Cyberpunk: XYZ

Make sure to check my Patre.on out if you want to support me and want to read advanced chapters: Patre.on.com/VQuintessence

[22 Chapters in Advance on Patre.on]

...........

Chapter 49: The Isolation II

...........

He made profiles of all of their known family members and acquaintances and put them on the list too... X seemed to be a bit more extreme than usual.

The most promising find was Tomas Kreznik, a logistics officer. Tomas was forgettable on paper.

But his neural profile revealed a fondness for public VR lobbies; dangerous places for someone connected to a corporate network.

Even better, Tomas often accessed those lobbies through less than optimal links, likely believing his neural firewall was enough to keep him safe.

It most likely was enough, unless he was specifically chosen as a target. The man seems to be a degenerate, a prime example of the lowest of corpos.

He thrives in sex and degeneracy. He's also addicted to braindances. People like him, they often go to the place known most for depravity, and what place is better known for that than Japantown?

There lies Jig-Jig Street where you can lose yourself in the deepest abyss of depravity, and it's a destination of a lot of corpos.

Tomas shouldn't notice when the sleeper program piggybacked onto his neural device.

From there, it could crawl through Militech's less-guarded internal systems.

However, there of course needs to be more than just that little investigation.

The plan began to crystallize. Tomas would be the sleeper's unwitting courier.

But to ensure success, X needed another layer; a secondary access point, something deep within Militech that would allow the sleeper to spread undetected. That's when the name Meredith Stout came up.

Before getting ahead of himself, however, X needed to prepare the Sleeper Program.

A sleeper program is a stealthy, highly specialized malware designed to infiltrate a system undetected, lie dormant, and activate only under specific conditions or commands.

These programs are incredibly dangerous, as their dormant state allows them to bypass security scans and avoid detection for extended periods, sometimes even indefinitely.

In X's case, he needed a program that activates periodically to send out only bytes of data at a time which over weeks to months should amount to a significant amount of Data.

Crafting the sleeper program was an exercise in patience and precision. X sat hunched over his deck for hours, the lines of code blurring together as he worked to refine the program's architecture.

It wasn't enough for the sleeper to bypass detection; it needed to blend seamlessly with Militech's internal processes.

Every line of code mimicked legitimate corporate functions, from routine diagnostic checks to innocuous system updates.

The program would embed itself into the lowest layers of Militech's network, hidden beneath the surface like a predator lying in wait.

Once inside, it would create a map of the system's most valuable data clusters and siphon fragments at a time, bundling them into harmless-looking traffic packets.

Days blurred together as X polished the sleeper. Testing it against his own sandboxed environments revealed minor flaws, each of which he painstakingly corrected.

By the time it was finished, his organic eye ached from staring at the screen. He leaned back, letting the glowing lines of code linger in his vision like the afterimage of a bright light.

Slow. That's how he felt, slower than he should. Still outstanding in comparison to others, but slower than he previously was.

Next was knowing your target, Meredith Stout.

Meredith Stout wasn't just another corporate cog; she was a player in Militech's relentless war of power.

Her psych profile read like a manual on how to survive in the cutthroat world of megacorporate politics.

Ambitious, ruthless, and unflinchingly pragmatic, Meredith thrived on control and results.

The key to her success wasn't finesse but raw dominance, her tactics often skirting the edge of Militech's own protocols.

Her ambition was both her strength and her vulnerability, thus why X wanted to use her.

With her as a base, X started investigating things around her, people, rivalries, enemies, and allies.

X spent days dissecting her behavior, piecing together a mosaic of her psyche from leaked Militech reports, intercepted comms, and personal anecdotes scraped from the Net.

Her paranoia was her defining trait; any perceived threat to her authority was met with overwhelming force.

Meredith is a senior operations manager. People in such a high position don't operate in a vacuum. They were surrounded by allies, lackeys, rivals, and enemies, each with their own agendas.

X spent a long long time reading through Militech's employees list more thoroughly, stumbling upon a familiar name, Anthony Gilchrist.

Anthony is sketchy, to say at least. X knows that at some point in the future, Anthony will involve himself with the Maelstrom, and compromise Militech's interest.

Thus why does X have to wonder, when did Anthony start compromising Militech's interest? Did he already start?

X's investigation of Anthony Gilchrist wasn't just methodical; it was obsessive.

Without Z and Y whispering brilliance into his mind, X relied entirely on his grit, experience, and the raw talent that had made him a Netrunner to be feared.

X knew that trying to crack into Militech's systems directly, even the outermost layers, would have taken weeks of relentless work.

X didn't have that luxury. He needed results, and fast. Moreover, he knew of a faster way.

So he shifted his focus. If Anthony's secrets couldn't be found within Militech's impenetrable walls, they could be unearthed elsewhere; in his personal life.

X began with the basics, surveillance. Leveraging his control over Japantown's security cameras and public devices, X traced Anthony's every move outside of work.

It started with his regular haunts. The man was a creature of habit, with late-night stops at sleek, high-end bars, meals at overpriced restaurants, and the occasional venture into seedy, neon-lit clubs that catered to the powerful and the morally bankrupt.

Through hacked feeds and careful observation, X started piecing together a map of Anthony's routines.

At first, it was mundane, meetings with Militech associates, quick visits to his plush apartment in a corporate-owned complex, and leisurely trips to expensive golf simulators.

But the deeper X dug, the more cracks he saw in the polished facade, or rather, the more he stalked him, the more he uncovered.

X basically lived in the Deep Net. Every second of free time was used to watch Anthony's every move.

Every low to medium security surveillance device around Anthony's place was taken over by X.

It had taken a while, but even the elevator of the building Anthony lives in was infiltrated, specifically, its security camera.

Anthony's family was also put under observation as well as his closest friends, and his fiance, a lady by the name of Mallory.

The first red flag came from Anthony's nights out. While the man projected an image of a sharp, composed professional, his behavior after hours told a different story.

In one instance, X watched through a nearby camera as Anthony stumbled out of an exclusive club, visibly intoxicated, leaning heavily on a hostess who appeared more annoyed than enamored.

Another night, a heated argument erupted outside a club, with Anthony shouting at someone who looked suspiciously like a fixer.

The fixer's face was recorded, analyzed, and cross-referenced in X's database; it belonged to someone flagged for corporate espionage in recent Netrunner circles.

Anthony's interactions were telling. He was somewhat careless when he thought no one was watching.

X then turned his attention to Anthony's home life. Accessing the surveillance feeds of the high-security apartment complex was child's play compared to Militech's systems.

Anthony lived alone in a sterile, minimalist unit on the 23rd floor; hardly the abode of a family man.

He seemingly loves his fiance, but still tends to fuck around and experiment with different kinks.

The logs showed sporadic visitors, mostly coworkers and the occasional escort.

Anthony's apartment told its own story.

X combed through the complex's service logs, noting irregularities; late-night maintenance calls, unexplained power surges, and complaints from neighbors about noise.

One incident caught X's attention; a report about Anthony hosting a private business meeting that had stretched into the early morning.

The timing aligned perfectly with a large data transfer flagged by X's crawlers on the Dark Net. 

Every single activity Anthony does, X is there with him, watching without his knowledge.

Anthony's past was unearthed, and his present was being documented. He was naked, no secrets nor privacy afforded it to him.

It's the case with the majority of people in Night City; that privacy is lost ancient magic.

If Anthony were to ever realize how little privacy he has, what would he feel?

Would he feel terror to realize that someone else has been watching him so much that he made a dossier of his psych? That, to a certain extent, X now knows him better than he knows himself.