Chapter 368: Obstinate
’So, what do you wanna do? What’s your point of view? There’s a party, screw it, do you wanna go-oh?’
Though he was tempted to leave the Cyberpunk world and pretend he had never visited it, Vahn’s curiosity got the better of him. The portal he used to access it piggybacked the Tower’s dimensional linking, so there had to be at least something redeeming about it—prompting him to look into its related media, starting with a surprisingly immersive anime called Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.
’Poor kid...’ thought Vahn, referring to the primary protagonist of the short, barely four-hour series, a boy named David Martinez. Not only had David lost his mother, a caring, overworked woman named Gloria, but due to the cruelty and deeply rooted callousness of the corporate-controlled society he had been born into, he found himself functionally forsaken. From then on, his only real options were to bow to those oppressing him, resulting in him becoming a guinea pig, or fighting against the system that had ruined his life and the lives of many, many others.
While Vahn didn’t approve of some of the things David had done in his short career as an Edgerunner, he knew the boy had done his best with the hand he had been dealt. With adequate backing and support, things could have ended very differently, not just for him, but for all those he had given hope to—those he had inspired to follow in his footsteps. And then there was the loli-esque character called Rebecca. The pint-sized woman was very clearly missing a few screws, but the compassion, empathy, and loyalty she had exhibited when choosing to accompany David to his death were exceptionally rare traits to possess.
’Is it too late to prevent this outcome...?’ asked Vahn, directing the query to Sis as he closed his eyes and leaned his head back atop the sofa in his command theater.
(Pilar, Maine, and Dorio are assuredly dead by now, but there should be time to save the remaining cast) affirmed Sis, already scouring what the inhabitants of the Cyberpunk universe referred to as The Net to locate the series’ deuteragonist, a female Netrunner named Lucy. If her grasp of the timeline was mistaken, they could at least provide the woman shelter, far beyond the Arasaka Corporation’s malicious, dehumanizing influence. And if she became an Ascendee, Lucy, full name Kushinada Lucyna, had more than enough talent and justifications to become the sword that severs the megacorporation’s head.
Trusting that Sis would soon have the answers he desired, Vahn started thinking about what he would do once he had them. With Sis or perhaps Jack-O, he could completely cripple Arasaka and the other Megacorps in just a few hours, but the karmic backlash would be immense. There was the most straightforward option—supporting David’s edgerunning crew—but the barely eighteen-year-old wasn’t the most forward-thinking. If he had been, he wouldn’t have been in such a rush to chrome himself up, a decision that led to his rapid mental decline and untimely demise despite everyone he cared about telling him to downgrade and slow down.
Around the same time that Vahn decided the first thing he would have David do was undergo rehab and receive therapy, Sis was deep in Night City’s Net, colloquially known as cyberspace. There, rather than a thought construct, she appeared as a beautiful, glowing cat girl with flame-like red hair and a luminous, bluish-white body covered in pulsing patterns akin to computer circuits.
(Found them...) hummed Sis, sounding proud of herself as she took the liberty to open a display for the Vahn sitting in the command theater while simultaneously pulling up the map for the version of him scrutinizing Night City from atop one of its taller buildings.
’Well, that’s depressing...’ thought the Vahn in the command theater, the display showing a naked, muscular, fully borged-out David sitting in front of the metal canister containing his mother’s ashes. His expression gave the impression there wasn’t a single thought in his head—he just stared ahead, unblinking, like a machine. Meanwhile, in the bathtub of the room he shared with his girlfriend Lucy, the latter was lying naked in a bath of ice, deep-diving into Night City’s Net, unintentionally neglecting David in her efforts to keep him safe from Arasaka’s clutches...
...
..
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Though he was usually 195cm tall with a fair, brown, inordinately muscular physique that was 78% machine, wires, and hydraulics, David once again found himself in his younger, pre-cybernetically enhanced body, aimlessly wandering streets he had known since childhood. There were no cohesive thoughts in his mind, but he was driven forward by the feeling that he was searching for something important—something vital that he should never have given up or lost.
Driven by the compulsion, David walked the route to and from his former home and the Arasaka Academy for what must have been the hundredth time. Unfortunately, no matter how many times he completed the journey, all that awaited him when he returned to his rundown apartment was the silent hum of appliances well past their expiration. For tens of seconds, he gazed into the small apartment without speech or movement. Then, as he had done countless times before, he closed the door, turned around, and began another circuit—certain he would find what he was searching for if he just kept looking.
"You look tired, kid. Why don’t you take a seat?" asked a voice David had never heard, drawing his attention to a tall and athletic-looking man with olive-brown skin on the darker side, refined features, piercing blue-green eyes that appeared natural instead of cybernetic, and messy, dark-brown hair that looked stylish rather than unkempt. Even stranger, the man wore a black and grey yukata with a distinctive pattern of a golden dragon that almost seemed alive, a shiny golden sash, ten rings—each with a different gemstone—and a variety of golden accessories.
Feeling the fog enveloping his mind recede, David’s expression morphed into a defiant glower as he questioned, "And who the hell are you? You’re clearly not from around here..."
"And where is here...?" asked the man, Vahn, having entered David’s mind using the power of the Dream Dream Fruit, allowing him to enter and even pull things from people’s dreams. Those with strong wills could resist the fruit’s power, but in his current state, David’s mind was like an open book, free to peruse at Vahn’s leisure.
"It’s—" started David, the word getting caught on the tip of his tongue as he looked around, confused to find himself in an empty white space with only Vahn and the bench he was seated on remaining. A moment later, a rainbow-hued tide shifted across the ground and sky, replacing them with a seemingly endless expanse of flowers and a cerulean sky devoid of ads and corrosive rain clouds. Instead, as the horizon lit up like a sunset, the wispy white clouds moving slowly overhead took on a distinctive rainbow hue, unlike anything he had ever seen.
"This is a crossroads, David..." said Vahn, adopting a subtly apologetic expression as he expressed, "Unfortunately, your world did not come to my attention sooner. If it had, I would have intervened to spare both you and your mother from the tragic fate that has befallen you. Now, all I can do is provide you with a choice..."
"A choice...?" repeated David, looking offended and turning hostile as he exclaimed, "And who the fuck do you think you are, huh!? Who put you in a position to spare anyone!?"
Reacting to David’s fury, the sky behind him became populated by rapidly building storm clouds. His mind might have been on the verge of collapse, but he still possessed the fire of a protagonist—a fighting spirit that, in a more forgiving setting, might have allowed him to rise to the very pinnacle of his world. Instead, if nothing were done, he was fated to die under the oppressive heel of a corporatocracy, his existence swept under the rug by Arasaka, and his genes harvested to produce clones with his higher-than-average affinity for cyberware...
"My name is Vahn Mason," responded Vahn, wholly unobthered by David’s outburst as he calmly asserted, "But we can discuss my identity and the organization I represent later. Right now, we need to discuss the matter of your imminent cyberpsychosis. As a courtesy, I’ve repaired the damage to your brain and neural pathways, but I can’t return the memories attached to them or the damage you’ve done to your ego. And if you continue along this path of self-destruction, you won’t last another six months before you drag the dreams Gloria and Maine had for you to your grave..."
"You son of a—keep those names out of your mouth...!" exclaimed David, rushing forward and slamming his right fist as hard as he could into Vahn’s unflinching face. He hadn’t made any efforts to defend himself, but due to the insurmountable gap between his and David’s mental strength, he was as immovable as a stone before a single drop of water.
’Mmn...I knew he was the type to resist and resent authority, but this is a bit much...’ thought Vahn, exhaling faintly from his nose as David retracted his fist, took a step back, and spun on his right heel to launch a sharp kick at his face. Before it could land, Vahn made a slight, shooing gesture with his right hand, blowing David back and sending him careening across the dreamscape like a stone skipping across the water.
After flipping end over end for nearly seven hundred meters, David lay limply, stunned to his core, within the chair he had landed in. His heart thumped powerfully within his chest, but before he could make sense of what he had just experienced and how he was still alive, he found himself sitting less than three meters away from Vahn, now seated atop a golden throne with a crimson backrest and seat.
"If you would still like to attack me, please, feel free to get it out of your system..." offered Vahn, his tone flat and his eyes slightly sharper as he adjusted his posture and leaned onto the knuckles of his right hand. He truly did empathize with David’s situation, but he didn’t approve of being attacked unprovoked. Fortunately for the latter, he was willing to humor him until he was more willing to converse...
’This guy isn’t ordinary...’ David realized, a bead of sweat forming on the left side of his face as he looked between Vahn and his overturned hands. Everything felt so real, so the only explanation he could think of for what he was experiencing was that he was trapped in a Brain Dance—one that was far more advanced than the BDs he was accustomed to. It was likely that he wouldn’t be able to escape without external assistance, so with a particularly grim look on his face, he hunched forward with his elbows on his knees and asked, "What do you want from me?"
"I want for you what you’ve wanted and deserved from the beginning..." responded Vahn, sitting straight and meeting David’s hostile gaze with a relaxed smile as he elucidated, "I want you and everyone else within your world to be free to make choices about their life and pursue improvement through discipline and self-mastery rather than cybernetic augmentation. I don’t want you to skirt the edge, David. I want to enable you to fly—far higher than the constrained heights of Arasaka Tower..."
"You want me to be free? Well, I sure as hell don’t feel free right now, choom..." countered David. At that exact moment, what he was seeing in front of him changed, shifting from a field of flowers and rainbow-hued sky to the familiar interior of his topside mansion. At the same time, his servos whirred and his synthetic muscles tensed, swelling with power as he habitually activated his Sandevistan to move with superhuman speed to grab a gun and return to Vahn, seated across from him atop an ivory-white chair next to the table supporting his mother’s ashes...
"You skirted too close to the edge, Gonk..." said David, his brows furrowed and his expression grim, devoid of hesitation as Vahn stared at him, the latter’s gaze calm and unwavering even in response to him squeezing the trigger of his Militech M-10AF Lexington pistol...
BANG
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