At the edge of Arthur's vision, crimson, translucent rectangular glitches flickered nonstop. Yet his Neural Link showed no reaction at all—as if... everything abnormal was nothing more than his imagination.
He reached out in front of him... those erratic flashes... felt like they were growing inside his eyes.
Frowning, Arthur stood up. This kind of anomaly needed a professional. He quickly threw on his coat and left the apartment.
Vik's Clinic...
As he recalled Arthur's symptoms, Vik stared at the instrument readings, his brow knotted tightly.
Neural Link... cybernetic eyes... all normal. No viruses. If the one lying here wasn’t his old friend, he’d have thought this was a bad joke.
“So?” Vik finally set down his tools, giving Arthur a strange look.
Arthur shrugged, even blinking hard just to check again. “No change! Still seeing it...”
“This is... bizarre...” Vik stroked his chin out of habit, pacing the cramped clinic. “Feels like every rare and difficult case in Night City somehow ends up with me.”
Arthur shook his head helplessly. His brain had already undergone some unknown change—that dark shadow. After a few months with no visible effects, even he had let his guard down...
Never mind... Vik shook his head. There was still one more test left. The chance of finding anything there was slim, but checking wouldn’t hurt.
He adjusted the scanner again, targeting another region of Arthur’s Neural Link—
the core software, the section that supported its basic operational logic. Everyone knew this part never allowed data exchange.
Put simply, the data in this region was fixed and unalterable. From the moment a Neural Link unit was manufactured, everything here remained unchanged until it was scrapped.
In all his years as a ripperdoc, Vik had never seen a case where this section was altered...
...
Vik fell silent, staring at one file with the garbled suffix “Blackwall.#-*&,” his brow furrowed even deeper.
These two friends were driving him bald... One had a weird chip lodged in the head, and now the other... somehow had data inserted into the Neural Link’ logic files.
“You... ever put some strange chip in your skull?” After combing through the files, Vik finally asked.
Arthur racked his brain but couldn’t think of anything odd he’d done... until—
“Last time, when I went to rescue V, she gave me a chip. For communication...” After a lot of thought, that was all he could recall.
V was right there. Vik, full of questions, had run the same scan on her... but she showed no such problem.
“Just one chip?” His tone was doubtful. A comms chip? Like a walkie-talkie—it should come in pairs.
“There should be two, I guess.” Arthur wasn’t sure; he’d never asked. V was still unconscious in the bed.
A chip connected to the Blackwall?
If V had used one with no issues... then maybe Arthur’s brain mutation was linked to the Blackwall...
But that made no sense. How could a biological experiment be tied to the Blackwall?
“How are you feeling now?” Vik felt at a loss. He couldn’t modify the data in this file repository... Maybe replacing the Neural Link could fix it? He wasn’t sure.
“As you can see.” Arthur spread his hands and shrugged. “I feel fine... just glitches in my vision. If nothing works... just remove them. Or replace one, that should do it.”
He gestured toward his eyes.
Vik shook his head. “Remove what? If it’s the Neural Link... then all your cyberware has to come out. Pulling just the eye module won’t solve it.
Visual feeds aren’t optical projections on the retina. The data... the images... are piped directly from the Neural Link into your optic nerves.
As for replacing the Neural Link... I don’t even know if that’s possible.”
Arthur shrugged indifferently, stood up, and muttered, “Doesn’t matter. It’s not really affecting me right now.”
He walked over to V’s bed, looking at the unconscious woman. “What about V? How is she?”
“Not good. Honestly... with my skills, her chances don’t look good.” Vik let out a heavy sigh. For a doctor, watching a friend fade toward death was pure torment.
But he truly had no way out...
“I thought... you brought her back,” Arthur said heavily.
“I don’t even know how to describe it.” Vik turned the monitor beside V so Arthur could see.
He let out another long sigh before explaining. “The shrapnel caused fatal damage to her brain. Interfaces, tissue—total chaos.
That chip saved her, acting like a filler, patching the destroyed tissue...
But it’s just a stopgap. The coverage extends beyond tissue... into her consciousness. If we don’t find a solution, this chip will replace her mind.
The real her will be gone.”
Right now, V needed the chip. It was like a knife lodged in the heart—it could kill you, but at the same time, it plugged a hole.
But a heart can be stitched, even replaced. A mind can’t...
“We’ll find a way,” Arthur murmured, eyes fixed on V.
He wasn’t sure if he was trying to reassure Vik... or himself.
“Let’s hope her neural independence holds a bit longer... maybe a month, two? I can’t say for sure.” Vik shook his head. “We need to hurry...”