21/09/2077
Aldecaldo Camp
California Badlands, Outside of Night City
V
-
The next few days had been quiet, the type of silence that was natural and could remain unbroken for what felt like days. V had taken a bit more time to acclimatise to the desert weather than he thought, but when he would toil under the leering afternoon sun and work through the camp chores, the tight grip of the sun loosened as he spent more time out from under the shade. He'd lost his ballistic vest and combat shirt, replacing it with a simple fabric vest as he moved his belongings back into the Outlaw.
The ex-nomad had soon rectified himself somewhat, seeing himself more and more as what he was meant to be the longer he was at camp. Hard-working, loyal and earnest, he'd have a small breakfast almost as soon as he woke up. As soon as he was full, he'd immediately go and do his chores, finishing just around the early afternoon. Panam had not returned since they had arrived at the camp, leaving V somewhat lost as to what he would do when he thought about the bleak idea that she might have gotten caught by the Raffen Shiv.
Mitch had assuaged V's fear for her well-being relatively quickly. She was deadly on her own, and she knew well enough how to take care of herself. She wasn't known as one of the Aldecaldos best scouts or raiders for nothing. The heavy rifle she would carry packed a punch, and she was a quick draw when she needed to be. According to the ex-panzerboy, Jonah had taught her a few things too.
Once again, his fears had been assuaged when she'd called Scorpion on the second day of her departure that she was fine, she was residing in Night City for a while. V had been somewhat suspicious at the wording of her predicament but had refused to question her on it. The odds were high that if he did, he'd probably earn an emotional shouting match from her over the holo.
He'd rather avoid that at all costs. He could win a physical fight, but an emotional and verbal fight with Panam Palmer of all people? If anything, it was a guaranteed loss.
By the end of the third day at the camp, he'd spent even more of his time with Mitch and Scorpion. They had decided that the Herrera Outlaw GTS was still not exactly ready for total desert travel, as if V had planned to consistently driving around on rocky surfaces, junk and sand. They'd gone deep into working on altering the body of the car itself. V had argued vehemently for Scorpion to not spray tag the hood with the sigil of the clan (mostly for safety reasons), but had not argued against the extra armour plating. The doors, hood and the rest of the body had been layered with a lighter compound metal that was similar to Panam's own Warhorse. Like they had done as they were fixing the car when he had arrived for the second time, they spent their day welding, ripping and plying away at the hypercar.
That same day had V fall into the night where he had finally joined the evening circle around the campfire. A cold beer bottle in his hand as he sat next to Mitch and Scorpion as a younger musician had plucked joyously away at his acoustic guitar. V smiled; the sounds of the song being played reminding him of Jonah's almost prodigious skill at playing the guitar himself. He'd bring back classics, and if he was feeling nice, he'd occasionally cover a song that V knew. 'Black Dog' by Samurai was often one that the former clan heir would enjoy whenever the old mechanic decided to indulge his adoptive son.
They'd stayed up for most of the night, going to bed early in the morning as he inevitably forsook the uncomfortable bedroll on the ground as he found himself drinking himself to sleep inside Panam's tent. He found some semblance of rest on her bed, lying on top of the covers until the late morning when he'd been resurrected from his sleep by Cassidy. The pillows and the bedding smelled of her, something equivalent to vanilla and coconut shampoo or deodorant. He'd almost rolled up on the floor before the elderly gunslinger had caught his arm and stopped him.
"Come on, kiddo." Cassidy beckoned, hauling V up. "I know you got a bleeding heart for the girl, but now ain't the time to be laying around. Camp patrol calls."
"Yeah, call me up in an hour or so."
Cassidy hauled his repeating rifle from his shoulder, the butt of the rifle nudging V in the back with more force than the last. "No chance, V. Time to get your ass up, you can get some chow as soon as we do the patrol."
V yawned. "Yeah, yeah, roger that, old man."
-
The patrol around the camp had been anything but what V wanted (to a certain extent), that was to say, uneventful. The desert surrounding the camp, as visible from the small sniper's nest, had been devoid of any life. V knew Cassidy was going to haul his ass out to the border of the camp anyway, and so the two-hour repeated trek of the camp happened anyway. The old gunslinger had handed the ex-corpo his old repeater rifle, as well as his bandolier for the temporary time in which V was carrying the Marlin 1894. V had wrapped the rifle strap around his hand, securing it in his grip whenever he had to look down the scope.
Those two hours passed, without any sense of good pace or respect for V's time. When the rotation was due, V and Cassidy barely got there in time for the next patrol as the old guard decided to make V scope out something far away that he thought he saw move. In actuality had been nothing at all, but the old man wanted to be sure when he gave his report to the next patrol.
The duo of patrolmen had soon entered the camp as soon as Rollins and DeFalco had left for their own patrol. V had handed the old rifle to Cassidy as they approached the cantina-van. Cassidy had settled for some dry toast, whilst V had ordered the most he could. Scrambled eggs, bacon that wasn't cooked to a crisp with some mushrooms and beans, the juices mixing together in unholy matrimony. With a small bottle of water at the side of the plate, the old man watched with a face filled with intrigue yet disgust as V shovelled food into his mouth as soon as possible.
"You ain't gonna, I dunno, slow down and eat that are ya?" Cassidy scoffed as he took his mug of coffee and took a sip. "Enjoy the damn food, V. Ain't no one rushing you."
V grunted half-heartedly as he seemed to hoover up the mushrooms in droves. "I… know. This is me, enjoying food."
"That what they teach you in the military, huh?" Cassidy asked. "Mitch and Scorp' were eating like that for months. Shit, Scorpion is still prone to doing it still. Can't be eating for longer than five minutes."
"That's what they do for panzerboys, Cass. Drug 'em up for constant service, send them off. Those guys probably ate the shit out of whatever they could get their hands on. I know I did, whenever I got the chance."
Cassidy had nodded slowly, toast crunching in his mouth. "They treat you boys like animals, huh?"
"Worse."
"I can see why. Mitch and Scorpion didn't take well to normal living when they came back. Screaming in the night, real bad sweats, withdrawal," Cassidy said, with V nodding as he managed to refrain from swallowing the rest of his food whole. "The drugs they gave those boys, man, I didn't think they'd ever be the same."
V had taken his knife and fork, slowly cutting into what remained of his bacon and eggs. "Nobody comes out of the NUSA army the same, especially not with what we saw through the Unification."
"Of that, I have no doubts," Cassidy muttered, finishing his first slice of toast. He always took his time. "You ain't the same now either, V. I can see it in the eyes, the face. Shit, you ain't exactly inconspicuous with that silver arm of yours now."
The younger nomad stopped, his arm raised up and down as he scanned the camp. The tents, trailers, bikes and cars, people he knew and didn't know. "Life isn't fair, never has been. I made my choice; I did this to myself. Some stuff I'm proud of, some I'm not. That's just, I don't know, that's just how it is."
Cassidy smothered a laugh as he put his mug down. "I don't think that's entirely true. In some cases, it might be. You did it so somebody else didn't have to deal with what you did. Panam, I mean."
V had soon hovered over his plate once more, rushing through his food before the plate was empty and all that was left were the crusts from Cassidy's toast. The two nomads sat across from each other, occasionally taking a large sip from their coffee or their water bottle. V found his fingers wriggling of their own volition, forcing them into a fist as he felt the semblance of a phantom limb in place of his silver arm.
"You did it for her," Cassidy grunted as if it were the honest truth. "Can you imagine that girl doing what you did? I know we all ain't exactly spectacularly happy with that fancy shit you got like that arm and whatever else you got, but that girl. She's got a wild spirit; she'd refuse to let that happen at all."
"Good for her that I took one for the team then, isn't it?" V asked, before letting out a sigh. "Ain't happy with what I am now, Cass, but if the choice of life is to live with an arm made of wires and metal or to live like an invalid, well, it isn't a choice at all."
The old gunman understood that well enough, as he nodded. "If we asked you to come back if some of us talked to Saul, would you have to make a choice between us and the city? Family, or what you made here?"
"That's complicated, Cassidy. Life isn't always one or the other, least for me."
Cassidy shook his head. "Ain't complicated at all, kid. Not this one, not at all. You might think you hard shit hard, but you ain't lived through a corporate war, let alone four like me. It's a simple question. Stay in the shithole that is Night City, or you join back with us and start taking back what you lost when you made that choice to leave?"
"At the moment…"
"V, don't dodge the easiest question I'd ever ask somebody who was in the family. Stay or come back?"
V grumbled. "I don't know, Cass. Okay? I don't know! Saul has a problem with the fact that I am somehow responsible for being his living fucking nightmare, being born to somebody he idolised but never met the expectations of. The girl I loved when I was a kid is completely different to who I used to know in more than a few ways, and I look like a fuckin' half-cyborg mass-murdering killing machine!"
"V, calm down. You're getting aggravated, and I ain't trying to get you like that."
"Bullshit!" V called out, leaning towards Cassidy. "You know shit isn't ever this easy when it comes to Night City, or coming back. Saul still says I'm Raffen, so I guess that's what I am. Yeah, you see me doing shit around the camp, working, laughing, but you know how I feel? Alien. I don't belong, because this fucking city is pulling me in because I need to finish something I should have done as soon as humanly possible."
The old man had kept his eyes locked on the larger, significantly younger male nomad. As an old gunslinger, Cassidy Banks had seen a lot of shit, but to see the young boy he knew getting more and more enraged because of a simple question made him worry if only a little. He'd been to Night City on his own, always had a habit of occasionally visiting despite the reputation. It had something about it, an invisible gathering of tentacles that would drag him back into the city whenever he tried to leave. Much like it happened to Cassidy in his younger days, it had happened to V. Meat hooks had sunk deep into his skin, peeling back and hauling the former corporate worker back into the concrete jungle and skyscraper mazes.
Cassidy stood up, taking the rifle strap from over his shoulder before he gently placed it on the table. The Marlin 1894 repeater rifle was pushed towards the younger soldier as Cassidy necked the rest of his coffee. The cherry-red leather bandolier found itself lying lifelessly across the barrel of the rifle, with Cassidy who remained standing as he gave V the iciest glare that he could possibly muster.
"Then you take that rifle, and sort that shit out like we taught you to," Cass growled, his wrinkled jowls drooping noticeably. "Don't take any shit, and get what you got in your system, out of it. Pronto."
Cassidy was by no means intimidating, not to V in any way, or probably anybody at his age. His aforementioned drooping jowls, a skinny figure that was overshadowed by baggy blue jeans and the grey chequered shirt and vest. His wrinkles gave away his age, as much as his greying hair and wispy little beard and eyebrows. His eyes were a homely dark brown, but there was a sense of deadness that was visible in those eyes. He'd stepped away before V could contemplate or consider an answer, tightening his gun belt that rested loosely around his waist as he went to rest in his tent, out of the sun's glare.
V took the rifle and the bandolier, throwing both over his shoulder as he checked his holo. He'd spent too much time doing nothing, other than pretending to be an Aldecaldo again. Vik had called him, twice by the look of it which he'd missed in favour of working his ass off in the scorching sunlight. He'd checked his messages and found one from Misty that had revealed that Dex was now awake.
V hadn't rushed but instead paced over to the border of the camp, where all of the vehicles were parked up. A small gathering of younger scouts were discussing plans about new hotspots for gear and loot, or new camp locations. They'd called over to V, but the older soldier ignored them as he approached his renovated Outlaw. Scorpion was leaning over the hood of his car, a can of spray paint in his hand before V rushed over. Just as Scorpion looked to spray the jet-black pearlescent paint job, V had ripped the white can out of his hand.
"What did I say about not putting any Aldecaldo decals on the car, Scorp?"
Scorpion's chuckle was weary. "Ha, this wasn't my idea either, V. Gonna have to call for Mitch on that."
"Yeah, well," V struggled for a moment as he observed the new white racing stripes on the car, from the hood of the car to the trunk before he threw the can to the former tank driver. "tell Mitch when I come back I'm gonna kick his ass for putting you up to this."
Scorpion laughed as V crawled into his Aldecaldo-modded Outlaw. Scorpion stood to the side of the mechanical station, both middle fingers directed at V and his car as he drove off, V giving the fellow ex-soldier his own middle finger as the car drove out into the deserts. The new suspension, wheels and lift-kit had immediately made the difference to the hypercar. In terms of losing some speed, he'd gained the ability to finally drive outside the city in his best car. The various bumps, sand traps and potholes and rocky roads were nothing to the modified car he now had.
Rocketing across the badlands and away from the camp, V had quickly pinged both Vik and Misty, alerting them that he would soon be back in the city to speak to Dex. Vik didn't reply immediately, either due to business or being unable to operate his self-admitted out-of-date holo-cell model. As he finally reached the end of the desert tracks, he'd drifted onto the road and approached the border gate of the luminous city.
-
Misty's Esoterica & Vik's Ripperdoc Surgery
Night City, Watson District
-
The drive from the edge of the city and through the streets of the Pacifica district had been inane, almost painful to some extents. Whilst the outer city districts had fewer traffic issues both on the ground and in the air, the biggest issue replacing it was the state of the streets and who inhabited them. Sixers, the odd Valentino off-shoot as well as the steroid-addicted Animals. The Pacifica however, was something completely different.
Burnt out car wrecks littered the roads as well as the sidewalk, the people living in the squalor of the abandoned entertainment district looked worse off than those that lived on the streets in Watson or even Santo Domingo. Gangs of armed Haitian immigrants patrolled the alleys, streets and the roads, an almost heavily-weaponised militia force that controlled the entire district. V's cyberdeck could barely scratch the surface of how scuffed the general electrical grid or the technological layout of the place was.
He'd seen a few looks directed his way, stern, angry, eyes filled with ideas of ill-intent and harm to him and no other. He'd kicked the car into gear and shot out of the ruined developmental district, the Outlaw using what was left of it's impressive speed from the engine to get V out and into the city that he was much more well-acquainted with. He'd managed to dodge or force his way through traffic until he reached his apartment complex and parking lot. Parking next to Jackie's bike, he'd immediately locked up the Outlaw before he got on his best friend's Nazare bike. Tightening the strap of his rifle, he'd key-logged the bike to his auto-drive device before he sped off through the alleys on the bike with accuracy and precision before he finally (and gracefully) drifted in front of the Esoterica.
He'd kept the rifle on him, as well as both of Jackie's pistols on his waist as he entered. The small bell on the top of the door rang out, and the smell of various incense candles flooded and surged to his nose. Almost immediately, Misty had perked up from her little spot by the nearby receptionist area which she occupied diligently. She'd quickly rushed out to V, gripping him tightly in a hug which he did not expect.
"V, it's so good to see you again."
The nomad reciprocated, despite the unexpected nature of the contact. "Yeah, you too Misty. Is Mama Welles being a little more, I dunno, is she being a bit nicer now with you?"
"Yeah, she offered to have me for dinner later this week," Misty admitted with a sad smile. "It's weird, but whatever you said to her at Jackie's ofrenda, well, she took it to heart. Thanks, for helping with that, V."
"No problem, Misty. Anything for you guys as long as it helps." V replied, a hesitant smirk on his face as he patted her on the shoulder. "You said that Dex was awake? How is he?"
Misty's grin fell away. "Not good, V. He's awake and he's not too out of it but he's got an infection, where he lost his hand and foot. Vik said something like it was gangrenous. He had me take some blood and he'd been dosed with blood-blockers, even Vik hadn't even seen them. Who did you say had him?"
V grimaced as Misty took him through the back of the esoterica and into the illicit surgery centre. "Sixers, but they were back by Arasaka. I can't say nothing else unless it puts you guys in danger."
"Well, it's too… out there, to be the Sixers," Misty said as they hurried down the steps. Turning into the main room, they caught Vik just as he had finished washing his hands of blood and fleshy leftovers.
The room for once seemed to be brightly lit. The main chair in the centre of the room and closest to Vik's desk was recently cleaned and wiped down, with the surgeon himself keeping to his own rules and hygiene standards. Given the dirty and illegal nature of being a Ripperdoc, he had a reputation to upkeep, especially considering he was one of the best ripperdocs in Night City, if not the country. The husband-and-wife team of Ripperdocs at camp, Billy and Becca, had nowhere near the skill that Vik had despite it being an unfair comparison. They were always on the move, working on spare parts or whatever good bits of cyberware the other nomads could bring them.
Compared to Viktor Vector of all people, anyone would look inferior when it came to the ripperdoc game. The tall, bulky boxer-turned-ripper had smiled when he saw V, open arms letting V in without a doubt. Even with his cybernetic legs, Vik was still taller than V somehow.
"Last time I seen you, you'd been looking like you couldn't handle the alcohol at the Coyote, let alone anywhere else." Vik smiled, clasping V tight in his grasp with Misty watching before going to attend to Dex again. "How you been, kid?"
"As good as I can be. Been doing some work with the Aldecaldos outside the city, and some stuff for Rogue. Ain't nothing big." V admitted, with Vik's eyes focusing as soon as he mentioned Rogue.
"Rogue, huh?" Vik questioned. "Yeah, last time I checked she was the biggest fixer in the city. Ain't nothing big doesn't exactly cut the mustard there, V."
"Small jobs for her, but I think I'm in the good books if you want to be specific."
Vik's patted V on the shoulder, his hand lingered on the soldier's shoulder. "It's what Jackie would have wanted for you, he'd be proud if he was still here, you know that, right?"
"Yeah, I know."
The duo soon walked over to the isolation room at the back of the surgery. The door whizzing open automatically as the doctor and the mercenary entered. Dex was looking a little better, leaning up in front of a mountain of pillows and a state-of-the-art patient's bed. Misty had pressed a few buttons, causing the bed to rise up even more so V could get a proper look at his former fixer.
His dark skin was not as pale as it was when he first found him at the Sixer compound, but the bandages that covered the missing hand and missing foot were the most obvious features. Other than that, the various bruises that couldn't be hidden by a patient gown as they turned from purple to a dark yellow. He'd lost his ampleness that he'd been known for, especially when V first laid eyes on Dex in his car, how large and encompassing he was that V felt small, literally and metaphorically. On the bed, he was smaller, frail and noticeably thinner although the IV drip and meals had gotten him to a healthier weight.
His eyes, however, remained absent. In their stead, a set of white bandages that encompassed his head from his eyes up. All that V could see was the bottom half of his head and a portion of his ears that hadn't been sliced away by whoever had tortured the washed-up merc employer. Misty had whispered something in his ear, causing the ex-fixer to perk up as he looked in the direction of the door.
"The doc and the nurse are saying it was you that saved me from that dingy fuckin' basement," Dex stated, his deep voice seeming raspy and hollow. "Is that true, V?"
V remained in place as Vik and Misty focused on changing some IV's and checking vital equipment. "Partially. You had an agent from Danger Girl looking for your ass too. Worked together to get you out."
"So, the nice Arasaka girl was looking for me too? That how you found me?" Dex rasped, coughing lightly. "I knew something was wrong as soon as you didn't come to the No-Tell. The explosions, the news, goddamn it. That heist was my ticket out of this fuckin' city."
V's silver hand clenched tightly. "It was my ticket too, not just you. Mine, Jackie's, T-Bug, Evelyn. No wonder you slipped up when playing the game, you didn't even read the rulebook before you came back thinking you were still a big shot."
Vik turned to V, whispering. "Keep cool, you ain't helping the infection I gotta fix if you rile him up and make him worse."
V nodded. "Sorry, Vik."
Dex coughed loudly, spitting some phlegm into a nearby bowl. "We all knew the risks, we knew robbing Arasaka was gonna be big. Nobody asked you to off anybody, though. You killing Yorinobu made it worse, that is what got Bug, Jackie and Evelyn killed."
V's hands clenched even tighter. "I didn't kill Yorinobu, Dex. None of us did. It was Saburo, he killed him and pinned it on me and Jackie. It was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Tell that to N-Fifty-Four news, V. If anybody knew what you looked like, you'd be dead already. Just like me." Dex croaked, Misty, giving him a small glass of water.
V snarled. "I wouldn't let myself get caught, Dex. You did."
The black fixer let out a harsh laugh as soon as Misty took the half-empty glass from his remaining hand. The laugh seemed to simmer and languish in the room as V slowly approached the end of the bed. His left hand had an itch, the silver hand scratching away at the synth-skin before V hid his hand behind his back. Skin and titanium shifted as V's gorilla arm armed itself.
"As if it would have made a difference. Arasaka runs this town, the only reason you're still walking around like you won the fuckin' lottery is that you were just as fucked as the rest of us. They thought you were dead because it wasn't worth chasing a ghost." Dex gulped, reaching for the water again. "Dumb luck, V. You hit twenty-one when the everyone else went bust and the house lost."
"I guess you're right."
Dex sniggered. "Just like always. I might be out of the game like you said, but I'm not stupid. I been in this game long enough to know that sometimes we all gotta make a play for the reward when the risk is too much. I paid for it, just like the rest of us. That silver arm suits you, how much you pay for it?"
"Two friends and half of my sanity," V growled as his Gorilla Hand slithered onto Dex's stump-foot. "I'll pay Arasaka back for everything they took. They took what mattered to me, my friends. You know what I cherished the most, before Konpeki. Silence, just being able to think to myself. Now? Being alone with my thoughts, that is unachievable on a good day."
Dex seemed to sense where V was as his grip tightened on the stump, seething in temporary pain. Vik had pulled Misty to one side as they allowed V and Dex some privacy. "I said you got that moxie when we first met, Mr V. Let's not get too happy-go-lucky with what happens next, I can still help you."
"Come on, V. Press harder, let's hurt this piece of shit. Nobody gives a fuck about some has-been who lost himself a decade back."
V grinned as his grip increased. "Then help me. Why did Evelyn come to you of all people for this job?"
"Same reason all people come to a fixer." Dex's bass-like voice intoned. "They needed somebody with connections to get the right people for the contract. I was that guy."
V grunted as his grip relaxed for a moment. "She wasn't gonna pay you, you know? She would have fucked you all over and ran away."
"What?"
"She asked me when you told me she wanted to meet somebody with skin in the game, if I wanted to, I could have gone to her and given it for a fifty-fifty cut," V revealed.
Dex shook his head, almost violently so. "Then the both of you were more fuckin' crazy than I ever gave you credit for. Balls the size of titanium alloy. She clearly ain't told you why she wanted that Relic in particular, because she sure as shit told me."
V's grip left Dex's leg, but he soon stood up before the blind former fixer could feel the weight of the edge-runner on the upper end of the bed. His head turned to the left, sensing where V was based on the distribution of the weight of V. His closed hand hovered above Dex's chest, the metal knuckles of V's hand tapped lightly against Dex's chest, growing harder and harder before his hand was clasped tightly to his shoulder.
"Why did she want the Relic?"
Dex smiled, soon starting to laugh. "She needed to give it to the Voodoo Boys. They found something on the Net, something that NetWatch didn't want them to, but the chip could help them. Not that it mattered, those crazy voodoo birdbrains ain't got a chip to use. Guess we all got fucked on this one, huh V?"
"Shit. This guy is as useless as I thought. At least he knew something better than everyone else did. Voodoo Boys wanted me, guess we're gonna have to visit Pacifica."
V's grip faltered, soon falling away as he left the private room. He approached Viktor and Misty as they looked at a few medical documents related to their more recent patients, including Dexter. V had placed a folded twenty-Eddie note next to Vik, who had silently raged at the prospect of being paid for nothing. Misty had tried to contain her smile as she watched the constant revolving door argument unfold between Vik and V as they argued about payment before the older surgeon relented.
"What did he say?" Vik asked. "Did you tell him about the engram in your head, the data, I should say?"
"No. He didn't know what was on the chip, all he knew was that Evelyn wanted it because she needed to give it to the VeeBees."
Vik groaned, lips smacking as he figured out some future plans. "Voodoo Boys are into some nasty shit, really bad. There's a reason NetWatch doesn't like people going near Pacifica. The shit they can do on the net, they shit they do to people. Is it wise for you to go to Pacifica alone, especially if you got what they want?"
V wondered that himself. "I'm gonna see Rogue. See if she, well, is feeling nice to call me a favour."
Vik kept a solid grasp on the younger man. "V, I'm serious. The Voodoo Boys will really mess with you if you go there unprepared. There are horror stories about people who go into Pacifica and come back missing things, physical or otherwise, or they just don't come back at all. Please, for my sake and for your own, be careful when you go there."
For a moment, V hadn't actually come to grips with the fact that his favourite ripperdoc in Night City was actively warning him off doing something, whether it was a job or something personal to him. The Voodoo Boys wanted the engram of Johnny Silverhand for a reason, and they had gone to Evelyn to contact Dex to get a crew to rob Arasaka of their most prized possession. Whether they had directly caused it or not, the Voodoo Boys had a hand in what happened at Konpeki. All V needed were reinforcements, that, and a good runner to counteract the VeeBee running their own networks.
He needed to see Rogue. "Vik, I'll be fine. I promise."
