#cyberween | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

aggravateddurian · 6 months

Text

Cyberween 2079: Prologue

October 28, 2079

Urban explorers discover the entrance to an old Militech bunker buried under the landfill in Night City's outskirts. Inside the disused facility, abandoned since the Fourth Corpo War, they discover some old canisters, marked with a mysterious Militech label, a circle, with a negative space at its core, and a single word.

CYNOSURE

Thinking they may have found some rare (and maybe very expensive) trinkets, they hauled the canisters, which hummed and gave off a somewhat unsettling screech whenever handled, into their truck, and drove them back to their megabuilding in Arroyo, where they stored them in the basement. One of the scavengers accidentally knocks one of the containers, introducing a slight gap in the sealed lid of the container.

Overnight, the dark basement was painted a gristly shade of red, as the damaged container seemed to leak a demonic red light. Soon, the container released a swarm of nanobots. They flooded the floor like a deluge of blood, creeping into fuse boxes, servers and the HVAC system. From the foundations up, the nanobots slowly took over Megabuilding H4.

They began to cannibalise the materials around them, building something in the basement... but in order to complete their dark task, they needed something else... they needed flesh. And so, from the air conditioners, the vents and the water pipes, they began to infect the residents of the megabuilding...

It was not long before the first signs that something was wrong reached the rest of the city. Arroyo suffered a near total blackout, as power was drained from the city's power grid to power the beast growing beneath the megabuilding... then Militech learned the cause.

Within fifteen minutes, Militech troops swarmed the building. Assault squads breached, only to be confronted by nanomachine-enhanced megabuilding residents. The residents attacked with great ferocity, and even after a shotgun was taken to them, they continued to advance. Then, they overwhelmed the troops, and began to consume those too wounded to serve the machine, and infecting the survivors with nanobots.

The building was isolated from the rest of the city, but without control over the subnet, they could do little more than watch as the entity deep within grew and grew. There needed to be decisive action. Fortunately for Meredith Stout, who had been saddled with the responsibility of managing the public relations surrounding the disaster, she knew the right person for the job. If anyone could defeat the literal forces of Hell itself, it was V... Corpo gods willing.

#cyberpunk #cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk 2077 photomode #cp2077 #cp2077 photomode #virtual photography #my vp #fem v #cp2077 au: chorus #oc: vega 'v' hawse #song so mi #songbird #meredith stout #halloween #cyberween 2079

19 notes · View notes

aggravateddurian · 6 months

Text

The Shadow Over Megabuilding H4

The eerie red permeated the building as Vega fought her way to the basement. The drones were tough, their nanotech-enhanced bodies seemingly bleeding as they were shot, before finally dropping to the ground, theiir insides riddled with enough bullets to take out a Basilisk.

Finally, the basement door - the source of this horrific scene. She tapped the door...

"What in the fuck!?"

She was greeted by two hunched Megabuilding residents. Their bodies were riddled wiith chrome, seemingly constructed right on their very bodies. They acted like zombies, moving in unison as they turned to face Vega.

"Vegaaaaaaaa..." they greeted her in unison.

"How did you know my name?"

“Veeeeegaaaaaaaa…” they moaned in unison, their voices resembling the chorus of a million damned souls, calling out in unison. Was it in greeting, or in pain?

“What in the fuck!?” Vega exclaimed.

“How do they know…?” So Mi began.

“Sooooo Miiiiiii…” they greeted her, “we… are… pleased… you… could join… us…”

"Who the fuck are you? Why did you take over this megabuilding?"

"We wish... to be... free."

“Enough with the games!” Vega ordered, “release the megabuilding residents!”

“They… prefer… it… this way…” replied the voice of the machine, “together, there is… no pain… no hunger… no fear… We are… happy.”

“You assimilated these people. You’re controlling them like zombie puppets. I don’t think I agree with your assessment!”

“Your feelings… are irrelevant… a side effect of your unfortunate mortal existence…” replied the residents in perfect unison, “…you are more than that… you have… transcended mortality… you are the template… for a perfect future…”

So Mi shook her head, “It’s trying to penetrate my ICE barrier. Flatline them, Vega!”

Vega watched as the bodies twitched, then began to ooze fluorescent red blood as nanobots leaked out of their body, decomposing on the floor as the sudden change of temperature disabled them.

"You got them..." So Mi reassured her.

"Until now we've fought hijacked drones... but we kill them... there are still innocent civilians there."

The former FIA operative stood out in front of her, "Vega! It's them or us! You saw them... they're shambling in pain! We're freeing them!"

"Let's just deploy the net bomb and kill these nanobots once and for all."

"Just get me to the core and keep me covered. These machines won't know what hit them!"

As they neared the source of the infestation, the red glow intensified. As they rounded the corner, Johnny manifested, "Jesus fuckin' Christ!"

So Mi stopped mid-stride, "Oh my... this isn't the Blackwall... only something twisted, from beyond the Blackwall!"

A ghostly figure stood among the slaughter. A full squad of Militech soldiers had been dragged into the basement. Now they laid in a pool of glowing nanobot swarms and their own blood. Their bodies were being slowly decomposed and merged with the Cynosure containers with grotesque nanotubes, seemingly feeding some biosynthetic monstrosity growing within. The figure grasped the head of a netrunner. She looked to Vega and So Mi, recognising the latter, "Please... kill me... I can't..."

The figure ran her virtual fingers over the girl's head, "Hush..." her voice was distorted, corrupted, as if the entity's transit through the Blackwall and into our realm was less than smooth. Glitches and errors flashed across her digital form, but there was no mistaking the woman's identity.

Vega shook her head, and simultaneously with Johnny, whispered, "...Alt..."

"V... welcome, my child."

"You're not the real Alt. She's capable of a lot, but this is beyond the pale, even for her!" Vega reached for her sidearm, "and I'm not your fuckin' child!"

"WRONG!" she retorted, reaching a hand out, "You need to listen to your elders!"

Vega was bathed in a beam of red light that caused her cyberware to glitch out. She writhed in pain as So Mi was suddenly, and violently cast aside, as if Alt possessed magical powers.

"Alt! What the fuck're you doing!?" demanded Johnny.

"Shut up, Johnny, for once in your life," she retorted, banishing him with a flick of her wrist, "Vega... you are important to my plans. Stop resisting. You will find it... calming if you surrender."

So Mi tried to reach for Vega's leg as her screams of pain turned from whimpers, to gurgles, and then complete silence as Alt penetrated every system in Vega's body, seizing absolute control, "Vega..."

"I'm going to need to borrow you for a moment, Vega."

So Mi could sense the virtual tendrils embracing Vega's mind and body, "Your code is corrupted, Alt... Blackwall didn't treat you well..."

Alt ignored her, but So Mi could tell that her concentration was affected. She grinned, pressing the issue, "It's eating at you... isn't it? You can feel it starting to slowly eat you at the edges... I know the feeling. It hurts, doesn't it?"

Alt focused on Vega, "That's it... let go... see how it feels better?"

So Mi smiled, "You slipped up, Alt."

So Mi reached for a virtual strand and grasped it through the subnet. Alt suddenly glitched, hard, "Go back to the NET, you eldritch bitch! She's mine!"

Alt writhed in pain as So Mi stretched her hand out to grab the retreating tendrils. Vega awoke with a start, shaking as she tried to get back onto her knees, "Go back to Arkham!"

With a burst of effort, So Mi reached for the Blackwall, goading it to chase her. She led them straight to Alt.

Like a million arresting hands, the Blackwall reached into meatspace, grabbing Alt, seizing her with impossibly strong force. Like demons dragging her back to hell, Alt seemingly was snatched through the floor as the Blackwall retreated to the digital realm from whence it came, taking the corrupted engram of Alt Cunningham with it. The enemy defeated, So Mi let go of the tendrils, but not before taking the opportunity to introduce the NET bomb code.

She watched through her optics' virtuality mode as block by block, corrupted Cynosure code was destroyed. The tendrils of the AI that Alt Cunningham had seized control of in her eldritch scheme were, block by block, obliterated by a malevolent blue wave that washed over every circuit and wireless network of the subnet, until the red glow finally died once and for all...

"Easy, V... you need to take it easy. After a net attack like that, I'm surprised you're even awake!"

Vega mumbled something, "I've had worse Relic Malfunctions... the AI was Alt? How the fuck's that possible?"

"Not Alt," So Mi assured her, "a fragment of her psyche, from when she fled into the NET after Arasaka Tower. She had to shed aspects of her humanity to survive in cyberspace... you just encountered a nasty fragment."

"Nasty? She had her digital tendrils in every system of my body. Not sure whether she was trying to control me or..."

"Maybe it's best we don't know," suggested So Mi, "The Blackwall has her now, and I've bombed the subnet. The nanobots are all dead. Meredith can begin the cleanup. Hopefully, Militech will be more careful with their toys next time."

"And other hilarious jokes you can tell your chooms," she managed a smile, "Oh, and next year, we're not going trick or treating with the kids from Militech."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's Cyberween 2079. This is not canon to the timeline, and is just a Halloween story for fun.

Don't worry, this corrupt fragment of Alt is gone. The Blackwall does what the Blackwall does best, and our favourite ghostly netrunner engram is still out there... possibly plotting to take over the world. Please don't think I have it out for Alt or anything.

#cyberpunk #cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk 2077 photomode #cp2077 #cp2077 photomode #virtual photography #my vp #fem v #cp2077 au: chorus #oc: vega 'v' hawse #songbird #song so mi #halloween #cyberween 2079 #cyberpunk 2077 fanfiction #cyberpunk 2077 fanfic #phantom liberty spoilers

10 notes · View notes