Chapitre 31: 30- BONK

"Was it a girl?"

Was the first thing Cal heard as he closed the door behind him.

Turning toward Monika, who had her head leaning against her fist and a certain glint in her eyes. Cal smiled wrily at her instinct, but then shrugged as he made sure the digital lock was secure. "Yeah, it was."

Monika looked at him for a few moments, almost thoughtful, then she tilted her head. "Is it someone you're interested in?"

Giving her all his attention, he went and sit on the table in front of the couch, crossing his legs as he gathered his thoughts. "She's very pretty, maybe a bit exotic since I'm she has some aesthetics chrome. But I don't know her. And you're also very pretty. So takes it as you may... Now, I just want to asks... What the hell brought this on, exactly?"

"Oh, I was just wondering about how relationships would works for you, exactly, since it so closely concern me. You know, with this whole nearly-divine thing you got going on." Monika smirked. "And I realized that I really didn't care much, in fact, you could say that any women not in a relationship with you are lost and ignorant, misguided, even."

Cal eyebrows lifted in surprise and he laughed. "Now, that's going a bit far. Plus I can't possibly handle every women."

"Maybe not now, but what about in the future?"

"I- Are you drunk, Monika?" Cal shook his head and change the subject as he couldn't refute her words, since theoritically, he could do anything he wished in the future.

Monika aquiecsed with a dip of her head, her smirk widening ever so slightly. "Maybe a bit, when you were gone, I found myself testing how well our synthetic body cpuld simulate drunkeness. And I have to say, I'm surprised." Monika sat up on the couch somewhat unsteadily. "It's true though, what I said. There is no possible event more fortunate than out there than getting noticed by you, let alone catching your eyes." Still a bit unsteady, she stood and began to close in.

"Monika, that's not how it works. It-" His words catched in his throat as she plopped down on his lap, facing him, and bringing her face close, she whispered.

"Aren't you the only one who can makes them real?"

She leaned back a bit, her green eyes glowing in the backdrop of the sprawling megacity at night. "They should be thankful, that you care. They should be singing your praises, that you are the hero they don't deserve. They should be on their knees, begging for your love. So you may grant them a life of freedom, absent of ignorance. That's just the truth." She said with finality, a glint of intense fondness, almost passion in her gazes as she carressed his cheek.

Gritting his teeth, he grabbed her chin with two fingers while grasping her hand with his own. "Monika, I'm not a god."

"Not yet, no. Right now, you're a coward. Afraid of letting loose even when I told you it was fine." Not afraid in the least, Monika teased him, grinding her ass against his crotch.

Letting a breath through his nose, Cal decided just here and then that insulting his pride as a man was going too far to go unanswered. "Who said I absolutely needs your approval to do whatever I wants to?" He smirked back, letting her hand go and lifting her chin to his level. "Your opinion, however, in this case, is much appreciated. And will be taken into account." Bringing his face close, he took her lips abruptly.

A surprised moans leaving Monika's mouth, Cal placed his hands under her thighs and stood up, walking to the bed as Monika's eyes widened in a bit of panic and anticipation.

"Cal, I-" However, it wasn't to be as he deposited in the bed and pulled the cover over herself.

"You're drunk. There's no way it's gonna go like this. Sleep it off. And maybe let's begins with a date, on another world perhaps." Cal stepped back, smirking.

Monika first looked disapointed but then smiled brightly. "So you've become serious now, uh?"

"I have to, if you employ such drastic measures. Though if you wants it that bad, that means you're getting that sweet desert for all the teasing you did to me. Now suffer my pain."

Monika looked at him with half-lidded eyes. "I've never been so annoyed by words before."

"Good."

Monika chuckled. "So cruel. Yet so considerate at the same time. My head hurts a bit. Or is it overheating?"

"Goodnight, Monika." Cal shook his head with a smirk.

"Goodnight, Cal."

Letting her to sleep, Cal went to sit on the couch. He spent the rest of the night learning about the tech of this world and the science behind it. With his literal state of the art computer as a brain, it went more than smoothly.

------

Another month went by, with him and Monica going on a few 'nice' outing. Since Night city was kinda a dump for a proper date. It was probably possible by throwing in a lot of money at the problem, but Cal had standards, he could tell that even if she was kinda impatient, Monika appreciated it.

Sasha's didn't call once during that time, which was understandable. Even if her efforts to cut herself from him were useless in hindsight, she didn't knows that.

She had launched her raid on Biotechnica just yesterday, and it seemed she had taken his warning quite seriously. Coming with a veritable arsenal of quick hack and programs to deal with bots, an arsenal that probably ate to the very last of her personal saving. Even then, nothing came even close to his own. Sasha realized it herself, as she was injured badly during her escape and came a single hair away from dying before she spammed his creation when her other tools proved poorly effective. In the end, she still came out alive, a big hole blown through one of her shoulder. The defender bots in pursuits giving out from the strong short-circuit in their system.

He knew all that, because he had been there, observing from a nearby rooftop like a cyberpunk version of batman.

Of course, Biotechnica went ballistics after this and as their unethicals misdeeds were made public for all of night city to see. And they tried to scours heaven and earth to find and kills the culprit. Tried was the word here, Because as soon as they began, one of their most top-secret research project was stolen. And perhaps, just perhaps, one of their highest operative may have died as well, with a message left behind by their very hand in their office, begging his own company to not pursue and just settle down. Or else his own case would happens again, and again, until they stopped.

The man seemingly died of cardiac arrest, with no signs at all of what happened beforehand.

The corporation did the wise thing, and immediatly stopped all their search. Paranoia, fear and distrust eating at them from the inside.

The incident was dubbed by the media: "The Fall."

-----

Cal frowned, looking down at the city. He couldn't help but thinks about how his endeavor to hunt down the Ai from DDLC ended in failure in the end.

Technically, after bypassing the black wall a few times in the past two months and *Cough* *Cough* borrowing some processing powers from his fellow mindless Ai, he could get to it. But it would take too much time and efforts, a week, at the shortest.

It was just hidding too deep, and somehow, he felt from the tracker that it was still digging, ever deeper into the old net.

Given all that, it was natural that he came to the conclusion that it was time to leave.

He had made much progress ability and knowledge wise. But he would needs a concrete boost in power before he could kill the Ai in a satisfactory manner and time.

Additionally, in term of his plan for this world, they were well on their way, now he just needed to wait until time was right.

"Is it time?"

"Yeah. Not much else to do here, besides have some fun. But I don't we have the same idea of fun in that instance." Cal smiled and shrugged, turning his head toward Monika.

"You mean meeting characters from the game and show this world is about? I don't know, if I'd watch it maybe I'd be on the same wavelength. But right now, you're right. Being here's a bit depressing. Plus, I think I actually misses the girls." Monika admitted. "Hanako's no Yuri, despite some similarities."

"Admit it, you just want that proper date don't you?" Cal wiggled his eyebrows, rizzingly, might he add.

"Eh? Whatever you mean? Wasn't that outing to that high-class bar a proper enough date though?" Monika tapped her lips.

Cal sniffed. "For snobbish corpos maybe, or really rich romantically braindead people. For my modern sensibilities, this just ain't it... Unless you'd rather we keep doing that, eh?" He smirked.

"I think I'll trust your modern sensabilities, on that one." Monika smiled innocently.

"Good choice, now we just needs to find how to leave the world... Should be... Easy peasy."

Turn out, he couldn't. He wasn't nearly strong enough to get access to the digital world of Cyberpunk and its boundaries. Luckily, he was chill with the local AI god Overlord, and just politely asking to leave with the intent to communicate with it behind his demand was enough.

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A/N: Back from the dead ??

Sorry had writer block kinda all summer and now school is back in force. No reason besides those.