On the outskirts of the Badlands, on a cliffside where dry red rocks jutted up in grotesque shapes, the cold, arid desert wind began to howl viciously as night deepened.
"I’m here. From this point on, I move alone."
Ji-hwan, having hidden his matte-black motorcycle deep in a shadowy crack in the rocks above the cliff, spoke quietly into the old, outdated earpiece hooked over his ear.
Hundreds of meters away from the cliff where he stood, in a safe zone behind a massive boulder, Marcus had parked his antenna-equipped netrunning van and was already deep-diving into the icy net of cyberspace, his body submerged in a bathtub full of ice water with dozens of cables plugged into his brain and spinal cord.
[Heyyy, K. Listen to me carefullyyy~.]
Marcus’s voice crackled through the old radio and rang in Ji-hwan’s ear. The Black netrunner, who had been cautiously testing the waters with polite speech until yesterday, had switched to a serious tone the moment the operation began in earnest.
[There are Raffen Shiv bastards outside right now, driving armed buggies with machine guns mounted on them, making rounds around the facility at a perfectly steady interval~. Damn, those scavenger gang assholes are playing corpo attack dog instead of bone-rattling raiders. I don’t know how long my van’s hiding spot will stay safe either, so if you don’t want your brain roasted crisp, follow my navigation ping exactlyyy~.]
"Got it. What about the entrance?"
Ji-hwan asked while lying flat at the edge of the cliff, quietly looking down at Biotechnica’s "eco-friendly agricultural research center" in the basin dozens of meters below. From the outside, it looked like nothing more than an old bunker-like concrete building weathered by sandstorms, but the area around the first-floor front entrance was practically a fortress under siege.
[Are you insaneee~? The first-floor front door is a complete fortress~. Forget cracking the ICE firewall, if you try to force your way through those numbers head-on, you’ll be minced meat in five seconds, so stay tight to the second-floor exterior vent like I told you~. Ah! And one more thing!]
Marcus raised his voice in a hurry.
[The moment you pass through the first floor and head down to the basement, this cheap analog radio is going to lose signal completely because of the thick concrete interference~. As soon as you get off the elevator, find the security terminal that’s tucked away there and jam in the data spike I gave you earlier~. That’s the only way I can reconnect through their local network and open a path for you, so you understand what I’m saying, righttt~?]
"Yeah. I’ll head downstairs first."
As soon as Marcus finished his briefing and the camera-hack support signal came through, Ji-hwan threw himself off the dozens-of-meters-high cliff without the slightest hesitation.
Kwaang
Then a landing so perfect it seemed impossible without any shock-absorption gear or cyberware. The instant Ji-hwan’s feet touched the sand without a sound, his lean body dropped low like a beast and sliced through the darkness, melting into the building’s deep shadow along the outer wall.
In the brief moment when a patrol light from the first-floor perimeter swept past, Ji-hwan looked up at the smooth concrete wall.
There wasn’t even a ladder, let alone a foothold, but one tiny screw head fixing the exterior panel caught his eye.
He reached out and pinched the thumb-sized screw head tightly between two fingers.
Then, using nothing but the grip of those two fingers and his upper-body strength, he quietly pulled his own body—well over ninety kilograms—straight up five meters into the air.
Muscle and density hardened beyond steel through endless cycles of destruction and regeneration. A normal person would have ripped the screw out or shattered every bone in their fingers, but Ji-hwan didn’t even make a squeak of friction as he smoothly slipped into the gap in the second-floor vent.
[...Holy shit. Heyyy, K. What the hell did you just dooo~? You didn’t even turn on optical camo, but your bio ping just teleported on my map~? You really are a chrome-less human, aren’t youuu~?]
"I did have a usable optical camo cloak, though."
Ji-hwan replied indifferently as he tore off the old vent grille with his bare hands.
"It got shredded yesterday when I was trading blows with some Tyger Claws downtown, so I tossed it in the trash. I’m going fully analog for now. Shut up and open the next route."
[...Fineee, second-floor hallway camera loop has ten seconds left. Five... four... three... now~!]
Marveling at the sheer stupidity of storming a fortress barehanded and without even a cloak, Marcus shouted in a panic.
Unlike the old bunker shell outside, the interior was a textbook high-end corpo research facility, spotless and lined with white antimicrobial tile.
Ji-hwan opened his senses wide at the sight. Through the faint white noise of the fluorescent lights, two heavy sets of military boots and their rhythmic approach from the far end of the corridor stabbed directly into his sensitive eardrums in real time.
"Two patrol guards coming."
[Damn it, I still don’t have control of the cameras over thereee~! Wait, just three seconds, just three secondsss...!!]
"Forget it. No need to wait."
Instead of waiting for Marcus’s hack, Ji-hwan made a light leap toward the ceiling and grabbed the thick vent pipe overhead with his bare hands, hanging himself in a dark blind spot like a spider waiting for prey.
Step, step.
Two armed guards carrying AR rifles walked right beneath him, chatting idly.
"Hey, when’s this month’s Raffen Shiv transport truck supposed to arrive?"
"Probably next week. They bring a full load once a month, don’t they? Smelly slum drifters."
At the guards’ casual chatter, Ji-hwan’s eyes turned cold where he hung from the ceiling.
A farming research lab, and yet the Raffen Shiv gang was “transporting” people here.
"But why the hell do they take them down below? It’s supposed to be an agricultural research center, but I’ve never seen a single bastard who went in come back out on two legs. Gives me the creeps."
"Shut up, idiot. Ignorance is bliss. Didn’t you hear about that thing that escaped from the basement a few days ago and got shot down? One of the guys cleaning the blood off the floor said... it was definitely human, but its whole body was covered in black fur like an animal."
A human body covered in fur.
Something that should never happen in a mere data relay station.
Ji-hwan etched their conversation deep into his mind and hung motionless from the ceiling until they turned the corner and disappeared completely.
Once the guards were gone, Ji-hwan dropped lightly to the floor like a feather, then moved through the first floor like a ghost, using Marcus’s camera control to avoid every blind spot before finally stepping into the heavy elevator leading underground.
Wiiiiing-
The elevator descended with a heavy vibration, and just as Marcus had warned, the drawn-out voice in his earpiece cut off abruptly.
Chiiik-
Only dead static remained. The thick lead and concrete walls had completely blocked outside signals.
Clank.
When the elevator arrived at Basement 1 and the heavy iron door opened, Ji-hwan stepped into the corridor and swept his sharp gaze around the area.
Fortunately, there was a security terminal blinking red near a pillar. Ji-hwan crushed the terminal’s hard alloy cover with his bare hands, ripped it off, and shoved the hacking spike Marcus had given him into it with a rough thrust.
"Connected."
One second of silence. Then Marcus’s voice burst into his ear.
[Okaaay, one ice wall cracked... I pulled the whole facility map data~.]
Ji-hwan cautiously moved down the corridor, checking his surroundings as he went.
"Where’s the main database?"
[According to the map, the main server we need to raid is in the innermost room at the very back of this Basement 1 floor~. Head that wayyy~.]
The sound of Marcus tapping at his keyboard continued, then he added in a grimy voice as if he’d found something.
[But this is seriously weird~. I just ripped the entire facility blueprint, and there’s a section in the middle of the mapping data that’s been completely blacked out. That’s Basement 2. The server’s on the first basement floor, so why the hell is Basement 2 wiped clean like that?]
"A wiped Basement 2, huh."
Taking Marcus’s briefing in through one ear, Ji-hwan began moving stealthily toward the inner corridor where the main server was located, using the blind spots.
But the farther he went, the more a faint yet horribly disgusting smell crept into Ji-hwan’s sensitive nose.
Blood. Blood mixed with the stench of harsh disinfectant meant to keep decay at bay.
As Ji-hwan approached the source of the smell at the corner of the corridor, he found a wheeled gurney sitting alone there, the kind usually used in a hospital morgue.
On top of it was something human-shaped covered with a pure white sheet, but the dark, swollen flesh protruding from beneath the cloth was absolutely not that of a normal human being.
Just as Ji-hwan reached out to lift the white sheet...
Wiiing- clank.
Sensing movement from around the corner, Ji-hwan instantly pulled his hand back and hid behind a dark stack of crates. When he checked the situation, two Biotechnica researchers in pure white biohazard suits appeared, pushing a cart.
"We’ll have to dispose of this chimera fusion subject too."
"Still, the rejection rate between the mammalian genes and the human neural network is 15 percent lower than the last test subject. Upper management will probably judge it as having plenty of potential."
"Right. Once the Raffen bastards bring in more fresh ‘materials’ next month, we’ll get usable data. For now, don’t spill anything and get it to the Basement 2 incinerator fast."
"Ugh, we’ve already been doing this for over a year..."
They loaded the grotesque corpse under the white sheet onto the cart with practiced ease, then rattled down to the blacked-out Basement 2 on the freight elevator.
From behind the crates, Ji-hwan listened to every word, and his eyes turned cold and sharp.
Chimera. Fusion. Living materials brought in by Raffen.
Words that scraped at Ji-hwan’s senses.
[Heyyy, K. What the hell kind of crazy bullshit were they just sayingyy...? Chimera? Materials...?]
Marcus, too, had been eavesdropping through the radio and asked in a trembling voice, as if his spine had gone cold. This was a fragment of the horrific truth that even the guards on the surface and first floor didn’t know.
Ji-hwan answered by standing up and taking his place in front of the door to the main server room at the far end of Basement 1, just as Marcus had instructed.
"I’m at the server room."
Ji-hwan muttered with a slight tilt of his chin.
"If we copy and open the data in here, we’ll know exactly what those bastards have been doing with people. Open the door."
At Ji-hwan’s call, the sound of Marcus’s fingers hammering the keyboard came through the earpiece in a frantic rush.
But just five seconds later, Marcus’s hands stopped dead, and a completely absurd, despairing voice drifted out.
[Haa... hey, K. We’re totally fucked~.]
"What is it."
[This server room door... it doesn’t even have a digital lock~! Those crazy bastards physically cut the network off so hackers like me can’t get in from outside. It’s a fully offline manual bunker door! Even the greatest netrunner in Night City’s history couldn’t open this wirelessly!]
Ji-hwan’s brow furrowed.
What stood before him was a heavy military bunker door cast from thick special steel.
[That thing can only be opened if the facility’s chief administrator or a special manager personally inserts a physical master key and biometric access code~. Damn it, since they can’t be opened by hacking anyway, that’s why they didn’t bother posting armed guards near the Basement 1 server room!]
"Then what are you going to do? Isn’t there another way?"
[Nopeee! Just give up cleanly! Where the hell am I supposed to kidnap an administrator from right now? The second you point a pistol at them and tell them to open the door, their heart-rate alarm will go off and we’ll be exposed for sure~. Or... I’d have to go all the way back to the surface, grab heavy equipment like a plasma cutter, come back down, and burn the door off in one piece...]
Marcus sounded like he was angrily ruffling his own hair.
[By the time I go get the gear, all the guards you knocked out in the first-floor hallway and stuffed into the cabinets will wake up, won’t they? Then the alarm goes off and the infiltration fails. Damn it, this gig ends here! It’s overrr~. Don’t do anything stupid and get yourself swarmed—pull out nowww!]
The netrunner, who lived in a world of hard data and common sense, was in complete despair and ready to quit. But Ji-hwan simply stared at the massive sealed alloy bunker door and snorted into the earpiece.
"Why would I waste time bringing gear? Just tear it open."
Instead of drawing a weapon, Ji-hwan reached out with both hands and dug his bare fingers into the tiny seam where the giant bunker door met its frame. Then he started to pull.
But the door had never been designed to open to human strength in the first place. At first, it didn’t even budge.
[...What? Hey, K! Don’t do something stupid~! That’s a special alloy door thicker than the outer armor on a military APC! It won’t open just because you brute-force it...]
Kigigigigik...!!
Before Marcus could even finish complaining, Ji-hwan steadied his breathing and shoved his strength outward to both sides with all he had.
A horrifying metallic shriek burst from the steel lock that had been biting down on the seam.
Ji-hwan’s pupils bloodshot, thick veins bulging over both arms as his muscles compressed to the extreme, swelling grotesquely as if they might burst through his skin.
Then, on the giant steel door that had refused to move even a millimeter, a tiny gap began to open as if a crack were forming.
The steel door resisted Ji-hwan’s force, holding its tension like some enormous living creature with a will of its own. The warped door panel seemed to scream that it could take no more, then ground to a halt as if it were begging not to be opened.
But instead of yielding to that resistance, Ji-hwan pushed even harder, unleashing his body enhancement beyond the limits of flesh.
"Kraaaahhh!!"
Kwaduk! Tududuk!! Ppudeudeuk!!
[Hey!! Y-you crazy bastard!! You’re kidding me, right?! The sensors are showing the bunker door tension is being shredded!! How the hell are you tearing that apart with human hands—!! Stop, you’re going to rip both your arms off!!]
Marcus, watching the scene through the radio, screamed in shock. The usual lazy drawl was gone from his voice, replaced by the shattered panic of a man whose common sense had just been blown to pieces.
Before the sound of steel tearing apart, a chain of horrific ruptures burst from Ji-hwan’s arms. The tightly stretched muscle fibers in both arms tore apart under the immense pressure, the tendons around his joints snapping one after another with a sickening sound that hammered his eardrums. Flesh burst and blood sprayed everywhere, but Ji-hwan ignored Marcus’s screaming in his ear and the agonizing pain of his own body tearing apart, clenching his teeth so hard they seemed ready to shatter and never once easing up.
Kwaang-!!
At last, the heavy steel bunker door’s gear lock shattered completely, and the massive door panel caved inward on both sides before swinging open in a miserable wreck.
"Haa... haa..."
As soon as the door opened, Ji-hwan’s arms looked seriously wrecked to anyone who saw them.
Muscles and tendons had been completely torn apart, leaving injuries so severe he couldn’t even twitch a finger. Dark red blood dripped from his fingertips to the floor.
[Holy shit... y-you insane bastard!! What the hell just happened to your arms?! Aren’t the bones all broken?! Damn it,!!]
Marcus, trembling in the ice bath, screamed in horror.
"Shut up... the door’s open... so shut up and get the data..."
Ji-hwan painfully lifted his right arm, which had gone numb and was shaking uncontrollably.
With a blood-soaked hand, he pulled the data spike from his pocket and jammed it into the central access port of the offline main server.
[A-are you really okay...?! You ridiculous bastard!]
Marcus complained in a frantic near-scream, but immediately began tearing into the main server’s core through the data spike, which had only moments ago been offline.
Meanwhile, a miracle was taking place in Ji-hwan’s arms as he sat slumped against the server room wall.
The transcendent regeneration that always came after extreme destruction. The severed tendons writhed like snakes and reconnected on their own, while the torn muscle fibers fused together with intense heat and steam, knitting back into a density far harder than before.
As Ji-hwan swallowed down the pain and steadied his ragged breathing, his mangled arms were healing perfectly, without a single scar, in just a few minutes.
But something was strange. Marcus’s voice, which had been buzzing nonstop in his ear a moment ago, had suddenly gone silent.
Ji-hwan knew that downloading and decrypting several terabytes of data would take time, but this was an unnaturally long and heavy silence.
"Hey, Marcus. Why so quiet? Did you fry your brain on the firewall while cracking the data?"
Ji-hwan, now fully recovered, stood up and brushed off his arms, then asked into the radio.
One second of silence. Then Marcus’s trembling metallic voice seeped through the old earpiece.
[...Hey... K.]
There wasn’t a single trace of his usual easygoing greed in Marcus’s voice anymore. It was filled only with nauseating disgust.
[This... this is really hell... damn it... I’ve ripped apart all kinds of insane snuff videos and Blackwall data from Pacifica Broadband, but this...]
Marcus swallowed back a gag and began reciting the horrific truth he had pulled from the main server.
[These bastards... eco-friendly crop research? Soil improvement? It’s all bullshit. This is a giant human slaughterhouse and bioweapon factory. The Raffen Shiv bastards are taking homeless people and helpless civilians they buy out in the Badlands... and disassembling them alive.]
"Disassembling?"
[Yeah... they extract only the human cerebral cortex and central nervous system, then forcibly fuse it with the genes of aggressive wild Badlands beasts and machine parts... They call it the "chimera project." They’re trying to create monsters that are neither human nor beast. When people go insane from rejection and die rotting away while screaming, they toss the bodies into the incinerator and stuff in new kidnapping victims all over again...!]
Marcus’s trembling briefing fit perfectly, like puzzle pieces, with the researchers’ conversation Ji-hwan had overheard earlier.
A human who had supposedly escaped covered in fur. Beneath this shell of a sanctuary, the corpo scum of Night City were sipping champagne while playing at devilish games.
[Haa... hey, K. We copied all the target data from the main server. We don’t have much time left, so get the hell out of there before those guards you knocked out wake up! Now! The gig’s done!]
Marcus was genuinely terrified and wanted nothing more than to hand this cursed data over to Rogue and run from this horrible place immediately.
But Ji-hwan only stared at the empty server room corridor and casually wiped the blood dripping onto the floor with the sole of his shoe.
"It’s not over yet."
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register