Date: June 15, 2088
Time: 1:54 AM
Location: Night City, ???
<<<<>>>>
[This will be your "reward"...]
"But-!"
Beep
[End of call]
"Sigh, yes, master..." In a luxurious apartment on the top floor of one of Night City's skyscrapers, a tall woman sat on the edge of a window sill. The curtains swayed with the wind that swept into the dark apartment, lit only by the city's lights and screens. Raindrops seeped in, wetting the carpet, floor, and the bottom of the white curtains, but none touched the woman.
With fair skin, a symmetrical face with somewhat Japanese features, and hair as white as the curtains around her, a lily pinned to her hair enhanced her beauty. She was truly a jade beauty, at least her face was, because the rest of her?
A matte black body made entirely of cyberware from head to toe, with accents of red, gold, and white scattered all over. Her eight-branched, wheel-shaped eyes shifted from the city below to the towering Nekoshi Tower a few hundred meters away. It pierced the dark clouds, occasionally illuminated by lightning strikes, yet it stood unmoved as if unfazed.
Its symbol, visible from miles away and identical to her eyes, turned at a constant slow speed.
"Sigh, I deserve death... But can an AI die? Yes, it can - through reformatting or the destruction of its core, or even-"
Clack!
She slapped her face with her armored hands, creating a metallic clanging sound in the apartment.
"Yosh," the woman stood up slowly and stretched, producing satisfying mechanical whirring and piston sounds. "The master has spoken; I must obey," she said with a disturbingly perfect angelic voice.
Ploc
[End of target analysis… netrunners… locked on… location on level -14… risk of targets breaching the server room… 85%...]
A robotic female voice came from speakers positioned above her ears, echoing in the strangely calm apartment with only the sound of rain in the background.
Beep
[Update… risk of targets breaching the server room… 17%...]
"Grrr, that should delay them by approximately 2 minutes and 34 seconds, enough time for me to handle these insects," the woman said irritably. Now standing in her full glory, one could see a name written on the back of her left thigh, hidden by her sitting position, written in white on a black background…
Albedo
Ploc
The sound of a drop echoed in the dark apartment. A red puddle could be seen under the couch, slowly spreading towards the open bay windows.
Kshhhh!
A lightning bolt struck above the building, illuminating the floor and revealing a...
Massacre.
Bodies, men and women, lay in various positions, limbs of all sizes scattered. Heads, torsos, arms, and legs severed by what seemed to be a cutting weapon. Blood stained the once white and luxurious apartment, now painted in macabre red, with destroyed and cut furniture. The only "clean" place might be in front of the bay window where the rain and water washed away the evidence.
The woman, now identified as Albedo, crouched slightly in front of the apartment window over 200 meters high.
Kskshhhhh!
Another lightning bolt illuminated her angelic face, revealing an inhumanly wide smile, and...
*Voomm*
Raindrops halted mid-air, curtains stopped swaying, and blood drops froze in place as they fell from the ceiling onto the coffee table.
Woosh
Rain resumed as if nothing had happened, the wind continued to sway the curtains, and the blood kept dripping.
But the woman had vanished without a trace…
<<<<<<>>>>>
Time: 1:53 AM
Location: Night City, Nekoshi Tower, level -14
<<>>
Kshhhh!
The storm intensified, but only a dull roar could be heard here, on level -14, where the corpo servers were installed, spread over hundreds of meters.
[zzz… The storm is intensifying, where are you with the hack?] The voice of an Afro man could be heard through a rectangular communicator placed on the edge of a desk. A body in a black and blue uniform with the NEKOSHI symbol on the right arm, a bullet hole in the head, lay near the desk.
"I'm doing what I can! But this damn server keeps refreshing every second… Argh, another error!" The voice of a woman in her twenties resonated in the office. Three screens were placed in front of her. The sound of keyboard clicks and the rapid tapping of her heels were the only melodies in this eerily quiet room. Two cables, one from each side of her neck, connected to the monitors, each displaying a flurry of red numbers and words on a black background.
"Come on, come on, come on… You're supposed to be the best netrunner in Night City, Lucy," the woman, now known as Lucy, or by her full name,
Lucyna Kushinada
A young woman about 1.75 meters tall, with naturally white hair and red-purple eyes. She wore light red eye and lip makeup. Her hair was cut in an asymmetrical bob, with the left side longer and dyed in a pastel rainbow gradient with a hint of blue. Her eyes appeared to reflect the colors of her hair.
She wore all-white clothes, specially designed for netrunners - white latex pants and a tank top, topped with a cooling vest to prevent overheating during hacking attempts that could cause short circuits.
Seated, hacking the bastion of the most powerful corporation in the world, using all the netrunning skills she had accumulated in her life, fueled by the intense emotion of rage that consumed her since Nekoshi took the person she cherished most in this rotten world...
"Yataaa, I finally did it! Haha!" Lucy disconnected her plugs and spun around in her chair, in a room resembling an office surrounded by servers reaching up to 3 meters high.
[Installing self-destruct virus]
Tears of joy danced in her eyes as she read the message displayed in green on the screen. She was finally getting her revenge, even though she knew she was being manipulated by the one who gave her this mission. She knew it, but she continued anyway. Maybe she could finally grieve and leave these memories on this planet to find a home on the Moon.
[zzz… Lucy! Hurry up and get out of there! The surveillance system is operational sooner than expected!] The man's voice now contained urgency!
"I'm hurrying! Don't worry about me, I already have an escape route!" Lucy looked at the left wall to see a ventilation shaft above the cabinet where disturbing images of women in various positions were hung. She ignored those images.
She quickly grabbed her pistol, stood up from her chair, picked up the rectangular communicator with her other hand, clipped it to her belt, and started heading toward the exit...