Chapter 40: For The Damaged Code

Several hours earlier, Jericho had left the two teams alone, walking off on his already predetermined path towards the command center of the space station. Johnny was a loose cannon, not to be trusted any farther than he could be thrown and V was on the borderline of betrayal and loyalty. It didn't matter. He knew he was more than strong enough to kill everyone, every citizen of the station, every single one of his companions and all that stood in his way.

It had been quite a few years since he'd gone all-out and used all of his abilities. He usually had Hildegarde take care of things since she was so good at staying alive and getting things done stealthily. It didn't matter at this point. He had already done what he'd set out to do. Just one more hurdle before all would know the true king. All would see the Revolution and Humanity would Evolve beyond its mortal chains.

Some things just needed to be done alone without interruptions and without the chance of failure. Together, Johnny and V could've taken him on long enough for the ESA to send reinforcements. Reinforcements that would've caused a hasty retreat on his end of things. But separated, they had nothing and nobody was there to stop him this time even if the ESA sent everything they had to him. The accursed and inevitable betrayal from his so-called companions would've been the worst and most damaging to what he was attempting to do right now. And now that they were out of the grand scheme of things, this final task was simply going to be a slaughter.

As things would happen, the Crystal Palace had barely any guards around the tunnel leading to the Command Center. A single MaxTac officer stood silently at the door as Jericho approached it. He just walked over to the guard, the heavily armed and armored man staring at him.

"No entry!"

"I understand. How would I gain access?"

"You don't."

"Will you help me?", Jericho asked as the fingers on his left hand slid open, a series of probing interfaces extending on prehensile cords. He simply raised his hand and shoved the probes into the data-ports on the side of the guard's head. The guard began to convulse and shake as Jericho did what he had to do in his own way. Janus taking control of the guard's cybernetics and mind.

"You will help me. Open the door and kill anyone who tries to stop me.", Jericho commanded.

"I will help you. Here, the door is open.", the guard noted slowly and mechanically as the door slid open. Jericho just pulled his probes out of the guard's head and continued on his path. Only a slow walk towards the Command Center lay in his path.

As soon as he had walked a few meters down the hallway, a few more MaxTac guards approached him, guns drawn.

"How did you get in here? Get out!"

"I belong here. Don't you know me?", Jericho stated. He usually had refrained from Quick-hacking and NetRunning due to Janus being detected and all of NetWatch being called down upon his head, but in this new age of the Net, he had no such limitations. His eyes glowed blue for a second as he sent Janus out, a twisting skull trailing tentacles shot towards the two guards, causing them to convulse as once again, their minds were now his.

"Father... Of course. We will do as you say.", the stunned guards noted.

"Kill anyone who interferes with us. Clear out the ESA offices. Open all of the doors leading into the Command Center."

"It shall be done."

The two guards opened the second set of security doors for Jericho before turning back to the smaller doors in the hallway, the doors that led into some of the ESA offices, before opening them and then opening fire on the occupants of the rooms. Jericho just walked on to the sounds of screaming as dozens of ESA workers were cut down by their own protectors.

"Come children, come and bring death wherever you walk."

The MaxTac guards followed behind him. Enslaved to their father's bidding. As Jericho continued his slow and meticulous walk towards the End of Line, more and more guards began to pour into the hallway only to be shot down by their own comrades who also shared the same burning blue eyes as their father. The gunfire was drawing attention, and the attention had alarms now beginning to blare throughout the Crystal Palace. This still didn't matter, Jericho's radioactive shielding was lowered and he was going critical. The radiation would kill them all soon enough. The main downside to this was now sets of blast-doors were beginning to close in the hallway, perhaps and oversight on his part, but it matter little. Jericho idly wondered how Hildegarde was faring since a Lockdown had been initiated. She would be fine. He knew it.

Back in The Hive, there was a quiet panic settling in. A lockdown had never happened before. Someone had done something serious. A security breach? A hull breach? Nobody knew. Hildegarde just smiled to herself and kept drinking.

"Well, V. Now's the time for your 11th hour betrayal if you have one.", she mocked.

"No. I'm done trying to stop whatever it is you're doing."

"Good. You've finally learned. Now sit back and smell the ashes."

"What? Don't smell me!", Asher yelped.

"The ashes, Asher."

"Oh."

"V... What have you done?", T-Bug whimpered from the corner.

"I have no idea..."

"Hope you enjoyed the Crystal Palace while it lasted!", Hildegarde mocked. "This is the end."

The crack of bone and the squelch of flesh filled Jericho's ears as he cut through the MaxTac guards that opposed him, his own dominated guards having fallen to their comrades gunfire long ago. His core burned, a jet of heat venting from the cooling vents on his back forming a set of translucent and wavering wings as he moved forwards, unstoppable. The blast-doors simply wrenched open with his indomitable strength and causing more alarms to go off. The guards were falling sick from the radiation, some using Anti-Rad, and others falling sick instantly as the Rads grew to extreme levels inside the hallway. His arms were covered in gore up to his elbows as squadron after squadron of MaxTac fell to him. Destruction. Destruciton embodied.

Soon, more well-equipped MaxTac joined the ranks of the rapidly falling soldiers, these ones outfitted with Sandevistan and other Military-Grade cyberware. Jericho just shook his head as his own Sandevistan-equivalent never ran out of power and was much faster than theirs. The guards in full Sandevistan still saw Jericho moving at inhuman speeds before his nano-ceramic blades cut them in half.

As much fun as it was to simply cut and rip apart the oncoming storm of guards, this was taking too long. Jericho's left arm split and transformed into its gauss-cannon form and charged up. He aimed for the blast doors and let loose a fully-powered and nuclear-enhanced blast of blue energy. The beam smashed into the blast-doors, sundering them and blowing shrapnel outwards. The heat of the beam disintegrating the guards that stood close to its path of destruction. A fist of god slamming into those that opposed their new digital god. Jericho just walked on.

"Security Breach. Stay in place. MaxTac has been deployed.", a warning blared.

Johnny Silverhand just glanced up in his drunken stupor. Shit had started without him. He knew Jericho was the cause of this, but there was fuck-all he could do about it. He and his friends were locked inside a bar and there was nothing to do except get wasted.

"Let's pour one out for the Destroyer of Worlds. To Jericho!", Johnny toasted. Rogue, Squama and Trace just raised their glasses more or less out of habit than to what Johnny was saying. They were all far too drunk to pay any attention to this.

Far across the Station, V and Jackie sat idly still wondering what was going on. Asher turned to them as they played cards.

"Soo... I can open the doors or I can send you the video feed from the Command Center!", the tiny NetRunner announced.

"Gimme the vids, what's Jericho doing?"

"He's tearing through MaxTac. Here, check it out!", Asher noted as she sent the security feed to V. The cameras were in real-time and there was an incredible amount of static for some reason. V squinted for a moment.

"Why's there so much static?"

"It's not static, it's radiation. Jericho's gone full-nuclear."

"That's- That's not good."

"We'll be fine! Just watch!"

V went back to viewing the absolute carnage that was taking place in the hallway that led to the Command Center of the Crystal Palace. Jericho was a blur of Cherenkov-Blue light that seemingly pinballed around the room, a flash of light and a spray of blood and then off to the next one. Despite being rather thin and lithe, Jericho's strength easily paralleled Adam Smasher as the slaughter continued, limbs flying and more of that crimson staining the walls and floor as the blue blur shot down the hallway as more MaxTac flooded the area.

V watched as Jericho stopped for a brief second, grabbing the head and face of one higher-ranking MaxTac officer before letting go and continuing his rampage. The higher-ranking officer joined in on the slaughter and began firing on his own soldiers, much to the surprise of the rest of the MaxTac squadron.

"What the hell did he do there?", V asked.

"Jericho just used Janus on that soldier. Think of it like mind control.", Hildegarde sighed.

"Fuck this shit...", V noted as he just kept watching.

Jericho spun in a circle for a moment, a roundhouse kick slamming so hard into one of the armored officers that his foot impaled the poor schmuck, without missing a beat, Jericho just swung his leg around and launched the body off his foot and down the hallway before resuming his martial assault on the droves of opposition. Gunfire seemingly had no effect on him either as he moved so fast that the bullets seemed to phase right through him.

"Ey, why doesn't he use a gun?", Jackie added.

"No need. Guns are slow, need to be aimed and reloaded. Jericho's fists never run out of ammunition.", Hildegarde mused, still nursing her drink. "Besides, this is what he does. He's a living weapon. Gets the jump on you and tears your spine out through your mouth. That is, if he's not using his blades and cutting you down like a shrubbery."

V just went back to watching the rampage. The MaxTac soldiers were retreating, a few of them caught by Jericho and turned against their own once again. Some of the other dominated soldiers took off into the many offices in the hallways and laid waste to the occupants inside as the cyborg just walked on dripping with blood and gore as he continued towards the command center.

"Has he always been able to do that?", V asked.

"Yep. Now you see why nobody really questions his motivations. Jericho is incredibly useful when it comes to gathering intel and eliminating opposition. Part of his nature, I suppose, although it didn't start like that, not really. He holds loyalty above all else and betrayal... Well, that gets you... That.", Hildegarde noted.

V shuddered. Adam Smasher had brute strength and weaponry but was slow and his movement limited by his sheer size. Jericho had brute strength, little to no weaponry, and incredible speed with no limitations on his movement. Taking him down didn't seem like a feasible possibility without an actual army since he was making a mockery out of MaxTac at the moment.

"See, V? You can kill me, but not him. No... No. If he wanted, he could kill us all.", Hildegarde sneered.

"Yeah... I can see that."

"He's stronger than you and faster than you... That means he can kill you. And that makes him nigh-invulnerable with what the Chipset allows. Of course, you would need the same full-borg getup he has in order to do a fraction of what's going on right now."

"Fuck... At least he's on our side, right?"

Hildegarde didn't respond, she just sipped her drink and maintained eye-contact with V.

"Right?"

The deafening silence told V all he needed to know at the moment.

Back in the Hallway of Doom, Jericho had finished with the MaxTac that had been on the station. Nothing moved. Blood dripped off the walls. The few soldiers he'd brought over to his side had committed suicide as the domination wore off and their actions were realized. Jericho just looked around one last time before he wrenched the doors of the Command Center open, the few occupants ducking for cover and the Director of the ESA firing a single shot off at him that completely missed as he shot forwards and impaled the Director on his nano-ceramic blade. The older man's body just went limp and slid off the blade like a pile of wet noodles.

"Hello, I am Jericho. If you have no conflicts with me, then I will spare you lives. You will find living under the Crown a lot more hospitable than what the ESA has promised you."

None of the office workers said anything and continued to hide under their terminals.

"Good. Then, let me begin..."

Jericho just reached down towards the Director, plucking out one of his eyes as he used the severed ocular organ to bypass the ocular scanner on the main terminal. Once the terminal had unlocked, he simply inserted his diagnostic probes into the computer. This would only take but a moment in time, and then all of the time in the universe would stand still for him. At long last, he had finally finished what he'd started so many years ago.

"Any and all mercenaries, please report to the Central Hallway. The ESA is recruiting your help in the defense of the Crystal Palace.", another warning chimed.

The blast-doors of The Hive slid open, a few NetRunners heading for the door. Mercenaries of all shapes and colors ran down the hallway towards presumably where Jericho had gone. Those fools had no idea what awaited them. T-Bug began to limp towards the exit.

"No wait! Don't leave...", V shouted.

"Why?", T-Bug asked.

"You don't know what you're getting into. You'll die."

"You and Jackie didn't seem to care while you were beating me to death a few minutes ago... Besides, I'm going home. I don't care what happens."

"Oh. Well, bye T-Bug. It was nice seeing you again."

T-Bug just snorted and headed in the opposite direction of the newly hired mercenaries.

"Well, V? Now's your chance to attempt your usual 11th hour betrayal... Door's open...", Hildegarde sneered.

"Nope. Not after what I saw. I'm staying right here and getting so drunk I can't remember why we even came."

"Good idea."

"Hey guys... I think we're done here...", Asher noted quietly. She was staring at one of the holoscreens in the bar. The screen just showed "J.A.N.U.S. System Active".

"What- What does that mean? You did that back in Arasaka Tower..."

"It means the Singularity has entered its final form.", Hildegarde sighed.

"Oh..."

"We've taken over, V. Welcome to the new dawn of humanity."

"I- I-"

"You helped us do this. Despite all of your flaws and attempted coups, you helped us."

"Did I? What happens now?"

"We live. We recreate the world in our image. Without the barrier of death stopping us, human evolution continues alongside the eternal march of our technological advancements. It sounds like absolute bollocks, but it's what Jericho had planned for all of us."

"I see..."

"Enjoy it, V. You've got eternity to figure out if you made the right choice."

Hildegarde just finished her drink, slamming the glass down on the bar and made her way to the door.

"Where are you going?"

"To Jericho. He needs us right now."

V and Jackie just stared at each-other and followed the plum-purple outlaw towards the End. He quickly buzzed Johnny and told him where to go, hopefully the Rockerboy wasn't too drunk and they'd all get to see the birth of a new world together. Either that or Jericho had gone cyber-psycho and would kill them all.

The little group that had always been until the end ran after the mercenaries towards the Command Tunnel before a sudden and violent suction ripped the air from their lungs and threatened to hurl them into the hallway. V braced himself behind an advertisement board and held onto Jackie's arm as Hildegarde and Asher activated some kind of leg cyberware and held their ground. A large warning sign glared at them. "Hull Breach!", it warned. The previous running mercenaries were suddenly airborne and flying down the Command Tunnel screaming. V watched in horror as Johnny, who was on the other side of the mezzanine also took flight towards the tunnel, his silver arm grabbing into a nearby railing with Rogue, Squama and Trace grabbing for anything to hold onto, the nearest thing being Johnny's leg. A daisy-chain of friends simply hung on for dear life as the hull-breach pulled them into its blackened maw.

The air supply in the mezzanine began to run low and V felt his vision darken for a moment. Hildegarde and Asher were fairing no better and the plum-purple outlaw looked genuinely fearful for once, her eye darting around in a panic. Asher just looked worried and began to shake. Johnny's strength began to fail and the Rockerboy let go, sending him and his friends down the tunnel and towards open space. V wanted to scream, but couldn't. The air was getting too thin. This was the End of Line and what a way to go out.

Jericho barely had any time as the upload finished before he was fired upon from the doorway. He had killed all of the MaxTac already and was taken by surprise for once. As he spun around, a large group of mixed mercenaries stood before him. More lambs to the slaughter. He seemingly breathed a sigh before extending his blades and launching into the crowd, a simple spin and heads rolled.

These poor street-samurai and edgerunners had no idea what they'd gotten into and were even easier to deal with than MaxTac. It wasn't even a fair fight as Jericho just punched the next merc so hard in the face that his fist ejected the poor gonk's brainmatter out of his ears. He ripped his gore-drenched fist back and backhanded the next one hard enough to snap their neck with a wet crunch. Still moving at speeds faster than the fastest Sandevistan, he shot through the crowd severing limbs and crushing skulls. A few of the mercs turned tail and ran from him. A few NetRunners attempted to quick-hack him, but failed miserably as Janus retaliated and hit them with Black-ICE, their bodies falling to the ground as all of the nerves in their bodies were burned to ash.

"Welcome to the End.", Jericho noted. Killing them was fun, but still taking too long, so he just did the easiest thing to rid himself of all of these pests.

Jericho just turned, aimed his gauss-cannon at the wall and blew a meter-sized hole through it and into open space. He activated his magnetic leg augmentations and glued himself to the floor as both the air and mercenaries were sucked into the dead of space. A few mercenaries had been able to hold on, but as the air supply ran down, their strength waned and they too were pulled out of the hallway. Jericho just continued on; he didn't need to breathe anymore, so this was just an inconvenience. A few moments later, the Crystal Palace's hull-breach failsafes took over and hastily patched the hole, the hallway returning to positive pressure without any mercenaries or MaxTac corpses. He'd done them a favor, really, now there was no need for a messy cleanup.

As the cyborg continued down the hallway, he stepped through the blown-out blast-door from earlier and spied some remnants of mercenaries plastered against it, most of them had been turned to paste by the sudden and violent impact with the metal. So much for an easy cleanup. Jericho just shook his head and continued further back before he spied some familiar looking bodies on the ground. Johnny Silverhand, Rogue, Squama and Trace all lay on the ground. They were alive, but severely out of breath as the air supply was beginning to return.

"Are you well?", Jericho asked.

"Never... Been... Better...", Johnny sighed weakly.

"Vacation is over. I have done what I needed to do. It is time to go home. I hope you had fun."

"Fun?"

Jericho just kept walking. Johnny would be fine and so would the rest of his group. He tossed a few Anti-Rad canisters at them and kept walking. As he neared the exit, he also spied Hildegarde, V, Jackie and Asher, who were all catching their breath as well. They hadn't been pulled into the tunnel and instead leaned on various railings. Hildegarde saw him immediately and adjusted her eyepatch slightly before heading in his direction.

"Did you do it?"

"I did. We can leave now."

"Thank god... What about the Rockerboy?"

"He's alive."

"Hear that, V? Johnny is alive."

"Cool...", V uttered.

"Let's get the fuck outta here!", Jackie added.

Jericho just nodded and began to trek back to where their shuttle had docked.

This had been less of a vacation and more of an interesting side-trip where Jericho had done all of the work. Why the cyborg couldn't have just done this entirely by himself was beyond V's comprehension, but knowing the cryptic cyborg, it was probably meant to be a lesson of some sort. "Don't fuck with the digital god" or some shit. Janus was now inside the Crystal Palace, and thus also inside the Inter-Planetary Uplink which meant that the God AI now had control over the Crystal Palace, the Mars Colony and everything on the Moon as well. What that ultimately meant would be something to think of in the future. For now, V just wanted to go back to Night City, as hard as that was to believe.

The escape from the Crystal Palace had been largely uneventful. The few surviving mercs had avoided Jericho like he was the plague and the Port Authority just glanced at him, his blood-covered garments and limbs and nodded at him. Despite their shuttle no longer having a pilot of any sort, Janus' activation and digital takeover allowed their passage back to Earth and Night City without any issues. Asher was bouncing off the walls in excitement for some reason and Hildegarde just looked bored. Johnny strummed a holographic guitar as Trace and Rogue shared a heart-to-heart while Squama just stared out into space as the Crystal Palace disappeared into small dot.

"Oh, Jeriiiichooo! Guess who's picking us up from the spaceport!?", Asher called excitedly.

"Who?"

"It's D! He's bringing along Becca and Lucy and Falco! They're back from that mission you sent them on at Tycho, the moon base!"

"Oh really?"

"Yeppers!"

"That's nice. It's been a while since we've seen them. 2078, I believe, they were first in line after Monarch had taken over. D may want the new upgraded Chipset since that one I implanted back in 2076 was just a prototype..."

"Wait... Who's D?", V asked.

"He's a merc like you! He's a full-borg, had some issues with cyber-psychosis and stuff. Buuuut... Jericho fixed him while we were on hiatus!"

"He also ran into Adam Smasher, but Jericho was there to stop him.", Hildegarde mused.

"Adam Smasher thought he was strong. In actuality, he was heavy, slow, and cocky. Too reliant on his cybernetics and brute-force... I, however was far quicker than he, and I sent him home with most of his limbs.", Jericho mused, recalling the event. "Funny, considering that not but a year later he was taken down by you, V."

"You're gonna like him, V! He's funny! Just uh... Try not to piss off Becca, she's crazy!", Asher added.

"Crazier than you?", V asked.

"I'm not crazy! But... Becca is... You'll find out when you meet her."

"Preem."

The shuttle soon began its descent and docked in the Orbital Air terminal in Night City. The shuttle's sole occupants consisting of Jericho's team began to disembark. No sooner had the exited the terminal than Jackie bent down and kissed the ground.

"Land! Madre de dios! We're back!"

V just pulled the larger man back upright. Space flight was not kind to Jackie and the whole adventure had been a lesson in 'don't fuck with the cyborg'. As they walked along, a rather muscle-bound man greeted them happily.

"Heya, choom! How'd it go on the Crystal Palace?", he asked.

"Hello, D. It went about as you'd expect. MaxTac was there."

"Shit, you took on MaxTac? I saw the fireworks from Tycho, ya know. I think we landed a few hours before you did."

"Oh, this is V. V, this is D.", Jericho noted.

"Hey, V!", said D.

"And I'm Becca!", a much shorter, somewhat childlike and green-haired girl announced. She just slammed both of her over-sized red and blue fists together.

"You guys work for Monarch, too?", V asked.

"Nope! We're Edgerunners. We just take whatever pays the best. So far Monarch pays the best, so..."

"Where's Lucy?", Asher asked.

"Ahh... Well... She stayed behind on Tycho. It's always been her dream to have a Moon Apartment and she's a great NetRunner, so I figured if everything went well on your end she could help you out up there...", D mused.

"Splendid. I will inform her of our business and contract her services when needed. I believe Monarch will have a luxury apartment for her.", Jericho noted.

"Ride's here. Where to, Jericho? Back to Monarch Tower?", a mustachioed man asked.

"Hello, Falco. Yes, back to Monarch Tower."

"Walk and talk, V. You'll have plenty of time to get to know D. He's like you, except better.", Hildegarde sighed as she walked past the rest of the group and hopped into the bus-like vehicle that Falco was driving.

"Oh... My... Fuck! Johnny Silverhand!?", Becca exclaimed loudly before running over to the Rockerboy.

"Uh, hey.", Johnny stated half-drunkenly.

Becca just continued to squee at the sight of Johnny Silverhand all the way into their ride. Hildegarde just sighed. Janus could've easily sent an AV, but for some reason Jericho was intent on V meeting with his other group of hapless mercenaries for some reason. The funny knock-offs of their current group as she saw it. D had potential, but had been too focused on his own personal vendetta prefering to be one of Jericho's 'bannermen' instead. Had D actually been available during their uprising back in 2077, things would've gone differently, but Jericho had sent D and his crew to the moon for some reason. Probably to get the Inter-Planetary Uplink ready. As their bus departed on its journey back to Monarch Tower, V was the one to break the silence.

"So, uhh... How did you and Jericho meet? He's not the kind of guy to just drop by a bar...", V asked to D.

"Oh, well... We had a job, an Arasaka convoy was comin' into town and we were supposed to rob it, grab this big mech-suit from inside. We had the whole thing planned, even had the deets but suddenly there was a complication. Jericho found it first. He just... Stood in the road as they approached and let out this big-ass blast of energy, hit the convoy head-on and blew them away."

"Like, disintegrated them?"

"No... More like a concussive blast? Anyways, the cars went flying and those Arasaka goons started spilling out and taking aim on him. So we went to go back him up since it looked like he was on our side, ya know? Now, I've got a Sandevistan, but Jericho moves faster than that. I activated mine and he was still moving faster than me. He just... Cut them all down in the blink of an eye. They were standing there and then they weren't. Falco says he didn't even see the first strike, when he got there it was just Jericho and some blood in the sand."

"Ah..."

"Yeah. I got about halfway there with my Sandevistan and Jericho was already digging through the wreckage, tore that mech-suit apart before we could even grab it and just turned to us, stared us down. It... It was terrifying, I've never seen a look like that before. Like he was sizing us up before killing us."

"He does that sometimes..."

"Funny thing is, he asked what we were doing. We told him. And then he asked if I had a problem. Like he knew I needed help with, well, cyber-psychosis. And I said yeah, I do. One thing led to another and he gave me this biochip and suddenly I could see straight and think straight... It was like a miracle."

"What happened with Smasher?"

"Ah... Right. Lucy got taken by... one of our fixers, bastard was double-crossing us with Arasaka. For some reason that didn't sit well with Jericho, so he helped us get her back, flew us to Arasaka in an old cargo AV. I grabbed Lucy before that gonk fixer could do anything and Falco took the AV and us away from Arasaka Tower as Jericho took on Adam Smasher. Smasher was bigger, but Jericho... He's just faster... He beat the everloving shit out of Smasher and left the borg-bastard crawling away with his tail between his legs, well, I guess not his legs since those were gone, but you get the picture."

"Jeezus. No wonder Smasher went down so easily a year later. He was probably still recovering from the beatdown Jericho hit him with."

"Yeah, I heard you flatlined him. Congrats, choom. Jericho just beat him. Like just beat him. No guns, just fists and fury. Never seen anything like that before in my life. A fist just cracking through borg-ware like that, a blade just cutting through his exo-skeleton like butter. Thank god he was on our side, because I don't think there would've been anything left of us if he'd attacked."

"I- I saw that. He did that to MaxTac on the Palace. One second he's there, the next he's teleported across the room and that MaxTac goon is just a stain on the wall."

"Shit really? Wish I could've been there to see it... Anyways, Jericho found us after we'd landed, offered us a job but I couldn't take it. He seemed... Displeased? But he let us go and said he'd be in contact if he needed us. Worked out well in the end, well, better for Kiwi I guess since she jumped at the chance to work for him. She ended up running surveillance for him until he got his crew back together, then she ended up 'Running for Monarch in London."

"All's well that ends well, right?"

"Shit yeah, choom! Could you imagine what would've happened if he didn't intervene?"

"Yeah. Smasher would've smashed you and crushed me into paste.", Becca added. "Maybe Kiwi would've died in a heroic gunfight, I dunno, he probably would've made an extra-chunky Edgerunner salsa out of us."

"But yeah. He really saved our asses, even though we never completed our 'job' from our 'fixer'. What about you? How'd you meet him?"

"He found me, I guess. I had a similar problem except a biochip was killing me, had to get it out or get it fixed. He gave me the same Chipset- Biochip, and it did fix it. Then we sorta joined up, did some jobs together, dug up some old memories, and well, made all of this happen."

"Should've taken the job, kid.", Falco sighed.

"Fuck me! That sounds like an adventure!"

"It was, I don't know... Maybe you would've had a better time than I did. I was worried half the time.", V mused, recounting his past adventures. "Worried that I'd made the wrong decisions."

"But you're alive right? That's what matters."

"Yep. As alive as I'll ever be..."

V sighed and stared out the window. The banter inside the bus eventually devolved into recounting stories from the heroes of another story with Jericho nodding and occasionally clarifying facts. Soon Monarch Tower loomed in the distance and their time of respite was upon them. Johnny and his crew headed back to his penthouse still in a semi-drunken stupor. Jackie bid his farewell and hailed a Janus-driven Aerondight back to the Coyote Cojo, he'd had enough fun for one lifetime. Hildegarde and Asher just accompanied Jericho, V, D, Becca and Falco into the main elevator and towards the top of the tower itself. Soon V would be back at his mansion, Johnny would be touring the world with Samurai and everything would go back to the new normal that was now his life. It felt good to be back in Night City.

Chapter End.

A/N: More Edgerunner stuff? I've already figured out the alternate-ending for it as you've seen. What would V and David (D) do together? Who knows? Who nose?