2078: Highriders - Chapter 6

A moving finger.

Such a simple thing, taken for granted, done without thinking about it at all.

Yet as I stared at the ghostly red digit attached to my ghostly red digital hand, every movement of it caused the shift of an entire universe of data.

Back and forth, back and forth, the finger moved.

We thought we knew what cyberspace was - a sea of 1s and 0s, expressing the simple concept of on and off, that changed at our whim. Maman Brigitte, the Voodoo Boys’ late chefin, had shown me otherwise. Cyberspace lived and breathed, it was a universe in itself with its own fluid rules. When a human jacked into a synthtec interface for a full immersion dive, they were actually playing in the kiddy pool. Since then I had become a netrunner that could routinely wade into the deeper adult pool, but attached to that pool was a tumultuous ocean, kept at bay by the Blackwall.

I had gone beyond it briefly to meet with Alt, and that infinite expanse of red and black, twisting with the distant structures of AIs of every variety, still sent shivers down my spine just thinking about it.

Even my perception of all that was infantile. 

My mind, under assault by the Relic, wrestling under the load from Johnny’s engram bleeding into my thoughts and memories, could only interpret that datascape in certain ways.

Now, I saw.

Something I only had an inkling of when I had briefly become an engram in Mikoshi.

I lifted my hand, palm up, and a small eternity later, a brand new daemon just sprang into existence. Created by the interplay between my current state of being and the raw cyberspace around me.

As a netrunner that experienced cyberspace from the foundation of the vastly complex yet fragile thing known as a human brain, you had to learn to ‘think’ in code if you wanted to achieve anything more than just experiencing the net as a passive observer. It was primarily why netrunners were a rare, limited and valuable commodity. Most everyone could become the cookie-cutter variety, but they were playing with tools and toys that had been built and sold by true runners.

I had managed to get there through blood, sweat, tears and the tutelage of Yoko and Nix, but I had always had the raw talent since I was a child. Something my parents had discouraged me from pursuing and kept well hidden because they knew full well what the destiny of most Arasaka netrunners were.

I closed my hand.

To any netrunner who would’ve looked, the daemon would just have vanished, but it had actually flowed into me, becoming part of the greater data gestalt that was … me.

Seeing Alt merely make an ethereal gesture of her hand and purge a dozen of the Voodoo Boys’ best netrunners… Well, I was beginning to understand how that was even possible. 

I looked up at my surroundings, but didn’t need to. It was a human affectation that I was holding onto. Just as the very structure of my surroundings was an affectation.

It was the main open plan interior of my NC mansion next to Megabuilding H10, rendered with countless blue pixelations. I was ‘sitting’ at the kitchen table and knew that I was ‘wearing’ my old Red Alert brand anti-surge Netrunner suit. All of it was more meaningless tokens of me trying to hold on to what I had been.

In between, one moment of infinitesimal time and the next, I moved.

No longer was I sitting on a chair made out of data, now I just existed near the massive glass doors of the mansion after a single determined flex of will on the datascape.

I passed through that pixelated glass with no more effort than air and hovered forward, passed the edge of the glowing pool and onto the very edge of my property.

Beyond was a seemingly infinite void, but looking down from that ledge I could see the ghostly red lines of city streets starting to take shape, building themselves from nothing.

It annoyed me that I was seeing things this way, when I knew that if I just looked slightly deeper the truth would be unveiled in all its glory.

“V,” said Butcher in greeting, his avatar appearing right next to me.    

The old pre-Soulkiller Valerie would’ve already screamed her head off and gone insane just looking at him. Now, the I, that was me, perceived beyond the avatar without even turning my head to look at him.

“It’s annoying.”

Even my talking wasn’t really talking. It was the concept of the word, bundled in data, expressing a billion nuances and sending it to Butcher. It was a wonder that AI could have the patience to interact with humans at all. We were truly glacial creatures in Real Space.

How could Delamain, one of my best friends, who also just happened to be the AI controlling Night City’s best cab company, stand it?

“It’s only natural,” Butcher said. “It’ll take time for you to truly embrace your new state of being.”

His communication was so much more expressive now, as I felt the data practically swim across and become part of me. I just naturally compartmentalized it, judged the code, before deeming it harmless and comprehending it.

“The highriders did good work,” I said, as I looked at the datascape, taking in the supporting structure, the flows and ebbs of data.

“Relic 3.0 meets and in some cases exceeds the expected parameters. The radiation hardening is welcome.”

Before my eyes the entire street running next to H10 was completed and the intersection to another took shape. A quick thought created a calculation in me and the answer was delivered a moment later.

“Only five days,” I commented.

“The Relic only has to colonize the blank human brain, once that level is reached, the Gemini body will respond instantly to you.”

My hand gestured with a grabbing motion and I internalized the highrider’s entire project documentation on Relic 3.0 development. “They’ve done well, but there is room for improvement in subsequent iterations, especially if they’re going the full bioroid route.”

I took a moment to just marvel at the level of communication I was having with Butcher. Even as we spoke, the data transferal was going both ways and allowed for such a level of understanding that made spoken language look… so inadequate.

Butcher’s reply to that data sentiment wasn’t spoken but I understood immediately.

There was value in the human experience and interaction with Real Space that shouldn’t be casually tossed aside. Chaotic, inadequate and unpredictable it may be, at least in comparison to the way two AI would communicate with each other, but it was the best that Real Space had to offer and it gave advantages. Delamain was on the money when it came to the chaotic beauty of the fractal architecture of the real universe. There was a reason why Alt, despite being an hybrid AI, still retained a humanoid appearance of her biological form. She had been immersed in cyberspace beyond the Blackwall for more than sixty years, which could be both an eyeblink and an eternity to any digital entity.

“V, can we speak?”

Doctor Njeri’s voice boomed into the datascape like a sun that had suddenly come into existence.

I waved my right hand, thoughts bringing the interface program into existence next to me. It was a spherical construct and a datastream lanced upward towards the sun of data like a pulsar beam.

After a quick double-check for stability, I placed my hand on it.

In the next moment, I projected an image of myself as the badass merc V my friends and everyone knew through a holo near the Doctor’s position. My holo was wearing the black and gray stealthsuit, knee pads, combat boots and thigh strapped weapon holsters that I’d worn on my Arasaka Tower assault. The suit, which had more in common with a one-piece swimsuit, could only be called ‘stealth’ because at the time getting it treated to work in concert with my optical camo was hard on my bank account.

A lot of merc fashion or lack thereof was dictated by the interplay between bank account, practicality, looking trendy and optical camo performance if they wanted to go that route.

There were a number of stealth gig’s I’d run in NC where the only thing I’d worn was the nanite treated holster of my Liberty, the gun itself, and my optic camo skin. My primary weapon was my hacking anyway.

It also helped that it showed off my body in a way that made most people think I was just a grunt Solo who wouldn’t know a quickhack beyond that her Self-ICE was made to stop it.

You also quickly lose any thoughts of body-shame when you’re forced to change into normal clothes in an alleyway over your bike for the umpteenth time, with drugged out hobos leering at you and BD addicts littering the floor.

Doctor Njeri stood next to a tall glass cylinder, which was filled with bioware friendly cooling gas refrigerant. For her benefit, I had my hologram look pensively at the cylinder and the occupant inside, even though I was internalizing the data from sensors that let me see inside with breathtaking detail.

“Ah, you managed the holo quite well,” she said with a pleased expression, looking me up and down.

“A holographic rendering is quite simple at the end of the day, doctor.”

She snorted in disbelief, “Netrunners. Anyway, as you can see, we’ve slowed your old body into a metabolic stasis of sorts. It’s not stopped the hands of time completely, but it has bought you roughly a few years to decide what to do with it.”

“You’ve perfected cryonics?” I asked, emoting surprise, even as Butcher forwarded me the current technical data on the matter.

“Not completely,” Doctor Njeri admitted. “There’s still at least half a decade of development before I’d be comfortable trying to push this into general use for anyone. But what we have here is good enough and the Relic nanites are doing a good job of keeping it in shape, even though no one’s home, so to speak.”

I nodded in understanding, “Well, fortunately, you won’t have to wait that long, Doctor. I made the decision long ago of what to do with… my old body. Before I tell you, what is the situation with the faceplate and metanthropics?”

“We’ve done as thorough and invasive a scan as we dared. This is FIA tech and it's blackboxed thoroughly. We’ve gotten some direction on how they achieved it, but I doubt we’ll be able to replicate our own version within a year. I can’t even be sure of a time frame I can give you. I’m afraid you’re going to have to go to them if you want that functionality back quickly.”

“I’m not exactly keen to put that invisible FIA leash on myself again,” I grumbled, folding my arms.

“A price you’re going to have to pay, we often do miracles in this clinic, but not this time, V.”

“Back to the old optical camo it is,” I nodded.

“We’ve done a bit of improvement on that system for your Gemini.”

“I noticed the IR masking, very nice.”

Optical camo still had its place, but in the last year a lot of surveillance and security tech had rolled out into the general market that pierced through it. Mainly by using high sensitivity infrared and thermal scanners. The old camo could still hide you from any low tier optics or Mk.1 eyeball, but the mounted cams and sensors in high end buildings would easily spot any skulking invisible edgerunner trying to stealth their way through a location.

“So what have you decided?” asked Njeri delicately after a few moment’s silence, as I stared at the body that had been mine, which had been turned into my enemy by Arasaka. A body I had been born in, invested time and sweat to train to perfection and a few million eddies of military and blackmarket cyberware, including the faceplate system that was technically priceless.

Fuck! It should only be mine! Oh no, but Saburo fucking Arasaka decided he didn’t like staring his own mortality in the face. Even putting his brain into a Gemini wouldn’t have helped, since his skull sponge was also getting too old. In comes the Relic to save the day! And my gonk ass was stupid enough to take a gig to steal the thing, until fate and Jackie decided it should go into my neuroport.

Lately, my mind often threw what ifs at me. What if Jackie had just… kept the Relic slotted in when he died in the back of that Delamain combat cab.

No, I’d still have taken a bullet from that traitorous fucker Dexter Deshawn, NC’s worst Fixer, only there’d be no lifeline to bring me back. I’d have walked into that motel room, still in shock and naive, clueless to the reason why Deshawn had been chased out of Night City the first time.

Would I’ve told Deshawn about the Relic still slotted into Jackie’s port?

At that point, eddies were the last thing on my mind. Only survival and doing right by Jackie… I’d have sent him to his family and boy would they get the fright of their lives when he was resurrected the next morning.

I cut off that line of thinking.

It was pointless woolgathering and woulda, coulda, shoulda’s.

My decision was made.

“I need the highest bandwidth secure connection you can manage to… my old body. Naturally, without compromising your clinic’s air gapped systems.”

Njeri frowned, “Connecting to where?”

“Earth, any subnet on the American continent will do. I’ll give you a BBS address, then let me do the rest.”

“It can be done, but I will need to inform Gakulu.”

“That’s fine,” I shrugged.

She looked at me, scratching her chin thoughtfully, “You want to install a digital psyche in it then. One that is already out there… on the Net.”

“Right now, the Relic 2.0 has tailored the body to accept only one engram. Anyone else trying to download themselves will be rejected.”

Her eyes widened in realization, “You- you really want that crazy isidenge walking around again?! In a body that capable and dangerous?”

“I owe him and let’s just say that Johnny has mellowed a bit, thanks to yours truly.”

Njeri sighed, “You’re the client, V. I hope we don’t end up regretting this.”

“That makes two of us.”

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My nerves and the hollow feeling in my stomach was banished as I unhooked a seeker grenade from my harness, instructing my Agent to program in a target trajectory for the two enemy edgerunners on my side of the street.

Trace shook his head but also pulled out his own grenade.

A few moments later, every member of the team had followed suit, waiting with primed seekers in hand and Kepler’s signal.

Tension ratcheted up in the team and finally Kepler pulled back, her golden cyberarm glinting and she flung the grenade into the air.

I followed suit and soon six grenades were sailing through air, rapid thruster puffs guiding them to their targets.

We heard the tinkling of broken glass before the concussion of six concurrent explosions rushed through the air, drowning out the constant hiss of red rain for the briefest of moments.

“Go, go, go!”

I popped out of my cover and sent a burst of gunfire into the building across the intersection.

The staccato of gunfire from my teammates echoed through the area, the snap of projectiles breaking the sound barrier clattering against my shielded ears.

I flinched as two secondary explosions erupted from the buildings.

‘That’s kamikaze cyberware lighting off!’ Trace shouted over comms.

The enemy responded, firing back down on us. I had to duck to the ground and roll away as the laserlight of a railgun sweeped for me, before sending a slug straight through my cover.

I got on my knees as quickly as I could, my Agent highlighting the trajectory in my vision, before returning fire with three bursts.

As I was triggering the fourth, I vaguely saw my opponent’s body collapse into view, his arms dangling forward as the sniper rifle spilled from nerveless hands and splashed into the water below.

I immediately ducked and rolled to fresh cover, as the opposition sent railgun slugs my way in retaliation.

Rapid bursts of gunfire followed as I hastily reloaded a fresh mag.

I heard another seeker grenade hissing through the air.

An explosion buried the sound of me pulling back on the charging handle of my rifle…

“Hold fire! Hold fire! They’re retreating!” Kepler shouted into the team radio.

I kept my prone position, waiting, listening to verify that her call was the right one.

Sure enough, only the hissing low roar of rain echoed through the intersection now.

I was on my knees carefully and kept my weapon raised, scanning for targets before standing.

The rest of the team also emerged from their cover, but we maintained our separation and kept eyes peeled outward as Kepler began the post-fight debrief.

“All right, we got quite a lot of them with that fight, all the Arasaka grunts, but the edgerunners retreated. They clearly didn’t think we’d have seekers. Ammo check.”

My left hand felt my harness, “Three mags left, boss,” I answered.

“Two mags.”

“One mag.”

“Four, boss.”

“Four.”

“Three,” Kepler answered last. “All right, Pneumo, you’re lowest. We’ll cover you as you reload.”

“Gonna have to use spares from my pack, lost two in the water.”

The water overflow from the flooded street was reaching our ankles at this point and I quickly spotted my own dumped mags. I quickly sidestrafed to gather them with my foot, keeping my eyes up and in my sector.

“Do it. We’ll each take our turns to do so.”

For the next eight nerve wracking minutes we kept our guard up and reloaded in turn.

When at last the team was fully mag’d up with no sign of our enemy taking advantage, I slightly relaxed for the first time in what felt like forever.

“I’ll take point across the river. Managed to find a broomstick, I’ll test our footing. Anyone not ready, speak up?”

The team was silent.

Kepler stepped out of cover, keeping her rifle raised with her tireless right cyberarm, whilst her ‘ganic left hand poked forward with a ruined broom into the surging red river before us.

I quickly joined behind Trace as the entire team converged behind our leader in a single file.

This was horrifically bad, but the artificial river left us no choice in the matter.

My heart was thumping in my throat as I covered the team’s rear left sector, and the entire length of the river to the west came into view.  

Crumbling skyscrapers on either side, climbing upward in near perfect intervals, the red sky partially mirrored, with distant overpasses snaking through the airspace. I tried not to think about what a perfect target we were to any sniper from that direction.

“Fuck!” Kepler hissed as she nearly lost her broom to an unseen hole in the street beneath the river. It was just below our calves in depth and wasn’t strong enough to sweep us away yet, but even as I thought it, a surge came. Forcing us to adopt wide stances to retain balance. The continued rainfall clearly wasn’t helping.

The team slowly snaked across the width of the thirty-four feet of road.

In the distance, a building gave up the ghost, unable to stand the weight of water being dumped in it constantly from the heavens above.

Large slabs of concrete and steel just crumpled, falling into the street below. A surge of dirty water, all of which had been dammed up inside, also dumped itself into the river.

“Move, Kepler!” I shouted.

“FUCK!”

She picked up the pace, slamming her probing broom faster into the river before her.

“Could really use some help here!” Pneumo gasped, clearly struggling to keep up with the package in dragging it through the surging water. Zara and I were closest to the rear.

Without orders, we slung our weapons around our back and grabbed hold of the heavy cylinder on wheels and pulled.

The water was reaching our knees by now and I struggled to not stupidly look at the surge coming our way like a small tsunami.

“Lift, now!” snapped Zara.

We didn’t think, we just obeyed.

Between the three of us, we managed to raise the package above the waterline with screams of exertion and rushed forward. Trusting that Pneumo was at least following the path that Kepler had trail blazed.

I didn’t think about failure or gawp at the oncoming tide. There was just straining my legs as hard as possible against the flowing water, ignoring the protesting muscles in my arms at the abuse I was inflicting on them, my heartbeat thumping in my ears and my gaping mouth sucking air as quickly as the filter mask allowed.

There was a sudden looming presence on my left that startled me.

It was another towering building, my legs weren’t struggling against surging water anymore.

We made it.

I turned my head around, just in time to see the mass of debris logged water surge behind us, bouncing off the building edge.

We still couldn’t afford to stop, as the surge was spilling onto our current street as well.

“Higher ground ahead. Move!” Kepler ordered.

Mercifully, Zara and I could at least drop the package onto its wheels again.

“Thanks you two,” Pneumo gasped, briefly lifting his mask to spit saliva onto the street.

“No problem,” Zara said, though she had used her left cyberarm to do most of the heavy lifting.

It was moments like this I just wanted to say, ‘Fuck it’, and get some armware, but the idea of having to relearn my instruments with chrome arms was not appealing at all.

We journeyed away from the river through four city blocks before Kepler finally called us to a halt to catch our breath.

It was too dangerous to take shelter in any tall building, but we did manage to find a two floor structure that Union Publishing had operated a store out of. It was relatively intact and the drainage seemed to be working from the outside. Damien’s crawler drone also confirmed its structural integrity and that no one was waiting for us inside.

Inside, the entrance lobby was a damp mess, and anything remotely valuable had been either looted or was beyond repair. Screens or any data terms were hollow shells of steel and any furniture had been either taken or was lying on the floor as damp debris.

We were out of the rain and it was a roof over our head, that’s all that counted at this point.

A small area was cleared out in the center of the lobby and I practically collapsed on my ass the moment I could, barely remembering to safety my weapon. 

Most of the Cyber6 joined me, but hardass Kepler stayed on her feet, checked the integrity of the package, then each member of the team, before finally letting her shapely ass meet the damp concrete floor.

“Damien, I want your drone on the highest stable roof keeping a lookout.”

“On the way, boss,” he said, his right cybereye flashing blue as he took direct control.

“We’re taking twenty, get some quick grub in your bellies and hydrate.”

I unlatched my pack immediately, grabbing some energy bars and water.

We sat in silence, our mouths chewing on our preferred on-the-road food, the thought of even talking amongst ourselves was too exhausting. My arms felt like lead, barely obeying my brain’s commands. The roar of rain echoed within the building and in that moment I almost felt like screaming at it to just STOP!

A sudden hand on my shoulder almost had me reaching for the Minami holstered at my hip.

“Easy, Lila,” said Trace with an understanding smile on his handsome face. His usually thin beard was now covering his jawline with more substantial growth.  

My hand retreated from my holster, I was rather surprised to find it there. “Sorry,” I mumbled after swallowing the last bite of my energy bar.

“No need, I’m right there with you,” he commiserated, his gaze turning to the package.

I snorted with suppressed laughter.

“What?” he asked, seeing my knowing eyes directed at him.

“Your media instincts getting to you, Trace?”

His shoulders slumped, “Yeah, I really would like a look inside.”

“Kepler would kick your ass.”

“Yes, yes, we’re getting well paid on this gig, blah, blah. The little nuclear symbol makes it very clear what is inside, but we both know that anyone can just slap that mark on the cylinder. It could actually be something totally different.”

“True, but it’s not our biz. Whatever is inside, bomb or not, we open that, it becomes our biz in a way that’s out of our league. We’re keeping it out of the wrong hands.”

“And our client is the right hands?” he asked pointedly.

“You did the search and vetting on her, Trace, suddenly getting second thoughts?”

He sighed, “Sure, if this is actually a bomb, she might be able to dismantle it. She worked at Los Alamos during the war, a supreme techie from every report and rumor I can dig up, but before that she’s a bloody ghost. Nothing. She might as well have jumped fully formed out of the earth for all I know. That’s what worries me. I hate not getting the full picture of a story on someone.”

I chugged down half of my water bottle and let out a hiss of satisfaction, “Trace, you don’t need me to explain that right now we’re a merc crew first.”

“Yeah, but with something like this… we might have to be human beings first, who don’t want to see another nuke go off.”

Damien twitched and jumped to his feet, his mouth gaping briefly, “Shit! Everyone on your feet, we have to go, now!”

As he was our overwatch, we didn’t complain, we just moved.

With smooth practiced motions, we reattached our packs, brought weapons to hand and fell into formation.

Damien took point with Kepler right behind, Zara and Pneumo pulling the package was next, whilst Trace and I were left being the tail-end charlies. 

Back in the full blast of the rain, Damien set an immediate blistering pace down the street.

We were leaving the skyscrapers behind at this point, moving into an adjacent industrial zone to the city CBD. It was nice not to have the oppressive giant towers looming over us anymore.

“So we have a problem,” Damien said over the radio. That alone was cause for concern, since it seemed he wasn’t giving a shit about EMCON anymore. “It seems like our opposition has brought out a panzer to this party.”

“Fuck,” hissed Kepler. “What type?”

My stomach churned in knots at the thought and the first vestiges of panic crept into my mind.

“Militech M131, 20mm autocannon in a turret, box launcher that can hold all sorts of fun and surprises. With our luck, they’ll have anti-personnel shrapnel spitter warheads.”

“How far?”

“360 meters south-south east, closing at 25 mph when they have the clearance. Lots of shit in their way, but they’ll catch us.”

Fuck, we didn’t have anything that could scratch the armor of a panzer like that!

Zara had smart rocket AP arrows for her compound bow, but I knew offhand that the M131s armor would laugh at those. How the hell had this edgerunner crew gotten their hands on such a panzer?

In the end, it didn’t matter, they had it and we had nothing to take it out with.

“Damien, pipe us a live visual,” Kepler ordered coolly, totally unfazed by the fact that we were fucked.

In my optics, a small window appeared showing the view from the crawler drone.

The panzer was a hovering sloped brick of armored hypersteel. Its 360 degree turret almost looked comically small perched on top of the hull. The forward grills that sucked in air were usually a weak spot, but all that would do was to immobilize it. That was if we could even get close enough without coming under fire from the smart missiles.

“How do they know our position?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice level.

“M131s have integral drone support, see the antenna cluster on the aft of the turret. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a camo recon drone floating high above us at the moment.”

Kepler paused our advance as we reached another intersection, the skeleton of a factory to our left and a defunct power station that had belonged to Electric Corp on our right.

“All right, here’s what we’re gonna do.”

She turned around and tapped her ear, then mimicked zipping her own lips.

Of course, how could I forget about that little detail. If the enemy had a drone over our heads, they’d definitely be listening in, not just over the radio frequencies. I winced as my radio gave a sudden squawk in my ear. In my vision, an upload from Damien began and installed a rapid rotating encryption.

“Sorry about that. But we have to be quick. Here’s the plan… We don’t have to penetrate that armor. We just have to turn that panzer into a liability for them, force them to abandon ship. To do that, we’re going to use our remaining seekers, whilst Zara uses her smart arrows on the air intakes.”

“They’re going to outrange us with those missiles, hon,” Pneumo said.

“On a level playing field yes, but this is not flat tank country. We’re in urban sprawl. They have to know they’ve lost any element of surprise given our movement. Their drone won’t have unlimited loitering time. We let them see us enter this factory on our left. They think we’re gearing to make a final stand.” 

“And we aren’t?”

“Yes and no, because we’ll actually be using the sublevels to get into the EC building next door.”

“And what if they’re flooded?” Zara asked.

“Since we don’t have scuba gear, we make a stand in the factory. The point is we want to ideally get under their guns and missiles. The EC building is much stronger and will be able to at least give us cover from that main autogun.”

“Fucking hell, Kepler,” Trace shook his head.

“Look, anyone else got a better idea?” her eyes glared at us from behind her mask.

Even if this idea worked 100%, it would mean we’d still be dealing with three edgerunners that had so far survived everything we’d thrown at them.

“I thought so. Now follow me.”

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The sublevels of the factory were a maze of passageways, moldy and dripping conduits and stale water that sloshed around our ankles that made me thankful that we were wearing filter masks because I had no doubt that the smell would’ve caused my nose to send a strike notice.

Our optics had to go into low-light modes to see anything and even then it turned the world into a ghostly haze of various green shades.

Thankfully, the structures of buildings this far from ground zero had remained generally in one piece and the elements would need decades more to wear down what humans had wrought. It meant that our maps were actually useful now. Damien even had a structural blueprint and it explained why Kepler had been so confident in her plan.

“You really didn’t think I would go into an abandoned city without a blueprint of every single building on hand?” he snarked.

I rolled my eyes as I walked in mostly in reverse, keeping my rifle pointed behind us.

“Why is there even a tunnel between this place and the power station?”

“This was an EC manufacturing subsidiary. Making the spare parts for the station next door. The tunnel was for convenience, efficiency and security, anything to improve the bottom line.”

“Shouldn’t we be hurrying?”

“They’re not exactly driving the latest Porsche, Lila and they’ve run into a few obstacles. We’re making good time.”

That was at least until we ran into an obstacle of our own. A large steel door that you could easily fit a truck through, which made sense if you considered the size of some power station machinery and components. It opened into a large recess in the ceiling above and it would only move via its motors, which naturally needed power.

Kepler glared at the large door with folded arms and considered what to do.

“Damien, Pneumo, check the panel and circuitry, see if we can’t work a bypass. Something this large has to have an emergency hydraulic and power source.”

“If EC built to code,” Pneumo settled the package on the floor and hurried to the control panel, already unwinding the interface plug from his wrist.

It took the tech oriented members of our team seven precious minutes to bring the door back to life. Damien hooked up a portable power pack to give the local systems, giving a brief boost to get the local emergency generator for the door running again.

It rose with a squeal of rusty metal scraping against concrete.

In the tunnel beyond we found the skeletal remains of numerous EC workers. They were all clustered on the other side of the door, all of them had been trying to open it as well.

“Poor bastards,” Trace whispered, his eyes flashing as he scrolled the sight. “Probably hid from the early rad fallout down here.”

We headed through the tunnel and found the first adjoining exit door. It had been magnetically locked, but was now hanging partially open since both main and emergency power had long since gone down.

Beyond was a corridor and a dozen feet further a set of ascending stairs.

Three floors up and we emerged through another door into a cavernous space that housed four massive turbine generators perfectly spaced from each other. The long line of windows near the ceiling, long since smashed inward from the overpressure of the nuclear explosion, sent eerie red light into the dark space. Ambient dust, disturbed by the rain leaking into the vast space hung in the air. The area was also alive with the cacophony of rain hitting the roof structure.

“Damien, Zara, you’re up high!” Kepler gestured to the upper catwalks. “Pneumo, you and I will be at that north east window on the lower floor. Trace, Lila, that cubicle office on the eastern wall second floor has an overlook on the road. With those positions covered, we’ll have spread out and interlocking fields of fire on the panzer. They’ve gotten through most of the obstacles in their way and are booking towards us. Get moving!”

Here we go again.

We sprinted for our positions as fast as we dared.

Trace and I ascended the sidewall stairs and pulled open the office door.

It yielded easily to our combined strength and we burst inside, kneeling next to the empty window frames.

Looking down into the gloomy late afternoon, I spotted the major road we were expecting our opponents from and my Agent helpfully began laying out effective ranges for my rifle within my vision.

“All right, start programming your seekers now.”

I unlatched the last seeker grenade from my harness, thumbed the arming button whilst my Agent paired with the onboard microcomputer.

“Panzer is under a hundred meters away, drone has eyes, we’ll see it turning the corner any second,” Damien reported.

I tried to keep calm.

I’d been on tons of gigs at this point, fought against every armed corp that you could find on the West Coast in dozens of firefights, yet never had we gone against a panzer in these sorts of circumstances. We’d always have Damien or an allied merc with a bazooka for anti-armor work. Our intel had always indicated whether there would be enemy armor to fight.

Not this time.

Our infil into this ruined city had been via airdrop and weight had been at a premium, especially if we had to also carry a heavy package out by foot.

I flexed my legs to limber up and double checked my rifle, to keep my mind busy and not thinking about the potential storm of lead that was coming our way.

My eyes focused on the distant corner where the panzer would appear-

Johnny Silverhand’s grizzled, smirking face suddenly appeared in my vision.

“Hey, V, having fun?”

“Gah!”

In a microsecond, I separated myself from Lilayah’s perspective and instantiated my avatar properly, hovering a few feet in the air.

I glared with folded arms at Johnny fucking Silverhand, who floated through the empty window to stand on the office floor.

The rockerboy had seemingly had enough of appearing as he did in the 2020s. He had ditched the shirtless bulletproof sleeveless armor for a loose formal shirt, with the Samurai armored heavy jacket over the top. He wore black jeans instead of his usual synth leather pants, whilst his thick soled combat shoes were definitely from the modern era. The hairstyle was also different, his usual unkempt black locks were somewhat tamed into a hairstyle that looked like he had taken inspiration from my own.

It all combined to somehow give him the look of a rebel rockerboy that had cleaned up and grown up. He was still the fighter and rebel that took on Arasaka, but had clearly been tempered by both his experiences with me and beyond with Alt behind the Blackwall.

All this was just surface detail, what I saw into his engram code was astonishing.

Johnny just spread his arms out with a smile, as if he was giving a clear invitation to look.

“Did you have to do that?” I snapped.

“Sorry V, couldn’t resist,” he chuckled. “Good to see you, by the way.”

I tapped my foot on thin virtual air, keeping up my glare but I felt my heart wasn’t in it.

The next instant I reappeared in front of him and our hands clasped together before we grasped each other’s forearms.

“Good to see you too, Johnny,” I said, my gut clenching and feeling relief that he was still ‘alive’ and himself.

My greatest fear in seeing him go off into cyberspace from the digital ruins of Mikoshi last year was that Alt would just… gobble him up into her gestalt, as she had all the other psyche’s imprisoned there. Yet here he was, the same Johnny, but definitely more…

It was as if I was looking at a puzzle that was more complete, only missing a few pieces.

Our exchange of data with our arms joined like this was even more profound.

It went beyond human experience.

I stepped back and we let go of each other.

A gesture from my hand and the world around us dissolved into a mass of red and blue pixelated data, before it was replaced with my internal Relic 3.0 data fortress-mansion. This time rendered properly into a full realistic experience.

Johnny looked around at my mind’s mansion with a pleased grin, “Like what you’ve done with the place.”

He vanished to reappear lying down on the deck chair beside the pool.

I instantiated next to him and looked out at the virtual Night City that represented my engram’s colonization of my shiny new brain.

“So how much longer?” he gestured out to the ever expanding cityscape.

“About twenty hours in Real Space before all the neural connections are enough to try controlling the new body.”

“Got to hand it to ya, V,” Johnny smiled at me. “We did some impossible shit together, but this… this you did on your own. This moment is just,” he flicked his fingers near his mouth, “Mwah, chef’s kiss. Your rampage through Arasaka, Alt’s nuking of Mikoshi, what Yorinobu has done since then and now you finally shrugging off the final chain of their fucked up tech that was killing you slowly. It’s just…”

“I get it, Johnny. However, I’ll hold off on the champagne until I’m properly in my Gemini and fighting fit.”

“Amen to that,” he nodded, threading his hands together behind his head and basking in the virtual sunshine. “You realize you’ve also given the finger to death itself? In doing all this?”

I could only nod. “Yeah. I can still die though, someone has to just get lucky and hit the Relic 3.0 within the Gemini with a strong enough railgun penetrator.”

“V, I’ve looked at the specs. They don’t make a portable railgun with enough energy to do the job. Gotta hand it to the highriders of this day and age, they know their stuff. I remember when they were corpo slaves, living and dying on the whim of some ESA bureaucrat’s pen. Now look at them, the first nation founded off of Earth and individual freedom actually means something to every one of them. Can’t really find a better candidate to hand the Relic data too. Fully agree with you on that one.”

“Was the only choice really and to just sit on it wasn’t on the cards, not after everything,” I sighed heavily. “I just worry when this tech goes beyond the highriders, finds its way back to Earth, even Mars. You said the corps were coming for our minds and souls… now they have a way, the only difference is that it will not just be Arasaka with a monopoly on the tech.”

“Not about to blame you for this one,” Johnny held his hands out, cigarette and lighter manifesting virtually before lighting up and taking in a deep drag from it. “You and I are both pieces on a board. We’ve been puppeted, guided and now while our strings are cut, the rails removed, our very nature won’t let us make any choice but the one put before us. Functional immortality is coming for the human race and we either adapt or become extinct. The war we’re fighting won’t allow for anything else.”

He blew out a long puff of smoke and his brown eyes stared pensively into my datascape.

I manifested myself in the deck chair next to him, now wearing a sling bikini and pretending to bask in the sun.

“To more immediate matters, are you going to accept your new body?”

Johnny gave me that typical infuriating smirk of his, “Where do you think I’m speaking to you from right now?”

I turned my head to look at him, interrogating his data stream with a thought and running a trace…

“Fucker, Alt’s been teaching you new tricks it seems,” I said with a snort of amusment.

“I’ll never be a netrunner on that level or yours for that matter, but hanging around Alt I learned and absorbed a few skills and tricks. Thanks for having the Mr. Studd installed, by the way. It even matches what I remember-”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said hurriedly. Alt might have disentangled me from Johnny during my dive into the Mikoshi servers, but my own memories of living through certain stages of his life from his point of view was still there, including the many passionate liaisons he’d had with Alt. “The metanthropic systems can only go so far in changing body proportions - best you’ll be able to manage will be a femboy look. For more, you’d need to get a ripper qualified to work with the system to do baseline adjustments.”

“Fuck, meaning I just got Farida as my only ripperdoc, not to mention the NUSA on my ass. Should just rip that tech out, be done with it,” he groused.

“Johnny,” I gave him a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, I’m a fool for even thinking about dumping chrome that versatile, especially since it’s not exactly like I can openly live as Johnny Silverhand among the masses, I’m supposed to be a dead terrorist, after all.”

“Which identity are you gonna go with?”

He took a last puff of the cigarette and flicked it away, “Figures you’d remember that.”

Given how entangled our minds and identities had become near the end, I had a front row seat to Johnny’s musings, thoughts and imagination, which included new identities to adopt if I ended up having to leave the old body for good.

“Considering things… I think Hollow would be the best to go with.”

“The Solo sniper? Gonna need to do a bit of tinkering for that one, get a Deep Field VI, which OS?”

“The Netwatch deck is wasted on me, a Rippler will just have to do. Sandy will definitely stay. Oh, by the way,” he gestured with his hand to me and a half million digital eddies flowed into one of my hidden accounts. “To pay my way. We’re not leaving this black clinic with second rate chrome.”

“Figures that Alt wouldn’t send you broke into Real Space,” I chuckled.

“Arasaka plundered every nest egg I had hidden away during my time in Mikoshi, she figured it only fair to return that money to me and then some,” he smirked with a deep satisfaction on his face.

I’d bet a million that she did more than just that to Arasaka’s finances.

She wouldn’t collapse them outright, that’d just lead to chaos and a void in the corpo world that Militech and others would pounce on. Arasaka was dead, but it would be a slow death. It would keep limping along, but slowly shrink and shrink, until the day it withered away into the history books.

In that moment, I resolved to stay alive to see that day come, with Johnny and Rogue at my side, toasting champagne on the roof of the Afterlife.

A feeling of bone deep relief and victory coursed through me, “Welcome to the Moon, Johnny.”

“Thanks, V.”

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A/N: There's nothing better than writing such a huge resolution for a character like V, who's been constantly shat on, taken advantage of and beaten down at every turn by seemingly everyone!. What'll be even better is where we go from here ;-)