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V can feel the heat coming off of the Basilisk’s hull, the sun baking the metal until the air around it trembles. Sweat slides down his spine. Johnny sits on it, unreal and unconcerned about the temperature, lighting a cigarette. Despite his carelessness, V can feel a ripple of discomfort radiating across their connection, their tangled psyches knocking together until Johnny’s apprehension bleeds into V, and V’s bleeds back, and they’re both swallowing thumps in their throats.
“What is it?” V asks him while Carol tinkers, her old personal laptop jacked into the panzer.
Johnny stubs out his cigarette against the hull. “ Bad memories,” is all he says.
In the back of V’s skull, he hears the echo of an explosion, so faint he might be imagining it, a memory of a dream. Johnny grimaces, and V can feel him pulling away, trying to put distance between them, even though it’s impossible. The only place there is for Johnny to hide is deeper in, so close V doesn’t even see his projected engram, like they’re one person.
“Feel like takin’ her for a spin?” Panam asks with a wide smile.
“Uh,” V says, feeling momentarily sick, his heart pounding. Sweat beads at his hairline, and it’s not from the heat.
“Don’t get in that fucking thing, V,” Johnny says hoarsely, pacing back and forth, eyes wild when he looks up at V.
“I’m kinda claustrophobic,” V says to Panam, and her smile slips for a moment, before coming back, teasing.
“C’mon, it’s not that bad,” she goads. V’s heart is hammering so fast it’s starting to become hard to breathe, a light tremor running up and down his legs. He isn’t claustrophobic, never has been, but the idea of climbing into the Basilisk’s mouth makes V sick to his stomach. It isn’t his thought, but it rattles around in his brain nonetheless: he would rather die than get inside.
“No, I’m. I’m really ok,” V says, “Unless you get off on watching people have panic attacks in close quarters.” He smiles self-deprecatingly and Panam shrugs.
“Your loss. Wanna drink?” she offers, and V nods.
Johnny sits on the bar as they drink, scowling. “It’s fine,” V says to him, and his frown deepens, folding his face into an angry snarl.
“Fifty years, death, reanimation as a figment of someone else’s imagination, and there’s still some shit you can’t get over. Fuck me, man,” Johnny grunts.
“You, uh,” V begins, peeling the label from his beer, but Johnny cuts him off.
“ No , I don’t wanna talk about it,” he snaps. V blinks up at him placidly and Johnny sighs. “Yellin’ at you is never satisfying, y’know that? Sometimes, there’s things you don’t talk about, that’s all.” He claps V on the shoulder, and he feels it as much as he would if Johnny were really there: the warmth of his flesh hand, the force of the touch, the lingering smell of cigarette smoke. The novelty has yet to wear off.
V can feel Johnny calming down by the minute, soothed by V’s drink, his phantom cigarette, and their new distance from the Basilisk, but his heartbeat still hasn’t settled back into a normal rhythm. V fishes around in his pockets until he withdraws Evelyn’s cigarette case, pulling one out and stuffing it between his lips.
“You don’t gotta-“ Johnny begins, but cuts himself off with a heavy sigh of satisfaction when V lights up and takes the first drag. They discovered that it’s infinitely more satisfying whenever V does it, rather than Johnny smoking away at the idea of a cigarette, just dredging up the feeling from his memories. It’s a far cry from real nicotine, something they can both feel, the sensations from V’s body traveling seamlessly into Johnny’s.
Panam looks at him curiously. “You smoke?”
“Nope,” V says, taking another hit and frowning at the caustic, acrid taste.
Johnny slouches in the seat next to him, watching him smoke, breathing in deeply every time V takes a drag, matching their breaths, inhaling on V’s exhale in an attempt to welcome it into his own lungs. V remembers a boyfriend from his late teen years, how they used to sit on the roof of their Heywood megabuilding and shotgun cigarettes V stole from his mom, sloppily excusing it by saying that it was less wasteful than each of them having one of their own.
Johnny snorts inelegantly. “What, we gonna kiss next?”
V rolls his eyes, stubbing the butt out against the bottom of his boot. “Shut up,” he says, with no real heat in it.
The sudden stutter of gunfire from the edge of camp takes V and Panam both by surprise. Panam is leaping over the bar before V is fully out of his seat, racing past him, gun already in hand.
“Raffen!” Saul calls, heading them off, “More coming up the road. Use the Basilisk.”
Panam looks at V briefly before heading back to the panzer. Bullets are filling the air now, and V hesitates for less than a second before diving into the co-pilot seat, the latch shutting behind him. Johnny is nowhere to be seen, but V can feel him, feel the slick sweat of his palms and the way his breaths shake coming out.
“I’ll fly and you shoot, ok?” Panam asks, “There isn’t really time for a crash-course here. You link directly with the Basilisk, everything connects to your neural impulses. Just think about aiming and shooting, and you will. It’s gonna feel really weird at first.”
She activates the engines and the Basilisk rumbles to life, optical display lighting up and showing them the chaos rapidly developing outside their steel coffin. Panam jacks in and V follows suit, and immediately understands why there has to be two pilots. It’s overwhelming, becoming one with the machine, awareness of all the parts as if they’re limbs on his own body, the 360 degree visual, the heat of the guns warming. He feels Panam as well, her own control of the panzer bleeding into his consciousness, and every time he blinks, just for a second, he sees with her eyes, can see himself from her periphery. It’s sickening, his guts turning alarmingly.
“ Don’t hurl,” Panam warns, and then they’re moving. He can feel every impulse of her control, knows intuitively how the panzer will move less than a second before it does, which somehow doesn’t make it less disorienting.
Underneath it all is Johnny, pressed against V’s psyche like his back is to a wall, filling the spaces between his synapses, trying to hold onto his panic even as it wells up into V’s throat. He knows Panam can feel it, because he can feel her concern in return, and tamps it down hard.
“V, the guns,” Panam urges, and V focuses on the task before him. He gets the first Raffen they see in his sights and shoots them down with less than a thought, the artillery on the Basilisk responding to him like a muscle. After a brief learning curve, it’s easy, and he almost loses himself in it, in the mindlessness of being part of a weapon. Almost. If not for Johnny, stubbornly pulling him back, gripping him tight with a fear so large and loud it might kill them both.
Panam steers them around the camp, maneuvering to defend the bulk of the Aldecaldos on foot, cutting off the approach of the Raffen Shiv trucks. V fires on them, spitting bullets between breaths, scarcely breathing at all. He can’t uncurl his fingers, clenched hard into fists, shaking with how hard he’s pressing into himself, arms tucked into his ribs and legs tightly together.
“Calm down,” V hisses, but neither he nor Johnny listen. Panam rolls over a truck easily, but the shaking of the panzer all around them invites a red soaked memory to burst forward.
Death in a corpo panzer is worse than death on foot for one specific reason. To die in a Basilisk is to die connected to somebody else, to force them to experience death as well. It reminds V of watching that Maelstrom gonk die in the BD Judy showed him, feeling the very moment when the light goes out of someone’s eyes, still connected to their cooling corpse, your own heart hammering in sympathy as theirs stops forever.
“V?” Panam asks, right beside him and so far away. His head spins and aches, vision going blurry. His ears ring. “V, c’mon!”
V tries to answer her, maybe even manages to garble together a response, but he feels himself slipping, the mind shattering pain tearing along his skull. He can hear Johnny yelling, trapped in a machine like this, a corpse moldering silently beside him. “What the hell is that?” Panam shouts, as if she can hear it too.
“Johnny,” V manages to groan, before his vision narrows to pinpricks and he collapses back into his seat.
V wakes to a bad taste in his mouth and a splitting headache. He peeks one eye open just a slit and immediately regrets it, light piercing his optics and slicing into the tender folds of his brain. “Fuck,” he grunts, throwing an arm over his face.
There’s movement, and then Panam’s voice. “Holy shit, you’re awake. Are you alright?”
“Never better,” V rasps, sitting very still to stave off the inevitable nausea.
“We got rid of the last of the Raffen Shiv, then we moved camp. We’re safe, for now,” Panam reports. V slowly, carefully, opens his eyes again to look up at her. She seems no worse for wear to his hazy vision as he blinks alerts from his cyberware out of his HUD, just a little dusty.
He spies Johnny standing in the corner, expression grim. “Not dyin’ today, huh?” He gestures with his cigarette in a sort of toast to V’s health.
“What happened, V? What was that in the Basilisk?” Panam asks, sitting on the edge of V’s cot.
V sighs. “What was what?” he asks warily.
Panam frowns at him. “The voice , V. I heard it. I heard someone screaming, and it wasn’t either of us. It was like it came from your head. And you said a name, right before you passed out. Who’s Johnny?”
“Pan…” V begins, but then shrugs listlessly. “It’s really complicated.”
“Start from the beginning, then,” Panam says encouragingly, taking one of his hands in hers.
He glances over at Johnny, who shrugs. “She’s your choom, man. Tell her whatever you want.”
“I, uh. Fuck, ok. You know those personality constructs? The Relic?” V starts slowly.
“That ‘preserve your soul’ bullshit Arasaka pedals? Yeah, I’ve heard of it, I guess,” Panam says dubiously.
“Alright. So. A few weeks ago, I got this gig from Dexter DeShawn-“
“Isn’t he the dead fixer?” Panam interrupts.
“Yeah, I’m getting to that. Me and my friend, Jackie, we’re the ones who broke into Konpeki Plaza. We were supposed to steal a Relic chip from Yorinobu Arasaka,” V holds up a hand when Panam scoffs incredulously, “It gets worse. The chip had the personality construct of Johnny Silverhand on it. Know him?”
Panam stares at him. “Like, the terrorist?”
Johnny groans. “Famous rockstar, revolutionary, prodigious musician, expert at eating pussy… and all they remember me as is a terrorist. Figures.”
“Yeah, like the terrorist. Arasaka pulled his psyche from his head the night he set off that nuke, and put it on a chip. When we were getting away, the case containing the chip broke, and it needed a natural neural environment. So, Jackie slotted it in,” V continues.
“Stupid idea.”
“Right. And um. Jackie got hurt real bad, and he wasn’t gonna make it, so I took the chip from him. Which woulda been fine, more or less, but then Dexter DeShawn shot me in the face,” V gestures to the knot of scar tissue just above his left temple, a bald spot among the short fuzz of his undercut where hair no longer grows.
“The nanotechnology in the chip brought me back to life, but it’s malfunctioning. The Relic wants a brain that the personality engram can live in, and my brain has me inside of it still. So it’s trying to overwrite me, make my body a host for the engram,” V explains, “It’s killing me. That’s what the attack was when I passed out, I’m gettin’ sicker the longer it goes on. And the voice you heard… Was one of Johnny’s memories. I’ve got him in my head with me, kinda. We share a brain.”
“So take it out,” Panam says.
“Can’t. It would kill me immediately. Can’t live with it, can’t live without it. I- we -are trying to find a solution, but it’s not looking so good. In a matter of weeks, there won’t be any me left,” V concludes.
Panam runs her hands down her face, steepling her fingers against her mouth thoughtfully. V wonders if she realizes how much she looks like Saul when she does that. “Your life doesn’t make any sense at all,” she finally says, “Fuck, V. I’m sorry.”
“She took that pretty well,” Johnny remarks.
“So, he talks to you? Like a voice in your head?” Panam hazards.
“Sort of? He’s a part of my reality. Like, he walks and talks. He’s as real to me as you are,” V replies.
“All the time?” At V’s responding nod, Panam tilts her head. “What is that even like?”
V shrugs. “It’s… fine. Most of the time. He has a strong personality, let’s put it that way.”
“My mother used to say that,” Johnny says.
“So strong it’s trying to kill you,” Panam says, crossing her arms. “Jesus, V, I’m really fucking sorry.”
“Yeah, well. It’s my fondest wish that I don’t actually die. We’re kind of working on a plan for that. Kind of. That’s what we needed Anders Hellman for,” V replies, as casually as possible.
“V, you know if there’s anything we can do, just say the word. I know I speak for the entire family when I say that you’re one of us. You don’t gotta go fighting this thing alone, even if I don’t really understand it,” Panam says.
V blinks, wondering why his eyes are beginning to sting, and sits up carefully. “Thanks, Pan. I really appreciate it. But for now, I gotta get back. No rest for the wicked, and that.”
Panam nods, brushing her hands off on her jeans. “Don't I know it.”
V makes his way to the edge of the camp where his truck is parked, the Mackinaw from Claire, brushing off well meaning Aldecaldos every few steps. Mitch slaps the car’s hood. “This is a real monster of a truck you got here, V. She’d look good sporting some clan paint,” he says.
“Gift from a friend. Did some death racing in it. Corners like a motherfucker, but I don’t get any shit from Wraiths or sandstorms when I drive her,” V replies with a smile that looks easy, but takes much more energy than it should.
Mitch catches on and bids his goodbye. V climbs into the Beast and then leans forward, resting his head into the pillow of his arms braced on the steering wheel.
“How ya doin’, kid?” Johnny asks from the passenger seat.
V glances over at him. “Feel like a twice baked shit pie. That someone ate. And then shit out. Into a toilet that doesn’t flush.”
Johnny coughs, face crumpling into an expression of discomfort that sits poorly there, as if he’s unsuited to it. Johnny Silverhand doesn’t wear regret well. “I’m… sorry,” he says, working the words out slowly.
V turns the ignition on and pulls away from the camp, checking their location on the nav system. “Sorry?” he repeats.
“Well, it’s pretty fucking obvious that what happened was kind of my fault, that time. Not the Relic. Me,” Johnny says.
“Obvious to who?” V asks.
Johnny stares at him, jaw ticking, the beginnings of irritation crackling between them. V watches the road, but his expression must be guileless enough to satisfy Johnny, because he says, “I think I triggered that malfunction because of the Basilisk. The emotions running wild, combined with you jacking into it with Panam, probably set it off.”
“Oh. Well, yeah, maybe, but that’s not your fault, Johnny,” V replies, “Can’t help a panic attack, you know?”
Johnny crosses his arms. “You collapse in the middle of battle with angry nomads because my panic attack cooked your brain, and you’re just okay with that?”
V eases the Beast off of the dirt road and onto the cracked pavement of the old highway, angling it toward Night City. They should make it home just after nightfall. “I’d say ‘okay with it’ might be an overstatement. But I’m not gonna sit here and blame you for shit neither of us can help. It would be exhausting and pointless.”
Even if they weren’t mentally linked, V would feel Johnny’s gaze boring into the side of his face. “I could’ve gotten you killed.”
“Johnny,” V sighs, “I could die every day. My job is going out and doing things that could get me killed. I don’t want to die, but it’s a distinct possibility. I mitigate that possibility by controlling what I can, and trying to let the rest go.”
“You’re not that well adjusted. I’m in your brain, remember? You try to control what you can’t just as much as what you can,” Johnny grouches.
“Yeah, well, no one’s perfect. My point is that I’m not going to begrudge you what’s outside of your control. I used to. I used to be real fuckin’ angry at you for what the Relic is doing to my brain, but I just got tired of it. I’m still angry, and I’m still scared as hell. But you’re not my enemy, Johnny. I don’t have it in me to punish you,” V says, squeezing the bridge of his nose and massaging his temple with one hand, trying to ease his headache, “You been punished enough.”
The thump of Johnny’s head hitting the headrest is audible as he puts his head back, watching the road through his shades. “Anyone else, I’d say they’re full of shit and misplaced pity.”
“But not me?”
“I don’t know if you’re a diamond in the rough of the biggest gonk to ever suck air. People punish each other, especially for the shit outside of their control. That’s just what it means to be alive, V. Why’re you any different?” Johnny looks over at the side of V’s face, but he’s still watching the road, cacti and sand and scrubby grass filling his periphery.
“Maybe it’s because you’re dead, and so am I,” V muses, “Got my brains shot out in a landfill, remember? We’re both ghosts, man.”
The desert slowly gives way to industrial plants and oil fields, derelict drills and refineries dotting the horizon like the skeletons of great prehistoric beasts. Somewhere out there, in the stinking mud and sinkholes, is the corpse of Johnny Silverhand. V remembers scratching Johnny’s initials into a metal sheet half eaten by muck, and using the same broken glass to rip his sleeve open, muttering, “Baruch atah Adonai, Dayan Ha-Emet,” to the oil fields while Johnny sat beside him. It was all wrong, there was no burial, no prayer, no mourners or Kaddish, Johnny wasn’t even Jewish, but V could at least give him that. V could give him some semblance of ceremony, some ritual that said “you’re gone and I noticed”, as if anything could soothe his restless spirit. As if ancient words would be the thing to finally send Johnny to his rest.
Johnny hadn’t said anything about it, but when V next looked at him, his shirt was torn, too.
They’re both silent for most of the drive until they’re back in the city proper, away from the oil fields and Johnny’s moldering corpse.
“When I left the military, I didn’t sleep for a week. Then, I slept twenty hours a day for almost a month. Woke up screamin’, grabbing for my gun, trying to tear off my arm. I’d still have nightmares like that, ‘til the day I died. Not all the time, but sometimes. The only good thing about Mikoshi? I didn’t have ‘em anymore,” Johnny says quietly.
“Do you have them now?”
“No, I don’t really sleep. I’m part of your subconscious, and your brain is never all the way quiet. When you sleep, I see your dreams.”
“That’s kinda creepy, Johnny,” V says.
“My favorite one was the time you had a wet dream about Jefferson Peralez. Thought I’d wake you up laughing,” Johnny says, the corner of his mouth pulling up.
“I did not have a wet dream about Peralez,” V rolls his eyes, maneuvering the Beast through Watson traffic. “You’re probably just jealous because I don’t have wet dreams about you .”
Johnny waggles his eyebrows over his shades. “How do you know? Maybe you just don’t remember.”
“Forget what I said. I am going to punish you, because you deserve it,” V says primly.
Johnny’s laughter fills the car. “Hey, V?” V hums in acknowledgment. “Thanks. For, y’know.”
“Sure, Johnny. I know.”