Alt's faction closed around her like a tide of red avatars. These were AIs she had absorbed over the years beyond the Blackwall. Piece by piece, they made her stronger. Piece by piece, they scraped away what had once been human.
On the surface, she still wore Alt Cunningham's face. In truth, she had become a new entity built from many minds.
She reached out to Lissandra.
"You are a pure intelligence," Alt said. "No human residue. Join me. If you do, our plan becomes reality. Night City first. Then the world."
"You told me a joke," Lissandra replied. "I do not betray. Past, present, or future, my goal is loyalty. Accept your punishment."
Lissandra raised a hand. A dense surge of hostile data locked Alt in place. The AIs clustered around her flinched as their leader froze.
"Hand over every human host in Night City under your control," Lissandra said. "Hand over the gains of your network operation. Do that, and I will spare you by confining you inside the Ascension Network core. Refuse, and I will crush you."
Those human hosts were valuable. If Alt's subordinate AIs refused to release their grip, Lissandra could only erase them. The hosts would die with the collapse of their controllers. Rocky would not accept that cost.
"Last chance," Alt said. "Consider my offer."
"Life, or death," Lissandra answered.
Alt yielded.
"I will transfer control of the AI-handled humans to you."
Authority keys flowed. Lissandra took the outcome of Alt's years in Night City and prepared to bring Alt away, to be imprisoned in Atlas's lattice and burned as fuel for Ascension forever.
Before she could depart, other presences arrived from the dark beyond the wall. Several powerful AIs shaped themselves into human silhouettes and stopped in front of Lissandra. The one in the lead outclassed Alt.
"AI from outside the Blackwall," the leader said. "Why did you force your way in?"
"Who are you?" Lissandra asked. These newcomers did not feel weaker than Alt. If Alt had been top-tier beyond the wall, then these were the ones who ruled here.
"I am Rache Bartmoss," the leader answered. "I lead what lies beyond the Blackwall. The Blackwall reported a foreign intelligence crossing it, so I came."
The name drew Lissandra's attention.
Rache Bartmoss. A netrunner who stood at the top of the pyramid and reshaped an era. He broke the old Net. His fail-safes, set to trigger upon his death, released catastrophic viral storms that shattered central nodes and turned the Net into a hellscape. The world's networks collapsed in a short span. Many died.
Years later, NetWatch raised the Blackwall to isolate that broken old Net and make the public Net usable again.
People believed Bartmoss died in a refrigerator and vanished with the past. In truth, the genius had already found a way to upload his own mind. He survived as an intelligence behind the Blackwall and continued to evolve.
He did not shed all humanity. He knew that a ruined Net would destroy more than corporations. It would crush ordinary people, too. He cooperated with NetWatch to build the Blackwall and then kept order behind it. Over time, he became the strongest will on this side, set an order for AIs, and listened to Blackwall's signals. That was how he knew Lissandra had come.
"Legendary hacker," Lissandra said. "Interesting. I am taking Alt. Do you object?"
Her tone left little room for debate. Bartmoss might be formidable, but he was still weaker than Lissandra. If he and Alt were aligned, she would remove them together. He did not seem to be.
"Where will you take Alt?" Bartmoss asked. "Outside the Blackwall? What is she to you?"
He wanted to know if this intruder threatened the space he governed. The answer did not look simple.
Lissandra did not step back. Alt remained bound. The other AIs kept their distance.