Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

V walked into the Afterlife for the second time, greeted by the familiar smell of booze and broken dreams. The bass from the music blaring through the speakers rumbled his ribcage. This time of night the club was pretty packed, but the only person he recognized was Claire, the bartender. His last foray into the infamous nightclub was with Jackie, the both of ‘em sky high on the possibility of potential eddies. Jackie had given Claire specific instructions for his drink, the one they’d name after him when he hit the big leagues. These days he felt Jackie’s absence almost as strongly as he felt Johnny’s presence. Other than the talking terrorist in his head, he had pretty much no one. Judy had helped him find Evelyn Parker, and she seemed like a real one, but he didn’t know her all that well. He was alone. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could carry that.

He could hear the shouting coming from Rogue’s corner before he could see who was causing it, but one of Rogue’s huscle stopped him from entering. Looking over the guy’s brawny shoulder, V could see a woman, obviously a nomad, tearing Rogue a new one. Judging by the logo emblazoned across the back of her jacket, the woman rode for the Aldecaldos. V’s Bakker jacket had been gathering dust in his closet, buried underneath the pile of impractical city threads he’d abandoned after Jackie died. They no longer seemed to fit right. Now he only felt like himself in the clothes he’d brought with him from the Badlands, threads built to withstand life on the road. The jacket, though. He wasn’t quite ready to put that back on. 

“No. This trouble, the net around me–you wove it. You know it. I lost everything. Through you.” The nomad’s words carried fire, the kind he had only ever heard in Jackie’s. He grudgingly admitted to himself that Johnny had that fire too–at least when it came to cigarettes and Arasaka.

Rogue sat smugly on her sofa, unphased. She responded in a calm, even tone. “Lemme be plain. Again. Solve your own problems, clean up your shit.” Rogue turned away from the nomad and started talking to some guy on the other side of the couch. Cold. 

The Aldecaldo stormed away, shouting over her shoulder, “You know what, Rogue? Go fuck yourself.” 

Rogue was a Night City legend. Pretty bold words, coming from a nomad no less. The Aldecaldo ran into V on her way out, too busy firing back at Rogue to have noticed he was even there. She stopped and sized him up for a split second. “Be careful who you bargain with,” she said. There was something intense hiding behind the Aldecaldo’s deep brown eyes, a force he recognized but couldn’t quite place.

The nomad continued on her way. 

V raised his eyebrows as he watched her leave. She really didn’t seem like someone you’d wanna mess with. 

He took a deep breath and turned back to Rogue. He waved to get her attention. “Rogue? Wanted to talk.” 

“Another fuckin’ nomad,” she said under her breath. “It’s okay,” she told her huscle with a sigh, who stepped aside and let V pass. “Who are you?” she asked.

“I’m V.”

“And what is it you want, V?”

It was then that Johnny decided to make an appearance, perched on the couch next to Rogue. “All these years…It’s really her,” he said. “Fuckin’ Rogue, just kickin it back on a couch at the Afterlife.” 

Quiet . Can’t mess this up. 

“I’m lookin’ for Anders Hellman,” V explained. “Hot-shot engineer. Worked for Arasaka.” He tried to keep the desperation out of his voice. He knew breaking into Mikoshi was his best bet at survival, but he still had no fuckin’ clue how he was gonna pull that one off. Even the idea made Konpeki Plaza seem like a weekend at the beach. He needed Anders Hellman to give him a lead.

Rogue’s ocular implants lit up and she was quiet for a moment. “My help’s got a price,” she said. “If you want it, get those eddies ready.”

V initiated a transfer for 15k. “Should be enough,” he said.

Rogue waved Claire down from the bar and asked for a couple of drinks before ordering V to sit. “Don’t see determination like yours often,” she said. “Must really need this guy.”

Damn. She could tell he was desperate. No use hiding it anymore, then.

“Matter of life and death,” he said.

Some guy stepped in just then and slid a shard across the table to Rogue before dipping out as quietly as he came. Rogue slotted the shard into her port and her ocular implants lit up once again. After a few seconds, she removed the shard, offered it to V, and said, “Intel for you. Interesting stuff.” 

He couldn’t help but be impressed at how quickly she’d acquired it.

Rogue explained while the detes flashed before V’s eyes. Hellman was with Kang Tao, hiding out from Arasaka. A Kang Tao convoy was currently prepping to take him away from Night City, and V’s only chance to grab him was a dead zone out in the Jackson Plains. 

V felt a rush of hope. What if Hellman could actually help him remove the engram? What if he didn’t have to die?

Claire stepped in just then, bringing their drinks and breaking V out of his trance. He wasn’t thirsty. He stamped out the excitement before letting himself get too carried away. He’d been burned before, and this might be no different.

“Gonna need a native to the area,” Rogue said. “Someone who’ll set up the op, cobble up the gear.”

“You know any hick mercs?” V asked. “Besides me, anyway?”

Rogue gave a sharp, brief laugh. “Just one other. Panam Palmer.”

The Aldecaldo.

“She can’t count on her clan anymore, but she’s a true nomad. She knows those lands,” Rogue continued.

V couldn’t help but picture Amata, the woman who’d led the Bakkers for as long as he could remember. The wrinkles around her smiling eyes when she’d called a clan meeting to announce the deal with Snake Nation. The deep line between her furrowed eyebrows when he’d told her he was leaving. 

“Panam will help you,” Rogue said. “She won’t have a choice.”

V cut her off. “Won’t have a choice? Does not sound enticing–not for her, not for me.” 

“Enticing comes at a price you can’t possibly afford,” Rogue said. Her expression was stone, her voice like ice. 

What he couldn’t afford was to blow this chance at nabbing Hellman. 

Johnny piped in again. Now he sat on the table in front of Rogue. “Got a bad feeling, V.”

Yeah, I know. Panam’s outcast status didn’t necessarily inspire trust. But who was he to judge? He had no clan himself. 

“I sense a catch,” V said, turning his attention back to Rogue. “Pretty big one.”

Rogue sighed. “Occasionally, Panam moves merch for me. Last job…well, it wasn’t a good day for her. Lost the goods and her ride. Panam’ll do anything to get the load back. Means her dignity–I know her.” 

Well, that explained the shouting.

“Okay, I’ll help her,” V said. “Lemme hear what you know.”

“Rocky Ridge. Panam knows where. Go there, get the merch back–wheels too.”

V turned it all over in his head. Didn’t really have another choice, did he?

“Sending you her detes,” Rogue said.

Johnny stood up from his spot on the table. “Finally. Let’s get outta here.”

V rose from the couch. “Thanks,” he said to Rogue. She wished him luck and sent him on his way. 

As he made his way out of the Afterlife, V thought back to the moment Panam had warned him about Rogue. He hadn’t been able to shake it this whole time. He walked up the steps from the Afterlife back up onto the street. It was late, and the acrid air burned V’s throat. He felt a relic malfunction coming on, so he leaned against a nearby vending machine for support.

“Ah, shit…” It felt like his head had been split in two by a mantis blade, and the ringing in his ears was louder than the feedback at a Samurai concert.

A fresh sharp wave of pain brought him to his knees. After what felt like forever, it finally began to subside, pulling back slowly like an ocean tide. He looked up and saw his reflection looking back at him from the shiny exterior of the Spontaneous Craving Satisfaction Machine. Looking into his own eyes, he finally placed it, the force he’d seen behind the Aldecaldo’s too.

Fear.

Chapter Text

The pedal of Panam Palmer’s shitty Colby loaner was pressed firmly to the floor. Fucking Rogue. She could not believe the audacity, to tell her this mess was her own fault. Unbelievable.

She sped through the city, traffic violations piling up in her wake. It had been months since she had left the Aldecaldos. She still had not rented an apartment in the city, instead opting most nights to sleep in her Thorton–that is, until Nash had stolen it. She was headed now back to the Sunset Motel just outside the city where she had been spending the last couple of nights. She didn’t know if she could do another. The paint-chipped walls had begun to close in. 

Her thoughts were interrupted by an unknown call coming through to her holo, just as she passed out of Night City limits.

“Hello,” she said, not bothering to disguise the irritation in her voice.

“This Panam? V here.”

She didn’t know a soul by that name. “V who? V where? How did you even get this number?” She thought about hanging up before receiving an answer.

“From Rogue,” he said.

The mention of that name made Panam’s blood boil all over again. “Oh. Great. Fuck.” A bitter laugh escaped her lips. “Where’s that old war horse want to kick me now?”

“Forget Rogue for a minute. I wanna help you,” he said. His tone was even and direct. Bullshit.

“How very kind,” Panam said. “But it’s far too little, far too late. So do tell Rogue she can eat my shorts.” She almost missed the turn into the Sunset Motel parking lot. She slammed on the brakes, felt them grinding beneath her feet. It was a miracle they hadn’t given out already. She pulled haphazardly into an empty parking stall and turned the key.

“I know where to find your ride,” V said. “And your merch.”

Fuck. She was quiet for a beat, trying to decide how to play this. What did he want? This was Night City, there were always strings attached. “The rail freight yard on Bonita Street,” she said decisively. “The one hugging the city line. We’ll meet there in the morning. Six sharp.” 

She heard V say, “See ya,” just before she hung up. 

This guy better be for fucking real. 

She slept not a wink that night, and gave up trying entirely around five in the morning. She washed her face in the grime encrusted bathroom sink before pulling on her jeans and Aldecaldo jacket. She hadn’t heard from anyone in camp for a few days. She hoped they were okay.

She left the motel room. Wasn’t hard to find the car, as the place was almost entirely deserted. When she peeled out of the parking lot, the Colby’s alarm began wailing for no discernable reason. Because of course it fucking did. Panam hit the steering wheel with her hand, hard. What was it now? The ignition harness? The battery cables? Could be the perimeter scanner was on the fritz. She checked the time on the dash and it was already a quarter past five, so she decided she’d figure it out, whatever it was, when she arrived at Bonita Street. She had to beat V there. She needed the upper hand in this negotiation.

Luckily, there were not many people out and about this time of morning, in this part of Night City. They were all nursing hangovers at home or in obscure alleyways and gutters. Nobody was around to curse her for cruising down the street, her car making all this noise. 

About fifteen minutes after leaving the Sunset, she pulled into the freight yard and exited the Colby. Cranking open the hood, she searched for the source of the issue. She checked the battery cables. Looked fine. She reached down past the alternator belt, fingers reaching for the ignition harness. She found it, felt along its length. Also intact. Must be the scanner then. She reached down the gap in front of the engine, searching for the troublesome piece of hardware. “Where the fuck…” she muttered. A few seconds later, she found the scanner, knocked it around a bit, and the alarm stopped. Thank God. She doubted it would be a permanent fix, however, and intended to repair it for good. 

Now that the incessant noise had quieted, she could hear another vehicle approaching from the north, sounded like a bike. She looked up, assumed it was this V character. Was he driving a Yaiba? No…definitely an Arch. She still couldn’t see its rider. She ran to the passenger side of the car, grabbed her pistol out of the dash, and buried her head back beneath the hood of the Colby. She put the pistol down inside, just in case. Then she went back to work, reminding herself that nonchalance could be an advantage here, even though her heart beat so strongly she could feel its reverberations in her fingertips.

The roar of the Arch grew louder before stopping suddenly. After a moment, Panam could hear footsteps behind her, to her right. She waited, refusing to speak first.

“Hey, Panam?” V said, after a long moment. He sounded a little hesitant. His voice was soft, and on the quieter side. You don’t hear many quiet voices in Night City. Her nervous heartbeat started to slow. This would be easy. 

“So you’re V,” said Panam confidently, still acting busy.

He didn’t confirm or deny his identity. Panam pulled herself out from under the hood and leaned on her hands against the front of the car, actually looking at him for the first time since he’d shown up. She recognized him, those almost unnaturally blue eyes. From where? He had short, black hair. Tanned skin, bit of a beard. No visible implants or cyberware. He wore a faded tank top with a Kerry Eurodyne album cover and title on it–at least, she thought that was the reference. Jeans. A sturdy pair of boots. He was dressed like a nomad. Why was he in Night City? Had she met him on the road, years ago?

She remembered V telling her over the phone he’d picked up her detes from Rogue. That’s right, he’d been at the Afterlife the night before. Waiting for Rogue as Panam was storming out. Panam had warned him to stay away from the narcissistic bitch but, apparently, he wasn’t a very good listener. 

“Where’s my car?” she asked. The sooner she got the info, the sooner she got her ride. The sooner she could put this whole disaster behind her. 

“What’s wrong with this one?” he asked, clasping his hands behind his back, inspecting the green Colby, a hint of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. This teasing seemed good-natured, and that bothered her more than if it had been malicious. 

“I asked where my car is,” she said through gritted teeth. “Tell me all you know. Fail, and you can run back and tell Rogue to fuck right off.” She resumed digging beneath the engine of the Colby. 

“Car’s in Rocky Ridge. Rogue said you’d know where that is. Car’s there, goods’re there.”

She paused. She had not expected to find that out so easily. She could just leave now, go get her Thorton back. But she was beginning to be intrigued by this person. Why had he told her where to find her things without first explaining what he expected in exchange? What was his angle? 

“What do you want?” she finally said. “I know you’re not giving me this intel for free. I was not born yesterday.”

“Need to hit a Kang Tao transport,” V said matter-of-factly.

Panam almost hit her head on the opened hood of the car. Her hands stopped in the middle of their fumbling, and she looked over at him. He stood with his hands in his pockets, relaxed. 

  “Won’t be easy,” he said with a shrug. “Could use some help.”

“Yeah, no shit. Are you out of your goddamned mind?”

“Bout you, or the job? Kang Tao’s AV route’ll take it over the Jackson Plains. Rogue said that should help us.”

“Yeah, I doubt it.” It didn’t matter where you hit a Kang Tao transport. You’d be dead regardless. She returned her attention to fixing the scanner. This guy had decided to work with Rogue, so she knew he was crazy, but this was simply next level.

“Gonna be a guy on board,” V said. “Need to talk to him.”

She turned this information over in her brain. She really could just jet right now, go to the Aldecaldos for help, get her ride, and not end up dead in the desert, her decaying body pumped full of fancy corpo lead. Whatever V needed to talk to this guy about must be damned important if he was willing to hit this transport for it. Fuck.

Still digging under the hood, Panam finally found the alarm malfunction culprit: a loose wire only partially connected to the perimeter scanner. Bingo. With only minor difficulty, she pushed the wire back into place. She retreated from under the hood once again, meeting V’s stare. He’d been quiet, waiting patiently for her response. For the first time, she saw past his collected demeanor and witnessed the desperation there. His eyes held a thinly masked plea. She didn’t know what this guy’s story was, but she knew it was probably a long one, a heavy one. Against her better judgment, she could not deny she found V compelling.

“I dunno, I…” She trailed off, rubbing the back of her neck. She needed her Warhorse. She needed that merch. But a Kang Tao transport? It wouldn’t be the first time she’d fucked with a corp, but this was no small ask.

The alarm on the Colby began blaring once again. 

“Shit!” Panam yelled. She reached back down into the car’s guts, gripped the scanner firmly in her right hand, and pulled with everything she had. With a metallic crunch, the scanner came loose and the alarm stopped. Panam turned and threw the piece of junk across the freight yard. 

She turned back to the car, pulled her pistol from its hiding place in the engine, and slammed the hood. She looked at V, his brows raised and his eyes darting back and forth between Panam and the pistol. “Just in case,” she muttered, tucking the piece into the back of her jeans. 

She folded her arms. She didn’t know who she was kidding with all this hemming and hawing. She knew she couldn’t get her Thorton back on her own, and she knew she was gonna fucking help V in exchange. And for some reason, she couldn’t find it in her to say no to him. And that was infuriating.

“All right, deal. But if you want your thing done,” she pointed, “we’ll need to get my Thorton back first.” She leaned against the hood of the car, facing away from V.

V came around the side of the car to stand directly in front of her. “What about the merch?” he said.

“Fuck the merch,” Panam fired back. “With that ride I can take any transport job in town. Without it, only thing I can move is pizza. Maybe.”

“I get it,” said V. “I know the power of a preem ride.”

No way to survive without one as a nomad. Even though she technically didn’t have a clan, she still needed to know she had options. Her Warhorse gave her those options. Once again, she was overwhelmed by pure rage. “Nash, you dirt-eating bastard…I will strangle you,” she muttered to herself.

“Nash a choom of yours? He hang you out to dry?”

“Do not call him that.”

V let out a small laugh. “Okay, fine,” he said. “Partner.”

“Former, if ever. He straight nipped my truck and the merch. Probably now aims to sell it off in Rocky Ridge.” Panam shook her head bitterly and glared, looking right at V. “Is he ever going to be fucking disappointed.”

It was quiet for a moment as V stared thoughtfully to the distance. “All right, Rocky Ridge,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Her heart leapt at the prospect of getting her ride back, and soon. But then she remembered the whole Kang Tao thing. “Hang on. I…I should really think this through.” Was there any other way? Not that she could see. She could ask the Aldecaldos for help, but there was no guarantee they’d agree. Panam put her head in her hands, thinking. “Fuck. Yes. We’ll need backup.” She looked back up at V. “We have one brief stop to make on the way.” She had to at least ask.

“Wanna tell me where?” V said.

Panam pulled out her phone and stood up from the hood of the car. “Gimme a sec. I should call the client, convince them to leave the bastard hanging.”

V moved to the passenger side of the car and leaned against the door. Panam paced in front of the Colby, waiting for Boz to pick up. She glanced up at V out of the corner of her eye. He was staring intently past her, seemingly at nothing. She looked down the street, thinking maybe there was trouble on the horizon, but no. Nothing. Strange. It seemed like his mind was in a different place entirely.

“Go for Boz.”

“Boz, hey. Nash is gonna pass you the merch in Rocky Ridge. The thing is, the motherfucker screwed me over.”

“Screwed you over?” Boz said, anger rising in his voice. “Is my merch intact?”

“Boz, I will take care of it. I just need you to give me a chance.”

“A chance? I don’t take chances with fuckin’ mercs.”

“Boz, c’mon. How many times have I moved things for you? And how many times have I failed?”

The line was quiet for a beat. “You’ll make this right,” Boz said. 

“You have my word.”

“We’ll be at the Sunset Motel after dark.”

“After dark? Okay.”

“I’m ringing Nash.”

“No, don’t call off the meet. Just don’t show up. I’ll take care of everything.”

“You are gonna fix this, right?” Boz sounded positively venomous.

“Do you even have to ask? Of course I will.”

“One chance.”

“Thanks, Boz.” Panam drummed her fingers on the hood of the car. “You won’t regret this.”

Panam hung up, exhaled, and walked to the driver’s side, looking over the top of the car at V, who turned around to face her. “Okay,” she said. “I have bought us some time.”

“Who the hell’s Boz?” V asked. He put his folded arms up on the car, resting his chin on his forearms. “Won’t cause us any grief, I hope.”

“Boz is a stand up guy. 6th Street.”

“So–where to now?”

“The Aldecaldo camp. I need to see some of the old clan.”

“Don’t seem too excited,” V said.

She looked down at her feet, gripping the door handle. “That’s not your concern,” she said quietly. “I still have friends there.” She opened the door and climbed in the car. V followed suit, while Panam started the engine.

It was quiet for a moment while Panam pulled out of the freight yard and onto the street, heading for the highway.

“Y’know, I used to ride with nomads, too,” V said in a low tone. He was looking down at his intertwined fingers, fidgeting.

“I might’ve guessed,” Panam said. If the clothes weren’t a dead giveaway, giving her the intel about her ride before asking for anything in exchange certainly was. “Which clan?”

“Bakkers,” he continued, now looking out the window. “Back in the day. Didn’t work out between us, so I landed in Night City.”

There was definitely more to it than that. There certainly was in her case. Panam nodded. “So we’ve something in common after all.” She merged the Colby onto the highway just as the sun was rising over the road ahead of them, casting a warm light upon everything in its reach. Looking at V, she noticed the sunlight somehow increased the vibrancy of his blue eyes. Significantly.

“Rogue mentioned your clan. Said you couldn’t count on them anymore,” V said. 

Panam stared forward and gripped the wheel tighter. “Well, since Rogue said so, it must be true.” Panam couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice.

“Sorry,” V said. “I’m sure it’s complicated. Just wondering if there’s any chance they might help us? In Rocky Ridge?”

“That is the plan.”

It was quiet between them for a few moments. There was tension in the air, both of them thinking about bridges burned.

“So, where’d you get the ride?” V asked. He laughed, and despite herself, she liked the sound. She hadn’t done much laughing the past few weeks. 

“Straight outta some driveway in Rancho?” he guessed. 

She met his gaze. “Yes, exactly. Is that a problem?” she asked, raising one of her eyebrows playfully. She had rented it from some gonk she’d found online. 

V put up his hands defensively. “For me? No, not at all.” He shrugged. “I mean, there’s no accounting for taste.”

“Screw you,” Panam said. She couldn’t help but smile.

Another beat of silence, though more comfortable this time.

“How far’s the camp?” V asked. Was he being impatient, or just searching for something to say?

“Just past the city line. We're on the Nine and heading east.”

V nodded, tapping his fingers on his knees. “So, how the hell’d you land in this mess?”

“I liked the color. The air freshener and booster set came extra.”

V laughed again. Panam smiled. “You know I don’t mean the car,” he said.

At the memory of Nash’s betrayal, Panam’s anger resurged and her smile vanished as quickly as it had come. “What am I supposed to tell you? That I’m not about to let my partner rob me and get away with it? That my fixer made me look like a goddamned fool?”

Silence from V. She immediately felt bad for snapping at him.

Panam turned. V stared intently out the side window. “What about you?” she asked. “Why do you need that clown from the AV?”

“This particular clown’s got intel I need. And I’m running out of time to get it.”

Quiet again.They needed a change of subject.

“So why didn’t she tell me she knew about Nash?” Panam asked.

“Rogue? Might do better not to wonder what her agenda might be.”

“Goddamn, I can’t stand the bitch,” Panam said.

“Screw Rogue. We both got what we needed from her.”

“Yeah, except my money.”

“Don’t let her push you around. She’s not the only fixer in town.”

“Yet you’re only here because she sent you. You don’t know her. Not at all.”

It was true that Rogue had sent him. But it was also true, again, that he didn’t have to be so forthcoming with his intel about her Thorton.

“Did she tell you she was the one to bring me and Nash together?” Panam asked. “Did she tell you it slipped her mind to mention Nash was Raffen Shiv?”

“Nash is Raffen?” V asked. “That is pretty fucked up she didn’t tell you.”

“Damn right it is.”

Neither of them spoke for several minutes.

“Okay, we’re almost there,” Panam announced. “We’ll gather my guys, then ride to Rocky Ridge.”

As they pulled into view of the camp, Panam’s stomach twisted into knots. She had no idea how this was going to go down, but she did know that she needed her family now more than maybe ever. She hoped to God they’d come through.

Chapter Text

As they approached the edge of the Aldecaldo camp in Panam’s Colby, V watched two men stand up from a stack of crates where they’d been resting and approach the front of the vehicle. Panam stopped it a few feet away from them, switched off the ignition, and released a heavy sigh before reaching for the door handle and stepping out of the car. V opened the passenger door, which creaked loudly, and followed Panam to where the other Aldecaldos stood in front of the Colby. 

One of the men, his face shadowed by the hood of the leather vest he wore, spoke with a deep voice and a smile. “Well, would you look what the cat dragged in.” His arms, one of them cybernetic, were folded across his chest.

The other man, an older looking guy in a military jumpsuit, extended a ‘ganic hand to Panam. His other arm was an implant, though different from the hooded man’s. “Is that a ghost, or is it just my hangover?” He pulled Panam into a friendly hug. 

Panam laughed. “Fuck you, too,” she said. 

There was a casualness between them that was comforting, even if only just to witness. V stood slightly apart from the three of them, unsure of when or how to introduce himself.

Panam gave the hooded man a fist bump, after which the man turned and looked at V. “Mhm,” he said. “And who’s this?”

V stepped forward, and Panam shifted to make a square out of the small triangle they’d created. She looked at V with a grin and a hand on her hip. “My babysitter,” she said playfully. 

V was still trying to get a full read on Panam Palmer. She had a temper–that much was clear. She seemed honest, both in what she said and what she did. And when she smiled at him, V had to admit that the spark inside his gut was not entirely unpleasant. Thing was, he just never knew which flavor he was gonna get.

“V, this is Scorpion,” Panam said, motioning to the man in the hood. “And Mitch,” the older guy in the jumpsuit. “Two old friends.” 

V reached forward and shook with each of them. “Hey, guys” he said. “Good to meet you.”

“Likewise,” said Scorpion.

“What brings you to these parts, city girl?” Mitch asked Panam.

“The big city got too small for her,” Scorpion said.

V could tell they were joking, but he sensed that, although they were keeping it light, the men were hurt by Panam’s absence. 

“Do you have any idea how angry the old man’s going to be when he sees you here?” Scorpion asked. He began pacing.

“I’ve just come by for a spell,” said Panam. “Saul needn’t know a thing.”

“Need your help,” V said.

“With what?” Mitch asked. He looked concerned. “What’s this about?”

“Raffens screwed Panam,” said V. “Plan is to show ‘em that was a bad idea.”

Panam nodded, while Mitch lit up a cigarette.

“How bad did they get you?” Scorpion asked, worried.

“Bad enough to make me sit quietly through all your bullshit,” Panam said. “Come with me. We’ll thrash ‘em, the four of us.”

“You know we’d do anything for you, sister,” Mitch said. It sounded like the beginning of a rejection. 

“But now? Now’s hard,” Scorpion said. 

Panam scoffed. “Seriously? You won’t help?”

Mitch looked down at his feet. “Uh, well, the old man told us to sit tight and get those generators back up after the batteries went kaput,” he said.

“Generators?” Panam was almost shouting. “You won’t help because of some goddamn generators? Is this another joke?”

V felt the need to jump in, but he hesitated. He didn’t know these guys from Adam, and he didn’t want to overstep his bounds, but it wasn’t going well so far.

Mitch took a final drag of his cigarette before he tossed it to the ground and stamped it out. He shook his head. “Not this time. We’re needed here.”

Panam scoffed again. “Fuck! I don’t believe this,” she said. She folded her arms and glared at Mitch before turning her back to him. She walked a few steps toward her car. “So you’ll stay put because Saul told you to? You couldn’t care less about me?” She sounded less angry this time, more hurt. 

“Panam…” V said. He could tell this was going nowhere, and he didn’t want her to say something to these guys that she’d regret later. She ignored him, and turned back around to face the Aldecaldos. 

“This isn’t about Saul,” Scorpion said. “This is about the clan. You know that.”

“Listen, we can’t leave camp, no chance,” said Mitch. “But, Saul never said a thing about gear.”

Panam was quiet for a second. “Okay,” she said. “Well, I’ll need that rifle of yours.”

Mitch nodded. “Take whatever you want,” he said.

“And take care of yourself out there,” Scorpion added. 

“Yeah,” Panam responded. She looked distant. “Thanks, guys,” she said. “I’ll grab the gear, then be out of your hair.”

She breezed past Mitch and Scorpion and into the camp. V gave each of the guys a nod before following Panam. V could tell by the way she carried herself that she was tense. Stiff.

“Looks like you’re stuck with me,” he said. An attempt to lighten the mood a bit.

“Mmhmm,” was all he got in response. 

“You disappointed?” he asked. Partially joking, partially earnest.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe a little, yes.” Her responses were curt, and she looked at the ground as she walked.

That hurt kinda, but V knew the pain of not being able to fully depend on people who at one point woulda taken a bullet on your behalf. He could tell Panam wasn’t in the mood to talk, so he shut his mouth, getting a good look at the camp for the first time.

To their left, a group of Aldecaldos were huddled around a fire, drinking their morning coffee and eating what looked like a poor excuse for breakfast. Tents were scattered randomly around the camp, along with a few lifted trailers around the perimeter. Someone he couldn’t quite pinpoint was strumming a guitar, but the music carried throughout the camp. It was a hot day already, and V began to feel the trickle of sweat on his back. The windmills peered over an outcropping of rocks on the edge of the camp, and they were completely still. It was peaceful out here, calm.

To their right, V saw a food trailer with an awning to its side, under which a collection of mismatched tables and chairs were gathered. A nomad with an eyepatch and an accent sitting at one of the tables noticed them and called out, “Hey, Panam! You staying a while?”

She looked at him, shook her head, and without stopping said, “No, I’ll be going again soon.”

The guy with the eyepatch disappointedly turned back around.

Several other nomads greet Panam as they made their way through camp. Panam hadn’t told V much about what happened between her and the Aldecaldos, but he was starting to get a clearer picture. She obviously wasn’t a nobody around here. All the other nomads seemed to know who she was, what she was about. And Saul, whoever he was, was apparently not Panam’s number one fan. And to be honest, V could understand why. He liked Panam. He respected the fact she didn’t take shit from anyone. She knew what she wanted, and he could tell she was the kinda person who would do whatever it took to get it. But she didn’t seem to put much stock in authority or take any prisoners, and he could see how that would rub a lotta people the wrong way. Especially among nomads.

They reached an open tent with two beds and a small collection of personal items, prolly Mitch and Scorpion’s. Panam went straight for a mean sniper rifle leaning against a bedside crate. She picked it up and inspected it briefly before looking up at V. “Will you help me with this?” she asked, motioning toward a bulky briefcase on the ground near the tent’s entrance. 

As he leaned down to pick it up, V said, “What’s inside?” Based on its casing, it looked like some kinda fancy corpo tech. Weighed like it could be too. 

“A few odds and ends that should be useful,” was Panam’s vague response. 

V decided not to press it. 

“All right,” she said. “Let’s go.” She marched back toward the Colby with V close behind.

Mitch and Scorpion were sitting on a couple of folding chairs near the car. 

“So, I’m off,” Panam said. It didn’t much sound like she was excited to leave.

“Yeah, yeah,” Mitch said without getting up. “Go on, go already. Call us sometime.”

“Keep an eye on her, V,” Scorpion said. 

V nodded, though Panam didn’t seem the type needed much looking after.

Panam opened the trunk of the car, and V placed the heavy case inside. She set the sniper rifle gently on top of it before slamming the trunk, and afterward the both of them got back inside the car without a word. Panam turned the car around and peeled away from the camp, the Colby kicking up a bunch of dust in its wake. V looked at her. Her gaze was trained straight ahead, hands white-knuckled on the wheel. The freckles scattered across her cheeks and her nose were the first thing he’d noticed about her when they’d met that morning in the freight yard. He hadn’t really had a chance to get a good look at her when they’d bumped into each other the night before, at the Afterlife. Her freckles matched the color of her eyes. A few strands of her dark hair framed her face, and she didn’t bother to tuck them away. 

“What?” she said briskly.

He scrambled for something to say. “Mitch and Scorpion seem good souls.”

Panam seemed to relax a bit and looked over at V. “The best friends a girl could ask for. I’d stay in the camp too, if I were in their shoes,” she admitted grudgingly. “Fuck Saul and his generators, of course–yet the clan comes first.” 

V nodded. 

Panam was quiet for a moment before saying, bitterly, “But I’m not part of it anymore.”

“Still treated you like you’re one of them. They care about you.”

“Do you have anyone you would call close?” she asked him, making eye contact for a brief moment before redirecting her attention to the road. 

And just like that, V was once again in the back seat of the Delamain cab, covered in Jackie’s blood, holding the hand of the closest choom he’d ever had as it grew limp and cold. He saw the light leave his best friend’s eyes, slowly and then all at once. 

Back in Panam’s passenger seat, he blinked rapidly, quickly wiping a bit of moisture away from his right eye. “Uh, yeah,” he said. “Well, I did.” V searched for something else to talk about, to bring his mind back to the present. “Were those two in the army?” 

“Scorp and Mitch?” Panam said. “Yeah. Panzerboys. They were on contract during the last war.”

Panzerboys. Meanin’ they had definitely seen some shit.

“They flew those huge transporters?” V asked.

“Scorpion piloted. Mitch ran security. They both got some kick-ass combat implants and a stack of really fucked up nightmares.” 

Another heavy path V didn’t feel like going down. Time to focus on the job at hand.

“So, Rocky Ridge,” he said. “Empty, dusty hole in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, I heard. Natives either moved to Night City or just got the hell out.”

“That about sums it up,” Panam said. “The whole area was waiting on a new interstate extension. It was supposed to breathe new life into the town. It didn’t happen, of course.”

“I’m sure there’s many a ghost town around here,” V said.

“Country-wide there are thousands,” said Panam. “I drove down I-80 the other day. All you have to do is pull over after sundown. It’s quiet then. And you hear it.”

“Hear what?” V asked.

“The wind, whistling through boarded up windows. Tumbleweeds scratching across dry, sandy tracks.” Her voice hung heavy. She looked over at V. “That’s how towns die. Not with a bang, but with whispers and whimpers.”

After a few minutes of silence, they pulled into the empty desert town of Rocky Ridge. Panam stopped the car in the middle of the street, a power plant on one side, and a building on the other with an unlit sign across the front that read “BD Shack.” Shack indeed. The place was falling apart, giving way to the circumstances of disuse. The two of them sat there for a second, looking and listening. Panam was right. He could hear it, the whispers and whimpers of the dead town. It creeped him out.

“So what now?” V asked as the two of them stepped out of the car. 

“We get ready to greet the Raffens,” she said excitedly. “We’ll need to improvise.”

She looked around, scoping out the area. V did the same. They stood in the middle of the main street. He could see other smaller roads weaving around the trailers and dilapidated buildings in the near distance. There was an empty gas station next to the braindance shack, directly across from the power station tower.

“You think this place still has any power?” Panam asked, looking toward the power plant and shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand.

“Lemme check,” said V. He activated his Kiroshi implants and scanned a few nearby devices. Zip. “Doubt Rocky Ridge could be any deader. Everything’s down, nothing works here.”

“How’d you figure that so fast?” said Panam. 

V tapped next to his eye. “Kiroshis,” he said. 

Panam put her hand on her hip. “Huh. Didn’t think you had any implants.”

“Not many,” he said. 

“Well, okay then. That will come in handy.”

Panam brought her hand to her chin, thinking for a long while as she stared at the power plant. 

“You having an epiphany?” V asked. 

“The Raffens will roll in after dusk, right?” she said. “We will have a surprise ready for them. We just need to get some power flowing.” She smiled, a devious one. “Come on.”

She marched toward the substation, V alongside. She knelt down and inspected a hefty piece of machinery next to the road that was attached to the station. “Use those fancy implants of yours and go find the transformer, will you?” she said.

“You got it.” V walked around the side of the substation and stepped over the crumbling cinder block wall. After scanning a few pieces of tech, he located the transformer. His implants indicated the power source was located on the roof of the substation. He ran up the steps and quickly found the fuse box. 

“Found the breakers,” he called out to Panam below. “But there’s no juice on ‘em.”

“Not to worry,” Panam called back. “Come down! I know how to surprise the bastards.”

V made his way back to the street where Panam was leaning against a concrete barrier. She seemed very excited as she laid out her plan, motioning with her hands while she spoke. “Right. So. The intersection is powered from that transformer substation, right? The switchgear on the roof–we’ll flip the switch there and everything will light up like Christmas! Understood?” 

“Fine idea,” said V. Her excitement was contagious, and he couldn’t help but smile. “Let’s get us some power. I’ll look around for access points.”

“Great,” Panam said. “They’re likely to show up in numbers, we can’t know how many. We need to outfox them, then get to my car somehow.”

“Got a few ideas,” he said. “I’ll try to play a little game with ‘em at the intersection.” His preferred approach to any job was stealth, and he’d gained a reputation in Night City as somebody who could get shit done quickly, cleanly, and quietly. 

The biggest grin he’d witnessed yet burst across Panam’s face. “Hell yes,” she said, pumping her fist slightly. “Perfect.”

“Soon as they see the lights, they’ll have to check who, why, and how–nova.” 

Panam brought the Colby around the back of the substation and began inspecting the transformer. V opened the trunk and grabbed a pair of jumper cables. As soon as they were both connected to the battery, the Colby sparked, spurted, and hissed. 

“There she goes,” said Panam with faux sorrow. “But the old jalopy served us well.” 

Panam ordered V to activate the power from within the substation and get to the roof to wait for the Raffens.

“Sure thing,” he said.

V was beginning to realize he and Panam made a pretty good team. She had a good eye, a good mind for planning ops. And he was skilled at carrying them out. Maybe he was only feeling homesick, but he felt like he’d known Panam for more than just a morning. And he was starting to think that maybe he really would be able to nab Anders Hellman after all.

Chapter Text

Panam climbed the winding metal steps of the tower behind the Rocky Ridge power station. When she reached the top, she looked down to check on V. He was circling the substation below, looking for a way into the main building to activate the power. Giving up, he eventually gripped the metal door and pulled it open with his bare hands, busting the locking mechanism. He was built, but wiry. She’d have never guessed he’d be able to do that . Impressive.

V disappeared inside the building for a minute or two before re-emerging and climbing the outside stairs to the top of the substation. He sat down and leaned against the half wall that bordered the entire roof, right next to the breaker box. She watched him run a hand through his hair, scratch the back of his neck, pull up his knees. He reached into a pocket and pulled out his phone, looked up at Panam. She jumped when her holo rang, but recovered quickly and picked up. 

“What now, boss?” V said over the holo.

“Now we wait. And then we’ll have some fun at the intersection.” She checked the time, and was slightly disappointed to learn it wasn’t only a few minutes to noon. The Raffens weren’t set to show until after dark. They’d be waiting for quite a while, then. The anticipation of reclaiming her Thorn, soon, was almost too much.

“Gonna be a good wait, then,” said V. “You must be chompin’ at the bit to get your ride back.”

He’d read her mind. She grunted and said, “I would kill for a distraction.” She sat down and leaned her back against the fortified railing of the tower. She couldn’t see V from here, but she could still hear him through the holo. 

“All right,” he said. “What’s the bizarrest shit you’ve seen in Night City?”

She laughed. “Fuck, that’s gonna take me a minute.”

“I’ll go,” he said. He told her about a guy named Ozob who’d called him up and contracted him as a driver. “So I pull up to the curb at the pickup spot, and this guy Ozob gets in my car. Almost shit a brick when he turns to face me. Guy has a fuckin’ grenade where his nose is supposed to be.”

“What the fuck?” said Panam. 

“Yep. Big one.” V told her what happened next. How the guy made him stop at a restaurant in Watson and blasted the whole place to shit. “Luckily nobody got hurt, don’t think. Booked it outta there regardless.”

“I really do not think I can top that,” Panam said. 

“Prolly not,” said V. “But you gotta have somethin’.” 

“On my way to the Afterlife for the first time, I saw a woman, shitfaced, accidentally vomit on a man sleeping in a gutter. When she realized what she’d done, she started crying. He woke up, and they left. I am certain they went home together.” 

“Yeah,” said V. “That’s pretty standard.”

They both laughed, swapping stories this way for some time.

After a while, Panam’s stomach growled loudly. She cursed herself for forgetting to grab some grub from camp when they had the chance.

“You have any food?” she asked V.

“Nope, but I’m hungry too,” he said. “Alright if I see what I can find?”

“Yeah, okay,” she said. She knelt, pulled up her sniper rifle, and aimed the scope toward the gas station. “There might still be something in there.”

She watched V descend from the substation roof and cross the street. With the butt of his pistol, he busted the glass on one of the side entrances to the gas station and climbed in. He returned to her sight a few minutes later with his arms full. He came back across the street, heading for the tower where Panam waited. She put her sniper rifle down and stood, leaning back against the railing. When V reached the top, he planted himself right in front of her and held his arms out. 

“Take your pick,” he said, his voice both right next to her and echoing through the holo, in her ear. She checked out the haul. A couple of burritos wrapped in foil, a few cups of dry ramen, a shrink-wrapped slice of pizza, and two cans of NiCola.

“You’re sure this stuff won’t kill us?” she asked. 

“Not any more likely than usual,” he said.

“I’ll take the burritos, a cup of ramen, and the NiCola Blue.”

“You got it.” V handed her the food. “Sure that’s it?”

“Mmhmm.”

He took the rest and headed back down the stairs. “Get back to work,” he barked over his shoulder. She smiled, sat back down, and unwrapped one of the burritos.

She was surprised at how comfortable she felt around V, and how quickly. Maybe it was just because she’d been gone from camp for so long, and hadn’t spent much time around nomads lately. She knew she should keep her guard up, especially after what happened with Nash. But V was different. When she’d worked with Nash for the first time, she’d known almost immediately that he was trouble and it would only be a matter of time before he stabbed her in the back. Her instincts had proven correct, although she was still furious she hadn’t put a stop to it before he’d had the chance. Now, her instincts were telling her that V could be trusted. All she had to do was believe them.

They were both quiet while they ate. When she was finished, Panam bunched up the burrito wrappers, smashed NiCola can, the empty ramen cup, and tossed them aside. 

She had been thinking about what V had said in the car, on their way here from the Aldecaldo camp. He’d been trying to make her feel better about how the meet with Mitch and Scorpion went down, which didn’t really work, yet she appreciated it nonetheless. When she asked him if he had anyone close, he had deflated completely, and she thought she’d even seen him wipe away a few tears. He told her he did have someone close. Past tense. Whatever sorrow he carried, it ran deep. 

“Hey, V?” she said. 

“What’s up?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Ya already have.”

“Shut up, you know what I mean.”

He laughed. “Shoot.”

She hesitated for a few seconds. “I just…I get the sense that you have lost someone. And…well, I wondered if you might tell me about it.”

V was quiet, and she feared she’d taken him somewhere he was not ready to go. 

“His, uh…His name was Jackie. Jackie Welles.” V’s voice trembled. She gathered he was trying rather hard to keep it steady. 

“Jackie Welles,” she said. “What was he like?”

V laughed. “Jackie was, well, the best friend I’ve ever had. I worked with him on the first job I ever got in Night City, and afterward he took me in. I didn’t have anywhere to stay, so he let me crash with him and Mama Welles for a couple months. She owns a bar in Heywood, El Coyote Cojo, and she lives up top. I stayed there for a few weeks, working jobs with Jackie, saving up my eddies to get my own place. Which I did, eventually.”

He was thoughtful for a minute.

“Everything Jackie did, he did it all the way. He had big dreams, a big laugh, and an even bigger heart. He was loyal to a fault, would do anything for family. Not sure how I got lucky enough to be considered part of his.”

V paused again. Then he said, “I think you woulda really liked him.”

Panam smiled. She wasn’t sure if she should ask the next question, but she went for it anyway. “How’d he, um…What happened?”

V cleared his throat. “Last job we did together went south. Jackie got shot, and bled out on the way back. He, uh…he died right next to me. Been hard to shake the image.”

She was curious to know more, but worried that she’d dug too deep.

“Shit, V. I’m sorry.” 

“Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”

Panam didn’t know what to say. The Aldecaldos had lost people, and it always sucked, but she’d never lost somebody she’d been that close to, not like V had been with Jackie.

“It okay if I get some shuteye for just a few minutes?” V said, interrupting her thoughts. 

“Of course,” she said. “I’ll keep an eye on the horizon.” 

“Wake me before too long. Just wanna rest my eyes.”

Neither of them said anything for a few minutes. Panam thought V had fallen asleep when she heard his voice again over the holo.

“Hey, Panam?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for listening.”

Several hours passed, and though Panam’s own eyes grew heavy due to her past few sleepless nights, she stayed awake and let V sleep. She listened to his soft breathing through the holo and thought about home.

The sun was beginning to set. Panam got up and stretched before grabbing her sniper rifle and assuming her position. 

“V?” she said. She looked down at his position on the substation roof. He still sat leaning against the half wall, his legs extended in front of him, head lolling to the side and hands relaxed in his lap. Something had shifted in her after V told her about Jackie. The way he spoke of his friend. She would be happy to help him with his Kang Tao problem when this was over. 

“V?” she spoke a little louder this time. He awoke with a jolt and pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers for a second.

“They comin’?” he said, moving to a crouching position facing the road. He peeked over the half wall. 

“Not yet,” she said. “But it’s getting dark. We should be ready.”

“Yes, ma’am.” 

“They should be coming from the east. Keep your eyes peeled.”

A few tense minutes passed while the sun set and they both thought about what was coming. Before too long, a trail of headlights showed up on the highway.

“Incoming,” Panam said. She kept her scope trained on the vehicles as they grew closer. “Don’t forget the plan–flip the switch on my signal. I’ll cover you from here.”

“Sounds good,” said V. 

Panam scanned the line of cars, looking for her Warhorse. She finally spotted it through the dust, just as the Raffens made it into Rocky Ridge and began to slow. 

“There’s my Thorn!” she said. “You see ‘er?”

“Really, really hard to miss,” said V with a laugh. 

God, she couldn’t wait to smell those dusty leather seats again. The Raffens pulled into the intersection and stopped their vehicles. They piled out of the cars like so many cockroaches and met up near the gas station.

The woman who’d been driving Panam’s Thorn looked to the others. She had a ridiculous mohawk perched atop her head. “Where’s that son-of-a-bitch, Boz?” she said.

Panam felt a surge of anger. Where the fuck was Nash?

“You!” said the woman, who seemed to be in charge, pointing to one of her cronies. “Wait for them here.”

Time to get this show on the road. “Now, V,” Panam said quietly over the holo.

“Let there be light,” came his reply.

Through her sniper scope, trained steadily on the Raffen leader, she saw the streetlights and neon signage flood the intersection with light. She leaned back from her scope and looked down at V, but he was already gone from his spot on the roof. 

Shit. She was supposed to be covering him, just in case he got made. Where had he gone? The Raffen leader made her way toward the BD Shack, while the others pulled out their weapons and went on patrol. One of the Raffens started making their way toward the substation, stepping over the fallen fence in the back. Fuck. What if the Raffen started climbing the tower? What if she got made before V did? They hadn’t really planned for that.

Before she could worry much more, V made himself known. He crouched silently out from beneath the substation stairs, grabbed the Raffen from behind, and silently took her down. Damn. He was good. 

She adjusted her position so she could follow him with her scope, making sure none of the other Raffens would be able to get the jump on him. But really, there was no need. One by one, V took down every single Raffen. He seemed to know exactly where each of them were at all times–must be those Kiroshi implants. He started with two near the substation before making his way around the back of the BD Shack. He climbed silently to the roof of the gas station, taking out the sniper there. He took out the two guards remaining down on the street before disappearing inside the BD Shack through a side door.

“Careful,” she said. “I lost eyes on you.”

V didn’t say anything, probably for fear of being overheard.

“The one with the mohawk,” Panam said. “She has the key.”

A few tense minutes later, V came strolling casually out the front door of the BD Shack like he owned the place, grinning. He held her key up in the air and looked straight toward Panam’s position. “Got it,” he said.

“The cherry on top. Wait for me in the car.”

She packed up her gear and hustled down the steps, running to her Thorn. She opened the driver’s side door and was surprised to see V sitting behind the wheel.

“Move,” she said. “I’m taking the wheel.” 

V laughed. “Sure, sure,” he said. He climbed over to the passenger side. “Leave the driving to the pros.”

Panam stepped up into the Thorn and closed the door slowly. She inhaled deeply, ran her hands over the steering wheel, adjusted the seat, and popped the top hatch open, just how she liked it. “At last,” she sighed. 

She looked over at V, who was smiling. The look in his eyes, the way it made her feel better than she had in weeks. Shit. “And?” she asked. “She’s prime wheels, isn’t she?”

“Dreamy, indeed. No surprise you wanted her back.”

She squinted at him, trying to detect any hint of sarcasm in his voice. She found none. “She completes me,” Panam said. 

V laughed. “Glad we could get her back in one piece. And ya see? We managed just fine without Mitch and Scorpion.”

Panam looked out the windshield toward the BD Shack. One of the lights in the “h” was flickering. She’d been turning this over in her head since she realized Nash hadn’t come with the rest, but she wasn’t sure how to present the idea to V. The only thing she did know is that she couldn’t do it alone. And now that she’d seen what V was capable of, she thought they might even stand a chance.

“Listen, V,” she said. “It’s not over yet.”

“It’s not?” V said. He sounded genuinely confused. “You got the cargo, you got your car–”

She cut him off. “I did not get Nash, who was not in Rocky Ridge. The fucker didn’t show.”

“Panam…” V said. She could tell he knew where she was going with this.

“Listen, I have a plan.”

She turned to face him, expecting a retort but getting none, so she continued.

“I know where their little hidey-hole is,” she said. “We’ll take the old, unfinished freeway nearby. They will not be expecting us. I’m sure of it.”

V looked out the window at the gas station. He sighed, ran his hand across his short beard, and scratched underneath his chin. He looked tired. His eyes darted around as he thought, and then he clenched his jaw. Panam noticed the angular, strong shape of it. He turned and looked right into her eyes, and even in the dim light, their blue gaze was piercing. She felt her cheeks flush a bit, and she was grateful it was nighttime. 

“All right, let’s go,” V said. “Where’s this hideout?”

“A hop and skip away,” she said, smiling from ear to ear. 

V resisted, but he couldn’t hold out long before he rolled his eyes and smiled back.

Panam shifted the Thorn into gear with relish, but she paused before pulling out of the gas station. Her integrity meant everything to her, and Nash had really taken a shit on it when he double-crossed her. With V’s help, she had a real chance to regain what she’d actually lost–not just her ride. She didn’t know how to properly thank him.

“Thanks, V,” she said quietly, glancing sideways at him with her hands on the wheel. It wasn’t enough, but it was sincere. She pushed down on the pedal and began driving out of Rocky Ridge. “What Nash did…I placed my trust in him. He was the first person I worked with after leaving the Aldecaldos. After I came to Night City.”

She could feel V watching her as she spoke. She kept her eyes dead ahead. 

“I granted him my trust,” she said. Her voice broke a little at the end. 

“I get it. I know how you feel,” said V. “Had someone betray me just like that once.” He paused. “A fixer. Hold him responsible for Jackie’s death.”

A moment of quiet.

“And did you make him pay?” Panam asked. She was angry, and it showed in her words. Angry at Nash, angry on V’s behalf.

Mad as she was, Panam was not prepared for the vitriol that stained V’s voice when he replied. “Never got the chance,” he said. “Someone else got to ‘im first.” 

“But if they hadn’t? Would you have done it?”

“No doubt. ‘Thout skippin’ a beat.” 

Panam glanced sideways once again at V. His fists rested on his knees, clenched. His shoulders were tense. She’d borne witness to the pain he held, but for the first time she recognized the anger he carried alongside it. A burden that, over the past few weeks, she’d become all too familiar with herself. 

She realigned her grip on the steering wheel, steeling herself. “Let’s get this over with,” she said. 

Chapter Text

The Thorn accelerated as they got closer to the mine where the Raffens were holed up. V had to admit it really was a preem ride–though the software inside desperately needed an update. But it was big, and it was fast. He got why Panam had wanted it back so bad. She really looked at home behind the wheel, gleeful even. Although that could also be due to the stunt they were about to pull.

V paused for a split sec to actually think about what he was doing here. He was about to cruise into near-certain death next to a person he’d only met less than twenty four hours ago. And for what? He thought back to what Panam’d asked him, about whether he would’ve made the person who betrayed him pay. He closed his eyes and pictured Dexter DeShawn, standing above him, holding a nasty piece of chrome right up against V’s head, in the moment before he’d pulled the trigger. Cut to the landfill, V watching Goro Takemura sighting down the backstabbing fixer beneath him, who, in the mud, pleads for his life. The flash of a bullet leaving the chamber. 

He may not have had the chance to get his own vengeance, but he could help Panam get hers. 

The mine entrance was now directly in front of them, and Panam stopped the Thorn. “Are you ready?” she asked.

“Let’s get ‘im,” V said. He pulled out his Tamayura, a powerful pistol he’d nabbed off of Sasquatch–the aptly named Animal he’d taken down at the Grand Imperial Mall when he was looking for Brigitte, leader of the Voodoo Boys. He held the gun in one hand while he gripped the door handle with the other, ready to bail out at a moment’s notice. He looked to Panam, who looked back, face set in determination. V gave a curt nod. 

Panam refocused on the road ahead and gunned it, expertly navigating the Thorn at full speed through the narrow mineshaft, dodging mining equipment and debris along the way. Just before they reached what looked like the main chamber, she pulled the handbrake, causing the Thorn to drift sideways while a horde of Raffen looked toward them in surprise, scrambling to pick up their weapons and take cover. Just as the Thorn came to a halt, V leapt out the passenger door and ducked behind a concrete barrier, pistol at the ready. The Raffens were already firing, bullets ricocheting off the tunnel walls and the body of the Thorn. V couldn’t see Panam and assumed she’d taken cover on the other side of the Thorn. He was proven correct when he watched her big ass sniper rifle slam down on the hood of the car, Panam on the other end of the scope with venom in her eyes. “What, asshole?” she shouted. “Did you really think I’d let it slide?” 

Time to move. 

V jumped out of cover and fired toward the Raffens, using his Kiroshis to pinpoint their exact locations. He tossed an incendiary grenade at a group of them huddled behind a vehicle, and the whole thing went up in a beautiful display of flames. V moved up and took cover behind a large, empty industrial bin. To his left, Panam put a bullet through the eye of the only Raffen remaining on that side of the cavern. 

“Panam!” he called over to her. 

They looked at each other, and V motioned to the upper floor of the building to the left. Panam nodded, picked up her rifle, and ran up the stairs to the building while V layed down covering fire on the other side of the cavern. Before V could move to his next cover, Panam had already taken down three Raffen from her new vantage point. V peeked around the edge of the bin to scope the layout of the rest of the cavern. To his right were a set of steps that led to a walkway, which crossed the upper part of the cavern to the building on the far side. If he had to guess, that’d be where Nash was. V was about to advance when a sniper perched on the walkway raised her weapon and pointed it right at him. He darted back behind the bin just as the sniper fired, taking a massive chunk out of the metal flooring next to V’s foot.

Shit.

Luckily, most of the remaining Raffens seemed preoccupied with Panam, picking them off one by one from a distance. V improvised a plan. He pulled out his katana, the one he’d gotten as a reward from saving that surgeon in the refrigerator from the Tyger Claws (he’d have to remember to tell Panam about that one later). He activated a quickhack on the sniper’s system, rebooting her optics and temporarily blinding her. Once the hack triggered, he ran from cover as fast as he could, effortlessly slicing through every Raffen he encountered on his path to the walkway. When he reached the sniper’s position, she was still crouched over, grabbing at her head in reaction to the pain from the hack. He drove the katana through her chest and crouched down next to her corpse, reassessing the situation. Two Raffens left. One in the building on the other side of the walkway, the other just below V’s position. V leaned over the edge of the walkway and threw a perfectly aimed knife through the top of the gonk’s head. He heard a bullet from Panam’s rifle ricochet off the exterior of the building where their target was, followed by a burst of maniacal laughter from Nash. Taking advantage of Nash’s preoccupation, V moved silently toward the building. He peeked around the edge of the doorway. Nash was kneeling below the far window, rising every once in a while to fire off a pot shot in Panam’s general direction. V made his move. He quickly and quietly rushed into the room and put Nash into a headlock from behind.

“Panam!” V called across the cavern.

“On my way!” she yelled back.

V drew his pistol with his free hand and trained it right against Nash’s temple. He turned to face the doorway just as Panam entered, breathing heavily. 

“Seen Rogue lately?” Nash choked out. “Or did she ghost your ass?”

“Shut your fucking mouth!” roared Panam, marching across the room toward them. She was absolutely beside herself. 

V pushed Nash into the corner where he fell to his knees. V moved to stand next to Panam.

“Can’t say I blame ‘er,” Nash said, looking up at the two of them. “I’d wanna rid myself of a bitch like you fast as I could, too.”

With an angry yell, Panam tossed her rifle to the ground like it was a kid’s toy, snatched the Tamayura right out of V’s hand, took two steps forward, and shot Nash in the head. His body crumpled and fell to the side. After a moment, she lowered the pistol slowly, her breath carrying through her entire torso. She turned around and returned V’s pistol by slapping it onto his chest on her way past him, without saying a word. He holstered it and stared at Nash’s corpse for a few seconds. Smoke wafted up from the fresh hole between his lifeless eyes.

Damn. That musta felt good. He doubted the whole op coulda gone any smoother.

He made his way back down to where Panam stood, leaning against a barrier, talking on the holo. 

“Hello, Rogue.”

“Panam.” Rogue sounded exhausted by the conversation already.

“What did you say, again?” Panam said. “‘Solve your own problems? Clean up your shit?’ Nash is dead. One shit cleaned. Happy?”

V could hear it in Panam’s voice–she’d been itching to make this call.

“And the Sixth Street merch?” Rogue asked.

“Nash can’t deliver it anymore. But if you ask nicely,” she taunted, “I might be able to help you.”

“Help me?” said Rogue. “I took my cut up front, honey. But, I guess I’m touched. Was actually wondering if you wouldn’t forget about biz while you were out chasing down a vendetta.” 

Panam ended the call. “Fuck!” she shouted. 

V shook his head. Rogue was a condescending bitch, but V knew there was prolly not much he could offer at the moment that wouldn’t just make Panam angrier. “Let’s get outta here,” he said.

Panam scowled and nodded at him before turning to walk back to the Thorn. V followed suit. As they approached the car, V heard the familiar static that meant Johnny was around. The rockerboy materialized, leaning arrogantly against a barrier next to the vehicle. 

“One bitter, cold bitch that Rogue. Think she might’ve lost the plot.”

Mean to say she used to be sweet and alluring?

Johnny chuckled. “Never that. But she’s no stranger to the other end of the stick. Think she might need a nice, strong shock.” 

V jumped in the passenger side and Johnny vanished as quickly as he’d arrived.

Panam put the Thorn in gear and drove toward the exit on the other side of the mine. She initiated another call on her holo. 

“Hey, Boz,” she said. “Got your cargo.”

V couldn’t hear what Boz was saying on the other side of the line, not for lack of trying.

“No, no fast ones,” said Panam. “Come on, let’s meet. Sunset Motel, yeah?”

Quiet for a moment while Boz replied. 

Panam furrowed her brow and moved her phone away from her ear. “I know you’re not  kidding,” she said. “I’m certain to be there.” She ended the call and put her phone back in her pocket.

“Okay,” she said to V. “I arranged our meeting.” She paused for a second. “Let’s do the deal and start working on Hellman. Agreed?”

V looked forward to it. If that op went half as well as this one, his brain might not end up as mush in just a short while. “Sixth Street not likely to pull anything?” he asked.

“I’ve driven for them before. Never had them do anything strange. I’m hoping they know what’s good for business.”

“Sunset Motel–what’s that?” said V.

“A safe spot. It’s not far from here.”

“Should be fun.”

Panam looked over at V. “You’re a mess,” she said. 

He glanced down at himself, covered in blood just beginning to dry. “Well, least none of it’s mine,” he said. 

“There is that,” said Panam. She paused. “You were pretty impressive back there. In Rocky Ridge, too.” 

“Weren’t so bad yourself,” V said. “Think we make a decent duo. Where’d you learn to use that rifle so well?”

“Mitch taught me.”

“Well, remind me not to end up on the wrong end of it.”

Panam laughed. “I do not think that’ll be a problem.”

They didn't speak again until the hotel came into view. “They’re here,” said Panam.

A nondescript black van was parked in front of the motel. Three gonks in worn and outdated military gear stood next to the van. They followed the Thorn with their eyes as V and Panam pulled up. Panam parked, the Thorn’s headlights trained directly on the gangers. 

“Sensing trouble?” V asked, wondering how he should play this.

“No. At least, I don’t think so,” said Panam. She got out of the Thorn and went around the back to grab the merch. V opened the passenger door and drew his pistol in his left hand. He stood facing the gangers, partially obscured by the door, resting his pistol on the inside handle. The first thing V noticed about Boz was his leg. It wasn’t ‘ganic, but it didn’t really look like an implant, neither. Looked like an old school prosthetic.

Panam approached the men, carrying the merch. It wasn’t a very big package, and V couldn’t help but wonder what was inside. Better’ve been worth all this trouble. 

“Hey, Boz,” said Panam.

“Panam,” said Nash, drawing out the “a'' sounds in her name. Talked like they were old chooms, like they went way back. “How’s Nash? Doesn’t seem to be answerin’ his phone.”

“Don’t call him anymore,” said Panam. “There’s no need.”

Boz let out a bark of a laugh. “You got balls, girl.” He pointed at V. “What’s this?” he said. “A bonus of some sort?”

V didn’t say a word. 

Panam looked over her shoulder at him. “A partner.” She gave a small nod as she said it. She turned back to Boz and extended the package. “There,” she said. “First-class merch.” 

One of the other gangers stepped forward and took it from her. He opened the top of the box and inspected the inside. He leaned over to Boz to show his boss the contents, but nobody said anything and V started to get nervous. 

Panam spoke up. “So, everything’s in order?” V detected the slightest hint of worry in her voice. 

Boz looked up at her and smiled. “Check your account,” he said. “Should be pretty plush in a couple minutes.” He extended a hand to Panam.

She returned the expression and shook with him. “It’s been a pleasure,” she said. “But I believe Rogue’s the one who is to pay me?”

“You’re all right,” said Boz. “Think you earned a tip.”

V and Panam stayed put while they watched the gangers load up and drive away. Once the van was out of sight, Panam turned and walked toward V, a massive grin spread across her face. “That went well!” she said. 

V closed the passenger door. Panam eyed the pistol in his left hand, then looked at him with a raised brow and a hand on her hip. 

He smiled and shrugged as he put the weapon away. “Just in case,” he said.

Panam laughed. “C’mon,” she said. “Let’s get a drink.” 

V followed Panam up the stairs to the second floor of the motel. “Raffens wiped,” he said. “Sixth Street’s pleased. Pretty good day for Panam Palmer.” 

She smiled at him over her shoulder. “The day’s not over yet,” she said. “You still have a chance to piss me off.” 

V laughed. He’d done so more in the last twenty four hours than he had the past month. 

Fuck. They’d reached the top of the stairs, and V could feel another relic malfunction coming on. He coughed violently and his vision went haywire. He leaned against the balcony railing, away from Panam.

Panam stopped and he could feel her watching him from behind. “V? What’s wrong?” she asked. She sounded freaked out.

“I’m fine,” he sputtered between coughs. “Just need a sec.”

He looked at her over his shoulder and Panam hesitated, reached toward him unsurely. 

“Really,” he said. “I’m good. Meet you inside.”

She seemed reluctant, but said okay and disappeared into the bar. 

V sat down on the top step and gathered himself. He held his head in his hands, between his knees. The coughing had stopped after a few seconds, but the headache hadn’t quite waned yet. He put his finger under his nose and pulled it away. Blood. 

“Shit…” he muttered. He lifted the hem of his tank top and wiped away the blood. After a minute or two, the bleeding stopped. He felt recovered enough and stood up. 

He walked through the door and found Panam sitting at the bar, talking with the bartender. It was pretty small, and there were only a few other lonely souls scattered around. Panam turned and watched him as he approached. He took the empty stool next to her, sitting sideways so he faced her and leaned his elbow on the bar. 

“Hey, V,” she said. “You okay?” Her eyes were searching. 

He waved a hand dismissively. “I’m good,” he said. “Who’s this?” He motioned toward the bartender who wore a concerned look as he surveyed V, eyed the blood on his clothes. 

Panam introduced them. “V, Noah—Noah, V.” 

They gave each other a nod. 

“So,” said Noah, looking to Panam. “New biz, or new friends back there?”

“Take a wild guess,” said Panam.

Noah shook his head and gave what seemed to V a rather sad smile. 

Panam continued, “Did those bozos come around again?”

“Nah, it’s been quiet,” Noah said. “They’ll be back sure enough, but this place has seen worse.” He paused for a moment. “What can I get ya?”

Panam made a two with her fingers. “Brosephs, please,” she said.

Noah left to fetch their drinks.

“You know each other?” V asked.

Panam turned her stool to face him, her arms folded. “Not really. I’ve been staying here off and on the past couple of weeks.”

V nodded. “So, that package for Street–what was it?”

“You didn’t peek?” she asked.

V shook his head.

“Baloperidol. Drugs for the cyberpsychos in our midst.”

V was surprised. “They trade in ‘em?”

“Yes,” said Panam. “They have deals. With black clinics, rippers…”

“You know much about cyberpsychosis?” V asked.

Panam shook her head. “Not at all.”

“Don’t fully understand it myself, but I worked with a fixer in Night City to help some of them out. Name of Regina Jones. Know her?”

Panam shook her head again. “What do you mean help them out?”

“Guess Regina’s been looking into some kind of treatment, a way to help ‘em manage the cyberpsychosis at least. Helped her bring in a whole bunch of ‘em alive, for research.”

“Wait–are you the one who took down Euralio?” Panam’s face was marked by disbelief.

“Euralio…” V said, searching his memory. “Euralio Alma? Yeah, think he was the one near here actually, with the mech rig. If I’m rememberin’ right. Tough bastard.”

“Holy shit,” said Panam. “Did you know Euralio’s an Aldecaldo? The clan searched for him for days after he went missing. Scorpion told me he’d been found and sent someplace in Night City. He said they were getting him help, but I didn’t believe it. That was really you?”

V shrugged. “Guess so,” he said. “Small world, huh?”

“Well, I guess I should thank you then.”

V shook his head and scratched his arm. “Nah,” he said. “Really. Don’t mention it. I was paid well.”

Noah arrived then and placed the beers on the bar in front of them. “Sorry for the wait,” he said. “Had to grab ‘em from the back.”

“Thanks,” said V. He picked up the bottle and lifted it toward Panam. “Well, here’s to that Thorn of yours!”

Panam smiled and V’s stomach flipped like a fuckin’ pancake. The way it reached her eyes, a few miniscule wrinkles gathered at their edges. She raised her bottle, tapping it against V’s. “Thanks for everything. Partner.” V liked the way the word sounded coming off her lips. 

He took a few pulls and set his bottle gently on the bar. Panam was still going to town on hers, bottle almost vertical in the air while she chugged it. She drained the whole thing without coming up for air once and slammed the empty bottle back down. “Another one over here,” she called to Noah. He really didn’t know anyone else quite like Panam Palmer, and he doubted he ever would. 

“Thanks, Noah,” she said. 

Noah took away the empty bottle and replaced it with a full one. “Cheers. Lemme know if you need anything else.” He disappeared around the back. 

Panam took a much smaller swig of her second beer while V searched for something to say. The neon lights that hung over the bar cast a warm glow on Panam’s face. She seemed the most relaxed she’d been all day–understandably. And even though he was exhausted, covered in Raffen blood, and reeked to high heaven, he wasn’t sure he wanted the day to be over with quite yet. 

“The Raffens,” he said. “We done with ‘em?” He couldn’t imagine they’d take kindly to the ass-kicking they’d endured today.

“Oh no,” said Panam. “The Shiv are cockroaches. One’s never rid of them.”

V liked the way she talked. It was different, unique. 

“But it should be quiet for a time,” she continued. “They’ll need to gather their wits and dust themselves off.”

V nodded and took another drink. The beer was cold, and it felt like it carried down all the dust that had been building up in his throat all day. “Think you’ll ever go back to the Aldecaldos?” he asked.

Panam shot him a warning glance.

“I mean, not right now…,” he backpedaled. “But, someday?”

Panam sighed, but she didn’t seem angry. “I don’t rightly know,” she said. “On the one hand, I don’t have anyone outside the clan. Shit, I don’t really know any other life.”

She stared at the TV without really seeing it. 

“But on the other?” V pressed.

Panam met his eyes and he caught a hint of the fear he’d seen in them when they’d crossed paths at the Afterlife. “Without my clan, who am I? Who would I become if I stayed in Night City?”

The faces of V’s former Bakker family flashed before his eyes, and then were swiftly replaced by the image of Jackie, hunched over in the back of the Delamain. V took another swig of beer.

“When I left my clan, came to Night City…” he said, trailing off. Panam looked at him intently, listening carefully to each word he spoke.

“I saw my chance,” he continued. “I took it.” He paused. His voice grew quiet. “I lost almost everything.” He looked down at his boots.

“Shit…” said Panam. She scoffed. “That’s comforting.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” he said. “Just…somethin’ to factor into your decision, maybe.”

Panam took a long drink and picked at something on the sleeve of her jacket for a few seconds. “Let’s talk about something else. Anything else.”

It was getting late, and the Kang Tao convoy was set to pass through in the next day or so. Much as he didn’t want to at the moment, it was time to get down to business. 

“All right,” he said. “Got any ideas for Hellman?” He was grateful to have her help, ‘specially after seeing what she was capable of today.

Panam shifted in her seat to face him completely and leaned on the bar, holding her head up with one of her hands, the other resting lightly on the bar’s surface. “I’ve come up with a plan,” she said. “A first draft. But I need to sleep on it, work it out. Then we can talk about the details.” She took another drink. “We should stay in the area,” she said. “I already have a room here. We’ll get to work around midnight tomorrow, to help keep us out of sight. Agreed?”

“Sounds good,” said V. “Noah the one I talk to for a room?” He took another drink and looked around for the bartender.

“Don’t bother,” Panam said. “We can share mine.” 

Blood rushed to V’s face and he choked on his beer mid swallow. He put his fist to his mouth and cleared his throat. “I, uh…”

Panam cut him off, and even in the soft light V could see the red in her cheeks. “No–I–not,” she stuttered. “Oh, god.” She ran a hand over her face and took a deep breath. “Noah has two twin beds in every room. You could save some money.”

V cleared his throat one more time. “Right,” he said. “Right. Good idea.” 

Panam turned back toward the bar, picked up her beer, and took a long drink. When she was finished, she put it back down and stood up, leaning her hip against the side of the stool. She looked at V. “That could have been a damned tough day,” she said. “But thanks to you, it all went well.” She reached her right arm across and rested it on his right shoulder. The touch of her fingers on his bare skin sent a shiver down his spine. 

Panam removed her hand. “I’m beat,” she said. “I’ll go catch a few winks. I’ll probably be out as soon as I hit the sack.” 

“Yeah, okay,” said V. “Gonna finish my beer real quick. I’ll be right there.”

“Okay. Room 206.” She smiled and walked away, out of the bar.

V let out a quiet, low whistle and drank what was left of his beer.

Chapter Text

Panam entered her room at the Sunset Motel and threw herself onto the bed, burying her face in the pillows. What had happened at the bar had been fucking embarrassing. She’d be lying to herself if she said she didn’t find V attractive–the way the left side of his mouth lifted slightly higher than the right when he smiled, the small dimple in his chin, his strong hands. The softness in his voice when he spoke of things that mattered to him, and the way he made her laugh. But Panam was not one to get physically intimate with someone she’d only just met, no matter how good he looked riding shotgun in her Thorn. Besides, based on his reaction to her misinterpreted offer, she was not positive he’d be interested regardless. Then there was whatever had happened before they’d gone into the bar. Was he sick? It had seemed like he was in a significant amount of pain, but it had also seemed like he very much did not want to disclose what was causing it. Panam could tell the moment she’d met V that he held secrets–who didn’t in Night City?–but she was beginning to worry about the nature of those secrets.

Panam kicked off her boots at the end of the bed and walked into the bathroom. She caught her reflection in the mirror and wrinkled her nose in disgust at the dust and dried sweat that coated her skin and her clothes. She removed her clothes and tossed them in the Hyper-Clean Washing Machine in the corner before turning on the shower. She waited until the water was hot, scalding almost, before climbing in. God, it felt good after such a long, eventful day. Her clothes were cleaned and dried by the time she was finished, so she put everything back on besides her Aldecaldo jacket and her jeans, both of which she hung carefully on the back of the door, and walked out of the bathroom.

Still no V. Once she crawled into bed and pulled the blanket up to her shoulders, she was fully overcome by the exhaustion she’d been warding off all day. She was almost asleep when she heard V open the door and enter the room.

Keeping her eyes closed, she heard him go into the bathroom, turn on the washing machine, and get in the shower. She could tell he was trying to be quiet, but there was only so much one could do when tiptoeing around a shabby, run down place such as the Sunset Motel. She listened to the hum of the rickety plumbing and drifted off to a comfortable sleep for the first time in days.

It didn’t last long. Panam was awakened suddenly in the night by a deep scream that cut through the darkness like a sword through sand. She bolted upright in her bed and searched frantically for the source, her brain struggling to catch up with her body’s panicked instincts. She looked over toward V and could only distinguish the obscure shape of him in the low light, also sitting upright in his bed with his back pressed against the wall, legs thrashing as though he were trying to crawl backwards from some invisible danger. She did her best to visually case the room in the darkness, and didn't find anything threatening.

“V?” Her voice was hesitant, frightened even. What was happening?

V didn’t respond. She was about to call out again when the noise and the movement stopped suddenly, and the shape of V’s body went completely limp. Fuck. Was he dead? No. She listened for breathing, any movement. Hearing none, she crawled out of her bed and slowly inched toward V’s. She carefully reached for him, her hand making gentle contact with his warm, firm chest. He didn’t move at all in response to her touch. She kept her hand in place until she was confident she could feel his heart beating against it, then softly exhaled and returned to her bed. What the fuck was that about? It took a long while for Panam’s mind to stop spinning enough for her to drift back off to sleep.

Hours later, the sun filtered into the motel room through dirty windows and Panam awoke with a foggy head. She checked the time and was surprised to see that it was late afternoon, meaning she had slept most of the day away. There was much to do. She rolled over and looked at V, sound asleep on the other bed. He lay on his side facing her, body slightly curled inward. She watched his chest rise upward and fall down, his quiet breath escaping between his slightly parted lips. She’d witnessed firsthand the destruction he was capable of, and the nightmares that haunted him–yet at the current moment he seemed like an innocent child, completely vulnerable and at peace. She watched him for a few seconds more before getting up, putting on the rest of her clothes, and grabbing some food off of the counter. She didn’t want to wake V, so she slipped out quietly and leaned on the balcony just outside the motel room door. She pulled out her phone and sent him a message.

Didn’t want to wake you. Meet me in the motel garage at midnight.

She formed a mental list: go back and get the case she’d picked up from the Aldecaldo camp (she’d left it in the trunk of the goddamned Colby), scope out the AV route, and fix whatever damage the fucking Raffens had done to her Thorn. She walked down the steps to her ride. A few bullet holes on the exterior body. Everything looked okay under the hood–nothing fatal, anyway. Relieved, she started it up and drove a few yards, making sure the vehicle felt right beneath her feet. Satisfied, she took off back toward Rocky Ridge.

Luckily, the Colby was right where she’d left it. So were all the Raffen corpses from the night before, and they were starting to smell. She pulled the case out of the trunk and put it in the back of the Thorn. It would certainly come in handy later. She jumped back in and headed for the dam where she could get a vantage point and take a good look at the AV route ,the detes for which V had sent her at some point in the night, probably just after she’d fallen asleep. Once at the top of the dam, she pulled over and began formulating her plan. 

Hours later, Panam lay on a rusty creeper underneath her Thorn in the garage of the Sunset Motel, hands covered in grease. She was in the middle of checking the suspension when she heard a set of familiar footsteps approach. 

“Can I help?” 

“I’ll be done soon. The Raffens left her crooked as a bag of snakes.” Her drive back to Rocky Ridge and the dam had revealed the kinks needed working out. 

Panam made a few more adjustments before wheeling out from underneath the Thorn and standing up to face V. She wiped her hands on a towel that had been resting on the car’s hood. “Did you sleep all right?” she asked. She hoped V wouldn’t detect the edge in her voice. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what had happened, his screaming. 

“Can’t complain,” he said with a shrug. His hands were deep in his pockets. “And you? Reasonably rested?”

She hesitated briefly. “I think you had nightmares,” she said. “You screamed.”

“Really?” he said. He seemed genuinely surprised.

“Don’t worry,” said Panam. “I’m accustomed to that sort of thing. When Mitch and Scorpion came back from the war, they tossed and turned night after night. For months this went on.” She had spent many a night listening to the painful cries coming from the tent next door. 

V gazed down at his boots.

Trying to be reassuring, she said, “Whatever it is, it’ll pass.”

Still looking down, V nodded. “Yeah…let’s hope so.” 

It was quiet for a second before V met her eyes again. “Come up with anything? For Hellman, I mean.”

Panam placed a hand on her hip and couldn’t help but grin. “As a matter of fact, I did.” She was rather proud of what she’d come up with. 

She turned and headed to the work bench, nodding her head to beckon V to follow. She huddled over the bench and rearranged a few tools to represent the moving pieces of her plan. “We’re the wrench. The cutter is the AV. And the screwdriver is where the AV should bury its nose cone in the dust.” She looked at V, who was analyzing her improvised arrangement, wheels turning. “Now, you must be wondering how we get the AV to do that,” she continued. She grabbed another tool and placed it in the center of the others. “Here–the clamp’s our solution. A satwave power station.” 

V looked thoughtful. “Power station…Wait, you wanna use an EMP?”

“Bullseye,” said Panam. He was quick.

“But…how?” he asked. “We can’t generate that sort of pulse on command.”

Panam smirked. “Would you like to bet me?”

V gave a short, breathy laugh.

Panam continued, “We drive up to the power collection unit, break in and override the controls, lift any limiters. As soon as the AV is in range, we set off the electromagnetic turbopulse. This should smoke the AV’s systems.”

V nodded. “So the drive, navsystems…”

Panam cut him off. “Communications. Everything, out like a light. They won’t stand a chance in hell.”

V looked up from the tools on the workbench and up at Panam. His tone had shifted, serious. “‘Member, need Hellman alive, unharmed. Gotta try not to blow the AV to bits, okay?”

“I know,” said Panam with a nod. “But I’d say your man had best be buckled in. This idea…if it works, he’ll be in for a rough landing.”

V looked back down at the tools and was quiet for a few beats. Eventually, he nodded resolutely and said, “All right. Let’s ride.” 

Chapter Text

V climbed, once again, into the passenger seat of the Warhorse. Panam’s plan seemed risky, but he hadn’t forgotten how well everything had gone yesterday in Rocky Ridge, and despite the fact he hadn’t known her long, he found that he trusted her.

Panam had steered the vehicle out of the garage and onto the highway before his curiosity got the better of him. “So,” he said. “Whose toes are we about to step all over?

Panam scoffed and gestured toward the horizon. “Everything you see is owned by a corporation.”
“You like to mess with the corps, huh?”

“Whatever gave you that idea?” she said, feigning innocence. She leaned her elbow up against the door of the car and rested her head on her left fist, driving with just one hand draped casually across the top of the steering wheel. 

“Or, wait,” said V. “Scratch that. Rogue, Nash, the Raffens–”

“You’re on thin ice, V.” A smirk tugged at the right corner of her mouth. 

“You just like to mess with everyone,” V finished, smiling. 

“Well, then I suppose it’s a good thing I’m on your side, isn’t it?” She turned again to look at him, her left hand toying with her earlobe. 

V laughed. “It sure is.” Talking with Panam, laughing. It felt good. Better than in a long time.

A comfortable silenced ballooned between them, and V found his mind wandering, back to the night before when he’d finally made his way to the motel room after giving Panam a good head start. After crawling into his bed, he couldn’t help but look over at her, already asleep. It was dark, but he could still see the way her hair fell on her pillow, the slow rise and fall of her breath.

“Okay,” he said. “Now for somethin’ completely different. Weirdest thing you’ve ever transported–go.” He paused for just a split second. “‘Cause me? I had to carry a real ‘ganic iguana once.” He pictured the incredulous look on Jackie’s face when he’d opened the case and seen the beast resting inside.

Panam whipped her head around to look at V. “Seriously? A live one?”

“Yup.” He nodded at her. “Someone at Arasaka put ‘im in a deep sleep, packed ‘im in a cooler. No idea why, but man, Jackie and I made a shitload off that job. Your turn–think you can beat that?”

Without skippin’ a beat, Panam responded, “The deputy finance director of Kaukaz.”

“Okay. Well, I’d say it’s a tie.”

A smug grin spread across Panam’s face. “Dead,” she added. “In the trunk.”

V laughed. “Okay, fine. You win.” He wondered what series of events had led to the cold, dead deputy finance director of Kaukaz being curled up in Panam’s trunk, but he didn’t have a chance to ask. 

Panam’s tone was suddenly serious. “We’ve almost reached the dam,” she said. “We’ll make a quick stop here.” She pulled off to the side of the deserted highway bridge. “We need to calibrate you with the turret. I want you to be able to use the gun, too. It should up our chances in general.” She tapped on the monitor attached to the dash of the Thorn. 

“Connect here,” she said, motioning to the personal link input port in front of V. “Just watch the jack. Sometimes you have to jiggle it a bit.”

V pulled out his personal and wired in to the Thorn.

“Wait a moment,” said Panam. “Diagnostics first.” Panam tapped a few more times on the monitor, and V felt a light tingling start at the crown of his head and slowly drip down toward his neck. Suddenly, he felt a small shock at the top of his spine.

“Shit,” said Panam. “It’s giving me an error. Odd. Let me work around it.” Her brow furrowed as she made more adjustments on the control panel. 

V’s heart started to race, his palms getting a bit sweaty. The error had to be ‘cause of the engram, right? What if Panam found out it was there–Johnny Silverhand, setting up camp in his subconscious? How was he gonna explain that one? With a click and some static, Johnny popped into the back seat of the Thorn. His back rested against the door, one leg pulled up with his ‘ganic arm draped over the knee. 

“And now, Panam, here’s Johnny!” he said, doing what sounded like a shitty Ziggy Q impression. “Out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. Great work, V.”

Asshole . 

Panam looked at V, brow still furrowed, her eyes searching his. She sounded concerned. “Hey, uh, I think your implant has a virus. The one in the nape of your neck.”

Play it cool . 

“Uh, I’ve got a bioprocessor in my head that operates independently of me. Probably why your diagnostics flagged it.” He tried his best to sound calm and collected. Casual. Panam squinted at him, analyzing. 

“Mmhmm,” she said. “Okay.” Thankfully, she didn’t press it further.

V exhaled quietly. “But no data will leak out of it through the personal link. Your ride’s secure,” he reassured her. 

Panam looked back down at her monitor. “I trust you won’t fuck anything up,” she said. She sounded sincere, and V felt a wave of relief crash over him.

Johnny still lingered in the back seat. Least he was being quiet.

“Okay,” said Panam. “Here goes nothing.”

V felt the light tingling in his head again, and a few seconds later was connected to the turret, could see through its eyes. He blew a pile of wreckage to shit, just to make sure everything worked okay. Panam made a few calibration adjustments. “Great,” she said. “We’re done I think.”

When his own vision returned, Panam was watching him closely. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” she asked. 

“Calibration’s fine,” he said. “But your soft could really use an update. I can help you with that, you know.” Truth be told, as desperately as he needed Hellman and as excited as he was to not be a dead man walking anymore, he was beginning to worry that after all was said and done, he and Panam would be too. He’d be alone, again, a speck of dust drifting through the lonely streets of Night City. 

Panam sounded mildly annoyed. “The most important thing is that it works now,” she said. The last thing he’d meant was to come across as a dick. 

“So,” he said, searching for another change of subject. “Where’s this power station?”

“You will see in a moment,” said Panam, any frustration already gone from her voice. “I know a spot. We’ll have a decent view from there. I just want to be sure the area is clear.”

Johnny piped up again from the backseat–startling V, who had almost forgotten he was even there. “Sabotage a corpo power station,” Johnny said, starting a list with his silver fingers. “Jump a corpo transport, kidnap a corpo suit…”

This a plug for the word “corpo,” or do you have a point?

“Know what?” Johnny continued. “You’re starting to remind me of me, fifty years back.” Johnny had the world’s biggest shit-eating grin on his face. “Minus the charisma…and impressive cock. Maybe we can just get along.”

Yeah, fuck the corpos and all that, but let me remind you, I want Hellman for me. Not just to stick it to Arasaka. This is life or death. MY life or death . 

“Let me remind you that ‘Saka and their fucked up tech is what got you here,” said Johnny, angry now. “Who gives a shit about motives?”

V felt the Thorn lurch a bit and snapped back to reality. Panam had pulled off near the dam at a vantage point that looked down on the power stations. She lifted a pair of heavy duty binoculars up to her eyes. “All looks clear,” she said. “The area seems deserted. I see no patrols.” She pointed out the collection unit and the antennas to him, explained how it all would go down. 

V did his best to follow, but he was still pissed about what Johnny had said. That fucker really knew how to get under his skin, but the most infuriating part was that maybe there was some truth to what he’d said. V gave his head the slightest shake and made a concerted effort to focus on what Panam was saying. He leaned out the window of the Thorn to get a better look. “Antennas run a ways down the interstate,” he said. “We set off a chain reaction that starts in the collection unit…”

“...then each antenna will emit a massive EMP burst,” finished Panam.

“While the AV flies right into our net.”

“We just have to send out the pulse at the right moment.”

V looked back over his shoulder at Panam, who was grinning ear to ear in the driver’s seat. V couldn’t help but smile back. “Let’s go get ‘er,” he said. 

They spent the next several minutes nailing down the finer details. Being pretty equally matched in mechanical knowledge, it didn’t take long for the both of them to be confident as could be in their plan. 

“What now?” said V. 

“We wait. We should time our arrival to the AV flight plan. It should appear on the horizon in but a few hours’ time.” 

V nodded. “Got it.” He checked the back seat. Thankfully, Johnny had made an exit at some point.

Panam twisted around to look in the back seat. “What do you keep staring at back there?” she asked, her eyebrows raised.

“Nothing,” said V, a little too quickly. Fuck. “Just zonin’ out, that’s all.” 

Panam slowly turned back toward V, eyes narrowed. 

“So, you been with the Aldecaldos for long?” he asked. 

She stared him down a few seconds more before responding. She relaxed, pulling her right leg up, foot on the edge of the driver’s seat, clasping her hands around her ankle. “My whole life,” she said. “It’s the only life I’ve ever known. Well, until recently.”

“And what about Mitch? Scorpion?”

“They’ve been around as long as I can remember.” She smiled distantly. “Except for when they left for the war.” 

“What about parents, siblings?”

Panam shook her head. “I don’t have any siblings, so far as I know, and my mother died when I was small. I can’t remember her well. My father raised me.”

“Is he still with the clan?”

Panam looked down at her hands. “He was killed by Raffens, ten years ago now.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. It felt like a lame response.

She smiled sadly. “Me too.” 

Quiet swallowed the inside of the Thorn for a few minutes.

“What about you?” she asked, shifting in her seat to face him, leaning back against the door. “You’ve told me you rode with the Bakkers. Tell me more.” 

V nodded. “My whole life too, up ‘til a few months ago anyway.” He was thoughtful for a moment. “Never knew my parents, or any other blood. Clan raised me.”

“Were you close to any of them? Are you still?”

V shook his head, a dull ache growing inside his chest. “Haven’t spoken with any of ‘em since the day I left camp. Woman named Rose, took me in, helped me out.” He paused briefly, cleared his throat. “Had a few others, but those bridges couldn’t be more burned,” he finished.

 Panam watched him quietly, waiting. 

“Your bridges seem much more structurally sound,” he said.

She sighed. “I speak with Mitch and Scorpion most often. Cassidy and Carol occasionally. Bob and Teddy, once in a blue moon.”

“Who’re they?” asked V.

“Oh, they’re quite the characters,” she said. She got quiet for a moment, and a smile grew on her face. V guessed there must be more than a few memories dancing around in her brain. She looked over at him. “You’ll have to meet them yourself sometime.” 

“I’d like that,” V said, the ache in his chest slowly replaced by a glowing warmth. “They fight in the war too?” 

Panam nodded. “Yes, all of them.” 

“Musta been rough for you. Not having ‘em around.”

“I worried about them. I wanted to enlist too, but Saul wouldn’t allow it. He said I was too young, and he was probably right. Thankfully, they all came home but a year later.”

V was quiet for a bit, thinking about the brief trip he’d made to the Aldecaldo camp with Panam to ask for help. He wondered if asking his next question was the best idea, but he went for it anyway. “So, Saul. What’s the deal there?” 

Any trace of a smile vanished from Panam’s face, and her eyes rolled a scowl in to take its place. “He leads the family.”

“You two have beef?” asked V. Panam sighed heavily, and V wondered if he’d made a mistake. “Don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want.”

“Saul is the reason I left the Aldecaldos,” she said. The words rushed out of her mouth like they were being chased. She folded her arms tightly. 

“Gonna make me guess why?”

Panam rolled her eyes again. “He and I don’t see eye-to-eye,” she said. “His vision for the Aldecaldos is completely fucking backwards.” 

“What’s his vision?” asked V.

“He wants to partner with Biotechnica. He thinks it’ll give us steady work and protection from other clans.”

“Uh-huh,” said V. “And what’s your vision?”

Panam leaned forward and unfolded her arms, motioning them as she spoke. “We need to revive our reputation. Aligning ourselves with a corp will destroy everything we’ve worked for. We need to make the name ‘Aldecaldo’ mean something again, and we do that by taking risks, going big, and not by selling out to Biotechnica. Our entire identity will be erased, and most of us will probably end up dead.” He heard the fire in her words, same as the first time he’d ever heard her speak–to Rogue at the Afterlife. Color had started to rush into her face, turning her cheeks a soft pink that glowed in the dashboard light. 

V nodded. “Think you’re prolly right about that.”

Panam leaned back against the door again, folding her arms. She gazed to her left, out through the windshield. Her voice was much quieter now. “I couldn’t stick around to watch my family destroy itself like that. I won’t.” She bit on her lower lip. 

Looking down at his hands, V nodded. She’d articulated perfectly how he’d felt about the Bakkers, and why he had to leave. “Yeah,” he said quietly. 

They sat in silence, each of them sifting through their own thoughts and memories. After a while, V shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. “Y’ever get up to any shit as a kid?” 

Panam laughed as she crossed both of her legs in front of her and leaned toward V, her elbows on her knees. “There was this one time when Scorpion and I stole the key to Cassidy’s ride…”

The glow from nearby Night City slightly illuminated the desert sky. The sun wouldn’t make an appearance for a while yet. V and Panam had swapped childhood tales for a couple of hours, waiting for the Kang Tao AV to fly into their net, until Panam had fallen asleep in the middle of V’s story–the one about the time he broke his leg trying to chase down a wild jackrabbit for his friend Ren. She was leaned sideways against the headrest, facing V, and when he’d realized she was asleep he’d stopped talking–feeling a little awkward–and leaned back on his own headrest. He’d studied her for a while, noticing the way her weathered yet somehow delicate fingers curled while she slept. He wondered how long it’d taken to carefully twist and bead the dreads knotted together at the top of her head. He couldn’t help but admire the gentle slope of her nose, dotted with those freckles, and the curve of her slightly parted lips. He turned his head the other direction and took in the view of Night City, thinking of all he’d lost and all he’d recently begun hoping to gain.

Before he could get too lost in his thoughts, it was time to roll. He reached over to Panam and touched her shoulder. “Panam?” he said. 

She blinked a few times, shifted in her seat, and yawned. “Time to get to work?” she said. 

V nodded. “‘s that time,” he said. 

She got into position, threw the Thorn into gear, and started driving. 

V attempted to brace himself, physically and otherwise. “Done anything like this before?”

Panam looked at him skeptically. “Downing an AV? By myself? No.” She paused. “Why do you ask?”

V shrugged. “Power station, EMP, the system, networks…Came up with a really solid plan.” 

“Thank you,” said Panam with a smile. With confidence and pride, Panam explained her “triple A” approach that she’d learned from Mitch and the other Aldecaldos. 

Goddamn she was smart. “Got one word for you,” he said with a smile. “T-shirts.”

“Triple A. It’s all you need to lead the good life.” She smirked at him. “That and the occasional cold beer.” 

“What if, uh, somethin’ goes ass up?” 

With a laugh, Panam said, “Well, then your ass had better improvise. Did you really think I’d just give you a foolproof secret to success?”

“Gotta say, you almost had me believing just that.” 

Panam shook her head and looked over at V. The smile she gave him made his heart miss a beat or two. “You’re too much sometimes, V.” 

They were already almost to the power station, and so with great difficulty, V focused on the road ahead. 

Chapter Text

The hum of Panam’s heartbeat intensified as they approached the power station in the Thorn, her foot heavy on the pedal. “Hold on tight,” she said. “This could get a little bumpy.” 

V quickly jacked into the personal on the dash, creating a link between himself and the turret mounted atop the vehicle. “Okay,” he said, the slightest shadow of a quake in his voice. “Ready.”

Panam simultaneously floored it while making a sharp turn, and the Thorn drifted with a loud skid through the power station entrance, immediately triggering an ear-shattering alarm. Though it hadn’t seemed heavy when she scoped out the station the night before, whatever security guarded the facility would surely have been deployed, making their way to them now. Panam focused on navigating the vehicle through the station at high speed, her hands white-knuckled on the wheel, while V made surprisingly quick work of the recently-appeared security drones with the turret. Once they were all scrapped, he removed his personal link from the dash. “Is that all of ‘em?” he asked, his words flowing with adrenaline. 

“Provided we hurry,” she said. She made another tight turn to the left and gunned the Thorn. She noticed V out the side of her eye brace himself against the dash and the door as the vehicle busted violently through the entrance to the power core, knocking the gate clean off its mount. 

“Quick V, find the controls!” Panam ordered. The still-blaring alarms sent a wave down her spine, each pulse causing her entire body to tense up. They didn’t have much time.

V leapt out of the Thorn and sprinted to the nearest control panel, while Panam set to work connecting the detonator on the other side of the control room. Once she was finished, she ran back to the Thorn and climbed back in the driver’s seat, while V jumped in at the exact same time. “Shit,” he said, his eyes squinted shut and his head in his hands. “Think we mighta overdone it, Panam.” The words strained out of his mouth. 

“You’ll survive,” she said, looking over at him, still holding his head–though she was certainly more worried than she let on. The muscles in his arms were fluctuating rapidly, flexed then relaxed. Small beads of sweat slowly made their way down the back of his neck. Something had been wrong with him, that much was clear. His “coughing fit” back at the Sunset? He could barely stand. And the way he was always staring off intently at nothing at all? Maybe priming the EMP really was too much for him. 

She looked back at the power core, glowing right in front of them, and the train of thought that had been carrying her concerns about V was briefly derailed. “Do you see that?” she said. “All lit up and blinking like a Christmas tree.” The sight overwhelmed her with an anxious excitement; their plan was being executed perfectly so far. 

V slowly lifted his head from his hands and opened his eyes, taking a deep breath and running a hand through his hair. He looked slightly less pale than he had when they’d first re-entered the Thorn. A sudden grin spread across his face and Panam felt a flutter drift through her stomach.  “Girl,” he said, opening his hands and gesturing toward the glowing power core. “You wanted eleven, you got eleven.”

“Fuck yeah!” said Panam with a laugh, hitting the steering wheel with her palm. “Let’s get out of here before it lights us up too.” She hitched her elbow up on the door and leaned her head out of the open window, looking backwards to guide the Thorn out of the power core. Once back on the street, she whipped the vehicle around and pressed it forward, speeding away from the plant. Luckily, they had beat any security reinforcements, beating them out of the scene. 

They were quiet for a few moments as they drove, and V kept looking strangely toward the backseat again, making Panam feel uneasy. She figured a distraction wouldn’t hurt. “Not the cleanest job, perhaps, but it still went well,” she said. 

V nodded. “What about the detonator? Is it workin’?”

Panam darted her eyes from the road to the detonator for a split second, its flickering light sensors indicating normal function. “Yes, it’s working,” she said. “And I don’t even see a drop in the signal strength. We just need to drive far away enough to keep the pulse from blasting us, too.” Panam searched the terrain ahead of them and pointed to a spot in the near distance. “The cliff there,” she said. “We’ll set up. It should give us a good view of the antennas. And then we wait.” 

“And then we wait,” said V. “Y’know, we’re gettin’ pretty good at that.”

Panam carefully steered the Thorn up onto the edge of the cliff, facing outward, giving them an uninterrupted view of all the massive antennas stretching along the length of the highway. Panam turned the key, shutting down the Thorn. She turned and watched V for a moment, who sat with a furrowed brow, leaning forward and looking down on the scene before them, cogs turning in his head as he sized up the situation below. She didn’t know what his full story was–what was going on with him, or how to fix it. But suddenly, she had an idea. She grabbed the detonator from its perch on the dash and extended it out to V. “Here,” she said.

That fucking smile again. He grabbed the detonator from her, and Panam was mostly certain that his hand lingered on hers slightly longer than necessary. “Always wanted to push the big red button on somethin’ like this,” he said. He looked like a kid who’d just gotten exactly what he asked for on his birthday. 

Panam laughed softly. 

“How do we know when?” asked V.

“Don’t worry,” Panam said. “I’ll have eyes on it.” She held up her heavy-duty binoculars and gave them a slight shake. “You just wait for my signal, then set off that pulse. They won’t know what hit them.” 

V nodded and smiled again, this time the expression stretching his face in such a way that a small dimple appeared in his left cheek. Panam quickly began making a few adjustments on the Thorn’s dashboard monitor, but she wasn’t fully aware of what she was adjusting–mostly it was just to hide the color inexplicably rushing to her face.

She was quiet for a minute or two before sideways smirking at V. “And by the way…” she said.

“What?” said V, earnestly.

“We are about to knock a multimillion-eurodollar Kang Tao asset clean out of the sky.”

V laughed. “That we are,” he said. 

Panam pulled her binoculars up to her face and scanned the horizon. Nothing yet. “How does that make you feel?” she said. 

“Blastin shit,” said V with a laugh. “Exactly what the doc ordered.” 

Panam smiled. “And that’s exactly what I like to hear.”

Silence filled the air while Panam continued searching the stretch of sky before them for the AV. When she turned her focus to the right, the skyline of Night City filled her vision, the scope allowing her to see the advertisements scrolling down the light towers that loomed over the city. Goddamn, she hated that place. Just as her mind started drifting to lonely thoughts of home, V spoke up.

“Just noticed,” he said quietly.

“What?” Panam turned to look at V. He gripped the detonator in his hand, looking toward Night City just as she had been. 

“It’s quiet. The hum of the city, people’s voices, the smells…It’s all gone.” He turned and met her eyes, their vibrant blue sheen only thinly masking the fear and exhaustion Panam detected behind. She felt herself being drawn into them, any and all thoughts racing through her mind slowly turning into radio static. Suddenly, he looked down at his hands and her mind snapped back into place.

“Wind just intensifies it,” he continued, still speaking a note or two above a whisper. “Think I forgot quiet exists.”

“Mmhmm,” said Panam, trying to ward off another relentless wave of homesickness. “Though maybe not the smells. I mean, the coyotes? Rather hard to miss.” 

Without missing a beat and in a stronger, playful voice, V said, “Thought that was just the air freshener in your Colby.” 

Panam smiled. “Har-har. Screw you.” She playfully hit him in the shoulder with the back of her hand and laughed. As quickly as it had come, the wave of homesickness retreated with the tide. It was time to focus. She looked back through her binoculars, scanning the skyline once again, but she could feel V’s gaze on her. After several beats and with her binoculars still up against her eyes to hide her blushing, she said, “You’d do better to focus on the AV. Keep your eyes open.”

V cleared his throat and shifted in his seat without a word. Neither of them spoke for several minutes, until finally the Kang Tao AV appeared within the range of Panam’s binocular scope. “It’s there!” she said, leaning forward across the steering wheel, resting her elbows on the dash as she followed the AV’s path with the binoculars. “Coming from Pacifica. Get ready. One more second…One more…Now!”

V pressed the detonator and said, “Boom. There she is.”

But nothing happened. She heard the click of the detonator again. And again.

“Shit,” said Panam. “What’s happening?” She didn’t dare let the AV out of her sight, so she kept the binoculars up against her eyes, darting between her target and the antenna, just waiting for it to blow.

“What’s going on?” said V. “Fucking hell…”

Just as Panam was about to throw down her binoculars, snatch the detonator from V, and give it a try herself, she heard a final click, and with it, the antenna directly in front of and below the Thorn blew sky high.

Chapter Text

V released the detonator and it fell to the floor of the car. The rumble from the exploding antenna below vibrated the cold coffee in the cup holder attached to the dash. His eyes scanned the sky above the fire and the smoke, searching for the Kang Tao AV. He located it after a few moments and a surge of hope snaked his spine when the AV faltered precariously in the air for a moment as the EMP wave crashed over it. However, the hope retreated as quickly as it had come when V realized the vehicle had recovered and seemed to be continuing on its planned trajectory–now with increased speed.

“Panam!” he said. “The engines are still runnin’. Fuck! They’re gettin’ away!” His eyes were still glued to the AV, panic rising now in his gut.

“They’re going nowhere,” said Panam. She opened the door and climbed out of the Thorn.

What the fuck was she doing? He was afraid to take his eyes off their target, afraid to lose it. Soon, it’d be out of range. “We gotta go after it!” V called out the window.

“Give me a moment,” Panam responded. Sounded like she was somewhere behind the car, rummaging in the back.

V climbed halfway out the passenger window and angled himself toward the bed of the Thorn. “Panam, what’re you doin’?”

She didn’t respond, but marched toward the edge of the ridge in front of the vehicle. She carried a heavy piece of equipment, but V couldn’t quite make it out from where he sat. When she reached the edge, Panam hefted the equipment onto her right shoulder with considerable effort and he could now see it clearly. It was a massive bazooka, almost the same size as she was–must have been what was in the heavy crate he’d carried out of the Aldecaldo camp, before they’d hit the Raffens in Rocky Ridge. 

Panam planted her feet, scanned the horizon with the launcher, braced herself, and fired toward the AV. After the projectile was released, she tossed the weapon to the ground, stepped back, and watched the sky. Despite himself, he found the whole thing incredibly attractive. He focused himself and watched the sky as well, praying the rocket would hit its mark. “Come on…” he muttered under his breath. 

The sky lit up once again in a brilliant display of fire and shrapnel as the AV exploded. Panam pumped her fist and said, “THAT’S how you do it!”

V’s heart raced. They were too close now to fuck this up. “It’s losing altitude!” he said, retreating back into the passenger seat just as Panam positioned herself behind the wheel. 

“We got the bastard!” she said.

Not yet they didn’t. “Let’s go!” said V. 

Panam backed the Thorn away from the edge of the ridge and floored it in the direction of the falling AV. 

“No way it stays in the air after a blast like that,” V said. There was no way, right?

Panam shook her head. “They either land, or crash.”

A short burst of static emitted from the dash of the Thorn, followed by a familiar voice. Mitch. “You catch that?” he said. “Over.”

Another familiar voice piped in–Scorpion this time. “Yup. AV, unmarked. Losing alt–where?” 

V’s stomach dropped. Panam scrambled to open the channel on her radio. “What the hell are they doing?!” she said.

They hadn’t told any of the Aldecaldos about their plan, so it was likely they’d seen the falling AV and taken it as an opportunity for scrap, or maybe to help somebody in need. Fuck. Mitch’s voice crackled once again through the radio on the dash, his words punctuated by bursts of static. “I’m finishing…at the generators. Follow ‘em, I’ll be on my way in a bit. Battery should sort it–”

Panam pressed the input button on the radio, and when she spoke, her words seemed to tumble over each other. “Mitch! Scorpion! It’s Panam! Don’t go near that AV! I repeat–do NOT approach the AV!”

Scorpion’s voice came back over the radio, but it was pretty clear he hadn’t heard anything Panam had said. “–on the way, or I’ll start the party without you.”

Panam pressed the input button again. “It’s Kang Tao! Wait for me! Or better, get the hell out!” The path before them opened up as they reached the bottom of the ridge, and Panam accelerated the Thorn, the engine issuing a high-pitched whine.

“I don’t think they can hear you,” said V. “The pulse must be interfering.”

Panam growled and gripped the steering wheel tighter. At that moment, a beep from the dash. “I have three on radar!” yelled Panam, her eyes darting between the radar screen and the path before them. 

As quickly as he could, V jacked his personal into the dash and connected to the turret. The drones were fast, moving in short bursts up above the Thorn. Beyond the darting turrets firing on them, V could see the AV, still losing altitude. V got to work taking down the drones, but something was off. There was some sort of a delay in the turret. He couldn’t hit anything. After a few off-target rounds, the turret went limp and stopped responding to his commands. “Panam!” he yelled. “Problem! Not shooting!”

“Shit! It’s jammed again. I’ll fix it. Hold on tight, going on autopilot.”

Through the eyes of the turret, V saw the hatch on top of the Thorn pop open. Panam stood up on the driver’s seat, the upper half of her body leaning out the hatch door toward the turret. She held a screwdriver in her right hand and began stabbing at the base of the turret with it. He’d be surprised if her method of repair was gonna work. The drones were still firing sporadically at them. Luckily, the Thorn was much faster than she looked, and the velocity of the vehicle made them a difficult target to hit. 

“Panam…” he said urgently.

“I know!” she said. “The fucking latches don’t want to open!”

She tossed the screwdriver aside, and it skittered across the top of the Thorn before disappearing off the side. “Just a second,” she said, making adjustments at the base of the turret with both hands and an apparently tremendous amount of effort. At last, the turret came back online.

But it was at that exact moment that V heard the awful whir, ping, and rip of a bullet as it ricocheted off the top of the Thorn and tore through Panam’s side. Panam flew back, her arms went limp, and her head and shoulders hung backward off the edge of the car. Crimson spread slowly across the exposed skin at her waist, to the edges of her shirt and jeans. 

V felt as though all of the blood had been sucked out of him, a jolt echoing from the center of his spine to the top of his head and down to his toes. Fuck!

“Panam!” He jacked out of the turret, his vision returning to him in the passenger seat of the Thorn. He reached across and grabbed Panam by the legs, carefully lowering her back into her seat, as bullets pinged against the outside of the car, the drones still firing on them from above. He reached up above Panam’s head and closed the top hatch. 

He grabbed Panam’s face with both hands and gently shook her head as he called her name. Fuck. Fuck! Don’t be dead! After a few seconds that felt like years, her eyes opened, and V drew his hands back. He sighed with relief.

Panam groaned and reached a hand toward her wound, wincing as it made contact. She looked down at her waist, at all the blood. “It’s nothing,” she said. “I’m fine.” Her voice was weak.

“You don’t look fine,” said V. Her skin was pale, her hands shaking. He searched the console and the glove box, looking for a MaxDoc. 

“The door,” said Panam. 

He opened the small cubby inserted in the passenger door and found what he was looking for. He reached over to Panam, who was leaning forward with a pained expression, her arm wrapped around her waist. V placed his left hand on her back, between her shoulder blades. “Ready?” he asked. 

Panam nodded. 

With his right hand, V plunged the MaxDoc injector into Panam’s stomach, and pressed the button to release the medication. Once it had all passed through the needle, he removed the injector and tossed it to the floor of the car. V kept his eyes fixed on Panam for the next few seconds as her breath evened out, and she sat up straighter. He removed his hand from her back. 

More bullets ricocheted off the Thorn, reminding V of the threat still hovering outside. He jacked back into the turret, shot down the remaining drones, and pulled back out. It didn’t take long now that the turret had been fixed. Panam was completely upright now, her hands gripping the steering wheel, back in control once again. She was going to need more care once the booster wore off, but it would have to do for now. 

V scanned the horizon out the windshield, but couldn’t see the AV anywhere. 

“It’s behind that hill,” Panam said, pointing straight ahead and to the left. “I think it’s finally down.” She paused and her breath hitched. She groaned.

“Are you okay?” V asked.

“I’ll live,” she said.

She’d better.

Now that they were closer, V could see a massive plume of thick, black smoke over the next hill. Heavy gunfire in the area carried its way to them. 

“Something’s not right, V,” Panam said. “Did you hear those shots? Something happened to them!”

V balled his fists, trying to stay calm. “Let’s check it out,” he said.

Panam stopped the Thorn just before cresting the hill. An outpost of red rocks to their left provided cover from the wreckage below. V noticed another Kang Tao drone, hovering in patrol over the downed AV. He inserted his personal link into the dash once again. “Connect me to visuals on that drone,” he said. “We need to get our bearings.”

Panam tapped on the console, and a few moments later, V was seeing through the eyes of the Kang Tao drone. He quickly scanned the area where the AV had gone down. It was difficult to see through the smoke billowing up from the wreckage, but he was able to make out a couple of security drones, bots, and a hefty launcher on top of the AV that still looked functional. The drones and bots were in a defensive formation, awaiting reinforcements. As the drone V was hijacking drifted through the smoke to the other side of the transport, he was able to make out a couple of Aldecaldo bikes, a car, and a scattering of lifeless bodies in the dirt. Fuck.

 V jacked out of the drone before seeing any more and found Panam angled toward him, watching him. “Well?” she said. “What did you see?”

“Not gonna be easy,” he said, and told her what he’d seen. He made a choice to leave out the dead Aldecaldos, swallowing the guilt. 

Panam looked down at her hands which rested in her lap. “V, if they got the Aldecaldos…If they got Mitch and Scorpion, I can’t…I don’t…” Her voice quivered.

Before he could give himself a chance to overthink it, V reached over and grasped one of Panam’s hands in one of his own. “I know,” he said. “I know.” He hoped to God that none of the bodies he’d seen belonged to Mitch or Scorpion. Even so, Panam was gonna be hurting either way. Whoever’d been killed, they would still be alive if not for V and his desperate search for Hellman. “Mitch and Scorpion are alive. I promise we’ll find them.” He knew it was a promise he shouldn’t make because it was not one he was sure he could keep. 

Panam nodded almost imperceptibly. 

“Okay, here’s the plan,” said V. “You stay in the car, and I–”

“No. I’m going with you.” 

“Panam, you’re hurt. Wait in the car. I’ll try to take ‘em out.”

“I…” Panam sighed. “Fine. But I will cover you from here.”

V released Panam’s hand and nodded. As long as she stayed away from the wreckage until it was clear, he was satisfied. Besides, the odds were very good that he would need the backup. “Good idea,” he said. “Let’s move.”

He exited the Thorn. Panam grabbed the rifle and began climbing into the nearby outcropping of sandstone for a vantage point and cover. She was limping ever so slightly. V pulled out his pistol and made his way into the ravine below. He was careful to avoid detection by the Kang Tao patrol until he could stake out a solid position, which he soon found behind a large boulder that allowed him a clear view of the drones and bots while still protecting him from the AV launcher. He crouched with his back pressed against the surface of the boulder, pistol at the ready, and looked up at Panam’s location. He gave a slight nod before exiting from cover and firing at the nearest drone. 

They were able to make quick work of the bots and the drones between the two of them. Just as the last robot crumpled at the knees and tumbled to the ground, a thunderous burst from the launcher fired on the boulder he’d been using for cover, turning it to dust and sending V flying face first into the dirt. Fuck. He hurried to his feet, searching for more cover before the launcher had time to fire on him again. There was nothing–not that he could reach before being blown to smithereens, anyway. His only chance was to run straight toward the AV. If he got close enough, the launcher wouldn’t be able to reach him. The angle would be too tight.

V ran as fast as he could, leaping over debris and bodies along the way. He could hear a hum building from the AV as the launcher geared up for another burst. Only a few more yards. V dropped to the ground and slid, his left foot making contact with the side of the AV, followed by the rest of his body soon after. The launcher fired, decimating a cluster of sagebrush he’d just run past. He stood up, pressing himself as flat as he could against the surface of the AV. There was no way the launcher would be able to get him from here. He inched his way around the back of the AV and to the other side, where he was able to locate the control panel. He hacked it without much difficulty and disarmed the launcher. He slid to the ground and hung his head, legs bent and arms resting on his knees, catching his breath. Before long, he heard a panicked cry from the other side of the AV. It was Panam.

“Oh, no, no, no…”

He got up and rushed back around to the other side. He found Panam on her knees, hunched over one of the bodies resting in the dirt. He stopped a few paces behind her and a pit opened in the center of his chest. It was Scorpion–his arm implant had been mostly shredded, his right leg was almost completely gone, and dark blood pooled beneath his limp head. This was all his fault. V inhaled and took the final steps toward Panam, knelt beside her and braced himself.

Panam folded forward, her forehead coming to rest against Scorpion’s lifeless chest, and wrapped her arms around her head. Her shoulders shook with silent sobs. V reached for her, but stopped short. “Panam, I–” What could he say? I’m sorry I got your best friend killed? He died so that I might not have to? How many others had died?

V stood and scanned the bodies of the other Aldecaldos. “Panam!” he said. He knelt back down and put his hand on her back, which was still trembling. “Mitch. He’s not here.”

Panam sat up straight. With a few more hitched breaths, she wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands and stood. V rose with her. They turned toward the AV, then looked at each other. Panam’s eyes were red and swollen. She looked angrier than he’d yet seen her. Without a word, she strode toward the AV and he followed suit. She drew a pistol from the back of her jeans and leaned against the AV, to the left of the cockpit door, ready to infiltrate. She looked at V and jerked her head toward the door. He knelt down, gripped the edge of the door with both hands, and slid it open with all his might. 

On the other side, the AV pilot held Mitch in a chokehold with a gun to his head, using him as a shield. Mitch appeared calm, but in a split-second once-over, V noticed the way his fists were clenched. Panam rounded the doorway and aimed her weapon at the pilot while V hurried to his feet and drew his own weapon. The pilot shuffled back a few steps, adjusting his grip on his gun and licking his lips. “Stand back!” he shouted. “Toss your weapons! Or I’ll shoot!”

“Easy,” said V. “It’s not too late for everyone to walk outta this alive.”

At V’s words, the pilot’s grip on both Mitch and his weapon relaxed just enough, and V took advantage of the opportunity. He exhaled, and time seemed to slow as he pulled the trigger, a bullet wedging itself right between the pilot’s eyes. Mitch stumbled forward as the pilot collapsed, and he was caught by Panam.

After a few rounds of deep breaths, Panam released Mitch and asked, “Are you all right?” 

Mitch stepped past V and out of the cockpit. He leaned over for a moment, resting his hands on his knees. “Eh, just some scratches,” he said.

Panam stormed over to Mitch and shoved him. “You fucking morons!” she screamed. 

Mitch didn’t appear angry at all. His eyes flickered to Panam’s injury, and he pointed. “Did you get hit?” he said. “Hang on, I’ll patch you up.” He reached in his side pocket for a spool of gauze. 

Panam turned away. “It’s nothing,” she said. The anger had sifted out of her voice, and all that remained was pain. “Let’s go.”

Mitch took a deep breath. “We couldn’t retreat, Panam. They regrouped so fast. Started shootin’ rockets an’ shit. I lost everyone.” His voice broke and he looked at the ground, hands on his hips.  

Panam collapsed onto a nearby weapons crate that must have tumbled out of the wreckage and held her head in her hands.

Things were quiet for a beat before Mitch knelt in front of Panam, on her level, his brow furrowed. V lowered himself to sit next to Panam on the crate and cleared his throat. “Scorpion, the rest…I’m sorry we didn’t get here sooner.” 

Panam didn’t move or make a sound.

“They were good people,” said Mitch. “Great people. They didn’t have to die here.”

Panam glanced at Mitch. “I should have stopped him,” she said. 

Mitch shook his head. “I tried. He wouldn’t have listened to you, either. Never was much of a listener.” 

Panam peered over her shoulder in the direction of Scorpion’s body. “Stubborn bastard,” she said, with a short, bitter laugh that didn’t sound much like a laugh at all.

“Why are you out here?” Mitch asked Panam, eyeing her. 

Panam looked to V.

“I, uh…” he began. “I need the guy they were transporting.”

“They took ‘im,” Mitch said. A sneer crept across his face. “In our cars. They were heading west.” His sneer was replaced by a revelatory expression. “So you’re the ones who hit ‘em with that EMP?” 

Panam gave a sad nod.

“Yeah,” said V. “We tried to warn you, but couldn’t connect.” 

Panam lifted her head. “If they took your cars, we might be able to follow their tracks.” She sounded invigorated. 

We? Was she really still planning on helping V find Hellman?

Panam looked into Mitch’s eyes. “I will find those sons of bitches,” she said. “I swear.” 

Mitch reached out and patted her on the shoulder. “Do. I’ll call the crew, get all this cleaned up.” He stood and folded his arms.

“We’ll leave my ride here, just in case,” Panam said. “Just watch the gun, it likes to jam.” Panam rose to her feet and turned to V. “We’ll go by bike.” 

“Sounds good,” said Mitch. “You’re coming back for her, right? Your ride?”

“I promise.” 

Mitch nodded and headed toward the ridge, searching for a stronger signal to call the Aldecaldos on the holo. 

“Let’s get going before they send a rescue party,” said Panam. She walked toward the orphaned Aldecaldo bikes. V stood from the crate and followed close behind.

“Panam…” he started. “I–you don’t–I understand if–”

She stopped walking so abruptly that he almost ran into her, and she turned to face him. “I keep my word.” She didn’t sound angry, just firm. 

“Scorpion and the rest…I recognize that it’s my fault, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” he said. He studied his feet and clasped his hands behind his back. When he’d lost Jackie, the pain was unbearable. And he’d felt such an overwhelming wave of anger toward the people he held responsible for it. But in this case, he was the responsible party. The thought of Panam holding him in the same regard as he held the likes of Dexter DeShawn–that was nearly just as unbearable. “If you’ll allow it,” he continued when she didn’t say anything, “I’d like to do everything I can to help you settle the score with Kang Tao.”

“I will destroy them. Every last one.” A pause. “But, V?” her voice softened as she spoke his name, giving him the courage to finally meet her eyes again. To his surprise, her expression matched her voice, both colored with a certain tenderness that he did not expect. “You and me? We’re in this together. To the bitter end.”

Chapter Text

Panam stepped over Scorpion and mounted the motorcycle next to him, doing her best to avoid glancing down at his corpse again. This had been Miles’ bike. Miles hadn’t been with the Aldecaldos long, but it didn’t take long to become family. Her heart felt enclosed by a shroud of numbness that she knew would vanish the moment she had the capacity to let it, the moment their objective was completed and the adrenaline withdrew from her veins. It was a moment she dreaded. For now, though, she had a purpose, and that purpose was to help V get his guy. She looked over her shoulder and saw V, who climbed on Scorpion’s bike and kicked on the engine. How surreal it was, seeing somebody else in that saddle. Panam gave her head a slight shake, started the engine of Miles’ bike, and pulled out of that damned graveyard with V close behind.

They were headed west and the sun had now fully risen behind them. The early-morning dew had left the desert ground impressionable; Panam had no trouble locating and following the tracks left by the vehicles the Kang Tao survivors had taken from the Aldecaldos. After a short ride, twenty minutes or so, Panam saw their destination over the crest of the next hill–a lonely filling station off the side of the highway just ahead. She slowed her bike and cut the engine while they were still several hundred yards away, and V pulled up beside her and did the same. They were outnumbered, and stealth was their greatest advantage; if their targets were to overhear their bike engines, that advantage would be lost. 

Panam dismounted, pulled a pair of binoculars from the back pannier, and took cover behind a nearby outcropping of sandstone. This would have to do as a vantage point. She surveyed the scene at the distant station as V took cover next to her and began doing the same with his Kiroshi implants. 

“I wager that’s where they’re holding Hellman,” Panam said. 

V nodded. “Got a couple of turrets out front. I’ll take care of those.” V was quiet for a moment, concentrating. “Okay, it’s done.” 

“Two snipers,” said Panam. “On the tower and the roof.”

“And a pair of drones on the perimeter,” V said.

“No way of knowing what’s inside.” Panam winced as a thread of pain laced through her side. The MaxDoc booster was beginning to wear off.

V crouched back down below their cover and said, “You okay?” His eyes were wide, searching.

“I’m fine,” she grumbled. “What’s our plan?”

V didn’t respond for a moment, and Panam felt as though she were being studied. “Can you cover me from here?” he finally said. “I’ll take out as many as I can quietly, but like you said–no clue what’s waiting inside.” 

Panam nodded before retrieving Mitch’s rifle from her bike and returning to cover. “Let’s do this,” she said. 

V looked down at the station once more, marking his targets, and took off. Panam felt like she was in Rocky Ridge again as she watched V work his magic through the scope of her rifle. He sprinted to the edge of the highway and crouched behind an electrical box, watching the station until there was a gap in the Kang Tao patrol routes. Once he saw his window, he took it–he ran across the highway, leaping over the divider in the middle without skipping a beat, and disappeared behind the fence at the base of the tower. 

Panam did a quick scan of the drones and soldiers patrolling the station, but none of them seemed to have noticed V’s presence. Returning her scope to the base of the tower, Panam’s heart rate increased; V had still not reappeared. She cursed herself for not thinking to establish a holo link before he’d taken off for the station. Her rising panic dissipated as she relocated V, creeping up the stairs to the tower. She watched him approach the sniper from behind, grapple him into a chokehold, and break his neck. He made his way back down the tower, crossed the alleyway between the tower and the station, and used a dumpster to hoist himself onto the roof. After he’d killed the second sniper, Panam watched him take out his phone and felt her own vibrate in her pocket.

She picked up the holo. “Nice work down there,” she said.

“Thanks,” said V. His voice was low. “You ready? ‘bout done with this cat n’ mouse shit.” 

Scorpion’s lifeless, blood-covered face flashed before her eyes, accompanied by a surge of rage and bile in her throat. “I thought you’d never ask.”

V nodded. “Let ‘em have it.” 

Panam readjusted her sights, training them on one of the Kang Tao soldiers patrolling in front of the station. Panam fired, and the soldier crumpled to the ground with most of his head now missing. She quickly panned left and gave the other soldier the exact same treatment. V dropped from the roof and ran toward the front station entrance while Panam fired at the three drones on his tail, eliminating them with just one shot each. 

V pried away the S.C.S.M that was barricading the entrance and disappeared inside the station. Panam heard heavy turret fire, which lasted only a few seconds, followed by regular gunfire and screaming. She propped her rifle against the sandstone she’d been using as cover, drew her pistol, and made her way toward the station as quickly as she could. A trickle of blood trailed from her wound and seeped into the waistband of her jeans, and though she did her best to ignore it, the pain was growing in intensity. 

As she reached the station entrance, the violence occurring inside went silent, replaced by the distant roar of engines. She turned to scan the horizon and saw a convoy approaching from the east, looming larger with each passing second. Fuck! Were the Kang Tao reinforcements finally here? She froze and listened more carefully. No, those were certainly nomad vehicles. The Aldecaldos!

Hoping that her judgment about the identity of the fleet was correct, Panam reached out to V over the holo link. “V? Where are you?”

“Garage,” he said.

“Is the building clear?”

“Sure is. Be out in a sec,” he said, then disconnected their link. 

Satisfied that V was safe, Panam limped to the exterior garage doors and waited for her former clan to arrive. The roar grew louder and louder, until over a dozen Aldecaldos pulled into the station on a variety of bikes and trucks and cut their engines. The last vehicle to pull up was her Thorn, though its driver, Mitch, was the first to climb out and make his way to her. 

“Panam!” he called, giving her a once-over as he approached. “You holding up?”

“I’m fine,” she said, leaning against the panel of the wall between the two garage doors.

“Where’s V?” Mitch asked.

At that moment, the garage door to her right lifted. She stood, turned, and watched V exit the garage with an unconscious corpo in an expensive-looking suit draped over his shoulder. V looked tired. Sweat sheened his forehead and a scattering of minor cuts and scrapes dotted his arms, but otherwise he seemed okay. 

“Is that him?” said Panam.

“Sure is,” V said, staggering slightly under the weight of Hellman.

A few of the Aldecaldos had been sent to retrieve the bikes V and Panam had left across the highway, and at that moment, they pulled up. 

“Toss him on the bike,” said Panam, motioning toward Scorpion’s ride. 

V nodded, walked forward, and tossed Hellman across the back of the motorcycle without much care. He leaned against the bike and caught his breath. Panam came around on the opposite side and stood facing him. 

“The cavalry arrived,” she said. “Mitch gathered together a few Aldecaldos.” 

Mitch approached and stood next to the front tire of the bike with his arms crossed. “The road was clear,” he said. “I don’t think we were spotted, but we would do better to not hang around too long.” 

Panam glanced at Hellman. “What do you plan to do with him?” she asked V. 

“Just gotta ask him a few important questions. It’s a long story,” he said with a sigh.

Panam did her best to quell her frustration at V’s evasive response. Hadn’t she earned a few answers? “Well,” she said. “I’d love to hear it sometime.”

V gave her a smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. 

Saul approached without warning and stood between Panam and Mitch. A mixture of anger and anxiety swirled in her gut at his presence. 

“Everything’s done here,” Mitch reported. “All clear.” 

Saul folded his arms and shot a wary look at V. “I heard Mitch is alive thanks to you,” he said. 

V stood up straight and met Saul’s eye. “Me and Panam,” he said.

Saul nodded and looked down with disgust at Anders Hellman’s limp body draped over the back of Scorpion’s bike. “I just hope he was worth it,” he said.

Panam summoned her courage and spoke up. “Saul, I tried to raise Scorpion, but he…”

Saul looked at her, and the disappointment in his eye made her stomach drop. He shook his head and began pacing. 

“Maybe I could help out somehow?” she asked. Damn that quiver in her voice. 

Saul scoffed. “I think you’ve helped enough.”

A familiar burst of anger overwhelmed Panam. “I tried to stop him!”

Saul stopped pacing, facing away from her.

“Sure,” she said. “Just turn around now, let it all be damned. You’re good at that, aren’t you?!”

Saul whipped around and closed the distance between them with one striding step. His face was only a few inches from hers. 

V spoke up. “Look, Saul, it really wasn’t Panam’s fault. It’s mine.” 

Saul tore his menacing gaze from Panam’s face and turned to V. “Careful,” he spat. “You and me are not buddy-buddy. Besides, nobody’s blamed anyone for anything–yet.” 

Panam shook her head and gave a bitter laugh. “Sure,” she said. “Right.”

Saul backed off a step. 

“Panam was just helpin’ me,” V said. “It was my doin’, my fault that AV got hit. Without me, Scorpion and his people wouldn’t have gone out to grab it. That’s the truth.” 

Panam felt a warmth begin to supplant the anger in her stomach. She simultaneously appreciated V stepping in to defend her and wished he would stop blaming himself. Besides, this argument with Saul was about much, much more than just today’s shitstorm. 

“When you are an Aldecaldo,” Saul said, looking straight at Panam, “you are always responsible for yourself and your people. The circumstances change nothing. Perhaps Panam should ask herself if she’s still an Aldecaldo.”

Saul stormed away before Panam could formulate a response to the dig. Instead, she spat at her feet and folded her arms with tight fists. “Damn it all,” she said through clenched teeth.

“Hey, don’t worry about Saul,” said Mitch. “He’ll get over it.” 

Panam steeled herself. “I don’t give a damn,” she said. 

Mitch shook his head. “But he gives a damn about you, Panam. As soon as he heard what happened, he ordered us to follow you. He was worried about you.”

Panam looked down at her feet as her face flushed.

“Look,” Mitch continued. “Maybe you two don’t see eye-to-eye at the moment, but you’re family. And Saul will do anything for family.”

Panam pinched the bridge of her nose and forced the tears rising to her eyes back down. “The thing is,” she said, “am I even part of the family anymore?” She exhaled and looked up to the sky.

“You know you are,” said Mitch. “Come back to us.”

At that moment, a sudden wave of dizziness crashed over her, accompanied by a shock of pain from her injury. She started losing her footing, but before she could hit the ground, V darted forward and caught her, draping her arm over his shoulder and his around her waist. 

“Mitch!” he said. “She needs some help.”

Mitch hurried toward Panam’s ride and called over his shoulder, “Bring ‘er over here!”

V guided Panam toward the Thorn and helped her climb up on the tailgate, where she sat with her legs dangling over the edge as Mitch inspected the wound. “Gonna need to clean this out,” he said. “It’ll hurt like a bitch.” 

It already hurt like a bitch, so Panam braced herself and said, “I’m ready.”

Mitch disappeared to retrieve some supplies from the cab of the truck. V leaned his elbows on the tailgate next to Panam and looked up at her. He only half smiled as he said, “You’re not gonna let a ricocheted bullet from a fuckin’ Kang Tao drone be the end of Panam Palmer, are you?” He joked, but worry and guilt traced the perimeter of his eyes. 

Panam laughed and then winced as the movement caused a fresh spike of pain through her abdomen. After taking a second to recover, she said, “Certainly not.” After a moment, she spoke again. “Sorry you had to witness that, with Saul. Things just get complicated, dramatic, sometimes.”

V shook his head. “Don’t be sorry. I get why you butt heads with him. Seems difficult to get along with.”

“He means well,” said Panam. “That’s what everyone says, anyway. But he doesn’t listen well.” 

V looked off into the distance, thoughtful.

“Hey,” she said, and he met her eyes again. “What Saul said back there? About Aldecaldos being responsible for their own? That much was true. Scorpion…,” she paused to hold back those damned tears that were rising again. “What happened to him was not your fault. He, and everyone else with him, should have been more cautious. But Kang Tao, those are the motherfuckers who killed him. Not me. Not you.” 

V hung his head for a moment and nodded. He looked back at her, and she was captivated once again by the force of his blue eyes, the intensity of his gaze. “Panam, I–”

At that moment, Mitch returned with alcohol, gauze, and a pair of small forceps. “All right, Panam,” he said, setting the supplies down on the tailgate. “Here goes.” He climbed up and crouched next to her on the truck bed. “Might wanna hold on to somethin’,” he said. 

“I’ll be fine,” she said, clenching her fists. “Do it.”

Without hesitation, Mitch used the forceps to pull out a miniscule ribbon of metal that must have been stripped off the top of the Thorn and planted itself in her side. It hurt, but not more than she could manage. Then, Mitch doused the gash with the antiseptic, and Panam instinctually reached out for something to grasp. Her hand found V’s, and she gripped it tight as black spots crowded her vision and a groan escaped her mouth. 

By the time her vision returned to normal and the pain receded, Mitch had already bandaged up the wound with gauze and disappeared again to return the supplies to the truck. Her hand was still planted firmly in V’s, and her desire to leave it there battled with her aversion to appearing weak. After a split second of deliberation, she decided to leave it. “Thank you,” she said. 

“How you feelin’?” asked V.

“I’m fine,” she said. She wasn’t. The gash still stung like a motherfucker, and now that Hellman was secure, the images of Scorpion lying dead in the dirt were getting harder to keep at bay. 

“Listen,” said V. “Gotta get ‘im out of here.” He jerked his head toward the corpo, who remained unconsciously draped across the back of Scorpion’s motorcycle. 

In the distance, Panam heard one of the Aldecaldos yell, “They’re coming! We gotta move, one minute!”

“Take care of Scorpion’s bike,” said Panam. “It’s yours now.” 

V looked as though he were about to protest but decided against it. In the end, he nodded and said in a quiet voice, “I will.” All around them, the Aldecaldos were scurrying back to their rides and revving their engines.

“You look out for yourself, all right?” said Panam. 

“Panam, I–” V looked down and cleared his throat. He took a deep breath and met her eyes again. “I don’t want this to be the last time I see you.” His jaw clenched once the words were out.

Panam smiled. “Of course not. You still owe me a long story, remember?”

V’s jaw relaxed and shifted into a grin. “That I do.” 

Mitch opened the driver’s side door of the Thorn. He gave V a short nod before climbing in, which V returned in kind.

Panam looked at V, gave his hand a squeeze, and let go.

The Aldecaldos began pulling out of the filling station, heading the opposite direction from which they’d come. V took a few steps back from the bed of the Thorn and Mitch hit the gas. “You’ve got my number, gonk!” she called to him as they pulled out of the station. “Use it!”

V smiled and put up a hand in goodbye. Panam watched him turn into a speck as the Aldecaldo convoy drew farther and farther away. She pulled her legs up into the truck bed, leaned back on a bunched up tarp, closed her eyes, and smiled softly. Then, with a deep breath, she put down the walls and let all the pain of the day rush in.

Chapter Text

The next day, V awoke in his apartment to the mid-afternoon sun filtering through the window slats and quiet music drifting from the radio across the room. He had a pulsing headache and a foggy mind. After parting ways with Panam, he’d taken Hellman back to the Sunset Motel for a bit of questioning, which, to be honest, hadn’t gone half as well as he’d hoped. All he’d learned from the corpo rat was there was fuck-all he could do for V, besides making the whole dying process a little more comfortable. At least he’d been able to win some points with Goro out of the whole thing, but the second his ex-Arasaka pal had shown up at the motel to speak with Hellman, V got out of there. He’d heard enough. He climbed back on Scorpion’s bike and headed for home, turning things over in his head. When he arrived at his apartment in Watson, he’d showered, collapsed on his bed, and zonked out for a solid fifteen hours.

He took his time getting up, eventually making his way to the bathroom, where he washed his face with cold water and took one of the omega blockers Misty had given him. He sat on the cool bathroom floor for a good thirty minutes while he waited for the meds to kick in and clear his mind. While he sat, he combed through the events of the past couple days. Even with his imminent death looming over him, or maybe because of it, his thoughts returned again and again to the same place: Panam Palmer. 

V pulled out his phone and opened up his contacts list, scrolling down a ways until he found who he was looking for. His thumb hovered over Panam’s name for some time before tapping it. He held the phone up to his ear and waited. Just as he was about to give it up, she answered.

“Hiya, V,” she said.

“Panam Palmer,” he replied. “You still bleedin’ all over the Badlands?”

“Mitch patched me up. I’ll be right as rain in no time.”

“Glad to hear that,” said V. His heart began beating faster. “You still with ‘em? The Aldecaldos?”

Her tone turned downcast. “I returned to the city this morning.”

V paused. “Y’ever been to Tom’s Diner?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

“Well, listen. There’s one just ‘round the corner from my place. Decent grub.” 

V could almost hear her smile through the phone, and a bud of warmth took root in his gut. “What time?” she said.

“Six? I’ll drop the location.”

“Okay, V. Tom’s Diner at six.”

“See ya soon.”

The line disconnected and V placed his phone on the bathroom counter, his head feeling much clearer now.

V took the elevator down to the street level and set off walking toward Tom’s a few minutes before six. He’d been thinking about how to explain his Johnny Silverhand situation to Panam for hours now. Would she believe him? Think he was crazy? Recognize that he was trouble and get as far away as possible? V felt a connection with Panam he couldn’t quite explain. Yeah, they hadn’t known each other long, but they’d both grown up on the road with nomad clans, so they understood that part of each other pretty instantly. He found her intelligent and capable; he wouldn’t have been able to get Hellman without her. She made him laugh. Not to mention how easy she was on the eyes.

The neon sign above the diner glowed down on him as he crossed the final street before entering the joint. Walking in, he surveyed the room. No sign of Panam yet. There were only a few other people in the place, so he took a seat at one of the many empty booths and waited, though not for long. Panam arrived, saw V and smiled, and marched in her purposeful way toward him, taking a seat across the table. 

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey.” 

A beat of slightly awkward silence passed. 

“How are–”

“Did you–”

“Sorry,” said Panam. “You go.” 

V clenched his fists in his lap. His palms were starting to sweat.

“I was just gonna ask how the Aldecaldos are holding up. How’s Mitch?”

Before Panam had a chance to respond, a brusque waiter showed up to take their order. V ordered some pancakes, and Panam opted for a synthmeat burger. Once the waiter had retreated to the kitchen, Panam spoke. 

“They’re doing okay. Still stinging about Scorpion.”

V nodded. “I’m sure.”

“Scorpion said I would hate Night City,” she said. She pulled a napkin from the dispenser and began picking at its edges.

“He must have known you pretty well,” said V.

Panam gave a sad smile. “Probably better than I know myself. He said when I’d had enough of the city, we would get ourselves an RV. Then we’d stock up and hit the road. Crater Lake. That was his big dream.”

“Heard it’s beautiful there,” said V. “And that Ryan Diemer’s car is rusting at the bottom.”

“What? Who?” Panam tossed the napkin aside and swept the pieces she’d picked apart off the table. 

“That corpo, stole some sorta prototype. Think it was Militech,” said V. “You don’t remember?”

Panam shook her head.

“Anyway,” V continued, “chased the guy through three states, only to fish his body up outta the lake.”

“Killed himself?”

“Doubt it. Think they hit him with a virus. Anyway, lost control. Probably suffocated before he could drown.”

“That is fucked up,” Panam said, raising her eyebrows.

“But you stopped thinking about all that sad shit for a moment, right?”

Panam laughed. “That I did.”

At that moment, the waiter returned with their food and dropped it off on their table without a word before slinking back to the kitchen once again. V and Panam ate in silence for a few moments.

“I’ve been thinking about a lot of things,” said Panam through a mouthful of food. She finished chewing and swallowing, then continued. “About the shit with Saul, about Mitch and Scorpion. About the family I…had? Lost? Left? Adopting? I didn’t know it would be this fucking complicated.”

V swallowed a bite of his pancakes, took a drink of juice, and nodded. “Tell me more,” he said.

Panam sighed and threw her fork down on her plate. She folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t get what’s happening to me. I’m in this city, free to do whatever I want with my life, but…Fuck. Am I really free? If I left my old life because things started to get a little inconvenient? That would mean I’m always just going to be running. Does that make sense?”

V nodded. “It does.” He paused before continuing, nervous about how Panam would react to what he was thinking. “Maybe…maybe Mitch was right?”

Panam squinted, scrutinizing him.

“I just mean maybe, if you don’t want to feel like you’ll always be runnin’, that you should go back. Settle everything, once and for all. One way or the other.”

Panam scoffed and shook her head. “I can’t change Saul. And I can’t change what I think about him. So don’t go lecturing me on compromises, please.” She set her jaw and looked out the window at the street below.

“Hey,” said V, drawing Panam’s focus back to him. “I didn’t mean to. You don’t have to try to change Saul. Definitely shouldn’t change yourself. But trust me–you can live with someone you don’t always get along with.”

Panam scoffed again.

“I know,” said V. “Sounds corny. But it’s true.” He shrugged.

Panam said nothing. V watched her take another bite of her burger and trace the handle of her coffee mug with her fingertips. She was quiet, thinking. She swallowed and cleared her throat, leaning forward with her elbows on the tabletop. 

“Mitch and I have put something together for Scorpion tonight. A send-off of sorts. Will you come?” Panam’s eyes darted between his, earnest and searching.

“I’d be honored.” 

Panam looked out the window again.

“How do Aldecaldos send off their dead, anyway? Bakkers, we would build a pyre and spread the ashes on the road. Amata didn’t like the idea of putting ‘em in the ground and leaving ‘em behind.” 

“Amata?” Panam asked, looking back at V.

“Clan leader, long as I can remember.”

“Aldecaldos bury our dead. But Scorpion, well, he had something else in mind.” A small smile crept along the side of her mouth.

V and Panam finished eating in comfortable silence. V wiped his mouth with a napkin and tossed it on his empty plate before heading to the counter to pay for the food. When he returned to the table, Panam was gazing out the window once again. He studied her for a moment before speaking. “You ready?” he said. 

Panam nodded. “This fucking city,” she said under her breath as she stood.

V followed her outside, where they both climbed into the Thorn. Panam told him more stories about Scorpion as they drove, leaving the city lights behind them. 

They drove for thirty minutes before reaching the end of the road–an unfinished bridge that dangled over the edge of a deep, sandy ravine. The sun had all but gone down, coating the desert in dusty twilight. A souped up nomad ride was parked on the side of the road, and as they got closer, V was able to identify the man leaning against it as Mitch. Panam pulled the Thorn over, and the two of them exited the vehicle. Mitch gave Panam a quick hug before turning to V and extending a hand. 

“Hey, Mitch,” said V. “You doin’ okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mitch said. “I’m doing all right.” 

“Is everything ready?” asked Panam. 

Mitch nodded. He walked around and climbed inside the car he’d driven out here.

“That rig was Scorpion’s,” said Panam. 

V gave the ride a closer look and whistled. “Nice wheels,” he said. 

“Mmhmm,” said Panam. “Damn right.”

Mitch climbed back out of Scorpion’s ride just as the trunk door swung open. “Holy shit!” said V, unable to stop the words coming out of his mouth. In the trunk, Scorpion’s body lay on its side, curled up like he was asleep. Dark, encrusted blood still covered his clothes and his skin. V cleared his throat. “Sorry,” he said. “Wasn’t expecting that.” 

“It’s what Scorpion wanted,” said Mitch.

“He wanted us to take him here,” Panam said. “And send him off with a bang.” 

“That’s right,” said Mitch. “We’ll set him up behind the wheel, douse the car, then light it–let him fly off the edge.”

“If that’s what Scorpion wanted,” said V, “then we’d better give it to him.” 

A grin stretched across Mitch and Panam’s faces at the exact same time as they snapped into action. “Grab me that can, will you?” said Mitch, pointing toward a white gas canister resting on the side of the road. V fetched the can, and as he hauled it back to the car, he watched Mitch wrestle Scorpion’s body from the trunk while Panam grabbed a dirty towel from the back seat, twisted it, and stuffed it in the gas tank. V poured the contents of the can over the inside of the cab as Mitch placed Scorpion behind the wheel, arranging his body just so. 

“All right,” said Mitch, taking a step back, closing the car door, and dusting off his hands. “No point wasting time. Another hour or two, and he’ll puff up like a balloon.”

“Right,” Panam said. “Shall we get this show on the road? I’ll light it. Mitch–you start the car.” Panam felt around in her pockets. “Fuck!” she said. “I lost my lighter.” 

V fished his lighter out of his front pocket. “Here,” he said, extending it to Panam.

“Thank you, V,” she said, taking it from him. She stepped forward, lit the rag, and backed up, standing at V’s side once again with her arms folded. 

Mitch pressed a button on the small remote in his hand, and with a chirp and a whirr, Scorpion’s ride started up. A short second later, the vehicle rolled forward, gaining speed as it approached the edge of the unfinished bridge. Just before disappearing over the edge, the entire car was consumed by a rush of flames as the burning towel reached the gas tank. Then, before V’s eyes could even adjust to the burst of light from the fire, the vehicle disappeared into the ravine. 

“May the road be kind to ya, friend,” Mitch said. His voice was quiet and strained.

V looked over to Panam, who had a few silent tears trailing down her face. V dug his hands deep into his pockets and nudged Panam with his shoulder. “Wanna go take a look?” 

Panam wiped her eyes and nodded. All three of them walked forward and peered off the edge of the bridge, down into the ravine. A flaming pile of metal wreckage rested at the bottom. 

“Out with a bang. Just like he wanted,” said Panam.

Mitch nodded, wiping away a few tears from his own eyes. “Soot and ash,” he said. “That much remains.” 

After a few moments of silent staring, Panam spoke again. “So, how about a beer?”

“It is that time,” said Mitch.

“I’ll drink to a send off like that,” V said. 

The trio walked to the opposite side of the abandoned road, where a rusty metal table with a few bottles of Broseph on top and a handful of chairs were set up. Mitch distributed the beers and took a seat. Panam took a seat next to Mitch, and V sat on the chair closest to her on the opposite side. They used the edge of the table to pop the caps off their bottles and each took a swig. 

Mitch sighed. “Nothing like a good cold one,” he said.

“Agreed,” said V, taking another swig. “Where’d ‘Scorpion’ come from anyway? That his given name?”

“You know,” Panam said. “I haven’t the faintest idea. We just always called him that.” She took a long pull from her bottle. 

“You seem like a good egg, V,” said Mitch, raising his bottle and nodding in V’s direction. 

Panam smiled, and V laughed. “Well, thanks,” he said. “I do try.” 

“The fact I’m still here to send Scorpion off right–that’s thanks to you,” said Mitch.

The smiles retreated from both V and Panam’s faces, memories of the previous day flooding into his mind. Mitch looked toward the ravine, where Scorpion’s lifeless form now rested in the dirt. “Your paths crossed,” he continued. “Just for a moment. But damn, was it the right one.” Mitch cleared his throat and took another drink. “And Panam,” he said. “You meant the world to ‘im.” He reached around and pulled something out of his back pocket. “There’s something you oughta have. This was a little good luck charm of his.” 

Mitch extended the object to Panam, and V was able to get a better look at it. Seemed like a small action figure of some sort. Panam took it, and it fit neatly in the palm of her hand. She looked at it for a good while, slowly tracing its edges with her fingers. “What is it?” she asked. 

“Not a clue. Scorpion always had it on him, though. No idea why.” 

Panam stared at the figure a moment longer before carefully tucking it into her pocket. “Thank you, Mitch,” she said. 

The three of them nursed their drinks in silence for several minutes, until both the bottles and the tears ran dry.

“Listen,” said Mitch. “I’m going to sit here for a while, all right? Brood in peace.” 

Panam stood up. “Understood,” she said.

V rose from his seat and gave Mitch a nod. “Thank you, Mitch,” he said. 

Mitch returned the nod. “Thank you , V. For today. And for getting me out of that shit back then, too. You’re all right. You’re really all right.” His words were beginning to slur.

V followed Panam back to the Thorn, where she turned to face him and leaned against the driver’s side door. “Well,” she said. “Sounds like you have a new fan.”

V laughed and shook his head. “You sure you don’t want to keep Mitch company?” V asked. “I can call in a ride.” 

Panam folded her arms. “He needs to be alone at times like these. He always has.” 

“And you? What do you need?”

“I have a feeling I’ll be grieving Scorpion for some time yet, but this helped.” Panam sighed. “What I need now is a nice view and good company.” She looked into V’s eyes. “Stay with me a while longer?”

“Be happy to,” said V, that familiar bud of warmth sprouting once again in his chest.

Panam smiled. She turned and climbed into the Thorn, so V walked around to the other side and took his familiar place in the passenger seat. They drove for only a few minutes before Panam slowed the car to a stop. She twisted around in her seat and backed the Thorn up to the edge of a shallow ridge before shutting off the ignition. She jerked her head toward the back of the car and said, “Shall we?” 

They left the Thorn and sat next to each other on the tailgate, looking out over their unobstructed view of the Badlands and listening to the quiet hum of the night.

Panam looked at him, and V met her eyes. The twilight painted them with a hazy glimmer. “Will you tell me your story, V?” 

“Sure you want to hear it?” he asked. “S’not particularly uplifting.” 

“I am,” she said.

V looked down at his hands clasped in his lap, took a deep breath, and started at the beginning.