The Voodoo Boys' Data Fortress.
Roqi figured this had to be one of the most mysterious places in all of Night City.
With the Voodoo Boys' level of tech, that server-filled bunker likely wasn't the most secure hideout out there, but it was certainly the most well-hidden—utterly unknown to outsiders.
If even someone like Voldemort or some scheming bastard could suddenly snap and murder someone, then the Voodoo Boys were the ultimate masters of stealth and patience. They had taken the art of lying low—and lying in wait—to an entirely new level.
If you were describing someone cautious, you'd usually say, "They won't make a move unless it's absolutely necessary or they're fully prepared." But the Voodoo Boys? Even if their enemies were stomping on their faces, they wouldn't lash out right away.
They'd wait for a moonless night and just the right wind, then plan an "accident" for their target—so sinister and meticulous it'd give you chills.
Even T-Bug, who usually avoided risks, had been lured into the Net, circling around in cyberspace trying to scope things out. But the Voodoo Boys hadn't made a single move. Nothing.
NetWatch had already seized control over most of Pacifica's backbone and surrounding districts. If anyone even poked around inside the data fortress they'd built, they'd be swarmed instantly—best case, the system glitches; worst case, you drop dead on the spot.
T-Bug's expression looked like someone with acrophobia standing on the edge of a skyscraper—curious but scared to look, constantly testing NetWatch's limits.
"No... there's always a way."
She muttered this, maybe to herself, maybe to someone else. "Hey, Lucky. I need you to go somewhere for me."
Roqi, who was so bored he'd taken to removing the bullets from his mag one by one and slotting them back in again, turned his head at her voice.
"Where to? Grand Imperial Mall? Or the Bati Hotel?"
"Neither." T-Bug shook her head. "To Westwind Estate. I can tap directly into Pacifica's municipal network from there."
"Wait, that place has been abandoned for years. Did they even lay cables when they were building it?"
Roqi was skeptical.
"If the city planners weren't idiots, they would've installed all the infrastructure beforehand. As for whether it's operational..." T-Bug sent him a regional map. "Look who's nearby."
Roqi opened his PDA. The area was circled in red on the map she sent.
"Kangtao has people there too?"
"The Night City government didn't just give Kangtao one plot of land," T-Bug said. "The logistics hub and their base of operations are in separate areas. We haven't found any official records yet, but based on how Kangtao's been moving, they're way past the scouting phase. Construction's a sure thing at this point."
"All right, no problem," Roqi nodded.
He wasn't the type to be scared of some corporation, not even one as big as Kangtao.
Arasaka, Militech, RCS... He'd already yanked all their beards. What's one more?
"What do I do?"
"First, grab a few devices from here. Head to the target area and fire them up, then extend the antennas."
T-Bug was still lying in her Netrunner chair, but she issued commands like a pro—clearly not her first rodeo.
A merc handed Roqi a few handcrafted-looking black boxes, rough and full of solder seams.
"Once you're there, don't rush off. The remote hack's going to take time," T-Bug instructed. "Install one at Westwind, another by the parking lot. But before that, take a detour by the shore—check behind the Bati Hotel."
"I snagged a design blueprint—not for the hotel, but for the commercial area beneath it."
T-Bug sent over a batch of satellite images and blueprints, marked with red circles.
"According to this, there should be a drainage outlet about seven or eight meters underwater."
She explained, "See this door? It leads to a stairwell that goes straight to the sewer tunnels."
"The Haitian District never used the public utilities. They dump their sewage straight onto the ground." T-Bug scoffed. "If you follow the sewers back, theoretically, it should lead under the Bati Hotel."
"And then I plug in the decryption tool and let you do your magic?" Roqi guessed.
"If they've connected to the hotel LAN, yes," T-Bug replied. "Unless they've gone full paranoid mode and completely isolated their internal network, with only a deeply hidden external port left open."
Since the Voodoo Boys wanted to probe the Blackwall, they had to jack into Night City's subnet—the one maintained by NetWatch and other major web corps.
The Blackwall was a dynamic super ICE barrier separating the subnet from the global Net. To touch the Blackwall, you were either inside or out—no middle ground.
Modern buildings—especially high-end ones like the Bati Hotel—came with full smartnet integration.
Almost everything in the building was connected and controllable through the net.
Those panels you found on the walls? Ports for the building's control system, allowing users to execute more advanced commands.
Basic stuff like "open the blinds," "change ambient light color," or "adjust A/C and tub temperature" could all be done via your implants and your personal net overlay.
Just a thought or a voice command, and you were set.
Take the Tavernier Suite in the Sapphire Plaza, owned by Arasaka—it had control panels embedded in the walls.
Without a smart system like this, human life indoors would regress to the early 21st century. But with it, you instantly understood what kind of magic 2077 technology was capable of.
The Sapphire Plaza was glitzy and luxurious, but it had already been around for years.
Recently, a new hotel had gone up near the City Center. You'd see it in passing: a sci-fi tower hundreds of meters tall, where suites could extend like drawers, flipping down into floating platforms.
The glass walls were fully transparent, and just by adding a hoop or a goal, the platform could become a basketball or soccer field.
The facilities were moved around by robotic butlers. All the wealthy had to do was push a button and wait.
The Bati Hotel wasn't finished yet, but it followed the same design principles—the network infrastructure was laid in tandem with the building's construction.
Since the Voodoo Boys chose it as one of their bases, they would've at least wired the place up.
But when Roqi got there, he realized he had been too optimistic.
"I'm in," he said to T-Bug over comms.
"You find the door?" she asked.
"I did, but things are... complicated." Roqi hesitated, then sent her a picture.
The Haitian residents had covered the entire area with shanties and makeshift stalls.
He should've been thankful the place was at the edge of the neighborhood. Any deeper, and it would've been brick-and-mortar tomb-houses—cement shacks slapped together with no light or space.
For some reason, no matter the country, slums always built the same way: dark, cramped, piled like Tetris blocks.
Even if there were open lots just meters away, they'd stubbornly stack their homes together like that.
Roqi stuck out like a sore thumb among the dark-skinned Haitians, let alone trying to slip through that door.
The Voodoo Boys weren't blind. They'd spot an infiltrator immediately.
"Heading to Westwind Estate instead. Wish me luck—hopefully Kangtao doesn't shoot me in the ass."
Roqi sighed and climbed down from the hundred-meter-high platform.
At the parking lot, he activated the first device and extended the antenna so T-Bug could link in remotely.
The process was simple—just required patience. T-Bug would handle the rest with her hacking skills.
Once the link was secured, Roqi needed to hide the device somewhere it wouldn't be found, but still close enough to the port to avoid signal lag.
"If everything goes right, give me five minutes, tops," T-Bug estimated.
It was basically a test run for the upcoming Kangtao infiltration.
"Scout your path and entry point now. Once you're in, move fast. Stay safe. Don't get caught. Hide the gear and get out."
That was the ideal scenario—but five minutes was a long time when you were trespassing.
Roqi could only rely on his improvisation—and luck.
T-Bug's plan was straightforward: since both NetWatch and the Voodoo Boys had lots of netrunners, she needed to hijack local systems to gain more visibility and track anomalous IP traffic.
If you couldn't see from where you were, climb higher.
Simple logic.
Near Westwind Estate, Kangtao had already started setting up shop. Piles of supplies sat in strategic locations. Workers and engineers moved like ants, exchanging info and dispersing again in perfect rhythm.
Kangtao might've been the king of smart weapons, especially military-grade systems, but that wasn't all they did.
From networks to logistics, from commerce to media, Kangtao—like every other megacorp—spread its tentacles across every facet of human life, dominating the world like a corporate octopus.
And even though Roqi hated to admit it, Kangtao was just like the rest of the capitalist titans. Sure, it had a Chinese name—but it was still a bloodsucking machine exploiting the working class.
Their security forces were ruthless toward intruders. Their business tactics included aggressive monopolization. Their internal structure was the same as every other corporation—a top-down hierarchy built to enforce extraction from the bottom up.
Even fascist military empires couldn't match their tight and efficient operations.
"Richer than nations" wasn't even praise. Many countries literally had less wealth than them.
Still, Roqi knew how to separate the people from the system.
Kangtao's staff included a large proportion of non-Chinese employees—just like any other megacorp, mirroring the demographics of Night City.
They didn't even need to learn Chinese—implanted translators had eliminated language barriers a decade ago.
Roqi didn't know what the real-world Kangtao across the ocean looked like.
He knew this wasn't his original world. The timeline had already veered off over a century ago.
And that sense of loss—that rootless, unanchored feeling—was like industrial smog in the Night City sky, leaking into everything.
He watched the news again—Kangtao's spokesperson vowing military retaliation for the attack.
The guy looked oddly like Shinzo Abe. Something about him felt off.
Who would fight back against this world's capitalism?
"Hey! HEY! Wake the fuck up! You're about to walk straight into their front gate!!"
T-Bug's voice blasted in his ear, snapping Roqi out of his daze.
He'd wandered close—too close—to the Kangtao worksite. One step further and he'd draw all the wrong attention.
"What the hell's up with you? Walking around like your soul left your body."
T-Bug scolded him like a mother fussing over a distracted kid. "Like I said—check where you're gonna enter from first."
"Yeah. Got it."
Roqi stopped thinking about all that heavy shit. He'd learned something in Night City.
Even if you blew up Arasaka Tower, Arasaka wouldn't fall. They'd just play victim and use the sympathy to double down on their grip.
And that was just one corp. There were dozens more, just as bad.
This Kangtao... wasn't the Kangtao he'd imagined.
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💘 MY GIRLFRIEND'S A CYBERPSYCHO—WHO KNEW?
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💘 LOVE IS COMPLICATED.
Especially when your girlfriend could probably tear a squad of heavily armed mercs apart.
Welcome to Night City romance.
My Girlfriend's a Cyberpsycho—Who Knew? has 100+ chapters ahead waiting for you.
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💀❤️ ROMANCE, CHROME... AND QUESTIONABLE LIFE EXPECTANCY
💘 Romance
🤖 Cyberware
🧠 Cyberpsychosis
🔫 Night City action
😂 Chaos & dark humor
🌃 Dangerous relationships
🔥 Very bad situations getting much worse
People say relationships require patience.
Communication.
Trust.
Nobody mentioned surviving cyberpsychos.
🔥 100+ CHAPTERS AHEAD.
👉 Keep reading if you're brave enough.
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🌐 SrMagnusCorp: https://srmagnuscorp.com/
🔥 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MrMagnus
🐦 X / Twitter: https://x.com/SrMagnuscorp
⚠️ Power Stones help decide release priority!
💘 Love hurts. In Night City, sometimes literally.