Chapter 5

If someone asked me how it felt to kill a person for the first time, I’d have to say I was more worried about getting caught than anything else.

I’d done test runs before, but the monowire in my right arm—fired at full output—was terrifyingly powerful. It sliced through cyberware and flesh alike without even the slightest sensation of resistance.

…Sure, there was a brief rush of exhilaration, mingled with the side effects of Sandevistan. But then I remembered that protagonists in power fantasies probably feel this every damn day, and I snapped back to reality.

I was too busy sprinting into the store, making sure no one saw me, and finishing the job—see, strike, slaughter—before any other customers walked in to dwell on the experience. So no, I didn’t have much in the way of deep reflections.

Ah, well. David’s still a beast, though. He pulled the trigger to protect Lucy.

That guy crossed the edge of his limits and took that step forward for someone else’s sake. Hell of a man.

Compared to me—who just took revenge on my old man’s killer to vent my own smoldering rage—he’s in another league.

Between the mental stress and the Sandevistan’s aftereffects, I ended up crashing hard. I collapsed into bed like my body was screaming, "That’s it, I’m done moving for today."

Wakako’s holo-call woke me up, though.

Not surprising. She probably left eyes on the scene—that woman’s thorough like that.

Wait, if that’s the case, I might’ve stolen someone else’s job.

…Eh. No one’s come after me, so whatever.

"…Still, in the original, there was talk of someone researching Cyberpsychosis. Didn’t expect me to get tapped for it, though."

Regina Jones’ request—a batshit mission straight out of the original story: Capture a Cyberpsycho alive.

After living surrounded by guns and firefights, I’ve got a pretty good grasp of how thin the line between life and death is. So yeah, I can confidently say this request is certifiably insane.

My old man got his brains blown out, so—ha, dark humor.

I open the heavy door between the operating room and the living space, revealing a staircase leading underground.

Originally, Dad had this storage room secretly renovated, anticipating the day his depression would spiral into self-destruction or violence.

Flick on the lights, and there it is—a cluttered restraint table, half-surgical bed, half-examination table, surrounded entirely by medical equipment for analysis and dismantling.

"Huh. Gotta admit, it’s got that secret-base vibe. Glad I offloaded some of this to Finn."

Finn Gerstatt—a ripperdoc scraping by on scrap, holed up deep in Jig-Jig Street. He’s also the dumping ground for the chrome I rip out of patients who want upgrades.

Let’s be real: secondhand cyberware is about as appealing as a used syringe in a dumpster.

Normally, you’d dismantle it for parts and sell ’em off, but the effort-to-profit ratio sucks. So these days, I just pawn it all off to Finn.

With his looks, Finn’s used to people finding him creepy, and his garish fashion sense doesn’t help. Then along comes a ripperdoc girl who gets his tastes, hooks him up with rare salvage, and—boom. Now we’re thick as thieves. Partners in crime.

Wonder what Wakako would say if she knew that Tyger Claws punk—the one who mocked Dad and got sent to the Fingers—ended up as a teaching aid at Finn’s place. A hands-on anatomy lesson for adult male musculature.

At the end of the day, Tyger Claws didn’t protect Dad.

And if I’m stuck with a gang that useless, I’ve got no choice but to look after myself.

"Weirdos have their perks. Eyes that see what others don’t—that’s gotta be fun."

I was genuinely shocked when Finn dug up that military-grade monowire prototype, smug as hell about it.

Turns out it’d been floating around the black market, stuffed inside some courier’s gut until they got caught in a firefight. The body got sold for scrap, and Finn found it while stripping the cyberware.

Then he quietly held onto it—just to give it to me as a birthday present. Gotta admit, that bumped his likability up a notch.

Besides, better to work with high-grade salvage than junk. Better quality means better rep.

Compared to the corpo rats who dump terminal patients and weird corpses on me, Finn’s contribution’s way more valuable.

Honestly, I’d been selling to him dirt-cheap just to cut disposal costs, so the extra perks were a nice bonus.

Anyway, time to holo Finn. Dude picks up instantly—no friends, huh?

"Yeah, yeah, what’s up, Jag? Need help unloading another shipment?"

"Hey, hey. Nah, just landed an interesting gig. Thought you might wanna lend a hand."

"Hmm. You don’t sound like you’re in danger. So what’s the job?"

"Wanna poke around a live Cyberpsycho?"

I pitched it casually, like a kid asking a buddy to join in on some mischief.

"...Heh. That’s one hell of a niche hobby. Very you, though."

"Birds of a feather, right? So, whaddya say? Planning to run it in my basement, but figured we could tag-team the first subject. Officially, it’s ‘Cyberpsychosis treatment.’"

"Treatment? Did you just say treatment? For Cyberpsychosis? Hah! Impossible. Even the top-tier corps haven’t cracked that one. Waste of time."

"Nah, Finn—this is our territory. Those corpo docs are medical pros, but tech? Clueless. We’re the ones elbow-deep in patient implants every day. You think slapping in a Sandevistan counts as ‘medical treatment’?"

"...Okay, fair. Can’t argue there. After all the remote assist jobs I’ve done, I’ve gotta admit—yeah. They slap ‘reflex booster’ on it, but that’s just medical malpractice with extra steps."

We both grinned, the kind of grin only fellow degenerates recognize. As I brewed instant real coffee, I laughed.

In this city, you can’t live clean without getting your hands dirty.

So here we are—dirty hands reaching out, grasping back, chasing a friendship where profit doesn’t matter.

"...Fine. Just sync it up with my day off. Give me a heads-up, though."

"Sweet. Got most of the gear ready, so no worries. ‘Treatment’ is just the cover—might as well have fun with it. Lookin’ forward to it, Finn."

"Tch. You’re one of the few who even says my name right. I’ll try not to disappoint."

After the call, I took a sip.

The bitter tang, the acidic bite—perfectly balanced, just like in my past life.

Hell yeah. This is the stuff. Synthetic coffee? Tastes like diarrhea.

Took one sip of that garbage once and tossed it. Never drinking that trash in public.

"Alright. Lucky score, getting Finn’s help—he handles pre-Cyberpsycho cases daily. Not like the original timeline made any progress on research anyway. If we fail, who cares?"

Cyberpsychosis.

A "disease" that emerged after cyberware hit its peak.

In an era where the impossible’s become routine, human evolution hasn’t kept up.

The body treats implants like foreign invaders, triggering immune responses.

Neural-linked tech messes with brain function, causing cascading side effects.

Then there’s dependency—literal physical reliance. The body accepts one implant, then rejects the next as foreign.

These are the known issues in a cyberware-driven society. People force compatibility with more implants, accept defects like chronic conditions, push their luck—

And the result? Personality shifts, self-destructive spirals, or worse: becoming puppets of their own impulses.

That’s a Cyberpsycho. A living case of Cyberpsychosis.

Clinically, it resembles manic depression—mixing depressive urges (self-destruction, homicidal ideation) with manic violence (rampant destruction, slaughter).

"And yet, Cyberpsychosis research remains stagnant. No one’s cracked the mechanism. No one understands it."

My Theory on Cyberpsychosis: A Dissociative Disorder?

If I had to define Cyberpsychosis, I’d call it a form of dissociation.

Every Cyberpsycho I’ve seen is utterly detached from reality, playing the victim while drowning in hyper-aggressive self-defense.

What if the line between their flesh and cold, unfeeling cyberware gets blurred? What if their consciousness starts leaning into the machine, and the only lifeline they can grasp is a twisted defense mechanism?

From the original game’s chat logs, it’s clear they’re all trapped in delusions:

"I have to kill before I’m killed."
"They’re evil, so they have to die."
"This is just who I am now."

Every single one is a product of conviction—a desperate grip on the last straw they’ve convinced themselves is truth.

"So, what’s the difference between David, who OD’d on a military Sandevistan, and V, who stayed sane despite being 90% chrome? Johnny Silverhand."

You could chalk it up to "game logic" or "plot armor," but if we dig deeper?

Johnny Silverhand—the fifty-year-old Arasaka-hating rockerboy, legendary terrorist, and now a Relic-bound engram.

When cyberware tips the scales between man and machine, Johnny’s the asshole who kicks the scales back toward humanity.

Think Yugi and Atem, Yuma and Astral—a voice that slaps you out of a downward spiral, a partner who psychoanalyzes you mid-meltdown.

You might argue the Relic’s self-repair is what saves V, but nah. It’s just rebuilding V’s body into Johnny’s. The gonk’s surviving by trading pieces of himself for Johnny’s template—no miracle cure here.

So my theory? Cyberpsychosis is a cocktail of depersonalization, derealization, and manic depression. The mind snaps under the weight of losing its grip on reality.

Prevention? A "Wake-the-Fuck-Up" Shock to the System.

If we’re engineering a way to stop the final plunge into Cyberpsychosis, the techie solution is simple: a device that slaps the mind back when it tilts too far toward the chrome.

Pain. The old "hurt to remind you you’re alive" trick.

Detect early symptoms—erratic pulse, neural spikes—then zap. A jolt to the human side, like a defibrillator for the soul.

Sounds half-baked, but it might work.

Ever try recalling a dream, only for a friend’s interruption to scatter the fragments? Same principle. Disrupt the fixation before it consumes them.

But What Are the Early Signs?

No clue.

Honestly, slapping a therapist and counselor on every chromed-up merc in Night City might be the only real fix.

This city breeds isolation.

But if you’ve got one person to anchor you—someone to trust, to share the fear of losing yourself—maybe you’ll stop at the edge.

David started losing it when Lucy pulled away.

V held on because Johnny wouldn’t let go.

The solution? Connection. But in Night City? Good fucking luck. Love and friendship are rarer than a honest cop.

"Which is why Adam Smasher’s choice is, technically, correct."

Shedding your humanity to become a machine in human skin? Extreme, but logical.

The further you stray from what’s human, the higher the risk of Cyberpsychosis.

For some, it’s the accumulated dissonance—the creeping unease of living with foreign parts.

Not about compatibility. It’s about distance. The more you diverge, the faster you dissociate.

So if you make the inhuman your baseline—if you live on the scales—maybe you won’t fall.

"Cyberpsychosis: Human Dissociation Avoidance Syndrome. Yeah, that’ll look sharp on a report."

…Or, like me, you metagame it. Anchor the unreal in reality.

Speculation wavers, but knowledge stays firm.

Weak waves clash with strong ones and chaos follows. But calm waters? They endure.

—"Listen, Jag. During surgery, keep your mind flat. Ready to accept anything."

A memory of Dad, back when he was still himself.

All I can do now is grit my teeth.