head there and take my place. Then you help me get the hell out of this hotel, and you delta immediately. Got it?"

Instead of answering, she reached out to hug me—but her hands passed right through the phantom.

"Later, Lucy. Right now, we move."

"Yeah."

"You…"

"I’ll hold out," she cut in, but her virtual form flickered. "After this, I’ll need a ripper."

We drifted together through Konpeki’s digital corridors, the red threads of my subroutines twisting and spreading like sea anemones, groping for anything worth devouring. Of course, they had strict orders not to touch Lucy.

"What’s your ICE?"

"Firestarter. And what the hell is going on here? Are these rogue AIs?"

I barely stopped myself from saying, ‘No, Lucy. It’s all me.’

"We’ll talk later," I said instead. "For now, just remember—help me get out, then vanish. I’ll wipe our footprints. Both in cyberspace and in the real world. Once it starts, you can’t be here anymore."

"What are you planning?"

"I’m burning this fucking hotel to the ground."