The Voodoo Boys' data fortress glowed eerily around them, the digital void alive with pulsing blue light.
"That's everything," Brigitte said as V returned to the center of the fortress. "Now, we head for the Blackwall."
She extended her hand, and the glowing blue nodes around them suddenly stretched into long, fast-moving lines. As they hurtled through cyberspace, countless abstract and bizarre blue structures zipped by.
"What was that place just now?" V asked, her eyes lingering on the last building they'd passed. It was unlike the others—red, sinister, and factory-like.
"You mean the Hell Factory?" Brigitte replied, recognizing the reference instantly.
V nodded. The blood-red fortress stood out like a wound among the usual blue structures of the net.
"No one really knows what it is," Brigitte admitted. "It appeared a few years ago, and no hacker who's entered it has come back alive."
"Not even your people?"
"One did return," Brigitte said grimly. "But he brought back a cyber virus that infected and killed half his team. He never went near it again."
Their journey slowed.
"Alright, we're here."
Before them stood the Blackwall—massive, ever-shifting threads of crimson stretching infinitely into the dark sky. The 'ground' beneath shimmered with countless tiny red lights, pulsing rhythmically like a machine's breath.
"This is the Blackwall—the last line between order and chaos," Brigitte said solemnly. "Now, you take Johnny's engram through. Alt awaits beyond."
"You're not coming?"
"We can't pass through. That's why we need you."
V sighed. "Figures I don't have a choice."
She reached toward the wall. Nothing happened at first—but then, the world twisted, and suddenly the lines were behind her.
She was through.
---
Above her, the sky was a swirling void of red and black, broken only by flashes of white light. The silence was heavy, cold, suffocating.
"This... is outside the Blackwall?" V whispered, voice trembling slightly.
"Alt?" she called, then louder, "Alt?!"
A shape materialized from the clouds, a red-tinged figure with a familiar voice.
"Johnny?" the voice questioned. "You shouldn't be here."
Suddenly—whoosh!—V was yanked back inside the Blackwall.
The scene now held Brigitte and several other Voodoo Boys hackers, their avatars pulsing nervously.
"Alt Cunningham!" Brigitte's voice held rare urgency. "Netwatch has found us!"
Alt's holographic figure waved her hand dismissively. "They cannot control me."
But she underestimated their reach.
Out of nowhere, several piercing blue beams rained from above, impaling the Voodoo Boys where they stood. Screams echoed through the void, their avatars dissolving into sparks.
Only V was left standing.
Snap!
In the next instant, she and Johnny were pulled back into their own bodies within the fortress.
---
"Alt, it really is you," Johnny said, looking at the shimmering AI before him. "What the hell just happened? Why were they attacked?"
"Netwatch," Alt answered. "They traced you. Someone installed a tracker in your body."
"I already knew that," V cut in. "But will they find you?"
"No," Alt said calmly. "The subnet has been purged. They won't locate me again. I recognized Johnny's soul imprint. Why did you come looking for me?"
"She's V," Johnny said, nodding toward V. "She needs your help."
"The Johnny consciousness in this chip is slowly corroding my nervous system," V explained. "I need your help to separate us—before it's too late."
Alt was unmoved. "And what does that have to do with me?"
Johnny stepped forward. "Don't play cold with me. If you hadn't built that damn Soulkiller and handed it to Arasaka, none of this would've happened! You, me, half of Night City's netrunners—dead or fried!"
Alt's voice didn't waver. "Johnny, your death was your own doing. I warned you not to come for me. The Alt Cunningham you tried to save died that day—and it was your recklessness that killed her."
Johnny's face twisted in disbelief.
"If you hadn't yanked out my neural jack, I could've come back. Instead, my consciousness got trapped. You killed me."
V stayed quiet, the words cutting deeper than she'd expected. Even Johnny, always brash, seemed stunned.
"That was an accident," V said. "I saw his memories. He didn't mean to—"
"What you saw wasn't a complete memory," Alt replied. "Current tech can't recreate exact memories—only projections of subjective consciousness. He's forgotten many details. What you saw was a beautified truth."
V asked quietly, "Then what are you now?"
"A digital imprint. A consciousness converted into data."
"So… you're an AI," Johnny sneered. "Just like the ones you used to warn us about."
"And you still think arguing with a dead woman-turned-AI is a good use of time?" V snapped. "Is bickering really that fulfilling?"
She turned back to Alt. "I don't care about your history with Johnny. But is there any way to fix me?"
"Not now," Alt replied. "My current intelligence is limited. If I had more processing power, more resources, perhaps..."
"Mikoshi," Johnny cut in. "You could do it if you re-enter Mikoshi, right?"
"If I returned to Mikoshi, it would cease to exist," Alt said. "But with enough data, I could deconstruct and rebuild your consciousness, then reintegrate it into a physical body."
"So it is possible?" V asked.
"In terms of results—yes."
"But what do you mean by 'in terms of results'?"
"Your consciousness would become a data construct. A backup would remain in Cyber Space. But it would lack a soul."
"What happens if I don't have a soul?"
"I don't know," Alt said honestly. "Our understanding is incomplete."
Johnny shrugged. "Doesn't matter. It means she gets to live. That's enough."
"Then it's settled," he added. "We help you into Mikoshi. You help her survive."
Alt paused. "Agreed."
Johnny turned to V. "She'll contact you later. Give us a moment."
Alt transferred a secure digital contact into V's interface. "This is my BBS. Reach me here."
Poof.
In the next instant, V was booted from cyberspace.
---
SPLASH.
V sat up in the icy bath, gasping and coughing violently, water cascading off her face. The connection was broken.
Johnny's voice echoed beside her. "Time to go, hothead."
"That was fast," V said, still dazed. "Felt like seconds."
"Consciousness works differently in the net. A full conversation there passes in a blink out here."
He glanced around. Most of the hackers from earlier were now motionless, their minds fried from the Netwatch ambush.
"Guess Netwatch isn't completely incompetent," Johnny muttered.
V stood, shaking water from her hair. "Let's get the hell out of this place."
---
Elsewhere – The Edge of the Blackwall
Far from V and Johnny, AI Alt lingered at the threshold of the Blackwall, her form glowing with digital crimson.
"You are strange," she said, observing a new figure that appeared from the digital haze—a humanoid being cloaked in flickering black light.
Alt tried to scan it—but even with her processing power, the being gave off no readable data.
"You, alive, were the strongest hacker in Night City," the figure said in a jagged, metallic voice. "Now dead, you are a demigod among AI."
"Alt Cunningham. It's an honor."
Alt's gaze narrowed. "Who are you?"
"Just a shadow. But one day, we will meet again."
With that, the figure vanished.
Alt turned her gaze toward the distance—toward the writhing, blood-red Hell Factory slowly moving toward a lone data fortress.
The battle between AIs, it seemed, was only beginning.
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