Zor

Zor
Biographical Information
Alias(es)	Jay (real name) ArS-03 (human-AI hybrid)
Status	Deceased
Place of Death	Badlands
Home	Night City
Physical Information
Gender	Male
Cyberware	ArS-03 Other (military-grade)
Family
Partner(s)	Aya (girlfriend) Nicola (wife, fabricated memories)
Relative(s)	Brad (son, fabricated memories)
Faction Information
Affiliation	Militech Trauma Team (formerly) NUSA (formerly, fabricated memories)
Occupation	Pest control employee (formerly) AV pilot (formerly) Soldier (formerly, fabricated memories)
Appearances
Literature	Cyberpunk 2077: No Coincidence

Zor is a character in Cyberpunk 2077: No Coincidence.

Biography

2070

Zor was convinced that his wife and son perished in 2070 when Katsuo ordered the Arasaka fleet to fire upon a northern district of Night City. This resulted in a ceasefire between the corporation and NUSA forces, in which he served. Driven by his thirst for vengeance, he hijacked a military AV and launched six rockets at the nearest warship, effectively sinking it. The AV was shot down by the fleet's anti-aircraft defenses soon after, and Zor was recovered from the wreckage by Militech soldiers. Expecting to be tried for treason, he was instead taken to an undisclosed laboratory, where he had a ripperdoc perform surgery on him. It was the beginning of Zor's seven years in hiding, during which he plotted against Katsuo, desperate to avenge his loved ones.

2077

In fact, Zor's story began shortly before the events of the book. He was an AV pilot for the Trauma Team named Jay. His squad was to rescue Milena from a vast car crash involving multiple vehicles. Jay noticed a boy stuck in one of the wrecks and rushed to free him, disobeying the order to stay put. Unfortunately, he lacked the necessary cyberware as well as equipment to accomplish this. It's unclear what exactly transpired next, though it seems that due to extreme stress, he suffered a cyberpsychotic break, which caused him to shoot the team's commander.

If not for Militech's intervention, Jay would've been executed. He was taken to a laboratory, where Ron replaced part of his brain with ArS-03, a device containing an AI, possibly from beyond the Blackwall. Jay's memory was nearly completely wiped; fake memories were inserted in its place. The bombardment actually never happened; the northern city district never existed, and Katsuo was never in charge of Arasaka's navy. At this point, Zor was created.

Zor worked in pest control, namely for Buyers and Son, a small company that received calls from all over Night City. He tried to lead a perfectly bland life in order not to arouse anyone's suspicion. Zor often stared at ads and read articles regarding seemingly random and unrelated topics, but he couldn't help himself when he happened to come across information about Katsuo, always studying it with great care.

Militech reached out to him, although not directly. The corporation's chief of security, Stanley, utilized his connections to blackmail Zor, among certain other individuals, into carrying out a heist. The heist that also involved Albert, Aya, Borg, Milena, and Ron ended successfully with a mysterious container being stolen from the Militech convoy. They parted ways afterwards, but Zor couldn't get the image of Aya out of his mind. Thinking he would never see her again, he took his co-worker, Morris, for a drink to Marry's Bar to celebrate his birthday. There, he saved a woman who was being harassed by a group of thugs, and she turned out to be Aya. The girl thanked him by taking him out on a date. The same day, Zor was fired from his job as he took the blame for crashing the company's van on himself, when in truth it was Morris' fault.

Ron managed to track Zor down and meet him in person. Both had the feeling of having encountered each other at some point in the past. Ron also made contact with Aya and convinced them to take part in another heist since Zor needed money to live and Aya needed someone to fix her failing cyberware. Ron promised to help her, but only if they stole crates full of Combat SRG-78 implants for military ripperdocs from a Militech warehouse. Then, he got in touch with the rest of the crew from the original heist.

With the goal of obtaining a suitable escape vehicle, Zor and Aya broke into Harry's Garage, a repair shop where Buyers' crashed van was undergoing restoration. Their entry grabbed the attention of the place's sole guard, but Aya managed to calm him down. They got in the van, which recognized Zor as its former user, letting them drive away safely.

Following the heist, as they were heading towards Kabuki with their prize in the rear, Zor needed to halt the van since its engine had overheated. Having sensed an opportunity, several members of Maelstrom emerged from the shadows and demanded everything they had, but ran away when it became apparent that a Militech drone was closing in on their location. ArS-03 communed with it, ordering it to cease action and resume its standard patrol procedure.

Some time later, Zor met with Milena in the Militech Offices, where he asked her to help him kill Katsuo. Afterwards, he and Aya went on another date, during which he told her about his family's demise. They fell in love with each other, but on their way to Zor's apartment, they received a warning against someone hunting them from Albert. Zor noticed that the toothpick he used to lean against the door had been knocked over. He pulled Aya back into the elevator just as somebody fired at them.

Zor carried on with his assassination scheme against Katsuo. Unknown memories suddenly became available to him. He traded the spoils of their previous heist for a sniper rifle and broke into a building in order to get access to the spot where a case of military-grade cyberware had been walled up. Zor took the implants to Ron, aiming to have them installed. He also began preparing for another heist, but his plans were disrupted when he and Aya got arrested by Liam Reed while trying to strike a deal with Animals arms dealers. Due to Stanley's secret intervention, they were released before being properly interrogated. Something led Zor into an abandoned flat, from which there was a clear view of Arasaka Tower. He knew Milena would be meeting Katsuo there. He waited with his sniper rifle, but ultimately resigned from killing him, having realized that if Katsuo died in such a way, he'd never acknowledge his crimes. Instead, Zor snuck into Maelstrom's quarters, where he made an agreement with Dum Dum to release Aya's adoptive daughter, Juliena, in exchange for Militech's container.

The team confronted a fixer known as Renner, and the situation rapidly escalated, turning into a massive shootout between various parties. In the end, his subordinate, Warden, was left in charge of the stolen container. Milena took Zor to meet Katsuo at his house in North Oak. An ambush interrupted the spectacle of Japanese customs as they found themselves surrounded by Arasaka soldiers. Katsuo claimed to be aware of ArS-03 and promised to help Zor, but only if he cooperated. Zor defeated the ambushers with ease but wasn't able to force himself to kill Katsuo. They lingered in a stalemate until a Trauma Team squad arrived. Zor threw a grenade into their AV and was unexpectedly recognized as Jay by one of the surviving pilots. Without giving it much thought, they hijacked the vehicle and headed for Maelstrom's quarters to extract Juliena by force.

Zor collected the container from Warden and managed to pick up Aya along the way. Albert needed lots of computing power for his own personal quest, and thus he tricked Zor into subconsciously giving him access to ArS-03, which he had discovered to be an extremely efficient computer. As the AV was soaring above the Badlands, some memories of his previous life as a Trauma Team pilot recurred to Zor. The vehicle was heavily damaged, and they ended up crashing into the desert sand. In his final moments, Zor opened the container, only to realize it had been empty this whole time. Stanley arrived at the scene with a group of Militech soldiers. Upon seeing Zor, he stated that ArS-03 was a failure and called someone to prepare ArS-04.

Notes

• Apart from having ArS-03 in his head, Zor also utilised an advanced reflex booster, among other cyberware. It was said to be better than the ones used by Arasaka soldiers.
• Since all of Zor's memory has been fabricated, it's impossible to determine any details of his life, save for those explicitly stated in the flashes of his real memories and his story described in the book.
• Very little is known about ArS-03, despite it being an important element in the story. Katsuo believed its presence made Zor a human-AI hybrid capable of serving as a medium between humanity and rogue AIs. How exactly Zor coexisted with ArS-03 is unknown, though it seemed that Militech was able to influence him through it.
• Zor was under constant supervision by three Militech technicians reporting directly to Stanley. They could feed ArS-03 new memories and even command it to self-destruct.

References

References to pages were based on the Polish edition of the book.