Chapter 134: AIs in the City
Joric's commentary about "post-mortem debt service" and "cyber-idol debut" cut through the air like a cold current, freezing the atmosphere outside the manufactorum solid.
After the initial shock, a complex mix of emotions played across the crew's faces—disbelief, confusion, and a profound realization of the grim choice David faced.
Rebecca grimaced, muttering something between awe and a curse. "Whoa... debuting as an idol to pay off debt? That's... wild." Her green cyber-eye swept over David's pale face, conveying a sense of 'You've got guts, kid.'
Pilar blinked, rubbing his chin with long mechanical fingers, seemingly trying to picture David in idol attire. His face twisted into a weird mix of sympathy and 'This is gonna be a show.'
Glen, the ripperdoc, stood frozen, his Adam's apple bobbing nervously. Joric's conditions were a hammer blow—smashing open the door to the technology he craved, but revealing the thorn-covered path beyond. Freedom, dignity, a contract that bound even beyond death—these words buzzed in his head. Desire and fear warred on his face. He stared at Joric, then at the floating list of knowledge, his clenched fists white-knuckled.
Maine crossed his massive arms, unconsciously tapping his armor. He'd seen cruelty, but Joric's precise quantification of a human life, extending even past death, chilled him. He looked at David—the boy he'd pulled from the wreck, now standing at a crossroads. Dorio placed a hand on his arm, and they exchanged a silent look. Here, before the "Boss," there was little they could do.
In the shadows, Lucy tightened her arms around herself. At the mention of "Rogue AI," she had imperceptibly tensed. Now, hearing Joric detail the debt recovery, a flicker of wariness crossed her usually detached eyes. It wasn't just for David; it seemed to touch upon memories she preferred to keep buried. She took a half-step back, fading deeper into the dark.
David stood in the center of their gaze, feeling the ground tilting beneath him.
Both choices Joric offered led into an unknown abyss.
Capture a Rogue AI? That sounded like a legend from the encrypted archives of Arasaka Academy. Those entities, the "dragons" roaming the ruins of the Old Net, were things even top corps feared. For him to capture one was suicide.
The other choice—become an apprentice, trade two hundred years of freedom for his mother's life. One year to master knowledge even Glen feared. Failure meant becoming a... "healing-type cyber-idol."
The prospect was absurd enough to be laughable, yet too real to be funny. He could almost see himself, modified into a female form, wearing ridiculous stage clothes, forcing a smile while knowing he was just a debt-bound mechanical puppet.
His gaze drifted involuntarily toward the room where his mother lay. Gloria was still there, sustained by drugs and crude machinery. Every breath was painful, and the future medical costs were a bottomless pit. Maine's crew had already done too much; he couldn't ask for more.
Since he chose to shoulder the responsibility, now was the time to pay the price.
The few seconds of silence felt like an eternity to David. He took a deep breath, suppressing the tremor in his voice, and looked up into the crimson optical lenses. "I choose the second path. I will be your apprentice. Please teach me."
He avoided the complex looks from Maine and the others, ignored the mix of pity and disbelief on Glen's face. He had no other choice.
Joric's massive form remained motionless, but the heavy atmosphere seemed to lighten a fraction. He was unsurprised—whichever path David chose, he was merely a different observation sample.
"Not a particularly wise choice, though for you, it is... acceptable," Joric's synthesized voice was steady, then paused subtly. "In fact, the path of capturing a Rogue AI... is not as unreachable as you might think."
This immediately grabbed everyone's attention. The three hackers looked up in unison.
"You think I speak of fantasy?" Joric continued, his tone stating facts. "Within the shadows of Night City, there roam no fewer than three suitable targets."
He did not mention the ancient entities lurking behind powerful factions or deep in the databanks he had found while scanning beyond the Blackwall—like the accountant AI "Accent" within Biotechnica, or the entity controlling the Colorado military base, let alone the gestalt consciousness "Boundless" in the Antarctic net-space.
In Joric's assessment, Maine's crew had zero chance against those.
But he was offering a different, more practical list.
"For example, beneath Dogtown," his lens flashed red. "Deep in Kurt Hansen's territory, lies a legacy of the NUSA's 'Project Cynosure'. There, sealed away, is a Rogue AI, a remnant of that project. The target is clear, the environment relatively contained. Acquisition difficulty is manageable... provided you can handle Hansen and his troops."
"Or, more grounded," he shifted tone. "There is a malfunctioning vending machine in Night City, located at the base of a certain mega-building. It has developed self-awareness. You merely need to find it."
"And another example," Joric threw out a final target relevant to everyone's daily life. "Delamain. That taxi company striving for perfect service has long been occupied by an AI escaped from beyond the Blackwall. The entire fleet are its sensors. While its sub-routines are city-wide, the core might be vulnerable."
The targets he listed were not simple, but compared to legendary names, they sounded... actionable. He deliberately offered choices ranging from military relics to urban infrastructure, as if to say: Look, there is more than one path.
With every example Joric gave, Sasha, Kiwi, and especially Lucy grew paler.
Sasha's fingers hovered over her datapad, the stream stuttering. "A military AI under Dogtown?" Her voice was low, fearful of disturbing something. "Does Hansen know what he's living next to?" As the team's tech specialist, she instinctively assessed the risk—an old AI buried in a military facility wasn't a standard hack. Who knew what defenses were there? Their last trip to an underground base had nearly killed them.
Kiwi adjusted her respirator mask, a faint hiss escaping. "That vending machine..." she mused. "Sounds like a joke, but to hide in the municipal system for so long... its counter-recon capabilities must be non-trivial." Her gaze drifted, imagining the mechanical lifeform lurking in the trash. "As for Delamain... I always thought its service was suspiciously good. So the whole fleet is just its sub-routines?"
(End of Chapter)