I had only made a few more steps before we made it to the workshop. We passed the open garage entrance for the smaller door beside it, stepping in as it opened.

  "So, I'm pretty sure that by now you've figured out that I'm not a normal inventor," I said as I led her into the side room of the workshop.

  "I figured that out when you showed off that flashy energy pistol the first time we met," she responded, looking around the room. "It's only gotten worse since then. Is this what you wanted to show me?"

  She gestured around the room with a frown, which was mostly a control room for the larger molly maker systems in the production room, but also contained a couch and a few other things.

  "No, I'm just delaying until some things are set," I admitted with a shrug. "Forgot to get things set up beforehand. In the meantime, let me introduce you to Samwise."

  Sable narrowed her eyes at me before turning towards the door as Samwise stepped into the room. He nodded to Sable before turning towards me.

  "Final setups are almost complete," he said. "Would you like me to join you?"

  "If you would like," I said with a smile, before gesturing from my assistant to Sable, and then back again. "Sable, meet Samwise, my assistant. Samwise, this is Sable Arturus.”

  "It is a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Arcturus," Samwise said, holding out his hand and nodding. "I look forward to working closely with you in the future."

  Sable's eyes widened as Sam talked, clearly understanding what was going on.

  "Oh god, please tell me he isn't an AI Jackson… Jackson?" she said, repeating my name when I just smiled. "Are you insane? Do you have any idea what Netwatch will do to you? Hell, they probably won't have to do anything, the AI will take care of you for them. Do you have any idea how dangerous they can be? Of course you don't, you gave it a body and free access to the town!"

  "Sable, relax. I'm not stupid enough to make the same kind of AI that everyone else seems to like experimenting with," I assured her, holding my hands out in what I hoped was a calming way. "Samwise and his brothers-"

  "There are

  "-are perfectly sane, and can empathize with humanity," I explained, ignoring her cut in. "They are tied to their core, and slowly raised to the state you see here, giving them a more grounded personality."

  "...Tied to their core?" Sable asked, her curiosity getting the best of her. "Explain."

  "Their programming cannot pull away from the hardware they are living on. They aren't free-floating ones and zeroes, able to jump between computer servers like the flu," I assured her. "It makes them vulnerable, yes, but significantly calmer and not nearly as Fae-like as some of the horrors on the other side of the black wall."

  Sable was silent for nearly a full minute, looking between me and Samwise, seemingly trying to contain herself. Eventually, something seemed to snap in her, and she let out a long breath.

  "Are you sure they are safe?" She asked, still watching Samwise closely.

  "Yes, very much so," I assured her. "Samwise has been working with me since shortly after the beginning, and his brothers have been working hard as well. Without them, half of what we achieved would have been impossible."

  "Jackson, perhaps showing her some more would distract her from me?" Sam suggested, and I nodded with a smirk.

  "I think you're right. They should be done by now anyway. C'mon, Sable, time to adjust your reality a little."

  I led the now-nervous corporate woman down to the teleporter room. The space had been cleaned up properly, with three completed platforms, though they were redundant at this point. Samwise had already instituted an exchange system that allowed different entangled photons to be traded out, meaning one platform could connect to a whole plethora of catchers, and vice versa. It would get a lot more complicated as we started making more and more, but for now, it was relatively simple.

  "What's this?" she asked, eyeing the platforms. "Some sort of scanner?"

  "Nope. Samwise, if you don't mind going first?"

  My AI assistant nodded and smoothly climbed the steps. A short few taps on the control board and a moment later, he was gone in a quick, silent blip. It seemed that he had been working on the teleporter's precision, because I couldn't even detect the usual backdraft of cold that was usually present for onlookers, either.

  "Did you just disintegrate your AI?" Sable asked, still staring at the platform. "Jackson, did you just disintegrate your AI?!"

  "Nope. That was honest to god teleportation," I said, watching her reaction, both enjoying the faces she was making and slightly concerned she might actually pass out at some point. "And before you ask, no, it is not disintegration and then reconstruction, so no Ship of Theseus or Teleportation Paradox problems."

  “I…Jackson… you…”

  She trailed off, looking from me to the platform, then back to me. After nearly a minute, she finally let out an aggravated sound of finally being driven past her breaking point.

  "You know what, sure, you made teleportation," She said, shaking her head. "Show me. If it's really teleportation, then get up there and use it yourself."

  "Alright, sure," I responded with a shrug. "I'll be back in a second."

  True to my word, I used the teleporter, disappearing from her view. After a few moments, I teleported back, giving the startled Corpo a little wave.

  From there, it took a little more convincing before she finally agreed to use the platform. As she climbed the steps, I winced and spoke up from behind her.

  "Just FYI, we are going to be traveling a fairly long distance, and we might lose connection to normal Night City networks," I warned. "Just in case that conflicts with any cyberware you have."

  She shook her head and wordlessly stood on the platform. She paused for a moment, gave me another look before finally tapping the button, disappearing a moment later. I waited a few seconds before climbing up to the platform myself and once again teleporting through.

  Both Sable and Samwise were waiting for me as I appeared, and I couldn't help but give Sable a big, glowing smile. We had landed in the public landing area of the finished living space. Sable seemed to be working through her shock rather well, and was instead looking around the room.

  "Where are we?" She asked after a moment.

  "We are in my vault, a bunker I built just in case this plan all goes sideways and Arasaka or Militech decide to go to war over what I am making," I explained with a smile. "Considering what we just used to get here, you might understand why that's a problem."

  She stayed silent as we walked into the main central area, her head on a swivel as she tried to take in everything at once. Her cool, cold corpo facade had well and truly shattered with the teleporter, and now I could see her wonder and shock as we walked around under a semi-cloudy sky, deep underground.

  "The bunker is still under construction, but my team made this living space first, plus some bare-bones systems, so we could finally have a safe place to retreat to with the teleporters," I explained. "Now, everyone we interact with, who might be used as leverage against us, can be sent here in seconds, with no way for any company to stop them."

  "How's that possible?" She asked, looking down from the artificial weather to look at me. "Those platforms don't exactly look portable."

  "They aren't, but they are just the landing pad. For a one-way emergency teleport, all you need is a special kind of beacon," I responded, reaching into my pocket to pull out one of the emergency teleport watches. "With one of these, I can lock onto anywhere on or off the planet and bring you here. If you want it to be able to do it automatically if you're dying, so we can save you, that requires a tiny little biomonitor."

  "I already have Trauma Team," She pointed out, but I shook my head.

  "Do you think that Trauma Team would stop Arasaka from killing you if they wanted you dead?" I asked, raising my eyebrow. "Or that they could somehow be faster than me when I use an instantaneous teleporter? Besides, our medical abilities are far beyond anything that the Trauma Team might have. I'll show you one of the big ones in a few minutes. So, you want the watch and the biomonitor? Just the watch? Neither?"

  She seemed a little rattled, some of the manic, overwhelmed look returning, but she quickly stamped it down. She reached out and took the watch, turning it over to examine it.

  "I will think about it," She said, before sliding the watch into her pocket. "I'll let you know."

  "Alright. In that case, let's move on for now," I said, leading her to the center of the domed space. "Just down this elevator."

  The circle of garden space around the central elevator shaft had a gap where the door was, to make accessing it possible. After a moment of waiting, the door opened, revealing the large elevator, which we stepped into, Samwise staying behind to get back to his own work. A moment later, we were hurtling downward.

  "When the vault is completed, it will be able to hold more than five thousand people. There will be entertainment centers, a mall-like area, restaurants, and all sorts of extras," I explained, watching the floor numbers tick down.

  "Why on earth would you need something that large?" She asked, looking at me like I was crazy.

  "Honestly? I don't know," I said, shaking my head. "Samwise and his brother went a little crazy when I asked them to build me a vault. I'm pretty sure that when this one's construction has stabilized, they are going to start asking if they could build more."

  "I thought you said they were stable?"

  "I did, but did you somehow expect him to be more stable than me?" I teased. "They are fine, I think they see it as a hobby."

  "A five-thousand-person bunker... a hobby?" She asked, raising her eyebrow at me. "Right, perfectly stable."

  "Yeah fine," I allowed with a joking scowl. "Just be glad I convinced them to stop at five thousand and make a second bunker, rather than just continuing this one forever."

  "I'm... I'm ignoring that," She said. "Something is telling me to ignore that."

  I chuckled and nodded in agreement, before filling her in on what our eventual destination would be.

  "We set up a bit of a testing area in an unfinished portion of the vault," I explained. "Noting fancy, just a big room with plenty of space."

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  She nodded, probably only half listening, as we both stood in the large elevator, rapidly plummeting deeper and deeper into the earth. Eventually, the ride stopped, and the door opened, and together we stepped out into the large cavern.

  When I had been discussing this plan with Samwsie and Noah, it was the latter who had suggested this space. According to him, it was the right size for a proper testing space. As he had described it, it was a large room, with enough height and floor space to show off both my newly developed power armor, several of my weapons, and other miscellaneous creations. To that effect, they had set up several tables, some lights, and a portable fusion generator.

  What the room actually was, was absolutely fucking massive.

  The ceiling was at least forty meters above us, though there was a gradual curve to it that made it feel less harsh, while still making the cavern feel extraordinarily tall. The floor plan was equally extreme, with the elevator shaft sitting at the center of a hundred-meter-wide square. It dwarfed the living space gathering room by several factors.

  While most of this space was flat, one of the corners was cut almost in half by a large running river, with a large amount of the space around it carved to feel more natural. All of this space was lit up with spotlights and ground lights, and revealed thousands of massive, thick metal support beams inbuilt into and fused to the stone.

  Here, thousands of meters underground, I felt small.

  Now that we were both struck stupid, Sable and I looked around the massive room, trying to take in just how extreme its dimensions were. It took a few minutes of us breathlessly looking around for me to finally spot the tables of stuff, as well as the impromptu shooting range. As I started walking towards it, Sable reached out and grabbed my arm.

  "Jackson…" She said, looking at me with wide eyes. "... Jay… What the ?"

  "Yeah… It's pretty impressive," I admitted with a smile. "I'll admit, I don't know what exactly they plan on doing with this space… this is the first time I've been this deep."

  "You don't know- Who designed this then?"

  "An AI called Noah," I explained. "He specializes in large-scale engineering projects like buildings… and apparent stuff like this."

  "But This is a huge room, excavating this should take months!" She explained. "How could you get this built so quickly?"

  "A few advancements in working with stone," I explained, looking at some of the tech Sam and Noah had left out. "It's not actually here, but I could get a unit down here in a few minutes…"

  "...No… no it's fine, I'll take your word for it," She said after a long pause, releasing my arm. "I have a feeling you have plenty of other things to blow my mind with."

  "Probably," I confessed with a smirk. "Well, come on, let's start off with something you're at least partially familiar with."

  I led her to a table of plasma weapons, which looked pretty much identical to the normal XCOM version. While Samwise had his energy weapon portfolio ready to go for when we got around to re-designing the laser and plasma weapons, we hadn't actually gotten around to doing any of that, save for my mag weapons.

  So, rather than picking one over the other, Samwise and Noah had put out the full spread, with weapons from Fallout and XCOM, medical tech and more from Titanfall, an ALEO frame with basic showroom programming, and dozens of little trinkets from all across my tech trees.

  Piece by piece, we went through some of our choice pieces of tech. I demonstrated the stimpak on my leg before giving her three of them. Without the two enzymes used to make them, even if she handed them to himself, Arasaka wouldn't be able to replicate them, and I wanted her to have them, just in case.

  We spent another hour inside the armored undersuits and power armor, running around the large room, jumping and bouncing around with the jump kit. Sable clearly enjoyed it, and I was pretty sure she used it as a chance to get back at me for throwing all of this at her at once. By the time we were done, I was bruised and sore, while my power armor was absolutely wrecked.

  By the time I was done blowing her mind a few dozen consecutive times, I could tell that she was starting to get a grip on the situation. I could see her, at each stage, starting to recalculate and adjust herself. It wasn't malicious or anything, she was just recontextualizing exactly what she had gotten herself into. When I finished helping her out of the power armor, she let out a long breath before turning to look at me.

  "Jackson-"

  "Do I have to start blowing your mind again to get you to call me Jay?" I asked, cutting her off.

  "... Jay, you realize that… you have an empire in the making. You have all the parts, all the things you need to take over the fucking world," She pointed out, gesturing to everything I had just shown her. "This… this is the next Arasaka. This is beyond the next Arasaka."

  "Oh, trust me, I know," I said, nodding in agreement. "This is the start of something greater, Sable. I don't plan on squandering it. I plan on changing this world. Giving humanity the chance it deserves to be something greater."

  "The corporations aren't going to like that," She pointed out. "But that doesn't bother you, does it?"

  "Not in the slightest. Because soon, I plan on being far beyond anything that they can stop."

  "...Good," she said with a nod. "Then what's your next step?"

  "I need you to start looking into purchasing land in Watson," I responded easily. "Specifically, North Side Industrial District."

  "What? That's Maelstrom Territory," She said with a frown. "Nobody wants land there. Half of it is abandoned."

  "I'm aware," I responded with a smirk, leaning back on my busted-up power armor. "In fact, I'm hoping to get a chart that will show you exactly where Maelstrom activity is the worst so you can focus there."

  "Why? It's like buying a-" She stopped and her eyes went wide. "You're going to use it as an excuse to wipe out Maelstrom."

  "Exactly. I want you to buy the most gang-broken parts of Night City for ennies on the eddie," I explained with a smirk. "Then I can deploy a private military team to walk through Watson and wipe Maelstrom out to the last man, completely above board. I can then come through, tear down buildings and rebuild whatever I want, from manufacturing buildings to make my own goods, to safe, affordable housing."

  "That… Holy fuck, Jay… why has no-one done this before?" She asked with a frown, running her hand through her hair. "Anyone could have come in and done this ages ago, so why didn't they?"

  "Maybe there was no point, since they already had their land," I guessed with a shrug. "Maybe Maelstrom serves a purpose. They keep the area destabilized, which keeps the area from being developed and from raising property value. I assume if Arasaka or Militech wanted to suddenly expand their grip on Night City, there would be easier, cheaper places to build. Or maybe they are deadlocked in a bidding war, and we find out that Watson is somehow the most expensive land in Night City, who knows?"

  "Considering who lives there, I doubt that last one," Sable responded. "If you're willing to put your earnings to the task, you could likely purchase a solid chunk of the Industrial District…And with me matching that amount, you could likely buy even more."

  I gave her a look, and now it was her turn to smirk.

  "What, you think I'm letting you go after everything you just showed me?" She asked, shaking her head. "I'm with you now, Jay, there's no way you're shaking me off. Congrats, you just earned yourself something rare, a loyal corpo."

  "You weren't loyal before?" I asked teasingly.

  "I was using you for our mutual benefit before," she responded, pulling a cigarette from her jacket, which was draped carefully over a chair. "I was a trustworthy corpo, not loyal, which meant if shit went sideways I would have warned you, helped if I could, but I would have split if it put me in real danger. Now? Now I'm all fucking in."

  I chuckled and nodded, pushing myself off the table and standing up straight, stretching for a moment, before gesturing back to the elevator.

  "C'mon then, let's get back to the living quarters. You can use one of the apartments to clean up a bit while I get changed."

  "You've got something to wear?" She asked, raising an eyebrow, but following after me as I walked ahead. "Is it something decent? I have something for you…"

  "Of course I have something, I designed it myself," I assured her as we boarded the elevator. When she gave me a disbelieving look, I just shrugged. "I think you'll like it. Perfect blend of eccentric genius and mysterious inventor."

  "I'll believe it when I see it," She said with a snort.

  We traveled up into the finished living space, and I showed her to one of the unused apartments, letting her take a look around while I got dressed. In all honesty, I was feeling a bit nervous about my creation, though I was working hard not to show it. It looked a little over the top by my standards, but I wasn't making it to those, I was making it to the standards of this world. I put it on in my rather large bathroom, happy to have a solid wall between me and… well, the real me, since I was still lying on the bed, eyes closed as I piloted this courser frame.

  The first layer was a woven, reinforced underlayer, taking advantage of ballistic-resistant material from both Titanfall and Fallout. I would have liked to put some sort of plating as well, but there wasn't really enough room. The suit itself had some light reinforcements woven into it as well, but since too much would make it stiff and look off, I held back a lot.

  Next, I put on the black suit pants, covering my reinforced boxers, followed by my shoes. The shoes, a pair of modified oxfords, were a bit heavier than usual, mostly because of the dual thruster system built into the heel and toe, made with heavy inspiration from the direct energy thruster systems from Fallout, since they could be made incredibly compact, but still retain their power. It was not nearly as powerful or versatile as a jump kit, but it would add quite a bit to my vertical jump and help me land safely, as long as I could keep myself stable.

  Samwise planned on adding a buffed-up version for our combat boots and the power armor to enhance the already potent jump kits.

  After the oxfords were on, then came the classic white dress shirt and tie, and over that, a black vest. I strapped a holster to my hip, sliding my pistol inside, before hiding a slip of stimpaks under my dress shirt. The final piece of my outfit was a long, suit trench coat-like jacket that bled into a cloak reaching almost to my ankles, which may or may not flutter on its own due to the artificial muscle strands woven into it. I took one last look in the mirror, adjusting myself precisely before taking one step to the bathroom door, only to freeze silently.

  "Jackson, what are you doing in bed?" I heard Sable ask from the main room. "I didn't take long… Jay?"

  Just the tiniest hint of concern cut into her voice, so I quickly left the bathroom, entering the main room. Sure enough, there was Sable, escorted by Samwise, halfway to my bed, where I was still lying.

  "Really, Sable, can't you see I'm trying to get some rest?" I asked, filling my voice with disappointment. "I work so hard to create all these miracles, and you still have to wake me up?"

  Sable jerked back, looking up at me… then at me in my frame. Her eyes went wide as she spotted me. I could see her eyes trailing over the golden accents of my vest, the golden tie tucked underneath, before watching as my long trench coat jacket fluttered and settled around me.

  "I… Dammit, I keep saying there's nothing left that can shock me… what the hell is this?" She asked, gesturing to me on my bed. "Did you sculpt a of yourself?"

  "Not… well, actually… kinda, yeah, my own custom model, actually," I said with a smirk, before turning around and showing myself off. "What do you think?"

  "W-wait, She asked, her eyes going wide. "Then what is this?"

  "It's still me," I explained. "I had a full interface connection installed, letting me interface with technology seamlessly and with full sensory input. I get a 100% feedback from this body, allowing me to control it perfectly."

  "?! Do you have any idea how dangerous that kind of open network is?!" She asked, her shock shifting to horrified concern. "Anyone who managed to hack into it could control your entire reality, read your mind like a book!"

  "First off, it can input sensations and read surface-level outputs like my movement and mind, so even if they managed to hack the line, all they would get is my current thoughts and the impulses for movement," I explained. "On top of that, unless you have a way to interfere with quantumly entangled photons, which by all knowledge is fundamentally impossible, then the connection is safe and unhackable."

  "You found a way to gather entangled photons?" She asked, an eyebrow raised.

  "How familiar are you with quantum physics?"

  "Enough to make conversation," She responded, watching me closely. "But something tells me I'm about to learn more."

  "Unfortunately, I don't think we have quite enough time for that," I pointed out, ignoring the hard look I got in return. "The bottom line is that while I was figuring out the teleportation, I figured out a way to make entangled photons since they are required to connect the two points. Long story short, they also make for incredible communications devices. Completely unblockable and unhackable. That watch I gave you has two different pairs, one for communication and one to act as the beacon of sorts for an emergency teleport."

  She patted her jacket, which was where she had slid the gift before reaching in and pulling it out.

  "This will let you teleport me here, no matter where I am?" She asked, eyes wide as she looked at the small device.

  "Anywhere in this reality. Jury is out on whether or not it will work if you're in an alternate reality," I explained, quickly raising my hands to ward off a glare. "Which is not something I have learned to do yet, don't worry."

  She let out a long sigh, looking back down at me before shaking her head.

  "We really don't have time for this, we are running behind as it is," She explained, rubbing her forehead. "We can walk and talk, we need to get back to my car."

  "Fair enough," I said with a nod, walking across my apartment, giving Samwise a look as we walked past. "Could have picked a better time to show off my room, buddy."

  "Jackie suggested I let her in," He responded. "I believe it had something to do with getting you out of your own way?"

  I rolled my eyes and led Sable to the teleport room, heading back to Rocky Ridge. As we left the basement of the workshop, I could feel Sable watching me closely.

  "So is this a new robot or…?"

  "I said it was bioware, didn't I?" I said, looking back at her. "It's a complete biological construct, significantly improved human form, with no functioning brain, and an entangled photon-locked control system in its skull. Should pass almost any scan possible as someone with brain implants."

  "That's... Incredible," she admitted. "I have never seen bioware this extensive.

  We arrived at her car, only for Riggs to step out of the Shack and give me a hard look.

  "Relax, Riggs," I said, patting his shoulder. "This isn't actually me, so I don't need an escort. My real body is back down in my new room."

  He seemed to contemplate my words for a moment before nodding, stepping back, and letting me climb into the passenger seat of Sable's car. I gave him a wave before we pulled away, leaving Rocky Ridge behind.