VIII
Eight Days
Night City, 2077
“Sato is dead.”
The blood on Deathwing’s boots was washed away by the rain as he walked down the street. His optics flickered between spectrums as he walked, each shift painting the city in a different shade of precision. Behind him, The Eclipse faded away in the downpour.
“Verification?” The fixer’s voice came through the line, synthetic and genderless, distorted through layers of modulation.
“You’ll find it painted all over the office of his club.” Deathwing grinned.
“Understood.” The distorted voice replied. “Transfer initiated.”
There was a soft ping as thirty-five thousand Eurodollars rolled into his account, indicated by a small counter floating in his vision.
“Pleasure doing biz, Deathwing.” The fixer said, then cut the line.
Thirty-five thousand eddies. That was the price for a monster. The price someone was willing to pay just for one man’s death.
Deathwing thought.
He flexed his shoulder, testing the weight of the arm used to tear through steel and bone. The wound in his chest was already closing, the nanomachines in the Sycust FleshWeave knitting muscle and skin together. A bullet clinked against the wet pavement as the drones pushed it out, leaving behind only a small, dark smear that the rain quickly erased.
The street was empty. Steam rose from the grates along the sidewalk, mixing with the December rain until the world became a haze of motion and light. Deathwing stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets and kept walking into the night.
* * *
The mirror was cracked, spiderwebs of fractured glass distorting the reflection that stared back at him. One red optic lens glowed steadily; the others flickered as they recalibrated. Thin rivulets of blood stained his skin, tracing down his ribs from the wounds his FleshWeave had just finished knitting shut before his eyes. The scars were already fading.
Deathwing rolled his shoulders, watching the carbon black plates of his arms glide smoothly over each other as he moved. The wounds hadn’t hurt—hadn’t ; the Pain Editor chip plugged into one of the slots behind his right ear saw to that. Only the memory of the flash and impact remained. He grinned at his reflection, savoring the light glinting off his shark teeth.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The room behind him was dark, lit only by the blue light of the cyberdeck sitting on the table. Its screen was filled with the data he’d stolen for Lex, then Lex, the files on Prosopon.
Last night, after cloning the data-thief’s drive, he’d taken the device to the Columbarium and tucked it away in Ella Halsey’s niche, just as Lex had directed him. She’d paid him his fee this morning, the exact amount promised, and without any complaints. Deathwing assumed she either didn’t know or didn’t care that he’d copied her data.
As soon as he received his payment, he’d purchased a ticket on the next flight from the Night City International and Translunar Spaceport. The flight would leave in a little over a week. Eight days to be exact.
He hadn’t decided what he’d do in the meantime.
Maybe a few more jobs. Maybe nothing at all.
Taking a seat, he pulled the cyberdeck sitting on the desk closer and plugged his personal link into the small computer. Several windows full of scrolling data flooded his vision as he leaned back in his chair. He closed them out, and opened the folder into which he’d organized all of the information related to his new idol.
The folder’s title blinked in the corner of his vision: PROSOPON.
With the exception of the hour or so it had taken to drive to and from the columbarium to drop off the data-thief, Deathwing had been staring at the data from the moment he’d made the copy to the time of his departure to The Eclipse.
Several new windows opened, washing his vision in blue light. The data stolen from Ares was so extensive, so comprehensive that Deathwing was honestly surprised he’d been keeping it on his person.
Alongside his new scripture, he had also discovered a veritable wealth of .
Shortly following her ascension, the corpo princess had called for the execution of the artificial intelligence. The operation records stated that the original intent had been to contract the work out to NetWatch. The cyberlaw enforcement agency had never responded to Arnesen’s summons, and she had taken the work upon her own shoulders.
Taking a team of three techies and two additional netrunners into the Nástr?nd facility hidden within a cavern inside Tvillingstinden in the Norse Alps alongside herself and the newly appointed head of the Ymir Skandatek HQ, a man named Ma?l, Arnesen had attempted to destroy the artificial intelligence. In the process, they had been subjected to Prosopon’s divine retribution. Both techies and one of the net runners had been killed by the AI, one by a drone under its command—two via hacks, intrusions into their very souls. The remaining members of the team had altered their goal, resorting to imprisoning Prosopon within its domain. They had cut all ties between the Nástr?nd facility and the wider Net.
Supposedly, the god was malfunctioning. Another report, written by the princess herself detailed an encounter inside an Ymir Skandatek data fortress during which Prosopon had exhibited behaviors she had never witnessed before. Most notable in Deathwing’s mind was the instance in which one became three.
He grinned, teeth glinting in the dim light. She had called it a malfunction. He called it
The entire Nástr?nd facility had been put into permanent quarantine. Prosopon had been declared dormant.
He almost laughed.
A permanent quarantine meant nobody would be guarding the place and if Prosopon was as unhappy about being locked away as Deathwing would be, then it would be railing against its bonds until it escaped—or it was freed.
Eight days. That was all that stood between Deathwing and divinity.
He closed the folder and powered down the deck. The blue light died, leaving only the red light of his optics to illuminate the hideout.
“I’ll be there soon, Lord,” he whispered to the darkness.
For the first time in over two days, he laid on the mattress in the corner. Sleep overtook him quickly.
Outside, the December rain kept falling. Steady. Unending.
