"First rule of Cyberpunk: Style over Substance. Doesn't matter how well you do something, as long as you look good doing it. If you're going to blow it, make sure you look like you planned it that way."

Sure didn't plan that, did you? Fuckin' idiot.

"I. Do not. Fucking. Believe it."

V sprints through the mounds of trash, leaping over burnt-out refrigerators and skidding through a puddle of off-color slime that was probably-hopefully-mostly water. She runs like the hounds of hell are hot on her heels and the gates of heaven creaking open just ahead.

Jesus, Johnny thinks. That was awful. Gettin' a thousand volts through the cranium must've fucked with my lyrics.

But his own rare moment of sheepishness is washed away when V's target comes into sight: a junk-shot mess of cherry red and gunmetal gray, smeared with dirt and splotched with rust, all held together with shoddy patch jobs, stripes of wire, and a whole lotta prayers.

It's the ugliest thing Johnny's ever seen.

"It's the ugliest thing I've ever seen!" V proclaims with a happy cackle. She comes to a halt in front of the wreck of a car. Through their sympathetic connection Johnny feels her heart pounding with equal parts excitement and exaltation. "God, it's been so long."

With a pulse of willpower, Johnny sizzles himself into view sitting on the edge of the hood. Through some strange phantom call he can almost feel the rough, rusted metal under his fingertips. He grimaces and fixes V with a disbelieving stare from over the rim of his aviators.

"This hoopty piece of shit was what you were so excited about?"

V glares at him as she passes along the passenger side, trailing absent fingers along the hood. "Watch your mouth. These were my first wheels, here."

"I can tell." Johnny rolls his eyes and folds his arms. "Piece of shit wheels suit your piece of shit personality nicely."

"Fuck off, dead man." Each of their jabs is only half-honest. V's real attention remains glued to the shitbox. "I thought I'd never see her again. I thought..."

Her voice falters and Johnny's eyebrow raises. She spots the look he gives her and quickly swallows her emotions with a scowl and a mutter of, "Look, I gotta lot of good memories invested in this thing, okay?"

"Clearly," Johnny replies with a snide sneer. "What, get your cherry popped in the backseat way back when?"

"Fuck off, dead man," she says again, but she can't help but snort a bit in amusement. She steps up to take closer stock of the vehicle and hazel-hued Kiroshis flick from one detail to another, cataloging and comparing in that merc way of hers. "Let's see..." she murmurs, "... fenders are twisted, trunk's rusted shut... rest looks pretty good. Seems to have held up well over the years. Hmm..."

She yanks up the hood, completely ignoring Johnny's perch a few inches away. Not that it would have mattered; he's a bio-digital construct, little more than the flickering figment of a twisted and dying imagination. A hologram has more presence in the world than he does, but her carelessness still irks him a little. That's why she did it, he's sure.

He dematerializes as she opens up the top, shimmering back into her peripherals just behind her shoulder. He glances over her shoulder and observes while she paws through the car's guts. The interior is a mess of cables and fuel pumps, cobbled together with duct tape and dreams. The merc is muttering now, more to herself than Johnny, as she explores the labyrinthine inner setup.

"Still warm," she grunts, pressing a palm to the engine block. "She was running not long ago. And someone's taken the time to replace the coil and plugs. Same someone's been tinkering with the camshaft too."

"Giving her the love you couldn't," Johnny notes. "If she was so important to you, why leave her behind?"

"What?" she snaps, leaning further into the opened hood. Her feet leave the ground and it almost seems like the rig is gonna swallow her up like Jonah and his overeager whale. "I dunno, I had to. It wasn't long after I came back from Atlanta. Working a gig on Tyger Claws turf. Got into a firefight, engine took some heat and broke down. Wouldn't get me outta there so I had to ditch her. By the time the Claws backed down and I could go back, she'd been towed away."

"Star-crossed indeed," Johnny says with another roll of his eyes. "A true tale for the ages."

He can feel her surge of irritation and the inevitable smarmy comeback through their sympathetic link. But before she can give voice to her retort, another voice cuts in.

"Hey! What're- Get your hands off my car!"

V shoots up, hand going to the butt of her pistol. It's a reflex Johnny feels too, like an itch he can't scratch, but it seems pretty pointless - lacking both iron and a physical body to strap it to, any reaction from him would be about as useful as a shit in a tsunami. But then he sees it's just another gonk yelling at them, all dirty blue hair and dirtier kitsch style.

"What the-" V seems taken aback "N-no, it's my car!"

"No," the woman growls stubbornly. She stamps her feet like a spoiled brat in need of a closer acquaintance with the belt. "Why would anyone leave it rusting in the middle of a dump heap?"

"Well, 'cause it broke down, and I-"

"And you abandoned it and then suddenly remembered it what, six months later?" the woman scoffs. "Yeah, sure thing. I put in the work to get this hunk of junk running again. It's mine now."

V bristles. "Look I-"

The woman interrupts with some remark again, but by then Johnny's tuned out. He flashes himself up to the roof, sitting cross-legged and watching the two women bicker over the worth of the worthless. It's fucking pointless and fucking boring, but what else does he have going for him at the moment? He doesn't even have the comfort of a smoke to occupy him.

V tries to reason with the woman, tries to prove ownership through superior knowledge of its internal tech. Nothing seems to sway the kitschy cunt and eventually the conversation degrades into a juvenile back-and-forth name calling competition. Johnny sighs - a tad overdramatically, even he has to admit - and calls, "Sweet Zombie Jesus, V, just pay the bitch to get her on her way."

The merc glares up at him, but tries all the same. She sighs as well - also a tad overdramatically - and snaps. "Fine, lady! Know what? I'll pay you for the ride. Enough to make sure you can get a different one."

She flicks her wrist and her eyes flash a neon sky blue, signaling the digital transfer of cold, hard eddies from one to another. The woman seems genuinely taken aback. But at the end of the day she's a Night City trash hunter as capricious and desperate as all the rest. Money in hand (at least metaphorically speaking), she scurries off and disappears behind a hill of trash, shit, and discarded corpo overstock. Neither Johnny or V pays her further mind. Goodbye and good riddance.

V wastes no time sliding into the driver's seat, slipping herself with surprising dexterity through the driver-side window. Johnny more subtly transfers himself into the passengers' seat, fizzling into reality with a flutter of light and ound. The interior is every bit as shitty as the outside, but that's hardly a surprise. There's an impressive sound system and a lot of tech shoved into the dashboard, at least. Part of him wants to switch it all on and blast his old tunes as they race back into city limits. But his nonexistent fingers won't even nudge the buttons now, he knows.

V settles into the torn and stained leather upholstery, her face a picture of nostalgic bliss as she runs her hands over the steering wheel. "Oh yeah. It's all comin' back to me now. Like clockwork."

Johnny takes a closer look at the tech. "Looks like every bit of this thing's been worked over or replaced down to the tiniest screws. She had a Nomad tinkerer?"

V nods. "Bought it off of an ex-Nomad lookin' to lay down roots in Night City. Figured if I wanted a reliable ride for merc work in the city, can't do better than a Nomad rig."

"Well it ain't no sex magnet, that's for sure." Johnny shrugs. "But it seems healthy enough under the hood. Say what you will about 'em, but those dirt-suckers know their wheels."

"Don't know the half of it," V says with a dangerous grin. She triggers the ignition button and the car snarls to life, rattling with the promise of speed and fire and freedom. "Wait 'till I open her up."

"You ain't afraid of..." The rockerboy construct pauses, thinks better of it, and shrugs. "Ah, what can it hurt? I'm dead anyway."

He settles his feet up on the dashboard. "Floor it, V."

V doesn't disappoint. She glues her foot to the floor and the car shakes as if caught in a particularly pissed-off earthquake. The engine sings in the hot summer sun and the merc whoops with a joy and a freedom Johnny can't help but envy.

Then the car jerks forward, squealing tires drowning out V's surprised cry. The Rattler bounces over several mounds of junk and debris and V shouts a curse with every jolt. Johnny, unperturbed by the rocking ride, just looks over at his driver with a skeptical eyebrow raised.

Neither of them see the concrete barrier until it's too late.

WHAM! The rig smashes headlong into it and the windshield splinters. V's head glances off the steering wheel and the airbag blows out a second too late, knocking her back against the headrest behind her. The concussive force is enough to short Johnny out for a few seconds.

The world is black for both of them. Then it ever so slowly begins to come back into focus.

"Jesus Christ, I did not just do that..."

When he sizzles back to reality, it's to the sight of V cradling her head, blood trickling from her nose as the popped airbag deflates like a used condom in her lap. The entire vehicle shudders and something under the hood snaps and begins belching smoke. A second later the driver's side door falls off and crashes to the ground.

They sit a few seconds in stunned silence. Then V blearily looks over to him and raises a warning finger. "Not one fucking word."

Any other time, Johnny would probably be rolling on the ground laughing. But for now he just settles for a roll of his eyes.

And a rare smile.

"Running on empty: you know you can make it, but you just have to take it slow."

-Moonrunner83, Running on Empty

Author's Note: This scene was based on my true first experience getting back behind the wheel of V's old nomad ride. I tweaked the tale a little to fit my subsequent playthrough in which I felt her street kid background was more fitting but the tone of general dumbassery is still strong with this one.