Chapter Text
Unknown: Placide is it done?....
Placide: Yes de Animals and their rayon Netwatch master are dead...
Unknown: Good...
Placide: Have Maman and Ti returned to us...
Unknown: No...
Unknown: They have passed on...
Line disconnected...
10th March 2076
Operations Bunker ECHO
13:00
Screens flash warning signs of imminent overload an electronic voice announces, “Virus detected, imminent system collapse, forcing disconnect” screens and computers begin to screech in warning as software he designed to protect himself, forcibly ejects Oliver from the net.
They let out a piercing screech in agony as electricity runs through their nervous system, the Net chair they’re laying in lets out low pops as it continually attempts to electrocute the runner, cables connecting to the interface plug in the back of his head pop and melt, their eyes flash from black on blue to a bright red and begin to spark slightly as there back begins to arch up off the chair. A bang reverberates through the underground bunker as the main power generator gives out, exploding and plunging the place into darkness. The netrunner collapses back down onto the chair, trickles of blood slowly leak from their eyes and nose, their AudioVox implant lets out low buzzes and pops as Oliver passes out.
Several hours later
18:00
Oliver gasps awake in a dark room lit by emergency lighting. They attempt to activate an alternate vision mode in their optics but merely receive a sharp stabbing pain and a barely readable warning to administer stims from their Internal display. “fuckkkk fuck fuck” Oliver shouts, a black cybernetic hand going to their eyes pressing into them as if to try and stop the pain. Carefully rubbing the dried blood and fluids from them. His left hand scraping as it reaches out at a metal table, next to the ruined net runner chair, grasping to find an airhypo injector they lift it up and slam it into their neck, piercing through his grey netrunner wetsuit into pale skin, the stimulants flowing directly into the blood stream numbing the pain slightly “Well shit” they breath out.
Minutes pass as Oliver lay there dissociating, mental conditioning kicks in, “Come on, you lazy gonk, can’t lie here feeling sorry for yourself for not being flatlined,” they say to themselves, pulling the airhypo from his neck and throwing it towards a trash bin in the corner. He slowly sits up, the cable connecting to his interface port at the nape of his neck snaps “Urhh fucking shit” Oliver groans out, his hand running along the top of his wetsuit to the interface plug in his neck finding a connector still attached but burnt and covered in gunk and blood, Oliver lets out a loud cry as he pulls the connector out and inspecting it “Fuck that’s not good ..” looking around the dark room lit in a low orange emergency lighting “.. Not good at all,”
They make a tentative attempt to stand up, finding the floor to be ice cold on their bare feet, as they stand and cautiously stretch their body, the feeling of tightness and atrophy weighing heavy on them lifts slightly, before he begins coughing dropping to his knees as they vomit up what little nutrient fluids were left in him mixed with blood. Slowly pulling himself up, he carefully pads across the room to a desk, finding an immunosuppressant inhaler and lifting it to his mouth and taking a deep breath in. Feeling a deep pressure lift from the back of his eyes, as he stumbles over to the fridge, pulling a warm bottle of water out of it and guzzling it down. “Good job, Oli, step one done,” they congratulate themselves, voice still raspy as their AudioVox implant pops and buzzes “Now step two, check the emergency power”
After fully finding their footing, he follows the emergency lighting through the bunker to a utilities room. As he enters a wave of charred electronics and concrete hits them, he grabs an old battery-powered light pack and switches it on, surveying the damage to the main generator, a gaping hole in the top sealed over by fire retardant foam. Looking to the smaller backup “Looks like you are one lucky gonk Oli,” he mumbles, walking towards the undamaged generator. After a few minutes of looking through the manual, he finds how to reset it after an EMP. Following the instructions and a 10 minute wait, it finally lets out a ding and lights up, flipping the power switch, a few sparks shower off some of the broken and overloaded equipment. The bunkers EMP-hardened infrastructure slowly begins to turn on. Walking back to the operations room, “Alright, step three...” he breathes out, “..find out what in the hell happened”
Oliver sits at his desk, some empty nutrient injection wrappers litter the desk. He slowly fixes a TV whilst the last one filters into their bloodstream, eventually it reconnects, the speakers let out a garbled buzz before blaring out a news broadcast.
“Welcome to N54. It's time for your local news. *static* continues to plague the Badlands. Shootings and kidnap *static* ave been reported along the 1 and 101. Eyewitness accounts point to inter-clan disputes as well as local *static* looking to take advantage of the chaos. However, in an abundance of caution, the NCPD has raised the threat level to 2, advising travellers to avoid side roads and stay alert. We'll continue to keep you informed as the situation develops. And, *static*bling rumours sent Netwatch stock price falling this morning as word of a number of CitiNet outages across Night City circulates, and rumours of another *static*, although NCPD spokesperson Sara Krakosky has confirmed they are merely rumours and that the Net is safer than ever, because of NetWatch. We’ll bring you more information if it becomes available. Thank you for watching this N54 News update.”
“Well fuck” Oliver says turning to a computer booting it up to try and gather any further details, the screen flickers slightly as he attempts to login, an error message flashes on screen “Already wiped me, guessing it’s not a rumour then, hopefully that attempt will go under the radar” Oliver slams his hands on the desk in anger, the clang of metal against metal reverberating through out the bunker “Fucking great” he mumbles pulling the keyboard more central and begin to push through a restart into brute forcing an offline root connection so he can access applications and connections.
After some time and burning a few W0rm programs, they gain access, pulling the personal link embedded in his wrist and pushing it into an interface port on the computer, he pulls up a rudimentary cyberware system check software and starts running a scan. After a tediously long wait for it to finish, it finally displays the output.
Biomonitor – Damaged – Last read out retained
Kiroshi ocular implants – Functioning at 73%
AudioVox – Functioning at 61%
Interface Port – Damaged
Neural Ports – Functional
Internal OS – ERROR UNKNOWN OUTPUT
NeuralWare – Functional – 1 shard slot reporting damaged
Raven MicroCybernetic Wiseman Arms – Functioning at 82%
Diagnostic complete...
Recommendation…
Visit the nearest Hospital or Medical Clinic...
Increase Vitamin supplement dosage…
Run reset on Ocular implants and AudioVox Synthesiser…
“Well, it could be worse…” as he pulls the nutrient supplement injector from his thigh “Ugh could do with some real food, but given the bunker is unreachable it seems the suits think I’m dead, or there also dead, either way it’s the same story” he mutters aloud as he runs the factory reset commands for his Kiroshi’s and AudioVox. Oliver’s eyes flash through different colours for 30 seconds as they reset and pair up. “Ahh” he exhales in a more robotic tone as his Vox re-enables and switches between modes “much better” as small hud elements begin to show up, although mostly errors, the last error flashing up NetDriver Mk1 DISABLED “Well.. ” he chuckles, mentally pushing the error to the background as he flex's his cybernetic fingers as he begins to create a rudimentary connection to his NetDriver “... Let's change that”
Using the personal link to create the connection, he gets to work on a W0RM program that will be able to breach the ICE layers protecting the OS. Pushing through the last layer of protection, they find the KillSwitch and disable the protocols, locking him out. The flashing error in the background dissipates, and slowly disabled parts of his HUD flutter back into his vision. Lists of the few connectable devices appear, he flicks through the outer cameras, seeing the normal dust and debris outside, a dusty dark blue Archer Quartz on the garage camera, flicking to the internal camera “Well aren’t you a handsome” He chuckle as they run a hand through their overgrown greasy black hair, whilst looking at themselves through the camera as well as what was once a clean perfectionist’s operation room, now just a barely light room with walls covered in broken screens and fried server architecture, feeling more tense “Ignore it Oliver, it’s all gonna be dust soon,” As they move on to checking the connections to the hidden HMG emplacements, and spitter mines embedded in the walls outside the bunker doors. Oliver mentally enables his scanner, as it comes up it slowly syncs, and begins overlaying device and location information forming a small local map in the upper right corner from stored data “Fuckin ay Oli, you the boss” pumping his fist enjoying this small win. “Alright what's next...” he says as he disconnects from the computer.
“.. Need to grab everything I’m gonna need to set up in the city, find some suitable clothes, re-slot some shards, pack what gear I can into the Archer,” he mumbles mentally making a list as they walk towards their quarters.
The door creaks open slowly, until helped along by a push, Oliver hits the light switch, lighting the Spartan room in low light. Heavy dust covered most of the room except for a less dusty path from the doorway to the bathroom, “Fucking dust” he exhales. Oliver slowly strips out of their slightly electro charred grey netrunning wetsuit as they step into the shower. He was tall, standing around 6ft, and of an average build, a lithe strength still present, if slightly weakened due to atrophy, after spending days jacked into the Deep Net working on various projects over the past two years. Looking in the mirror he traced the EMP threading running across his chest, from each Cybernetic Arm and up to his neck where his AudioVox was housed behind a RealSkin covering. His finger running it along the indented corporation tag where the matte black metal met meat under his collarbones, “Raven MircoCybernetics WISEMAN,” they had been a gift from Pierre Cassel after he’d saved his life when stationed in the French eurozone. “Going to have to find a way to cover the NetWatch marking,” continuing to talk aloud to themselves as they get in the shower.
After drying themselves off Oliver grabs a small medkit, applying a salve and bandage to the burned interface port on the back of his neck, padding over to the wardrobe he finds some underwear and black combat boots and trousers to wear before digging through a collection of NetWatch branded shirts to find a plain long sleeve turtleneck and an underarm holster, carefully pulling them on making sure it covers his damaged neck port.
Grabbing a duffle bag from the utilities room, he grabs a few spare sets of clothes, stuffing them into the bag. Returning to the operations room, he begins checking through boxes on the far wall to find some spare cameras, eventually finding a box with two Mircotech ClearVue cameras and placing them next to the door to the stairs. Going over to the safe, they enter their code, retrieving their Eurodollar shard, some spare data shards and a dark grey Constitution Arms Unity. Oliver quickly checks the mag before slotting it into his holster and grabbing a spare mag. It wasn’t much, but it was good to have in case he needed it, he thought to himself. Finally, he grabs the keys to the Archer Quartz EC-T2 R660 that was sitting in the garage. He looked it over, he had never liked his family name. They long since abandoned him, 16 years ago. "Well, Oliver Wiess, I guess you're officially dead,” he chuckles to himself, removing the ID shard before throwing the badge back into the safe.
Returning to the computer one last time to arm the data wipe and self-destruct. “It wouldn’t do for anyone to believe someone survived,” especially whoever attacked them, he thought. “Alright, 20 minutes should be fine,” he mutters to himself, looking over the place, he’d called this home for the better part of 2 years. He didn’t like everything that NetWatch did but had first hand experience of how dangerous AIs were and had a hatred of corps and gangs naively messing around with them. Giving the place one last melancholic look over before grabbing the box of cameras and walking up the stairs to the security door, punching the code in it slowly opens, looking around the dimly lit garage, a Dark Blue 2060s Archer Quartz sat there still mostly factory new “Let’s get you some freedom too huh” Popping the bonnet to open the storage area he places the camera box and his duffle bag in there “Just big enough” he says happily the full reality of his course ahead slowly “Gods I’m so fucked” he chuckles finding the switch for the garage door pushing it open.
Hot desert air rushed in, blowing sand in as the door slowly rolled up. Oliver walked round to the driver's side. “To new beginnings,” he says, patting the roof, looking out into the dark desert, before getting in. Looking over the steering wheel, suddenly unsure of themselves, “Upon this rock, I begin my journey anew without regret,” he starts the car and begins to slowly drive out of the cavern and towards what his GPS was telling him was the I-9 east.
The internal timer was ticking down on his HUD, beeping slightly to say it was the last 30 seconds. Oliver slowed the car on the side of the road to look over to where they’d called home. 5..4..3..2..1.. He felt a low rumble as the cavern in which his bunker was built collapsed inward, burying any evidence he’d ever been there. Focusing back on the road and the Nav beacon for Night City.
11th August 2076
I9 – East
Badlands
06:00
30 miles from Night City
After a long night of driving, Oliver finally begins to find civilisation, or at least something close to it, in the distance. Smaller buildings rise in the far-off shadows of Night City. He mentally switches to his scanner, the optics to zooming in intuitively on the buildings and the overly bright neon sign “CHOO2” Oliver mumbles to himself flicking an eye to the fuel “Time for a refuel, let's hope they have a terminal, I need info and CitiNet connection before I head into the city” Slowly driving closer he looks past the seemingly endless desert and rusty wind turbines toward the city, his eyes focus what he first thought was some kind of desert mirage, is actually massive piles of rubbish of every colour backed by flames, as he focuses, his HUD slowly adds information and warnings. Slowing down to pull into the CHOO2 stop attached to a Sunset Motel, pulling to a stop in front of a stop, hitting a button to pop the air-tight seal on the CHOO2 tank before stepping out into the cool heat of the desert. Pushing the nozzle into the CHOO2 socket for it to steadily refill the tank, as I survey the area a few armoured nomad vehicles, a closed bar on the second level of the motel, two banged up looking Burrito vending machines and a map data terminal “Just what I need, Alright pay, food, connection” Oliver mumble to himself as the machine beeps at him, making secured connection to the machine for eddies transfer as he moves to get back in the Archer to move it over to the parking lot.
Stepping back out of the car and walking up to the Data terminal “Alright, lets grab this data” He mumbles as they check the connection port, pushing some ICE in case of anything nasty, slipping their interface plug from there wrist and jacking it into the terminal, though their internal hud they quickly speed through the garbage to find the data they, Pulling local map data along with details on Local and CitiNet connectors, waiting for the data to finish downloading, and looking over at the Burrito vending machines subconsciously activating their cyberdeck and swiftly breaching through its local connection “17 years and this exploit this hasn't been fixed” Oliver chuckles as the vending machine goes haywire and fires out a dozen Burrito Turquesa “Damn real food for a change, shame its veggie scop” as he disconnects from the map data terminal and picks a few up throwing them into the open car door on to the passenger seat before closing it and placing the rest on top of the map terminal, popping one open as he walks round to the other side of the car half focused on scanning through the downloaded map data figuring out where he currently is.
Oliver felt a tingling in his spine as he was looking over the map data and heard footsteps behind him just in time for his head to be smashed into the Archer’s roof, dropping to the floor, looking up to see the green and blue of a holomask as he passed out.
11th August 2076
Netwatch HQ
REDACTED
10:00
“Director...” the receptionist says as they push an intercom button, looking away from the dishevelled Intelligence Officer.
“Yes,” A monotone voice came in response.
“There’s someone here to update you on the Incident in Night City.”
“Send them in, no disruptions,” the voice continues.
“Understood, Ma’am,” she says as she releases the intercom “You can go on in,” she says, looking up at him.
“Thanks,” he says as he pulls the door open, walking down the dimly lit corridor to an opaque Faraday office.
“Come...” a voice shouts as he is about to knock, the door slides open.
“Morning, Director,” he says as he takes a seat opposite the almost wraith-like woman sitting in the chair.
“So, any updates on this shit storm?” the director asks
“On the primary incident, no, however, it seems one of the currently unaccounted agents is a Project Watchman Asset”
“I thought we had closed that Project down, after the second batch went psycho,” the director said, eying the Intelligence Officer.
“It is, however, the only successful candidate from the initial batch. It was deemed not to have the same deficiencies by the previous Director and was seemingly hidden away”
“Fucking great, another shit storm to deal with, you have its file? What do we know?” the director asks with growing concern in her voice.
“I do,” he says, sliding over a packet “Named Oliver Wiess, posted to Operations Bunker Echo in the Night City Badlands, the very same one that last night enacted its Data purge and self-destructed, currently presumed KIA”
“Not confirmed?”
“No, it seems the entire cliffside collapsed in on itself and buried the bunker, and whatever attack this was, has messed up most of the backup systems of the affected field agents.”
“Any possibilities of it surviving? Not exactly the kind of mess we want wandering around,” the director says as she flicks through the multiple pages of psychological profiling
“Unlikely but currently unknown, I did task a drone officer from the Station in Night City, but they reported back that it was inconclusive as the self-destruct and collapse caused a minor dust storm, and that's likely to be all were going to get, given that they just lost half the station's staff to this attack.”
“Alright then, burn it down, this Oliver Wiess never existed,” The director says as the intelligence officer stands up to leave.
“I’ll see that it's done,” he says confidently, looking at the Director who has started reading through the file.
Name: Oliver Wiess
ID: #32294
Known Aliases: Monitor, Archivist
Age: 24
Current Posting: Operations Bunker Echo | Night City Badlands | 35°21'15.2"N 120°43'16.9"W
Current Status: KIA
[Oliver Wiess (PW1) is considered the pinnacle of what Project WATCHMAN can achieve, given the right subject. As such, Director Hera has given the go ahead to find another batch of prospects for the project and has requested regular psychological evaluation and progress reports on PW1.]
Commendations
Operation ÉCU - 09/2072 – Promoted to Agent
Operation SEARCHLIGHT – 06/2075 – Given further Cybernetic Enhancements
Notable Cyberware enhancements
[Whilst in the care of Project Watchman PW1 received Rocklin Augmentics NeuralWare system, alongside non-standard Stalker line Kiroshi Opticals with RA Neuron internal display.]
[In 2074 PW1 received further enhancements from the PW Team under the guise of a gift, primarily Raven MicroCybernetic WISEMAN arms. Auxiliary RMC WISEMAN arm-mounted cyberdecks were removed and replaced with an experimental version of NetWatch’s proprietary cyberdeck Net Driver. In conjunction with the standard Agency field package Rocklin AudioVox, Raven MicroCyber Interface Port and Advanced Biomonitoring System.]
Operational Record:
2072
Moved from REDACTED to French Eurozone after graduation and assigned to Station Chief Wirral at Palmer Station. Received commendation from Station Chief for uncovering a plot by Euro Business Machines Corporation to terminate a European Finance Council member, Pierre Cassel, during a live address. Details and further investigation done by Wiess led to a successful defense action, and the Net runner responsible for the attack was terminated in the Net. Reasons behind the attempt are still unknown however, in the days after EBM Intelligence Officer James Norton was assassinated by a known EBM-aligned Solo known as Lazarus.
[Addendum: EFCM Pierre Cassel was already on the High-Priority watch list due to his children's involvement in Project Cynosure. Whilst fault mostly lay with Militech, both Aurore and Aymeric Cassel are both considered High-Priority targets.]
[Evidence of EBM involvement was held for future use]
[2072 Psychological Report: Subject PW1 shows continued signs of emotional blunting, likely as a side effect of their diagnosed Autism. Colleagues and Station Chief have commented he comes across as distant but professional, with a few other remarks besides a grievance from Agent Chavez, who has had several run-ins with PW1 due to feeling sidelined. The station chief has also remarked, after further close work with PW1 on OP ÉRU, that PW1 seemingly has no vices and few personal interests or attachments. Surveillance of PW1 has been considered difficult as they regularly slip away from any tail, but it seems to substantiate the claim made by the Station Chief.]
[Post OP ÉRU: PW1 has professed to feel a sense of accomplishment in the successful outcome of the operation and shown little to no remorse for the killing of the Netrunner attacking Pierre Cassel. Surveillance continues to be difficult but shows no change in personality.]
[Recommendation: PW1 should be moved to a smaller command to work under and with individuals that closer match his level of intelligence and ability.]
2073
Moved to Night City in 2073 after rest and recuperation from cybernetic enhancement and assigned to Operational Manager Ronald Cheever for further field training and assignment to Project BLACKWALL training under Special Agent Bryce Mosely.
Assisted in Operation SPOTLIGHT - Locating and Tracking of multiple VooDoo Boy and rogue Militech Net operatives, Data Forts - (See targets files A and C of Operation SPOTLIGHT)
[2073 Psychological Report: Subject PW1 has taken to their cybernetics well and shows no signs of psychological change. However, at my request, therapy sessions have been reduced in an attempt to force PW1 to form deeper team bonds, and surveillance teams have been pulled back.]
[OM Ronald Cheever has provided a detailed report of PW1 with high praise. I will shorten for clarity.]
[PW1has taken to the field training with unexpected ease. It seems that whilst they are personally detached, they can fall into most roles and personalities with the guile of a veteran operative, seemingly more comfortable mimicking others. Whilst slow at start, PW1 has taken the first step in forming bonds with the team. SP Bryce has also begun training in PW1 in BLACKWALL protocols however, due to the severity of work, he has not had as much time.]
2074
Operation SPOTLIGHT -Continued reconnaissance and termination operations on VooDoo Boys, Araska, and Militech Net operatives, Data Forts, and BBS following increased attempts to reach out past the BlackWall. - (See targets files A.1, B, and C.1 of Operation SPOTLIGHT)
Operation SEARCHLIGHT – Agent Oliver Wiess, alongside Special Agent Brie Deal, began OP Searchlight as an offshoot of OP Spotlight, as troves of Deep Net locations and data were removed and recovered from successive raids on VDB and Arasaka Data Forts. Several Deep Net locations have been cleansed and secured, and work continues at pace.
[OP Spotlight has confirmed what we already know, VooDoo Boys and Arasaka are scouring the Deep Net for any way to get pasted or retrieve AI fragments or reach through the Blackwall. Militech also has a smaller program, but their teams are seemingly wary after Project Cynosure.]
[2074 Psychological Report: Regular psychological evaluation order rescinded by Director HERA after PW1 became suspicious, however has fully integrated with their team and continue to be observed by the Project WATCHMAN team.]
2075
Operation SPOTLIGHT -Continued reconnaissance and termination operations on VooDoo Boys and Militech, however, operations regarding Araska have been suspended due to increased use of SoulKiller- (See targets files B.1 and C.2 of Operation SPOTLIGHT)
Due to increased use of SoulKiller2.0 by Arasaka, all agents attached to OP SPOTLIGHT have been moved. Agent Oliver Wiess has been moved to Operations Bunker Echo after further Cybernetic enhancements and given operational lead on OP SEARCHLIGHT.
Operation WARHORSE – Assistance in locating and mapping VooDoo Boy Data Fortress Rezo Agwe.
[Due to Multiple attacks on Arasaka Data Forts, they have increased their use of SoulKiller 2.0. Multiple unaffiliated Net runners on the priority watchlist have been removed.]
2076
Operation WARHORSE – Continued assistance in mapping VooDoo Boy Data Fortress Rezo Agwe. Assistance in the capture of 2 Priority Targets, currently held in stasis by Special Agent Bryce Mosely.
Ongoing Incident STOPCLOCK: Special Agent Bryce Mosley reported coming under attack at Grand Imperial Mall on 10th March 2076 by a likely VooDoo Boy aligned force of robots. It is currently unknown what happened but around 1300 hrs all communication was cut off, and data backups from the attack failed to upload to Data Fortress REDACTED. NC Station Chief has reported that a virus was introduced via Bryce Mosley, Multiple KIA at Morro Station. Operations Bunker Echo enacted Data-Purge and Self-Destruct, at 2237 hrs data backup failed to upload to Data Fortress REDACTED. Further details are in the Ongoing Incident STOPCLOCK.
[PW1 status is currently unknown. Self-Destruct of OB ECHO caused cave in. Drone footage of the area was inconclusive as a dust storm rolled through the area shortly after detonation. All Agents working with SA Bryce Mosley are also unaccounted for, and at this moment PW1 is considered KIA.]