New chapter!
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“Hey, hermano, where are we headed?”
Jackie talked almost the entire ride.
That was one of his defining traits.
Whether he was dealing with street punks or legendary fixers, he could use that nonstop mouth of his to make a connection.
Rook had dangled a shot at glory, and Jackie had grabbed it without hesitation.
Now he was leaving El Coyote Cojo with them.
“Afterlife,” Rook told the driver.
“Little China, Watson.”
That also answered Jackie’s question.
“Dios mio.
Afterlife?
That’s the bar for legends.
You’re taking me there?” Jackie’s excitement rose by the second.
“I got a feeling I’m about to make it big.”
Rook looked at the twenty-nine-year-old beside him and smiled.
Even in death, Jackie had never really lost that boyish fire.
He turned and took Lucy’s hand.
“Lucy, contact Maine’s crew.
Tell them to meet me at Afterlife.”
She nodded and called the number Sasha had left the night before.
In the front passenger seat, Jackie lit up even more when he heard Maine’s name.
“Damn.
Rook, who the hell are you?
“Maine?
I beat him up last night.”
Jackie turned around in his seat.
“Choom, you serious?
You hit the gym for a living or what?
Maine’s a solo.
Beating him is no small thing.”
Even Rook started to feel the strain of Jackie’s endless commentary.
The cab wound its way into Watson.
Little China’s cyberpunk streets opened around them, layered with signs, food stalls, foot traffic, and old cultural fragments rebuilt in neon.
By day, Night City looked almost lively.
The gangs came alive after dark.
Daylight belonged to vendors trying to earn just enough to stay afloat.
Inside Afterlife, Rook paid for a private room.
The tiny space cost twenty thousand eddies, enough for a normal person to cover a month of rent.
Once the door closed, he took out Argus.
Strictly speaking, Argus was housed in a pair of gold-rimmed glasses.
The frames were made from nanometal, elegant enough to look decorative until the end of one temple reshaped into a data connector.
Rook plugged it into the room’s wall port.
“Argus, split off a subsystem and enter cyberspace.”
“Of course, Mr.
Mercer.”
The voice filled the room.
Lucy and Jackie both froze.
“Dios mio.
An AI?
That is seriously nova.”
“Hey, Argus, choom, can you play us some music?”
Argus ignored him.
Lucy, on the other hand, was shocked silent.
For any netrunner, a fully mature AI was the dream.
The old Net had collapsed because immature AIs, rogue AIs, and Bartmoss’s legacy had torn it apart.
Too much data and too much expertise had been lost.
In the modern Net, no one could simply create a complete intelligence from scratch.
That was why NetWatch had sealed the worst of the Old Net behind the Blackwall.
Netrunners could only enter the surviving layers through deep dives and isolated local networks.
“Rook,” Lucy said, her eyes fixed on him, “you have a fully mature AI?”
“Of course.”
He unplugged the glasses, put them on, then led her to the sofa and sat beside her.
“Soon, this world is going to change because of me.”
The confidence in his voice reached Lucy.
It also stunned Jackie into silence for once.
Rook smiled at Lucy, then gave another order.
“Argus, scan every electronic device in this room for listening equipment.
Then begin testing the Blackwall carefully.
I want to know how dangerous current cyberspace is.”
“Mr.
Mercer, scan complete.
No listening devices detected.”
Argus’s answer made Rook frown.
Because in that moment, he realized he had misunderstood something important.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter.