He jolted awake from a nightmare.
There had been blaring sirens in the dream, like spikes driving into his chest—followed by a sudden explosion, bursting into fragments and sparks that scattered into nothing.
A stranger's voice cut through the fog.
"Awake now? Then quit pretending."
He opened his eyes in panic. His vision slowly focused, revealing the face of a man standing over him.
"Who are you? Where am I? What is this place?"
He looked around, disoriented, instinctively shifting in place, heart still pounding.
The man just rolled his eyes and turned away, muttering something to himself as he stepped aside.
Only then did he realize this wasn't a sterile lab, but some kind of private room. And he was being watched—by a whole group of people.
Behind his gold-rimmed glasses, his eyes quickly masked the fear with a forced calm.
"Anders Hellman, right?"
A young guy swaggered up and plopped himself casually down in front of him.
"Name's Lucky. One of the people who shot you out of the sky."
Lucky leaned forward, staring straight into Hellman's eyes.
There was terror in those eyes. Deep and immediate.
"This is a secret location. No one knows you're here. Not Arasaka. Not Kang Tao. No one."
"C-Can you be more specific?" Hellman asked shakily, trying to regulate his breathing.
"Does it matter?" Lucky said, flatly. "You're not Arasaka's relic lead designer anymore. And you're not Kang Tao's defector, either. You're just a prisoner."
"Then… what do you want?"
Hellman's voice cracked as he glanced around the room. Everyone else stood silently, arms crossed, cold eyes locked on him. The vibe was unmistakable—this wasn't a negotiation.
"Let's skip the crap."
Lucky pulled out his PDA, twisted it around in his hand, and showed Hellman the screen.
"Pop quiz. What's this?"
Hellman's expression twitched. The guy looked young, maybe even friendly—but every word coming out of his mouth dripped with quiet threat. Hellman felt like a chick in the palm of a predator—just waiting to be crushed.
"R–Relic… that's my design."
Hellman tried to sound confident, but the pressure only mounted.
"Bingo. First answer correct."
Lucky smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. Not even close.
"W–Wait. Were you sent by Saburo Arasaka?"
Hellman's tone was suddenly tight. He looked down at the tiled floor, clutching the hem of his shirt, bitterness on his face.
He had to know. Even if the answer got him killed—it was the only thing that mattered.
"No."
Lucky interlaced his fingers and leaned forward, elbows on knees.
"Second question—what is relic?"
Hellman hesitated. "It's a biochip… used to communicate with the deceased…"
"Don't play dumb."
Lucky's tone shut down the room.
"…Fine. Who are you working for? If your boss is paying better than Kang Tao, I'll give you whatever you want."
"You're confused. This isn't a business deal."
Lucky pulled out his katana and laid it flat against Hellman's shoulder. The edge was barely an inch from his neck.
"Th–Then what do you want?" Hellman's voice wavered.
"All of it. The truth. The specs. The full design. And the real functionality of relic."
Hellman knew then—this wasn't a bluff.
There was no room for lies. This man wasn't negotiating. He was collecting.
"Then tell me what happened. What do you want from relic?"
Lucky didn't answer right away. He turned to Rogue, who sat silently on a nearby couch, watching it all. V handed him a PDA, which he showed Hellman.
"You see this?"
He waved it in front of his face.
"You're saying… relic is in that PDA?" Hellman's brow twitched. "Impossible. It's a biochip. It can't run on a PDA!"
[Hey, dipshit. Your boy Johnny's right here.]
Johnny Silverhand's projection flashed onto the screen, making Hellman jolt.
"Johnny Silverhand. The real deal," Lucky said coolly.
"Johnny? An engram? That's—no, that's not possible!" Hellman leaned back from the chair, shaken. "Where the hell did you get that chip?"
"You made it. You tell me." Lucky snorted. "Whoever stole it from the lab—that's who we got it from."
"You plugged it into a PDA?" Hellman sounded completely lost.
"The container it was in got compromised. The chip's integrity dropped to zero. And yet…" Lucky shrugged. "It works. On this PDA."
Hellman stared at the device like it was some forbidden relic—no pun intended. There was no way it should've functioned at all.
"I knew Saburo's plan was insane, but I didn't think it would come to this…" Hellman mumbled. "This goes against everything I know."
"I want you to figure out how to get Johnny out of the chip." Lucky withdrew the blade and jammed it into the floor beside him. "I know relic has more than one trick."
It could overwrite a host's mind. Essentially—resurrect the dead.
"It's not that simple," Hellman muttered.
As the lead designer, he understood more than anyone the complexity of what was in play. He furrowed his brow, turning the pieces over in his head.
"If this is really happening… then you have a test version of relic."
Test version?
Lucky filed that away. Multiple prototypes weren't unusual—but if this was one of them?
That might explain why Johnny's engram was behaving so… differently.
And Lucky hadn't even told him about the restoration system. That secret was still just between him and Mower.
"What's different about it? The engram data?"
"No. It's not Johnny that makes it special," Hellman said. "Previous versions could only interact with preloaded engrams—"
"Luxury chatbot," Lucky said.
"Exactly. That was its market pitch. A toy for rich people."
He looked at the PDA again, still incredulous. "But this one… it can be implanted into a new host and the engram will activate. When I left Arasaka, this was still in early testing. Saburo Arasaka supervised the project personally."
"Kill the host and replace them with a soul imprint," Lucky said coldly. "What—capitalism wasn't enough? Now we're messing with the soul?"
"That wasn't the point. In the tests, we assumed the body had no neural response," Hellman explained, then added, "In theory, you could bring back the dead—though not in the traditional sense."
"Copy your soul, find a new healthy body, take it over…" Lucky exhaled slowly. "Immortality. For sale?"
"No. It was never meant for public use." Hellman shook his head. "This was Saburo Arasaka's personal project. Yorinobu wouldn't even know about it if he hadn't stolen it."
"Madres…" Jackie muttered from nearby.
T-Bug had already left. The only ones left in the room were Lucky, Mower, V, Jackie, and Rogue.
What they were hearing now was real black-level intel.
"So—is there any way to extract the engram?" Lucky asked. "If we yank it now, we might destroy everything."
"I need to examine it first," Hellman said.
Lucky looked at Rogue, then nodded.
"Alright."
Hellman pulled a cable from his wrist and jacked into the PDA.
His eyes lit up with electric blue as streams of data flew past.
[Never thought I'd get jacked in for once.] Johnny quipped. [So? You trust this clown?]
"Trust?" Lucky raised an eyebrow.
[Think he can help us?] Johnny stared through the cam at Hellman's slicked-back hair, gold glasses, and corporate polish.
"If not, we've got no one else. Let's see."
"Oh my god…"
Hellman suddenly gasped and yanked the cable out, startling everyone.
"What happened?" Lucky asked sharply.
"It's… insane. The chip is nearly destroyed, but the data still runs. This is a miracle."
"Can we remove it or not?" Lucky cut in.
If they could transplant the chip into a fresh body, Johnny could come back. It would be Rogue's call—but if the option was real, the mission was worth it.
"No. The chip's completely shot. Even if you pull it out, it can't be used again."
"So you're useless?"
Lucky narrowed his eyes.
"No, no—listen!" Hellman raised both hands. "Give me a lab. Equipment. Staff and funding—I can restart research on relic."
He suddenly brightened.
"Wait! We can go to Kang Tao!"
"Kang Tao?" Lucky laughed darkly. "What, planning to trade relic tech for a desk job? Or maybe tip them off so they can hunt us down?"
"Just hear me out! We can't go back to Arasaka—Yorinobu's in full control now. But Kang Tao would jump at the chance to fund this."
"Sure. Immortality. Who wouldn't want that?" Lucky said. "You might get to be their next lapdog. But we're not dumb enough to get in bed with corpos."
Especially not the kind that chew you up and spit out the bones.
"These are relic schematics. All the core files are here. Some are encrypted, but it's everything." Hellman pulled out a chip and handed it over. "If you want Johnny out, you need me. I'm the only one who understands this tech."
"Doesn't matter," Lucky said, slotting the chip into his PDA. "You're not going anywhere, Mr. Anders Hellman."
"But didn't Takemura say we should call him after finding Hellman?" Jackie asked.
"Takemura?" Lucky turned, rolled his eyes, and scoffed.
"He can go chill somewhere else."
"If he's so loyal to Arasaka, then let him keep looking."
-
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🤖 My Girlfriend's a Cyberpsycho—Who Knew?
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