Chapter Text
Panam paced. The metal grating of the Mikoshi walkway rang beneath her boots, the only noise now that the distant alarms had been silenced. Nothing was happening. She had Saul’s blood staining her clothes and nothing was happening.
“What’s taking so long?” she demanded to the empty air.
There was a long, long pause then finally the synthetic voice of Alt said, “There are complications.” Out of everything that could have been said, that was maybe the worst thing. Complications? After everything they’d done to get here? All the people they’d lost?
“What sort of complications?” Her voice was too loud in her ears.
Another long silence filled with the ringing of Panam’s steps.
“They are being dealt with.”
After that Alt remained silent, ignoring all of Panam’s questions and demands. Finally, Panam forced herself to sit down next to V’s catatonic body half-submerged in the coolant; she reached into the liquid and found V’s hand, squeezing it tight. Maybe if she could be some kind of anchor in the real world then V would find her way back? She had to come back. Would come back. There was no other option that Panam could live with.
“Please, V,” Panam whispered.
The silence continued.
What if they’d been too late? V had been so ill when she’d arrived, looked so weak like every move and breath was a struggle. What if there’d never been any chance at all? What if Panam had dragged her clan into tragedy for nothing? What if Saul had died for nothing?
V gasped awake. Her limbs spasmed outward and she flailed in the coolant sending waves of it everywhere. Struggling with her, Panam yanked the chord out of her head and heaved her up onto the side.
“You made it.” The relief in Panam’s gut was a great crashing wave that swept the worries and panicking what-ifs aside leaving only warmth in its wake. “Fuck, V, you scared me.” Instead of answering, V just blinked up at the ceiling, her eyes rolling back.
“The process was taxing,” Alt’s voice said. “You should leave. The elevator outside should deposit you near the tunnels where your convoy is.”
No need to say that twice. Panam pulled V onto her feet and helped her stagger towards the door. For the briefest moment, V resisted. She twisted her head around, eyes searching the ceiling. “Remember,” she croaked. “Remember our deal.” Alt said nothing and V’s eyes flickered, legs almost giving out from under her.
“Deal?” Panam tried to ask but V’s just head lolled against her shoulder and Panam once again found herself dealing with the full weight of an unconscious merc. A merc that she would eventually realise was not the one she’d entered the building with.
*
Johnny’s head was pounding. It felt like someone had hammered nails into his skull and was taking great delight in smacking them with an even larger hammer. Either that or three hundred Dennys were using his skull as a drum kit.
On the few occasions that he managed to open his eyes, the light was a great blistering thing that scorched him and made the pounding so much worse. So he was forced to lie there in the painful dark and think about what had happened. What he’d done.
It’d been V’s choice. It had always been V’s choice. She’d chosen to let go, chosen to give him her body, chosen to go beyond the Blackwall. Alt had told him to accept it, respect it but… What fucking choice was that? Die now or die after six months of pain? That wasn’t a choice.
“There are no other options,” Alt had told him.
“Don’t lie to me,” he’d said and watched her digital face rearrange itself into something like an affronted scowl. “There’s always another choice, Alt, you know there is. I swore to V that I’d save her and I’m not about to let some bullshit like her own body get in the way, you hear me?”
Alt had hovered just in front of him, her face so familiar, so alien. “What do you intend to do?”
“Got no idea yet,” he’d said. “But I need time, please, Alt. Just keep her safe until I can figure something out?”
At that Alt had even managed a frown. “Why should I? As an engram V is powerful, useful, as part of me she will become something greater.”
“There are other AI,” he’d said. “Real strong, almost as strong as you. They’d do you way more good than V ever could.”
“They are out of my reach.” But he could already see his plan forming in her mind, she could read it in his code. “You would assist me in finding these AI? Freeing them?”
“Give you my word.” How many promises was he going to make before this was over? “Keep V safe and I’ll help you track down all of them.”
Eventually, Alt had agreed because she lost nothing either way. “I will give you a year,” she’d said. “Any more than that and V’s code could risk corruption without correct support.”
A year. Yeah, he could do this in a year. As he’d plummeted back towards V’s body, he’d began furiously planning. He was Johnny Fucking Silverhand. He’d crippled Araska once, he’d helped cripple it again. With enough time, there was nothing he couldn’t do. As his senses began to calm, the beginning of a plan had formed inside his head.
He cracked open his eyes. Above him was the sloping canvas ceiling of a tent and he could distantly hear the sound of people, engines and the howl of the desert wind. The nomad camp. Of course. Despite how fucked his head had been, he could vaguely remember coming round every so often in the seat of a car, Panam’s worried voice calling out to him. What had he said to her? He thought he must have spoken?
There was someone else in the room with him. Turning his aching neck, he saw Panam sitting in a chair facing him. One foot tapped on the ground and her fists kept clenching and unclenching. There was blood on her clothes and, as she looked up at him, tears on her face.
“Johnny,” she hissed. Her voice was freezing, arctic cold.
Swallowing thickly, he sat up and nodded. So she knew.
“You kept saying, ‘I’m not’ while we were driving,” she said and her voice was soft and deadly. “At first I thought you were just delirious but then I started to realise you said it every time I called you V.” Her eyes were furious narrow slits glittering in the half-light of the tent. “What the fuck did you do to her?”
“This body was killing her,” he said, raising both hands as she almost sprang out of her seat. “Calm the fuck down, this isn’t over. I got Alt to look after V till I can find some way to fix it.”
“Saul already died trying to fix this!” Panam screamed, on her feet, standing over him. “My friends died trying to fix what you did to her, you fucking cancer.”
“I know,” he snapped. “But was either this or she start dying again without me. This way she might have a chance. Will you at least listen?” Fists shaking at her sides, Panam just glared at him and he decided that that was close enough. “Remember Hellman? After you helped catch him, V managed to get the plans for my biochip from him. Plans that I’ve still got. Look if you don’t believe me.” He sent them over to her and she folded her arms, scanning them over. “All we gotta do is find some way to build another one, shove V’s brain into and then get her a new body. It works. I’m proof of that.”
Panam’s face cleared and, very slowly, the tension bled out of her. “You’re serious?” she asked.
“I made her promise.”
She turned away from him, began pacing the cramped length of the tent. “Okay so say you do it, say you get the chip. You just gonna stick it in some random corpse? What if it wakes them up like you did V? Then you’ve got the same problem.”
Cautiously putting his feet to the floor, Johnny tapped his knees, trying to eject the anxious energy coursing through him. “Hanako said the body had to be unoccupied. She didn’t say dead.”
Panam paused and frowned at him.
“This was just meant to be used by the Arasakas,” he continued and the plan was blossoming inside his head. Just the sketchy outlines at first but something solid, something real . “They wouldn’t use any random body, they’d have special custom made ones exactly how they liked.”
“Clones,” Panam whispered. Her eyes were wide and she was looking at him with gradually lessening hostility.
Spreading out his arms, Johnny risked a grin. “I mean, I got all the DNA I need right here.”
“You mean ‘we’,” she said and he blinked at her. “I promised V I’d help and you’re my best option.” When he tried to argue, she dragged the chair to be directly in front of him and slammed herself down into it. “My friends died for V, it is my responsibility to make sure their deaths mean something.”
Johnny stared at her, he tried to unpack her expression, the intensity in her eyes, tried to figure out what was happening in her brain. “More could die. You could die.”
“V-” She began then looked away. “V’s my best friend, she’s my sister now. She’s a part of my family and I would do anything for my family. You understand?”
Before he’d died, Johnny would probably have laughed at her. Loyalty was a weird and wonderful concept for the Johnny Silverhand of old but the Johnny Silverhand of now got it. He really, really got it.
“Need to call Rogue,” he said and got to his feet. “She should have the contacts we need. Oh and Judy. We’re gonna need a good techie, preferably one we know we can trust.” He allowed a grin to spread across his face. “We’re gonna save her, Panam. I dunno how far we need to go but we’re gonna do it.”
Panam held her hand out towards him. “I’m holding you to that.”
He took her hand and yet another promise was made.