Feeling a lil' antsy there, Julio?
No way!
You're the one Wakako sicced on us, right?
Heard you're David's fan.
Yeah! But what do you mean she sicced me on you?
Hear that, David?
You have fans now. Probably 'cause you got all swole.
Where's your gun?
What do you use?
Uh, I've got a Lexington.
That won't cut it.
You gonna go up against Maelstrom with that?
Use this.
Seriously, dude?! A fucking Satara!
Nova! Thanks, man!
Tech shotguns are so cool.
Charge-up shots, oh yeah…
Boom!
Knock it off!
Ow! Stop! Watch the knees!
What are you, five?!
Just stick behind me. Don't rush ahead.
You want me to take rear? I ain't no rookie, man.
Attention, ladies.
One minute from the destination.
Looks like they're heading in the front.
Clearly. Meatbrain move!
The fuck?
Who ordered lunch meat?
Ya little babies lost?
Looks like they wanna start something.
You got shit in your ears?!
Better start talking before I drill you a fresh earhole--
Better stop talking before you die.
Tagging complete. Short circ incoming…
Done! Close-call but made it, asshole!
Fuck! They've got a netrunner!
Ahh! We're all gonna die!
Come on!
Out of ammo!
Bitch got no juice!
Fuck her up!
Time for… the big guns!
There's a turret!
Watch out! The runner's got control of--
Damn brat, ordering me around…
Ready to play with a real Maelstrom?
Oh, damn…
That shit even human?!
Gimme that organic ass…
And I'll tear you a new hole!
You're the one getting a new hole.
That was insane! …Zoot-zoot-zoot, bang!
Those your new leg implants? Looking good.
Got it! Room in the back, right?
Wait! Julio!
If there are traps…
Isabella Morgan, where you at?
Your dad put out an SOS for you.
You're safe now.
Thank ya kindly.
Thanks for taking the wheel, Falco.
No sweat off my back.
Nah, good drivers are hard to come by.
Dunno about that. Seems you got a fan club now.
You mean like Julio?
I knew that gonk was bluffing the moment I saw him.
Aren't many veterans who'd work with a kid like me unless they knew Maine.
Gotta admit, first time you called,
I thought you were a pushy pipsqueak.
But now? Well…
You're gonna go further than Maine ever could.
Gonna roll out before this gets all sappy.
Buzz me for your next big gig, huh?
Catch you later, David. Kiwi.
See ya.
Bye.
Honestly? I doubted you had it in you to take the reins.
All thanks to our preem runner.
We both know you don't mean me.
You've asked her, right?
Used to. I kinda gave up trying.
Didn't peg her as the type to get cold feet.
I bet it's more than what happened to Maine and Dorio.
Back at the warehouse, Lucy was acting weird.
Meaning what?
Whole thing's kind of a blur. Might've been nothing.
Speaking of, you're the one that brought Lucy into the crew, right?
Yeah.
She talk to you about her past?
Nope.
Most of the saps in our league don't bring up the old days.
Shame, greed, something to prove… whatever.
Whether you're looking for a way out or a way up, does it matter?
Why the long face, David?!
Stop flirting with the nagging hag and dance with me!
Although some edgerunners die in more shame than they started with…
At least I didn't get flatlined by a psycho with his dick out in the wind.
Anyway, have you ever seen David dance? It's a riot…
Sorry, I'm heading out. Gonna stop by Doc's.
Wha? Again?
Tell him to sell you a dance chip or something!
-A real good one! -Shut up.
Catch ya later.
Why you gotta play hard-to-get all the time?!
Why don't you shake up your approach?
Yeah?
Think I should play shy and nerdy… at the shy and nerdy?
This warped piece of metal's just shoved up your arm socket.
It doesn't fit you in the first place.
On top of that, it's an old model.
Got all kinds of next-gen chrome out back…
I'm fine with this one.
Tsk. Fine. It's your funeral.
Got muscle reinforcers? Kiroshi's new model?
Didn't know I was talking to a tweaked out chromehead.
I'm not.
You need to take it easy.
At this rate, ain't no way your mind can keep up.
I'm fine.
No matter how much chrome I get, I don't feel a damn thing.
Metal feels better than being in my own skin.
Gotta admit, your adaptability to cyberware is fucking nuts.
Ain't never seen a kid cyborg out quite like this.
Your cyberware capacity's already--
You think you're special?
Just must be special, I guess.
You aiming to be like Adam Smasher or what?
Adam what?
Damn. All this time and you're still a fucking newb.
Don't even know Adam Smasher.
Some know him as a war hero from the 4th Corporate War.
To others, a fully cyborged boogeyman, walking nightmare.
But to all, a living legend, ask anyone.
What kinda legend?
There's probably a graveyard out there
full of big shots he flatlined on Arasaka's orders.
Sounds like a hoax.
Kiwi?
What's up?
Can you drop by the Afterlife?
You guys still out bar hopping?
Got someone here who wants to see you.
David.
Hey, Kiwi.
Wish you luck.
I believe this is the first time we meet, Mister Martinez.
We've crossed paths… You came to a party once to talk to Maine.
Is that so? I believe introductions are in order.
I am Faraday.
You have a job for me?
No need to rush. Let me buy you a drink.
I've heard a great deal about you.
You are making quite a name for yourself.
The rookie with the Sandevistan.
I've got more than the Sandy now.
This is true. It seems now you are more steel than bone.
Maine and I had a mutually beneficial work relationship.
I know.
He understood crew chemistry.
He did.
But his flaw was personal attachment.
Familiarity muddies the mind, leads to ruin.
I hear that you're also good with teamwork.
But I keep my private and professional life separate.
I would like for you to convince me that you can work at the same level as Maine.
You're testing me?
You can think of it that way.
You can test me all you want, but I ain't running jobs for cheap.
Nothing I do is cheap.
This a Militech job?
They're at odds with Arasaka.
As you might expect, corporate jobs pay out the most.
Do you oppose?
Consider it done.
Good to hear.
There is an assignment I'd like you to take over after this job.
It's a matter familiar to you.
You mean the data you wanted from Tanaka?
Unfortunately, I received a report that Tanaka had no data.
Yup.
But I also received a report that you successfully bypassed Arasaka's ICE.
And that this wasn't done by Kiwi, but by a back-up runner.
Yeah. Our team's got lucky with good runners.
Excellent. However, I hear this runner is not present.
Yeah. They left the team after that case.
Why is that? Such a waste of good talent.
Their heart's just not in it.
It wouldn't hurt to try to convince her again.
Easier said than done…
Arasaka knows that Militech's after them, right?
Of course.
What's Militech after that they'd want this bad?
That is my concern and none of yours.
Needless details would only get in your way.
Learn anything new that might help?
Not yet. But as they say, "Good things come to those who wait."
But you've yet to prove that you're worth my time.
You're home.
It's pretty late.
Got caught up.
Made a victory lap at Minjung's?
Yeah.
Any problems on the job?
We lost someone tonight.
Who?
Greenhorn solo Wakako sent us.
Oh. But everything went fine otherwise?
Easy. The newb just jumped the gun.
Sounds like some other newb I once knew.
Hey.
So…
We got something big coming up.
How fun.
And it'd really help if you'd get on board…
Two runners makes for a crowd, doesn't it?
You know that I'd rather have--
David, please.
I need more time.
Fine. Okay.
You were diving again?
Why don't you buy a runnersuit?
Don't need one.
We can get you a new chair. The ice-bath can't be comfortable.
Thank you. But I don't like wearing a suit.
Oh.
Sorry, I didn't know.
Hey, David?
Come with me.
Whoa! Look at the stars!
Can't get a view like this in the city.
-Think I can catch one? -As if.
Wish we could've seen the moon.
The stars shine brighter because the moon's not out.
Really?
The moon outshines the stars.
What were they teaching you at the Academy?
I'm a drop-out, remember?
Right, right.
Never been outside of the city.
Huh.
You had a life outside the city once, huh?
The city looks like a cage made of lights from here.
You may not remember…
You said you and I are different.
Yes.
What did you mean by that?
Don't wanna talk about it?
You'd rather not hear.
I just… wanna know more about you.
Arasaka.
Arasaka?
Yes.
I was born in a different country and raised in an Arasaka facility.
Including me, 13 children passed proficiency tests to become netrunners.
Kids who wouldn't be missed if they disappeared.
"We'll serve the world's most powerful megacorp one day…"
That dream is what got us through the hard days of training.
It's the dream we were given, the dream we never questioned.
But when training ended, we weren't assigned to a corpo office.
We were taken to an underground facility where we were constantly forced to dive…
They sent us into the Old Net.
Old Net?
That's the old internet domain that collapsed around 50 years ago, right?
Yes.
Brought down by history's greatest netrunner, creator of daemons…
Hacker savant, legend, Rache Bartmoss.
The guy that brought down 78 percent of the world wide web.
His DataKrash virus shattered cyberspace…
…Broke the Net into a scattered mosaic of isolated localnets.
Arasaka's purpose was in the Old Net. The legacies of the past.
Vast amounts of lost knowledge.
And we were soldiers being sent to a nest of illegal malware and aggressive AI.
Advanced netrunners can dive into it with their whole mind.
You mean deep-diving.
And diving materializes cyberspace into a traversable world.
But whenever we uncovered any rare data cache…
Rogue AIs would find and attack us.
We were picked off one by one.
I continued to dive, thinking that each time would be my last.
Soon, there were only a handful of us left.
We were being killed to live someone else's dream.
So we thought, "If we're going to die, why not die trying to escape?"
The tech staff didn't stand a chance. Not against the skills they'd taught us.
And we escaped.
I kept running.
I could hear my friends crying out,
but I didn't look back.
When I came to, I was living out in a junkyard.
After that, I was too scared to stay in one place.
So I traveled to different cities.
But there's no place like Night City if all you wanna do is hide.
You still feel like you're being chased?
Not really. Guess I just got too comfortable here.
Or maybe I've grown used to being scared.
That hand…
It's nothing. It'll be alright in a second.
You haven't changed at all. Still living for someone else's dream.
It's not like I don't understand.
I don't think I'm scared for myself anymore.
I'm more scared that…
Someday, you'll…
Yes. I was able to recover most of the data.
The information on one of the test subjects
appears to be completely corrupted.
I would say that it was intentionally manipulated.
There's no trace on the ICE.
This hacking couldn't have been done by an average runner.
I don't believe Tanaka would have erased it.
So it must have been manipulated during his capture.
Understood. I'll see what I can do to restore it.
Goodbye.