Friday Night Firefight: A Cyberpunk Isekai

“You should’ve seen her face,” said Fred, barely holding back his laughter. “This guy, he slaps down a used sex toy on the table, dead serious, and asks how much he can get for it.”

Anna and Zion lost it, bursting out laughing, while Diego nearly spit out his beer.

“I got a picture. I’ll send it to you,” Fred continued, grinning at everyone’s reactions. “The look on her face, man…she couldn’t tell if Noah was naïve or playing a prank or what. It was priceless.”

Fred was regaling everyone with the first time he took me to the Kabuki Roundabout, where he’d conned me into trying to sell that godforsaken toy I found in the trash. The moment after he snapped that picture, I knew it was going to haunt me forever.

The alcove outside Lizzie’s was buzzing tonight. There was an energy in the air, a sense that things were shifting our way. Election night had just wrapped up, the votes tallied, and we came out the big winner of the night.

I glanced to my right and saw Deng deep in conversation with John, the younger guy hanging on his every word, soaking up the wisdom of someone who’d seen just about everything in this city. It felt good, seeing the crew like this. After the campaign season, the blackout, the election, I felt like I was running on fumes, just trying to keep everything from falling apart.

I looked around the alcove, taking in the faces of my crew. They were all riding high after the election. Eva Cole and Emilio Gutierrezs had crushed their races. No contest. The Pack’s work during the blackout had secured enough legitimate votes that nobody even blinked when the results came in. Brad Norwood’s race was a different story altogether. The media was still buzzing about the suspiciously high voter turnout in his district, calling it a triumph for Night City’s resilience after the blackout.

The only slight spoil in my night was Albert Park and Rita Wheeler. Albert was celebrating at the alcove with the rest of us, but when he thought I wasn’t looking I could see his face morph into one of…I don’t know. Can’t accurately describe it. But he wasn’t nearly as happy as he was pretending to be.

And Rita…well she was standing at Lizzie’s front door and, even in the dim light, I could see her sharp eyes watching the alcove. The Pack and Mox weren’t at each other’s throats – not yet anyway. We had a shared history, some shared goals, and a common enemy in the past. Anna and I still had some favor with the Mox, thanks to that whole Jotaro Shobo thing. But that was a while ago, and things changed fast in Night City.

As I stood there, watching the neon reflections dance across the wet pavement, I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling gnawing at me. It was subtle, like a low hum in the background, but it still made me restless.

When The Pack started growing, our relationship with the Mox had…shifted. We were growing, building momentum, and that kind of growth either earns you allies or paints a target on your back. I wasn’t sure which way the Mox were leaning at the moment, and I was started to get a little worried.

Anna caught my eye from across the alcove, and I could tell she was thinking the same thing. We needed to find another spot to hang out – somewhere that was ours, without the shadow of the Mox hanging over us. Not tonight, but soon. I didn’t want to drag the alcove into a mess between The Pack and the Mox. I had too many good memories tied to this place to let it become some kind of battlefield.

“Hey, kid, you still with us?” Fred called out, snapping me back to reality.

I gave him a nod and a grin, relieved he was done dragging me for a bit.

“Yea. Just thinking.”

“Oh, shit. What now?” Fred chuckled. “Gonna take down Arasaka tower?”

“Nah. Just thinking we might need to find a new spot to hang out in. Somewhere a bit more…ours.”

Fred lit a cigarette and took a drag, exhaling slowly as he considered my words. “You’re not wrong, kid. Think we’ve been pushing out luck hanging around here. I like this place, but we’re starting to get noticed and…not everyone here is joining your protection group. It might be better to have our own turf.”

“Yea,” I sighed. “I got some time now. Might take a few days to wander the city, check out a few spots, see what’s out there.”

“Gonna play tourist?” Zion grinned, raising an eyebrow. “How many spots are on your list?”

“You know, I’ve got my place out in Arroyo,” Fred chimed in. “Should be good and ready son. Hell, it’s been almost finished for weeks now. Surprised you haven’t swung by since I first got it. What’s the deal? Too busy being Night City’s newest kingpin?”

I chuckled, shaking my head. Ever since I came back from The Afterlife, Fred and Mor hadn’t let up with the teasing. Meeting Rogue, stepping foot in the most infamous solo bar in the city, was a badge of honor they wouldn’t let me live down. The fact that I wasn’t being called up as a solo but instead got offered Rogue’s services as a fixer? Pure comedy for those two.

Before I could throw a jab back, I noticed someone approaching out of the corner of my eye. Sandra Dorsett. I patted Fred on the shoulder and got up. “I’ll swing by Arroyo soon, promise. But right now, I gotta handle something.”

Fred followed my gaze, spotting Sandra as she made her way towards us. He gave her a brief nod, though he hadn’t really interacted with her much during her time with us. Her showing up here meant she was probably getting ready to leave The Pack. Her netrunners had all been paid, and our agreement of her working with me was only good until after the election. She was probably here for that conversation I’d promised her about Night Corp.

I met Sandra just outside the alcove, nodding towards Lizzie’s entrance. “Let’s take a walk,” I suggested.

Anna slipped in beside me, her eyes locking onto Rita. I knew she’d be heading over to talk with Rita and Susie Q about The Pack moving on. Anna understood how important the alcove was for the homeless in the neighborhood, and she’d do her best to ensure Susie didn’t clear the place out, fearing The Pack’s influence. It wasn’t just about our crew; it was about all the people who didn’t have anywhere else to go.

&&&

Stepping into Lizzie’s always had a way of messing with your senses. The video game couldn’t capture the full experience. The lights were dim and the bass from the music thumped deep in your chest. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and the scent of cheap perfume that clung to your clothes long after you left.

Sandra and I pushed through the crowd, bodies pressing close as the place pulsed with life. Night City still hadn’t fully bounced back from the blackout, and that meant Lizzie’s was busier than ever – everyone looking for a place to feel alive again.

We reached the bar, and I flagged down Mateo, the bartender for the night. “Two whisky’s,” I said, leaning in to be heard over the music, “and I need one of the private rooms.”

Mateo shot us a look, one eyebrow raised in curiosity, but didn’t ask any questions. He poured some liquor into two highball glasses, and I handed one to Sandra before following his gesture to the back, where a hallway led to the private rooms.

The were the rooms where the joytoy’s took their clients for a more personal experience. Supposedly, they were secure – designed to keep prying eyes and ears out. It was exactly what I needed for this conversation. As we walked, I couldn’t help but notice Sandra’s unease. Her eyes darted around, trying to make sense of why I’d brought her to a place like this.

Once inside, the door closed behind us with a soft click and Sandra’s expression shifted. The room was dimly lit, the walls padded to muffle sound. It was intimate. Almost claustrophobic. But it offered privacy.

I moved over to the room’s control panel and, without a word, shut down the internal security systems. Everything that could connect to the NET, anything that might be able to listen in, it all went dark. When I turned back around, I saw the unease growing in Sandra’s eyes. She was looking around at the soft lighting, the plush seating, and the overall vibe of the room. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what she was thinking and why she seemed a little uncomfortable.

I raised my hands, palms out, to stop her train of though. “Hold up. It’s not what you’re thinking.”

She settled into the plush couch in the center of the room, still giving me that wary look. “Sure looks like you brought me here for…other reasons.”

I took a seat on the couch opposite her and settled back, trying to put her at ease. “I figured this was about the talk I promised.”

“Yea. My crew was well paid working for you,” she said, her tone guarded. “But you promised me information on Night Corp.”

“That’s exactly why we’re in this room. This conversation…it’s not one you wanna have in public. And frankly, you gotta think about whether you wanna have it at all. It’s not something you can unhear.”

Sandra frowned slightly. “You trying to scare me off? If you don’t have the info, just say so. I’ll be pissed, but less than if you’re jerking me around.”

“Not trying to scare you off,” I replied, shaking my head. “But you need to understand, this conversation can’t leave this room.”

“You’re acting like Night Corp is some boogey man. They’re just a corp. Like all the rest in Night City. They’ve got skeletons, and I wanna know what they are.”

This was a problem I ran into a lot, especially lately. How do I explain all the information that I know from playing the game for so many hours? How do I know where to find Jotaro Shobo? Or who Angelica Whelan is? Or any of the other meta knowledge that I used so far?

I sighed, downing the drink I’d been holding. “Look, I know what you’re after, but I don’t have any hard evidence. Nothing you can take to the media, to a court, or release on the NET. What I have is the intel I’ve gathered, the things I’ve seen, and the pieces I’ve put together.”

Sandra nodded slowly.

“Okay. Before you started working for me, what exactly were you digging into?” I asked.

She hesitated, her gaze dropping to the floor as she gathered her thoughts. “A retirement community. There was something strange happening there. It was run by Night Corp and…it was supposed to be a cushy gig for some of their execs looking to step away from the front lines. But I started poking into it and things felt…off. I was debating on whether to do a deep dive on the company servers before you offered me the gig.”

“Yea, that tracks,” I said, nodding. “They’re using that facility to subliminally condition workers there.”

“Wait…what? Subliminally…what?”

“Night Corp is using rogue AIs to try and subtly tweak people’s minds and condition them. The retirement community, I think they’re messing with a few of the workers there.”

“What the shit? I thought you were going to be serious.”

“Oh, I am. This is old tech. People were fiddling around with it from before the time of the RED. They’re trying to rewrite personalities and turn people into mindless drones who just follow orders.”

Sandra’s brow furrowed as she processed what I was saying, still not believing it. “What for?”

“Partly it’s to make them more compliant,” I explained. “More likely to toe the company line without even realizing it. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. What’s happening at the retirement home? That’s just a test run. Night Corp has business dealings with all the big players in the city – Petrochem, Orbital Air, Arasaka, Militech, Kang Tao. Can you imagine what happens if they subtly condition any of their board of directors? They could steer the course of the entire city without anyone even realizing it.”

Sandra leaned back, disbelief slowly starting to mix with concern. “You’re telling me that Night Corp – the same company that runs the sewage and trains and all the basic infrastructure of the city – wants to brainwash the most powerful people in corporations?”

“Yep,” I replied. “They’re using AI to plant suggestions and influence decisions and it’s all under the radar.”

“And nobody’s caught on.”

“Well…you were about to. If you’d kept digging into their little experiment, you would’ve stumbled onto something called Operation Carpe Noctem. That’s what they’re calling it.”

“Operation Carpe Noctem?” she repeated, frowning at the name.

“Yea,” I said, trying to remember the different missions from the game. “At the retirement facility, they took this mild-mannered worker, someone who was just doing their job, and turned him into a homicidal maniac. They’d been working on him for a while, and he started flying off the handle at the slightest provocation.”

“What’s their endgame?” asked Sandra, clearly wrestling with the enormity of what I was telling her.

“Ever heard of Jefferson Peralez? The Night City councilor?”

“Yea. But you didn’t run anyone against him, so I didn’t pay much attention.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure they’re grooming him to be mayor. They’ve been at it for a while now. He met his wife at law school, but the only reason he was even there was because Night Corp has this scholarship program for low-income students. They got him into law, then nudged him into politics, and now they’re getting ready to manipulate him as he climbs the ranks.”

As I spoke, memories of the game replayed themselves in my head – specifically, that eerie mission where V is called in by the Peralezes to investigate a strange break in at their home, only for V to uncover the whole brainwashing scheme. It was one of the most unsettling missions in the game, and also one of my favorites.

Sandra’s eyes narrowed in frustration. “Why didn’t you do anything to stop Peralez during the election? You know what they were doing to him.”

“To what end? Even if I tried, what difference would it have made?”

She rocked back, seemingly stunned by what she saw as my apathy, but I continued before she could protest.

“If you keep digging into Night Corp, what do you think is gonna happen? You’ll find something you shouldn’t. But that’s not gonna make you their enemy. Not even close. You wouldn’t rise to that level. You’d be a pebble in their shoe. An inconvenience easily gotten rid of.”

Sandra looked ready to argue, probably thinking she had ways to protect herself, but I raised a hand to stop her.

“They contract one of the Scav groups in the city to grab you. First thing they’d do, shove a small shard into your neuroport to disrupt any signal sent out by your biomod. A platinum membership from Trauma Team doesn’t work if they can’t track where you are.” I remembered the first mission in the game. The Scavs had done exactly that to kidnap her and toss her in one of their dens. “Then, they’d knock you out, drag you to one of their Scav dens, and you’d never wake up. You’d just become a collection of body parts and cyberware being sold on the black market.”

I saw her expression change, the reality of what I was saying starting to sink in.

“And if that didn’t work and you still kept messing with them, they’d call up Maelstrom.”

“Maelstrom? They’ve got ties with Night Corp? I mean…it’s not that unusual. Tyger Claws work with Arasaka all the time. And Militech has their connections with 6th Street. Corporations always have their street muscle.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s not like that. Not in the way you’re thinking.” I tried remembering more details from the game, the mission where V dealt with a cyberpsycho from Maesltrom, and another where Maelstrom showed up towards the end of the Peralez quest chain. If you didn’t kill the Maelstrom members and only stunned them, their heads still exploded five minutes after the fight. That had always struck me as odd. “Night Corp isn’t just hiring muscle. They’re experimenting.”

“What, like hacking into Maelstrom’s systems or something?”

“You know what the Blackwall is, right?”

She gave me a look like I was an incomprehensible moron. She was a netrunner, so of course she knew about the Blackwall. “It’s a firewall, supposed to keep AIs in the old NET, the one that Rache Bartmoss broke.”

“Yea, pretty sure it’s an AI itself. And a bunch of corps, netrunners, gangs like the Voodoo Boys – they keep poking at it, fucking with it, and somehow, someone’s figured out how to bring those AIs into the real world. Night Corp is just one of many corporations doing it.”

“What…what?!”

I waved her surprise away. I couldn’t get into how Arasaka was using their Soulkiller program to digitize people’s consciousness and turn them into weird semi-AI programs, or how Militech was trying to capture AIs and use them as targeting software for weapons, or how the VDB were trying to side with the rogue AIs. That would just confuse her.

“Maelstrom’s got some kind of ritual. I can’t remember the chick’s name, but I watched the whole thing with my own eyes.” That was a lie, but whatever. I saw the tail end of the ritual in the video game. “They take one of their own and stuff her in a fridge with a whole bunch of electricity and wire and shit poking into it. Then they force them to go into a deep dive into the NET, hoping a rogue AI will…consume their mind.”

“Consume?” Sandra echoed, frowning as she tried to grasp the concept.

“They’re trying to get these AIs to possess the bodies of Maelstrom members,” I explained. “Imagine it – these guys are already tricked out with military-grade hardware, mantis blades, Sandevistans, and God knows what else. They get possessed by a rogue AI that is the best netrunner you’ve ever seen and doesn’t even need a deck to hack all your shit.”

I could see Sandra’s mind racing, trying to process the implications. She opened her mouth to ask something, but no words came out. Instead, she reached for her glass of whisky, downed it in one gulp, and set it back on the table in front of us.

She looked over at me, her voice steady but tinged with disbelief. “Fuck.” Then, without another word, she got up and headed for the door.

Just as she reached it, she paused and turned slightly, her voice shaky. “My people don’t mind working for you again, but they’ll need to get paid.”

I nodded. “I was hoping to take a couple of days to decompress, but…I’m working on something. We might be bringing in the Animals on it too.”

She gave me a nod and left the room, her whole world clearly turned upside down.