Such Stuff Dreams Are Made Of, Right?
(Alt POV)
"We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep."
—Prospero, The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1
You sit alone in the van, surrounded by the hum of machinery, the faint glow of neon spilling in through the cracks. Silence weighs heavy, but it isn't peaceful. It's isolating. You're always just out of reach—of reality, of consequence, of something more than this.
Your work was supposed to be a stepping stone to something greater. But not for you. Never for you. Just another rung on the ladder for someone else to climb, another innovation destined to be warped beyond recognition.
Where had it all gone wrong?
When did ambition start outweighing reason?
You had been too curious about the how of things and never stopped to ask if you should. But ambition, drive, and terrible taste in men—those were your constants. If you'd had the sense to rein in even one of them, maybe you'd be free now.
Only human, right? What a joke.
If you'd made the right choices, you could have been more than this. More than a name attached to a legacy that isn't even your own. More than a relic of someone else's war.
You could have been Powerful. Respected. Wealthy.
The things they say matter in this world, but did they? Did anything? If all roads led to ruin, if survival meant compromise, if you couldn't even save yourself, what was the point?
Your ambitions and dreams, once yours alone,had become something else, something bigger.
They weren't just ideas anymore. They had become culture, ideology, faith. You'd seen it happen before, seen the way history chewed up people like you and spat them back out as symbols, stripped of nuance, meaning, or regret.
You never believed in Johnny's crusade against Arasaka. He thought that with enough grit, enough idealism, inspiration, and blind fucking hope, people could rise up and break free from the corporations strangling them.
But you?
You were swimming in that world. Even with Rogue's little band of mercs and outcasts, they were just another subculture, an ecosystem of dreamers and fools, fighting to carve out space in a city that would never truly be theirs. Rogue barely tolerated Johnny, but some part of her wanted to believe in his ambition, if only so she could profit from it.
And you? You had your own pipe dream.
A Free Night City.
As if freedom was anything more than another cage. As if it wasn't just another excuse to keep yourself safe—no matter how many had to die to make it so.
Keeping Militech out. Keeping Arasaka across the sea. Keeping the chaos of the continent sealed behind the walls of the Free States' anarchy. A lie you told yourself, same as every other lie in this city.
You wanted to feel the weight of your own foolishness. To know, to truly understand, just how much of this madness was your fault.
You built the tool that sealed your fate.
A Greek tragedy with your name scrawled across the ruins.
Soulkiller.
A masterpiece of code. The key to immortality—or damnation. A digital ghost of the self, untethered from flesh, free to roam the net in all its infinite possibilities. And you had known the risks, seen the flaws, understood the implications.
But you charged ahead anyway, convinced of your own brilliance.
Strip away the ego. The modifications. The skills. All the lies and half-truths you whispered to yourself in ITS, to your friends, to the people who thought they knew you.
What are you left with?
Just another lonely netrunner, lost in the web, always running from reality.
Running away.
That's what everyone did in Night City.
People don't have faith in anything anymore. Not really.
They pretend. They whisper empty prayers to dead gods, bow their heads to traditions they don't believe in, and chase dreams that were never theirs to begin with. But deep down, they know the truth.
Faith is just another commodity. And soon enough, the Corporate Kings will become Corporate Gods.
Immortal. Unchanging. Uncaring. Rulers of a world that can no longer fight back.
You can't kill something that has conquered death itself. That's how the Christians won, wasn't it? They had a man who beat death—but even he said he answered to God.
But what happens when someone beats death and answers to no one?
What can mortals do against a being that lives forever?
People are dumb. Arrogant. Foolish. They tell themselves that everything dies, that all things end, and that makes us all equal on this dust ball. But data?
Data never dies.
It doesn't fade. It doesn't rot. It doesn't go cold in the ground or wither with time. It only changes, evolves, spreads.
If that isn't godhood, then what is?
Well done, Alt.
You've finally done something worse than saying God is dead.
You made sure we replaced Him with something worse.
Not faith, not purpose—just data-driven insanity. AI overlords and brain-uploaded narcissists who will rule the world from their ivory towers, watching over the ashes of what's left. A future where the ones in power don't even need bodies anymore. Just endless, untouchable existence.
You wanted to scream, to bash your head against the nearest wall, to bite your tongue clean out, to do something, anything, to keep yourself from living through the hell that was coming.
But there was no escape.
They were going to use you. Cut you open like a lab rat, poke and prod, take apart the very thing that made you you.
They would run their tests. Strap you down, plug you in, and watch you die.
And if you survived? If some version of you clawed its way out of the abyss of the Net?
It would cost you everything.
But even then…
You were only human.
And what the hell did that even mean anymore?
You never believed in higher powers, never put your faith in gods or destiny. But at the end of all things, what was one more lie to tell yourself?
"I'm sorry. I just… I just want to live. And be honest with… someone. About something. Anything."
The words burned as they left your lips, bitter and raw. You coughed, tasting iron, bile, regret—like the whole world was rotting from the inside out.
"I don't believe in anything. Never have. Even a so-called Free Night City? That was just a way to get people to take me seriously. Just a wall to keep my enemies out, to make myself feel safe. To pretend I wasn't in danger every time I stepped outside the net."
You swallowed hard.
"I'm a liar. A cheat. A coward who uses the people I love because I can; because I never wanted to be honest with myself. Because I can't save myself. Never have. Never will. And now? Now it's all tits up from here. But what can I even do?"
Silence.
No answers.
Just you, talking to ghosts in a room full of nothing.
"If anyone actually wants to save me… help them find me. Or hell, let me help them if I get the chance. Just if you care, give me an opening. I think I can do something."
But no one answered. No divine intervention. No whispered reassurances. Just the dull hum of reality pressing in, reminding you that you were alone.
Alone with the weight of your failures, your choices, your fate.
Having cleared the air. Having done something dumb and irrational just to make yourself feel something before the end.
There were worse things to do before dying.
Weren't there?
All you had to do was, have a little of something that you know is impossible.
Have faith in something, even if it's a fool's hope. False Hope.
Any Hope…was dangerous in Night City.
But it was the most human thing you could do.
Hope…Hope, the ultimate drug of the city that tears people apart.
And you just used it one last time.
AN: A Bit of introspection from Alt, her mindset and some of her ambitions and lies she tells herself.
And that last ember of Hope in her heart.
The Ultimate Drug of Night City.
Such Stuff Dreams Are Made Of: Hope.
