Cyberpunk 2074: Shadows of the Past

Chapter 27 Lucy
"I could have endured the darkness if I hadn't seen the sun...but the light has made my desolation a new desolation..."

"Sister Lucy, are you leaving here?"

The childish voice of the little girl interrupted the low-pitched soliloquy of the short-haired woman.

On January 2074, 1, Lucy decided to leave this small town adjacent to Morro Bay and set off for the city inhabited by demons—Night City.

"Where are you going?" the little girl asked, walking over on short legs, and gently hugged Lucy's calves with both hands.

"Alice..." The short-haired woman bent down and hugged the landlord's little daughter in her arms.

"My sister is going to Night City..." She stared at Alice's flawless golden eyes, and said goodbye softly.

"Why?" the little girl asked in a low voice, like an oriole singing softly.

Alice, who was only 4 years old, didn't know the weight contained in the words "Night City".

The only thing she knew was that the gentle big sister in front of her was about to leave.

"Because I saw the sun..." Lucy pressed her face against the little girl's fleshy white face, and gently closed her eyes.

"But mother said that the sun will be seen every day..." The little girl's innocent confusion came from the ear.

"It's different, Alice..." Lucy hugged the person in her arms tightly, whispering softly, "What you see is the sun of the earth, not my sun..."

The night of January 2074, 1

As usual, Lucy connected to the cyberspace, intending to mine some low-end data and sell them on the black market to earn some rent.

Until, someone came galloping from a very far away place and came here.

right in front of her.

It was a shadow in the shape of a human being, and the face could not be seen clearly, and the male and female could not be distinguished.

Just the moment she tried to look directly at him, she was almost forced to disconnect from the network connection.

The mysterious man ignored her existence, and captured the core of the town's network nodes with a wave of his hand, seizing the highest authority.

"What is he doing?" Lucy thought to herself, stopping what she was doing to avoid being regarded as a threat by the other party.

The mysterious man left quickly.

Driven by curiosity, she couldn't help following the traces that the man had never hidden to the border of the Night City network.

Lucy heard about Night City.

Because the Arasaka Corporation is entrenched in the center of the city, wantonly roaring from hell to the whole world.

She couldn't forget the hurt that Arasaka Company brought her.

The painful implantation of violence, the cruel training day after day, the cries when the companions died tragically...

She once abandoned her companions who depended on each other and escaped hell alone.

But one day, she will return to hell, with fire and explosives in her arms, and die with this insensitive hell ghost.

The fire of vengeance has been burning silently in her heart and has never been extinguished.

In the original plan, she would set foot in this city a year later, perhaps succeeding in revenge, or she would just hide her name.

Now, she couldn't help following the traces of the mysterious man, and came to this nightless city that seemed to lead directly to hell ahead of schedule.

Because on that mysterious man, she smelled something from the past.

It is older, purer, and stronger than the combat AI of the old net that I have come into contact with, like the ultimate in the world.

She seems to have discovered the "dynamite" that can completely end everything.

The next few seconds of fighting also confirmed her conjecture.

No, it's not even a fight.

Like repelling flies, the mysterious man smashed many well-known independent hackers into slag with a wave of his hand, even the professional hackers of the Internet surveillance were not spared, and their bodies and spirits were destroyed.

Most of this Nuoda's cyberspace was emptied in an instant, and she stood there dumbfounded, not daring to take a step forward.

The surviving hackers all surrendered, using their virtual bodies, bowing down to worship the only god standing in the infinite sky.

She was still in a daze.

So he cast a look at her curiously.

She looked up to meet that gaze.

At that moment, she seemed to see the blue sun, the sad sun.

Rather than the imaginary god-like indifference.

Will gods be sad like humans?

She watched the god go away in doubt, and returned to the town alone, disconnecting from the cyberspace.

Lucy lay in the cold pool, thinking silently.

After a while, awakened by the cold, she crawled out of the pool and dried her body with the towel she had prepared.

She sat by the bed, facing the cold moon, and lit a cigarette.

She doesn't like smoking.

But the guilt of abandoning her partner and running away alone in her childhood has always haunted her, so she had to use nicotine to dissolve the torture from the depths of her soul.

She spit out a long mist, silently feeling the feeling that the lung lobes were being gradually eroded by the toxin.

She could hear the sound of her lungs withering, and she could hear the dying wailing of the dead around her.

She lay gently on the bed and closed her eyes.

But the blue sun could not stop appearing in front of his eyes.

Not dazzling, not violent, not indifferent, just sad and... a little confused.

The old existence like the shadow of God has such emotions, and her distress seems to be nothing.

She raised the corners of her mouth, and fell asleep with the entangled undead in the company of the cold moon and the lonely wind.

Morning, January 2074, 1

"Sister's Sun?" The little girl's childish cry woke Lucy up.

"It's nothing, sister didn't sleep well yesterday, nonsense..." She gently stroked the little girl's soft long hair and said softly.

"Well, Alice heard from her mother that her sister was leaving yesterday, and she didn't sleep well at night!" The little girl squinted her beautiful eyes and said in a tired voice.

"Alice..." There was a warm current in her heart, she hugged the little girl tenderly, and rolled her eyes with a smile.

"elder sister……"

Two girls, one big and one small, hugged each other for a long time under the warm morning light.

Until the long-awaited parting moment finally came.

"Sister Lucy! Remember to come back to see me often in the future!" The little girl took her mother's hand and said goodbye to her.

"Okay!" She waved her hand and said goodbye with a smile, but the corners of her eyes were red.

The night of January 2074, 1

Lucy chose to walk to Night City.

Beautiful girls always pay attention to safety when they go out alone.

So she doesn't want to hitch a ride with a stranger to the finish line.

In cyberspace, she is brave and good at fighting, one against ten.

In the real world, she doesn't want to cause trouble without enough guns and ammunition and offensive prosthetics.

So she walked step by step in the wasteland, accompanied by the bright moon and the breeze, like a pilgrimage, walking to the border of Night City.

Even though she dislikes the City of Night in every possible way, Lucy still has to admit that the city that never sleeps is breathtakingly beautiful under the cover of night.

She dragged her heavy steps and walked on the outskirts of Night City.

She glanced at the time, "23:00"

She was tired, stretched lazily, picked a high place at random, and collapsed into the loess.

God seemed moved by her pilgrimage-like penance.

So he mercifully lowered the nine stars.

She was lying on the hillside, staring at the night sky with her eyes, and saw nine star traces.

She was shocked by the magnificence of the nine piercing the night.

So she raised the corner of her mouth slightly.

"I found it..." Amid the sky-shattering explosion, she heard herself whispering softly, full of joy.

When the sound of the explosion subsided, she slowly closed her eyes and slept with all her clothes on under the blanket of the bright starry sky.

(End of this chapter)