We all think we know how we'll take it when we finally meet the bullet with our name on it. We assume we'll be stoic and brave in the face of the void. Stiff upper lip and all that. Speaking as someone who's seen the other side, can't say it's that easy. Death is fear weaponized, plain and simple, and there isn't a gonk in the world brave enough to stare down the abyss without his knees knockin' just a little.
But fuck, you know what I'm talkin' about. Seen it yourself after all. Only difference is you took a bullet, I took a thousand kilowatts to the prefrontal cortex followed by a fifty year digi-nap.
Can you really blame me for just wanting a fucking smoke?
It starts with the voices. Misty brings her home and that first day passes like a hazy, underwater dream. Everything seems to move in slow motion. Disbelief and the echoing tangle of adrenaline crash keep her asleep and in bed for most of the day. Those fever-dream moments when she wakes are a tangled mess of grief and rage and confusion. The world becomes a maze, and she no longer has the energy or the desire to fight free.
That evening is when the voices start. She thinks at first that it's the usual crowd of drunks and assholes hustling past her door. She thinks she even hears the megablock's stray cat scratching at the threshold. But then the voices are inside, murmuring to her as she drifts in and out of waking. She hears someone muttering inside her sealed weapon room, hears the unmistakable tread of heavy-soled boots in the bathroom. She ignores them all.
The next morning is tranquil enough for her question if it was all in her head in the first place. But then the footsteps start again, pacing around her apartment, and she catches the unmistakable odor of cigarette smoke.
She ignores it, though her heart leaps into her throat every time she hears whispering at her computer station or the thud of an invisible fist against the vending machine next to the bathroom. It isn't long before she can sit and watch the shadow drift past her sleeping cradle like a toxic cloud. It mutters to itself in those short moments it spends visible, sulking and disjointed and rarely making any kind of sense.
"Gotta get out…" The voice echoes as if from down a long tunnel. "Find a way… Find the key…"
It's just after 3 AM when the voice grows loud enough to wake her from sleep. Her forehead pounds like a drum to the beat of her sluggish motions as she turns over in bed. She can hear the shadow shuffling around at her closet, footsteps thumping against hard tile floor. Her voice croaks out of her throat in an exhausted, wounded warble. "Fuck…"
An echo. "Fuck…"
She sits up in time to see the shadow pass by her sleeping cradle and drift away into empty air with a fading grumble. She rubs at her eyes but finds nothing to prove it's not just a figment of her imagination.
"Great," she mutters to no one in particular. "First a bullet in my brain, now a ghost in my apartment."
Her skull throbs in protest as she flops back against the mattress. She rests a clammy palm on her temple for a few moments before turning her gaze to the blue bottle next to the pillow. Misty's omega blockers. It's as solid a plan as any, and definitely better than being haunted by whatever nosy fuck is snooping around her apartment. The pill goes down bitter and chalky and enduring, but the buzzing in her head eases enough for her to sleep. She hears no more voices for the rest of the evening.
That night she dreams of a fiery cityscape. The roar of an electric guitar drowns out screams even as a blooming mushroom cloud rises over ash-clogged streets. A sick, burning sense of delight worms through her gut at the sight, at the chaos, and she can't help but twist her lips into a vicious smile.
When she wakes she finally feels strong enough to hoist herself out of bed and stagger to the vending machine. She downs a few bites of a little burrito and washes it down with a spray of water from the bathroom sink, not trusting her stomach to handle anything more.
There's someone behind her in the mirror, tall and lanky and obscured in shadow. Like a rat fleeing light, the black form ducks out of sight behind her as soon as her eyes fix on it. She whips around, head spinning, to find no one. Again she catches a whiff of old smoke.
"I know it's you," she calls, doing her best to sound fearsome. But her weak, wavering voice is pathetic even to her own ears. "I know you're lurking around here somewhere."
"And then there's you." The echoing voice calls to her. A white-hot spike of pain pierces her forehead, doubling her up. Numbed fingers bite into her scalp and the voice growls, "Who are you?"
She gasps and stumbles back to bed, a hand on the wall to keep her upright. The other clutches her head, holding it tight as if it were about to split in two. She curses and grabs for the pills again, but darkness crowds at the edges of her vision before her shaky fingers can brush the cold plastic. She pitches forward into bed, unconscious before she hits the pillows.
"Gotta get out of here. Understand?"
She wakes to see a scowling face and reflective, blood-red sunglasses hovering mere inches from her face. It's a man, long-haired and lanky, crouching over her on the bed. His hands clench into fists. A pair of gleaming dog tags swing from his outstretched neck.
"And I'll kill anyone who gets in my way," he hisses. "You included."
Adrenaline hits her like a gutpunch from a Mantis Blade and she scrambles up, scrambling away until her back thuds against the far wall. But by then the man is already gone. She triggers her Kiroshis and scans the apartment, searching for any trace of an intruder. As usual, there's nothing.
She takes another omega blocker. Even still, sleep comes in fits and starts. When she does slip under the surface, lulled to uneasy slumber by the pattering of night rain against her window, she dreams of gunfire and lightning.
Thunk... thunk... thunk...
The repetitive pounding of flesh on plastoid tugs her from slumber. She sits up in bed, vision still blurred with black dreams. Her head swells with heat and pain once more, stubbornly ignoring the omega blocker's influence. She crushes the heel of one hand against the tight knot of scar tissue above her eyebrow - her final farewell gift from Dex. It's a bit after 3 in the morning according to the clock radio on the far sofa table.
Thunk... thunk... thunk...
"Need a smoke. Where'd you stash yours?"
The voice is no echo now. Now it's clear and physical, punctuated by the enduring knocking. As her vision clears she can see the man from before lounging against the wall just outside her sleeping cradle. He stares at the ceiling with boredom that hangs on the edge of torment. His head thumps against the wall again and again.
"I... don't smoke," she croaks. Part of her, the fuzzy part that isn't quite awake yet, has no fucking clue what's going on here. After everything that's happened recently - the tower, the heist, and all the death and destruction that trailed after - talking to a ghost seems about as sane as anything else.
He seems to notice her for the first time as she clambers out of bed. His face twists with a sneer and she can feel his eyes looking her up and down, cloaked by those old-school aviators.
"The fuck kind of joytoy are you s'posed to be?"
That flares up enough anger to clear her mind. "Fuckin' ghost off, dead man," she snaps and heads for the door. She needs some fresh air, needs to get out of the stifling heat of this haunted fucking apartment.
She doesn't make it far.
With a screech of digital feedback, he materializes in the air in front of her. His hands - one 'ganic, one plated in polished silver - hit her chest with enough force to knock her clean off her feet. She doesn't feel the blow; one minute she's on her feet, the next she's slammed back against the coffee table in the relaxation niche. She sprawls face-first onto the cold tile floor and flips onto her back in time to see the man level a clenched mechanical fist at her.
"Who you work for?!" he demands. "Start talkin'!"
He points an accusatory finger at her. She doesn't know why, but she parrots the motion. Her hand, raised in defense to cover her already battle-damaged head, points a finger at him. It's a purely automatic motion, as uncontrollable as her heartbeat.
"The fuck?" she gasps, staring between her hand and his. He follows suit, dropping his hands and looking between them. V mirrors his every motion. Even her chest rises and falls in perfect parallel.
"Fuck," he echoes.
His hand drifts to his hair, sifting through dark, shaggy locks. Behind those blood-red glasses, she can see wide, incredulous eyes. He's a man caught in the blinding light of revelation - and one who doesn't like the shit he sees.
"Fucking chip!" His fingers dig into his implant socket and V's fingers betray her by mimicking his every move. She can hear and feel a meaty grind and squelch behind her eyes. The chip begins to inch free of her ravaged flesh.
"I'll rip the damn thing out myself!" The man bares his teeth even as V clenches up in pain.
"Wait, wait!"
Static discharges scream through her senses. Implanted optics flash with purple-tinged static and cut out. White-hot heat bursts behind her eyes. There's a last sizzle of electricity in her temples, and then she's lost to the world.
She's not sure how long she spends blind, not sure if she's even still alive or if the ghostly asshole has managed to do what Arasaka couldn't. When her internal systems reboot and her eyes come back online, she's on all fours in front of her window. She fights her way to her feet but realizes too late that it's not her behind the wheel.
Rain patters against the window and her hands dig against glass. She can see her reflection twisted with malice, can see someone else behind her eyes. When the man speaks again, her lips echo his words.
"I'll take control!"
WHAM! Her skull slams against the window.
"I'll find a way!"
WHAM! Blood splatters the glass.
"You hear me?!"
Hairline fractures beckon her. She fights the urge but cranes her neck back all the same. It's no use. She's as powerless as a puppet on strings. No, even worse than that; the puppeteer has somehow crawled inside this particular puppet, and the dance he now demands has no end.
WHAM!
She ricochets onto the floor, clutching at her now-bloody brow. Her world spins and only the buzzing of malfunctioning implants keeps her grounded through the pain. Every heartbeat seems to pour more sensation through her skull, filling it up with boiling water.
Her stomach churns with a wave of helpless rage. Not her rage, she quickly realizes. It's his. His fury at being unable to beat his way free of her brain, his realization that he's trapped as securely as if he was behind bars.
She shakes her head free, tossing more blood across her tiled floor, and sees the man pacing in front of her. His boots thump hard against the ground, but she knows the sound is only a figment of her fragmented imagination. He's ignoring her, spouting a muttered, incomprehensible stream of gibberish she doesn't have the capacity or the interest to understand.
The omega blockers. She needs to get-
His eyes fly to her the moment he hears the rattle of the bottle and there's murder behind those glasses. A metallic hand slaps the bottle halfway across the room as he blinks into existence right in front of her.
"Not like that!" His fist curls into her hair and drags her head back. "If you're gonna pussy your way out, stick some iron in your mouth and pull the fuckin' trigger!"
An invisible fist collides with her cheek and she sprawls onto her face. It's surreal; there's no physical touch, no smack of flesh against flesh, but the force of the blow is frighteningly real. The pain too.
Only a few meters away, the blue bottle beckons to her. The man is distracted once more; he seemed to feel the punch too, and he rubs at his cheek with a puzzled scowl. He shakes his head and resumes the frantic pacing, running his prosthetic hand through his hair.
"I can feel it..." he mutters. "Our minds, touching. Fighting. Sharing."
He blinks back and forth like a deranged pinball in the devil's favorite machine, vanishing into clouds of digital discharge only to snap back into view across her apartment. One minute he's pacing in front of her, the next he's back to thumping his head against the wall, the next he's in the bathroom staring into an empty mirror that ignores him. There's a feverish rage to it all, one that she can feel with every throb of her temples. Every sizzle of static makes her optics tingle.
"I'm like mold on fruit... creepin' into you..."
She grits her teeth and drags herself across the floor. Blood dribbles into her eyes. Fist over fist she moves closer to the scattered pills that will save her from this nightmare. She doesn't get far before he shimmers into the air in front of her with a disgusted snarl.
"Nothin' I can do about it, is there?" He stoops low above her, kneeling next to the pills. Taunting her, daring her to do exactly what she plans to do. "Look at you, layin' there like a sidelined whore. No fight in you after a slap to the face. I'd puke if I fuckin' could."
Then he's gone again. When he resurfaces, he's pacing and muttering again. He rubs at his bearded chin, shaking his head with tense violence. "It's just a copy of the engram. I'm out there somewhere. Gotta be. Just gotta ditch the bitch and-"
With one last scramble, she snatches up a pill. Her face twists behind a bloodied mask, and she bares her teeth like an animal.
"Gonna fucking kill you!" she screams.
"Go ahead and try!" he screams back.
She downs the pill. It grinds its way down her throat, but the thrumming in her head stops almost immediately. She flops over onto her back. He's still there, looming over her, glaring down with naked menace.
"Go ahead and fucking try."
One last sizzle of data and he disappears for good.
"You don't get to decide who gets replaced, who gets to live and die."
- Bad Omens, What Do You Want From Me?
Author's Note: Johnny's introduction to V is fantastic and I was glued to my seat for its entirety. But I do feel it was a little too fast, and I wanted to experiment with a more slow-burn intro to the rockerboy terrorist.