Whoosh!
Running, wind, fire, explosions.
"Huff!"
"Huff, huff!"
The man's mouth gaped open, his trachea burning as he gulped down scalding air.
He was running with everything he had. The rhythm of his breath pulsed through both mouth and nose, his chest beginning to ache with each intake.
The air was thick with tension—as if an endless darkness loomed behind him, with a monstrous claw closing in fast.
His eyes darted back:
He saw flames erupt in the camp marked by a cracked skull-mech spider graffiti—the Maelstrom's insignia.
All around, illegally modded hoverbikes littered the narrow alleys of the dilapidated industrial zone: congested, grimy, chaotic. The air throbbed with a cacophony of heavy metal punk music, roaring machinery, the stench of alcohol-laced conversations, incoherent howls of half-human addicts, and—
Bang bang!! Bang bang bang!!!
From the shadows, tactical helmets adorned with raised crests and glowing crimson visors emerged—grinning demon masks.
Arasaka heavy soldiers.
Their massive M2067 Defenders roared louder than the blaring punk, each muzzle flash cutting through the dusky twilight of the old Northern Industrial Zone's alleys.
Clang! Screeech!
Armor-piercing incendiary rounds struck the walls, sending debris flying. The cheap cyberware of the Maelstrom lunatics offered no more protection than glass—they shattered on impact. Bullets pierced under-skin metal layers, detonating in sparks, blending flesh and machine into pulp.
"F*ck! It's the corp dogs! Ambush!"
"Kill those nutless corp trash!"
"Who the hell brought in Arasaka..."
...
The foul-mouthed rants of the Maelstrom gangsters echoed through the alleyways.
It was easy to tell them apart: exposed cyberware across their bodies, grotesque modifications, garish metallic tattoos—and those maniacs who'd replaced half their skulls with spider-like cyber-eyes. In Night City, you didn't need a second look to know they were Maelstrom.
"Chief Russell's orders: recover the Intelligence Division's lost cargo. Reclaim company property. Any resistance—kill on sight."
Came the cold, machine-like voice of an Arasaka soldier.
Rumble!
He looked up.
An Octant heavy combat drone, emblazoned with the Arasaka clover logo, shrieked through the air. Its rotary cannon spat flame like an intermittent, stretched-out laser, searing the ground.
Several high-end modded hoverbikes were instantly shredded, consumed in fire and smoke.
The world spun.
He was blown off his feet by the shockwave.
After tumbling across the pavement, pain wracked his body. Shrapnel tore into his torso. Blood loss blurred his vision, though his hearing remained sharp. Gunfire of various unidentifiable calibers rang out all around.
Boom!
Just then, a factory's second-floor burglar bars exploded with a piercing screech. Glass shards scattered as fractured concrete and a crumpled old air-conditioning unit tumbled down. From the burning breach, an imposing, dark figure leapt gracefully through the fire.
Like a javelin, she pierced the steel roof of a Maelstrom-modified van.
Screechhhhhh—!
Metal groaned, rivets and weld lines burst into the air. The van tilted violently, the driver's head slamming into the door, the front passenger nearly flung out the window.
From this close, he saw the figure clearly.
A terrifying presence.
Over 1.7 meters tall, fully clad in black armor and fabric, shrouded in a billowing black-and-red cloak. Her shoulder bore the Arasaka clover logo, and her head was encased in a matte-black helmet. From it, a narrow V-shaped visor glowed with an ominous crimson light.
Sharp and slender, her metal-tipped fingers dripped with blood, holding a severed head with torn piping still leaking red and milky-white fluids.
It was the head of a heavily modified man—barely any flesh left.
Vmmm.
Her elongated thermal katana sliced through the air with a crisp metallic clang!
Like cutting butter.
The street-armored Maelstrom-modified van's cockpit was cleanly sliced open. It happened too fast—the blade skimmed past the faces of two screaming Maelstrom lunatics inside.
By the time the Arasaka woman departed, the van had flipped, the cockpit fallen silent, and viscous gore leaked out from the seams.
BOOM——!!!
A massive explosion followed her departure. The people and vehicles behind her were engulfed in fire, their flaming wreckage rolling down the street.
Bang bang bang bang...
A barrage of rockets launched from the smart turret atop an Arasaka AV, raining even more destruction inside the smoke-choked Maelstrom factory.
Dozens of armed thugs burst out, full of bravado, only to be turned to minced meat before they could shout a word.
In a corner, the man struggled to his feet.
And then he saw—
"DIE!"
A hulking brute, even by Maelstrom standards of extreme cyber-modification, roared as he charged the black-armored woman—just as she passed the severed head to a heavy Arasaka soldier.
BOOM!
With a powerful stomp, the brute dashed ten meters in an instant. His synthetic lungs amplified his bellow to the volume of a thunderclap.
In a flash of sparks, the skin along the inner sides of his arms split open from the inside, revealing heat vents. Two scythe-like cyber limbs, still dripping with maintenance fluid, sprang forward like a mantis' strike, aimed straight at the woman.
But she vanished.
Like a phantom, the woman disappeared in an instant. His attack struck only air.
The man in the corner had just enough time to witness it.
Then the woman reappeared.
Still elegant. Still unhurried.
Her back hand held the thermal katana. With the other, she lifted an oversized shotgun—likely a Kang Tao model—and pressed it against the brute's back.
BOOM!
The sheer kinetic force tore through him. Metal and flesh alike were pulverized. In an instant, the brute was obliterated.
Like a water balloon filled with red, white, and gray paint, he burst into a spray of blood and meat pulp.
Rat-tat-tat—!
The slaughter continued.
Arasaka's heavy soldiers weaved a dense web of gunfire with machine guns and shotguns, covering the entire narrow block.
And that woman kept moving.
Gracefully.
Unlike the street thugs, her fighting style resembled a dancer's. Each sword strike, each blow, each dodge was executed with precision. Maelstrom goons were either decapitated, coughing blood and rolling in the streets, or smashed into obstacles, reduced to pulp.
Not a single wasted movement—every dodge was exact by the centimeter. It was like a mutated dance.
A blood-soaked dance of death.
...
Eventually, his view was blocked by an Arasaka heavy soldier conducting a sweep. The dark muzzle filled his entire vision. A flash.
Bang!
A blur of psychedelic mosaic.
"AaaaAAAAHHHHHHHH——!!!"
In a cramped room, on a worn-out old leather couch, a teenage boy let out a scream—a mix of agony and ecstasy. His body tensed, arms raised, legs jerked forward, toes pointed and clenched, his whole body writhing like a fish out of water.
After a while—perhaps after the effects wore off—he removed his vintage braindance headset, flipped upright, and with sparkling eyes shouted, "That was awesome!"
An unprecedented sensory overload coupled with the excruciating pain of death at the moment of dying—
For many in 2074, this was an experience that rivaled, even surpassed, the ultimate highs of any drug or sexbot.
The boy slicked back his dark brown mohawk. Orange-red light flickered in his brown eyes.
As the virtual interface scrolled through content, he let out an amazed gasp.
"This feeling is incredible. Doc, this beats any movie I've ever seen! This Braindance is insane."
Braindance, or Alternative Reality Process, is a type of virtual reality tech that uses implants to record experiences—sight, sound, touch, spatial data, and more.
It's both a popular form of entertainment and a notorious tool for criminal programming and military simulation. It can even be used in psychotherapy. It all depends on how it's used.
Ding-ling.
Ripperdoc: "Of course it is. Credit goes to JK, the guy who edited this masterpiece. He extracted fresh memory data straight from the still-warm brains of two-hour-dead Maelstrom cyberpsychos to make this run."
"Too bad it's not the full version. What you saw was just a Maelstrom grunt on outpost duty who stumbled into the Arasaka assault and got to witness it all as an observer."
"He probably lasted longer than most. JK used him for the teaser cut."
"Last night up in North Watson Industrial Zone was pure chaos. The real gold is in the memories of those maniacs who actually fought Arasaka's war machines. If JK cuts those into Braindance... that'll be the real high. But the price would be a whole different story."
"Arasaka, huh..."
At the mention of Arasaka, the boy's mood instantly sank, his tone wistful.
"Are they really that strong? That... good?"
He recalled the Braindance scenes—those heavily armed Arasaka heavy soldiers, and that Arasaka female commander who treated the cyberpsycho Maelstrom goons like trash.
Ripperdoc: "Pfft. Who doesn't know Arasaka's strong? Number one megacorp in Night City. The 'Emperor Above All' lording over us little people. As for 'good'... heh, depends how you define it."
"Come on, David. Isn't Mrs. Martinez trying to get you into Arasaka Academy? Even bought you a Braindance headset to help with your studies—and here you are using it for extracurricular thrills."
"Yeah."
Ignoring the doc's teasing, the mohawked teen—David—slumped back onto the couch, eyes wandering as he stared at the worn ceiling.
"But I don't like the way they looked at me. During enrollment, it was obvious—they looked down on me. So why should I even bother trying to fit in?"
Ripperdoc: "Heh... that's the path to becoming a corporate dog..."
Clunk!
The light switched on.
"David!"
"Uwah!"
He hurriedly cut off the call. Looking nervously toward the door, David saw a red-haired woman in a yellow uniform glaring at him from the doorway.
"Mom," he mumbled, lowering his head.
"I didn't buy you that Braindance headset so you could entertain yourself with it."
David Martinez's mother, Gloria Martinez, stepped inside—her gait tired, but her mood clearly stirred. Seeing her son still not wearing the Arasaka Academy uniform, she sighed and couldn't help but start scolding him.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Sorry, Mom..."
"Forget apologies. Show me with actions. Today is the new student entrance ceremony at Arasaka Academy. After an all-night shift, the clinic finally gave me a day off... out of respect for me attending the Arasaka event. So you must become someone who rises to the top."
Setting her handbag down on the coffee table, Gloria fussed over David's appearance, fixing his collar and tidying his hair. She then unwrapped his Arasaka Academy uniform, gesturing expectantly for him to put it on.
"I... Mom..."
David took the uniform his mother handed him, emotions swirling inside.
"Go get changed. Look sharp—we can't be late for the entrance ceremony."
Gloria said gently. After David took the clothes, she turned on the home holo-TV to catch coverage of the Arasaka Academy new student ceremony.
"Good morning, Night City!"
That signature, energetic voice of Stanley, the Night City Radio host, blared out.
An all-too-familiar old friend.
Just as Gloria reached for the remote to switch channels—
"Hey hey hey! Guess how many people cashed in their Dead Lotto tickets yesterday? Thirty? Fifty? A hundred? Try more!"
"Thanks to those overclocked chrome-junkie Maelstrom psychos who thought it was a good idea to jack Arasaka's shipment—yeah, Arasaka's—we saw hundreds go down in the Old Watson Industrial Zone alone! And that's just counting the ones you can scrape together a full corpse from."
"Everyone knows the saying—what is it again? Right: 'New leader, three fires.' Arasaka's Security Division just got a new exec, and Maelstrom picked that exact time to mess with their cargo? That's a slap in the face!"
"Doesn't matter if the cost of retaliation outweighs the loot—Maelstrom got turned into a damn warning sign. Fried like chickens in the name of corporate pride. What a shame!"
...
Gloria wasn't really listening to Stanley's usual chatter, but one line caught her ear:
"Hundreds dead in Old Watson."
David's tuition was steep—her 18-hour workdays barely covered it. But if... if she could scavenge from the wreckage in Watson, in the ruins of what Arasaka just swept clean from Maelstrom territory—
Even if it meant digging through trash, she might be able to earn something.
"Mom."
"Mom?"
"Mom!"
"Ah! David..."
Snapped out of her thoughts, Gloria looked up at David, now dressed in his Arasaka Academy uniform.
She had to admit—clothes make the man. Whatever one said about Arasaka, they knew aesthetics. David looked sharp.
"You were so focused... What were you thinking about, Mom?"
"Nothing, just... thinking how to celebrate with my son after the ceremony."
Gloria didn't want to go further into the topic. She patted David's shoulder.
"Come on. Let me take you to the Academy."
...
2074/6/1, 7:50 AM
Westbrook, Corporate Zone, Apartment 414, Russell Residence.
"Haa~"
After a satisfying purge and a good night's rest, Vela stepped out her door, stretching with a lazy yawn. She rolled her neck with a slight twist and casually made her way toward her AV hangar.
"Destination: Arasaka Academy."