Cyberpunk - Badland Madman [Cyberpunk 2077]

There was no chime. The elevator door opened, and a dim, red light welcomed him. It was just a simple lobby. At a glance, he noticed a bunch of turrets hidden in the ceiling. But ignoring them, he walked straight.

It was very noisy as the localised data storage devices ran at all times, and all the fans needed to keep them cool. The system was air-gapped, meaning it wasn't connected with the outside world in any way. To access it, one had to use data devices. In simple terms, it was a data fortress.

He walked through that long lobby and eventually stood in front of a giant metal door. Once again, it had a card slot and one for blood. Before he could even say anything, the sounds of mechanical parts unlocking came.

Seconds later, the door opened out with a hiss. The coolant's mist spilled out of the room.

"Wait a sec, this coolant's smell. Fuckers are using my coolant!" Cypher exclaimed.

He didn't wait and stormed inside. The screen inside his helmet allowed him to see everything despite the intense amount of coolant mist. It was a large, circular room with a tall, broad terminal in the middle sticking out of the floor. The hum of machines was loud there.

Directly into his vision, Atlas marked where he needed to slot the datashard. This was also Cypher's first time interacting with a data fortress, and now he understood why some data fortresses on the Old Net were nearly impossible to access.

With a flick, the armor's index finger of his right arm popped a datashard from the tip. He quickly jabbed it into the slot and waited, which was meaningless.

[Access secured. Rudimentary security features, a low-level AI with localised control, altered. Gathering the data now. Retrieving the data now. The hardware read speed is the limiting factor.]

"Not everyone's built like you. How's Sasha doing?"

[She has finished gathering the seeds. Currently, she is taking a bite from organic cheese.]

"Ugh, I want cheese too."

[Intriguing data. Biotechnica appears more reprehensible than even Militech or Arasaka. They weaponize food supplies. As the creator of CHOOH2, they hold an absolute monopoly over global energy licenses. They ruin independent farmers to expand. The world's food supply suffers because crops are diverted to CHOOH2 production instead of consumption.

[Kidnapping, torture, genocide, massacres are widespread, and viruses to kill unlicensed crops. The contract planned for Saul Bright is also here. Their public relations apparatus appears exceptionally effective.]

Cypher sighed. This was just another Tuesday in Night City. All companies were fucked up, no matter where you looked. The only question was how good they were at hiding it.

"Yeah, they're shit. Shocking."

[Extensive human experimentation. The floor above appears to contain a human experimentation laboratory. Cyborgs are referenced.]

"Cyborgs? Shit, you saying there could be people up there locked up for experiments?"

[Negative. No records indicate that. I find it unlikely they would place such a thing here. Human experimentation is conducted strictly on a need-to-know basis. It proceeds rapidly. Failed subjects are discarded.]

"Then let's check it out."

[We can proceed immediately. I have established permanent access to this system. I will maintain my hold and conceal it. This ensures we will always receive updated information on Biotechnica.]

"Great."

Cypher knew what Atlas was and how he'd made him, but the whole hyperspace bit, he didn't understand. He just knew what it was, but not how it fully operated. Hell, he'd never asked where Atlas stored all that data, or how he connected to systems.

As he walked, the door behind him closed. No trace of an intrusion was left behind. He took the same elevator and arrived just one floor above. This time, when the door opened, the light was bright white, like a hospital.

"It's a lab, alright. Why is it empty?"

[They do not have any ongoing experiments.]

Cypher walked deeper into the experiment lab. The lobby was wide, with doors on the side here and there. Each door was marked, and he checked them all one by one. At first, all he found were office rooms, but then he entered a storage room.

"Holy fuck!"

There were glass tubes in rows and columns with space in the middle. Each tube was filled with a human body that couldn't really be called human. Limbs missing, cyber implant interfaces surgically inserted, and so much more. Some didn't even look like humans.

[They are all deceased.]

Cypher just nodded and got out of that room. He'd seen things since he had woken up, but nothing like this.

"What are they experimenting here?"

[To find a way to push the human body's cyberpsychosis threshold.]

Cypher moved into the next room and found Ripperdoc benches. In others, he found actual operating theaters; another held machine equipment. Then, eventually, he reached the end of the corridor and read the name on the last door.

"Nursery?"

The name on the door felt out of place there. So, he stepped forward and let the door slide open.

What the…

The room wasn't big, dimly lit with blue lights, but it was decorated like an actual child's nursery. The floor was covered in colorful mats, and the walls were painted with cartoons, rainbows, and animals. Toys were everywhere, and there was also a plastic slide.

"Atlas, what the fuck am I looking at?"

[I believe this is the project Butterfly. It was referenced once. An attempt to condition a child's body from an early age to tolerate greater cyberware integration. The objective was to produce an extreme FBC by adulthood. However, the file states the experiment was terminated due to an unusually high fatality rate.]

"So they haven't cleaned the roo…"

Cypher stopped talking in the helmet as something caught his eye on the other end of the room. There was a large box to store toys, and all of a sudden, a toy had fallen out of the pile it was sitting on.

And then he saw it.

Cypher used the armor's features and zoomed his view. There was definitely hair behind the box.

"Come out." He said loudly. "I can see you. Pink hai—A kid?"

More than hair, half a face peeked from behind the large box. The face was undeniably that of a child, a girl. Three or four years old at best.

Click!

Mechanical sounds came. But they weren't caused by Cypher's suit. No, it came from the little girl as she slowly came out.

Cypher swallowed his breath and suddenly fell backwards on his back. "What the… What… What is this… Atlas. What is this?"

In absolute horror, Cypher watched as the little girl emerged from hiding, but as her entire face came into view, the truth was revealed. The other side of her entire face was just exposed, all metallic cyberware. Synthetic muscles here and there, and even the eyelid was missing from the cyberware optics. That side of her skull didn't have hair either.

"No, no… Atlas! What did they do to her?"

Cypher couldn't bring himself to stand again as he just watched. The girl's right arm was bare-bones cyberware, kept that way due to the need for constant size upgrades to suit body growth.

Click! Clink!

But that wasn't even the worst part. Her entire lower half from the waist was missing. She had no legs. In their place was a metal shielding filled with nerve sockets to add leg cyberware later. At the moment, the little girl dragged herself with her arms towards him.

"Just like me?"

The girl's voice was soft and unsure. There was no fear. She dragged herself all the way until she was right in front of Cypher, who sat in his hulking armor.

Under the visor, Cypher's eyes burned with a vengeful disgust. The horror in front of him was manmade, and most certainly not by the girl's choice. He couldn't help looking around at the nursery and then at her. How she didn't even fit there.

[Her name is Jane White, four years old. She was reported missing three years ago. The data has been wiped, but from what I gathered, she was bought by Biotechnica from Scavs.]

For a very long moment of silence, Cypher silently looked at the little girl as she did the same. Her cyberware eye showed no emotions, but the other was still human. Her curiosity, her excitement, he could see it.

[Biotechnica has a list of children with greater cyberware tolerance. Lucas' name is on the list.]

"Why is this one left alone here?"

[She is scheduled for termination next week. She is dying, Cypher. Hence, a failed experiment.]

Hiss~!

Cypher removed his faceplate and looked at the girl. She was so tiny, barely any human flesh left on her. The way she blinked without her mechanical eye following the motion looked painful. Three years locked there and experimented on, Cypher couldn't imagine what it must have been like.

"Can we save her?"

[Negative. Her condition has passed the point of recovery. Her body will malfunction, and her remaining biological systems will cease to function.]

"Who are you?"

"A friend," he replied.

The girl smiled, but only half of her face followed. Her innocence was still there despite the hell she lived in.

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Check out Cypher X Judy, Cypher X Rebecca, Hanako Arasaka Solo NSFW ART, and advance chapters at [email protected]/MrPlotThickens Or Subscribestar.adult/mrplotthickens

Advance chapters on [PATREON] are in long-form format. I have 10 long chapters of this story on P@treon. That's equal to 35-45 NovelPhoenix chapters.