Never really saw the appeal of bikes back in my day. They're loud, they're unstable, and they whine like an insect right before it splats against your windshield. Rogue couldn't get enough of the damn things, dragging along some deathtrap two-wheeler every time she stuck her head out on the street. Sometimes I think she did it just to spite me.

But I digress. You've got a nasty bike. I've got a nasty need for a nicotine fix. To each their own, I suppose. Wake me when you get some real wheels.

Judy isn't sure what she yells out but she's certain it's some flavor of obscure obscenity. She doesn't have time to ponder over it. The next moment a red-black bullet rockets past her with the roar of an overclocked racing engine. A cloud of dust and exhaust follows in its wake and blankets the world in acrid smog. She coughs and squints through the noxious vapors, finding her favorite hotshot merc swinging off an angular low-rider bike at the far end of the parking lot. V ignores the indignant shouts from the other denizens of Lizzie's and charges right for Judy.

"Can you believe this?!" she demands with a delighted grin, striding up to Judy with her arms spread wide. "I could kiss Wako for selling it to me if I wasn't sure she'd try to marry me right after." She adds almost as an afterthought, "Sorry for catching you in the downdraft."

"The hell are you doing rolling in here like a bat outta hell, V?" Judy stifles one last cough behind a smile. The merc's joy is infectious as always. "Got a bigger death wish than usual today?"

"Judy, look at it!" She waves wildly at the bike, astounded that anyone could doubt the cause of her happiness. "A preem overtuned Yaiba Kusanagi CT-3X! Twin ceramic rotor drives on each wheel! Computer-controlled anti-lock brakes! Two hundred horses at twelve-thousand RPM, Judy!"

Judy plants her hands on her hips and steps closer to survey the bike. It's not bad, not by a long shot. Its chassis almost glows in the near-dusk light. Its sharp tomato-red metal plates are a scattered patchwork of sigils and stickers - no doubt gifts from former owners. It looks well-worn but also well-kept, sleek and low profile in construction if not presentation.

"It's loud, fast, and crazy," she eventually declares with a smirk. "Should be a good fit for you."

"Right?!" V lets out a delighted cackle. "And that's not even the best part!"

Judy ambles closer, still looking over the bike with an eyebrow arched. "The way you get worked up over wheels, hard to believe something can outdo a preem overtuned Kusanagi CT-3X."

V, meanwhile, jogs past her and waves down Rita. The two exchange a few muttered words before the purple-haired bouncer pulls something from a rucksack at her side and hands it to V. Judy notices the grin on Rita's face and instantly narrows her eyes; the bouncer never smiles like that unless there's trouble about to go down.

V spins to Judy again and presents her secret: a vent-flared, midnight-black motorcycle helmet. Judy spots the decal pasted on its gleaming black carapace right away: her own tattoo and calling card, a mischievous-looking chibi specter drifting up from an opened seashell. A custom job.

Her heart flutters at the sight. This isn't a haphazard, spur-of-the-moment presentation. V has obviously put a lot of thought into this, not to mention eddies. Judy's mind jumbles and trips over itself trying to process it.

"Happy birthday," V says with a grin. "Wanna go for a ride?"

Judy doesn't know where to begin. She stumbles over her words for a few moments before settling on a weak, "But... it's not my birthday."

"I know." V holds up the helmet until only her pleading puppy-dog eyes peek out over the dome. "Offer still stands. Pretty please?"

Judy's throat still won't listen. She's not used to this, not used to... well, friends. But from the moment the solo entered her life it seems she's been thrust into a world she doesn't understand. V listens when Judy talks, takes her words to heart and offers heartfelt ones of her own. And now, apparently, she realizes the solo even thinks of a nobody Mox like her even when they're not face-to-face.

She doesn't know what to make of that. Well, that's not quite true. She knows exactly what to make of that. But she doesn't want to trust it. She's been burned one too many times to trust every time her stomach flutters with hidden butterflies.

"V, I don't know what to say..." She looks between the helmet and V's eyes still staring her down from behind it. Her voice trembles a little. The smile in the merc's eyes only warms at that.

Rita yells from over V's shoulder. "Yes would be a good place to start!"

"But the sun's going down!" Judy objects. "It's gonna be rush hour at the bar soon. BD servers are gonna overload and-"

"You got time before the usual crowd moves in." Rita cuts in again. "Already cleared it with Suzie."

Judy narrows her eyes and looks between the two. They sport near-identical shit-eating grins. "You two planned this."

"Of course!" V beams. She moves in and settles the helmet over Judy's head. "See? Fits like a glove."

"Where's yours?"

V shrugs. "I got a reputation as a badass, fearless Solo to maintain. Besides, if there's only one cycle-bucket to share I'd prefer you take it." She knocks her knuckles against the top of the helmet. "Can't lose Night City's supreme savant of smut, now can we? Nothing in my dome worth keeping around in comparison."

She lets out a self-satisfied chuckle, then winces as if stung by an insect. Her gaze shifts to look at something over Judy's shoulder and her expression darkens for a moment. Then those blue-hazel optics snap back to her and fill with warmth once more.

"So what do you say?"

"What can I say?" Judy replies. A slow smile draws at her lips. "Between the two of you, I'd say I don't have much of a choice."

"I'll take up the offer if you're too squeamish!" Another bouncer, Kacey, calls from Rita's other side. She cocks her hip and looks V up and down with a salacious sparkle in her eyes. "Cruisin' the streets on sexy wheels with a sexy merc? Mmm-mmm, yes please."

"Let's go." That pretty much seals the deal. Judy grabs V's wrist and pulls her toward the bike. Behind them, Rita pokes her compatriot in the ribs with her composite bat.

"Ooh," V lowers her voice to a conspiratorial murmur. "Are you the jealous type, Ms. Alvarez?"

"Shut up." Judy pushes down both a blush and a smile and tints the helmet's visor before the merc notices either. "You're the one who offered, gonk-brain."

V grins and swings onto the bike with practiced ease, patting the seat behind her in invitation. It's a tight fit, but Judy squeezes into a snug passenger position and loops her arms around her driver's waist. V double-checks that she's safely tucked in, then kicks the starter. The entire bike shudders and comes to life with a harsh electronic rattle. Then the engine snarls like a tiger.

"All right, here we go!" V whoops. A flash of yellow lightning arcs from the wheels. The next second the world blurs and they're off. The bike screams out onto the street and V howls with a kind of unbridled glee Judy rarely - if ever - sees from her. She squeezes tighter to V's back and watches the world flash by, reduced to a noisy rainbow smear in the air.

Fire spouts from the Kusanagi's tailpipes and they blast off into the depths of the city. Neon adverts shift and meld into a dazzling kaleidoscope of fireworks. V weaves them in and out of traffic, around corners, and into dimly lit overpass tunnels. The downdraft rips at V's half-curtain of hair, filling Judy's view with flashes of crimson and black. The Mox can do little more than hang on for dear life, but she's smiling so wide the whole time that her face feels like it's splitting in two.

They round a corner and a parked trailer speeds into view, its long cargo bed lowered into a perfect ramp. Judy can almost see the light go on over V's head and feels the driver's body shift. Judy tenses up and shouts to be heard over the roaring of the engine.

"V, I know what you're thinking! Don't you fucking-"

Too late. V guns the bike and screams straight for it. They rip through the caution holos set up around the truck and the cycle jerks as it mounts the trailer. Up and over they go, soaring into the air to the paired screams of a techie's horror and a mercenary's exultation.

There's a breathless moment of weightlessness. It's so strangely familiar that when Judy squeezes her eyes shut she almost feels like she's diving again, back underwater where the world is silent and she can soar like a bird in her own limited way.

Then they hit the ground hard and fishtail for a few moments before V can get her ride back under control. The bike bounces and the tires bark against the concrete as they strain for purchase. Only then does V finally slow the pace, giggling even as Judy punches her shoulder from behind.

"Fuckin' gonk!" she shouts. "¡No vuelvas a hacer eso nunca más!"

But even then she can't keep from smiling. V finally relents and takes them on a leisurely cruise around Watson. The blaring adverts that so often smother Judy's world are little more than a soothing lullaby under the light of the setting sun.

V is talking, regaling her with tales of her exploits through this part of town like a particularly demented tour guide. There's the diner where she was thrown through a window by a pissed-off Maelstromer. There's the parking lot where she and Jackie got into a three-way standoff with badges and Kang Tao grunts. There's the dumpster V slept in one night while being hunted by a roided-out cyberpsycho.

It seems there's no back-alley V hasn't bled in, no dingy grub-hut where she hasn't left her mark. She's a part of this city, as much as the concrete and the corpos. And she speaks of it all with a grudging affection Judy both admires and craves.

"Ooh, and if you look closely between those two towers, you can almost see the chunk I blew out of the old abandoned Petrochem office! I can't believe they haven't fixed that yet."

Judy listens only partially, though not from any sense of disinterest. She just relaxes and savors it all, letting the passing tapestry of the well-worn streets and the gentle lilt of the solo's voice wash over her. She's never seen her ugly home so... alive. As the sun sinks and all the lights come on, the whole city seems to shimmer and shine with a beauty she thought she'd never see again. Not after Ev...

But no. Now isn't the time for such thoughts. The air is warm, the firm slope of V's back is warm, and Judy's heart is warm too. She'd rather live in this moment than let the past darken this sunny summer afternoon. She watches V from her passenger's perch, watches those sharp eyes scan the street ahead and gleam with a fire for life Judy can only envy.

This is a special moment. A private moment. And it's a moment Judy gets to share with V, to hold close when those dark thoughts come back to press in around her. So she smiles, curls tighter into her driver, rests her head on V's shoulder, and closes her eyes.

"So tell it on the streets, tell it on the radio: We're endless like the sea, a never-ending flow."

KRISTINE, The Deepest Blue

Author's Note: V is just a 1:1 translation of me in this scene. Ever since seeing Akira, I have literally dreamed of owning a bike like Kaneda's. When I finally bought the equivalent in 2077 and got to race it through the neon-bathed streets of a futuristic cyber-city, I was nothing short of euphoric.

I also crashed a lot. And threw myself over the handlebars into oncoming traffic. And off an overpass. And once into the ocean. But we won't talk about that here.

This will also probably be my last entry for a short bit while I work on the next couple chapters. I want to be able to keep up steam on this story for a few more chapters before going back to other works-in-progress. Until then, enjoy!