Cyberpunk: From Dogville to Legend

Chapter 287 One Hundred Years of Solitude (Part 2)

Mann had a terrifying idea.

What would it feel like to crash into this wall that looks like it's made of steel when you have more than 70% of S.A.R.'s acceleration?
This idea grew stronger.

Yes, that's right, he wants to end his life here.

……

It was so quiet around us, so quiet that it felt utterly empty…

Mann could even hear his own erratic breathing caused by fear.

This fear originates from within, like being abandoned by the whole world, becoming a weed in a corner that no one cares about—or perhaps it's because one is completely unaware of the passage of time, making it impossible to grasp anything, leaving one to sit here and waste one's life.

They will not experience hunger, nor will they have any other physiological needs for survival.

The digital prison, like a perfect torture device created by the Terrorist Squad, left Mann with no idea how he could ever get out.

Didn't I get what I wanted most?
Both the prosthetic body and the physical body are in perfect condition.

Mann had assumed the company's prosthetic implant skills were better than those of the prosthetic doctors on the street who were backed by gangs, but he didn't expect them to be this much better.

This is a rare find, one you couldn't even find on the street. It boasts impeccable craftsmanship, an incredibly smooth self-checking system, and even meticulous updates to the anus, ensuring a stable and reliable connection to the body.

嗏

Without enemies, without that neon-lit city that imprisoned dreams, what meaning does all this have?

Suddenly, the scenery around him, who had been looking down listlessly, was no longer the monotonous prison cell, but a world painted with yellow sand. His expression, which had remained unchanged for so long, twitched slightly. Then, he looked up in disbelief at the hallucination that had imprisoned him and brought him destruction during his cyberbullying episode.

"As expected, is it still not possible?"

Mann muttered to himself.

He didn't understand why cyberpsychosis was targeting him. He was capable of taking down several New America special forces members, and he was able to independently take jobs in Night City and had his own squad, and was becoming a mature and qualified cyberpunk.

It was this obsession with the past and his so-called talent that caused him to reach his limit prematurely.

He watched helplessly as his thick arms turned thin. The heatwave made it hard for him to breathe. Even though he knew he was suffering from cyberpsychosis, he still couldn't break free. His eyes began to tremble, and his body made its final surrender to the prosthetics.

Gradually, he lost track of whether he was having an episode or not.

He'd been running through this desert, filled with rough sand and high temperatures, for over twenty years, and now he'd had enough.

"If I can't even kill myself, what else can I possibly accomplish?!"

Mann kept asking himself questions.

However, the room was still the same room, and the cage was still there. But under the influence of his hallucination, he suddenly pulled out his gun and began firing at his surroundings!
That gun was very powerful—

He could get the desired result simply by moving it next to his head, but in his cyberpsychotic hallucinations, he just kept punching his surroundings!
"Mann!"

A thunderous sound rang in my ears!

Mann shuddered. The sweltering air and yellow sand around him receded, and he saw a kinetic pistol in his hand that was definitely not his usual weapon, and a woman being pointed at with the gun?
But Mann wasn't happy.

Even though this woman was just as important as his dreams, he was still unhappy.

Because he knew this was the so-called "digital prison" of the Terrorist Task Force.

"Ah, it's you, Dorio."

Mann's eyeballs stopped twitching rapidly, and he sullenly put away his gun. The next second—

A woman of equal strength rushed into his firm chest.

Her body temperature and the perfect firmness of her muscles were exactly what Mann loved about her.

“We’re rich now, Mann. Rin gave us a huge sum of money; we can go wherever we want—”

The woman appeared to be crying sadly.

Because Mann felt the warm, damp heat on her chest, the woman's grip on her leather vest, and a softness that was out of character for her.

"There's no turning back now, is there, Dorio?"

"Where to escape to?"

Mann interrupted her without any politeness, looking down at Dorio as she slowly raised her head. Incredulity, complex emotions, and irreparable sorrow were all written on her face, making her somewhat heartbreaking.

Forget it.

Let's just spend a little more time with her.

At least being able to hear her voice is a good thing.

"Dorio...did you get the money? That means...we did a good job."

"Yes, Mann."

Dorio nodded emphatically.

Mann looked troubled; even though it was a fake Dorio, he still couldn't bear to let her disappear.

He once fantasized about getting a lot of money with Dorio and then running away together.

But there's nowhere left to hide in this world.

The tyranny of corporations, the thugs who exploit farmers, the polluted land, and the souls burned in war…

There is nowhere to escape. Only in this neon-lit city that follows the laws of the primeval forest can one achieve redemption on their own. The stronger one is, the more one can obtain what one desires, and the stronger one is, the more one can protect those one wants to protect.

"Mann, please remove your prosthetic body, okay?"

"Don't leave without saying goodbye again, I have nothing left."

Dorothy seemed to sense that Mann's emotions had stabilized, and tentatively asked him a question.

But Mann felt a deep sense of fear and worry; he feared that this hallucination, which was even more terrifying than silence, would make him completely unable to distinguish between reality and virtuality.

……

Mann stood up.

He walked aimlessly to the end of the room, which was over a hundred square meters, ignoring Dorio's calls from behind.

Mann was muttering to himself—

"Dorio, you've said that to me over a thousand times. It's so nice to hear your voice."

"But... I have more important things to do."

“I refuse to remove my prosthetic body because I know how terrible it would be if this city and the world became ordinary people… The enemies we made, you and I might just be villagers swallowed up by fire in a riot. What do I have to do for you to believe that I don’t want to be a burden to you?”

"Dorio, my love."

Mann walked toward the wall furthest from the railing while muttering to himself, then turned back to continue looking at him.

Dorothy seemed to sense something was wrong. "No, no, Mann... please don't do anything foolish."

Mann's orange sunglasses slipped down, revealing his signature mischievous smile, but the weariness in his eyes was already impossible to suppress.

“I still don’t have the talent. The Terrorist Mobile Unit gave me a chance, but I’m wasting my time here and can’t tame the power… Dorio, I can’t do this last thing for you.”

One last thing?

Perhaps Dorio herself doesn't remember.

In the toilet of the Taipingzhou bar, reeking of urine, Mann vowed to do one last thing for Dorio in his life:

Protect her.

But he had no idea how to break out of this prison, and could only let his mind be eroded by meaningless conversations day after day.

He finally wavered.

Dorothy had no idea what was going on.

There was only a gentle breeze and the sound of some kind of instrument operating.

However, when time slows down to more than 70 percent, you can see a man ducking down and rushing toward the railing, crashing into those round steel bars at a terrifying speed!

Mann's body began to disintegrate. Ribs and eyeballs burst from the structures that bound them, his skin tore rapidly, his gums became clearly visible, and a muffled groan accompanied the tearing of flesh. In a second, the man, as thick as an ox, was physically disintegrated.

Gululu…

A prosthetic eye, stained with blood and bearing the logo of the Kijiroji, rolled to Dorio's feet.

The woman's face froze, her expression of sorrow etched on it.

Everything is on hold.

Digital Prison

[Simulation failed for the 103897th time]

[Duration of imprisonment: 38 years.]

Mann was destined never to see this fluorescent data; he chose to give up on himself in his dormant consciousness.

……

However, the devils who wanted Mann, this madman, naturally didn't want to give up.

"The assessment results are now being reported to you."

Melissa reached out and handed the document to the powerful figure in the shadows.

"The digital prison is quite effective at imprisoning him; he can distinguish between when he's experiencing a cyberpsychotic episode and when he's in reality."

"The only problem is... he has a tendency to end his own life."

She then added, as if to salvage the situation, "We've been saved."

Melissa wouldn't dare say Mann was the first, but he was definitely the most peculiar one in the digital prison.

He actually managed to give up his will to survive.

That was against his body's instincts; his brain issued the command to end his own life, and he even stopped breathing. If he hadn't been rescued in time, he would have truly ended his life in the immersive experience of the digital prison!
The creators of the Terrorist Mobile Unit seem very interested.

"Killing oneself?"

“In the past, those who entered digital prisons had forgotten their basic humanity due to long-term mental torture and established a completely new personality. Why didn’t he kill his weak self? Wasn’t his schizophrenia obvious?”

Melissa was momentarily speechless.

"He... doesn't seem to be fascinated by the intense stimulation from cybernetic implants, or by the satisfaction of power."

"Perhaps it's because there are still people in Night City who care about you, the kind who are preparing to make a name for themselves."

The boss's prosthetic body began to sway slightly around the desk, seemingly preparing to get to the bottom of things with Mann.

"If the timing is correct, he has already been resurrected in his consciousness, still with the same prosthetic body... Is he still trying to kill himself?"

At this point, Melissa's face darkened and she shook her head.

That's the important thing.

Because digital prisons, which previously lasted a maximum of three days, allowed cyberpsychotics to remain dormant for a century, the result was that they all became individuals with different personalities from their original selves—in other words, a re-establishment of human consciousness.

This is too abstract; it would be more accurate to say that we have lost ourselves over the long years.

The awakened cyber lunatics are often controllable psychopaths with antisocial personality disorder, and their only fear is the Terrorist Mobile Squad itself.

"That guy is starting to try to overcome the hallucinations."

"Although medical experts don't think this is a self-healing tendency, I still have to tell you."

She noticed that her boss paused slightly after she finished speaking.

"Why... Melissa?"

"I remember you were also a healer in the Terrorist Mobile Squad. Why are you telling me about someone who shares the same fate as you?"

Melissa made no attempt to hide anything.

“The Terrorist Mobile Unit is not an orphanage. Once he completes his self-improvement, what awaits us will not be a new employee, but a rebel who is just like the members of the Terrorist Mobile Unit but has different ideas from us. Do you want that?”

"He has too little of a dark side."

The person on the other end laughed.

"It's true, Melissa, you are a woman who likes to kill innocent people with the mantis knife. You probably know that you will become a cyber madman if you attach that knife, right? But you still did it, just to find a suitable reason for yourself."

"never mind…"

"Anyway, the Terrorist SWAT team is full of thugs, and I need thugs to make this city more stable."

Melissa shrugged, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

No matter how tactful his words were, Melissa only cared about whether she could get legal authorization to unleash her murderous intent.

"Well done."

Now it was Mann's fate to decide, Melissa listened patiently.

"If he wants to become stronger, then let him repeat his weakness in the digital prison and wear down his will little by little."

“We don’t want self-healers, so a controllable cyberpsychotic would be just as good—besides, I really hope we can find the guy we need this time. Ultimately, this city still needs strong violence to maintain order.”

"The nuclear bomb destroyed this city, and we witnessed too much of the depravity of humanity. Therefore, we must establish the law enforcement system we need through sufficiently ruthless means."

"Let him give it a try."

Melissa was a little worried.

"What if he becomes a fanatic with an intense desire for cybernetic bodies?"

The devil stood up, a broad smile on his face.

"We've satisfied his relentless pursuit of power, isn't that enough? By blurring the lines between the digital prison and reality, we can maintain control while also giving him agency—the perfect optimal solution."

Melissa nodded, picked up the folder on the desk, and left the office.

The smartest members of the Terrorist SWAT team have become adept at manipulating people's minds through pain.

As she stepped out the door, her eyes were momentarily dazed, but it was as if nothing had happened, and she walked straight down to the elevator.

……

"Crash la la la..."

The firewood was piled up together, forming a very spacious open space.

The setting sun was still dim and yellow, and the dry climate was still filled with the heat.

Mann looked at the endless pile of firewood on the ground and sighed softly.

A woman lay in the woodpile; she had been murdered many times, all by the company.

But Mann couldn't remember her name.

He just kept repeating, "This is the last thing I can do for you."

Use fire to dispose of her body, so the cleaners won't dismantle it—wait, what were cleaners again?

Repeated memories; he has stayed here for a hundred years.

There were two things Mann remembered very well:

"Next time, I have to protect this woman from being killed, so I have to become stronger."

"besides…"

"It's all an illusion."

……

……

　The nuclear bomb destroyed the city, revealing too much of the depravity of humanity. Therefore, we must rely on sufficiently ruthless methods to establish the law enforcement system we need. The Fourth Corporate War: The nuclear explosion triggered massive chaos in Night City. Almost all law enforcement systems failed, leading to rampant killings, robberies, and various heinous crimes. The Terrorist SWAT team played a crucial role in suppressing the unrest and establishing basic order, preventing a complete catastrophe.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)