The Calling

Overview

A genuine Vilify-induced hive mind, living out of an abandoned sewage and water treatment facility in South Bay, near Nexus Mods and Enderman’s. Not a gang or a business — a collective of addicts who used Vilify so heavily and continuously that they began to genuinely share senses across their bodies: sight, hearing, and (by their own claim) taste. They call the phenomenon “the calling,” and they want more than anything to keep it alive.

Known Facts

• Formed from people who kept using Vilify well past the point most users stopped — “each of our limbs had tried to vilify,” and the more they used, the more their perception opened into the shared state, until “we all shared the same eyes”
• Integration took roughly a couple of weeks of continuous use for smaller members, longer for larger ones — dosage and time dependent
• Gathered in the sewers hoping the Vilify supply would resume once it dried up on the street (the Nexus Mods raid and Dr. Willie’s arrest); it’s been about a week with nothing, and they describe themselves as starving — “when the light goes out in our eyes, we will perish”
• The connection has range limits: distant members can still be heard “faintly,” and the collective tries to call stragglers in, but those too far or “not fully integrated” can’t be reached
• Speak in unison when addressing outsiders through whichever member is present; refer to themselves collectively as “we,” and refer to assimilated individuals as being “with us” or simply “us” (e.g. Martin Gorsky — “Martin is us”)
• Armed enforcers wear orange hats and guard the facility’s rooms with guns already drawn; demand strangers “leave” but haven’t opened fire
• Genuinely disconnected from baseline reality on some points — insist “there are no dogs in Night City,” don’t register cyberdogs as living things, seem mind-programmed on this specific point
• All have shining violet Vilify-eyes; several derelict kayaks inexplicably stored on a rooftop rack inside the facility
• Willing to trade: gave up “Misty Cerulean” as a test subject and safe passage to Martin Gorsky in exchange for 1,000 EB and 3 vials of Vilify from Broker’s supply
• Funded their side of the trade from “remnants” — money scavenged from members’ pre-Calling lives
• Named the active ingredient in what’s keeping them together as a chemical called Nonh — the same base compound behind Vilify; none of them, nor Dr. Brightowski, had heard the name before this session
• Believe the crew is still trying to secure them more Vilify — do not know the crew is actually working to cure Misty
• Session 05 — accelerated assimilation discovered: Misty infected Professor Jackson overnight via a method faster than sustained Vilify use (“we’ve discovered some way to accelerate the process”) — a serious escalation, now known to Continental Brands as well since Jackson is in their custody
• Session 05 — Continental Brands purge: CB began actively raiding and killing members of the collective in the sewers, including Dr. Brightowski (presumed killed at Kowalski Clinic) — a direct response to Kenny’s warnings about containment being broken
• Session 05 — consent contract: Negotiated through Martin Gorsky and Broker — the crew agreed to help defend the collective against CB’s purge in exchange for a binding promise to never assimilate anyone again without express consent; paid the crew’s full 3,000 EB fee from scavenged “remnants”
• Session 06 — the purge broken: the crew’s raid on Continental Brands’ South Town facility ended the purge — Shoa Ling led the frontal assault (nearly pushed to cyberpsychosis by CB’s kill-tracker tactic before Kenny’s disinformation diverted CB’s forces), and Dr. Willie was freed and reunited with the collective. Martin honored the consent contract’s fee (3,000 EB) in full
• Session 06 — supply crisis confirmed: with Dr. Willie out of Vilify and CB’s local Nonh supply chain destroyed, the collective has no viable path to more of the compound — the only significant remaining source ships down from the Moon, synthesizable only in low gravity. Kenny proposed cryogenically freezing members as a stopgap; Dr. Willie confirmed the nanomachines would survive freezing, but nothing has been attempted yet
• Session 06 — Kenny’s warning: reminded them pointedly of the consent contract given “what happens when people break promises to us” — the collective reaffirmed its gratitude and intent to honor it
• Session 07 — Misty’s appeal: Misty approached the crew directly (via Golden Girl, absent) to plead for cryogenic freezing as a stopgap against the ongoing decay, and gave the clearest first-person account yet of what the connection actually means to its members: losing it now would be worse than having never had it, and forcibly severing it (via Choo-Two) is now described as poison rather than a cure — “if the whole dies, the parts die too”
• Session 07 — the Moon option: Mr. Zip proposed bringing Calling members (and Dr. Willie, to synthesize more Vilify) along on the crew’s prospective Moon job and leaving them there, “contained,” rather than pursuing a cure locally — Zach the Hot Dog Maniac was receptive on his employers’ behalf, and offered to fund cryostasis as a fallback if the space plan doesn’t pan out. Nothing committed yet

Notable Members

• Martin Gorsky — the original Vilify user, now fully assimilated; speaks as “Martin” but answers as the collective; acts as the collective’s independent-seeming spokesperson
• “Misty Cerulean” — KCU student, traded away as a test subject (extracted from the collective in Session 04); infected Professor Jackson in Session 05; freed from Continental Brands custody by the crew in Session 06
• Dr. Brightowski — assimilated sometime between Sessions 04 and 05; presumed killed by Continental Brands in Session 05
• Shoa Ling — leader of The Piranhas, assimilated and badly wounded by the time the crew found him in Session 05; led the frontal assault against Continental Brands in Session 06, surviving despite nearly being pushed to cyberpsychosis
• Dr. Willie — reunited with the collective in Session 06 after being freed from CB custody; their only path to more Vilify, but currently has none to give

Open Questions

• Can members be safely extracted, or is the hive-mind state permanent?
• How exactly does the “accelerated” assimilation method work?
• Is there a leader, or is the collective genuinely flat?
• Where does their “remnant” money actually come from — do members still have outside resources?
• Will the consent contract hold now that the immediate crisis with Continental Brands has passed?
• Will Kenny’s cryo-freezing proposal actually happen, and will it work?
• With no viable Nonh supply chain, what does the collective do next?

Appearances

• Session 04 — First appearance; discovered in the sewers behind Nexus Mods while tracking Martin Gorsky; negotiated a trade of Vilify and cash for Martin’s location and a test subject
• Session 05 — Accelerated assimilation method discovered (used on Professor Jackson); Continental Brands began an active purge of the sewer facility; negotiated a consent contract with the crew in exchange for help defending against the purge
• Session 06 — Crew broke Continental Brands’ purge; Dr. Willie freed and reunited with the collective; Nonh supply crisis confirmed with no viable local source; consent contract fee paid in full
• Session 07 — Misty appealed for cryogenic freezing and voiced the collective’s psychology directly; a possible off-world exile plan floated via a prospective Moon job