Later that Night...
The night in Corpo Plaza shimmered, a sterile ballet of neon and chrome that felt a world away from Heywood's grit. Aero cars whispered through the upper echelons, their silent flight a stark contrast to the ground level growl of Night City.
Teo found the Azure Plaza's subterranean garage entrance easily enough, a sleek, almost invisible access point designed to blend seamlessly with the polished obsidian and glass facade above. Two Arasaka security guards, looking less like living chooms and more like polished mannequins in dark combat armor, stood sentinel by the access gate.
Teo slipped into a shadowed alcove across the street, pulling out his tablet and jacked into a outside access panel, running a small breach protocol. His optics immediately overlaid the garage schematics onto his vision, camera feeds, laser grids, a few rumored remote turrets, and the throbbing heartbeat of the garage's local network.
His Zetatech 'Phantom' Cyberdeck humming faintly. He felt the familiar rush of cyberspace, but also a new, inexplicable pressure behind his eyes, a constant hum now sharpening, growing more insistent. Something deep within him, beyond his conscious understanding, stirred, feeling cold and strangely inquisitive.
His target, the garage's basic Netrunner, stationed in a small, reinforced booth near the vehicle bay. Teo initiated his Ghost Breach Protocol, normally a precise, surgical strike. But as his code flowed, a profound, internal shift occurred. Teo felt a strange, unbidden impulse, a sudden surge of cold, ruthless efficiency that wasn't entirely his own.
His ICE Daemon, instead of its usual emerald crow, briefly pulsed with an unnerving crimson light, before snapping back to its intended form. Simultaneously, the quickhack he launched, amplified by this unknown influence, hit the Netrunner with devastating force.
Across the garage, the Arasaka Netrunner let out a high pitched, guttural gasp, quickly stifled. His eyes, fixed on his screen, widened in pure, unadulterated horror as his neural network overloaded. He wasn't frying, he was shutting down. A quickhack Teo would never have chosen, a cold, surgical precision that bypassed pain receptors, seized his motor functions, and flooded his mind with a cacophony of system errors until his consciousness simply ceased to function. The Netrunner slumped forward onto his console, unresponsive, his cyberware silently smoking.
Teo pulled back, his green optics wide with a mixture of confusion and grim satisfaction. That was... aggressive. What was that?. A cold, clarity settled over him, then receded. The faint tremor in his hand, suppressed moments before, now returned with a confused twitch. An inexplicable, almost detached satisfaction vibrated subtly within his neural pathways.
With the Netrunner incapacitated, the garage's physical security systems glitched erratically. Lights flickered violently, comms cut out with a harsh screech, and the remote turrets spun wildly before locking up, their barrels pointing aimlessly. The laser grids pulsed haphazardly, offering brief, unpredictable windows through their usually solid defense.
Teo's brow furrowed. This wasn't standard quickhack behavior. He slipped through the main access gate, the two mannequin like guards still rigidly at attention, their comms now silent save for static. Teo navigated the laser grid, which was currently forming an intermittent, shimmering barrier, and located the custom Rayfield Caliburn. It sat under a spotlight, gleaming obsidian black with a fierce crimson underglow, looking like a predator patiently waiting.
"I don't know what's going, but please keep happening." He muttered as everything seemed to be heading in his favor.
He approached the driver's side. The car's anti theft system engaged, and a holographic projection shimmered above the hood. A miniature, impeccably dressed Marcus Thorne, arms crossed, perpetually grinning. "Greetings, esteemed citizen!" the miniature Thorne chirped, his voice annoyingly cheerful. "This vehicle is secured by 'Thorne's Touch,' an unbreakable bond between man and machine! Any unauthorized access will result in immediate system lockdown and a full security alert!" As he spoke, a network of thin, seemingly innocuous fiber optic cables extended from the car's undercarriage, forming a delicate, shimmering net around it, pulsating with low level electricity.
Teo's optics immediately highlighted the network of fiber optics, but his focus was drawn to the subtle glimmer of a hidden interface port near the passenger side wheel well. He knelt, quickly establishing a wireless bridge with his cyberdeck, jacking into the car's internal network. "This guy an idiot?"
As he initiated his Ghost Breach Protocol, something within him pulsed, not altering his intended hack, but enhancing it with blinding speed and efficiency. He felt an intuitive understanding of the system's weaknesses, bypassing layers of encryption that should have taken minutes, finding a hidden access key he didn't know he possessed. The holographic Thorne flickered, then dissolved with a frustrated electronic whine. The electrical net around the physical car went limp, collapsing into a shimmering puddle on the floor.
"Well, that was... fast," Teo murmured, a faint tremor running through his leg, as if his muscles were still processing the unusual efficiency. He smoothly opened the Caliburn's door, sliding into the plush leather seat. The engine purred to life with a deep, resonant rumble, a counterpoint to the distant, dying screech from the garage comms. He checked the dash, fucking pristine.
"Holy shit." he said sliding his hand round the steering wheel.
He guided the Caliburn out of the garage, past the bewildered Arasaka guards still trying to comprehend the bizarre systems malfunctions, and onto the pristine, wide streets of Corpo Plaza. The drive to Northside was a blur of high speed curves and graceful drifts, the Caliburn a silent, crimson shadow cutting through the city's veins. He felt a low, constant vibration behind his optics, a silent presence that seemed to simply observe.
As he sped through Westbrook's pristine thoroughfares, Teo passed a towering neon billboard advertising a new line of corporate synth sushi. For a split second, the smiling holographic chef on the billboard flickered, his serene smile distorting into a wide, unsettling rictus. His eyes, instead of the usual digital blue, briefly displayed strange, geometric patterns in shades of green and gold, swirling with an uncanny, almost living energy, before snapping back to normal.
Teo blinked, rubbing his optics. 'Just a glitch, gotta be. Happens all the time in this city. Probably some low rent advertising hack.' But a knot of unease tightened in his stomach. 'Or I'm tweaking, nah... just a glitch'
He continued, pushing the Caliburn towards the grittier industrial zones of Watson. A moment later, as he rounded a corner, a faint, almost melodic ping-ping-ping chimed in his Comms, not a call, not an alert, but a short, complex sequence of musical notes that he'd never heard before, utterly out of place.
It was ethereal, beautiful, and disturbing all at once, lasting only a breath, then dissolving into the background static of the city's comms. He instinctively glanced around the empty street, scanning for a source, but found none. The only sound was the Caliburn's low purr. 'What the fuck was that? Another phantom chime? Am I hearing things now? Oh Dios, estoy haciendo ajustes!' he internally yelled, a cold feeling spreading through his chest. His face erratic.
The drop off point was a nondescript warehouse in a forgotten industrial block. The large roll up door was open, revealing only darkness within. Teo smoothly pulled the Caliburn inside, parking it precisely in the center. A figure emerged from the shadows, Silas, his face mostly obscured by the dim lighting, but his posture radiating cool efficiency. He gave the Caliburn a quick, approving once-over.
"Pristine," Silas's voice echoed with its faint digital reverb. "Excellent work, Mateo." A data shard extended from his hand, and Teo's optics displayed the confirmation of the $10,000 eddies hitting his account. His balance of $47000 moving to $57000 eddies.
"Pleasure," Teo replied, the transaction done. He turned to leave, and as he walked past a stack of crates, he felt a sudden, inexplicable urge to count them. One. Two. Three. Four. Five…
The compulsion was overwhelming, a strange, mental prod that demanded his attention. He mentally shook his head, physically forcing the bizarre impulse away, his internal focus breaking. 'What the hell was that? Why did I just need to count those crates? Im fucking losing it, Im not going cyberpsycho right.' He felt a fresh wave of confusion and fear hit him.
He exited the warehouse and began his walk back towards the nearest rapid transit station. The late night streets of Watson were quieter, less frantic than Corpo Plaza. As he passed a public terminal, its screen, usually displaying advertisements, suddenly flickered to show a single, unblinking green symbol for half a second before reverting to a static pattern.
The symbol was intricate, almost organic, yet utterly alien, unlike anything he'd ever seen. Teo instinctively stopped, his brow furrowed, more fear washing over him. The screen was back to normal, displaying a smiling corpo rep. He shook his head again, pushing the oddity aside, trying to rationalize it as a simple system glitch, but the image of the symbol stubbornly clung to his mind's eye. 'Ay! the fuck choom!' He thought speeding up.
He reached the station, the neon glow of the entrance painting the damp pavement in garish hues. The dust choked air tasted faintly of something metallic, like burnt circuitry a taste that seemed to linger exclusively for him.
He knew the eddies were good, and the Rayfield Caliburn was safe in Silas's hands. But the feeling of something else riding shotgun in his mind, something deeply unfamiliar and curious, was growing stronger with every passing hour. He ran a hand through his dark red hair, feeling the faint, rhythmic pulse beneath his scalp, a new, unsettling sensation, silently processing the world through his senses, leaving subtle, unsettling traces in its wake, traces he couldn't explain.
He sat down in a metro seat and tilted his head back. "Alright, I'm officially tweaking."