Cyberpunk 2077 - Did T-Bug FAKE Her Own Death?

[@SirzechsZen]

I doubt she betrayed them. At the very last moment, she was making an escape route for them. If she had to betray them, she wouldn't have even tried. I still believe Bug was a friend of V and Jackie's. Rest in peace, T-Bug.

[@d_spruill7]

True, but then again it's possible she did this to sell Jackie and V to Akasaka by encouraging a bounty to acquire a life time of eddies. Faking her death could've been to cover her tracks. T-Bug made it clear she didn't want anything to do with V or Jackie after the heist. Maybe selling the relic wasn't the true goal. I like to see playing cards underneath the table too, not just the ones on the surface. It's extremely suspicious when one of Night City's best fixers hire two amateur mercenaries for a top-of-the-line hardcore job. Even Viktor mention something odd about his behavior before anything started. At the end, Dex tried to sell V to Akasaka by pretending to be a hero only for his plan to backfire. Literally..

[@SoloC33]

Fuc dat moneky she can rot

[@hidan407]

​@@d_spruill7 Yeah. Vik said that Dexter isnt nearly as "cool" as he comes off. As soon as everything hit the fan, he said we killed " His majesty" like a huge kiss ass😂😂😂 What annoys me is that V NEVER just fucking says what actually happens then and just lets people assume he killed Arasaka. What gets me is how come no one had badass implants to help with survival in this line of work. Jackie had no implants to help regulate injuries amd V didnt have any basic medical knowledge for wounds

[@sssamuraii]

possibly but sometimes people just HATE leaving others behind to die, so im assuming that she actually really liked jackie ans V so let them live.. she didnt betray them, she just wanted to live her own life and not be involved with the team

[@d_spruill7]

@@hidan407 Exactly. Rogue who is more experienced would've said Dex pulled a "gonk" plan.

[@ZrodyApo]

While the theory is interesting I highly doubt it, I don't think Arasaka would let her escape that easily As I see it, as soon as Yorinobu puts the lockdown I'm pretty sure that Arasaka netrunners would storm Konpeki subnet and discover that it was disabled by T-Bug and quickly find her and eliminate her. As for how she managed to hack the door so quickly, she was already in control of the network so that would be easy at that point And while the cgi trailer is great as a trailer, it spoiled Jackie's death before the release and put T-Bug as an antagonist with Dex, but not in the game. I really dislike when things like this happen between trailers and what we experience in the game (+ major spoilers).

[@vond5829]

I'm so glad that I forgot everything in the trailer when I 1st got my hands on CP2077

[@trevalyan006]

The trailer is setup for the first act, but like the assassination of Saburo T-Bug's fate was deliberately obscured.

[@ZrodyApo]

@@trevalyan006 T-Bug is killed by V in the trailer instead of it happening offscreen but they showed you Jackie dying just like in the game, which removed any kind of surprise when it happened in the game. The emotional impact was greatly lessened because of the trailer imo

[@trevalyan006]

@Eclipse538 The trailer was meant to shape public perception of the main game, but deceive audiences about the actual metaplot. I'm actually astonished they kept the assassination of Saburo so secret, for so long.

[@trevalyan006]

@Eclipse538 I'm sorry you feel that way. I liked the trailer quite a bit, but I liked the story even more. Being blamed for the death of Saburo Arasaka was much more effective than the betrayal over "attention," particularly when I was stealthy.

[@imogensullivan2210]

i feel like t-bug got hit with soulkiller during the heist. because after the heist, you can go meet the netrunner you bought ping off of and she'll say that they found bug in her home with her nervous system fried, which is what happened to johnny when he was killed with soulkiller

[@mattb6616]

i think that netrunner is lying. if you don't have any netrunner contacts to use in a Phantom Liberty endgame gig, Mr. Hands proposes his own, who is very expensive and professional. It's this random netrunner you bought ping off of, Yoko, who was friends with T-Bug. She'd definitely just lie to your face for her.

[@schachmaster]

Feel like T-Bug did have a a backup plan, but loyalty to V and Jackie led to her risking her neck to save them and Arasaka nailing her. I also like the idea that she somehow survived, but I think if anything it would be by somehow uploading her consciousness to the Net. Not quite a perfect Soulkiller copy, but something that can exist and perhaps even thrive in the Net.

[@wintertrooper7918]

What loyalty? She made it very clear she wanted out

[@Wilahelm2]

Here's another theory. What if Yorinobu Arasaka set up the heist as a smoke screen for his plan to kill his father Saburo. He deliberately slips info to Evelyn knowing she is working for the Voodoo Boys hoping they will send a team to rob Arasaka. He has the resources to keep an eye on her and realized she is going rouge and going to run the heist herself and learns she contacted Dex to help her. Yorinobu then contacts Dex himself and sets up a side deal with him and T-Bug so that he'll know when the heist is going to go down. He provides Dex with funds, intel, and weakens the security so Jackie and V can get in with no problems. The only issue is getting the timing right so that it happens while Yorinobu is talking with his father but I think he's smart enough to make it work. He does the deed and is now able to pin it on the two criminals who had broken into his place. Yorinobu ran a gang for awhile so he knows a job going bad like this will cause everyone to turn on each other. He just watches and then sends Arasaka goons to kill whoever is still breathing. It would have worked to if Goro hadn't been there to save V. But that's just my theory.

[@markswalley8716]

I thought the same thing. It made sense to have a fall guy for his fathers death. Also remember there are a lot of videos proving Smasher knew you were there!

[@prodnaesean3]

that would be a sick dlc

[@giovannibortoluzzi1384]

Takemura was about to scan V and Jackie. Only Saburo stopped him: very likely, Yorinobu would have done something at that point(same situation when Jackie and V are checking in, at the reception). The theory stands up perfectly anyways

[@jeniskindof]

If you want to add even more fuel to this theory you can outright say that Adam smasher was aware of v and Jackie because he was told what was going on

[@Chewychaca]

Wow makes a lot of sense why this was basically Dex's first job out of hiding, and why top level mercs were not hired. It's weird though because Dex was acting all panicky and erratic when everything went to sh-. I don't think Yorinobu would have tried to assasinate Saburo without a plan and having literally the highest profile assassination in decades happen on the day V was meant to steal the package is one hell of a coincidence. TRUST NO ONE indeed. I thought I could trust the VDB because they were underdogs, but nope.

[@Vasuki_31]

Big dan really wants to see T-bug’s body 😅

[@ad-ezzz]

This made me laugh 😂

[@reggiestockton8166]

I found Tbugs body in a random garage in a bathtub. I randomly came across the garage and it was guarded by 2 turrets. I really wish I saved the gameplay because I haven't seen anyone say they've also found her

[@prettyyboyyflacko4047]

@@reggiestockton8166 are you sure it was her

[@reggiestockton8166]

@@prettyyboyyflacko4047 I'm not 100% certain but it was bald black woman with the same netrunner suit that T-Bug had. If its not her its a hell of a coincidence. I was hoping someone else would find it to confirm if it was true

[@dreadedworld8864]

I'd eat it

[@crowofspades7965]

T-bug got caught and killed because despite the way she acts, she cares about Jackie and V. You can hear in her final lines of dialog she literally gave up her life to open the exit for Jackie and V. She died trying to save her friends. Saying she faked her own death, to ultimately risk the lives of Jackie and V is b.s. and an insult to her character.

[@grammysworld5449]

True

[@killmonger5097]

That’s a lot of faith to put in a character you’ve only known for 15 mins and calling her V and Jackie’s friend is laughable just cause you work with someone doesn’t mean their your friend Jackie says he’s never hung out with her and V only met her in person one time

[@VegtamTheWonderer]

There's also the possibility that she fakes her death to help V and Jackie escape. The corpo net runners aren't going to be watching for an already neutralized threat, letting her hit them with the element of surprise. And there is an noticeable lack of net runner attention on V and Jackie as you escape. Then after the job goes pretty much as bad as possible, T-Bug just decides it's a good time to stay gone.

[@crowofspades7965]

@@killmonger5097 Yeah, she wasn't their friend. That's why she arranged for V to get some free kit from her contact and gave V a reference to buy the more black market goods there, that's why she recommended Jackie and V to Dex. That's why she was so clearly hurt during that throw away line about Jackie saying she has a stick up her ass. If you actually pay attention to the dialog it's clear that she values Jackie and V. Even in her dying moments she knows she caught and instead of trying to get out of trouble herself, she sacrifices herself to open the only door she can so they can escape. Yeah that's definitely what someone that you just work with and don't care about does.

[@killmonger5097]

@@crowofspades7965 me personally if I can’t or won’t hang out with you in person you’re not a friend just an associate

[@rajingcajun488]

I think if she is alive, the idea of it being a contingency plan is the one that makes the most sense. I don’t think she would directly conspire to betray Jackie and V, but I can imagine her being mercenary enough to dip after giving them a proper chance of escape.

[@dranixrush3306]

Where does she get the money she needs then. Makes the plan useless.

[@rajingcajun488]

@@dranixrush3306 I mean she seems like the kind of runner who definitely has a nice stack of Eddies already. Definitely enough to disappear on if it’s a question of that or being hunter by Arasaka the rest of her (probably short) life.

[@dranixrush3306]

@@rajingcajun488 Then why not do that before DeShawn came to her? Or she could have recommended a different netrunner.

[@MrHodoAstartes]

​@dranixrush3306 Because she had "can dip" money. Dex offered the possibility of "can retire in luxury" money. So she had it all laid out before the heist and could dip the second it went sideways, or the second payment came through. Maybe she had a body prepped to be found. Maybe she just falsified an obituary and a police report on her death. She's a Runner, she can falsify info, and few meet her IRL as T-Bug.

[@r1pbuck]

I think it's reasonable to think T-Bug was smart enough to have an escape route prepared in case the Heist went bad. No reason to think Yoko didn't lie, or was just mistaken or misled. The whole setup does seem a little suspicious, but the part Jackie and V played in the Heist was really pretty minor. Given the support T-Bug was providing _anybody_ could have waltzed into the penthouse and klepped the Relic case. It's possible that Jackie and V's low-level status made them obscure enough that no connections could be made with Dex...or so Dex might hope [obviously Takemura tracked that angle down in a hot minute]. The 'no body seen' angle is really pretty suggestive that something more is going on. If the game story writers wanted a definitive answer to that, it would have been easy to write a scene where V found T-Bug's body. IMO they _want_ the question left unanswered.

[@SilverWolf3862]

to be honest it seems quite convenient to "be barely able to open that door for your guys inside and then die" my 2 cents is she planned to leg it and she couldn't because she got caught by something she couldn't predict and prepare for, which is saburo's arrival and death, so she opened the doors with the intent of using you and jackie as a distraction and still ended up being fried her only chance of survival was abandoning the mission as soon as saburo's death happened, but at that point dex would have probably retaliated, so all in all there were too many people out there to kill her

[@amythistxue1]

I think she was on the verge of cutting her wires and ditching, but wanted to get V/Jackie an escape route either out of loyalty, or out of cynical self protection, as 2 people trapped in the penthouse with no way out would be more likely to surrender (and possibly finger her as an accomplice), but 2 people on the run in the greater hotel would more likely be taken down with lethal force leaving no one to finger her, sure it would me abandoning her entire netruning setup and going even deeper underground, probably ditching Night City entirely

[@valor1omega]

Soul killer leaves zero chance of survival. That AI has a perfect kill record.

[@gamedammeister2934]

The only way T-Bug is still alive in any way, shape, or form is if Arasaka used Soulkiller on her when they attacked her. In which case she is in Mikoshi as an engram. Even then in most endings then she is dead since AI Alt assimilated all of them.

[@Disillusioned_JELly]

One more suspicious thing about the Heist and T-Bug. It's Arasaka vs. a netrunner. Arasaka wouldn't kill a netrunner - they would Soulkiller her. T-Bug should be in Mikoshi. The AI based on Alt's engram wants V to follow it to the Net. If T-Bug had been Soulkillered the Alt AI would use T-Bug to convince V to follow it to the Net, so V should meet T-Bug in Mikoshi. Actually, V should put two and two together fairly early on when learning about Mikoshi and Soulkiller. Hell, V who was made with max Int and was a Corpo, should know what happens to netrunners who compromise Arasaka from the get-go - without Johnny telling V - since Soulkillering hostile netrunners seems like it should be standard counterintel measure.

[@darkenchanter1599]

One more clue: How did the door open when the whole plaza was on lockdown? Surely the saka runner wouldn't just open those door... So T, as to save her friends, faked her death and opened the door before logging off...

[@Tom-Servo]

Yea when she was hacking the door she got killed then a little bit later the door unlocks. Not like she could continue to hack while she's dead with a fried nervous system.

[@DarthCrow]

Never really thought of it being a big scam but... it could be. Frankly, without an actual body, we've got a Schroedinger's T-Bug situation really.

[@valor1omega]

Not at all. Soul killer was used, it copied her personality to a construct and then fried her brain. Alt then absorbed her engram and started talking like T-bug at the end of the game.

[@christophermzdenek]

My following thoughts are based on ttrpg rules, so may be off entirely on narrative. Bug was wearing a full Netrunner cool suit. On top of that, she had a build in deck on her arm. That meant she had up to 10 spaces available for programs and hardware upgrades. She's an experienced net runner, so she certainly had basic protections. Specifically, she had a way to not getting burned the exact way it was described. It's insulation hardware that specifically stops that from happening (only 1 out of those 10 available upgrade slots). Maybe she got fried by Black ICE in the system? No, she's just spent 3.5 hours disabling it all (all in an Arasaka executive hotel... Implying she was already a NC legend) and could have just forced an unsafe jack-out with basically no repercussions. So, instead, lemme think about this narratively. Dex. A huge name fixer 2 years ago, maybe second only to Rouge or Faraday. Has to bounce for...reasons. Who helps him get out of a situation so bad he had to leave the city? T-Bug. SO, why would a big name FIxer, and Netrunner approaching legend status use a could of street level gonks to pull a high profile gig? As cannon fodder. Rouge, Faraday, Kiwi. They all have one thing in common, they sold out to the powers that be to either save their hide, or move up, and they all sold out to the same group. SO, I'll wrap this up with what I think happened so this doesn't turn into a novel. A couple years ago, Dex and Bug were tight, friends, lovers, family...whatever. They had a crew that had other folks. They did a run against Arasaka. It went really bad. Dex and Bug were the only ones to walk away, but Dex got fingered bad. Bug helped him get out of town and hidden. She lays low and does a bunch of street level things to keep her tech maintained and put Kibble on the table. I'd even venture she wasn't know as T-Bug back then, but changed her handle after the incident. She gets known by a new handle to the low level fixers, does a couple off site gigs with Jackie, then finally meets V as well. Then something goes wrong. Arasaka finds her. She cuts a deal. She'll drag the mastermind back in. Then the chip hiest falls in her lap. Oh, this gets her some leverage. She makes a deal at the top. See, the hiest, Sandra Dorcett, even the crew... That's petty scop. Betrayal at the highest level, though. That's something worth trading a life for. You see, I did some math. The 3.5 hours of time to hack the hotels net seemed odd when she originally projected 2. And the math says that is about what it would take to notify Tokyo, get on a scramjet suborbital and take an AV from Morro Rock to the North Watson Marina district... with time to spare for bathroom breaks. I mean, by the point the Emporor arrives, she is already likely nothing but a recording. She's gone and already headed to her beach bungalow. Narratively, this fits the genre pretty well. That, or they unleashed Soulkiller on her and she's super gone. Either way, the story of her toasted corpse is almost certainly propaganda. Or... It isn't that deep and it went exactly like it seemed.

[@tyrrax]

There is another element to this. Consider just how quickly Takemura was able to track down V. He was able to intercept Dex at the spaceport, then drive out to the Badlands where V's body was dumped within 12 hours of the event. Conclusion: T-Bug betrayed everyone, but it wasn't her fault. Think about it. Saburo Arasaka is dead and the company was going to need answers. T-Bug wasn't killed by a netrunner. She was fried by Soulkiller. Afterwards, her consciousness is packaged into an engram for easy use. The existence of a potentially damaged engram from Jackie Welles confirms this. As Saburo himself said "The dead are so very, very loud. And yet, lying is not in their nature." T-Bug told them everything they needed to know.

[@thadeusilva8907]

About the theory that Dex and T-bug sold V and Jackie out... Well, that actually makes some sense. They could be with Yorinobu on this, after all he would need an scape goat for his father"s death, and who better that 2 no-name Edgerunners to take the fall? Remember, it looks like Adam Smasher knew you were hiding and Just didn't say anything... he just didn't count V would make out of the building alive. And about Takemura, he didn't work for him, but for his father, he was not in the deal...

[@jarrodbright5231]

Exactly. In fact this is what I suspected was happening from the moment Saburo started confronting Yorinobu when we were hiding in that pillar the first time I played the game.

[@GeminiSong13]

Ya and it would make sense that dex would know yorinobu because yorinobu had that time period where he was being a "fucking tourist" in night city with his own gang. I could see them making this plan so yori could take over

[@KoboltBlue]

Didn't even realise she died in my first playthrough. Spent half the game wondering if she would show up again until a friend told me she had been killed

[@Flameville]

So you didn’t hear the agonizing screams 🥲

[@channel45853]

@@Flameville honestly just thought she stubbed her toe

[@Leomerya12]

@@channel45853 HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[@Comicsluvr]

When we're chatting with Bug before the Heist, she flat-out says that when she gets her cut she's dropping out of the world completely. That tells me that she already had that plan set up but she needed the coin to pull it off. Once she got made during the Heist, she was the one person involved who was off-site. It would have been easy for her to set up some cutout body to convince Arasaka she was dead.

[@IamYasha10]

I hope she's still alive. As a net runner i pegged her as someone who just doesn't die that easily. She could appear in other cyberpunk games or series as well as she's a familiar face/name.

[@DefaultDanielS]

unfortunately she is confirmed to be dead or just an engram inside Mikoshi :(

[@Caris42]

I spent much of the game after her death wondering this very thing, but not that she faked her death and ran off, but instead that she had been bought by Arasaka and she faked her death so her "friends" wouldn't know. it never happened, but I sure kept expecting her to pop up and say "Hey they offered enough money I couldn't refuse" or something like that.

[@speedcreep2605]

I think there might be something to it for 2 specific reasons. First, the exterior door opens seconds after T-Bug's death, not before. Second, when asking the vendor what she had heard about T-Bugs death the merchant says, "The truth..." Whenever someone tells you that they're telling the truth, and you haven't questioned their sincerity, it's usually a sign that they're lying. Far from proof but it is cause to consider.

[@trentthehehim3936]

I don’t know man. After playing through the Arasaka ending a few times you get the idea that Saburo had planed on going on the chip BEFORE spider put Johnny on it. And the story hints at Saburo taking over Yorinobu’s body. So it makes sense that Dex and Bug would be working with Yorinobu and Haniko pinning the whole thing on low level mercy’s to take the fall but never expected V and Jack to succeed or Dex was to retrieve the chip after he and bug betrayed V at the motel. Bug “ Dying” sounds like it was all part of the plan because Dex books a flight for one out of NC when V is supposed to be cleaning up in the bathroom. Maybe he and bug were going to leave together. Maybe he was booking that flight for bug and was going to meet her later.

[@tyranavalon]

Here is a theory: T-Bug was working with Yorinobu. Dex got V and Jackie from T-Bug, she had worked with both of them before. She convinces Dex she needs the flat-head and maybe even convinces him that they can cut out Evelyn and sell the tech to any number of companies once they have it. She may have even leaked the info about the Biochip and Johnny's engram to the Voodoo boys to get them to make a move. May even have set up Evelyn to try and sell it and call in dex. Remember T-bug is one of the best net runners in Night City she may even have been on Yorinobu's payroll for some time helping him with other "jobs." In this case Yorinobu needed something to bring his father away from the safety of his fortress, thus stealing the Biochip would give him the opportunity for the murder. He probably had Adam Smasher there to handle Takemura or any other guards if things went south. However he likely knew that his father would be conceited/embarrassed enough to send away his guards before he dress down his son. Yorinobu's motive was that he wanted to control Arasaka, but his father was working on his immortality project and would never give up the reins. If Saburo died in private his engram would have been loaded into another body made to look like him, he had to make it public, a media bonanza, and while the media focused on that he would make sure that his father was not resurrected with his influence in the company. His means of murder could have been anything from poison or shooting Saburo (his gun was in the room after all), but he lost his temper and began strangling him. This is why he pauses, he intended to kill him another way, but "in for a penny in for a pound." Yorinobu knew there was a hiding spot behind the TV (T-bug directed V and Jackie there as soon as he started up), and his body guard already knew the characters were hiding inside (he flags if you have the Threat Detector mod for your optics). Whatever happened he knew that he would have the heist gone wrong and 2 perfect stooges set up to cause a big hoopla as they attempted to escape, proving that they were the assassins. T-bug got them into that room, made sure they were hidden from Saburo Arasaka, locked them in a pillar until Yorinobu was safe, and then trapped them in the room until trauma and security arrived. She then fakes her death with the fat wads of eddies she got from Yorinobu for pulling off the job and disappears never to set foot in the net ever again.

[@Lcgx]

im glad you made a video about this ive always thought it stunk to high hell too, t bug and dex definitely had something going on behind the scenes for sure.

[@The_adim_project]

There was supposed to be a mission but it got scraped for the Lizzie Wizzy story line

[@arandajose20]

What mission?

[@The_adim_project]

@@arandajose20 There was supposed to be a mission to find TBug

[@JM1992]

Well that sucks, Lizzie wizzy mission is garbage

[@mitch3613]

source ?

[@The_adim_project]

@@mitch3613 I don't indulge trolls

[@nathaniel3867]

Honestly I can only think of two possibilities for T-Bug. She died during the heist helping V and Jackie while hacking into the Arasaka Tower network. My second theory would be she faked her own death and went into hiding. Although giving the fact Arasaka hunts down their enemies. Anyone that poses a threat to them she would need a really good pace to hide.

[@VegtamTheWonderer]

Here's my two cents: Dex selling everybody out to Arasaka makes next to no sense, but Dex working for Yorinobu to create cover for the assassination of Saburo works pretty well. If Yorinobu finds out about the job because Evelyn Parker makes some rookie mistake (which is kinda her whole MO anyway), he might have decided to subtly feed information to her for the bio-chip heist. Hell, maybe Yorinobu was spreading bread crumbs about the biochip to try to get somebody to set the job up in the first place. Yorinobu doesn't have a high opinion of the bio-chip, and using it as cover to murder his father seems like one of the best uses of it from his perspective anyway. Then, he gets Dex to set a job up with gonks too desperate or hungry to know better. Then kills him while they are nabbing it so he can pin it on them. Which makes Takemura being out of the loop much easier to explain. When everything starts going sideways, T-Bug decides to go ahead with faking her death in the moment, which is conveniently after she gets an exit route for V and Jackie. And maybe she keeps them after that. After all, V and Jackie can potentially sneak the rest of the way out, something that would be extremely not possible with a corpo netrunner dogging them through the wires. Basically, she planned on faking her death in a heroic sacrifice during the run as her way out, and kept to that plan when everything goes sideways. So T-Bug is out, and after finding out how bad the job ends up, decides that maybe staying out is the obvious play.

[@jarrodbright5231]

Or maybe Yorinobu was working with T-Bug the whole time and she delivered him his patsies for his father's murder... and made sure they were able to get away just far enough to make sure they won't be interrogated to spoil his plan, while making sure he could recover Johnny's engram afterwards. The lack of corpo netrunner support is very suspicious until you remember how Yorinobu handled Takemura right after his father's death. He didn't want to risk V and Jackie being captured; he wanted them dead and his relic recovered.

[@valor1omega]

Soul killer was used, she is dead. Nothing more, nothing less. It's an AI designed to kill net runners created by Alt Cunningham who is far superior to bart in every way. Spider Murphy stated as much. So yeah, soul killer = dead T-bug. Theory debunked.

[@mattb6616]

this does make sense. Smasher is clearly aware that you're there the entire time and just has orders to stand down. He's staring directly at you and canonically has the cyberware to be able to see you.

[@kazen16]

always thought this is like one of those CDPR expansion thing like when they introduced gaunter o dym, his first intro to the game is so elaborate for a small time npc, just like Tbug

[@drakealexander6668]

During the float mission, I thought the netrunner from Arasaka was T-Bug. When you find it, it is a small person, black and bald. I thought it was her and it could make sense for her to protect herself.

[@MrDEMarq]

The only way it would work for T-Bug to come back would be for her to ask V for his help in a mission or against whom might be chasing her.

[@baird329]

I figured she was killed by Soul Killer. That would mean her body was dead, but her mind is alive in whatever prison the digital construct is held in. If I remember Soul Killer is an AI designed to trap and pack up netrunners minds for Arasaka.

[@tickledpickle5671]

She opened that window with the same gusto as the old man in the first Zelda game. "Take this, it's not safe to go alone"

[@ejscorp]

When V and Jackie first get in the apartment, V asked if she's there on comms, and there's a delayed response and she says "Oh, yeah, I'm here" or something like that but it's said in a weird distracted tone. That seemed odd. Right before she said it'd take hours to get things ready.

[@JohnnyL22420]

Big Dan makes the best videos bc theyre what we want. Not short but concise. Straight to the point no repeating to pad time like some who repeat things literally 50 times in a few minutes. Everything is still well thought out and explained though with fun and logic mixed in. Glad i found this channel and i barely game anymore. Thank you for the content bigdan

[@davidmaclean2734]

I don't think it was betrayal, more like a contingency plan, she obviously didn't want v and Jakie to die, despite what she said, I still think she liked them, hence why she gave them an escape route. She was likely hoping to get them out and meet with them later to still have a take from the heist, but with the death Jackie and (potentially) V, she decided to cut her losses and leave NC like she planed to do

[@SteelyGlow]

4:17 - it may be so, or it may be not. It may be a blooper, like that of the locomotive in the Basilisk quest - it was clearly sent off but after that it is visible in its place during the campfire scene.

[@nathan3252]

Here is a theory I have had for a while. Yorinobu and Saburo set everyone up. It all started with Yorinobu finding out about Saburo's plan to take over his body. Saburo found out about Yorinobu and set his own plan in motion. Yorinobu needed to lure Saburo away from his security so he could be killed. To this end he needed a bait that would draw out his father. He chose the biochip which was the perfect tool for capturing his father. He then sent out a rumor that he was gonna sell the biochip. At the same time he began a plan to cover his tracks so no one would believe he was the killer. He started first with the perfect double agent, Parker. Parker had been spying on both the tiger claws and the mox. She was told to leak the info to the voodoo boys who then tried to recruit her to get info on the bio chip. This was one of several red herrings to disrupt investigators who would think Parker was working for them when in truth she was working for Yorinobu. Yorinobu then made use of yet another double agent, T-bug. T-Bug was to use her connections combined with Parker to create a heist crew. They picked a big name connected to known fixers at the Afterlife as yet another red herring. V was to be the patsy who would be blamed for Saburo's death. This is why Parker attempts to probe V to see if V is dumb enough to fall for the ruse. They also get V to get a piece of Militech gear to serve as yet another red herring. Everything after that goes as planned. Saburo arrives and is killed. T-Bug is eliminated because she knows too much. Parker pretends to plan to help V when called but is in truth just doing her daily business. The voodoo boys catch on to Parker being a double agent though and use one of their spies to take her out. Yorinobu then sends takemura to eliminate DeShawn before he can spill what info he knows as well as retrieve V's body. The one mistake though is takamura catches on that V can identify who killed Saburo and thus takamura becomes a liability so Yorinobu makes takamura a traitor. Yorinobu then tries to remove any factions loyal to saburo but he can't touch his sister as she is too important as the supposed new face of the company. What he doesn't know is Honako was secretly working with Saburo. As soon as Saburo died, trauma was sent but their orders were to use soulkiller on saburo as fast as possible so his consciousness would not be too badly damaged. Honako then waits for takamura to find her and then have arasaka kill him thus making yorinobu think he was in the clear. V on the other hand was to be honako's new distraction to keep yorinobu busy so he wouldn't notice what honako was planning. If you go with the devil ending, Honako's plan works but yorinobu towards the end realizes what they have planned. He tries to tell V but V has no clue about what has happened. No one ever has a full clue who was truly the one who set all this in motion. We are led to believe it was the voodoo boys but if so how did they find out about a biochip that was so rare that very few even within arasaka knew about its existence. The only logical conclusion according to my theory is Yorinobu setup the heist as the perfect murder disguised as a heist.

[@MrNb22]

if Goro was working with Yorinobu, he wouldn't need V to talk to Odo - he would have done it himself.

[@DragonSora]

A cool plot twist being she appears within phantom dlc to help V one last time.

[@FinGeek4now]

Arasaka hired Dex to get the biochip back from Yoronobu. After consideration, Saburo decided to talk sense into his son one last time, however, when that failed and Saburo died, Takamura had to implement the backup plan and kill off the merc team to prevent any leak from happening which could affect Arasaka while getting the biochip himself and bringing it back. He disengaged the FlatHead from the netrunner and authorized SoulKiller to be used against T-Bug. When interrogating Dex about V's whereabouts, he finds V and kills Dex (why else go to where Dex buried V's body? It wasn't until he saw V climbing out of the wreckage that he realized V was still alive). Finding out that the biochip is in V's head makes him play the "let's get you to Arasaka so we can help you," card, thus neutralizing V while also appealing to Hanako that her brother killed his father - thus putting him at a better spot on the corporate ladder. Even if the heist was successful, our little merc team had their days numbered anyways - either by NetWatch (who wanted the biochip and once gotten, they wouldn't have wanted Arasaka to know they had it) or by Arasaka (who wouldn't want people to know that their prized tech was stolen - bringing shame to the company and their stock price drop a few percentage points).

[@neah9060]

Eve hired Dex Eve bettayed voodoo boys who wanted the chip Saburo isn't part of the heist

[@b3aronyt]

When I played through, I immediately assumed she bailed on the job because she realized how bad the situation is.

[@MrMartynwelbourn]

T-Bug works for Arasaka. The job she was given was to lure Dex into a trap and everyone else were just collateral damage. V was also a pawn as He/She were meant to be a test patient for the Engram Transfer Project. There is a lot more to it but this is just the basics. Shhhhhh!

[@MahamedBoi]

Good idea but i don’t think Arasaka would care about Dex

[@jarrodbright5231]

I agree she set up Dex but I think it was to give Yorinobu a patsy for his father's murder

[@Silenthitman44]

She's dead

[@tonyalindsey3887]

No t bugs body or johnnys body both are missing that means Araska has there body’s they have plans for them

[@pirusaogostoso741]

In my first gameplay, as soon as i saw her in that couch with Dex, i thought she was planning to side with him and set us up

[@xenrin]

I think T-Bug is still alive and bailed. The entire "my call is breaking up, I gotta go" is so cliche, and we don't see her getting fried in the holo, she just hangs up. Mr Hands also talks about Dexter's poor data security and leaks, which leads me to believe that T-Bug tipped off Saburo that Yorinobo had the biochip in his apartment to pad her retirement fund. She is cold and distant when discussing the Heist in the afterlife and a lot more cheerful afterward. She also says she intends to "burn any and all bridges behind her", not "cut ties", "make a clean break", etc. She said BURN ALL BRIDGES. She knows Arasaka will hunt down anyone who touches this opp, and cut a deal for herself to let Saburo's security catch the thieves in the act and recover the bio-chip from Yorinubo's apartment. She would have likely met with Goro, who clearly knows something is up and wants to do a security scan of the apartment. When Saboru is killed she knows any deal she made with him is also dead and panics. She unlocks the door, drops her connection, and gets a head start getting out of town, spreading a message on the local netrunner BBS that she was burned by Arasaka. T-bug is how Goro was able to find Dexter so quickly - only 5 people knew about Dexter's involvement, and 2 are dead, Evelyn ran, the bodyguard, and T-Bug. Goro got to Dexter before he was able to get on his flight out of town, and since Dexter isn't even wearing a shirt when we see him in the garbage dump, Goro probably dragged him out of bed.

[@stuartlittle281]

The only way I think she would have faked her own death is if someone else was helping her, and it was for a specific narrative purpose. Like maybe you find out that that before the heist, she was approached by NUSA and recruited by them, with the condition that during the heist she's also using her hacking to get something else from Arasaka's systems, and the death was an elaborate hoax to cover her, and she returns in Phantom Liberty as a familiar face. I don't think that's actually the case, but it's something I think could be a cool development.

[@QuinzeeTheArtist]

She died while the door was still opening. That makes me think she was still hacking the door after the asmr of her "supposedly dying".

[@Nerazmus]

I never thought she is dead. She is even nice enough to open the doors for us after she "dies" afterall.

[@Benjamin1986980]

I will accept the theory that t-bug was supposed to survive and betray them until very late in the story's production. However, that put too much of a personal betrayal and would have alleviated V's guilt at Jackie's death. Therefore, they gave her a relatively quick cut off to end that storyline as well as show the danger they are in.

[@fredblues7175]

She probably had multiple plans trying to account for every type of snafu. If she was playing Jackie and V, she was probably playing Dex too. I don't think she was playing any of them, just making plans for every occurrence she could think of and could very well be alive.

[@RichardDuryea]

There’s that other net runner body you can find in a guarded warehouse.

[@naclynerickii]

I still believe she was killed. After meeting the friend shop I remember going to (I cannot remember where exactly) apartment complex and I swear I found documentation explaining what was left of TBug's body. V made a comment about it and I believe Jhonny did too (although he didn't know her). I went back to the same shop keeper in the video and V and her talked briefly about TBug. She reminisces about a particular mission she supplied her for and how confident TBug was. She gets heartbroken over your finding. I think she even says from here on you get a discount on her stuff.

[@ArcaneSorceror]

Counter-theory. T-Bug faked her death because she was contacted by Alt to steal the Relic. We see the Relic advertised as the newest thing for Execs, there is no reason this wouldn't be online. Alt would recognize the Relic and conclude that there is a chance for her. Dex gets the info from Evelyn who got it from Netwatch who would've seen whispers of Alt's activities. Alt could, in theory, return to a human body with the Relic. She sees the net traffic about Evelyn and Netwatch and sees how Dex recruits, helped by the fact T-Bug and Dex already know each other. Alt contacts T-Bug with her plan and can guarantee to scrub T-Bug's net signature, allowing for a clean escape and enough eddies for a new free life. T-Bug could've pre-recorded the video to play when she hears her team needs a new out because she knows this is going to go sideways. How? Alt sent a message to Saboru.

[@joyscott7573]

that comes to mind when you were waiting for tbug to open the door right when she got fried. the door would of never opened b/c she was dead to continue hacking the door.. leaving you locked in the building.. so there for she mite of faked her dead cutting the comms an still opened the door to get you out

[@xk1390]

She would have needed a dead body to pass off as hers. That's not something she could have faked since it wasn't like she was supposed to have died in a fire incident, which leaves bodies unrecognizable.

[@trevalyan006]

Even Kirk Sawyer gets a spot in the Columbarium- but T-Bug doesn't. A very important sign.

[@GabrielGsxr1300]

On top of that, Adam smasher did spot you inside the hidden spot

[@Benward105]

V returns to night city dying. Goes on vacation to that nice place the smart girl said in the beginning. T bug and V spot each other at a cafe, Dark Knight Rises style

[@mbishop2050]

As Big Dan Gaming said in the video about companies reusing visuals without changing them very much if not at all is bad enough but when they use the same voice actors to do that really is a pain, especially the distinct ones like the person who voiced the Dexter DeShawn character. My first play though was a bit of a surprise to me as near the start of Act 2, I kept hearing the voice of the Dex DeShawn character in various areas of Night City and at first it made me wonder if DeShawn was not dead but just wounded and now looking for the V character.

[@Advent154]

I wonder if T-Bug got sapped by soulkiller, they use the same type of scream that Johnny when he got sapped

[@KDC93]

It's actually fitting that everyone involed with the Arasaka Heist died, Tbug included. But I'm optimistic that V will find treatment with the Aldecados.

[@KatieK-OnYt]

To be honest, I don't know enough about T-bug to make a deduction about her being the kind of person to betray their "friends", but Dex selling out to Yorinobu, rather than all of Arasaka makes a surprising amount of sense. With the threat detector eye mod, we can see that Adam Smasher, Yoris bodyguard, has detected us in the pillar, but doesn't do anything about it. I highly doubt Yorinobu anticipated that we'd manage to escape though. Some other comments here suggest that he didn't value the bio-chip too much, but I'd say it's quite contrary. SPOILER ALERT In the Arasaka ending, we discover that Yorinobu planned to take down his Father, and take over the company, because rebelling against him didn't work. As he said "what do you do when bomb don't work? You become bomb." And so I think Johnny is of interest to him. Potentially to avoid certain pitfalls, we don't know.

[@pyrioncelendil]

"You become the bomb," sure, as far as destroying the company from within is concerned, but knowing how the Relic functions necessarily implies that the attempted sale of the Relic prototype to NetWatch was just a ruse. He would've been carrying an empty case, with the Relic in his head, knowing what it contains and represents (an insurance policy of sorts), while expecting his father to send assassins to kill him to prevent the Relic from falling into NetWatch's hands. Yorinobu had it figured out that he was going to destroy Arasaka one way or another, even if that meant dying to facilitate Johnny's resurrection, knowing that if he couldn't destroy Arasaka from inside, Johnny would then continue his vendetta against Arasaka from the outside.

[@boazon2049]

How about this for a twist. Arasaka has the technology to grab someone’s psyche off the net when they’re net running. What if her psyche was ripped from her body and she is an engram on a chip like Johnny? I could see this as a possibility. Please feel free to point out any things that would prove this theory wrong.

[@channel45853]

they said that T-Bug's body was still in her apartment, so the body was never ceased by Arasaka so I don't think they made her into an engram

[@boazon2049]

@@channel45853 why would her body be needed? Can’t Arasaka just download her psyche off the net? If I’m not mistaken I clearly heard a remark in the game that Arasaka could grab a netrunners psyche off the net. Any reasons you can give why the body would be needed would be great.

[@channel45853]

@@boazon2049 only reason is that they intercepted Jackies body. But I guess that doesn't hold up too well because Jackie wasn't plugged into the net.

[@jarrodbright5231]

Your theory only works if Stormfront and Shockwave (the books that describe the 4th corporate war and the original attack on Arasaka Tower) are considered "non-cannon". Following the attack on Arasaka Tower we see a version of in the first flashback, Arasaka no longer has control of Soulkiller and can no longer rip a netrunner's souls from their bodies to store as engrams. Hence Alt's observations of Johnny's "memories" - including in this case his encounter with Saburo Arasaka before his soul being ripped from his (dying) body - having no relation to reality.

[@madvillainelle4009]

I think she was soul killed and stored as an engram.

[@DefaultDanielS]

yup, and this is the best explanation for how they knew everything about the heist, who really killed Saburo, where Dex was hiding etc

[@kyleflynn6366]

For the theory about her betraying v couldn't she have been working for the son to get people there he could frame for the murder that could be why Adam smasher didn't see us

[@alitalkz]

The sell out to arasaka sounds plausible if you think about it as Dex and T playing both V and arasaka. Say they both knew each other, came up with the whole plan to steal the biochip etc. But once the plan is going smoothly, Dex calls up some arasaka big wig and gives them a tip off (for a pretty penny of course) cutting a deal for info and using V and Jackie as sacrificial lambs to get their own funds. But the plan was for them to die and V just messed it up

[@matthewwisdom9933]

I believe debug taking down at arisaka agent from the trailer is so so very Canon and still applies to in-game universe

[@rranft]

Main argument against - her retiring to a villa in Crete was contingent on the payout from this job being enough. No one got paid no Cretan villa. However, as you point out, as a backup it's not a bad way for her to duck all of the heat from Arasaka entirely. I would point to the door opening after her death as a checkmark in favor of the fake death. We see the process loading for the unlock so we assume that it simply completed after she dies. I contend that this shouldn't have happened based on all other netrunner uploads/quickhacks against the player failing to complete if the runner dies. So the hack to open the door should have failed, according to world consistency, upon her death/disconnection. As for the job being a setup, it could make sense if Yorinobu was planning to make it look like the chip was stolen from him. Saburo showing up threw a wrench in that for him, but Dex killing V still falls in line with "cleaning up the mess" at that point. Takemura wasn't in the know, as Saburo's bodyguard, so naturally he zeros Dex. From Yorinobu's perspective, this is also just cleanup. I agree with your assessment - she's dead. The other options are too convoluted.

[@cyfyfycy5151]

This is what the lore of cyberpunk TTRPG looks like. There are concrete facts but also rumors, legends, point of view of the media (which media, owned by which corporation?)..., so it invites us to speculate and not take things for granted, as we should in the real world. My hypothesis is Dexter was working for Yorinobu all along and T-bug was in on it. First, the trailer is actually a pretty big deal. It means that at some point CDPR considered that plot, whatever changes might have happened between 2019 and launch (maybe back then this was but one branch of possibilities (Jackie dying,...) but then some stuff had to be cut short. Anyway they thought out this plot (Dexter and T-bug together betraying V) and all the implications of such. Another important clue is that if you wear the eye mod that tags enemies that detected you in kompeki you see that Smasher detects you, as he is looking straight at V. So Smasher and probably Yorinobu know we're there to snatch the relic. What I think happened is that Yorinobu knew his father wouldn't just let Yori take the relic away so he plotted the heist just to get it back unofficially. Then he just loses it and ends up killing his father on the spot. I believe T-bug told Dexter that V and Jackie are proficient in what they do (V especially, she doesn't really jive with Jackie but he comes with the duo and they end up working well together) AND they are still without a reputation or big affiliations, making them suckers in terms of reputation and desperate to get into the afterlife, but resourceful for the job nonetheless. Now, with Saburo dead it wouldn't make much difference if V and Jackie make it out of Kompeki, as long as someone from Yorinobu's party gets to the bodies and snatches the relic back. As far as Dexter and T-bug are concerned, maybe none of them knew they were working for Yorinobu, Dexter didn't, seeing as he kills V and leaves the relic inside. T-bug might have been the one to actually land the job on Dexter, having been contacted by Yorinobu herself. If that's the case, she might have thought things were getting crazy after Saburo's death and left the mission early. Goro was the wild card in all of this, faithful to Saburo.

[@pedropierre9594]

She got hit with Soulkiller thats it she gone

[@MondoJohnny]

Just a random thought but what if T Bug is with the Voodoo boys and she has DeX on a leash? Why didnt they kill DeX? They could have easily certainly once he just came back. I thinks the lot of them including Evelyn were being controlled by the the voodoo boys and were trying to figure out how to turn the situation to their own benefit. T Bug may have just bailed when the situation became untenable. The game makes a point of letting you ask about the relationship between her and DeX and then does not tell you. I think that's a signal.

[@7thsealord888]

It's an interesting theory, that I have also wondered about. Straight-up, I do not believe that T-Bug betrayed Jackie and V - it would have been too easy to leave them high-n-dry at any other time. Instead, she was working to help them right up until her alleged "end". I do note that T-Bug's behavior, when JW & V get into their hotel room, seems a little "off" to me. Of course, she is extremely busy at this stage, but I did get a sort of vibe that maybe there was something extra happening that she wasn't mentioning to her teammates. Not hard evidence, of course, except maybe to a hardcore conspiracy theorist. Not personally finding her body / home is a consideration, but Night City is a very big place. I'd INFER that she lived fairly close to the Afterlife, based on the in-person meeting V has with her, and how soon she is online afterwards, but that is open to interpretation. Of course, it could just be that T-Bug's place is "yet to be found" - even now, people are still finding Easter Eggs and hidden detail all over the place. One other thought. I think this is arguably the BIG mystery. Arasaka is scary, and supposedly the top people as regards security, intelligence and 'special operations;. It is smart and quick enough to scoop up Jackie's body when it is sent to Vic's. It is also very quick to put the hammer down (unsuccessfully) on Takamura, one of its own top operatives, at short notice. Yet V, one of the people it supposedly wants most, is openly rolling around Night City, building up Rep, partying down at the Afterlife, buying property, talking to everybody (Yorinobu didn't think about this?), hobnobbing with celebrities and, quite incidentally, hitting various lesser things that Arasaka has going. So, HOW is V doing all this without multiple Arasaka hit teams showing up on her doorstep, or at least arranging an 'accident' or three? Unless we somehow bring in 'Mister Blue Eyes' (an entirely different rabbit hole), this makes no sense.

[@owlarmsgaming4948]

i think opening the door was a little gift..give them the means to escape and the rest is up to them. I think the plan was always to have them found but when things went way sideways with the death of Arasaka she belt remorse and helped them one last time before faking her death which again was always the plan.

[@voidseeker4394]

​@@owlarmsgaming4948i mean, yeah, V and Jackie's survival wasn't a threat to her, and she is probably not a cold-blooded monster either.

[@voidseeker4394]

​@@owlarmsgaming4948besides, in order to convince everyone she is indeed dead, she needs some first-hand witnesses to spread that rumor around.

[@TheCrimsonLupus]

The theory about Dex and T-bug working with Arasaka is not bad: especially as there are factions within Arasaka (Goro mentions these later on) - The Relic was stolen by one faction (led by Yorinobu) and Seburo went to night city to recover it and chastise his son - Seburo appearing could have been a misdirection to aid the heist, The Relic is recovered by a disposable element, and this saves face for Seburo - who can deny involvement (and clean the crew after the heist - it felt like Dex and Goro had not just met in the fallout from the heist). But, that plan fails as he was not expecting Yorinobu to kill him. I think T-bug was either killed by external net-runners (Seburo would have had another team with him - the 'runner in the hotel was Yorinobo's man), or faked her death as she knew Arasaka would never stop hunting her.

[@stuffdude6212]

The Betrayal and approaching Arasaka thing could still work. Cuz Remember, Yori stole the Relic from Arasaka and was gonna sell it to NetWatch. We know what Viv's play is for the Voodoo boys or disappearing. But what if Dex took the job and fronted so much money cuz he WAS working for Arasaka on the down low. Also as hard up as he was, how could Dex afford to book a seat on the Crystal Palace during that hidden scene? Could still work.

[@matthewwisdom9933]

Like I kind of feel like V and Johnny silverhand becomes even more best friends as the game progresses and then Jack would ever be 8:30

[@condorX2]

Yes she did! Anyone notice the Arasaka Netrunner that killed T bug look like T bug herself? The Arasaka Netrunner you meet before fighting Oda with lite candles on the background was bald. T bug was bald and dress in a Arasaka Netrunner outfit.

[@JohnWoodbury-o7s]

I think the shard you get next to your computer, greetings from Des Moines "jump in the urinal and stand on your head. I'm the one that's alive, You're all dead." You get this shard in Act 2, I haven't seen nobody answer this shard. It seems fitting that she would say this,she likes to make quotes. So to me she is alive in her Cretan villa in Des Moines.

[@pirusaogostoso741]

7:30 easy explanation, Dex is a fixer, might work for both Corpos and Merks, steal the relic was never on schedule, it was just an excuse to make jack and V go there to be framed for Saburo's death, but, since Evelyn came trying to hire him to really steal the relic, it would kill two birds with one stone, extra money, easy eddies

[@yungblink]

The irony is that T-Bug was probably soulkilled by Arasaka netrunners and when V destroys Mikoshi he officially “kills” her. Given the fact that she wanted to retire from netrunning I don’t know if she would be happy to merge with Alt.

[@jarrodbright5231]

After the attack on Arasaka Tower, Arasaka no longer have access to the weaponized version of Soulkiller Alt was forced to make for them and so are unable to remotely turn opposing Netrunners into engrams. Completely forgivable as most people haven't read the source material but this was actually why the assault on Arasaka Tower that Johnny died in was launched. Stop 'Saka from killing all Militech's best netrunners and recover the engram of Alt Cunningham (which Spider Murphy did). As Alt says towards the end of the game, Johnny's memories on these topics in fact bear very little relation to reality.

[@claws2129]

Technically Arasaka does use soulkiller to collect talented netrunners. So in a roundabout way she may be "alive" in Makoshi. At least until Alt gobbles up all the engrams.

[@auroraflash]

The heist was planned by Yorinobu. I thought this was clear by now. Yorinobu hired Evelyn who hired Dex for people to be present when Yorinobu needs a scapegoat for his father’s murder.

[@MrCaptainErik]

There is also the fact that V never sees the body... Highly sus, maybe think about it?

[@co44re]

I haven't heard or seen anyone that's discussing this theory mention the moment when it takes T-bug a second to respond to you on the holo. She returns a bit flustered, like she was distracted by something else. What else was she doing at such an important time? I was immediately suspicious of her from then on, so I reckon she faked her death and was distracted by setting up her escape.

[@Y4N970U]

Would be cool if we see T-Bug return in the Cyberpunk DLC Phantom Liberty as some sort of surprise.

[@HAZRE.]

4:42 that netrunner corpse is not T-Bug's model, nor is she bald. T-Bug was completely bald but the corpse has hair, it's just extremely close-cropped. It's also blonde and she has a completely different face and piercings. I honestly don't know how anyone can mistake the corpse with Bug??

[@matthewwisdom9933]

While also managing to try get in contact with v fearing that it may be to late she didn't possibly get swooped up bye the main villain sister for a good reasons and to help her and keep her safe like she does to v

[@ZephyrTheWyvernKing]

She's most likely dead, but my own personal theory was that the very second she noticed she was found or when the bot was removed, she tried to disconnect. Maybe she didn't get away unscathed though. When V and Jackie asked her to open the door, she tried to do so and maybe she actuality fit attacked before she could do m disconnect.

[@sideshowmo653]

My theory I think T-Bug and Dex always planned to zero Jackie and V. When Evie went to Dex with the plan (after the Voodoo Boys hired her) he reached out to the VDBs to "check her out". This was quite possibly the dumbest thing he could have done. It not only confirmed to the VDBs that their doll was not to be trusted, but they found out that their plan was at risk. So, they took over the heist using Dex as a front man and letting Evie think she was still calling the shots. They funded the expenses and either connected Dex with T-Bug or he pulled T-Bug in the help him find the disposable mercs he needed to do the dirty end of the job. The plan was simple. Evie was non negotiable as Yorinobu would not want anyone else so she had to be the one who went in to get the details of the apartment. Once that was done, rather than risking VDBs to do the job, they used Dex to get Jackie and V to risk their lives. What was meant to happen was Jackie and V penetrate the apartment, get the relic and get out, at which point they would be zeroed and their bodies left for Arasaka and the relic would be given to the VDBs. Dex and T-Bug would get paid and all would be nova. But things went to shit very fast. No one counted on Yorinobu showing up or murdering his dad and locking the hotel down. After that, it was all improvisation. T-Bug probably got hit by Soulkiller which we have seen can nuke any counter ICE and literally end any runner so whatever defences and preparations she had made vanished like mist as the nuclear blast of Soulkiller took her. V and Jackie barely got out alive and we lost our bro. At the no-tel we found a shitting himself Dex who now had a fucked op, Arasaka hunting him as well as the VDBs to answer to. Rather than try a pick a side and try to salvage something, he decided to do what he had done once before. Cut his losses and run. So V had to die (relic or no relic) and Dex tried to ghost. Enter Takamura and Arasaka and the rest is in the game. During the negotiation with Dex, he barely blinked when Jackie demanded a bigger cut. He put up some token resistance, T-Bug said nothing, and then he agreed. I think he agreed because the actual cut for Jackie and V was always going to be 0 and 10% extra was still going to be 0. T-Bug didn't really speak during that part and I think it was because she knew it was all theatre. This is just my pet theory :p and I'm looking forward to seeing the truth one day ^^

[@GQBouncer]

I believe this theory is true after reading the in-game notes that are found. Night Corp wanted that chip for research because the engram-chip is a counter-attack to their mind control tech. As an example, you can make an engram of yourself and have a consistent back-up copy. Infact, I would go as far as to say that Arasaka's son was being manipulated by Night Corp. T-Bug and Dex betrayed Evelyn, V and Jackie for a huge payout. They needed Mercs in the building to frame the death of Arasaka senior. Dex set it up, T-Bug ensured they were in the room at the time of the murder which is when Arasaka Senior conveniently showed up. Everything was going well for Night Corp's overall plan to place Arasaka Jr in charge of the company. However, Tekemura wasn't factored into their calculation, nor did they know about Arasaka Senior's failsafe plan w/ reference to his engram. I also believe that Arasaka's daughter would have been killed at the parade if Tekemura didn't intervene. Not that Arasaka Jr would want that, but just like Perelaz forgot about his brother, he would forget about his sister. T-Bug didn't have a backup plan, that was the plan. Also, it explains why T-Bug didn't have a condition-based auto-disconnect failsafe setup or that she would waste time saying "I've been made" rather than disconnecting immediately. Remember, she wasn't dealing with Alt, she was dealing with known Arasaka netrunner capabilities. Also, I think there was alot of confusion about what happened to the Chip from their end during the heist, initial reports likely thought it was destroyed. My longshot conspiracy with 2.1 and Phantom Liberty is that Night Corp's plan was to blame Militech or some other faction for the assassination and we're entering into a full scale Corpo-War with Cyberpunk 2. My guess would that the war will be exploited for unification and AI will make it's play for acceptance and/or domination. Shoulda listened to Garry.

[@magellan8232]

There's a garage near V's apartment with her body inside a bath tub, clearly fried from the netrunning. She also has her computer still open with emails to Regina about how she got a gig from the voodoo boys. The place is guarded by 2 turrets who shoot at a homeless guy as you approach the place. So yeah she's dead, your conclusion that she might have faked it is a bit lacking in details. Story wise Bug was loyal to DEX first and didn't care much about V and Jackie, even in the trailer she attacks V on DEX's order when they turn on him over the relic.

[@bulldog5513]

Thank You, Your video is both entertaining and informative.

[@neah9060]

The npc in the hacking shop tell us her body was found with nerves fried

[@staris3712]

I could see a scenario where T-Bug was looped thru disposable pawn similar to how the Major in Ghost in the Shell will sometimes jack in to the net with a proxy brain for safety. That way should the proxy get burned T-Bug is safe and able to walk away but there isn't much proof that process gets implemented, presumably because going thru a proxy make responses sluggish. However I doubt Arasaka would have been fooled and I also get the feeling it wasn't a single netrunner at that time once things were on lockdown.

[@corasan5326]

More likely that Deshawn was the one to kill her. I dont see him not having a plan if things would go south, and as we could see, he had plans to remove any link between him and the Heist. Like he tried to end V, and how he quickly asked where Jackie was, to be sure there was no loose end.

[@Symphonic365]

Honestly, T bug is so likely to have a plan for things if it went south. Her whole character was championed on her being the woman with the plan. She already said she was going to make sure no one would find her. The whole Dex angle is a very good point tho... The realistic take is she did fake her death because it'll be according to the character but the narrative makes it as she most likely died unexpectedly.

[@csdn4483]

The description that Yoko gives is mentioned elsewhere in the game when discussing Soul Killer. Most likely she got hit with it and is in Mikoshi like everyone else.

[@billy7325]

Anyone else remember the games trailer, I’ve been baffled about this myself

[@fordfox8229]

Maybe T-bug's body died but her mind escaped into the net, and maybe she'll go through a similar transformation to the one Alt went through

[@annieworroll4373]

I suspect she either escaped or was captured by Arasaka. Actually I'd say i'd give an overall roughly even split between death, capture, or escape. Death or capture may be more than a third likely depending on which you place Soulkiller under. Yorinobu would want to clean up the mess, and finding out what she and her associates know of his activities would be something he'd want to do. Loyalist Arasaka security would want to interrogate any runner active in the system when Saburo died. Even their own runners would face a pretty brutal debriefing. If she was killed, my bet is Soulkiller. They'd try to bring her in if they could, though I doubt there'd be too many upset people if she died during a capture attempt. I doubt it was a betrayal from the start, I think Dex wanted to make a big splash to reestablish himself on his return.

[@oceansands1737]

There should have been a quest to find her body or something maybe even her being alive but captive

[@networkjunkie3953]

I think she did fake her death. A big piece missing here is during the conversation with everyone, Dex mentions that T-Bug has thought of every possible scenario and solution. Meaning she most likely had a backup plan if things went south.