#johnnv

Being as he was young when the Soviet Corporate Rebellion took place, Artemiy’s education was disrupted. The schools, through gradual diplomacy, came to be controlled by SovOil as well. Two years of military service were mandatory for graduation and a war with PetroChem was blooming on the horizon, mushroom cloud-shaped and all. 

The 2008 deployment to Zhejiang and the Eastern Chinese Seas was hell on twenty-year-old Artemiy. Though, the blazing sun and its burns he was unused to were still rather pleasant compared to the screaming, white-hot pain of having his right arm blown off. He tried to be heroic, tried to do the right thing – but the grenade was already practically explodin’ when he tried to pick it up and throw it back. It made it maybe three-quarters of a meter from his hand before the chemical reaction simply blew his flesh clean from bone, and his bone clean from his body. Shrapnel dug into his chest and slashed across his face. The last thing he remembers is so desperately wanting to be anywhere else, to even be standing in a bread line…

SovOil, in all their graciousness, assumed Artemiy’s power of attorney and covered the costs for a cyberarm installation and facial restructuring. The standard was black… The standard didn’t make him look half bad. Recovery was slow, as Artemiy sported no cyberware before this, and honestly? Something in him flipped, if only just a little. People started making less sense – not that Artemiy couldn’t understand and empathize with them, it’s just that… Sometimes, code overrode that language part of his brain. Those external data forts, the black boxes with red cyphers gliding over the outside – it’s like they were spliced into something understandable. He doesn’t know if they… fuck, god forbid SovOil put something cyber in his head. 

The contract was terminated as soon as Artemiy graduated in 2010. The full disclosure notice stated only one cyberware installation: his arm. Somehow, Artemiy doubted that. The concepts of netrunning started to make sense. He became active on Arasaka’s radar around 2012, right before NetWatch came onto the scene. They picked up on his scent through the Net, and counterintel acquired his screenings from his SovOil-sponsored education as well as his discharge papers. They reached out with a contract (and veiled threats if he didn’t comply) but Artemiy was broke as a joke, so he figured to hell with it! Arasaka can’t be as bad as SovOil. 

They were as bad as SovOil. Maybe even worse. Arasaka plucked him out of Moscow and sent him to the NUSA, away from his friends and all that he had known right after he was starting to get back on his own two feet. It didn’t really matter when Artemiy was slowly but surely getting the hang of this netrunning thing. Arasaka supplied him with more cyberware, he got better at ‘running, yeah – all was goin’ good! Counterintelligence suited Artemiy – code was easier to read than body language, hacking came as easy as cyrillic. 

Enter Guadalupe Barrera. Biotechnica’s most loyal little ratgirl deskjockey ‘til the Crimson Harvest showed her what was up during a work trip in Paris. Disillusioned with the propaganda that was being shoved down her throat (and because she finally recognized it as propaganda), Guadalupe came away from the terrorist attack shaken but unscathed. She got back home to the main Biotechnica operations in Southern California, where she was greeted by a man sent from her corp to silence her – less close-up, involved witnesses meant less legally enforced payouts for Biotechnica. Guadalupe just so happened to be a close-up, involved witness, so she fled to Night City after accidentally killing the man. 

Around 2018, Biotechnica and Arasaka were on okay terms. The deal was that Arasaka troops were traded for access to Biotechnica’s research on human genetic material. Artemiy had worked with Guadalupe before, made contact during a few projects about tracking Biotechnica-branded seeds that were being harvested, sold, and grown illegally. She didn’t seek him out, but when they bumped into each other at the Atlantis, she told him everything in a panic after he asked why she looked “like that.” (Translators weren’t that good at emoting back then.) Artemiy did the only thing he could think to do and sent a message to his superior, asking through heavy corpo-mumbo-jumbo to get Guadalupe’s boss on the line and negotiate something. When they heard their muscle got hustled, Biotechnica sent Guadalupe her pink slip, a notice to sign an NDA, and a “generous compensation package for a situation HR should’ve handled.” The fuck was HR gonna do, kill the guy for her? They were probably the ones that told the man to keep her quiet… Anyway.

Soon after, Arasaka’s routine scans detected a shrinkage in Artemiy’s wallet size and asked him where the money went. He was honest and told them that it went to a friend, the one he wrote a recommendation about. Upon further investigation, there was no request to move funds from his paycheck account (linked to Arasaka) to an external account. This directly goes against a rule in a subset of rules in the Arasaka Employee Guidebook, which is about as thick as a goddamn encyclopedia, which Artemiy knew nothing about. See, he never caught this rule before ‘cause all of his financial interactions had been with other Arasaka employees, whose accounts were also linked to Arasaka. Guadalupe’s account was totally, 100% external, with no ties to Arasaka whatsoever. For such a heinous infraction against the corp, Artemiy was laid off and given a package similar to Guadalupe’s: he got money and kept his cyberarm, but was stripped of his cyberdeck and any other nonessential cyberware. Artemiy’s ability to netrun plummeted, but about half a year later with supplemented tech, he could cruise the Net like it was any other day.

Whether his ability tanked because Arasaka took his tech or because of some other psychological factor is unknown, but what happened after is well-documented. Artemiy stayed in Night City with Guadalupe, who changed her name to Valeria Chavez. They worked alongside each other often and their cred was built together. Their main hang was the Atlantis, though they were rarely invited and often rustled up some biz there. It was impossible to ignore what they accomplished whenever they put their heads together. Artemiy developed a glass cannon-cockroach reputation: if he got shit done, he got shit done. And if he didn’t? Well, he’d at least go down in a blaze of glory before popping back up a few days later like nothing happened, demanding his payment. The energy that surrounded him was inexplicable and electric and it drew people closer, watching him with eyes as wide as dinner plates and spawning rumors that were easy to believe with what all he’s pulled off.

The transition to chromed-up to chrome-less to even-more-chromed-than-before was rapid and took its toll on Artemiy’s physical and mental health. Anger became easier; killing became easier. Bouts of aches and nosebleeds were treated with pills and powders. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he recounts his mother swearing him off drugs when he was too young to understand the damage they did. His mother was a frigid bitch that never understood how fun it was.

Because that’s what it was, at the time. Fun. It stopped being about eds and making his fixers happy and more about carnage and pleasure. Quick one-and-done ops became drive-by bullet barrages with a boytoy leaning over the console, his lips on Artemiy’s neck and his hand on Artemiy’s thigh, sighing into his ear about the thrill of danger. Blazes of glory turned into total California wildfires. A dip in the Net could take out an entire block’s worth of electronics; a flick of his wrist could earn him thousands of eurodollars. Artemiy was drawing heat that matched the heat he packed and he was loving it. He finally grew out of being a joke. He was done being tugged around by corps to line their fat pockets. He felt powerful. He wanted to stay powerful.

His work was made even easier by the advent of a cyberlimb-deck. The thing about these little miracles were that they were cyberdecks installed into the ‘runner themself, so they were easily accessible at a time when most cyberdecks were clunky, stationary units. Artemiy got a high-class cyberdeck in his arm that came with some bells and whistles. He had a videoboard and a voxboxer – a screen for onlookers to see what he saw and a voice synthesizer for when he was in the Net and borderline-comatose in realspace. 

The danger laid in the cyberlimb-deck’s design. It was hardwired into Artemiy’s body, which freed him of cable management and the need of a power source. The glaring problem was that no one could unplug him if something went wrong, because he wasn’t plugged into anything. The Net was plugged into him, RAPIDs (Rapid Automated Pearlina Interface Drones) viruses and all. When those viruses became active on June 3rd, 2022, Artemiy was in the Net with a client jacked in as a passenger. While the virus was designed to breach and leak corporate datafortresses, it did as it pleased, destroying most of the Net. Artemiy’s cyberware took most of the brunt at first, but it quickly overwhelmed his tech and started going for his brain, the next supercomputer it could find. He dumped the load on the client and they fried immediately. It’s a miracle that he stayed alive long enough for Valeria to find him and shoot his cyberlimb-deck – the only way she could think to unplug him.

Artemiy was different when he surfaced. The only thing he dragged with him out of the Net was an AI program called Soulkiller, which his client paid him to fetch. Dips into the Net after the DataKrash were just… different. Even with all this tech, he couldn’t make a scratch where he used to cut deep. The Net was now made of islands of data called Net Architectures that he had to get close to in realspace to access – he couldn’t rely on how interconnected it used to be. And what was up with Soulkiller? Why was it so important? Artemiy couldn’t find anyone related to the client, familial, financial, or otherwise. He packed the program with some ICE and set it aside for now.

He grew to be more physical. Not physical as in affection, physical as in violence. He became more reliant on and trigger-happy with his Natasha, a Tokarev TT33 pistol that tended to over-pierce and left exit wounds three times larger than the entry wound. Though ‘cyberpsychosis’ is a term of the future, it’s safe to say Artemiy was teetering on the edge, and had been for a while now. The DataKrash was just what gave him the final push to become… this.

Jobs became more dangerous. Gigs he wouldn’t even consider before now sounded enticing; the danger and unknown added thrill. More work became sourced outside of Valeria, even when she told him she was worried. He didn’t care. He simply couldn’t bring himself to. Everything became about him, how he could please himself, how he could exploit others to please him in his stead. It wasn’t a conscious decision he chose to make on purpose, but it was his decision nonetheless.

A woman named Evelyn Parker eventually showed up around the beginning of 2023 to collect the program she created – Soulkiller. The client that hired Artemiy hired him to capture a rogue AI, which he thought he did. When asked what she was planning to do with it, she deflected and asked him many questions in return, such as the eloquently-worded “Who the fuck do you think you are?” Evelyn prevented the verbal altercation from turning physical and left before Artemiy could do anything. She returned a week later with a small army of Arasaka soldiers and took Soulkiller by force, easily breaking through his layers of ICE to retrieve her precious pet project. Artemiy was left battered and bruised and stripped of a program he was now desperately curious about. 

When asked, Valeria dug up some shit about this Parker girl: a skilled netrunner that was most likely employed by Arasaka under duress. Artemiy had heard of her vaguely before when he was neck-deep in the Net. Through Valeria’s connections, the true intentions behind Soulkiller were revealed. It was an anti-personnel matrix that copied personalities and skill to store and access – it took a person’s soul and killed it, warping it into an easily-exploitable tool. The few that knew about it whispered to Valeria as though the program itself would hear: it was the closest thing to Hell on Earth. They spoke as though it revealed a tenth circle of Hell, lower than Satan himself, where he stepped on the captured’s heads and feasted on the sin intrinsic to desire. 

Valeria’s warnings of danger only spurred Artemiy on. No, he wasn’t doing anything with Soulkiller while he had it, but like hell he was gonna let something so powerful fall into Arasaka’s claws. Arasaka crawled out of the woodwork to shit on him one last time and they just thought they could pull up their pants and leave? Did they seriously think that fucking with him wouldn’t have consequences? Did they forget who he is? Did they forget what they did to him?

It didn’t really matter if they did or not ‘til later that year rolled around. Artemiy was going to make them remember – it was a night nobody would forget. 

The strike team that descended upon Arasaka Tower was made of Artemiy Vishnevsky, Valeria Chavez, Jackie Welles, T-Bug, and a helicopter pilot Valeria trusted. Jackie needs no introduction, of course – he was practically the number-one solo in 2023, a living fuckin’ legend, and hopped on board ‘cause he heard destruction of Arasaka property was gonna run rampant. T-Bug was an on-the-ground ‘runner that adapted to the new Net better than Artemiy did, and she’d be defending everyone in netspace with ICE while Jackie’d be defending everyone in realspace with a hail of bullets.

The details of the night are a bit shaky. It was a terrorist attack, so that’s to be expected, isn’t it? An audio file recovered after the attack was blared from the PA speakers, demanding everyone evacuate or be caught in the explosion and rubble. “This is not about you. You will not die with honor. You will die an employee.” They flew in on the rooftop and touched down on the helipad, mowing down Arasaka troops as they moved downwards into the guts of the building. Artemiy set the charge on two hydrogen bombs and sent them down the elevator shaft, timing it so that they’d rock the foundation and send the tower crumbling. To make sure none of the backup supports came online (and just to do some extra damage), Artemiy stayed behind while the rest of the crew fled to the heli to upload a virus of his own: Laika. 

An old colleague came to make sure Artemiy stayed a bit longer to enjoy the party a bit more – Adam Smasher him-fuckin’-self. He caught Artemiy as he tried to flee after uploading the Laika virus and disabled his cyberarm. Somehow Artemiy managed to escape that ‘borged-out junkie and made it to the rooftop, where Valeria was waiting to hoist him onto the helicopter and to safety. The blades started to whirl and takeoff was already in motion.

It’s not clear if Valeria let go of Artemiy’s hand on purpose. It could be that her hand slipped – it was raining, it was possible. But Valeria, to this day, is insistent: she saw no fear in his eyes. A dawning realization, maybe, but no fear.

Artemiy made himself hell to deal with for Arasaka. He flailed, he shouted, he hit with his good arm, screaming as loud as he could with each impact. He wasn’t that loud or that strong, mind you, but he still gave it all he had. He finally turned quiet when they strapped him to a chair and asked for names of associates, how he got two H-bombs, which terror cell he belonged to. He just watched Arasaka Tower slowly crumble through the window, the bright orange mushroom cloud providing a pleasant backdrop against the black, disintegrating building.

Saburo Arasaka strolled right in like the view from the window was the view you’d see any other Sunday. He watched the cloud build, rising ever into the black night sky. Artemiy told him to fuck off, that Saburo was the reason he did all this. The techie next to him continued typing away at her terminal. The room fell silent. 

“All you corps are is shit,” Artemiy had said. His words slurred together and his sentences were spliced with Russian. “You will die. You will die, and the people will remain! You think I am crazy? I am a revolutionist! I am Lenin, I am Marx… I will bring an end to your madness. I will remain. I…”

Artemiy’s eyes drifted over to the Soulkiller crown. Almost like his body knew what he wanted, his cyberlimb-deck lit up, sending sparks flying. Traces of Laika were still trickling through his neural subnet. He stomped on the virus’ tail and it sent shocks through his body, causing him to flail like he was having a seizure. The confine binding his cyberarm broke, and before the techie or Saburo could do anything, his implants activated and he broke out of the chair. 

Artemiy grabbed the Soulkiller crown and ran. He didn’t get very far, though, as the techie discharged two bullets into his leg and waist. Another shattered through the window, sending a rain of glass down on the streets below. Artemiy sprawled across the floor, clutching the crown. 

He secured the crown on his head, connecting it to his network. Saburo Arasaka did nothing but watch as Artemiy crawled towards the shattered window except to hold up a hand, signaling the techie to hold her fire. The pain worsened as Soulkiller invaded more and more of his bodily systems.

“I have found that people lie, often deceiving themselves,” Saburo said, the Japanese words dripping from his tongue with a droning distaste. “Not so the dead… The dead are so very, very loud. And yet, lying is not in their nature.”

Glass shards scraped against Artemiy’s forearms as he continued to drag himself forward towards the edge. Blood pooled under him, its surface almost reflecting the light of the mushroom cloud in the dimly lit room. His hand crested over the edge, the jagged glass that managed to stay in the frame slicing his fingers. 

“It is so very… humbling – to listen to the dead speak,” Saburo continued. Artemiy could hear his footsteps behind him. Artemiy could hear when he stepped in his blood.

“I am not… yet dead,” Artemiy said. He pulled himself forward, dangling halfway out of the window. The UI projected onto his kiroshis read SOULKILLER PRIMED… CONNECTING ENGRAM TRANSFER: 82%. A shard cut into his hip as he lurched forward and over the edge. 

The falling wasn’t the worst part. It was rather pleasant, actually – nothing like in the movies. Time didn’t slow and he was all-too-conscious of the possibility of splattering before his engram was uploaded. It was fine, he would die a hero either way. Either he destroyed Soulkiller by uploading himself and taking it down from the inside, or he destroyed Soulkiller by physically breaking the crown. Both options led to Soulkiller’s death. It would be okay.

The worst part was being uploaded. It was Zhejiang all over again, except a thousand times worse. Artemiy felt as though his very skin was being invaded, his insides in searing pain as Soulkiller did its work and twisted him into something palatable that bent the knee to Arasaka. He will remain – he will not be overwritten. He is not yet dead. But it was too quick, done in an instant barely three seconds before his corpse hit concrete.