Upon landing, Vera flexed the Precision Thermal Katana in her hand and readied the Smart Shotgun suited for alley combat. Her Heavy Ballistic Helmet sealed shut, and her crimson Holographic Tactical Goggles lit up.
Meanwhile, on the other side of time and space.
At the press conference hall of Umbrella Tower in San Francisco.
Surrounded by burly bodyguards in black, Vera, acting as Umbrella's director, stood at the podium with an expression like her father had just died.
Below the stage:
"Director Russell, why did you still choose to destroy nature and our shared home after receiving our joint letter? Do you want our descendants to live in a cold world without greenery or animals?"
"Director Russell, it is said that San Francisco's equal rights organizations are seeking to sue you and Umbrella Corporation over allegations that Umbrella's recent hiring practices constitute racial discrimination. How will you respond?"
"Director Russell, cybernetics and prosthetics—man-made steel replacing the flesh bestowed by God. Do you have nothing to say in response to the church organizations' opposition?"
"Director Russell..."
With every question they asked, the accumulated negative emotions surged forth. On this side of time and space, as though she herself were being interrogated, Vera's breathing beneath her helmet grew heavier and heavier.
"Whew... My self-control still isn't good enough."
Since the 'me' in that other world couldn't vent, then she would do it herself.
'Reasonably and legally.'
"Patrol and purge mission, begin!"
It was time to kill.
Braindance Experience: Arasaka Slaughters Vortex
Running, wind, firelight, explosions.
"Whew!"
"Whew, whew!"
The man's mouth hung open, his windpipe feeling the scorching air he inhaled.
He was running with all his strength, breathing through both mouth and nose until his chest seemed to ache faintly.
A suffocating atmosphere filled the air, as though endless darkness lay behind him, a giant demonic claw constantly closing in.
When he looked back:
He could see flames rising from a camp marked with graffiti of a cracked-skull mechanical spider—the symbol of the Vortex Gang.
Illegal, heavily modified hovercars littered the ground, while cramped, aged, filthy shacks and narrow alleys rang with terrifying sounds.
Manic heavy metal punk music, the roar of machinery, crude drunken chatter, incoherent inhuman howls, and—bang bang!! Bang bang bang!!!
Beneath an Arasaka Samurai Tactical Helmet with protruding fixtures, a Demon Mask with crimson-glowing eyes emerged clearly from the shadows.
Arasaka Heavy Soldiers.
The massive M2067 Defenders in the hands of those corporate killing machines roared louder than the heavy metal punk music. Muzzle flashes flickered, illuminating the narrow old streets and alleys of the Old North Industrial District, which looked especially gloomy in the late evening darkness.
Screeeech—
Armor-piercing incendiary rounds struck the walls, sending shattered stone flying everywhere. The Vortex psychos' cheap external cybernetic attachments were no harder than glass at this moment, exploding on impact. The bullets pierced the electroplated layers beneath their skin, shredding flesh and machinery amid bursts of sparks.
"Fuck! Corporate Dogs! An ambush!"
"Let's fight these ball-less sons of bitches!"
"Who the fuck brought Arasaka here..."
That was the filthy language of Vortex Gang members.
They were easy to identify. Exposed cybernetic implants covering their bodies, horrifying degrees of modification, and gaudy metal tattoos everywhere. Those lunatics who had carved out the flesh and bone beneath their foreheads to replace it with spider-like cybernetic compound eyes—anyone in Night City could tell they were Vortex Gang without even looking twice.
"Supervisor Russell's orders: recover the goods lost by the intelligence department, reclaim corporate assets, and execute anyone suspected of hostility!"
There were also the cold, killing-machine voices of Arasaka soldiers.
Boom!
His gaze followed the sound upward.
An Octant Heavy Combat Drone bearing the Arasaka Clover logo screamed overhead. Amid a piercing shriek, flames burst from its autocannon, sweeping across the ground like elongated, intermittent laser beams.
Several expensive modified hovercars were blasted to pieces, belching black smoke as they exploded.
The world spun.
He was thrown into the air by the blast wave.
After tumbling for a while, his body let out pained groans. Shrapnel had cut into his torso. Blood loss was blurring his vision, though his hearing remained sharp. Gunfire from weapons he couldn't identify rose and fell all around him.
Just then, accompanied by a shrieking sonic boom that split the air, the security window on the second floor of the factory burst open. Glass shards sprayed out, broken chunks of concrete and a twisted old external air-conditioning unit fell, and a tall, dark figure lightly leaped from the blazing second-floor opening.
Like a javelin, she pierced through the steel roof of a Vortex Gang Modified Van.
Screeeech—
Metal twisted with a teeth-grating shriek. Exposed weld marks and fragments of rivets flew high into the air. The vehicle tilted sharply, the driver's head slammed directly against the door, and the passenger nearly flew out the window.
Because he was so close, he saw the newcomer clearly.
A terrifying figure.
She stood over six feet tall, with long legs. Black clothes and black armor wrapped her entire body, covering her tightly. A black cloak with a red lining fluttered behind her, and an Arasaka Clover logo marked her shoulder. Her head was covered by a matte black helmet, upon which narrow V-shaped goggles emitted a chilling crimson glow.
Her sharp, slender, metallic finger guards were stained with blood. In one hand, she carried a head whose tubes had been forcibly torn apart, crimson and milky-white fluids dripping continuously from it.
The head of someone heavily modified, perhaps with barely any flesh left.
The lengthened, straightened Thermal Katana swung. Its ring was crisp as it moved—clang!
It was like cutting butter. The driving compartment of the Vortex Gang's street-armored van was sliced open. Everything happened too fast; the blade passed right across the faces of the two shouting Vortex psychos inside.
When the Arasaka woman left, the vehicle overturned. There was no movement left in the cab, and thick fluid spilled from the gaps in the wreckage.
Bang—!!!
With a violent blast, as that black figure flashed past, the people behind her and their vehicle turned into fire that filled the sky. The wreckage rolled away, trailing sparks.
Bang bang bang bang...
A series of rockets launched from the automated turret of an Arasaka armored hovercar, adding more fire to the smoke-filled Vortex Gang factory.
Several dozen armed men who charged out of the factory with great fanfare did not even finish shouting before the volley blew them into chunks of flesh.
In a corner, the man struggled to get up.
He also saw:
"Die!"
A hulking man, an extreme modification lunatic even among the Vortex Gang, roared. The power of his reinforced synthetic lungs made his voice thunderous as he charged at the black-clad woman who was tossing the head in her hand to an Arasaka Heavy Soldier.
His charged leg stomped the ground, and the hulking man lunged forward ten meters in an instant with astonishing speed.
In a flash, the skin along the insides of both arms tore open from within, revealing heat vents. Two scythe-like limbs, still coated in maintenance fluid, sprang out like springs and stabbed toward the woman like a hunting mantis.
But she vanished.
Like a phantom, the woman disappeared in an instant, and the hulking man's attack missed.
The man in the corner could only see that much.
He had no time to think, because the black-clad woman reappeared in his field of vision.
She remained as elegant as ever, unhurried, holding the Thermal Katana behind her back. In her other hand, she raised a massive shotgun against the hulking man's back. It seemed to be some kind of Kang Tao Zhuo model.
Terrifying kinetic force erupted against the hulking man's body. Metal and flesh alike were pulverized in that instant, and he was torn apart amid a thunderous blast.
Like a water bag filled with red, white, and gray paint, he exploded into blood and minced flesh across the ground.
Rat-a-tat-tat—
The slaughter continued.
Arasaka Heavy Soldiers used machine guns and shotguns to weave a dense net of firepower across the entire narrow street.
That woman continued as well.
She continued elegantly, fighting in a manner completely different from the street kids, with the poise of a dancer.
With perfectly timed swings of her blade, between the rhythms of slashes and punches and kicks, Vortex Gang thugs either lost their heads, rolled around in the street vomiting blood, or were violently smashed into obstacles and turned into piles of mangled flesh.
Her evasive movements never shifted even a centimeter too far, like some altered form of dance.
A bloody dance of slaughter.
In the end, the man's vision was blocked by an inspecting Arasaka Heavy Soldier. Something dark filled his entire sight. Firelight flashed, bang!
A kaleidoscope of colors.
"AAAAAAAAAHHHH—!"
In a small room, on an old sofa with peeling leather, the teenager let out a cry that could have been agony or bliss. His body stiffened, both hands raised high, his legs involuntarily leaned forward, his toes tensed as he pushed backward. His entire body thrashed like a fish out of water.
After a long while, perhaps once the aftereffects had passed, the teenager took off the old-fashioned Braindance Headband and sprang up with a look of amazement. His eyes shone as he exclaimed, "Awesome!"
The unprecedented sensory impact and the intense pain at the end of the experiencer's life erupted at once. For many people in 2074, it was a peak sensory experience comparable to, or even beyond, anything drugs or sex dolls could provide.
The teenager ran a hand through his dark brown mohawk, orange-red light flashing repeatedly in his brown eyes.
As the contents of the built-in virtual dialogue box scrolled, he let out an astonished sound.
"This feeling is incredible. Doc, this is way better than watching any movie! Your Braindance is insane."
Braindance, or the "Alternative Reality Process," was a virtual reality technology that used devices implanted in the human body to record experiential fragments containing images, sounds, sensations, spatial information, and more.
It was both a popular form of entertainment and an aversion-programming technique used for crime and military simulation. It could even be used as a psychotherapy tool. How it was used depended entirely on the user.
Ring ring.
The Cybernetic Doctor said, "Of course. The real genius is JK, who edited this masterpiece. This Braindance was made from fresh memories extracted from the fresh brain matter of a Vortex Gang modification freak who'd only been dead for two hours."
"Unfortunately, it isn't the full version. What you watched was only a Vortex Gang grunt on sentry duty who fled after discovering Arasaka's forces, then accidentally witnessed all this from an observer's perspective."
"He was probably the grunt who survived the longest. JK used him as a promotional experience trailer."
"Watson North Industrial Zone was lively as hell last night. The truly badass ones were those real lunatics who fought Arasaka's war machines. If the memories in their minds were edited into Braindances, that would be the real thrill. But the price would be a different matter."
"Arasaka..." At the mention of Arasaka, the teenager's mood immediately sank, and he became deeply melancholy.
"Are they really that powerful? That good?"
He thought of the fully armed Arasaka Heavy Soldiers in the Braindance, and the Arasaka female commander who treated the Vortex Gang's modified lunatics like chickens and dogs.
The Cybernetic Doctor said, "Pfft, who doesn't know Arasaka is powerful? Night City's number-one megacorporation, the 'Supreme Emperor' above the heads of ordinary people like us. But whether they're good... heh, that depends on how you see it."
"Say, David Kid, isn't Mrs. Martinez sending you to the academy in Arasaka Tower? She even bought you a Braindance Headband specifically for studying, yet here you are using it for this extracurricular stuff first."
"Yeah."
Before you continue