Author's Notes: Chapter edited and corrected by Scott Fellman.
Serena POV.
Once we became invisible, Lucy and I started running under Aria. We could see Rebecca entering ahead of us, killing the guards of the Arasaka tower. We stepped over the bodies and moved quickly to one of the elevators.
Lucy quickly hacked the elevator; the doors opened. Even though the elevator wasn't there, we simply jumped into the elevator shaft and began to fall dozens of meters until we landed on the same stopped elevator.
I clapped my hands and punched the elevator ceiling, turning it to dust. Then we approached the door, which Lucy immediately opened, and moved inside the facility like a ghost. There were many guards stationed here, all on high alert. The chaos Rebecca was creating upstairs was making them tense. There were also many staff members, people who maintained and operated this whole place.
Lucy began hacking guard after guard, melting their brains with ease. We didn't even stop; Lucy hacked everything in her path as we advanced, regardless of how many people were in front of us.
Reaching Mikoshi was ridiculously easy; we didn't have to hack to open any paths, not when I could just turn the walls to dust and cross much more easily. We finally reached the Mikoshi Access Point.
We shook Aria off and approached the center of the room, where a coolant surrounded the access point. I opened a portal, and GLaDOS emerged, dragging thick cables.
She didn't even flinch when she started working. I glanced at Lucy and nodded in her direction. I took a deep breath as my biology began to shift into that of an Ex Machina. I immediately felt GLaDOS's ping to join her Cluster and accepted. I shuddered slightly at the feeling of being connected to GLaDOS.
I watched as Lucy began to undress, including the fake skin patch on the back of her neck, revealing her deep-diving port and her back—especially her back. I could see various parts of her back start to move and open slightly, revealing the inner workings of much of her new cyberware.
A cyberware recently deployed by GLaDOS and me. Lucy had expressed concern about its hacking capabilities—well, not hacking capabilities, but processing power and analysis speed.
GLaDOS, as Ex Machina, surpassed Lucy and me by several orders of magnitude; there was no comparison. But I could also become a Prüfer unit. Perhaps I couldn't take full advantage of it like GLaDOS, since she was an AI, but even so, my processing and analysis speed increased to a terrifying level.
Lucy, on the other hand, was mostly human—or rather, a demon with cybernetic parts, but that was being pretentious. And she liked remaining organic, or mostly organic, so becoming an Ex Machina wasn't in her plans anytime soon.
But that wasn't something that would have prevented GLaDOS and me; we were both Prüfer, with the ability to see our internal components, and especially, to replicate them to a certain extent.
So GLaDOS was able to create several cyberware systems based on a Prüfer's biology to place inside Lucy. Using this as a base and cannibalizing the Cyberdeck GLaDOS had created for me weeks ago, we managed to build everything we needed.
An internal Cyberdeck placed on a part of its back, powerful enough to humiliate any supercomputer, with a data processing capacity and analysis speed almost on par with ours, I grimaced throughout the whole process, because several components really needed to be connected to the brain.
It was lucky that Lucy was the one who received the operation; most of it was already done thanks to her Deep Dive port. We only had to replace all the components and make a few small, minimally invasive additions.
So, the entire deployment of Lucy's new cyberware was a complete success. She was still learning and regulating her new capabilities, but she was on the right track. But the most important thing she had achieved was the ability to form a Cluster with us.
We definitely hadn't been able to replicate the ability to use the Lösen Algorithm that the Ex-Machina used to duplicate weapons, but for the moment, it wasn't necessary.
Lucy still had access to The Light and several weapons she had taken from Rebecca, along with her ability to hack reality; she didn't really need Lösen.
Especially now that their hacking capabilities and speed have improved enormously. They had entered a new category. So the most important thing was the cluster.
The three of us formed a small Cluster, almost considering ourselves a single entity. Sometimes there were several blurred lines where one ended, and the other began. The ability to transmit and receive information between us and use each other's processing capacity was off the charts. Although GLaDOS took charge of manipulating most of the Cluster's resources, which wasn't a problem; otherwise, they would have been wasted. Lucy and I couldn't keep up with her.
GLaDOS handed us each a cable. Lucy grabbed it and plugged it into the port on the back of her neck without hesitation. I did the same; my body generated a port on the back of my neck, and I plugged it in without hesitation. GLaDOS grabbed the other end and plugged it into her chest, where a port had just appeared. I could see the three cables intertwining and combining into a single input.
I sat down in front of Mikoshi, getting comfortable, before Lucy sat behind me with her back to me and then leaned her back against mine. I could see GLaDOS do the same, also leaning her sword against us, forming a triangle.
I grabbed the end of the cable connecting the three of us, finally grasped the Mikoshi port, and connected it to the connector. The three of us shuddered as all the information from Mikoshi began to flow and appear before us.
So we moved quickly. Working as a single entity, at almost godlike speed, we seized control of the entire Arasaka network in Night City, then Mikoshi. From Mikoshi, we accessed the various access points in different Arasaka locations around the world, and from there, all the networks in the city where they were located.
And then we took over every subnetwork of Arasaka, both restricted and unrestricted. The speed at which we took over the Arasaka network was unimaginable, to the point that no one noticed anything, nor could they react to what we were doing. The only thing that had been saved was the small, disconnected, secret, and personal networks of Arasaka.
There were several in Japan, where Arasaka's main headquarters was located, and several around the world in top-secret facilities. But we were already prepared for that; small drones began to hover around us as GLaDOS created them with Lösen. Despite being top secret, many of them could still be traced through large volumes of official and unofficial documents, making it easy to obtain the facilities' coordinates.
I created portals to each of them; dozens of portals appeared around us. GLaDOS began moving the drones to each of them. At the same time, they became invisible before crossing the portal. Slowly, from each portal, a cable began to come out, and I attracted them with magic towards us. GLaDOS grabbed them and began to connect them to her body. Her arm had a dozen ports connected to it as she took over Arasaka's restricted networks.
After some time and checking the entire Arasaka network to see if we had missed any important networks, we finally had it under our control in about 20 minutes.
I looked at Rebecca, just in time as she started to emerge onto the rooftop of Arasaka Tower, surrounded by AV as Adam Smasher arrived. Rebecca began firing at him while Lucy hacked and disabled the other AVs' weapons.
Finally, Smasher landed at the Arasaka tower and began broadcasting my message to the rest of the world.
I sighed wearily as the video transmission ended. I could feel GLaDOS immediately begin manipulating the entire Arasaka network, while Lucy and I assisted. The three of us, within our created cluster, owned the whole Arasaka network and began completely expelling everyone and frying the brains of the netrunners who tried to stop us.
As we moved from network to network, we began to spread the Daemons created for Arasaka's DataKrash. The entire network began to crumble as the Daemons cannibalized the data, destroying it completely and beyond recognition.
After working at full power for what seemed like hours, but was only seconds in real time, I finally sighed.
"Alright, now we just have to wait an hour for the next part of our plan. GLaDOS, monitor the Arasaka network, transmit the DataKrash status to the global network, and make sure the Daemons don't go rogue. I know you created and coded them so they can't evolve or change their own code and directives, but stranger things have happened within the network." I sighed wearily. GLaDOS snorted.
"I know, you don't need to tell me." GLaDOS growled. I shook my head, glancing over Rebecca's head as she began fighting Smasher with sadistic glee, but I didn't intervene in any way; she was having too much fun.
"Good, good, activate Zero Dawn. If any unit is destroyed, you're able to do whatever you want with the attackers." I told GLaDOS, who smiled broadly. I snorted playfully before looking at Lucy. "What are you thinking about?" I asked Lucy, who was frowning and seemed too engrossed in something. She blinked in surprise, then wrinkled her nose.
"I... I'm browsing the Net... I was... watching the reactions to your broadcast." Lucy said with a grimace, and I sighed.
"How much have they insulted me and told me to die in the last seconds?" I asked playfully. Lucy looked at me in surprise.
"Wait... did you know they were going to react like this?" Lucy asked incredulously.
"Of course, I told you so," I said, shrugging my shoulders.
"Well, yes—" Lucy tried to say, biting her lip. "But... while there are several comments in favor of destroying Arasaka, almost all are against it. I... I just thought there would be more support." Lucy said, squirming. I sighed.
"Of course not. To them, we're just bringing about a death sentence for the rest of the world. They'll absolutely hate us," I said dryly. "First of all, they don't believe we can defeat Arasaka, so a large part of them will just be insulting us and calling us idiots."
"And the rest are panicking. If Arasaka dies, they'll drag the rest of the world down with them. Arasaka is omnipresent, almost literally. They control all of Japan—anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot—and they have partial control over the rest of the world. Millions of lives depend on Arasaka, even though those same people absolutely hate them."
"They depend on Arasaka for food, for cyberware, for jobs, and even medicine. Arasaka has a finger in every pie you can imagine. They own even the garbage and profit from it. They are completely wrapped up in people's lives in such an ingrained way that they are necessary for people to even stay alive. And people have no choice but to depend on Arasaka because they have no better options, period."
"And then there's the worst part, even if everything goes well, people will immediately believe this will trigger another corporate war, so yeah, overthrowing Arasaka won't win us any sympathy; in fact, they'll absolutely hate us," I said, shrugging.
Lucy's face went through countless expressions before she sighed resignedly and bit her lip.
"How many... how many casualties will there be?" Lucy asked, trembling slightly. "How many will we kill to overthrow Arasaka?" she asked again, staring at me. I raised an eyebrow in her direction.
"Regretting it?" I asked curtly.
"No," she said immediately. "Arasaka has to fall, no matter the cost or the sacrifices. We have to show that corporations aren't untouchable, that they aren't gods who can play with people." Lucy said fiercely. "But I want the number, so I know how many deaths I'll be responsible for." Lucy straightened up firmly. I could see her fists clench tightly, and I just chuckled.
"I love that attitude of yours." I purred in her direction. Lucy just snorted and glared at me. I rolled my eyes. "Don't worry, nobody's going to die. Well, maybe a few hundred or a thousand, but that would be because of their own stupidity or stubbornness." I said playfully. Lucy froze and stared at me incredulously.
"But... you just said-" Lucy tried to say awkwardly, and I smiled amusedly.
"Yes, I said it, and for any other person or situation, that's what would happen, but we've already prepared everything over the last week," I said confidently.
"Wh-when?" Lucy tried to say, confused.
"When you were getting used to your new cyberware," I said, shrugging. "The problem is, people depend on Arasaka because they have no choice, but what if they did?" I smiled at Lucy. "There are thousands of Cauldrons around the world. HEPHAESTUS isn't just for creating terraforming machines; as long as there's a blueprint, it can manufacture anything."
"Common and high-quality cyberware, machinery needed to synthesize organic food on a large scale, and even the creation of functional medicines. Freya was right when she said we should usurp and occupy Arasaka's place." I said easily.
" Yes, but... I thought the plan was to do it slowly," Lucy said, surprised. I shook my head.
"That wouldn't work; it would give the other Corps time to fill the void, and more importantly, the longer we delay, the more deaths there will be, so we have to occupy Arasaka's space almost instantly."
"The best part is that the other corporations will be so focused on Arasaka, so concentrated on its destruction and how to profit from it, that they'll ignore ordinary people, civilians. This will allow us to move quickly to fill those gaps before they even notice."
"People will start relying on us faster than the corporations realize, and when people see that our services are better than Arasaka's and cheaper, their opinion of us will change immediately," I said playfully. Lucy just blinked before sighing in relief, and a weight seemed to lift from her shoulders.
"I... thank you, you really thought of everything," Lucy said gratefully, and I sighed.
"Not even close. I had to consult with Lucius about several things. World domination and scheming aren't my strong suit," I said curtly. Lucy just smiled and shook her head.
"Even so, it's more than I had thought," Lucy said with a small smile.
"Yeah, well, it wasn't too difficult. It was more annoying cleaning the ocean of those self-replicating mines from Arasaka," I said dryly. Lucy snorted mockingly.
"Really, there's nothing Arasaka touches that she doesn't ruin." Lucy said mockingly, and I nodded amusedly.
I could really see the idea behind it… broadly speaking, they were at war and all that, but… Arasaka had spawned its own Faro Plague. I mean, in Horizon, it was an artificial intelligence within a swarm of self-replicating rogue war machines that went out of control.
Here, it was just mine. Arasaka had created self-replicating mines guided by artificial intelligence to sink all NUSA and Militech ships. Still, the AI, as intelligent as it was, had concluded that any ship, including Arasaka's or any ally's, could actually be enemy ships in disguise, so the AI simply began sinking all ships and vessels in the ocean, practically killing maritime trade.
Ted Faro in Horizon was the worst piece of shit I've ever encountered in any video game or series. I mean, he created a plague of robots that destroyed the world. Then he erased Apollo, all of humanity's knowledge, simply because the piece of shit didn't want the new humanity to remember him as the cause of the old world's apocalypse.
And this world had tons of people like him. Yeah, this world sucked.
So yes, to launch POSEIDON, we first had to disable the pesky AI, which was easy enough. GLaDOS activated MINERVA, and with both of them working simultaneously, it took them a couple of weeks, within a time bubble, to find a way to disable the AI.
And then we just created new underwater machinery to dismantle and reuse the material from numerous ocean mines. So… free materials from Arasaka, that was something.
I mean, the Scrappers were a good starting point, and they were already involved in major productions. If I thought the Night City landfill was horrible, an affront to nature, it's because I hadn't seen the rest of the world. The amount of garbage there was staggering.
Honestly, sometimes I didn't know what kind of future this world was heading towards, or if it would end up like Horizon because of its own idiocy and the destruction of all life, or if it would end up with the planet full of garbage and toxins like in WALL-E.
So yes, the Scrappers were a huge, huge production need, almost urgent.
"Fortunately, Arasaka only focused on cyberware, weapons, and general manufacturing; it wasn't as involved in medicine, so we don't have to take over any medical divisions or medical services like Trauma Team."
"It would be difficult to find the capacity to serve hundreds of thousands of people from one moment to the next," I said with a grimace.
"I'm still trying to create an AI for that," GLaDOS grumbled. "There are problems with the algorithms for medical procedures. I could design it for basic and moderately complex treatments, but anything advanced, especially the correct placement of Cyberware, is proving to be a real pain to create." GLaDOS sighed.
"Don't worry, we're in no hurry," I said, shrugging. "Now... the fun part." I smiled mischievously. "Spending Arasaka's money." Lucy's eyes sparkled with excitement.
Oh, unlike creating thousands of underground Cauldrons, where no one would see us, we couldn't do the same with infrastructure in cities. Buildings appearing out of nowhere would be too suspicious. Even if we made prefabricated structures, like transportable buildings, and then used drones to deploy them in cities, there would be several problems.
So, the easiest way to solve everything? Use Arasaka's newly acquired wealth to buy countless properties worldwide. We had total control of the Arasaka network, including the Arasaka Bank, so we had access to the bank accounts of all the most important people in Arasaka, billions of Eurodollars and other currencies, especially the New Yen.
The great thing about a world so interconnected is that most property contracts could be bought and signed online with a simple transfer. So, in just a few minutes, she owned thousands of properties around the world, which Aperture Science would soon use to supply the local population with whatever Arasaka was currently manufacturing.
Lucy was having a great time spending Arasaka's money left and right, while I was looking over Becca's head as she fought Smasher.