Author: "It's a bit of a spoiler, but I need to correct myself. I thought 'son' could be used for both a son and a daughter when the gender was unclear, but I should have used 'child' instead.
So in the previous chapters, whenever Sora or Judy talk or think about their son, they're actually referring to their child...."
---
The music cut off in an instant, when Hanako—seated at the piano—stilled her hands, which had been gliding over the ivory keys in a stream of soft, crystalline notes.
Silence fell over the room like an invisible command, one Hanako herself voiced with calm authority:
"Everyone… leave."
The bodyguards exchanged tense glances until Oda stepped forward. In any other situation he would have protested, demanded protocols—but after that uncomfortable meeting aboard Space Force One, four years ago...
He merely re-ordered: "Move."
Weapons lowered in unison, ranks broke, and the men began to withdraw, leaving Hanako alone before the three "intruders."
Oda himself led the retreat, and as he passed Sora, the latter curved a frivolous smile across his face—a small nod to the clashes they'd had in the past, a petty attempt at provocation.
But Oda did not return the gesture; on the contrary, he bowed his head with respect and murmured something to his men, who immediately imitated him.
That display of deference, far from pleasing Sora, infuriated him more than any insult. To him, nothing was worse than being reduced to his surname—the true one, the one he avoided at all costs. He had shaped his personality and his very character to stand in opposition to it.
As the distaste showed plainly on his face, as though he'd bitten into something sour, Oda walked toward the elevator with a smile as subtle as it was triumphant. As if, for the first time, he had won the battle… against the rebellious Arasaka heir.
At that moment, Lucy crossed paths with Yumeko, who had waited among the last to leave. They embraced tightly.
"What's going on?" Lucy whispered, her voice taut with nerves at the magnitude of the scene.
Yumeko shook her head. "I don't know. She just got a message in the middle of the meeting… and ordered us to come here at once."
Lucy lowered her voice even further, almost a breath: "Then she must have found out about her grandson… that damned Jarvis."
Yumeko's eyes widened in surprise, flicking toward Judy for an instant—who only smiled in response. Then she turned back to Lucy, searching her face for confirmation.
Blushing at the thought of the agreement the three of them had reached, Lucy leaned in toward the one she considered a sister and murmured:
"I'll call you later. I'll tell you everything."
When the last of the bodyguards left and silence fell once more over Embers, Sora finally dared to step forward toward his…
"Mother!? What are you doing here?"
She regarded him calmly before rising to her feet and closing the distance between them, the corners of her lips lifting into a smile—happy, yet elegant—as she replied:
"What do you mean, what am I doing here? Did you really think I wouldn't come after receiving the message confirming my grandson's recovery?"
Opening her arms and drawing him into them, Hanako whispered with quiet pride and a touch of warmth: "I knew you'd make it…"
As his mother's son, "Thank you," Sora accepted her embrace—while hiding the gnawing suspicion that her sudden visit carried more than what she had just admitted. The half-spherical object, draped in black cloth and resting on the piano bench, only sharpened that suspicion.
When the embrace lingered, Sora hesitated. "About your grandson… As Jarvis must have told you… we've found a way. it's safe… but…"
"But what!?" Hanako burst out, sudden alarm in her voice, as though dreading yet another setback.
Sora sighed, searching for words that wouldn't shatter the illusion on his mother's face.
"I know you won't like this, but… we've decided to wait."
Hanako grew unnervingly still.
Forcing Judy to take a step forward, while taking Sora's black, metallic right hand. "It may sound old-fashioned… but we want to marry before the baby is born. And also…"
Under her mother-in-law's piercing gaze, Lucy picked up where Judy left off, her cheeks flushed as she clasped Sora's other hand.
"We want to wait… so that our children can grow up together."
For a moment, Hanako's unshakable mask cracked.
"Don't tell me that after a single night… you too are—"
"No! No, no! That's not what I mean… we did, but I'm not—" Lucy, panicked, turned desperately to Sora for rescue, her eyes screaming: 'What on earth am I saying?'
He couldn't help pressing his lips together at the tenderness radiating from his flustered fiancée. Turning back to his mother, he reproached her with a half-smile: "Don't you think you're the last person who should be shocked about pregnancies after a single night?"
"Hmm." With a disapproving huff, Hanako ignored her son, turning instead to her future daughters-in-law. "So… you want to wait until after the wedding and… Lucy, as well?"
More accustomed to her mother-in-law's intimidating presence, Judy answered firmly, "Yes." Beside her, Lucy nodded, mortified.
Although Hanako didn't want to wait to meet her grandchild—and for personal reasons disliked the idea of postponing the birth any further…
The thought of not one, but two of her son's babies—healthy and chubby—struck her like a sudden flash she couldn't contain. Her features tightened, betraying the serene mask she tried to uphold.
"Mother?" Sora asked, unsettled by the expression he saw for the first time on her usually impassive face, as if she herself didn't know which way to go—whether to cry, smile, or grow angry.
Her discipline and upbringing prevailed, choosing restraint.
"Hmpt." Hanako recovered instantly, slipping back into her usual elegance. "It seems to me… a sensible decision. I only wish for the child to be born healthy. Still—you are young, and you both…" she took Judy's and Lucy's hands with unusual tenderness, "you have a great future ahead of you."
At their mother-in-law's words, Judy and Lucy couldn't help but grow emotional. "Thank you."
Meanwhile, her son rolled his eyes at his mother's manipulative words and let out a snort. "You say that as if I didn't have one…"
Hanako shot him a glare, not forgetting his reckless actions from four years ago. "Terrorist."
"Pseudo, remember?" he shot back quickly, before adding with a smirk, "The WCC's ruling wasn't unanimous."
(Worldwide Consortium of Corporations)
"Shameless."
"Corporate queen bee."
Hanako fell silent, staring at him for what felt like an eternity. The severity in her eyes softened—barely, like the tiniest crack in a marble slab.
"I'm glad to see you again…" Looking at his fiancées, whose hands she still held… "at home."
Sora broke into a smile as he gently squeezed their hands. "Me too, mom."
"Then…" Hanako stepped back from them. "All that's left is to celebrate."
Composing herself once more like an Arasaka, she lit the glowing ring around her iris with an artificial flash. The gesture lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough. At once, the side doors of the restaurant swung open and a dozen waiters marched in unison.
Their discipline was flawless. Silver trays lifted in a precise choreography, overflowing with delicate dishes, composing a true symphony of luxury.
Everyone knew Hanako Arasaka had reserved Embers exclusively for that night. Even so, they seemed to hold their breath at the sight of her—radiant in person. Even more when they recognized Judy and Lucy, familiar faces to the people of Night City.
Still, none of them broke the choreography. Their movements flowed with rehearsed elegance… until they saw him.
The gloved hands holding the trays faltered. A couple of glasses clinked too sharply to go unnoticed, betraying the impact of seeing someone no one had expected—despite his return having made headlines the night before.
Even Sora himself was caught off guard by their reaction, as he drew a cigarette from a hidden compartment in his black arm and slipped it between his lips.
Having been away, he wasn't aware of the mark his battle four years ago had left on the people of Night City.
But he couldn't light it…
"Don't smoke before dinner."
His mother plucked the cigarette from his lips and—
"That wasn't necessary..." She snapped it in half before him.
-
Sora sat beside his mother, while Lucy and Judy took the seats across from them, trading knowing glances each time Hanako and her son's remarks clashed in a back-and-forth of irony and veiled reproach.
The table gleamed under Embers' warm light: delicate dishes, crystal-cut glasses, the aroma of oriental spices drifting over the spotless porcelain. And off to the side, on an auxiliary table, rested a hemispherical object draped with a black cloth. Hanako had refused to let it out of her sight, as though its mere presence were indispensable to the evening.
Between a sip of wine and a distracted play with his cutlery, Sora reacted to the day's work of his fiancées:
"So the Peralezes want me to sit through the snooze-fest of their presentation?"
Lucy, with a cautious smile, replied: "They said it's a 'beginning'—a way to mend Night City's past mistakes… and that having our support would be essential to making it work."
"I mean…" Sora raised a brow before adding with brazen ease, "I know more than a few were glad when I was gone… but statues and that kind of theatrical apology? Not my thing."
Hanako lifted a brow, amused by her son's shamelessness, all the while eating with her usual grace.
To Lucy, it was endearing; to Judy—who had lived through that phase—it was exhausting.
"I doubt that's what this is about…" she muttered with a weary gesture.
Sora prodded half-heartedly at the perfect cube of bluefin tuna lacquered with a dark reduction that gleamed under Embers' indirect light. A minimalist masterpiece on white porcelain, framed with green brushstrokes and edible petals.
He exhaled, doubly disappointed. "A wasted opportunity…" Thinking how he'd rather have a greasy burger from Tom's Diner, he added with disinterest: "I'll pass."
"You're going!" Judy exclaimed, stabbing her knife into the elegant cube of tuna she didn't much like either.
He looked up, amused by her reaction. "Not a chance. The whole point of me holding no official position is so I don't have to show up at that kind of thing."
Lucy, unlike the two of them, had the refined palate to enjoy both the first-rate ingredients and the thought poured into such a minimalist dish.
She spoke in a soft tone that didn't sound like an order but a genuine plea: "It seemed important, Sora. You should go."
Her fiancé held her gaze for a few seconds, until— "Fine." he gave in abruptly.
Hanako couldn't help but cover her mouth with the napkin to hide the laugh her son's antics drew from her… especially when Judy shot him a murderous glare.
"You're doing it on purpose, aren't you?" she asked with a smile that wasn't one at all, gripping the knife so tightly the silver creaked.
Sora shrugged, feigning innocence. "Doing what? Caving in only when I'm asked sweetly, instead of being ordered around like she's my boss?"
The remark pulled a nervous laugh from Lucy, while Judy let out a growl, ready to strike back. But before the spark could catch between them, the arrival of a waiter interrupted.
Pushing a silver cart with measured gestures, he cleared the empty plates—and the half-finished ones—and replaced them with delicate desserts and cups of coffee and tea, their warm aroma cutting through the tension still lingering in the air.
No sooner had he served her sencha tea with trembling hands than Hanako took a sip to taste it, giving a slight nod that confirmed its quality—enough to bring color back to the waiter's face.
Yet her son did not miss the fleeting shift of his gaze toward the shrouded capsule resting on the side table. The same capsule his mother kept checking every few minutes.
When the waiter finally withdrew, he disappeared into the kitchen, whose doors shut hermetically behind him. An explicit order from Hanako, to ensure privacy.
Having finished his meal—and with his patience worn thin—Sora was the first to speak. Resting his elbow on the table in bad manners and propping his head with one hand, he leaned toward his mother beside him: "So… are you going to tell us why you're really here?"
Hanako looked at him calmly, her expression unchanged. "I already told you. I wanted to celebrate the recovery of my grand—"
"—Bullshit."
Lucy nearly choked on her matcha tea, turning toward him with scandalized eyes.
"Sora!" she exclaimed, shocked that he would address his mother that way.
Judy, on the other hand, stayed silent, sipping her espresso slowly without taking her eyes off Hanako—sharing his suspicions.
The sudden interruption thickened the air with tension. Hanako's brow furrowed slightly, irritated less by the accusation than by the disrespect. "Don't speak to me that way, Sora."
He matched her icy tone, holding her gaze without blinking. "Stop lying… Hanako. You're hiding something." His eyes shifted toward the covered capsule, and even in the strained atmosphere he couldn't resist landing the obvious punchline: "Literally."
During dinner he had already scanned it across multiple spectrums—and found nothing. His mother wasn't stupid: the fabric covering the semisphere wasn't just elegant cloth; it doubled as a Faraday cage, blocking every attempt at a reading, letting nothing in or out.
Hanako held her silence for a few seconds, weighing her options.
"Knowing Sora, denying it again would only fuel the confrontation. And deep down, what sense was there in keeping it hidden any longer?"
From the moment she set foot in Night City, she had carried a knot in her chest.
When she read Jarvis's report—an analytical summary of the experimental cure, capable of repairing even irreversible cellular damage—her body moved before her mind could catch up. In the blink of an eye, she was already aboard the Blackbird, heading west.
No planning, no second thoughts—she simply went.
The problem came later, mid-flight, when the euphoria bled away. Sitting there, drowned in the engines' roar, she realized just how reckless the impulse had been.
To show up today, unannounced, at the very moment Sora had found a way to bring back his Child—it could only look like an act of selfishness. As if she had come to lay claim, rather than to celebrate with him.
But it wasn't that—she truly was glad... though she needed his help.
Hanako let out a brief sigh before tapping into the restaurant's system, one she had already "ordered" the moment she arrived.
Through the panes of her private interface she confirmed the obvious: the entire staff was tied up in the kitchen or busy attending Oda, Yumeko, and the rest of the escort, serving them the same lavish menu at her command.
With a sharp flick of her fingers, she demonstrated her talent in the Net, reconfiguring the hall's protocols...
The polarity of the windows reversed, dimming in a blink. One by one, the doors gave a magnetic snap as they sealed shut, locking the dining room as tightly as an airlock.
Sora, unfazed, drew another cigarette from the compartment in his arm and lit it with deliberate calm. For an instant, the orange glow caught in his eyes as he watched the blazing silhouette of Night City vanish behind the blackened glass.
At the same time, his mother rose with the same unshaken elegance as always. She walked to the adjacent table and, without hesitation, lifted the semispherical object hidden beneath the dark cloth.
When she returned, her gaze settled on Lucy and Judy. Words weren't necessary; they immediately began clearing plates and glasses, opening space at the center of the table.
Only then, with a care that bordered on ceremonial, Hanako set the object down in the middle and resumed her seat.
She lifted her gaze to Sora. Her voice turned icy, and the chill bled into her eyes, where a dangerous glint flickered—yet it was tinged with a sorrow barely held at bay.
"No one alive knows this… It was a burden I chose to carry alone. Or so I believed—until I read Jarvis's message."
Then she turned to Lucy and Judy, her gravity unbroken, as if her words were meant as much a warning as a confession.
"Not even Musashi knows—the one I trusted with what was dearest to me, dearer even than my own life." Her gaze softened as she lingered on her son. "You."
With that same tenderness, she then, leaned toward the half-sphere. Her fingers traced the fabric in a slow caress before lifting it in a measured pull, as though every fold weighed with years of guilt.
When Sora laid eyes on the portable incubator—its translucent orange glass revealing nothing but a bubbling liquid within—his cigarette slipped from his lips.
All at once, he was no longer in the Ember's dining hall.
He found himself trapped in an old memory, too corrupted to even open in his Cyberspace.
He was staring at a towering figure—a veteran hardened by years and tragedy—seen from within that same kind of orange-glass capsule.
He could still recall how its resemblance to an old liquid Snake had made him laugh. Until a voice—too familiar, and carrying the same tenderness as in the present...
"Wait a little longer, little one; soon you'll be able to come out."
Forced his small eyelids to close, sinking him into a deep sleep.
"Sora, are you okay?" Lucy asked, snatching the cigarette before it could burn through the tablecloth, while Judy watched him with the same concern.
He barely reacted, giving a faint nod as he reclaimed the cigarette and dropped it into his wine glass. Yet the tension in his jaw betrayed him. His voice came sharp, stripped of emotion, as he voiced the likeliest suspicion:
"Twins?"
Hanako shook her head slowly. "Fraternal… her chromosomes are X-X."
The answer struck him with a bitter echo.
'Like my daughter,' Sora thought, before forcing himself to ask the one thing he still needed to know… for now:
"Status?"
Hanako's brow tightened, as if putting it into words were painful.
"Much worse than yours"
Upon hearing his sister's condition, something awakened inside him… literally.
Deep underground, hundreds of hatches opened at once. Thousands of liters of water flooded into the three hidden servers, roaring to life at full power…
And in Sora's Cyberspace, something colossal opened its eyes.
Its sheer magnitude bled into the physical world: the lights at Embers flickered, the background music warped, and Sora's pupils gleamed with a pale blue glow as a swarm of nanobots flooded his eyes, darkening the whites until they became a steely black.
Needing every available resource to bear the strain of awakening his full consciousness, the dormant nanobots—finding no room left in his already saturated body and tattooed skin that also housed them—were redirected to the only place they could remain active without drawing too much attention: weaving themselves into the fibers of his hair.
With a sharp snap, his short ponytail broke free, unleashing a dense mane that spilled down in black strands jutting outward, impossible to tame. Elegant and feral, as if his hair had become a chaotic crown, making him seem something more than human.
The transformation, so overwhelming, was perceived differently by the three at the table.
Judy didn't blink. Her digital reflection—the symbiosis with Cortana that had been growing inside her for four years—reacted at once, unfurling a ring of nanobots across her eyes.
The violet glow tore open another plane: Cyberspace, superimposed upon the physical. There, Sora was neither man nor AI, but something colossal, shifting endlessly in form—at once human, beast, and a fusion of both.
He was bound by three torrents of data coiling around his body, surging upward from deep underground.
For Judy, being the only one able to behold the whole coin—both sides—was something she cherished. As though, no matter how much she shared him with Lucy, that part belonged to her alone…
Enough to let her reach out without fear and stroke his fur, woven from code, despite the distance that separated them in the physical world. As they so often did in his exile.
And, as if that caress carried a soothing power, the colossal figure began to steady. The storm of data rearranged itself until it became a wolf—woven from lines and fragments of code—towering several times her height.
Lucy, on the other hand, felt it an uncanny valley too raw to ignore. The oppressive Sora gave off was unbearably reminiscent of the... things that had once hunted her and her siblings on their forced incursions beyond the Black Wall.
Lucy, on the other hand, felt an uncanny valley too raw to ignore. The oppressive presence her fiancé gave off was unbearably reminiscent of the horrors that had once hunted her and her siblings on their forced incursions beyond the Black Wall.
She had to remind herself, again and again, that he was still the same man who had taken her to the moon. Though a part of her trembled every time he opened his eyes.
And finally… Hanako, seeing for the first time that wild/majestic mane enveloping her son…
Her eyes widened in awe. "Incredible…"
It was the same pressure she had felt aboard the President's Space Force One—but this time focused, controlled… and all the more overwhelming for it. Even though she could perceive only what the physical plane allowed… just half of his true form.
Wasting not a second he didn't have, Sora raised his obsidian arm toward the incubator.
For a fleeting instant, he turned just enough to catch the fear in his fiancée's eyes—still haunted by her terror of AIs.
One of the reasons he disliked waking up.
Without waiting for permission, a dozen fine filaments sprouted from two of his fingers…piercing the incubator's console and emerging inside the bubbling fluid.
From the microlenses set in each filament joint, a pale, pulsing light bloomed as they began their silent scan.
And as she stood beside him in cyberspace, Judy mirrored his gesture.
Seated within the Embers, she extended her hand, and from the small port in her palm unfurled filaments of the same kind—burnished copper in hue. They slid across the seams of the capsule, their violet glow weaving together with the pale blue of his scan.
After a few seconds, as she scanned the first results, Judy's elegant—yet sensual—digital reflection; her naked body sculpted only from violet lines of code, without excess detail but with just enough, had to lift her head to ask.
["What do you think?"]
Having awakened in order to process every shred of information without leaving anything behind, Sora gave his verdict: ["The cellular damage and genetic chain degradation are worse than what we found in our daughter."]
In the Embers, Judy shook her head—being the only one able to perceive how his very voice alone caused ripples of interference across the network, making the lights around them flicker. Meanwhile, her avatar, reaching the same conclusion, replied with a faint: ["Yes…"]
Then, as she pulled her filaments back from the incubator, she added: ["What are you going to tell your mother?"]
Withdrawing his own, he answered coldly: ["The truth."]
Then, when she saw how they released the capsule as if they had just finished an exam, and how her son's intimidating gaze shifted toward her, Hanako asked in a trembling voice, as though each word cost her to speak:
"W-well then… do you think you'll be able… to help your s-sister?"
Staring into those eyes—eyes filled with fear of the answer, yet laced with a fragile hope she had locked away for years just to protect herself, until that unexpected message had overturned everything—Sora had no choice but to reply:
"I don't know if that's even possible."
Hanako froze. Her nails dug into the tablecloth as if she could cling to it to keep herself from falling apart, struggling to hold on to her composure.
Deep down, she had always known—from the very beginning—that it was hopeless. "I-it was foolish to show you… I-I shouldn't have—"
But her son cut through her stammering.
"Even so…" as he swore to Judy, still clutching that empty canister until she cried herself to sleep… he finished: "I'll make it happen."
Although Hanako knew no one could ever guarantee such a thing, the cold determination in her son was enough to move her.
Because having him there, in front of her, with those pale blue eyes that barely hinted at the concern behind their blankness… was already more than she had ever dared to believe possible.
"I'll need genetic samples from…" Sora, his jaw set, finished: "both progenitors."
"I'm right here—you can do it right away," Hanako replied with too much urgency, as if hoping he would take them from her that very instant, while holding back that uncomfortable liquid clouding her vision, while refusing to let a single tear escape.
Shaking his head, his voice hardened. "That's not the problem. The other progenitor is. All I kept was a silver arm. Remember? I gave you the rest of the body."
Hanako held his gaze, unflinching. "No, it isn't."
Sora narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"
A brief silence thickened the air. Then Hanako let slip a faint smile, a flicker that softened her eyes, managing once more to leave her son bewildered as she said:
"The first stage of our Savegame project is complete—already on its way to Night City as we speak."
-
In the middle of the Pacific… "while they spoke."
A freighter belonging to a second-tier shipping company—despite the imposing seven-hundred-meter length of its flagship—sailed the ocean unnoticed on its way to the North American west coast.
It offered the perfect camouflage to move a single container, hidden in plain sight among the thousands identical to it.
But it also came with its drawbacks… such as the lack of security compared to the ships of Arasaka, Militech, and the other great corporations—the ones pirates wouldn't dare to touch.
Aboard that second-rate flagship, the crew locked in the bridge held their breath as the security monitors showed half a dozen armed figures setting charges on the door before sprinting away.
"EVERYONE…!" the captain—a man in his fifties, his hair already gone to gray, a pair of smart glasses perched on his nose—who, if Sora had seen him, would probably have called him: "Tom."
He barely managed to shout: "DOWN!" before the blast tore through the entrance, the shockwave hurling him against one of the bridge consoles.
Through the smoke and dust, half a dozen pirates burst in, shouting in a rough mix of English and violent Indonesian, knocking the crew down with buttstocks and kicks.
The last to enter—the most heavily augmented leader, despite his rusted arms—emerged under the red emergency lights, holding an old AK-47 upgraded with an onboard computer mounted above the barrel, used to program different types of ammunition.
The captain, wounded and dazed, tried to rise. But before he could utter a word, the pirate leader slammed him in the face with the butt of his gun, sending him crashing back to the floor.
The man crouched over him. He smelled of salt and rust. Yellowed teeth bared, he spoke in broken English:
"Look at me… I am the captain now."
As if what he had just said were nonsense… a deep, calm voice cast doubt on it, so close it seemed to come right from his back:
"No… you're not."
The pirate turned toward the voice, confused, and his smile faltered as the light behind him began to twist and slither through the empty space, revealing a silhouette.
A dark-skinned face hidden beneath a low cap and the hood of a tactical poncho that swallowed the reflections, covering the rest of his body.
Before he could react, the intruder's Mantis Blades sparked red-hot. One swipe was enough to sever the pirate's rusted arms, which fell smoking to the floor. In one fluid motion, the man drew an SMG hidden beneath his poncho and swept the room, cutting down the others with clean, surgical bursts.
As he raised his hand toward the real captain, the latter accepted it gladly, while pressing his wounded head.
"When you all 'invited' yourselves onto my ship off the record… I could smell trouble on you from a mile away…"
"And now?"
The captain looked him over, taking in his augmentations. "I'm glad to the secret that brought you into my ship."
"Heh… well said, old man." Amused, the cyberninja in the cap gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder before turning toward the empty space of the bridge.
With a snap, he opened a channel. ["Esme, how's it going in the engine room?"]
Deep within the ship, in the shadows between the machinery, the eyes of a white rabbit mask glowed a toxic green as a sweet voice responded: ["Starting… and finishing."]
Her feminine silhouette emerged from the steam rising off the pipes and engine remnants, wrapped in an identical poncho, revealing herself to both the detained crew and their oppressors: a dozen pirates, all heavily augmented with old, rusted cyberware, just like their weapons.
They all stared, bewildered, as the outline of her mask lit up, locking eyes on them. Then, with a slow, deliberate movement, she extended her hand in a theatrical gesture—ending with a pistol formed by her fingers aimed at her own head.
When she pulled the metaphorical trigger, the imaginary bullet turned the phosphorescent eyes of her mask into glowing Xs before they went inert, while the rest of her body remained perfectly still, like a puppet whose strings at the head had been cut off.
The pirates laughed, confused—until the bizarre act lost its humor and became genuinely unsettling, as their implants slipped out of their control.
When the Quickhack—a blend of Suicide and Contagion—released during her "performance," it fully infected their systems, forcing them to replicate the same dramatic movements: bringing their own guns to their heads, pulling the trigger, and collapsing to the floor inert, like the same puppets with all their strings cut
The echo of the shots filled the engine room, followed by a dense silence, leaving only the woman in the rabbit mask standing. She finished with a dramatic bow to her bewildered audience, still splattered with the blood of their oppressors, before disappearing into the shadows.
Her brother in the bridge, shaked his head while reviewing the security cameras. "That girl… grown up twisted"
Then he turned to the last member on the channel. ["Lewis, how's it going with protecting the objective?"]
Outside, above the orderly sea of containers, slicing through a much less orderly ocean amid the storm the pirates were exploiting to board the ship…
["Ready to act when they get near."] The response came from the massive silhouette outlined by raindrops breaking the efficiency of his camouflage, perched on top of the container sea.
Watching the last group of living pirates, who were forcing the crew to open any container that might contain something valuable.
["Go on… don't play with your food,"] his brother replied from the bridge.
["Don't worry, Chancellor, I won't take long. I just want to see their faces."]
The next container the pirate group forced the crew to open was black, from a pharmaceutical company none of them had ever heard of. As it was a front, it existed only on paper and online. It had no headquarters, no laboratories, no subsidiaries.
After breaking it open, the pirates pushed the crew aside and swung the doors open, only to be stunned to find a small hospital inside, filled with machines connected to a capsule at the far end of the container.
Curiosity outweighed caution. The pirates ventured inside, and then they could clearly see the man floating in a bluish liquid.
Long hair, dark beard, and only one arm.
One of them, recognizing it, couldn't help but glance down at the old Samurai T-shirt it wore, incredulous—but short-lived… literally—before something, barely visible, slid into the container and shut the doors, trapping them all inside with him.