07/10/2077
The Afterlife, Watson District
Night City, California
V
-
Once again, V had woken up somewhere he didn't recognise for the second time in two days. He wasn't welcomed by the garish yellow paint on the walls or the hushed whispers of Evelyn that seemed to slither into his hearing range. He remained strapped into the old net-runner chair, his new arm felt numb and unwieldy, the black and blue coat of paint that had replaced the shiny, reflective silver that he'd grown used to.
"Shit…" V muttered as he struggled to move, his restraints stopping him dead in his tracks. "Fuckin' pac-guns."
He was still in the small room behind the bar, the surgical tools and the rolling stool and table placed to the left of him, snug and organised by the wall separating the private room from the rest of the club. V could hear the humming from the air-conditioning in the former morgue, the brisk chill spreading in the air, lingering as it flickered against his skin. He tried to pry his restraints away, but his new arm was heavy and he could feel the pricking feeling in his new leg.
The desk near the door had been filled and packed to the brim with more tech, more computers that were linked together and merged as a whole that was connected to numerous holo-screens on the right-side wall. Data streams and news headlines threaded across the screens, infra-data picked out by scrubbers and put to work in some file or another that would help Rogue in the long run, no doubt.
That was at least before the legendary female solo had waltzed into the room, Squama right behind her before she whispered something that V could not hear. He'd nodded firmly, turning and remaining outside the room as she closed and locked the door. He hadn't realised how dark the room had been until she had turned the light on, his vision was blinded as the clinical roof lights flickered on and off.
The lights were permanent, a jolting white beacon that covered everything in a bright spectrum of colour. The highlights of the blue in his arm, the edges of the television screens that were gold and chrome, the screens themselves orange as data was sifted through and organised, even quicker than normal as if the computer screens could tell that Rogue had entered and was working twice as hard in the presence of the information broker.
He could see her in colour, as opposed to how she often shrouded herself in the hum-drum neon and darkness. Two strips of cyberware were under her eyes, almost like an old coat of warpaint. She'd gotten rid of the eccentric yellow shirt that hung off her shoulders, replaced with a vest that was coated in black, white and yellow stripes, barely visible underneath the pockets strapped to the vest, that itself was hidden underneath a black leather jacket. In the light, he could see how old she really was. The hair wasn't silver like it was when the club was open, but it was a long and flowing silver, freckles replaced by real wrinkles that were present around her eyes and just appearing on her forehead.
She wasn't pleased, not like she was when she had realised that V was still alive and even better, had brought Panam with him. No, the small and curt smile was replaced with a firm line, her eyes fixed firmly on the cyber-soldier, aiming at him with an unpleasant stare.
"Rogue?"
She didn't reply at first, she'd walked over to the surgical table, her fingers dawdling over the cold steel of a scalpel. "You know what I liked about you, V? You were straight up; you didn't play around with pleasantries or bullshit like everyone else. I thought you were something different, you were yourself but you were like him all at the same time, even when you were trying too hard to be him."
V turned to look at her from the chair. She then turned to him; the stare replaced with an icy glare. "I didn't lie to you about anything, Rogue."
"You're lying right now, V." Rogue replied swiftly. "You don't think I would have asked Miss Parker about the job, about what was on that chip, about why you would all risk getting killed to steal a Relic."
"You know," V grunted. "You know about him."
Rogue took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "Of course, I fucking know about him. Evelyn told me everything, how the chip was empty, how that ripper took that chip out of your head when you went to his surgery. You've got Johnny fucking Silverhand in your head, and you didn't have the balls to tell me."
"What did you want me to tell you, when would I? You would never have believed me, even if I told you." V growled. "That's why I wanted the chip first, I could prove it to you, he could prove it to you."
Rogue's icy glare seemed to burn a hole in his head. "Believe me, V. He is perhaps one of the last people I want to speak to right now, whether he's dead or alive."
"Owch, that one might have hurt my ego if I was actually able to take over your body."
V shivered, pushing Johnny away. "Not a fuckin' chance."
Her movements were small, precise and pre-meditated as she soon moved away from the surgical tools. She'd wandered over to the desk, admiring the screens that were bolted to the wall as they streamed more and more data, more information that she could use to control individuals throughout the city. That was how she ruled, through information and fear, nobody would ever fuck with Rogue if she knew every little thing about the person that was in her sights.
V had to wonder to himself, at least he did so when she wasn't looking or speaking to him in her muted anger. How much did she know about him in general, or how much did she know about him before the job at Konpeki Plaza? Maybe she knew about everyone in the city, she'd flick through files and files of the population before she found her target, took whatever info she could use to corrupt them, turn them into her weapon.
The screens soon turned off, and her glare had returned to focus on the soldier that was strapped down in front of her. She soon pulled a stool from the side, sliding it over in front of the net-runner chair that V was chained to. His leg prickled, as V tried to limply shake away the annoying feeling that was travelling further down his leg and to his foot. As she strolled over, V noticed that Rogue had a small pick and a claw hammer in her hands.
She'd placed the pick between a series of joints in his new leg, and let the hammer rest on the head of the pick. "Doc Vector told me that this area of the cybernetic leg is quite sensitive. So, answer my questions truthfully and we won't have to worry about this working relationship go sour."
V grumbled, shaking against his restraints. "Rogue, come on, is this really necessary?"
"Completely necessary, V." Rogue admitted. "You think you lost people. You're twenty-seven? I'm eighty years old, anything you've been through, I've been through quadruple that, and seen shit get worse and worse every year that passes in this shithole of a city. You don't get to lie to me, and get away with it."
The fixer let the hammer twang against the pick gently, and a small pang jolted out through the leg, which stopped V dead in his tracks. "I didn't lie, I just didn't say anything, Rogue!"
"A lie of omission is still a lie, V."
Again, the hammer dinked gently against the pick, and the same sensation ran up and down his leg. It felt like something indescribable, it wasn't pain, but it wasn't pleasuring either. V had to assume that she knew what she was doing, but he didn't want to feel the sensation if she really decided to hammer home on the pick in his joints. She then stood up, kneeing the stool away before she took her jack-wire and placed it in his neuro-port. Her eyes glowed a demonic red, and her glare transformed from icy, to fiery.
"Are you a mole, for any of the corporations in this city?"
"No, damn it!"
"Don't test me, V."
"Rogue, I don't have a reason to lie to you!"
"Bullshit, you would have sold that chip off to whoever wanted it if you didn't know Johnny was on it." Rogue growled, hammering the pick harder than before. V's leg froze up. "How do I know you won't just run away as soon as you get that chip and sell him back to Arasaka? This is why fixers get rid of mercs, V, because they can't be trusted when they get a taste of real power or influence."
Johnny appeared at Rogue's side, the shaggy-looking rockerboy staring dead at the Afterlife fixer. For once, he looked entirely serious as V felt like he could barely hear Rogue speaking to him. He removed his aviators, sliding them against his vest as he flicked off the fixer before turning to V. "V, I swear, I haven't seen her like this before. You gotta be honest with her, right now."
"I am, Johnny, what the fuck do you want me to tell her?"
"The only thing I can assume she wants is to see Smasher dead, so maybe play that card. Other than that, fuck, I don't know, beg?"
His leg felt numb, and soon V felt the sensation of small, increasing and prickling pain trickling down from his upper thigh and down his foot. It was radiating, up and down before starting again as Rogue took the pick and lodging it in V's new mechanical bicep.
"Wait, wait!"
"You got something for me?" Rogue asked.
"I can't force Johnny out, not now. He only comes out when he needs to, like if I almost die." V admitted, prompting Rogue to take out the pick. "That's the only time he took over my body."
Rogue squinted, placing her tools down. "Evelyn told me you should be dying, that two personalities can't fit in one head if the host is damaged. Why are you fine, why aren't you dying?"
V struggled again against his restraints, something that was soon stopped when Rogue unlocked the chains that were wrapped around his legs and his left arm. His new limbs still felt numb, and the pain in his leg soon subsided after a small amount of time. His arm was limp and heavy, unwieldy in the way which V absolutely abhorred. He managed to pull himself with the assistance of Rogue before she stopped, expecting an answer.
"I don't know."
"Bullshit," Rogue called out.
"I don't! I put the chip in after Smasher shot me off the side of the hotel." V exclaimed. "All it told me was that a data transfer was complete and I started seeing shit. I didn't hit my head; I lost an arm which I had to take off because I would have died otherwise. I lost my original eye after the data was secure in my OS. The chip was experimental, maybe that's it."
Rogue sighed, a hard heave from her lungs that sounded as if it was being fired like a gunshot. She pulled V up to his feet, taking a crutch from behind the chair and handing it to the soldier. He looked at her oddly, before she thrust the crutch into his chest. He placed his lopsided weight on the crutch, his stance aslant as he tried to follow Rogue as she left her makeshift surgery-slash-interrogation room.
The guards around seemed to stare at V as he followed the Queen of the Afterlife. Days prior, he never would have thought that Rogue was capable of performing a limited interrogation, whether she intended it to be a true interrogation or not. That pick between his leg joints seemed to activate some small pain receptor deep inside the limb, the sharp stinging pain that had slightly numbed as he walked around through the club. The Animals and the Maelstromers looked at him as if he were some weak pieces of meat with some metal slapped on, sneering at his weakness as he slowly followed Rogue up the steps to the entrance of the Afterlife.
As he managed to climb out of the club hideout, he witnessed the chaos of the last attack. More dead mercenaries, Animals, Maelstromers and Mox amidst the heaps of bodies of dead Tyger Claws. Of course, they were outmanned and outgunned when it came to a presumably Corpo-backed Japanese gang. Stripped car bodies were pushed on their side as a makeshift barricade, deactivated turrets were being loaded with more bullets, heavier and tipped differently. Hollow points, full-metal jacket, acid rounds, a litany of ammo crates and stripped weapons were scattered in the parking lot before the club's defences were activated once again.
"Fuckin' Claws." V grunted.
Rogue scoffed. "They can throw themselves at the Afterlife, but they won't break through unless they start using some real preem weapons. I got a feeling that Arasaka isn't giving them all they have, but just enough to really throw their weight around. Last night was, not great. Panam and Shaitan, work quite well together. Well, as much as a dog and a cat could."
V huffed a laugh. "How's Emmerich?"
"He'll be fine, he's the leader of the Animals for a reason. Even if Sasquatch doesn't like it, they respect power, and if he respects me…"
"I get the idea," V grunted. "Shit, where are they now?"
Rogue set out, scanning the parking lot and moving around as V hobbled slowly behind her. "Panam is with Judy at the top of the club, fiddling with the nearby signal tower so she can figure out where Spider is. Dum-Dum is with Rita, getting a hold of more manpower, or trying to."
"And Shaitan?"
There was a loud whistle and a cheer from above, the group of mercenaries turning up to the roof of the club as they saw a jacketed figure rappelling down from the signal tower across from the club. The whistle was high-pitched, high enough for V to realise who it was. Panam waved from mid-air, sliding down the rope as she was joined by Judy at her side as she unhooked from the rope.
Rogue nodded at the loudness coming from the female nomad, turning to V once again. "She told me about you hunting for Smasher, and we're gonna discuss that later as soon as we deal with the Claws and the Voodoo boys."
Then Panam screamed from across the way. "WE GOT SOMETHING!"
-
Outside Night City, Californian Badlands
ShaitanShaitan had managed to get over the border gate with the help of Condor once again, the cool AV-pilot snickering as he managed to fly across the satellite detectors of the gate once again without an issue. As much as he hated the Brooklyn-born pilot's attitude and flyboy cockiness, he had to admit how great he was as a pilot in comparison to most of the mercenary AV pilots in the City of Dreams.
The silver soldier sat in the co-pilot seat. Condor was humming something from Us Cracks over the holo, and considering the fact that the two mercs were neuro-linked to the Manticore flyer, Shaitan hated the fact he could feel the cold sensation of Condor's augmented vocals tickling at his throat. Shaitan continued with his flight checks as the two mercs flew over the trash heaps and to the southwest of the oil fields where he'd found the tablet, confirming Spider's status.
Condor cooed over the holo. "What exactly we looking for, Silver?"
"Something that you ain't paid to know about, Condor," Shaitan muttered. "Look for some old ranch house, the oldest one you can see."
"You know, Miss Rogue ain't exactly askin' for much. How come I keep gettin' paired up with some rusty solos on these runs, Silver?" the pilot asked, receiving a hard punch to the shoulder. "I didn't feel that, too much chrome."
Shaitan punched him harder. "Don't ask questions you don't get paid to ask, or I will make you feel it."
"Gee, thanks, buddy! I'll try and appreciate that the next time you call me for a job."
"Condor?"
"Yeah, Silver?"
"Shut the fuck up, or I will flatline you."
"Yessir!"
The pilot was soon quiet, which managed to give Shaitan a small period of time where his ears didn't feel like bleeding. It also gave him the time to think to himself, mostly about how much shit had changed since V had woke him up from his multi-decade slumber. His synthetic hair felt floppy and matted, something he'd gotten rid of since V had been on his death vacation and his subsequent holiday of getting his ass kicked on a city-wide tour. Just before he'd returned, he got a ripperdoc to replace the skin-plate with more silver lining so everything he was made of was metal.
Which of course left Shaitan on his own (Condor didn't count as a human in his mind, the guy was from New York, he was the opposite of human) and it left him thinking. He hated Arasaka, he hated every single fucker that worked under the company, every office worker, every guard, every corporate warrior, every single executive that worked under the piece of almighty shit that was Saburo Arasaka.
The CEO of the Japanese corporation left his mother defiled, disgraced in a ditch. He made himself a weapon in response to that, he'd abandoned his body when he realised it was not sufficient. It wasn't strong enough to dole out what he deemed as a worthy punishment to the fucking scum that left his mother in the dirt with a ripped dress and a half-cut throat. His new body was ready to do just that.
It was a shame that his mother called him a brain in a tin can, despite the mechanised resemblance to his real body. It had been decades since she passed, but his mission wasn't over. Saburo would get what was coming to him, and Shaitan was just thankful that he had a decent number of comrades who were ready to help him do just that. He'd dive-bomb the Manticore into the penthouse of the Arasaka building if the worst came to worst.
He wished it came down to that, he'd go out in a ball of flames bigger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. That, or he'd get to see the light leave Saburo's eyes with his hands wrapped around his throat.
"Yo! Silver! I'm gonna say that this is the place?" Condor called out. "Looks like it, real old house, nice and white."
Shaitan pulled himself from his hole of deep, dark thoughts and looked out the cockpit. "Yeah, matches the coordinates that we got from Alvarez and Rogue. Take us down, slow. Don't know what defences the target might have set up."
"Roger that, bossman."
As the descent began, a small pop-up came up on the Manticore's cockpit display. As Condor continued the landing process, he opened the pop-up. The two pilots were rewarded with a large red holographic spiderweb, spread out over the display. A large looking spider with a unique red marking crawling down the web before a small rhyme started getting spelt out below the main web.
"Oh shit," Shaitan grunted, trying to help Condor as the ship slowly was wrested from their control. "Condor, come on, man. Give me a hand."
"Incy wincey spider, climbed up the water spout?" Condor read out. "What does that even meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeean?"
As soon as Condor read out the opening line of the rhyme, he'd gotten taken over. His voice turned into a mechanic drone, and Shaitan ripped the Manticore's neuro-wire from the base of his neck. The main pilot's head twisted and snapped violently as his wire started visibly heating from above. Sparks began shooting out from every part of the cockpit before the Manticore HUD finally gave out and the Crystal Dome took over. The ship was pitch-black, the only light source being the red emergency lights as the AV rumbled violently before Shaitan was thrown from his chair and into the walls of the ship.
He could barely find his footing, and soon the light show was joined by Condor as the flyboy pilot's head surged and exploded into an explosion as his internal systems fried from the inside out, his skull burning out as his synapses melted. Shaitan crawled to the main piloting seat, growling to himself as he unwired Condor, throwing his body to the side as he took the seat and the stick of the ship.
The rumbling soon turned out to be explosions, as the sound of the Manticore engines died. He took hold of the stick and pulled back, as hard as he possibly could before it broke off from his use. The AV was dropping from the sky like a stone, and the silver cyborg quickly rushed from the front of the ship, all the way to the back. Finding a pair of handholds, Shaitan positioned himself so he could see how far the ground was as the aerial vessel continued to fall.
Five, four, three, two, one… Shaitan thought, and then he felt it.
The AV smashed into the ground, steel warping and breaking apart as Shaitan felt ripped from his place as the gravity forced him up for a mere second before he was violently slammed into the broken steel of the AV. Shaitan couldn't move for a moment, a conscious sensation that he hadn't felt in what must have been at least five decades. His borg body had never given up on him before, but the crash was so violent and crushing that he had never felt so out of it.
Sparks shot out from the exposed wiring, and a fire had started in the cockpit from what he could smell. He had no chance of saving a body, not that there would be much of Condor to save whether the fire got to him first or not. He needed to focus on the mission like he always did. He crawled to the left-side door, pulling himself up to his knees as he managed to pry open the half-jammed door. Pulling it open, an explosion forced Shaitan out of the wreck and into a hill of burning sand.
"Fuck…"
The crackling of the fire behind him pressed Shaitan to crawl into the shade of the nearby rock. The wreckage of the Manticore exploded again, ripping the structure of the AV apart in a final blast that totally destroyed the aerial vehicle. Shaitan groaned from the shade, he could feel the heat from both the burning crash as well as the scorching sight of the sun. He'd left his rifle in the ship, and all he was left with was V's Sovereign and a small Shingen SMG.
Other than that, he was surrounded by silence.
He'd popped his head out from the shade, and sighted the old ranch house. It looked like it was rotting, the desolate house in the middle of the desert. He could just about make out the shadow of someone approaching from the drive. As soon as he poked his head out, the familiar pops of gunfire erupted, cracking through the air as sand kicked up near his only piece of cover. Just to test, he poked his hand out, only to receive another series of gunshots in his direction, one pinging off the rock he was hiding behind.
He soon shuffled around to the right of his rocky outcrop, only to get gifted another bout of shots doled out at his hiding spot. There was one person, that he could remember as they had continued walking down the drive to the crash site.
"Fuck this, I'm a borg. I'm gonna kick this guy's ass."
As soon as he got to his feet and moved out, he'd felt the cold clocking of a metal knee to his jaw. He was thrown to the floor, stunned before he rolled out the way of the close gunfire that kicked up sand over his face. With a quick twirl, he managed to kick the gunman's feet out from under him, throwing him to the sand. Shaitan tried to jump on the man before he felt the swift boot to his gut as he got flipped over the gunman and back into the sand. Once again, he rolled out the way of the gunner's revolver fire across the sand before Shaitan grabbed the empty gun and twisted it out of shape.
In the reach to grab another gun, Shaitan kip-upped to his feet and promptly began to fight on equal terms to the gunman. He was masked up, clad in a black tank vest with a thin, dust-covered overcoat. Red-lens goggles and a half-face ballistic mask hid his identity from Shaitan. Never in his life had he fought somebody as combat-adept as this man, he blocked every punch or ducked under it, swiftly delivering a counter-punch almost immediately afterwards. He checked ever kick, pushing them down or away and giving away the chance to really deal some damage.
Shaitan couldn't help but be forced onto the defence, as he tried to check or block every hit that the masked shooter had thrown. If he moved too far out from the cover of the rock, a series of precise gunshots forced Shaitan into rushing the gunner. A swift hook or jab that felt like he was walking into a steel fist welcomed him, similar to the shooter's metal knee. He barely managed to clap the ear of the gunman, delivering a boot that was caught immediately and countered as Shaitan was thrown to the ground, the gunman leveraging Shaitan's weight and pushing him back into the sound.
What the fuck is this guy made out of? Shaitan thought, soon wrestling in and out of the holds of the gunman before he found himself caught and wrapped up in an inverted triangle. He could feel himself losing consciousness before he found his mettle, willing himself to stand up and slam the gunman into the rock multiple times before he let go. The gunman fell to the sand, adjusting his goggles before he felt Shaitan's leg in his gut, throwing him against the rock again. The borg readied his sawn-off, sliding an acid round in the barrel before the gun was ripped from his grip and slammed against his temple, ringing his skull.
He managed to duck those three shells, only barely as the gunfire reverberated in his ears. It stunned him, threw him off his game so much that as he managed to push himself to his feet, he was immediately slammed by multiple jabs that were so hard he could feel what counted as his nose break. In a daze, Shaitan could do nothing as the gunman leapt on him, his arm wrapped up in a lock as Shaitan felt himself get thrown to the sand once more, the arm getting twisted and hyperextended before he tried to rage against the hold, managing to jab the goggles and mask of the man before the gunner was forced to remove his garbs.
The gunner soon ended the lock, and Shaitan saw the shooter rush as the soldier's arms wrapped around Shaitan's neck and pressed down. Before he could even fight back, he was seeing black spots. The last thing he saw before he went out was the man's face.
"Morgan?"
He was already out, he just didn't know it. "Sorry, Shaitan. Had to be done."