Cyberpunk: Arasaka Secret Son

"But I didn't enter blindly behind the Blackwall. I prepared for months, bought servers under ghost companies, and accumulated enough computational power to defend myself and increase my assimilation level with Cyberspace, even if only by 1%.

When all my preparations were ready, I used the back door that Arasaka has located within a part of cyberspace controlled by the corporation to cross to the other side of the Wall. But there was something that neither I nor anyone else knew at that time. My biggest mistake or perhaps my greatest fortune, since thanks to her attack I was able to meet him"

"Her Attack!?" Musashi exclaimed worriedly.

Seeing the nervous Musashi, Hanako smiled and said, "Don't make that face, Musashi. I'm alive and kicking in front of you, right? Although it is true that I didn't come out unscathed."

Hanako continued, "I was the first in Arasaka to learn about her..... now being something is known within the high rank in the corporation, and the reason why we no longer use the corporation's Blackdoor. Because she'll be there waiting to hunt, paying her hatred and resentment towards Arasaka by killing without mercy, anyone related to the corporation, even if they are children."

"Hanako, with children you are not saying that...." said Musashi, bewildered by Hanako's words, as if Arasaka had been sending children behind the Blackwall.

"Yes, you heard me right, Musashi. More victims of my family, who had experiences similar to mine back then, but unlike me, they were forced to cross to the other side, being hunted by her... until I sent Oda to stop them."

Hanako commented briefly on the past of the Cloud team that was trained, along with Lucyna's, who managed to escape alone.

"Please continue," said Musashi, feeling proud of Hanako, who did not tremble when it came to ending some immoral project of a member of her family, but at the same time having a bad feeling in his chest about how Hanako was naming the thing that attacked her.

"As I was saying, thanks to my preparations, I could defend myself against her attack and try to escape, but I couldn't escape when the red projection of a somewhat familiar woman kept cutting off my way, whom I didn't recognize until she called me... 'Hana'."

"That name!, wasn't the one you used when you were with that... man?" asked Musashi when he heard that name again, which he had last heard 14 years ago when Hanako told him her story with... Sora's father, which Musashi was still having problems to choose a word to referrise to him.

"Yes, it's the name I gave it to John when I met him, isn't it funny?... the first time I come face to face with that woman, and I do it behind the blackwall." Said Hanako growing a small smile as if she really found it amusing.

Musashi discovering who Hanako was talking about by the way she referred to her as she did with the creator of the Soulkiller, "That woman can't be alive unless..."

"That's right, you've guessed correctly again, Musashi. I came face to face with Altiera Cunningham's construct or rather what it became on the other side of the wall, sharing a few words before she attacked me, one of the reasons why I hate that bitch."

Hanako said while with her legs crossed, she lifted her skirt up her slit, discomforting Musahi, as the high-quality projection of Hanako showed her right thigh naked, and on the upper part, leaving visible a wound like that of a hand formed by lines.

"Thanks to my preparations, I was able to defend myself against that bitch's attacks, but when I tried to escape... she grabbed my leg and-."

"What did she say to you?" Musashi asked interrupting Hanko and....

"What!?!" puzzling her by the sudden question she did not expect from Musashi assuming some of his exclamations or some other display of concern.

"Well, as you said, you're alive and kicking. You mentioned that you exchanged some words, and she called you Hana, which means she knows about your time with that.... terrorist," said Musashi, having regained his composure as he looked with sorrow at the tea spilled on the floor before turning back to Hanako and adding something in annoyance.

"And cover yourself up already! I've known you since you were a baby. Damn, I was one of the few people Saburo let rock you to sleep, and look at you now with that exhibitionist attitude in front of me!"

This elicited a soft laugh from Hanako, who as she fix the skirt of her dress looked at Musashi mischievously and said, "You don't need to know, do you? It's not something that concerns you," as she recalled the last words related to John that Altier's constructor told her before attacking her.

---

"Hi Hana,"

"How do you know that name?"

"I know many things, many from all the netrunners your family sent behind the wall, and I gave them freedom from their control, with the program your Father stole from me. I learned, for example, about the copy of Johnny you father has in Mikoshi," said the Altier construct, glitching for a moment, changing the profile of its body, showing several different ones as if it had consumed them within herself.

Before returning to its usual female profile, it added, "Others I know, when I was still alive, like when I heard John say the name of his beloved `Hana´ in his blackouts, whom he searched for frantically when she disappeared... 'the one who got away.' After you, he-"

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"Hanako?" said Musashi, pulling Hanako from her memories.

"Oh, sorry, where was I? When the Altier's construct attacked me overloading the servers I had prepared to defend myself from his Daemon(Virus) infected attacks managing to grab my leg injuring me and making me think it would be my last moments and that I had failed my son.... something happened." Said Hanako beginning to relate her first encounter with.... Arc.

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POV Hanako

"I'm sorry Sora" I still remember what I thought when I closed my eyes, seeing that bitch's open hand heading towards my face, with no way to defend myself, overwhelmed by fear, but above all by guilt, the guilt of failing my son, who was growing hidden in a cold incubator, and because of his mother and her actions had stolen his health and almost his life.

Without realizing the subtle change that occurred in those moments of anguish. Until I reopened my eyes when the pain never came, leaving me speechlesswhen I did it. By the sudden disappearance of Altier's homicidal construct, being replaced by one of the most beautiful scenarios I have ever seen.

Finding myself in the middle of the solar system in an orbit away from Jupiter, being able to see the bright Sun illuminating the dark space, without feeling any heat or cold or gravity, floating in this mysterious space within the Cyberspace, without realizing the two light blue eyes that looked at me as if they were the fabric of space.

"Human, you know the trouble you have caused just by your presence here" Until they spoke with a cold and distant voice. That made me freeze when I turned around and saw them....

"Wh-who are you?" Although I knew that this beautiful scenario in which I found myself was some kind of simulation or Bd still inside the Cyberspace, I couldn't help but feel like a weak ant when I saw those huge bright light blue eyes looking at me from openings created in space, giving a powerful and almost...

"Calm down, human. If I had wanted you dead, I would have left you with them. As for who I am, you can call me... Arc."

"'Them' Do you mean Alt's construct?" I replied trying to make sense of Arc's words that I had just met, thinking that he was referring to Altier's construct when he glitched for a second, showing as if he had assimilated the constructs of the victims he had created before killing them with his Soulkiller.

"No, I don't mean that thing, neither human nor AI, and what it has become, the failed product of a half-baked technology in its stay behind the wall consuming others like her, I mean the other AIs that were observing," added Arc gesturing with his eyes his words.

"Other AIs? I didn't..." Surprised to learn that I was being watched, but could not tell due to the low assimilation of humans with Cyberspace, I asked. "Why did you save me? I thought all the AIs on the other side of the wall hated humans and wanted them all dead."

"And yet, you still go behind the wall. Human, I didn't save you because you matter to me, I did it because it would be a nuisance if you ended up under their control.... Hanako Arasaka."

"Do you know who I am?" I asked confused, that an AI from the other side gave importance to my family, not understanding what he meant when he said 'under control.'

"I am aware and the reason why I saved you."

"Because I'm an Arasaka?" I asked confused.

"You have no value on your own for threm, your body and your identity as Arasaka do. If I had not intervened, you would now be dead and something that is not you answering to the name of Hanako Arasaka in your body in the material world," Arc said distantly without giving much importance to what he had just said, unlike me at that moment...

"That can't... What are you planning!?" who couldn't believe what I had just heard, feeling afraid of what the AIs on the other side of the wall were planning.

"Planning? Me nothing. I have my own problems and promises, the other AIs.... something you humans won't like. Now that you understand the danger you're in, get out of here, human. Stop bothering me, because of you I don't think it will be long before they come looking for you here... what a nuisance," Arc said, his eyes constricted in annoyance.

"I-I can't leave yet," I replied, refusing to give up on finding a cure for Sora.

"Human, I think you misunderstood my action of saving your life. If you thought that human lives matter to me, let me make something clear," Arc said, his giant eyes glowing as he approached me. as underneath them, jaws began to form, moving in sync with his words.

"I saved you merely so that they...my hateful brothers...wouldn't have another pawn for their stupid plans that I couldn't care less about. Yet here I am!, intervening, preventing them from getting a powerful new pawn for their game. And human, don't overestimate yourself. I'd get the same result if I killed you here and now."

"Even so, even if you were to kill me...I can't just walk away...I have to find a way to save...MY SON" I shouted as my legs trembled, seeing how the jaws stopped in front of my face.

But not allowing myself to miss an opportunity like this, remembering Sora in that cold incubator, determined to find a cure even though I was risking my life in this bet, when I decompressed the file with all of Sora's data, from possible ways to cure him, to my theoretical work on the improvements to that woman's program. The Soulkiller."

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