Chapter Text
Kerry’s heart was pounding as he left the stage. Ghosts of spotlights danced in his vision, and his ears were still ringing from the amps even as he got to his dressing room, sweaty and cold at the same time from the contrast of exertion and winter air. Playing for a packed stadium really was something else. Completely different from the smoke-filled dives he’d played in as a teen. The crowd had demanded no less than three encores, and he’d been happy to oblige them. But by the time he got back to his room, he was completely wiped. The only thing keeping him from collapsing out of exhaustion was the lingering high of being in front of a mic again.
There was no way he could’ve predicted what he’d see when he flicked on the light, though.
“Jesus fuck—” There was someone in his chair. Sitting in front of his mirror. Long legs crossed, hands folded over a black fitted skirt. A black suit coat, black leggings, black shoes. Black hair, long and flowing, with thin lips painted a deep red and long features framed with delicate silver chrome. But the eyes, those white-blue Kiroshis, set in that pale, long face…
That was familiar. Too goddamn familiar.
He couldn’t help bristling. “Who the fuck are you? How’d you get in here? Tell me or I’m callin’ security.”
The woman’s thin lips curved into a smile. She tilted her head, in no hurry as she regarded him. “Calling security won’t do you any good, Mister Eurodyne.” British. That was a goddamn British accent, all posh and pretty, except it came from a sweet mezzo-soprano instead of the deep baritone he knew, and he knew just as well that it could be fucking coincidental but it didn’t feel like it, it felt like someone was dicking around with him.
And Kerry didn’t like that. Not one bit. So with an exhale through his nose that kind of turned into a snarl at the end, he pulled up the UI on his rarely-touched OS. “Tell me what I wanna know or I’ll fu̸c̵k̶i̴̼̒n̷̝̈́'̸̳̽—ȁ̶͚g̷͕̃h̸̖͐!̸͍͐”
[̷[̸Q̴U̵I̴C̶K̷H̴A̶C̷K̴S̵͔̄ ̴̣̓D̷̺͐I̷̥̓Ś̶̞Á̸͜B̷̹̊Ľ̴͈È̸ͅD̴̳̓]̷̩͂]̵̨̛
“Now, now. Let’s not do anything rash, hm?” She smiled, sympathetic, even apologetic. Meanwhile, pain lanced through Kerry’s skull like someone had just stabbed him with a red hot poker. “I’m not here to hurt you, Kerry. Only to warn you.”
“Ghh—fuck, like ya fuckin’ warned me about that?!” he snapped.
She pursed her lips, standing from the chair with a neat tug of her skirt even as his UI was bleeding red into his vision with glitches and error messages. She was taller than Kerry, at least a hundred ninety centimeters. And the bitch was in flats, even! “No one came after you because no one knew,” she said. Her head tilted again. “Didn’t you stop to wonder why?”
“Came after me when?” He’d had about enough of this cryptic bullshit. “For what? Start makin’ some fuckin’ sense, bitch.”
“Every soul in Mikoshi went with Alt.” She stared him down with those white-blue eyes, her gaze piercing the scattered code his vision had become. “Every single one. Including Saburo-dono. But there was another extra soul that went with her; one who had been present for every step of the planning process when it came to breaching it.”
Kerry’s blood froze. “Johnny.”
The woman regarded him for a while, letting him absorb that. “Whatever he knew, Arasaka now knows,” she said grimly. “They broke through Alt’s defenses, and now they know who to blame for all of it because of him. Not only that, but they have Saburo-dono back to lead the charge against those responsible.”
“Fuck.” A million thoughts ran through Kerry’s mind then. Scattered and racing, piling up on top of each other like a crush at a badly planned fire exit. But the panic could wait. Right now, he had the source of all this shit in front of him. “How the hell d’you know all this shit? Who are you?”
She canted her head to one side again, and a slow smile spread across her long, pretty features. Her eyes flickered, the outer circles of her optics spinning, shuttering like a camera lens as the blue rings turned to a bright, glowing red. Kerry’s UI glitched even harder, lagging, tearing.
T̸h̸e̷y̷'̸r̴e̶ ̸w̸a̷t̸c̶h̵i̸n̷g̶.̸
I̵ ̴c̸a̴n̴'̵t̶ ̷s̵a̴y̶ ̶m̵o̵r̴e̵.̷
I̸'̷v̷e̸ ̷a̸l̸r̴e̷a̴d̵y̶ ̸s̴a̶i̸d̸ ̴t̶o̸o̸ ̴m̴u̷c̴h̵.̵
“A̶r̴e̶ ̶y̵o̷u̶ afraid of the d̶a̶r̴k̴,̸ ̷K̸e̷r̸ry?” she asked. A split second later, his optics winked out. Dead, inaccessible. Everything was pitch black.
[[CYBERWARE MALFUNCTION.]]
[[REBOOTING…]]
When his vision flickered back to life, the woman was gone.