Chapter Text
She wakes to a hand patting down her body. Tugging open the front of her jacket, feeling over her breasts for longer than what can be considered a check before it burrows its way into the pockets of the inner lining.
Weight vanishes from the compartment on the left side, and she knows the hand has found her holo and bank shard.
Whoever is holding her down must hear her breathing shift with the return to consciousness, because they pause, and before she can even open her eyes, the hand shoots up to clamp over her jaw. It presses harshly against her lips, the pressure crushing and nails bite into the skin of her left cheek painfully.
It clamps her jaw and eliminates any chance she can take to scream.
“Make a noise, and I’ll just make this worse for you,” a voice she has never heard before breathes against her ear, and the smell is putrid. It is enough to make her gag as she finally feels like her body comes back online and the heaviness lifts from her eyelids.
Blinking, she finds a slender man who is pale to the point of sickly leaning over her. His hair is a wild mess of tangles that have gone unwashed and unbrushed for an inordinate period of time, curtains of beads hang from his ears, too heavy and sagging the skin. There is a bone, what looks like a small animal’s femur, bolted through his nose.
A gusty breeze rolls in, and she catches his scent of sticky sweat riding on waves of sea salt and decaying trash.
It takes about half a second for her to decide that this is the worst way she has ever been woken up. And that includes the time she had been assaulted in her own home while being told she was going to be killed by a dead Nighty City Legend that apparently wasn’t exactly gone from the world.
“Get the fuck off me, man!” she tries to scream, but it comes out as a garbled mess of muffled sound against his hand.
It makes him smirk, and when she tries to move her hands, she realises that he has pinned them under his knees. Bone grinds on bone when she attempts to wiggle her fingers, and she winces against the pain.
The hand that is not pressed over her mouth drifts down her body, fingering at the line of the fly on her dark wash tactical pants in slow movements. Up and down, just inching the zip open tooth by tooth. He laughs when she kicks her legs and tries to dislodge him.
He’s toying with her.
Disgusted and fed up, she bites the hand covering her mouth, hard and unrelenting. She breaks skin, blood flows into her mouth, and dribbles down her jaw while she tries to spit around the flesh and keep herself from swallowing any of it. No doubt, this guy is riddled with something.
The man yanks his hand back from her gripping maw, she tears at the flesh as he goes for good measure, and he howls out a stream of curses. He punches her in the face, her head smacking back against the sidewalk underneath her with the force of it, and she hears a crack.
Warm blood flows from her nose, and she blinks rapidly to try clearing the dark spots that dance across her vision.
“Get the fuck off me,” she repeats in a snarl, but the guy is not listening. He has taken advantage of her moment of light-headedness and the potential concussion forming in the back of her skull to continue digging through the pockets of her jacket.
“I really wouldn’t touch that-” she starts to caution around another spit of blood, this time her own. But it is too late, his hand finds the grip of her pistol.
The scream that follows is instantaneous and bloodcurdling. The gun wailing like bloody murder in his hand.
The man rolls off her, eyes screwing tight as he sinks to the ground, hands pressing over her ears while the fingers of his right hand remain wrapped around the pistol. He shouts against the noise as if it will dull the pain in his eardrums.
She takes the opportunity of incapacitation to throw herself into action. Pushing to her feet, she scrambles to tower over the man and uses her boot to slam his shoulder down and force him onto his back brutally. Moving the shoe to his neck, she shifts her weight onto his esophagus and grinds with sole as she leans down and pries his fingers from her gun.
The moment her hand is on the grip, the scream ceases, and she is left with a ringing in her ears and the man under her choking.
“Thanks, Skip,” she sighs in relief as she taps her index finger against the slide stop affectionately and the gun responds with a little whirring noise. She shifts her gaze down to the man and sees him turning dangerously purple, veins throbbing and surfacing as they desperately try to pull oxygen.
Tilting the gun down, she presses the pistol to the centre of his forehead and bends to lean over him as she eases the pressure of her foot just enough to let the man take a breath.
“I said get off me ,” she states, low and dangerous. She feels him swallow roughly against the sole of her boot, and she sticks out her other hand, palm open and waiting. “Give me my shit.”
He scrambles, pulling her holo and the shard from the pocket of his pants and slapping them into her hand. She pockets them as she eyes the guy up and down and realises that she has seen a lot of things in Night City, but never someone that dresses like this man.
Brows furrowing, she glares down at him and asks, “Who are you supposed to be runnin’ with?”
The man looks up at her in confusion and like she may be the stupidest person he has ever seen before his mouth pulls into an arrogant smirk, despite her having him by the neck.
“I’m a Voodoo Boy, sweetheart. And you’re in the wrong place. Clearly.”
It cannot be right because this guy is the whitest white boy with one of the severest cases of cultural appropriation that she has ever seen.
“You are a Voodoo Boy?” she scoffs.
“Yeah. Me ,” he confirms with a cold glare.
“Right,” she snorts, shifting the barrel from the man’s face to aim for his right shoulder. She takes the shot, clean through, and then targets downwards and caps his left knee, blowing it out entirely and leaving him in a bleeding, sobbing mess.
“You can get your friends to come and pick you up then,” she states, stepping off his neck finally as she slides Skippy back into her jacket and zips the pocket closed to keep the pistol safely in place.
Dragging the collar of her shirt up to her nose, she mops up as much of the blood as she can with a sigh before she thinks, ‘Could have at least tried to wake me sooner. Big fuckin’ help, Johnny.'
She waits for the usual sardonic response, but her mind is quiet. Too quiet.
Wheeling around on her heel, she searches for his blue-tinged, glitching engram wildly. But she is all alone in the filthy side alley, with only the supposed Voodoo Boy – still a bleeding heap on the ground – as company.
Her eyes land on the spot where Johnny had been standing just minutes before, and he is gone. But in his place on the ground is a folded piece of paper.
Odd, considering no one uses paper anymore, not enough trees left, and the world had converted to shards years ago.
Heart hammering in her ears, she swallows noisily and staggers over to pluck it up off the sidewalk. She unfurls it and stares down at the printed note.
You often meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it.
“The fuck?” she whispers in her next breath, tucking the note into her pocket with the banking shard. Her head is quiet, too quiet, in a way that she had forgotten it ever being.
She tries again.
‘Johnny?'
Nothing.
Chewing the inside of her bottom lip V starts to feel panic bubbling. She glances at the supposed Voodoo Boy who is still smearing blood all over the pavement before she pulls out her holo and finds the screen blank.
It’s a brick. Totally non-operational with no network to speak of.
Cursing technology, she sucks in a deep gulp of air to try and calm herself, steeling her mounting nerves before she strides back over to the man splayed out on the ground. His eyes are closed, face screwed in pain, and he groans when she nudges him with her foot.
“You bitch,” he grounds out through gnashed teeth when he blinks and finds her standing over him.
“There was a ‘bot right here, where’s it gone?”
“The fuck you on about?” the man groans between rough exhales of pain.
“The ‘bot? The rides? Where is everyone?”
“You’re fuckin’ crazy.”
She raises her head slowly and looks, really looks, at the city around her and can see that she recognises none of it. This is not her Night City.
How in the hell…
“What’s the date?” she asks, lowering her gaze to look back down at him again.
“What?” he wheezes.
“The date.”
“August 19th?”
It was May 13th just minutes ago.
This isn’t possible.
She looks over her shoulder for Johnny again, and when he still does not appear and his thoughts do not join hers, she shakily asks, “Wh-what year?”
“2023. Fuckin’ gonk.”
Her mouth goes bone-dry with the realisation of loss, and it feels like the earth is being yanked out from under her.
Johnny isn’t with her, and the Night City Holocaust is tomorrow.
◇
19 August, 2023
6:53 PM
V kleps a car in record time because security systems set up to protect against theft are seriously underdeveloped in 2023. Lockpicking and a simple alarm disable hack, and she is in with no problems.
Within minutes, she is making her way out of an unfamiliar Pacifica and heading for the centre of the city. The gridwork pattern of roads have barely changed at least, and it is not long before she is following the flow of traffic entering Richard Night Ring.
She takes the first right that she can and pulls up at a red light on Martin Luther King Boulevard. Fingers tap anxiously against the steering wheel as she eyes the pedestrians, neon lights, and other cars around her. It brings her a brief moment of comfort in knowing that at least some things remain the same in this version of the city as well.
Night City on a Saturday night is vibrant and crowded, regardless of the decade.
The light turns green, and she accelerates forward with a frustrated sigh, trying to make some sense of whatever mess she has managed to stumble her way into.
Her first consideration was if she and Johnny had gotten high as a fucking kite and she was now locked into a hallucinogenic dream on a bad comedown – nightmare, really – but it is becoming clearer by the minute that it is not the case. She is sober as hell.
The piece of paper in her pocket feels like it is weighing her down and burning through the leather. And she knows it is likely that it has something, or everything, to do with her predicament.
But as with everything else that seems to have occurred in her life in recent weeks, she suspects that this also has something to do with the Relic.
All she can think to do in trying to get a handle on what exactly is going on here is to find Johnny Silverhand. Something that is easier said than done in a city of this size, packed beyond reasonable population numbers, and when she is a day ahead of any memories that had been shared between them for the lead up to the night he takes the bomb to Arasaka Tower.
She is going into this blind. Worse still, she knows that when she finds him, it won’t be her Johnny. This is 2023’s Silverhand; the same asshole that tried to bash her skull in against her own bedroom window. The same asshole who has screwed over even his closest friends more than once.
With an agitated groan, V slams her fist against the dash, regretting it immediately when pain shoots up her wrist. It leaves her swearing violently under her breath and deciding she is better off taking a moment to think. So, she turns into a side street, eager to get off the busy main strip, away from horns and the clamorous noises of Night City at its most crowded.
Following the curve of the street, she ends up in a no-through road and parks at the dead-end before sliding out of the car and turning to stare at the sleek, all-black frame. It is a nice enough vehicle, handles well, but she finds herself missing the exhilaration of feeling the howling engine of the Caliburn tear asphalt under her, or the raw power that comes with the explosive fire exhaust in her Javelina.
Some things are just not the same in the past.
She digs a hand into her jacket pocket and pulls out her holo, checking the screen again and wistfully hoping that by some miracle it will blink back to life before her eyes. But of course, it remains uselessly blank and disconnected from the network.
With a sigh, she eyes her clothes in the reflection of the tinted car window, and silently thanks her lucky stars that this morning she had gone for something more subtle than her usual look. The slim-fit Solo Racers and Aramid Weave bustier she had on underneath the replica Samurai jacket, and her comfortable puncture-resistant rocker boots, were just toned down enough to not be tied to a specific decade of fashion.
Even more importantly, most of her cyberware is hidden from unwanted eyes in this outfit. It is a fortunate thing, considering the chrome she has embedded is not available on the market here in 2023, and would make a particularly interesting target for scavs.
She starts to pace, kicking at an old can of Nicola and sending it rattling noisily across the quieter end of the street, tucked away from the main road. Her fingers twist around the zipper of her jacket and she moves it up and down in no particular pattern, just needing to do something with the building nervous energy.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit ,” she whispers it like a mantra, sufficiently freaked out when the full weight of the realisation that she is alone and 54 years out of her own time seems to hit all at once. It makes her dizzy, and a splitting headache blooms behind her eyes as the last of the adrenaline wears off and the panic settles in.
The concussion she likely has from colliding with the cement earlier probably does nothing to help the situation either.
Groaning woefully, she stops, turns, and plops down in the middle of the road with her back resting on the rear panel of the stolen car. She folds her arms across her chest and rolls her neck to the side, tilting her head to stare at the brick wall across the street as the night vision of her optics activates without prompting.
Eying the lines of profanity and symbols of freedom, embellished with the unmistakable curves of cock and balls that smatter just about every remaining inch of the building, she finds herself smirking.
‘ Guess art stays the same,’ she thinks as she frees one hand from where it is tucked under the opposite arm, and raises it to chew at the thumbnail while she tries to wrack her brain for some kind of clue as to why she is here.
For a second, she entertains the idea that this mess is all Arasaka’s doing. That they have taken control of the chip and are feeding her the memories that they want her to see – the ones where Johnny Silverhand kills tens of thousands of people and changes Night City for the worse.
But the 2023 that exists around her right now is not recollections. All of this feels different to the times she has walked in Johnny’s memories as him, and the blue-tinged lens she sees that world in is nowhere to be found.
This world is alive. Living and breathing with people going about their day while she simply exists in it like anyone else. These cannot be memories when Johnny is not with her and he is playing no part in them.
Hanako could have sent her people after V now that the Arasaka heiress knows who has the biochip, and hooked her up to a simulation. But, for what? The reality is that Arasaka does not have to give two shits about some street merc trying to carve their way in a city that favours only the one percent. Those are a dime a dozen.
The meat of her palms raise to press against her eyes, willing the ache behind them to subside as she rubs. Massaging slowly at the pain as she blows out a long, heavy sigh and asks in a whisper to the air at her lips, “If I was an asshole rockerboy, where am I hangin’ out in this city?”
Bar. Club. Strippers. Drug Den. Take a pick. But as to be expected, the world does not give her the answers.
Instead, she resides herself to the fact that she is probably going to have to pick her way through a potential list of venues around the city until she can find some trace of him, and tugs Evelyn’s cigarette case from the back pocket of her pants. She silently curses Johnny for getting her back onto nicotine, plucks a smoke free from the casing, and flicks it closed again.
When she reaches for the lighter in the side pocket of her jacket, her fingers find the creased edges of the tiny piece of paper that had been left in Johnny’s stead. She tugs it loose, unfolds it once again, and rubs the pad of her thumb over the printed ink.
It’s a fancy script, with an old-timey style to it that is long gone from Night City. People just don’t write like this in 2077, not when advanced software and computers have essentially made cursive scrawl archaic.
A low rumble interrupts her thoughts, and she looks down the street just as a pair of headlights turn into it and continue towards her at a speed that is unnecessary for a road going nowhere.
The unlit cigarette is forgotten and left to fall from between her lips as V hastily pushes herself up to stand, using the car as a prop for her weight when she moves. She blinks rapidly, vision going spotty under the assault of the sudden glaring light.
She feels her heart rate start to climb when the car approaches, boxing her and the stolen car in at the end of the cul-de-sac, just as the driver of the other car flicks off their headlights and throws the street back into darkness.
It takes a second for her optics to adjust to the sudden changes, and when they do, she finds that the other car is stopped behind her own. The front, passenger-side door opens, and the first thing she sees is a silk top hat, followed by a lanky man that unfolds himself from the seat and circles to the front of the car.
An old overcoat - the 18th-century kind that V has only ever seen in period dramas - billows behind him as he moves, and silk gloved hands twirl at a thick, curled moustache.
He looks like some kind of bizarre television villain that has her wondering if everyone in 2023 is actually just off their nut. Would probably explain a thing or two about Johnny… and Rogue, if she’s being honest with herself.
“You lost?” the man asks as he comes to a stop in the centre of the car bonnet, silver-tipped cane scraping along the asphalt as he shifts his weight.
“Are you?” she counters, pointedly raising her eyebrows at his clothing choices. Confusion must be written all over her face, because it feels like her eyebrows are about to climb into her hairline and bury themselves there.
The man laughs through his nose in a weird, pompous chortle that sounds like a caricature, rather than an actual person. He rakes his eyes over her, one large sweep up, down and back up, over the rim of rounded spectacles that do not appear to have any lenses in them.
“You look like you might be a long way from home?”
“Buddy, you got no idea,” V mutters under her breath. Clearing her throat, she waves a hand towards his outfit and replies a little louder, “I don’t know… you look like you might be off by a few centuries. Who exactly are you meant to be?”
“Oh pet ,” he replies, a smirk tugging at his lips as his voice drops an octave and he suddenly picks up a posh English accent. “We’re Jack the Rippers.”
It is like he calls upon some sort of unspoken cue, and the driver and rear doors of the car that is blocking her only exit out of here pop open. Another three men, all dressed similarly in period-wear that is inherently discordant in a place like Night City, step out and join the first man at the front of the vehicle.
With night vision enabled on her optics, it is easy enough to spot the curves of knives that are tucked into their sleeves and disrupt the neatly pressed lines of their trench coats. She eyes them carefully, trying to calculate roughly how many steps there are between her and them, and how quickly she can move out of range, if necessary.
“Really original. Did you come up with that yourselves?” she questions sarcastically. She is doing what she can to stall as she runs an internal test to see if her neural transmitters that are connected to all of her offensive cyberware enhancements are online.
When the status update of ‘active’ flashes across her vision in a bright, unmissable green, she sighs with relief. Taking a careful sidestep, she puts some distance between her and the driver’s side door, backing up towards the front panels.
V can feel their eyes tracking her movement carefully. She stills when the man that had slipped out of the driver’s side door, dressed in a full tweed three-piece and shoes so shiny she bet she could see her face in them if she got close enough, speaks next.
“No,” he responds with a look of confusion and another put-on English accent. “The serial kil-”
“I know,” she interrupts.
“Then you should know what we do.”
“Jesus fuckin’ -” she starts, snapping in frustration around grinding teeth. For a brief moment she thought of the scavs that had been pulling cybernetics and body parts from anyone they could for years in her Night City and wondered if this was where it all started.
She sighs, realising that the gang is waiting for her to respond, “I don’t know man. Steal kidneys?”
The first man smirks, and when he does, the others around him seem to loosen up. So, she supposes he might be their leader if there is any kind of hierarchy in a gang of supposed serial killers.
“Amongst other things,” one of the others says, and they chortle amongst themselves like it is some kind of shared private joke.
It is then that V decides this is a tremendous waste of time that she cannot afford to lose, particularly on the likes of a bunch of weird posers.
“Look,” she states firmly, patience lost. “I don’t have time to play ‘guess the homicide MO’ here. Is there a bar or somethin’ where most of the rockerboys are hangin’ out?”
In an instant, it becomes clear that name dropping ‘rockerboy’ is the wrong thing to do, because each of the men drop their showy pretences and their gazes shift into something possessed by depravity and gruesome hatred.
“We’re not done with you,” the driver snarls, his accent lost in the delivery, and he lets the blade drop from the folds of his sleeve and into his hand. He raises it, turning it slowly, like he is purposely showing it to her as a taunt.
The hand holding the knife stills and he raises his other hand, index finger extending out to press against the pointed tip. It breaks the flesh, a small bead of blood forming against the metal and contorting in little red streaks through the teeth on the serrated edge of the blade.
But it is not the blood that catches V’s eye, but the face of the man’s watch that comes into sight from underneath the sleeve of his coat.
In contradiction to the rest of his outfit, the watch is modern-looking and digital. The face is a nice, high-quality LED screen that flashes suddenly, and the security screenings in place on V’s cyberdeck alert her to new technological activity immediately.
Orange text appears in the lower right-hand corner of her vision, telling her there is a foreign upload underway on the watch. It is coming from an unknown source that apparently is not present in the street with them.
She knows her optics must be illuminating brightly in the darkness of the cul-de-sac as they rapidly take readings, and the curious looks from the Rippers are enough to corroborate the theory.
“What are you-” one of the posergangers starts to say, but she interrupts them before they can finish the question when the watch face flares again.
She points to the driver’s wrist and states, “Think you’re gettin’ hacked.”
He moves to glance down at the screen, but never gets the chance to so much as twist his hand back towards him before V sees the seconds counter on the clock stop entirely.
Night City falls silent. The Jack the Rippers go still.
V discovers that she cannot move a muscle. Only her optics are operational. Everything feels impossibly heavy and like the air is compressing on her uncomfortably.
While the world around it is frozen into place, held in some sort of strange limbo, the little square screen of the ganger’s watch is flickering and searingly bright. A deep red colour cuts sharp lines on the face, and it only takes half a second to focus her eyes enough to know that the lines are in fact letters. Coming together to form a message that is just large enough for her to read from this distance.
Go back to where you began.
Her heart stutters in her chest and it feels like her stomach plummets before things start to change around her. The buildings and neon lights, the cars, and the Rippers tucked into the dead-end of the world with her, everything shifts.
Before she can even properly begin to process the words, Night City glitches violently. There is no other word for it - there are flecks of blue that appear across her vision and immediately remind of the times Johnny’s code defects in her mind. But this time it is not her that malfunctions, but everything else.
The frozen year of 2023 deconstructs before her very eyes. Things go dark, and gravity compresses. It feels like the air is being forced out, like it is releasing from a minuscule piercing in the skin of a balloon.
The earth falls away from under her feet. She thinks she screams at the sudden sensation of the drop, but no sound ever comes.
◆
19 August, 2023
6:47 PM
When her feet find the floor again, the sudden collusion makes her stumble and fall on her ass. There is a shooting pain that spears up her back from her tailbone upon impact, and she grits her teeth against it.
There is a startled gurgling noise just to the left of her and she audibly gasps when she hears a familiar voice moan around another wet bubble, “Who the fuck are you?”
The Voodoo Boy. Still a bloody mess on the pavement, splayed out beside her.
“W-what the hell?” V stutters, twisting around wildly as she takes in the surroundings and confirms that she is definitely still in 2023, and she still seems to be in some alleyway in the middle of Pacifica.
“You remember me?” V questions.
“Of course, I remember you, you fuckin’ shot me.”
“Still August 19th?” she asks.
“What do you mean still ? Of course, it’s still the fuckin’ 19th! What are you on? It’s fryin’ your brain, bitch.”
She stumbles her way back to her feet, hearing the Voodoo Boy calling her every variation of ‘insane’ as she goes. It takes a moment to get her bearings as she sucks down a deep inhale and releases it shakily, revelling in the lightness of the air after feeling like her lungs were being pulverised by the shift in atmosphere seconds ago.
“Sure, runnin’ your mouth a lot for a guy who is meant to be dyin’,” she states before running her hands through her hair anxiously. It does no favours for the tangles she finds there, and she lets them drop away from her head as she starts to pace the length of the alley. Once, twice, and on the third turn, she approaches the Voodoo Boy again.
He rolls his head to the side, glancing up at her and looking surprisingly aware for someone who appears to be bleeding out.
The moment she is within range, he spits at her again. The glob of blood and saliva landing on the toe of her boot and she pauses, staring down at it for a long moment.
“Yeah, cheers,” she says disgustedly, trying to swipe the tip of her shoe over the pavement in the hopes that it will rub off. Instead, she just seems to smear it over the synth-leather more and she sighs, admitting defeat before casting one last look down at the Voodoo Boy before she ventures out of the alleyway.
In 2077, she would be standing in the parking lot of the Grand Imperial Mall. But she is about two decades too early for the construction of the entire area that was supposed to be the expensive development rose amongst all the thorns of Night City.
There is a larger stretch of untouched beach here - still contaminated with trash and a discoloured ocean, but the entire district looks underdeveloped in comparison to the Pacifica she knows.
V trails her eyes down the pier, feeling a lump form in her throat as she can hear the far away memories of laughter in her ears. Both her and Johnny in her mind, cheering as the roller coaster loops over the ocean like some enormous water snake.
In that moment, her impending death had not mattered. The feeling of salt air and the exhilaration had been freeing. Nothing had mattered then.
Now she was not even sure if she would get any of it back. Regardless of the Relic malfunctions, Jackie’s death, and the general clusterfuck state of things back in 2077, it is home. And now she is not even sure if she will see it again.
Biting her lip roughly as she feels the heat of tears in her eyes, she turns away from the ocean and traces the view of the city skyline instead. There are fewer skyscrapers in this Night City, and the ones that are here, for the most part, are not quite as tall. Everything is just slightly less busy and packed in. Advertising screens have not reached the size of football fields just yet, and she can see more of the distinct districts from this coastline than she ever has before.
Looking over towards what she thinks might be the West Wind Estate, she spots streaks of orange, yellow, and green.
“Holy shit,” she exclaims suddenly. A hand slaps against her forehead, briefly wondering how the hell she did not think of it sooner, and then she breaks into a sprint through the grid-like streets of the Pacifica district.
She uses the colours she can see overhead as her waypoint. Checking every few hundred metres that she is taking the correct turns and getting closer as she navigates some of the changed street names and turns that did not exist in her city.
Spilling out of a sidestreet and stepping between the gap of a chain-link fence that has been severed into two by the precision of wire cutters, she finds herself standing in a rectangle of beige-everything cement. But there is a very familiar rainbow towering overhead.
The Pistis Sophia.
It looks different here. Not nearly as decrepit, and there are actually people hanging around. Smoking on balconies and hanging out clothes on shoddy little lines that they have strung up between two windows.
Someone is watching a comedy talk show in one of the ground-level rooms; she can hear the fake audience laughter drifting on the evening air every few seconds as the host talks boisterously.
Where you began.
Her day had started here.
She crosses the little square and rounds the stairwell that is cleaner now and not crumbling away like it had been for her when she woke up this morning. Taking the stairs three at a time, looping up, up, up and stumbling out onto the floor of the building that she recalls Johnny’s old, rented room to be on.
Jogging down the hall, she swings left, finding the door like muscle memory. It is locked when she tries the handle, and she scans for an electronic security panel that she can disable, only to discover that it is a regular old door. Metal key required and all.
V stares at it for a long moment, a little stumped at the fact that she thinks this might be the first time she has ever seen a keyhole in real life. Then she sighs, takes a step back and raises a foot to press it to the centre of the door as she braces both arms against the doorframe.
Holding herself still, she uses the air compression from her Fortified Ankles to puncture her leg straight through the wood, hissing out a string of curses as splinters dig into her skin. With a little groan to herself, she pulls her leg back through the gap and squats down to reach into the hole and twist around until her hand finds the handle inside.
She flicks the lock, and it clicks satisfyingly before she swings the door open and steps inside.
The layout of the room is identical to the one she woke up in this morning. But now, the furniture is all intact and the bed is made. Crisp sheets on the mattress and no debris coating the rug near the couch or the hard floor. It smells like fresh linen and cleaning products rather than the pollution and salt air she smelt through splitting plaster walls.
Eying the familiar, square metal compartment tucked away underneath the now clean, sturdy surface of the wooden tabletop running along the length of one wall, she wanders towards it and kneels. Cracking a corner of the metal and pulling it back, wincing at the loud scraping noise it creates before she peers inside.
The final piece of Robert John Linder glints under the low light she lets into the cache from where the corner is cracked open. The sliver of light just enough to illuminate the engravings, and the chain hanging around her own neck suddenly feels a hundred times heavier.
She is not sure what she expected to be waiting for her, maybe just something more. But in her exhausted state, both mentally and physically drained after weeks of Relic malfunctions and the stress of dying, now with whatever this is piled on top, she releases a frustrated scream.
V is sure it has probably freaked out the other residents on the floor, but she cannot bring herself to care as she snaps the metal plate back into place and stands. Casting her eyes around the room, she tries to work out what she is doing here, or if here is even where she is meant to be.
Sighing roughly, she starts to move as a whirlwind through the hotel room, scouring every inch of floor and tile, lifting cushions, checking the closet and every cabinet for absolutely anything that she may recognise.
She sits down on the end of the bed, raking fingers through her hair before they still, and she just collapses back onto the sheets, rolling on to her side and clutching at one of the pillows sullenly.
Her eyes naturally trail their way back to Johnny’s hiding space, and in the slowly darkening room, she spots something she had not noticed before.
Dusk takes a hold, with the sun falling away over the ocean outside and disappearing on the horizon. Her optics switch to night mode automatically, sensing the lack of light, and instantly, with the enhancement of her vision in the dimness of the room, she can see an etching in the wood on the edge of the countertop that faces the bed.
She rolls up off the mattress immediately, stumbling back to her feet as she approaches it and runs her fingers over the carving. The little incisions in the wood look like they have been put there messily by the tip of a knife and an unsteady hand.
Coke
Jasper
HC, Fri - Sun
V’s brow furrows as she bends to get a closer look, and she’s still got no clue. But she sure as shit knows what Coke and the days of the week are.
The longer she stares at the engraving, the more certain she is that she knows that handwriting.
She raises her arm, rolling up the sleeve of the Samurai jacket to press her forearm against the edge of the counter, comparing side by side. V looks between the love heart and initials on her arm and Jasper, over and over and over.
The J ’s are nearly identical.
“Johnny, I swear to god, if you have left me a drug dealer shopping list…”
V says it to no one, but she still hopes to hear a deep, sarcastic reply around a breath of smoke. It never comes.
Taking one last look, memorising the three lines, she pushes back to her feet and is out the door within seconds. She takes the stairs down even faster than she came up them, and she decides her first order of business is to work out who or what is a Jasper or a HC.
So, she does the first thing she can think of in her rush and steals a holo off some drunk guy that stumbles past her on the street. She opens a web browser, finds nothing of use on Jasper, and then searches for HC and switches on location tracking, just for good measure.
Did you mean Hard Candy, NC?
Why yes. Yes, she did.
V clicks the search link and a map with a feed of real-time directions loads within seconds. It is pointing her towards Downtown and she sighs, eying a parked motorcycle across the street and deciding if she had already klepped a holo and a car, a bike is just taking it to full cycle.
She glances around, seeing no watchful eyes, and makes a break for it.
◇
V parks the bike illegally on the curb and stares up at the outside of what is apparently Hard Candy. The building is just relatively non-descript brick, with a hot pink neon sign in the shape of those chalky Valentine’s heart candies hanging over a bright yellow door.
But it is surprising to see a small crowd milling around outside. It’s only just after 7:50 pm, nightlife is not really in full swing around Downtown until at least 11:30 pm in her experience.
Some people are smoking and chatting in small groups, while others are still waiting to get in the door. The ones that have already been inside are wearing a pink glow stick around their neck, like a signifier that they have already done a security check.
She watches everyone going in and out of what she assumes is a bar, and she cannot help but think that not a single person here looks like they are from the same kind of “scene” as Johnny.
Regardless, she swings down off the bike, exits Navigation on the holo, and pockets it before heading for the entrance.
Security is really non-existent. No one checks who she is. There is no scan for identification at the door. The security guard is simply for show, and he hands her one of the pink glowing necklaces as she passes. She puts it on with a nod of thanks and steps through the yellow door.
V passes through a beaded blue curtain, and does a double-take. She picks up one of the strung together rows of beads, only to realise that they are in fact lines of what look to be Viagra, with its distinctive blue diamonds.
‘Well, here we fuckin’ go,' she thinks to herself as she drops the pills and takes the narrow staircase down towards the basement level. Growing increasingly more on edge with every step as she notices there is no music to speak of.
Then she rounds the corner of the basement hallway, her jaw drops a little, and the lack of noise all makes sense.
She is standing at the edge of a silent disco.
Every surface is pink, and there is a five-foot twirling mirror ball hanging from the surprisingly high ceiling. Colourful lights flash, casting bounces of colour that look like fish scales made of stained glass across everything around them when they hit the mirror ball just so.
Everyone is clearly dancing to the same song, which is playing inside chunky white headsets, because the sea of people is moving together on-beat. It is like a wave picking up sand and seashells, tossing them all together and catching them in a swirl of motion.
Most people’s eyes are closed, just feeling the music and existing entirely in their own worlds. But there are a few who are sipping drinks or grinning as they sway with friends, reaching for one another as they laugh joyfully in their little groups.
V had never seen anything quite like it before. Silent discos just aren’t things by 2077, and watching a room full of panting, sweaty bodies moving to sounds that don’t match the outside world is just… different.
Weaving through the swaying bodies, she can see now as she gets closer to everyone that the majority of the dancers are completely zonked. Pupils blown wide until black almost covers the irises of organic eyes, and optics spasm every few seconds without the usual system control of their hosts.
The entire basement seems to be in a trance-like state, and there has got to be at least seventy people packed in here, looking like they have already been dancing for hours. So, drugs would probably make sense as to why the place looks like this at 8:00 pm on a Saturday night, and everyone seems like they are planning to spend their entire night out here on the dancefloor.
V finds the bar and orders herself the safest thing she can think of - a gin and tonic, nothing fancy. But even that is delivered to her pink and with a nest of what appears to be cotton candy on top of it.
She thanks the bartender and transfers him the eddies. Eternally grateful that apparently account transfers using her shard from Night City First National Bank somehow still work.
“Music?” he asks before she can take her drink and leave, and he is already sliding the white headset across the bar.
Tentatively, she pulls it towards her before she looks up at the bartender and contemplates if she risks it.
Worth a shot.
Leaning in closer, resting her arms against the edge of the bar, she asks, “Jasper?”
He just stares at her for a moment, face completely devoid of any expression she can get a read on. But then he clears his throat roughly and leans in, face inches from hers.
“You some kind of narc?”
“I look like I could be a narc?'' She responds firmly, and the guy rakes his eyes up and down her torso and face a few times, scrutinising every inch of her that he can see. His brows furrow slightly as his gaze trails over the jacket.
“Who d’you know?”
V hesitates for a moment, wondering if she is about to shoot herself in the foot. But she sighs and takes the gamble, “Silverhand.”
His jaw tenses and that is the only indication she gets that the bartender even hears her for a long moment that feels like it stretches on forever. Eventually he rolls his eyes and mumbles something that sounds like ‘fuckin’ groupies’ before he tells her, “Jasper’s gone. Been gone for like half a decade. You want Pearl now.”
“And where’s Pearl?”
He just cocks an eyebrow suspiciously and responds, “Bathroom.”
She stuffs the tuft of cotton candy into her mouth and washes it down with the strawberry gin in one go before sliding both the empty glass and the headset back towards the man. Turning on her heel, she marches towards the rear of the basement in search of the toilets, uncaring and determined as she is knocked about when she crosses the dancefloor.
The bathrooms are all-gender, and she has to step through another set of beaded curtains to enter. These ones are made from pink pills that she thinks might be an opioid synthetic that they don’t have use for by 2077.
She takes the narrow corridor that leads her into a long room of cubicles and two enormous trough sinks with huge, dimly lit mirrors, and she promptly chokes on her spit.
In front of her is the largest mound of SynthCoke she has ever seen in her life, and it is so white that it is probably the most pure she has ever seen. There are a few people milling around the sinks, and they pay her no mind as she approaches slowly, but there is a woman lording over the SynthCoke.
She is cutting lines and wrapping little baggies as the eddies exchange hands. And while this is one of the largest distributions of SynthCoke that V has ever seen, she is also stumped at how casual it is.
She feels like everyone in here has turned up at an artisan bakery and asked for a slice of bread. Just a really fuckin’ expensive slice of bread.
Clearing her throat, she reaches the table and the woman divvying out the purchases just rolls her gaze up to meet V’s, looking her up and down slowly.
“Haven’t seen you around here before.”
“Yeah. Just returned to the city,” V responds and it is not exactly a lie, she supposes.
“What do you want?”
“Looking for Pearl,” V starts and the other woman arches an eyebrow at her questioningly.
“You’re lookin’ at her.”
V goes to open her mouth and ask the question: you know where Silverhand is? But the woman’s eyes drift down towards the mound of SynthCoke between them.
Oh. Pearl.
Jesus Christ, he really had carved himself a little drug shopping list. Why Johnny felt the need to do it on the furniture of his old rented room rather than a piece of paper like a regular fucking person, she has no idea. V just hopes she gets the chance to actually ask him.
The woman's eyes drift over the lines of the brown Samurai jacket slowly, taking extra time on the patches that smatter the chest and sleeves before her gaze is back on V’s face.
“Silverhand hasn’t been by in a while,” she states, and her tone is anything but polite as she shifts to judgment. “You girls sure get around though. ”
“What century is this?” V snaps, the words spilling out of her mouth before she can even attempt to not reflexively go on the defensive at the other woman’s words. “You really trying to pull the shameful card here while you’re selling coke in some shitty toilet? Fuck off with that shit.”
V has to remind herself that this woman is absolutely inebriated, and to not retaliate when the woman calls her a “silver-cocked bitch” and tries to take a swing.
But the tension breaks in an instant when the bathroom door swings open, forcefully bouncing off the tiled wall with a loud bang . It echoes off the porcelain and makes every single person milling about in the little coke den freeze.
A very familiar person spills in through the doorway. Bandana, denim, and leather. V releases the heaviest, most relieved breath that she thinks she has ever taken.
Kerry Eurodyne pulls his own headset down off his ears, and yeah, V can picture him at a disco. Why not? He’s got moves and he wasn’t one to be hard-edged and turn his nose up at trying something different.
The rockerboy turns, making a beeline for the SynthCoke, and V knows that she is not fast enough to twist around and hide Samurai’s oni that stretches across the expanse of her back from his view.
His face twists into something that is a mix of surprise, wariness, and annoyance as he heads towards her, and V decides she is not going to do this here in some bathroom turned drug den. She’s got enough suspicious eyes on her already, she doesn’t need the attention of every cokehead in the bar to know something is up as well. She doesn’t need them wigging out on her.
Hastily, V moves to make her escape from the room, but Kerry’s arm shoots out and grabs hers. Apparently he has the exact same idea of not doing this in the middle of a bathroom, because he drags her with him as he turns on his heel and marches them back out.
He pulls her between the sweating bodies of the dancefloor, straight up the stairs, pausing at the door to hand off his headset to the security guard before he tugs her out onto the street. His grip is firm and never faltering as he directs them into the alleyway that runs along the length of Hard Candy’s brick outer walls.
It is dark. No streetlights, just what little brightness reaches the alley from the neon of the main street, and it smells like trash and piss. If it was anyone but Kerry dragging her right now, she would be fighting against them with every part of herself.
“Where the fuck did you get that jacket?” Kerry asked, wheeling around on her like a force of nature the moment he was happy enough with their distance away from curious eyes.
His pupils are blown wide and she knows he is on something. But he seems to be highly functioning with whatever it is that he has taken, because his gaze is focused on her and he is not even slurring.
“What did you do?” he snarls, shoving her back against the bricks harshly. V goes easily, trying to stay lax under his hands, and she can see in his face that it confuses him, but he keeps pressing. “What are you some kind of psycho-fan? You fuckin’ mug him? Where is he?”
“This isn’t his jacket, it’s a replica given to me by a mutual friend. I swear,” she responds, keeping her voice steady and raising placating hands.
“A replica ? This thing is thread-for-thread!”
“Look, I got the jacket from Rogue, okay?” she interrupts. That makes Kerry pause and lean back to get a better look at her. “Rogue gave it to me.”
“Why would Rogue have a replica of Johnny’s jacket?”
“I-it’s a really long story and you’re never going to believe me.”
“I already don’t believe you. Who even are you?”
V chewed at the inside of her lip, deciding he is probably thinking she is insane already, so she may as well go for broke, and tells him, “My name is V. I’m a merc.”
“You’re not from around here.”
“No, I’m not,” she responds earnestly. “I am lost as all fuckin’ hell. And, I need to find Johnny.”
Kerry stares at her for a long moment before he backs off slightly and folds his arms across his chest, scrutinising her. “This got something to do with what he and Rogue have been cooking up?”
V can still remember the pain in Kerry’s voice when he and Johnny spoke backstage in the memory that she had seen play out with Johnny in her head, and she can hear the hurt here in this Kerry as well.
Taking a shaky breath, she nods and tells him, “Yeah.”
“Then this conversation is over,” Kerry states, turning on his heel and striding back in the direction of the road.
“Wait-” she starts to yell, pushing herself up off the brick wall to chase after him. But there is a buzzing in her pocket - the holo that is not hers - and she instinctively reaches for it. Pulling the device from the rear pocket of her pants, she looks down at the screen and finds that deep red writing waiting for her again.
Leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
The last thing she can feel herself do is firmly slip the holo into a jacket pocket and pat at it to make sure it is securely there. Then, she is sucked down and compressed through the oxygen vacuum that pushes on her chest, and the alleyway falls away once more to silent screams.
◆
19 August, 2023
7:44PM
When V lands back on solid ground this time, her legs give way and her knees collide with the cement, making her gasp out a pained little ‘motherfuck!’ But there is no one else there to hear it.
After she manages to catch her breath again, V gingerly pushes herself back to her feet and glances around.
She is back in the alleyway in Pacifica, but it is later in the evening now. She can tell, because it is dark out and as her optics adjust, she can see there is nothing but a large pool of blood in the alleyway with her.
The supposed Voodoo Boy did get picked up by his friends apparently. That, or scavs have found him.
Dusting off her hands, V pats at her pockets and releases a relieved little noise as she finds the holo that she had stolen still there. She pulls it out, checks the time, and realises she is forward about an hour from the last time she had ended up back here in the alley.
When she opens the holo, she finds the message that had looped her back here still waiting for her. She reads it again, and again. Flipping the words over in her head and supposing that she had at least been on the right track with Kerry.
Maybe the wrong thing just slipped out then?
V is starting to think that the loop only impacts her. Everything else in 2023 seems to continue along its path, unaffected by her changing of hours.
The only thing that seems to revert is her. She probably has about half an hour on the clock to get back to Hard Candy and find the rockerboy again.
With a long-suffering sigh, she breaks into a jog and heads for a parking lot she had seen when she had gone in search for the Pistis Sophia. It is about a street away, and when she had first passed it, it had definitely looked like easy pickings.
There is a little piece of her mind wondering what her step count for the day is starting to look like as she reaches the little parking lot and kleps yet another car. The engine turns over after a couple of goes, because of course, with the luck she has had today she has picked a piece of shit to steal on top of everything else.
But the car starts, she sighs in relief, and then she is on her way out of Pacifica once more. She mutters to herself as she drives, and maybe this whole thing is making her crazy if she’s talking to herself and not even trying to pretend it is Johnny anymore.
“Worst fucking scavenger hunt for anything ever.”
◇
She parks in a loading bay on a side street that is just off from the main strip of the bars and clubs in Downtown, and V couldn’t give less of a shit if the car gets towed. She quickly walks back toward the main street, and at 8:21pm she finds herself in front of the bright yellow door and pink neon of Hard Candy.
It was not just the holo that she kept from the last loop of time, but the pink glow stick she had received last time she was here. It is still hanging around her neck, and she is free to just walk through the door again while she wonders how much the security guard is being paid to do absolutely nothing.
V heads down the stairs and this time she is fully prepared for the pink everything, the non-existent music, and the breathless, sweating bodies that are piled into the room.
This time she heads to the bar, knowing exactly where it is, and does not order a drink. But she does ask for a headset and slips it on over her head the moment she has it in her hands.
The music completely changes the atmosphere of the basement as soon as it is in her ears. There is an electronic track playing, and someone is singing in Russian so quickly she has to wonder if someone has found a way to just stop breathing altogether.
She can only understand the song because of the translator upgrade in her cyberdeck, but even then it is spitting out translated words too quickly for her to really understand all of the lyrics. None of that matters though, because it is fucking excellent when she realises that all the neon lights in the room are programmed to flash and twirl in time with the beat drops.
V finds herself genuinely appalled that silent discos are dead by 2077 as she loses herself in the experience for a minute. There is so much more context to the ways the bodies move freely around the dancefloor now, and all the rushing adrenaline and sweat that hangs in the air.
Stepping into the sea of people, she starts to weave, looking for a familiar mane of dark curls under the flashing lights. At least now she also knows what Kerry is wearing tonight, so she can keep an eye out for that as well.
She does two full loops of the basement, and at this point she thinks she’s cast her eyes over every person in the room. None of whom are Kerry. Sighing, she checks her holo for the time and thinks that if it is only her going through these bizarre loops, everyone else probably sticks to their actions for the most part.
Odds are Kerry is in the bathroom right now, about to have his own meeting with Pearl.
“Damn it,” she whispers to herself, rubbing a hand down the side of her face frustratedly before she makes her way back across the dancefloor and heads down the narrow corridor of the bathroom.
When she pushes back through the curtain of pink pills once again, every face inside is familiar. There are still people milling about, doing blow off the edge of the trough style sink, chatting quietly, or hooking up against walls, or in the stalls. But again, she cannot see Kerry anywhere.
There is a sudden, unmistakable noise of vomit spraying into a toilet bowl in the stall closest to her, and the little choked off noise the person makes on the other side of the door makes her wince sympathetically.
They have another little upchuck a few seconds later, and hearing it this time, she is certain it is a man on the other side of the door. This time the sound against the porcelain makes her stomach roll as well.
'This will be just my luck,' she thinks as she sighs and knocks against the door gently. It is only then, when the brown jacket sleeve is right in her eye line, hanging over her wrist, that she remembers she even has it on.
Hastily, she strips it off, folds it inside out, and hangs it over an arm. It just looks like a bundle of black lining now, and she thinks it will be enough as she taps against the door once more. There is a soft groan from the other side this time, and hearing it makes her absolutely certain that it is Kerry Eurodyne puking his guts up on the other side.
The stall door is not locked, so she presses it open slowly to find Kerry knelt over the rim of the toilet, two fingers shoved down his throat and trying to force it up. Seeing him like this makes her forget that he has no idea who she is, and she is reaching for him without thinking.
“Kerry? Hey, hey, come on,” she mutters as the stall closes after her when she steps further inside. She pulls his hair back away from his face, holding it as he jerks forward over the bowl again before pulling back with a low, pained noise.
He blinks up at her, looking a little dazed, and his pupils are huge.
“Do I fuckin’ know you?” he questions as he sits himself down on the tiles and leans back against the side of the stall.
V does not want to think about what is on this floor as she crouches beside him and puts her own palm down to steady herself. She swallows noisily and tells a half-lie because it is easier, “Yeah, man. It’s been a few years, but we went yachting together.”
“Yachting?” he laughs tiredly, his blinks getting longer and slower. “Do I seem like the kind of guy that would be into boats?”
“Nah,” V smiles, brushing a bit of sweaty hair up off his forehead. “But, y’know how it goes with those studio bigwigs.”
“Corpo cunts.”
He says it in a way that is so similar to Johnny that it surprises her enough to choke on a laugh.
“What?” he slurs, sitting up straighter as he blinks at her. A little more alert now that he wants in on the joke.
“You sound like Johnny.”
“You know Johnny too?”
“Kind of,” she shrugs.
He trails his eyes up and down the length of her body and takes extra time to stare at her face before scoffing and letting his head loll back against the wall again. He comments quietly, “Yeah, ‘course you know Johnny.”
“I’m not diggin’ into that with you right now,” V sighs, trying her damndest to ignore the smell of regurgitated alcohol and bile that’s stinking out the stall now. “What are you doin’ in here? You sick?”
“Feel weird. Like jelly,” he murmured, eyes slipping closed. “Think someone spiked my drink. Was tryin’ to bring it up.”
“Ah shit,” V mumbled as she pressed the back of her hand to his sweaty forehead, feeling him burning up, but she isn’t sure if that is just the exertion of expelling everything in his stomach or if this has something to do with whatever he has been given. “We… we should get you to a clinic?”
He opens one eye to peer up at her incredulously and snorts, “The fuck kind of med coverage you on if you’re gettin’ help for takin’ drugs , sweetheart?”
So medical coverage is just as fucked in 2023 as it is in 2077 then. God, what a shitshow.
“Right,” she says on an exhale. “You know where you live?”
Kerry has both eyes open now and he’s looking at her like he’s never met someone quite so stupid. He just stares up at her and slurs, “I’m roofied, not an idiot.”
“I know,” V hushes him. “Honestly, surprised you aren’t more out of it.”
“Give me five minutes,” he replies around a yawn and his eyes start to slip closed again.
“Okay, time to go,” she whispers, tucking one of his arms up over her shoulders and taking most of his weight as she pushes to stand. He groans miserably but gets his feet underneath him while she wraps the arm that still has the Samurai jacket hanging off it around his waist to stabilise him.
She leans away from him for a second to flush the toilet with her spare hand, silently apologising to the future-whoever it is that stumbles in here to use it next. And then she is leading them out of the cubicle and back through the pink shower of pills. She removes the headset that is hanging from Kerry’s neck before she yanks off her own and puts them both down on a random table that is laden with dirty cocktail and shot glasses before directing them to the stairs.
It is a sad testament to just how self-serving and wrapped up in their own worlds so many people in Night City actually are when not a single person pauses to check on Kerry or ask V if she needs assistance. So they just stumble their way across the dancefloor and up the basement stairs together.
Spilling out through the yellow door of Hard Candy, V gulps down a couple of yearning, harsh breaths of the gentle, breezy night air to try and clear her nose of the lingering scent of vomit. But it is mostly futile with Kerry beside her, his teeth desperately needing a brush and a swig of mouthwash.
The fresh air and change of scenery seems to bring some awareness back to Kerry for a moment and he twists his head to look at V. He stares like he is just seeing her for the first time and their entire interaction downstairs didn’t just happen. But he’s loose and relaxed as he asks, “What’s your name anyway?”
“V,” she replies as they make their way to the crossing, waiting for the lights to change. With the internal augmentations she has in her body, taking most of Kerry’s bodyweight proves to be relatively easy. Particularly after she has had plenty of experience pulling big motherfuckers like Jackie out of bars when they’re too drunk to get themselves home.
“What? Like the letter?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit, your parents must have hated you.”
“I’ve got an actual name,” she rolls her eyes. “Friends just call me V.”
“We’re friends now, are we?” Kerry questions sassily as V opens the door of her stolen car and helps him into the passenger seat. It’s like having to look after a child when he cannot even seem to do up his own seat belt buckle.
“People who yacht together are friends forever. Or some shit.”
“That is not a thing,” he yawns, sinking low in the seat. His muscles go lax as his eyes close again and V groans, tapping a hand against his cheek hastily. The movement gets a little harder and more frantic when he doesn’t react, and one eye eventually peeks open again as he makes an annoyed noise at her.
“I need you to tell me where to take you, so we can get you home, Kerry.”
He tells her some address in Charter Hill and she tucks the Samurai jacket around him like a little blanket before closing the passenger door.
She pulls out the klepped holo to look up directions as she slides into the driver’s seat because the street name is one she has never heard of. Resting the holo in the centre console between them carefully, she starts the car and by the time she pulls out of the parking spot, the rockerboy is asleep.
V looks at him for a long moment and feels an overwhelming sense of relief that it was her who found him hanging over that toilet and not some stranger to take advantage of the situation. Because it is deeply fucking concerning how quickly he just complied with this drug in his system, trusting her word that they knew each other.
The car rolls down the side street slowly as she gives the GPS a second to find her location, and then she turns on to the main strip of Downtown. The navigation system tells her she’ll be there in nine minutes.
In this version of Charter Hill, V can see that the area is what a real estate agent would call “up and coming” and a “haven for young people”, but only if those young people have enough eddies lining their pockets.
The whole place seems to have gone through redevelopment recently, everything looking slightly more modern and cleaner, and there is still scaffolding up around a lot of buildings. Some of them she recognises, others not so much.
When they reach Kerry’s place - a low-rise apartment block that looks like it might be the oldest thing on this particular street - she parks the car on the curb, scoops up the holo, and gets out. Rounding the front of the car, she opens the passenger door and contemplates how she is going to do this.
Deciding she is not going to wake him, V pats him down gently, finding his wallet in the front pocket of his leather-look pants. She plucks it out before wrapping an arm under Kerry’s knees while the other presses in behind his back, and she gathers him into her arms.
Her internal cyberware whirls into action as she takes his weight and lifts, Titanium Bones locking while her Fortified Ankles compress and lift her out of what is essentially a deadlift. Then she hip checks the car door shut, and strides up to the apartment.
V realises on her approach that Kerry must live in some kind of loft-style place, because the front door is on street level but from the outside it looks like there is only a garage accessible on this level.
Shifting the rockerboy in her arms carefully, trying not to jostle him, she swipes his security access card, and the door slides open to confirm her speculation. She is standing in a little entryway, door to the garage open on the right-hand side. She pokes her head in for a second to see that Kerry has turned the place into a soundproof music room, with foam panelling across the walls and ceiling.
Then she turns her attention to the stairs, counts 16 of them, and ascends. The upstairs is open plan, like a large studio, and it’s very Kerry .
Nothing is as opulent as it is in the mansion, and interesting art pieces hang on almost every exposed brick wall. He has a huge record collection that lines an entire wall and she is honestly a little surprised to find that his bed, while an unmade tangle of sheets, has a headboard. It is something she had not really expected to see from any of the men in Samurai during their youth, if she is being honest.
V moves to the bed, placing Kerry down on the mattress carefully, tucking the sheet and blanket up around him before she stands back up and glances around the room.
“Stay,” she hears him groan quietly, and she chews the inside of her lip for a moment as she thinks. She does not really know where to go from here anyway.
There have not been any red-lettered messages delivered, telling her in some cryptic way that she has fucked up the timeline of whatever the hell it is that she is here to do. So, she releases a heavy breath, tells Kerry she will stay, and waits, holding the holo out in front of her.
When no message comes, she goes to the little kitchen to fill a glass of water, finds a packet of painkillers on the bench, and places both on the bedside table for the rockerboy. Then she tosses her jacket over the back of a lounge chair and sinks into the cushions. She doesn’t mean to fall asleep.
◇
20 August, 2023
3:56 AM
There is a sudden, loud bang as the front door downstairs slides open roughly, like there is a forcefulness behind it, and a set of heavy footfalls stumble on the stairs. The noise has V shooting upright immediately, she looks to Kerry and finds him still asleep, even through the raucous coming up the stairwell.
Getting to her feet, she moves to hover at the end of Kerry’s bed protectively as her hand instinctively reaches for Skippy but discovers that the gun is still in the inner pocket of her jacket that is hanging over the back of the lounge. She swears under her breath, reaching for the little plastic clip at the end of her Monowire instead, ready to unsheathe it from her forearm.
But her hand drops away from it in shock when a head of thick shoulder-length hair appears at the top of the stairs, and a familiar face twists into something confused the moment dark eyes land on her.
The stink of alcohol clings to him and it makes V’s eyes water a little, even from across the room. He’s drunk and probably on something as well, given the way he is swaying right where he stands.
He’s sweaty and smells like a whorehouse. But when she trails her eyes over the dark leather of a jacket that she knows well, this one fitting his frame just so and very much the real deal of her replica, she finds herself releasing a relieved, shaky sigh.
He must hear it, because his brows furrow further, deepening the frown that is plastered across his face. His eyes rake up and down her frame, gaze resting longer on the cyberware in her arm, and she can tell that he knows it isn’t from his Night City.
Then he glances at the jacket hanging over the back of the lounge chair. He must recognise it, even in the dark, because his whole demeanour shifts and he is suddenly much more alert and going on the defensive.
His hand flies to the back of his pants, and he pulls the Malorian on her. Barrel trained on the centre of her skull.
“Who the fuck are you?” Johnny Silverhand snarls, and she has no business feeling as much solace in hearing his voice again as she does.
The holo buzzes in V’s rear pocket of her pants and she pulls it out to see red.
Not all surprises are good ones.