Chapter 137: Rache Bartmoss
When the off-roader rumbled back into the Badlands bastion, it drew plenty of attention.
Maine, Dorio, Pilar, Kiwi, Sasha, and even the opportunistic Dr. Glen crowded around curiously. Everyone wanted to see what secret lay hidden inside a fridge that Joric had prioritized so highly, forcing David to dig through trash for days.
Joric's immense, imposing figure soon appeared at the manufactorum entrance. His crimson optical lenses swept over the fridge in the truck bed, flickering slightly.
"Bring it inside." His command was concise.
Maine and Falco stepped up, hauling the heavy appliance off the truck together and carefully carrying it into a spacious area within the workshop.
The others followed, surrounding the fridge and Joric, the air thick with anticipation.
Glen pushed to the front, staring at the fridge as if it contained the secret to ascension.
David stood nervously at the very front, awaiting Joric's inspection.
Joric didn't check the fridge immediately. He looked at David, his synthesized voice steady. "Report the retrieval process."
David took a deep breath and recounted clearly how he used the file clues to find the logistics company, asked Lucy to hack the info, located the driver, and finally pinpointed and excavated the fridge from the landfill.
Joric listened quietly, nodding slightly at the end. "Utilized existing resources and information networks. Avoided blind action. Efficiency was low, but strategy was correct. Acceptable for a first independent mission."
It wasn't glowing praise, but David sighed in relief. The mission was done.
Then, Joric's attention returned to the fridge.
Several dexterous mechadendrites extended from his robes, scanning the exterior. The servo-skulls around him projected multi-colored beams, inspecting every corner, especially the seals and lock mechanisms.
"Structural integrity intact. Hermetic seal not critically compromised." Joric murmured, recording data.
Scan complete. Mechadendrites retracted.
All eyes focused on the fridge door, breath held.
Joric extended his right hand, encased in dark-red armor, and gripped the handle.
The cold metal looked like a toy in his grasp.
Without hesitation, he pulled. With a rusty creak of long-neglected hinges, the door opened.
A cold, strange smell drifted out—a mix of preservatives and the faint scent of burnt electronics.
The interior wasn't packed with mysterious items or precious equipment as everyone imagined.
It was mostly empty.
The only object inside was a curled-up, lifeless human body.
It was a male, appearing relatively young, with messy black hair. His skin was an unnatural grey-white from long-term cryo-preservation.
He wore an old-fashioned but visibly specialized black bodysuit, connected to cables and interfaces that had long since gone dead.
His body was twisted, as if he had experienced immense pain or struggle in his final moments.
Most striking were his hands. His fingers were slender, frozen in a rigid posture as if typing on a virtual keyboard.
"Uh... a corpse?" Pilar was the first to speak, disappointment heavy in his voice. "What the hell? All that effort for this? Fifty, a hundred people die in Night City every day. finding a dead netrunner in a fridge is weird, but not exactly a treasure, right?"
Rebecca frowned too. "Yeah, thought it was gonna be loot. Boss, did this guy owe you money or something?"
Maine and Dorio exchanged glances, both confused.
Dr. Glen craned his neck, trying to examine the corpse medically, muttering, "Cryo-preserved state... judging by rigor and skin tone, dead for at least several years... strange, no obvious external trauma..."
While everyone muttered in disappointment, Joric's mechadendrites had already snaked inside, examining the body in detail.
The tentacles scanned the head, spine, and interface ports on the hands with precise, efficient movements, analyzing it like a complex machine.
Moments later, Joric retracted the tentacles.
His crimson lenses swept over the confused crowd. His steady synthesized voice spoke a name that struck like thunder for anyone familiar with the legends of cyberspace.
"Though dead for fifty years, the preservation is adequate. Acceptable."
He looked at the others, speaking casually. "This is Rache Bartmoss."
The manufactorum fell into deathly silence.
"B-Bartmoss?" Kiwi was the first to gasp, her voice trembling through her mask. "The... God of Netrunners? The one who triggered the DataKrash?"
Sasha covered her mouth, eyes wide with disbelief. "Legend says he... he vanished after unleashing the virus that tore the Old Net apart. His body... how is it here?"
Lucy, standing at the back, shuddered imperceptibly.
Bartmoss. The name represented the ultimate legend and taboo for any netrunner who delved deep.
He had single-handedly initiated the era of chaos in the Old Net, and in a way, catalyzed the creation of the Blackwall.
His skill and his madness were equally terrifying.
Maine's expression turned grave. "Bartmoss... the man who supposedly nearly destroyed the global network single-handedly? His body... was hidden in this junk fridge, dumped in a landfill?"
Dr. Glen's jaw dropped. As a ripperdoc, he might not know the deep lore of netrunners, but he knew the weight of the name "Bartmoss."
This wasn't some random street corpse. This was a living legend—or rather, a dead one.
David, though lacking detailed historical knowledge, knew the keywords "Bartmoss" and "DataKrash" from Arasaka Academy's history lessons.
He stared blankly at the seemingly ordinary corpse in the fridge, unable to connect it with the digital demon described in textbooks.
This thin, unimposing man had once plunged the world into electronic panic?
Joric seemed satisfied with the shock the name produced. He continued in his steady tone. "Correct. Bartmoss. The pinnacle creation of the Old Net era, and one of its terminators."
His mechanical finger tapped the fridge casing, a dull thud. "The value of the neural interfaces he used, and the data fragments potentially remaining in his cortex, is imaginable.
"This is a sample containing the ultimate programming logic of the Old Net era. Parsing it will grant me a profound understanding of this world's fragile network architecture."
His crimson lenses turned to the still-shocked David. "You brought back not just a fridge. You brought back a fragment of an era, a legacy that would drive countless corporations and factions to madness. Now, do you understand the true value of your mission?"
David nodded dumbly, his heart pounding violently.
Only now did he realize the seemingly absurd first task Joric gave him involved such a staggering secret.
Joric said no more. He manipulated his mechadendrites to remove Bartmoss's corpse from the fridge with stable, efficient movements, placing it on a prepared metal table radiating cold air.
Next, clearly, would be the deep study and dissection of this legendary remains.
The others in the manufactorum remained immersed in shock and thought.
Looking at the small corpse on the table, they seemed to see the ghost of an era, silently staring back at the chaotic, dangerous cyberpunk world he had helped shape.
David's apprenticeship had begun in a way far exceeding his imagination.
And what ripples Bartmoss's reappearance would bring to Night City, and the world? No one knew.
(End of Chapter)