Clang—clang—clang.
The commemorative coin bounced across the tabletop before finally settling.
Solomon Reed stared fixedly at the "President Rosalind Myers Commemorative Coin."
It was the token that reactivated him as a sleeper agent—and the embodiment of his entire life.
"A dog whistle," Kurt Hansen said, gesturing toward the coin. "That's what Myers called the trigger to activate you. You know how many of these coins there are? A whole drawer full. I just pulled it open and those worthless trinkets spilled all over the floor."
Solomon Reed's pupils contracted sharply.
He knew Hansen was exaggerating.
He knew Hansen was deliberately provoking him.
But he also knew that even if it wasn't that exaggerated, it still worked.
His voice dropped.
"So you've defected to the new President?"
"Defected?" Kurt Hansen sneered. "I was always regular NUSA military. It's just that NUSA didn't want me anymore."
"At the time, it was only due to circumstances—"
"I know," Hansen cut in. "Which is why the moment NUSA wanted to reactivate me, I went running right back. Reed, we're quite alike in that regard, aren't we?"
"No," Reed shook his head. "I serve the country. You serve your own interests."
"If the country protects my interests, I don't need personal ones," Hansen leaned back in his chair.
"But if it doesn't—then I'll take them myself."
"You're right, Reed. We're not alike. We were both discarded pieces—but you'll be thrown away again and again. I only needed to be discarded once."
Reed snorted.
"You really trust the new President that much?"
Hansen smiled.
"No. I trust V."
Reed froze, unable to respond.
The Dogtown boss grinned wider.
"Know the biggest difference between us? I know how to choose my master. And if I don't have one—I become one. You, on the other hand, can't survive without one."
"So Meredith Stout really was pushed into office by V?"
"Exactly. She's politically inexperienced, sure—but she's young, and she can learn. Being President isn't some highly specialized discipline anyway. There's an old saying: throw a bunch of dogs into the Oval Office, dump a pile of documents in there, and policy will still get decided by paw prints."
"National will is just the will of a handful of people. You and I both know how unreliable they are."
"As for V meddling in NUSA politics—come on, that's a good thing. You've seen what Night City has become. Don't you want NUSA—your homeland—to be the same?"
"You've analyzed V. You know she pushes technological dividends down to the lower classes. It's radical—anyone else would've died eight hundred times over. But V's personal combat capability is unprecedented."
"She's reshaping the world with her own hands. A modern Prometheus, stealing fire from the gods."
Reed let out a long sigh.
"What exactly did the new President promise you, to make you talk this hard?"
"My family," Hansen said quietly. "And the families of the Hounds of Hades."
"Just that?"
"Just that," Hansen mocked. "We never wanted much. Myers wouldn't even give us that."
Reed sighed again.
Now he understood why Myers fell so fast.
Not everyone was like him—placing national interest above everything else. Myers had alienated everyone without realizing it.
"What do you want?" Reed finally asked.
"Myers' dirt."
"You want to end her political career?"
"More precisely—put her in prison for life. She's still plotting. She's the greatest threat to NUSA's stability."
"…Fine. I can hand over some material."
"Not some," Hansen corrected. "Everything."
"No. What I give you is enough to take her down. Anything else leaking would harm NUSA. It's safest with me."
Hansen sneered.
"Don't be naïve. Loyalty is not absolute—absolute loyalty is absolute betrayal."
Silence filled the visiting room.
After a long pause, Solomon Reed sighed for the third time.
"There's a safe in the basement of the Cattleman Diner. Behind the freezer.
Everything I've gathered over the years is there.
Access code: 0931."
Success.
Everyone monitoring the meeting silently celebrated.
"You made the right choice," Hansen said, standing up.
"Wait," Reed called. "When do I get out?"
"When Rosalind Myers enters prison—that's when you walk free."
Hansen stopped at the door, turned, and bowed politely.
"NUSA thanks you for your service."
Solomon Reed had kept secrets for NUSA.
Now he sold secrets—for NUSA.
Two opposite acts, both called "service."
He felt no pride—only irony.
Who should one be loyal to?
What is the right choice?
Patriotism was exhausting.
The greatest agent just wanted to sleep.
He guessed the beginning right—but not the ending.
When he woke, things were indeed different.
But not for Solomon Reed.
For Rosalind Myers.
V quickly obtained the intelligence Reed had safeguarded.
One glance was enough to shock her.
Calling Myers' crimes "numerous" would be an understatement.
Corruption, bribery, selling offices—those were trivial.
The real crimes included:
Assassinating foreign heads of state
Selling nuclear weapons to terrorist organizations
Engineering conflicts and selling arms to both sides
Massacring civilians to seize resources—seven villages erased
Dispatching spies to stage terrorist attacks abroad
Sabotaging undersea oil pipelines, triggering Europe's energy crisis
Developing and spreading bioweapons, causing a global pandemic with over 3 million deaths
Worst of all—
Using Songbird to breach the Blackwall, drilling holes through it to contact rogue AIs and salvage lost technology.
That wasn't human conflict anymore.
That was a potential Human–Machine War.
If the Blackwall fell, humanity would be annihilated.
"…So even the Hangzhou chemical plant explosion was Myers?" Xu Ling blurted out.
"It was," Hansen replied dryly. "But the cleanup decision was Kang Tao's."
Xu Ling nodded.
"All bastards."
Joanne Koch frowned.
"So the pandemic three years ago was Myers? No wonder NUSA's vaccine came out so fast—I thought it was Biotechnica."
Meredith Stout scoffed.
"No wonder terrorists kept getting stronger. That old witch was pulling the strings."
V finally understood why Reed wanted to withhold part of the data.
If this went public, Myers wouldn't just fall—NUSA itself might collapse again.
What V couldn't understand was Reed's loyalty.
Could "for the country" really erase all crimes?
She didn't understand.
She belonged to Night City—a stateless city.
Right was right. Wrong was wrong.
She never wrapped evil in honor.
"Stout," V said. "The datachip is yours. You handle it."
"Fine," Meredith nodded. "This was Militech's mess anyway."
Myers had come from Militech.
Ending her was Militech's business.
"Any requests?" Stout asked. "Like killing her?"
"I'd like to," V smiled. "But unlikely. Let Militech decide. I'm just the echo."
With decisive evidence, things moved fast.
Myers signed the Veterans Benefits Act, raised military welfare, and purchased 1.1 trillion eurodollars worth of Militech weaponry.
Her impeachment was dismissed for "lack of evidence."
At the same time, the White House contacted Night City:
The families of the Hounds of Hades would be returned in three days.
Three days later.
An aircraft marked "NUSA" approached Orbital Air.
Then—
A missile launched from the sea.
V hacked its ICE in 97 milliseconds, redirected it into the ocean.
But one engine was gone.
The plane was falling.
V remotely hijacked an Exotic vehicle from Watson, reached Mach 5 in 3.7 seconds, and replaced the destroyed engine mid-air—while simultaneously taking control of the aircraft.
A water landing.
Everyone survived.
V collapsed.
Later, she learned:
122 severely injured.
22 critical.
The youngest—three years old.
A Cyberpsycho launched the attack. Suicide.
Then Myers spoke publicly—condemning the attack, expressing concern about Night City's safety, advising NUSA citizens not to travel there.
"Fuck," V spat. "That witch did it."
She dialed Militech's CEO.
"I want Rosalind Myers dead. Name your price."