self assigned
From Merve Sahin & Daghan Dizdaroglu

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“ Hello V.

I would have liked to tell you about these things in person, but I don't have the patience to wait even half a day in this state. You know, the cyberware we had implanted in that awful Ripper Doc on the streets of Night City, which was not an Arasaka production. I suspect that my dreams are being shaped only as they wish; that my position on the Net, my braindance sessions, and my messages are being monitored. I don't want to stay connected to this global network. It's impossible to continue living this way, we can't even remove our cyberwares. I have been looking for a way out.

There is talk of a building called Cyber Hideout. There's a shiny statue-like building in the city, actually, the inside is a cyber shelter. If you know the password, you can enter through the thorns that extend to the surrounding buildings. It is said that they have developed their own net inside. A net where no one can follow you, where the digital content you consume is not controlled, where your braindance sessions are not censored, and where the chemicals in the drink you drink are not uploaded to the insurance database...

In the middle of the building, there is a data core developed by netrunners. They allow you to reside in pods arranged around the core. While in these pods and surrounding areas, your cyberwares are not affected by the global network. A database core is a protected, closed box with no access from the outside and no data recorded. The metal walls they have set up to block signals from the outside enable the 300 or so people inside to digitally camouflage themselves. We thought last year that those walls were the cool windows of the apartments inside when we passed by in front of them. Most people continue to think so. To verify the rumor, I inserted an old netrunner in the middle. I'll try to enter through one of the secret passages on the north side in four hours.

If everything goes well, tomorrow at this time I will be able to dream freely with the new people I have just met, read the news I want from the screamsheet, and even watch the forbidden braindances and films in Night City. If neither digital democracy nor cyber privacy is possible, there can be no talk of freedom either in the digital world or in the meatworld.

Then it's time to hide.”