28

While standing in front of a boxy curbside data terminal reading various news articles, I pondered on things. Like how there were apparently no more public libraries, in Night City anyways, with things called Data Terminals sprinkled across the city and the rest of the country using fiber-optic land lines to connect to one another and local computer databases. It did not take long for me to come across one, though it did take me a bit longer to figure out how to work it and what I needed to pay for data usage. Honestly had to slink around till a random person came by to use it and observe just what they used to pay. They used something that looked like a data chip which were called creds. Apparently most money was digital now though there were still physical currencies around. I had to rummage around in a few dumpsters till I acquired some discarded cred chips that still had some change in them but it was worth it once I saw the acceptance message on the terminal and the following search bar. Seems Google did not survive the passage of time.

I am quite surprised at just how little attention my appearance attracted, not even garnering more than a second look from passerby. The apparel of the people I saw on the street were quite...skimpier than I was used to even from my time on my homeworld, let alone the years spent around robed tech priests and skitarii. The sheer amount of cybernetics and advertisements were the first things that caught my attention. It was like how I imagined New York Time Square would be except with less people, more advertisements, and a lot more augmetics. There were people wearing everything from suits to damn near just underwear equipped from nearly no visible cybernetics to having quadruple limb replacements. There was even a guy with his entire face scooped out and replaced with what looked like a tv screen. I think there was even someone with cat ears walking around but it was too crowded to see if they were wearing a head band or not. The advertisements ranged from food to a tv promotion of something called the Watson Whore, seems sexuality has become a lot more openly accepted, at least in this city.

I also overheard so many terms I did not understand, most of them likely slang, but also a lot of names, Arasaka and Militech being the two most common. They were the first things I searched up. Apparently, they were megacorps, both with their own private armies. Arasaka focused on corporate security, banking, and manufacturing while Militech focused on weapons production and PMC services. They were two of the largest megacorps among the other megacorps and were basically independent nations with the amount of power they had. The rest of the terms searched were basically just slang.

Searching the past history revealed troubling things. Bioplagues being unleashed, global warming, literal drug wars, 5 wars between corporations, nuclear armed megacorps, destruction of the North American midwest breadbasket, the subsequent transformation of all the former residents into wandering nomads, and to top it all off the destruction of the previous internet by a single person that released hoards of AI's that required a firewall called the Blackwall to seal away the AI populated portion of the Net from everything else. That was 43 years ago and the world was still attempting to recover.

There were some good news though, the world had switched to renewable biofuel once it became more economically viable, we had space stations now, and even some people on Mars now, just some outposts, no colonies yet, and other advances in various technological fields.

As for more immediate things, I was in Night City a free city started by Richard Night at the border of North and South California. It had undergone multiple battles from rival corporations, diseases, natural disasters, and the most recent being a bird plague which resulted in the order of the elimination of all avians. It had even got nuked, or to be more specific Arasaka's local branch HQ got nuked which resulted in a couple million people being rendered homeless with thousands dead and even more injured. Rebuilidng was still underway but mostly complete. They recently constructed a whole new city district called Pacifica which had a lot of Haitians and Pacific Islands move in after a natural disaster hit the islands and the city abandoned the idea of making it a tourist district.

I stopped reading as a pop up window came up stating I had a minute left before my session was closed or to pay for an extension.

I took a second to think about what to look up next before I froze up as a thought came to me. My family. I started this journey by dying on the way back from a milk run. Was this my Earth? Was my family here? They would likely be dead by now, but maybe they lived longer lives now, there were people 150 years old due to medicine and cybernetics so they might still be alive.

With trepidation in my heart I typed in my parents' names and looked at the result that came up. I felt light headed and stumbled backwards, hitting a few pedestrians who cursed at me before continuing on. I hit a wall and slid down to the floor, knees drawn up to my chest as I processed the information I discovered.

My family was dead, they all were, and have been for the past 43 years.

They died during the nuclear detonation of Arasaka tower.

They died as collateral damage of the 4th Corporate War.

They died in the crossfire between two megacorporations, between Arasaka and Militech.

The thing that made me think they were my family? A report on my death. Death by truck collision.

I slowly raised my head up, my red eyes glaring at the data terminal across from me, fury burning in my heart, and a purpose solidly in my mind.

My voice became staticky like a broken radio as I growled out a promise, no, an inevitability, a TRUTH.

"I am going to tear those mother fucking corporations apart."