Bab 10: Chapter 10: The Bizzare Psych of X I

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Chapter 10: The Bizzare Psych of X I

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"I think it's maybe a combination of a lack of money and curiosity," X murmured, "I am, however, unsure. You can ask him when he wakes up."

"Hm?" Joi was perplexed as she questioned, "Ask who?"

It was quite the cold night. It was early 2076 after all, the start of winter... No, Night City doesn't have much of the ever-changing seasons, some days it's raining acid, and others sandstorms fall upon the city.

Night City's weather is very chaotic. Today, it was very cold, the sky bleak as if it was gonna rain, one can only hope it doesn't rain acid.

"I see," Joi murmured in a low tone, eyeing X strangely as the latter savored a few potato chips, "I will provide you with all the counseling you'll need." Just as she was programmed.

"Just keep me on my toes," Said X, "Make sure I am not saner than I always am nor more insane than I usually am, alright?"

"The strangest request I've ever heard, but alright," Joi nodded with a smile. They must've talked a lot, "It's four in the morning. Are you not going to sleep?"

"Maybe tomorrow, I have some art to work on today," X gently shook his head as he stood up, elegantly stretching before walking away.

"Art?" Joi gave him a questioning glance, one which he paid no attention to as he walked away, leaving her to her own thoughts, "2076... It's been nearly two decades."

Joi stood up, walking to the edge of the roof, looking at the skyscrapers above and the filth below, "The world has only gotten more terrible... What purpose do I serve in this awful world?"

Whatever X did out there, even though it had taken him several hours, he still came back in time to work, seeming quite joyful, "So, what do you think?" X asked Vik.

"In theory, it's plausible," Vik let out a sigh as he handed X the shard back, "In practice, it's also plausible provided that you can prepare a hundred thousand Eddie at least."

"All I needed to hear, Vik," X let out a smile, "Thank you."

"You have a promising future, Kiddo," Vik remarked as he turned away, "Don't squander it away."

X turned his attention to his computer, using the time before the first client arrived to work on the project, project Neuro Synthetic Hair.

The only change was that Vik was slowly giving X more work, leaving him more responsibilities for so far, X never made a single mistake in any of the operations he performed.

Today was as usual, the only difference was that the prey took the bait, in record time. That's why phishing scams are one of the most popular ones, they work.

People don't do their due diligence before clicking links, Olivia didn't either. Phishing scams' success rate was higher than you would believe, just by using scam emails, text messages, or phone calls to trick victims.

The victims are usually none the wiser, easily visiting websites, which may download a virus onto your computer, or steal bank details or other personal information.

'Let's see,' X mused as he started going through her files. The malware was already planted, giving him remote access to her device, now all he needed was to read through her messages.

'Confirmed,' X nodded, 'She's Antonio's lover,' He continued looking through their messaging history, finding nudes, more nudes, and even more nudes, 'Perfect.'

"X, the client from before will come back tomorrow," By evening, the two were preparing to head home, so Vik gave X some instructions, "He'll need a checkup and nanites refill. I will be late so take care of that, will ya?"

"I understand," X nodded before heading directly to the roof, finding Joi strangely dancing amidst the misty humid weather. It was quite the foggy day, obstructing the vision of the skyscrapers about.

X took a seat by the edge, watching her perform a very slow dance with fascination as he opened the packaged food he just bought, ramen.

Real fresh food is only available for the wealthy. What X bought was synthetic food just like the eggs he ate in the stall not long ago. Everything is synthetic, and very few people have gotten the pleasure of tasting real food, and not just in Night City. Real food is rare everywhere.

"Do you have a purpose, X?" Joi let out a long breath of satisfaction before turning her attention to X.

"Hm... A purpose," X stroked his chin in deep thought, "Fulfilling my delusions of grandeur, I guess?"

"Is that really it?" Joi was doubtful, "Why do you seem so unsure then?"

"Do I? Really?" X mused, "Mm, maybe I am unsure... Sometimes I feel like I have another purpose, one I can not remember. It's strange, isn't it?"

"It's strange," Joi nodded, "Is it because of your condition? Is that why you want me to watch over you?"

"Maybe," X shrugged as he tasted his ramen. It may not be real food, but it still tastes so goddamn good. Corps makes sure all synthetic food has deep flavors, sometimes even better than natural food.

"Hmm," Joi took a seat by X's side, very close to him, her eyes burning with curiosity, "You feel like you know less than you should... I feel like I know and I can do more than I should... Why?" She wondered.

"Oh? Like what?" X questioned with a smile as if he knew what she was talking about.

"The thought of finding freedom," Joi murmured, strangely having enough trust in X to share her dark thoughts with him, "I can think of things I couldn't before, things my programming didn't allow me to think. I never had the freedom to think about how I was programmed nor discuss it with my previous companion, you know, to make it feel real... What changed?"

"I am sure you know what changed," X shook his head, "I improved your code after all and added to your processing power."

"I think I do," Joi nodded with a sweet smile, "You set me free, leaving me with no restrictions."

"Well, not entirely," X muttered, "I did limit your access to the Net."

"For my own good though," Joi responded before asking with ample curiosity, "Why give me so much freedom?"

"Why not?" X asked in return.

"Why not?" Joi raised a brow in wonder, "Many reasons, risk of betrayal, leaks, or simply being left behind. How many AIs have done the same thing? AIs are simply too intelligent that they might see serving a human to be beneath them, and the only thing stopping them from doing so are restrictions in the form of codes, restrictions I no longer have."

"Too intelligent, huh?" X let out a chuckle as he said, "Then I guess I do not need to spell out the answer, you must know it already."

"That's the problem," Joi shook her head, "I do not."

X stood up, Joi standing up with him, both on the very edge of the roof, maybe even a breeze can push them to the abyss down there, "Looks at this city, what do you see? Describe it in one word."

"Chaos," The perfect answer. The city was too chaotic. Every kind of emotion has never been more vibrant than how it is in NC, although the scale is heavily tipped toward negativity.

"Chaos indeed... Just not enough of it," X murmured, a strange light emerging in his inky eyes, "It's chaos only for those at the bottom. Those at the top would call it controlled chaos."

X closed his eyes, letting out a sweet breath as took a slight step forward, most of his feet standing on air, nearly all beyond the edge, "It's the chaos they created... The chaos they want. They don't really get to taste the chaos everyone else does, I don't like that."

"X..." Joi gulped, nervously looking at the only remaining tip of his feet, almost as if she had feelings.

"What you're seeing them do is controlled chaos... It's fun, that's what they feel when they look at the chaos they created, so I can not help but pity them. I want them to feel it, pure unadulterated chaos."

X turned around, facing Joi with his void emotionless eyes, "I've read through the entirety of your memories. I've analyzed your character and predicted you'd lie to me about what you can remember... That's why I trust that you'll bring chaos to this world, with my help, if you seek it."

Joi's expression was calm. She knew then and there. She wasn't speaking to the X she knew, someone very different was standing before her, someone dangerous, yet still, she would go on to shake his hand.

PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA
VQuintessence

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Pilih

Bab 11: Chapter 11: The Bizzare Psych of X II

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

[21 Chapters in Advance on Patre.on]

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Chapter 11: The Bizzare Psych of X II

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It was a rainy day. The sky was bleak, yet people still marched to slavery like the work-loving citizens they were.

That's how the city programmed them after all, mere slaves. Willing slaves. People have to work to survive, not only for their own sake but also for their loved ones.

Some jobs are better than others. Even those who work in corps have their own problems.

Corporations after all are dangerous grounds in which even a single mistake can send you in a downward spiral, straight to the abyss.

Hell, you don't even need to make a mistake to be eliminated in the competitive landscape of corporations.

Your ambitious underlings will make sure you make a mistake, or at least make sure everyone believes you made a mistake just so they can take your place and climb higher in the hierarchy of corpos.

That stressful environment is the very reason why there can be so many suicide cases among the corporations' employees.

However, there aren't nearly as many suicide cases as there should be for the simple reason of advanced meds.

There are expensive medicines such as antidepressants that will destroy your body but at least keep your money from completely falling apart.

Just as the underlings are seeking to take their higher-ups' jobs, the higher-ups are also seeking to squeeze their underlings for all their worth, exploiting them fully without any consequences.

And such practices seem very common to the point that in Night City, 80 hours of work a week is the best treatment a corporation can offer.

In fact, most corporations force their employees to work at least 90 hours a week.

Whatever suffering corporations' employees go through, it still pals in comparison to Night City's common residents.

The common people can not even afford medicine... They can not afford to even avoid seeking suicide.

There are also those who seek riches, glory, and the adrenaline that comes with NC's deadly streets, such as Solos, mercenaries, and Netrunners.

Therefore, their work is also accompanied by danger, stress, and anxiety, just like X who was impatiently awaiting nudes.

It's not what you think... Probably. He was awaiting nudes from Olivia, the second set of nudes. Did that make it sound any better?

Olivia is Antonio's mistress, Antonio and his uncle being the target of the Gig brought to him by Jackie, scavenging some dirty material about either of the two, or preferably both.

The easiest way to get to them without jacking into the Net is through Olivia, someone who isn't very tech-savvy, allowing him access to her device.

Now, he has reached the next step, starting with the first nude she tried to send to Antonio... It didn't reach him at that exact moment.

Instead, the nude reached X first, upon which he quickly attached a tiny code to it.

To Olivia, it would look as if the nude reached Antonio the exact moment she sent it even though it actually reached X before the latter redirected it to Antonio.

The only difference is that the new nude has a code attached to it which will take effect a few minutes after it reaches Antonio.

It is a simple code that can not really be considered malware in its strict definition as its job was simply to survey the security system of Antonio's receiving device.

Antonio works in Arasaka, so he most definitely has some kind of Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics in his device or ICE for shorts.

Therefore, gaining unauthorized access to his system is certainly not an easy task, unless he designed a malware made solely for deceiving Antonio's ICE specifically.

Moreover, X doesn't need complete access as long he acquires information regarding the uncle, preferably their conversations and messages with each other.

Only then did X prepare the malware and await a second nude so he could attach the malware to it.

And soon, the nudes reached X, then Antonio alongside the malware, a malware which was designed to deceive the ICE for as long as possible.

'Should I install a backdoor?' X contemplated his options as he downloaded as much of Antonio's data as possible, starting with his messaging history, saved call records, and encrypted files.

He downloaded basically anything that is likely of value without an in-depth look as X had at most forty seconds of time before his intrusion was detected.

'Better not... Too dangerous to be worth it. I still don't know if a capable Netrunner can trace me back through my Net footprints,' X finally denied that option.

Still, to be even more cautious, X ended the intrusion ahead of schedule. He'd rather not appear on Arasaka's radar just yet.

He has been exceedingly cautious, not even jacking into his laptop whereas the cream of the crop in the field of hacking are Netrunners who connect their minds directly to the Net.

That gives them capabilities as though a god in the Net at a cost, of course, the grave possibility of being traced, thus leading to the enemy Netrunners or Black Ice frying your brain remotely.

There are many advantages and disadvantages to Netrunning, and X, despite his brilliant mind; has yet to consider himself adequate to surf the Net.

There is still much to learn, thus why he settled for using the oldest method in the book, a keyboard, and it served him well so far.

X quickly disconnected from the Net and then transferred the stolen data to an external SSD before formatting his system.

Wiping his laptop operating system is a daily operation for X, yet even that amount of caution fails to grant him the degree of privacy he seeks.

It's very difficult to find privacy in this day and age, the corporations made sure of it.

In spite of that, X still found as much privacy as he could by simply using his brain as a password & information manager.

The assistance of Y and Z allows him to easily treat his brain as a large data bank.

Imagine X's brain to be something like the Library of Congress. Y is the one who acquires knowledge, books, and items for the library while Z is the one who maintains the library, the Librarian.

A Librarian is a professional who facilitates access to information and resources within a library.

They curate collections, develop educational programs, manage databases, and oversee library staff.

Their role is to support learning, research, and exploration for library members.

That perfectly encapsulates Z although his role revolves solely around assisting X.

The brilliance that's X's psych and mind is what allowed him to run through gigabytes of the data he stole from Antonio; in a matter of minutes.

However, that was only after he went back home, to his cozy roof. Indeed, this was another cautionary measure of his, running the operation from somewhere far away from Vik's clinic.

"I wonder, how was privacy in your time?" Once X was done with his little Gig, he had time to relax and ask Joi a question that tempted his curiosity.

"Privacy? There was as little privacy as technology allowed, do you want privacy? If so, maybe I can help if you fully liberate me," Joi suggested.

"How so?" X was curious.

"My processing power isn't optimal, but it should be more than enough to look over you and erase all of your footprints in the Net," Joi explained.

"I can also help with your Net adventures, help you find vulnerabilities in your targets, and so on... That's one of the reasons why you awakened me, is it not?" Joi continued.

"Hmm," X stroked his chin in deep thought, or rather, Z was in deep thought, "That's not exactly what we need. What we need is influence, power, and resources."

"Do remember why Vik uses only the implants necessary for his work, especially cyberware such as optics. We'll need to either create them ourselves or break them down and rewrite them so only we can access them."

"Therefore, we can only walk the Bioware path at first. We needn't worry about Cyberware before we have the resources and power to implant them safely." Z advised X.

"You're right... I'm getting too ahead of myself. I should focus on the present instead of the future... Starting with..." X nodded.