Alt Cunningham: the Netrunner Who Created Soulkiller

Altiera "Alt" Cunningham was the best netrunner in Night City in the 2010s, the girlfriend of Johnny Silverhand, and the inventor of the program that became Soulkiller. Arasaka kidnapped her to rebuild it and then used it on her. What's left of her has lived in the Net ever since, and in Cyberpunk 2077 it's the most powerful thing beyond the Blackwall. (Cyberpunk 2020; Cyberpunk 2077)

Who was Alt Cunningham?#

Alt was a rare kind of netrunner. She didn't just break into systems, she wrote new code and new ideas, and she spent heavily on neural cyberware to push her skills further. The ITS corporation hired her, and while working there she started on a program that could move a person's mind into the Net and let it explore apart from the body. She was also Johnny Silverhand's girlfriend. (Cyberpunk 2020)

The Cyberpunk 2020 rulebook gives her a stat block and gear, including interface plugs, a cyberarm with a hidden compartment for a pistol and a monoknife. She's a real presence in the setting's history rather than a footnote to Johnny. (Cyberpunk 2020)

How Alt died (2013)#

Her breakthrough worked, but ITS saw a weapon. Developed further, the program stopped moving minds and started trapping them. That was Soulkiller. Arasaka wanted it. In the story "Never Fade Away", told in the Cyberpunk 2020 rulebook, gangers hired by Arasaka grab Alt as she leaves a concert with Johnny, leave him for dead and deliver her to Arasaka Tower in Night City to rebuild the program. (Cyberpunk 2020)

Johnny survived and came for her. While his raid was under way, her Arasaka handler ran Soulkiller on her. Johnny killed him and pulled her free, but she was disconnected mid-transfer. Her body died in his arms and her mind stayed behind in the Arasaka system. (Cyberpunk 2020)

Alt in the Fourth Corporate War#

During the Fourth Corporate War, Militech contacted Alt's digital ghost and asked her to help destroy Arasaka's new version of Soulkiller. She agreed, for revenge, and talked the netrunner Rache Bartmoss into joining. Arasaka later caught her and forced her to work on yet another version. (Firestorm: Stormfront; Firestorm: Shockwave)

In August 2023, Militech's assault on Arasaka Tower in Night City included Johnny, who was there mainly to free her. The netrunner Spider Murphy reached Alt in the tower's systems, and when Adam Smasher ambushed the team, Spider scattered Alt into the Net so she could be found again later. That raid ended with the tower destroyed by a nuclear blast. Our Arasaka Tower 2023 page covers it. (Firestorm: Shockwave)

By the 2040s of Cyberpunk RED, the old Net was gone, wrecked by Bartmoss in the DataKrash and walled off by NetWatch. The rulebook also says Hanako Arasaka was one of the few people who understood what Alt's work really meant. (Cyberpunk RED)

How Cyberpunk 2077 tells her story#

Cyberpunk 2077 shows the 2013 kidnapping in Johnny's memories, and some details move around. After a Samurai gig and a fight with his bandmate Kerry Eurodyne, Alt tells Johnny backstage that she's leaving him and the band before the thugs take her in an alley. Johnny goes to a ripperdoc, then recruits Rogue and the Nomad Santiago, with the reporter Thompson tagging along, and they fight their way into Arasaka Tower to the room where she's held. Johnny shoots her handler and disconnects her too early, and she dies. (Cyberpunk 2077)

The game's database calls Alt the creator of Soulkiller and says Arasaka stole it, a simpler version of the tabletop's ITS story. (Cyberpunk 2077)

Alt behind the Blackwall in 2077#

V meets her in 2077 because the Voodoo Boys want something from beyond the Blackwall. They send V into the Net, hoping Alt will show herself to an old lover's engram. She does, and takes V and Johnny somewhere safe. (Cyberpunk 2077)

Then she tells them the truth: she isn't Alt. When Johnny pulled her plug in 2013, her mind was copied into the Net while the person herself died. The copy kept Alt's image to stop itself going mad, as other AIs out there had, and became something closer to a rogue AI. (Cyberpunk 2077)

She has no interest in V's problem until they offer her Mikoshi, Arasaka's engram vault. Her price for helping is access to it. She explains she could run Soulkiller on V to make a fresh engram and write it back over Johnny, though she can't fix the damage to V's body. (Cyberpunk 2077)

Alt in the endings#

In every ending that reaches Mikoshi without Arasaka, Alt takes control of Arasaka Tower's systems, kills the staff near the access point and merges the engrams inside Mikoshi into herself, Secure Your Soul clients and Soulkiller victims alike. At the access point she tells V the body has about six months left, and offers whoever doesn't go back into it a place with her beyond the Blackwall. If V gives the body to Johnny, V goes with her. The endings guide goes through each choice. (Cyberpunk 2077)