Cyberpunk: Edgerunners started out as a way to make any potential players interested to try Cyberpunk 2077, and also as a way to expand the universe of the game. However, the anime proves to be good enough to stand on its own as a separate entity. Not only that, it’s not even an exaggeration to say that Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is one of the best anime of the season.
One of the fan’s most beloved characters is Lucy, the mysterious beauty. She started out as a supporting character whose job is simply to show the ropes to David. Overtime, she grows into one of the most essential characters in the series. So let’s use this chance to dive deeper into Lucy’s past, from childhood and all the way to the time she joined Maine’s crew.
Lucy’s Childhood
Lucy is actually not a native resident of the Night City. Not only that, she was actually born in a different country altogether. It is unclear whether or not Lucy knew who her parents were, but one thing for sure, she was already an orphan when she was just a little girl.
At such an early age, Lucy was taken from her home country and raised in an Arasaka’s secret facility. Arasaka didn’t just pick her out of nowhere. They performed a rigorous proficiency test on quite a lot of children. Including Lucy, there were 13 children who passed that test. They are the ones that got the chance to be raised and educated by Arasaka.
That being said, a mega-corporation like Arasaka didn’t take those children out of the kindness of their hearts. No, they actually have a much more sinister plan for them. You see, a highly-capable Netrunners is incredibly difficult to come by. So rather than looking for one, Arasaka decided to simply raise one instead. And who was a better candidate than a group of orphans from a different country? After all, nobody would notice if any of them went missing, right?
Becoming Arasaka’s Netrunners
Lucy and the other orphan children like her spent hours every day in a special Arasaka facility, being trained to be proficient Netrunners. It’s unclear if they received any other kind of education or activities other than training to be Netrunners. One thing for sure though, by the time they’ve become teenagers, those kids were much better than your average Netrunners in the Night City. In order to be the best Netrunners, Lucy and the other kids not only have to go through extremely intensive training, but they also have to undergo a massive cybernetics implant, particularly to install a cyber brain that enabled them to perform a deep dive.
The only reason why those children kept on going was the hope to someday get out and become an official Arasaka’s employee and lead a better life. However, as soon as they graduated from the training facility, what awaited them was not a corporate office, but rather another secret underground facility where they are forced to deep dive every day.
Escape From Arasaka
During their times as Netrunners for Arasaka, Lucy and the other kids were forced to dive into the Old Net, a part of cyberspace that is filled with malicious virus, malware, and aggressive A.I.s. Arasaka wished to collect the legacy data that is buried within that inaccessible part of the Net. They want to obtain the forgotten knowledge of the past.
Needless to say, performing a deep dive into such an uncharted territory was extremely dangerous. No sane Netrunners would ever consider doing something like that because you risk getting your brain fried and dead. This is why Arasaka used their own trained and disposable Netrunners like Lucy and the kids instead.
It didn’t take a long time until the kids slowly died out one after the other until there’s only Lucy and a handful of other kids left. They quickly realized that they are being sacrificed for the sake of profits made by somebody else. So rather than die like livestock, the kids decided to escape from the facility instead.
With their skill as a Netrunner, killing a couple dozen guards was a piece of cake. Unfortunately, the full might of Arasaka’s armed forces were hot on their tail. Lucy kept on running as fast as she could. She could hear her friends scream and cry as the bullet started to rain down on them. But Lucy kept on running without turning back until she finally managed to get away.
Coming To The Night City
After her frantic escape, Lucy spent some time hiding in a junkyard. But she was afraid that the Arasaka’s forces would be able to track her down if she stayed in one place for too long, so she spent a long time moving from one place to the next.
However, she quickly realized that there’s no better place to hide than in the most densely populated place on earth, the Night City. There are so many crimes and criminals in Night City that it would be nearly impossible to search for a specific individual there. Especially if she is someone as skilled as Lucy.
Lucy made a living through her skills as a Netrunner. During one of her outings, she met Kiwi, who would become some sort of mentor for her. Not on the Netrunners stuff, but more about how to survive and thrive as an Edgerunner in the Night City. She also met Maine and later on joined his crew through Kiwi. And that was pretty much her life until she met David on that fateful day.