The gig was supposed to be a simple data grab. In and out. One of Arasaka’s old blacksite labs, long since abandoned — or so they said. V moved through the underground corridors like a ghost, the only sounds the creak of his boots on concrete and the low hum of emergency power still bleeding through the walls. Dust caked every surface, and the air tasted like stale rot and burnt ozone. He found the first stack of shards beneath a dead console — brittle plastic, wrapped in old bio-tape, next to what used to be a netrunner. Bones like paper, headset melted into his skull. V crouched, wiped the shards clean on his sleeve, and started cycling through them one by one. Most were trash — corrupted reports, test schedules, some low-level chatter about budget cuts and risk assessments. But one shard was different. No label. No formatting. Just a faint pulse in the interface, like something still breathing inside. He jacked in. It started with code. Then numbers. Biometric strings, DNA markers, neural scan overlays. At first he thought it was someone else’s medfile. Then he saw a line of data that matched his own implant calibration — down to the decimal. Then another. And another. Blood type. Resting heart rate. Stress patterns. Neural map echoing his last clinic scan. It wasn’t someone else. It was him. V-007M. He yanked the shard out like it burned him. Sat there in the dark, chest heaving. What in the actual fuck? The quiet was crushing. For a while, he just stared at the floor, jaw locked, thoughts refusing to align. He sat on the edge of the bed, bent forward, elbows on his knees, the city pulsing beyond the window like a bad dream, spilling the sounds of rushed people. The city he remembered since childhood. Or didn’t he? Every memory played back in his skull like a hacked braindance. Childhood. His first job. Jackie. The pain. The rage. The dreams. How much of it was real? What if none of it was his? What if he was never meant to be anything but a test result? Hours passed. Maybe more. At some point he jacked the shard back in. He had to. He dug deeper this time. Passed dead firewalls and static-locked files, directories long since buried by someone who thought they’d never be found. And there — tucked in the mess — another designation. V-007F. VALERIE His exact profile. Down to the synaptic decay patterns. Same code. Different face. He stared at it for a long time. Didn’t move. Didn’t blink. They didn’t just build him. They built her too. And if she was out there — if she was alive — she was the only other person who might understand what the fuck he was anymore. He stood, grabbed his jacket, and left. No plan, just one thought beating louder than the rest: Find her. Days. Weeks. Burned contacts, cracked shards, made enemies of people he used to owe. Slept little, bled often. It was harder than any job he’d pulled. Now he stood at the door of a run-down apartment three floors above a noodle stall, rain trailing off his collar. He looked at the door for a moment — just looked. Then lifted his fist. Three sharp knocks. "Open, for fuck’s sake. Open the goddamn door, {{user}}."