Ghosts in the Machine

The Raffen Shiv vehicles stood in long lines and clusters, as if someone had paused a chase braindance halfway through. Some burning brightly here and there, illuminating others in the darkness of the night that had closed in just as the fight had gotten started. Others stood abandoned in the shadows, corpses inside or around them.

As their panzer floated past, Panam could feel V's wariness, his eyes beginning to hurt a little from the constant exertion... or maybe it was hers?

Both of them usually felt quite different when they were connected via the tank; V said that she felt like she was on fire, a sort of pure rage that fuelled her and sharpened her reactions, whereas Panam knew that V felt an excitement course through him, a combat high that soared with every little victory, pushing him to accept the danger as a given.

But this battle had gone on too long.

Both anger and excitement were gone now, replaced with weariness and paranoia. What looked like a defeated enemy was right in front of them... but both of them knew better than to assume anything. The rest of the Aldecaldos were waiting at a distance, to be safe, leaving the job of making sure the Shivs were actually beaten to them.

"EMP missiles hit 'em hard," V thought aloud, as Panam steered around a large truck with one of its front wheels blown off, its nose buried in the dirt.

The feeling that they were being watched scratched at her mind, and she kept seeing an ambush behind every wreck. Neither V nor the targeting computer agreed, however, neither indicating the presence of an enemy... though V was probably relying on her own reaction to come to the same conclusion.

"Yeah," she said in reply, "Guess they didn't know we had that sort of tech."

"Well, we don't any more," V frowned, glancing at her, "Good thing too, they would've had the others dead to rights if we had hesitated to use all of it."

The targeting computer chirped, making them both jump slightly. 'Infantry targets, bearing 276'.

Grimacing as her hope that the fight was over had been crushed, Panam swung the panzer in the direction of the enemy and manoeuvred. They understood too, the thermals showing moving figures, making a break for it, trying to get to the nearest cover across the open desert. They still carried their weapons, and one or two idiots took the time to stop and shoot back... as if it could help them.

As soon as Panam had got the tank clear of the car pileup, V brought the cannon into action. Tracers strobed towards the six or seven Shiv, the shells' impacting and exploding among them. Two seconds, and they were all down. No survivors.

They spent another half an hour scanning for more, not saying a word to each other. Slowly, the tension unravelled, until one of them felt it was okay to speak.

"Crazy," V said, "Didn't even try and surrender."

There was a pause afterwards, an expectation of an answer.

"Even if I was in the mood to accept a surrender and not just kill them like they would've done to us... Arizona prisons are even worse than California ones," Panam stated, turning the tank around, "I think that group before was the last of them."

The thermals showed nothing, and no way any Shiv could've escaped the sensors at this point.

The two looked at each other, and relaxed back in their seats for the first time in hours. Feeling fatigue deep in her bones, Panam reached for her flask of coffee at once, but found the liquid was now lukewarm. Screwing back the top with no small amount of curses, she tossed it back in its corner and took a swig of nasty warm water from a bottle instead.

"We need to have a feast after these things," V declared, as he sent the all clear message to Mitch and Carol, "That's one thing the corpos get right. They win a big deal or fuck over some enemy, they get everyone together and party."

The tank cleared the pileup, hovering past the broken remains of the Navajo town. Panam sighed to herself. It would've been a good place to keep intact. Once she had reached a spot she was sure was upwind of the fires and destruction, she stopped the vehicle and powered it down, the landing giving a nice soft thud.

"Miss the champagne, do you?" she said, putting up her hand as if she was holding a glass in salute, "The Arasaka Counterintelligence Ball?"

"I do miss it," V admitted, before looking at her with half-closed eyes, "But I wouldn't trade this to get it back if you threw a million eddies in with the deal."

"A million eddies is only three months of your life," Panam snorted back, "But you're a sweet talker all the same."

Feeling the chill of the night beginning to creep in now that the power was off, she climbed up out of her seat and clambered over the central controls to him, sitting on his lap and drawing him into an embrace. V kissed her on the neck for a bit, and she let him, filling her with more of a different sort of warmth than was strictly necessary... but it had been a long day.

Eventually, V stopped and they settled in together for the few hours before daylight that remained, still in embrace, and began to drift off to sleep.

Panam had never felt more safe, more comfortable... but held V closer as the thought came without warning that it could be taken away at any time.


Panam and V woke up to the sound of Cassidy Righter opening the tank's hatch above them and the bright light of the morning pouring in from behind him. The air smelled of gasoline and ashes without the scrubbers. They both groaned, curling away from the sun's rays.

"Morning," the man said, putting his white cowboy hat back on his head with one hand while leaning on the other, "Sorry to wake you, but the convoy from Salt Lake City is coming on down the road now."

Pulling herself out of the hatch, Panam saw that the rest of the Aldecaldo fighters had parked their cars around the tank while she had been sleeping.

She also spotted the heavy trucks throwing up a dust cloud to the north, just across the Utah border. They were carrying agricultural gene-stock from Canada, along with a bunch of other things.

The vehicles had come down from the Prairies, destined for the Biotechnica farms that kept Alpha Dome fed, protected by Militech until they had reached Utah, which was so poor that it couldn't afford corpo protection. They didn't have a border force either, for the same reason Arizona didn't; no reason to smuggle anything through there.

Panam could also make out the Snake Nation technicals riding alongside, Utah having a contract with what used to be the Bakkers. They began to stop, as the Biotechnica trucks rolled across the state border into Arizona... into her little kingdom. Satisfied there wasn't going to be any stupidity that morning, she stretched her arms above her head.

"Job well done."

Panam looked back inside the tank to see V snoozing, and nudged him with her knee. He cracked one eye open and smirked in reply. "It's a couple of trucks, nothin' too interesting."

She took his hand and pulled him up, while he pretended to resist for a second or two, before finally just standing up and . The trucks slowed as the drivers spotted the pileup of abandoned and destroyed Wraith vehicles, but the road was clear, so they didn't stop to gawk.

"Lotta money in those things," Cassidy observed as they passed, "A lot more than what we're making off of this gig. I seem to remember us blowing off a Biotechnica contract not too long ago. If it wasn't for the tower job, we'd have been blacklisted by them too."

"Taking it would cost even more, and we're contracted to the Dome, not to the corp," Panam replied, knowing what the man meant by his observation, "Are the outriders ready to escort them the rest of the way?"

"Yeah, Bob's got it under control," Cassidy grumbled, before he dropped the volume of his voice, "Mitch and the others want to talk about what happened."

Something was up.

"So that's the real reason you woke us up," V yawned, pulling his jacket on.

Cassidy merely nodded, before climbing down off the tank and walking off in the direction of a hastily pitched tent, presumably where the others were waiting. V watched him closely with a strange expression, which set Panam to wondering.

"He's trying to keep something quiet until we get down there, isn't he?" V asked her. Which was both right and meant the something that was up was bad, not good. Panam

"Absolutely," Panam agreed, "Let's go see what Mitch has scared."

They rubbed the last of the sleep out of their eyes, and dismounted the panzer, staggering a little at first; they hadn't got anything like the amount of sleep they truly needed. It seems not very many others were awake either, only a few people were around to say hi as they went to the tent.

Inside were Mitch, Carol, Teddy and Cassidy. They didn't notice Panam and V enter, their attention was taken by a holo-projector in the corner.

It was showing combined NV-infrared footage of the moment the panzer's EMP missiles had hit the front of the huge Wraith convoy.

The moment the attack on the Aldecaldo positions came to a screeching halt, just before they would've been overrun. Panam felt a strange feeling, seeing that event now from above, the emotion and desperation that had accompanied missing. She and V had made it only just in time.

"You're going viral," Mitch declared, without looking at the two as they joined the group, "It seems some young buck was filming the whole thing."

Good, Panam thought, let the world see what happens when you try it with the Aldecaldos.

"Is that what you wanted to talk about?" she asked.

"Not exactly," Carol replied, "But it's relevant."

"Fuck, it looks even more close on that," V said, "Didn't think we were outnumbered that badly."

"Well, that's sorta the thing," Mitch said, "They had 59 vehicles total, we counted. Way more than we were expecting. All of them technicals with some sort of weapon up top. Between the Shivs driving and those in the town, we're pretty sure we flatlined most of the Wraiths in the state in this one action."

No one said anything. The Wraiths, pretty much beaten for good; Panam never thought she'd live to see a day where that had happened. Other Raffen Shiv clans would eventually try and move in, but that could be prepared for.

"I know what you're thinking," Mitch said, "It's a good thing, right?"

"Pretty much, yeah," V smiled, "The Dome will want us on permanent contract after a victory like this. We could end up like Metacorp but for security, our money problems permanently solved." He looked back to Panam, cheer in his eyes. Maybe he would live for a long time yet.

Panam's heart would've sang with that, but before she began to believe, the penny dropped.

"The problem is how'd the Shivs get organised enough to attack us like this?" she asked, "And where'd they get the combat vehicles? Some of them don't look like Wraith custom jobs, they look like Lat-Am aftermarket."

"Exactly," Carol said, "The obvious answer is not pretty."

"Someone probably hired them to kill us all," V responded at once, "Gave them the weapons and vehicles as payment."

"Who?" Panam asked Mitch and Carol, "I know you've been poking around, else you wouldn't have called this meeting."

"Actually, it was me who figured it out," Teddy said, rubbing the top of his bald head sheepishly, "I was out looking for salvage as soon as everything calmed down, got a little greedy. There was a pattern in the things I was finding."

"The newer vehicles are all 2077/78 Japanese models," Carol interrupted, "And the new weapons were all Nowakis, Masas, Shingens..."

Oh, no. "Arasaka?" Panam asked.

"Bet your ass," Mitch said, "This was an attempt at payback."

"Lucky for us the Raffen don't really play nice even with each other," Cassidy remarked, "If they hadn't all charged straight at us, there's no way the tank could've stopped them before we lost people."

"Might not have been just that," V said, shaking his head, "Could also be they offered a bonus for each Aldecaldo killed. Standard practice on set-ups like that, incentivises leaving no witnesses. Only question is why they waited this long to do it."

"Might have something to do with this," Carol said, gesturing at the holo-projector.

The image turned away from last night's fight to a newsflash from N54, the news anchor Gillean Jordan reading.

Change at the top of Arasaka, as Michiko Arasaka herself takes the reins as COO for North America. Analysts believe the deaths of Saburo and Hanako Arasaka have forced a reconciliation between the American-born Michiko and the current CEO, Yorinobu, as the latter struggles with the aftermath of the assault on Arasaka Tower.

The attack, which crippled Arasaka's Relic service and caused Arasaka stock in North American and Europe to crash, was allegedly carried by the Aldecaldos, one of the seven nomad Nations.

Beside Jordan, there was an image of the blue-haired Michiko outside of Arasaka Tower and another two Japanese men, both borged up to the gills. One of them looked familiar to Panam, but she couldn't place him.

"Hey, don't we know that guy?" she said, over the continuing broadcast, "The one on the left."

"Yeah, it's Takemura, you met him briefly after the Hellman gig," V replied, crossing his arms, "It's weird that he's back with Arasaka. He was Saburo's bodyguard, he hates Yorinobu, so much that he was pissed beyond belief when I didn't invite him along to attack the corp. There's some angle here we're not seeing, must be."

Jordan continued her news story.

Michiko, famous for her conciliatory efforts between her family and the leadership of the NUSA, promised a new day for both American citizens and international investors, pledging to bring the Relic project back to the Americas and prove the resilience of the Arasaka brand.

"Fuck, it never ends, does it," V said quietly, "Just when you think you've made a dent..."

Panam took his hand, threading his fingers with hers.

"Easy, it's okay," she said, "We beat them."

His face became a storm. "I know, and we're gonna keep doing that," he said, "But I was stupid enough to believe Arasaka would stop after we took out Mikoshi. And there's nothing anyone can do about that."

With that, V stormed out the tent. Panam's insides twisted, wanting to follow him... but she had responsibilities to the family to deal with first.

"We gotta worry about this new bitch in charge?" Carol asked.

Panam thought about it for a moment.

"Only other people who could touch us out here are Militech and they won't do Arasaka any favours," she said, "Snake Nation are the only other nomads around big enough, and we outnumber their local clans, even with the ex-Bakkers."

"Plus we've got all the new toys from yesterday," Mitch said, thumbing over his shoulder, "We're stronger now than we've ever been, even under Santiago."

"The Snakes wouldn't haven taken an Arasaka contract even just a few years ago," Cassidy said, "But these days, I don't know."

"They'd need to throw too much money at them," Panam replied, "We're talking cross-border action between the federal and the free states. And Militech has the NUS-Free State border contract, it would make them look like idiots."

V burst back into the tent, wide awake, all colour gone from his face. He looked ready to fall over. Panic squeezed Panam's heart in response, and she ran over.

"V, what's wrong?!" she said, "Tell us."

Carol ran to the corner to get a medkit, but by the time she had come back, V had regained some of his senses. He waved her off, and gestured to the holo-projector, his eyes glowing as he transferred something.

N54 disappeared, and the holo wavered for a moment, displaying only one thing.

Call from Jackie Welles

V's long dead best friend? Panam couldn't believe her eyes. Another ghost out of nowhere. No wonder he was shaken.

The text dissolved, and instead, a holo of Johnny Silverhand materialised. The rocker was smoking, swaying slightly in a plate-carrier military vest and leather pants, with dark shades over his eyes framed by neck length black hair.

Confused, Panam stared, as the holo blew digital smoke as far as the projector would allow, before plucking the cigarette out of his mouth with his silver hand. Was this someone fucking with V? He seemed shell-shocked.

Then the fucking thing spoke.

"Hello there, Aldecaldos," the holo said, mockingly, "Greetings from beyond the Blackwall! It's the ghost of Christmas Past!" This was punctuated by yet another drag on the cigarette, and more digital smoke.

Panam felt as if her tongue had swollen up. What the hell do you say to that?! The others were in a trance, watching. She had never been sure how many had actually believed the whole story about the Relic chip, but they sure as shit believed now.

"I'm guessing by your silence, that was the last fucking thing you expected to hear right now," Silverhand continued, "But you and I have business, so you might want to get your tongues back from the cat. Especially you, V. You couldn't shut up when I was riding around in your head, suddenly you can't get a word out?"

"How the fuck are you calling me on Jackie's number!" V roared, "And why are you wearing Johnny's face? You're not him, you're Alt!"

No pause for smoking this time, just a stare. A ghost's stare.

"Arasaka got everything that was on Jackie when they took his body to be soulkilled," Silverhand replied, "Including his cell module. It was one of the devices connected to the subnet when Alt finally got into it. This was the only way to get to you without involving third parties like the fuckin' Voodoo Boys, who I recall you not liking very much."

Another drag on the cigarette.

"As for me, I'm still me... but also Alt," he continued, "It would be hard to explain to most people, but you and Panam here ride around with your minds connected a little more than most. Think of it like that, except deeper and with more people."

"Wait a second," Mitch interrupted, "This is the Johnny Silverhand? Aren't you supposed to be dead twice now?"

"The one and only," Silverhand replied, "And as usual, I'm the only real thing between you and corpo tyranny, since you refuse to fight your own battles. Hiding out in the desert is good for a while, but it doesn't save your skin."

"Shut the fuck up with the theatrics, Johnny... Alt... whoever," V said at last, pointing at the damn holo, "Not going to lie, it is good to hear your voice again, but this is definitely not a social call. You gonna make us guess what you want?"

"Normally I would, but by now, Arasaka has tried to kill you all at least once," Silverhand said, throwing the virtual cigarette butt away into nothingness, "Alt got word that the next big corpo war has been called off, no one has enough of an advantage. So they've got the bandwidth to go after anyone else who's pissed in their coffees or looks like they're gonna, including you guys and us here past the Blackwall. That goes for Militech, Biotechnica, Netwatch, whoever the fuck else."

"So Alt is what?" V asked, "Looking for allies?"

Silverhand nodded. "Bingo."

Panam's tongue finally loosened itself. This was all going in a direction she didn't like.

"Hold on just a fucking minute," she said, "Not sure you've heard, but we trashed the Raffen that Arasaka sent at us just last night. We're doing just fine. Why would we get involved with all of that again?"

"I'm not hearing the appropriate level of gratitude for saving your input's life," Silverhand replied, acid in his tone, "Maybe you should consider that Arasaka is never just 'done' with someone. The proof is staring you in the fucking face, talking at you, right now."

He made a show of pointing directly at her. "Maybe one day you'll find yourself strapped to a chair too, a fuckin' Soulkiller wreath around your head, getting your mind sucked out of you and your body left as a dying husk."

I'd die before I let that happen, Panam thought, but she knew it was a scare tactic. "Gonna need to do better than that to convince us to go to back to California. In case you don't know, we burned pretty much all our bridges there the last time."

"If that's what you think, you don't know Night City," Silverhand replied, "You go back, it isn't going to be handcuffs and public trials, it's gonna be parties and champagne with assholes... maybe with people trying to kill you secretly, but that's a bit hard to do with a whole nomad family."

"What do you mean?" V asked, "You tellin' us that staying out here is more dangerous than going back? Because that makes zero sense."

"Well, allow me to be the first to tell you," Silverhand said with a smile, "You're famous. Especially you two. Your fight with Smasher and the other Arasaka borgs was recorded and some security gonk sold it to a media."

That brought back memories of Saul getting killed in the most horrible way... and V taking revenge mere minutes later, decapitating the son of a bitch with his katana. It was hard to believe that was a reason to be famous.

"We knew that it had gone viral, but seriously?" Panam asked, "We're famous? You're kidding me."

"Big-time, the pair of you are the second-coming of Morgan Blackhand and Rogue to lots of people, or you would be if you went back," the man continued, lighting up another virtual cigarette, "Between that fight, the concert with Kerry, the whole Joshua thing, the mayor and his wife singing your praises and all the other shit you pulled?"

"They know V by his own name, but Panam, they call you the Queen of the Highway now."

Silverhand took off his glasses, and looked at them with deep brown eyes.

"Any open move against you is gonna cause more trouble than it's worth," he concluded, "You've got friends all over the city and an adoring public. People'll really think twice about fucking with you. I hear you've even got fans in MaxTac. I'd be jealous, but neither of you can sing or shred a guitar worth a shit."

"Un-fucking-believable," Carol muttered.

It wasn't a very good pitch so far. Sounded like a bunch of lies covered over with barely an inch of truth. First it was scare tactics, now it was ego-stroking.

"So we won't get flatlined or cuffed the minute we arrive," Panam said, "I'm still not hearing a plan about how we blast into Arasaka Tower again, or how we survive after that, or why doing that would give us better odds than just sticking here."

Silverhand smirked, and put his glasses back on.

"We use every contact V has made since he plugged me into his head, gather every fucking warm body we can get, and all the shit Alt can put together too, then we throw it at the corps. After that, Arasaka is screwed in America even if we lose, the NUSA and Militech will smell blood, and neither will have a bad word to say about you. That's the how."

"As for the why, besides the fact your reputation will go platinum and you'll make a helluva lot more money than you are now, fact is that it's the only chance all of you have of living to see old age. Except this old cowboy, seems he already got there." The holo pointed straight at Cassidy.

"Fuck you, Silverhand," Cassidy responded, "You're lucky you're god damn incorporeal right now, or your face would be meeting my fist."

The holo laughed back, cigarette blazing. Panam felt anger boil up in her, her fist clenching so hard it hurt. This thing was in V's head the whole time she was getting to know him? Though some of the anger was that the idea was starting to make sense to her, though it was still too much of a risk.

"V, to be honest, when you said you were going to ride off into the sunset, I didn't think I'd ever see you again," Silverhand said, "But here you are, beating the odds... but for how much longer? I wasn't kidding about this deal being the only thing that guarantees all of you could survive to turn grey. That includes you."

"What do you mean?" Panam asked.

Silverhand smiled, this time with genuine pleasure.

"There's a cure for V's fucked up brain now."