Always important to stay in good graces when your final clock is winding down. No one wants to make that final plunge alone, even more so when you
couldhave had a shoulder to cry on. Least that's what they tell me. I died alone and in agony. You did too, the first time anyway. Neither of us are real experts on the subject.
So with that in mind, it's time to buck up and rebuild some burned bridges. The ripperdoc, Mr. Vektor, would be a good place to start. You know, since he was the one who dragged you back from the brink and all. Plus you owe him money. Just sayin'.
"Ok, now look up."
V obeys and tries her best to ignore the blaring light shoved into her face. It moves to the left, to the right. It lingers for a long moment until the glare starts to burn the world black. Then it flicks off and Vik resolves into clearer view, tucking the light into his pocket. V rubs at her eyes.
"Let's have a look..." the doc murmurs. He swivels in his chair and taps a few commands into the side-screen. The electrodes pressed to V's forehead set to work and a faint tingling pricks at the edge of her perception. The next few moments pass in nervous quiet as she studies Vik's face for any sign of concern.
It's there, to be sure, but there's also confusion and a tiny glimmer of something else. Hope? But no, that's a gonk's pipe dream. Her diagnosis was supplied in no uncertain terms: she is going to die. Nothing short of a miracle can save her from her doom - and NC isn't exactly prime country for miracles.
She's about to pester Vik about what he sees and immediately thinks better of it. He works in solitude for a few moments more, pouring over EKG feedback and implant diagnostic reports. His jaw clenches.
"Well I've got good news and bad news."
Her mouth is suddenly dry. Seems like nothing but bad news lately. A rare flip side isn't that bad. "Let's get the rough stuff out of the way quick, then."
"The Relic has been hard at work." He slides his rolling stool from the console and rubs his palms against his knees. She spies an exhausted air of resignation in his spectacle-shielded eyes. "It's embedded itself into your central nervous system and it's expanding from there."
He rotates the screen to display a line-wire scan of her brain. Angry crimson tendrils snake through her cerebral pathways. Laying down roots. Getting comfortable. Making themselves at home.
"It ain't pretty," she admits.
"No it ain't. It looks like it's already started breaking down the neural tissues in your temporal auditory areas. I'm guessing you heard your visitor before you saw him?"
"Mm-hmm. Haven't been able to get him to shut up since."
"Well fuck you too."
Johnny bursts into view perched atop Vik's workshop desk against the far wall. He puts his feet up on the long bench like a particularly dickish emperor lounging upon a filthy throne.
"Not sure why you even bothered with this little heart-to-heart." He crosses his arms like a petulent child. "Got all the detes you need - we should be tracking down that Hellman guy. You know, somethingactuallyuseful."
Vik notices V's eyes dart to the wall behind him. He cranes his neck and sees nothing but the messy workspace, as familiar to him as the back of his cutting hand.
"Is he, uh..."
V gives a nod. "Yep. Wipin' his boots on your desk."
"Tell the good doctor his taste in ripper tech fuckin' sucks. I've seen a better selection from zapped-out Kabuki street peddlers. Strange, comin' from an old-timer like him; ol' Vik Vek looks to be losing his edge."
"I'm not telling him that," she snaps back, forgetting in the heat of the moment to shoot the reply in her head. She blushes as she looks back at Vik. "Sorry. Still getting used to this whole deal."
"Well, there you have the other half of the problem. It looks like the Relic is branching into the occipital lobe at the back of your head. The brain's visual processing center. Explains why you can see and hear him as clearly as you do. Your brain responds as if he's a legit audio-visual presence. The real deal, at least for you."
Johnny flips her the bird from across the room with a pleased smirk.
"So... what happens next?" She ignores the Asshole. It's not easy.
Viktor consults his console. "From there it looks to be crawling up into somatosensory areas and the parietal lobe."
"And for those of us without our medical degree?"
"You think I have a medical degree?" Vik lets out a gravelly chuckle. "There's a reason I'm passin' tech out of a sub-basement and not a fancy Trauma Team surgery center."
"Right. Then at least translate your boxer moonlighting as a ripper-speak into something I can follow?"
"In short: soon you'll be able to feel him. As in your brain will hallucinate mental sensations as if they're physical ones. Same as before - real to you even if they aren't in the traditional sense."
"I've... already had the pleasure." She rubs her cheek, recalling where Johnny's fist had struck flesh that first hellish night. She's relieved that he's mellowed since then - at least by his standards. "What's the good news?"
"The good news," Vik says as he pulls the console back toward him and taps in a few more keystrokes, "is that your brain seems to be slowing down the chip's progress. I guess engramatic bio-override isn't quite as simple as all the corpo-talk claimed. Thank god for prototype errors."
She doesn't trust herself to hope. "And that means..."
"It means there's no longer a concrete end date to the process."
Her heart flutters. "Isn't that a good thing?"
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Johnny sighs and shakes his head. "Here it comes..."
"Not exactly," Vik replies. "Before, your brain was a tank running on empty. Now it's more... like a badly-wired bomb. Could go off tomorrow, next week, or even years from now."
Silence hangs heavy over the room.
"I guess that's kinda good news. Used to be a dead woman walking. Now, I guess... well, I still am. But I got more time, right?" She smiles weakly. "That's gotta count for something."
"There's always a silver lining, kid." Vik returns her smile - his is every bit as tense as hers.
V's heart tightens in her chest, then sinks with the unspoken implication. "But you're sayin' there's no way to tell when... when it will finally happen?"
"Not without keeping a close eye on the Relic's spread," Vik says. "And if you want to find a way to stop this, you have more important things to do than sit around my dungeon."
An empty laugh hisses from her throat like a punctured balloon. "Hell, Vik. I feel safer here in your dungeon than in my own goddamn apartment."
"I know, kid."
She sits up in her chair and presses a hand to her temple, over the tight knot of scar tissue marking where her life had met its first end. The flesh is rough and foreign beneath her fingers even now. Hard to believe a bullet the size of her pinky finger tore its way through not long ago. Harder still to believe that bullet now hangs around her neck.
"Vik..." She trails off before she can even begin.
"You don't have to say anything, V." He pats her shoulder and swings around to return to his work station. She catches his wrist before he can.
"No, this time I do. Wasn't exactly at my best last time we talked." Another hollow chuckle. "Treated you like shit if I'm bein' honest."
"Ah, I don't blame you, V. Hard to be a ray of sunshine given the news you'd just gotten."
She hoists herself to her feet. Her balance sways a bit as her head throbs, but the momentary vertigo passes quickly. "You're being nice, Vik. Stop being nice for a sec."
"All right, all right." He raises his hands in surrender.
"You've always come through for me, Vik. And I keep getting in the shit and expecting folk like you to pull me back out of it" .She crosses her arms and stares at her boots. Shame is an unfamiliar creature to her. Most times she does what she does and lets everyone else decide how to react. But this time it's different. This time she's gotten a glimpse of what might happen when she falls with no one around to catch her. That demands a response. "And yeah, I know you're gonna tell me that's what friends are for, but..."
Scarlet-black hair waves in the gloom as she shakes her head. "That kinda thinkin' got Jackie. I won't let it take you too." She looks up at the ripper and shoots him a weak smile. "So I just wanted to thank you. For pullin' me back into the land of the living. And putting up with my shitty attitude after you did."
Vik looks like he's going to make some smart remark, then thinks better of it. He nods with a small smile of his own. "You're welcome, V."
He's about to swing around to his viewscreen and the boxing match waiting for him when she calls him back one last time.
"Hey. Don't think I forgot our outstanding biz." Her eyes flare like pale saphhires. "Twenty-one thou. All yours."
Vik seems taken aback for a moment. Then he raises a reluctant hand and grunts, "Keep 'em. You're going to need them more than an old-timer like me."
"I'm not gonna take 'em to my grave, Vik. I owe you. Even more than this." She holds his gaze and shows a well-meaning desperation in her eyes. "Keep 'em. Please."
"All right." A boxer like him knows when not to push. "Get out there and give 'em hell, kid."
She nods and heads for the exit. Next to her, Johnny hops off the bench and bursts away into static when he lands.
The cage door slides open. Ahead of her, the city beckons.
"Down one time, down two times. Please give me time, please give me pride. You don't know what it means to live."
-Terranova,Never
Author's Note: This scene is not important. But it's also kinda super important.
A lot of people complained about the game's pacing when first released. It was one of the few criticisms I wholeheartedly agreed with, but it's one I also feel is incredibly easy to fix: just remove the time limit on V's deterioration.
In the game, Viktor tells her she only has a few weeks tops to wrap up her biz. Remove that single line and replace it with some generic "we don't know when the time bomb in your head will go off" and you not only cut out the irritating pacing requirements but also add a certain level of Hitchcock-esque suspense to the story. When is V finally going to go? A month from now? Years? Or maybe tomorrow?
Again, this scene is not important. But I felt the need to put the concept down on paper and cement it at least as my own personal headcanon.