Disclaimer- References to V use the appearance of that of my own personal V. Being that she is a asian Street Kid, complete with piercings, blue hair and tattoos. Thanks!
"It worked! I'm gonna fuckin' live!"
V felt such relief and happiness wash over her when she approached the digitised shape of Johnny Silverhand in the distance, so giddy she couldn't help but rest her hand on his shoulder when she got close, getting his attention. As he turned, she could see the small smile on his face. Not like the smirks or the sneers she had grown so accustomed to seeing from him. No, this was genuine.
He was happy for her.
"Gotta admit, you cobbled together a good plan."
His reply was as warming as his little smile. Silverhand was impressed with V, glad to be proven wrong about the Nomads. If V hadn't been able to get to Mikoshi, he'd have been just as fucked as she was.
"Been my curse and my nightmare, Johnny. But I do owe you one thing. Day to day with Silverhand by my side, I learned to kick down barriers."
The past few weeks had been the most intense V had ever experienced. Just when she would think something is impossible, she would make it otherwise. Find the Voodoo Boys? Fine. Intercept an Arasaka parade and kidnap one of their leading family members? No biggie. Launch a successful attack on Arasaka Tower with nothing more than herself and a group of ragtag yet resourceful Nomads? Why not.
The threat of death was a hell of an adrenaline boost.
What couldn't she do?
"Now, nothin' can hold me back. I can feel it!"
Johnny saw the happiness whelming over her. The way she smiled with her teeth, her eyes wide and bright, her body language somewhat bouncy. In the past few weeks he had spent with her, this was the first time Johnny saw V...so genuinely excited.
Only other time that came close was the swimming with Judy.
"Is that so? Meaning you've made a decision about us?"
Johnny walked through V, briefly disorienting her. Her eyes scanned the vast void of the digital world of cyberspace, spinning around some till she saw Johnny now sitting at a construct of a diner's table, his legs kicked up and relaxed. She followed after him, still with that excited, smug look.
She couldn't wait to get this done with. V had such plans when she was back in her body, free from Johnny. She would know what privacy felt like again. No more headaches, no more nosebleeds or passing out at such inopportune moments.
And Judy...
She could leave Night City. Leave with her. Start a new life...with The Nomads, even. Her heart was heavy with such hope and dreams. She experienced a kind of wholesome happiness she didn't think possible. The possibilities...were endless.
She just had to get this over with first.
"Johnny, not gonna lie. You better prepare your ass for the fucking kick of the century." V told him rather unsympathetically, the amount of pain he had wrought her coming to mind as she sat down opposite to him, gazing at him with such a proud look. "Got no idea where you'll land after it, but I sure hope it'll be far away from me."
Surprisingly, Johnny wasn't bothered in the least. In fact, he almost looked understanding.
"Hey, Alt!? Alt, you there!?" V called out, leaning back confidently.
Alt Cunningham. Once the great Netrunner of Night City and fuckbuddy for Johnny Silverhand, now...some kind of digital deity. V had her to thank for this.
Yet, no reply from her came.
"Still haven't caught on yet, have you?" Johnny said, almost ominously.
V's happy expression cracked, giving way to a look of confusion, the remnants of her smile still faintly present.
"Wh-whaddya mean?"
Johnny simply huffed, his head gesturing. V really could be such a gonk at times.
"Alt's already split us." He explained. "Moment you jacked yourself into Mikoshi she lit you up with Soulkiller."
V momentarily felt assured. This was good news. Alt didn't waste any time in splitting them apart.
"Your output don't fuck around." V commented.
"I am not his girlfriend."
An eerie, chilling voice echoed out through the void of cyberspace. V would immediately change her posture to look more alert while Johnny remained in his relaxed state. A large digitised shape of Alt Cunningham appeared before them both, floating above them like a superior being.
"Hey, Alt!" V greeted her pleasantly even if a bit weirded out. "So seein' that we have the soul splitting out of the way, what's next?"
There was a brief pause, as though Alt was processing information.
"I am currently verifying the checksum and eliminating engram copy errors in the process."
It was a very straight answer. But it took V a moment to digest that information. The checksum? Engram copy errors? That...is all coding. Digital work. Nothing to do with...souls...
"Wait-wait..." V spoke up, raising her hands briefly. "You mean I...a-am I a construct?"
There was a quiver in V's tone. A question asked...that she didn't know she wanted the answer to.
"She means you followed in my footsteps." Johnny spoke, offering V some vague clarity. "Now all that's left is to copy you back into the gonk's brain."
V digested that information too. But she didn't look satisfied, wasn't so ready to quickly move on now. Her face presented that of great troubled thoughts. She was panicked.
"Wait, wait, wait...hold on." V leaned forward a bit in her seat, paying very close attention. "I wanna know what the hell happened to me. EXACTLY!"
And just as swiftly as before, Alt delivered with her answer.
"I applied Soulkiller to separating your two psyches. Thereby creating a distinct V construct. An added analgesic protocol precluded any perception of pain."
That...did not sound good.
"Wait, but Johnny...he's not the real Johnny." V went on, still sounding confused and worried. "Not the one that lived fifty years ago. He's just a...engram copy of his personality, memories and stuff. You're the same, Alt."
"Yeah." Johnny nodded.
"So you're saying that...I...?"
It was a good thing Johnny was wearing shades, cause it could hide the disappointment in his eyes.
"Yeah." He said once again, a little bit quieter.
The confirmation was heard in slow motion to V. She could only sit there, hands spread out on the table, eyes unfocused while she processed what this meant. Alt and Johnny simply watched as she came to grasp with what she was told.
"But I...I feel...I just..." V struggled to word things. "I had just got done killing Adam Smasher. I plugged myself into Mikoshi. I did that. I don't feel any different then than I do now, I don't under-"
"You are the V construct." Alt spoke over her, her tone just as lacking empathy as ever. "An engram that carries all the memories and personality tendencies exclusive to the individual known as Valerie, of the consciousness that had led you both to this point."
V shook her head in disbelief once again. Alt was referring to her, and her...of the body's consciousness as two separate entities.
"So, if I'M just a construct...then where's...?"
V's voice was quiet and frail as she looked between Johnny and Alt. She asked, but she already knew the answer.
They didn't call this Soulkiller for nothing.
V couldn't help but release a small gasp, the breath broken up a quivering throat and lips. The realisation that the original V was now dead, and that she herself was just a copy of that person's consciousness in digital form. It was a hard truth to swallow. But she soon swallowed it.
"Okay...well I'm still here." V went on, collecting her thoughts and feelings. "And I'm exactly like...what I'm supposed to be?"
She was never quite going to get used to distinguishing herself from V. Not enough to start referring to herself as a separate entity from the woman named Valerie.
"Everything Valerie has ever done, thought or felt. Or would ever do, think, or feel. You will be the same." Alt continued to clarify for her. "Your construct within the body will behave no different."
"So you can transfer her psyche back into her brain?" Johnny asked, tilting his head up to see Alt floating above him at his side.
"As if onto a blank, virgin partition." Alt confirmed.
This was still hard to digest and accept. But...V had to move on. She was the closest thing left to Valerie's consciousness...and she had to get back where she needed to be.
"So it's done." V spoke softly. "You kept your word."
V was expecting it to be over now. For her to go back to her body. To live with the truth that she was just a digital duplicate within the body of the real V, who's soul is now gone. Killed by the very program she hoped would save her.
But that was merely the first of two bombshells she would have to digest.
"There is one aspect I failed to take into account."
V stared up at her, beginning to look like a lost pup. Johnny would remove his shades, and his feet from the table, looking up at the digital presentation of his former girlfriend.
"Alt?" He asked, he too now about to have to digest tough truths. "What?"
There was a moment of pause.
"The body as a key factor in this transaction."
The words that came out of Alt's mouth from then was almost like dribble to V. Like a doctor coming to give the news of your recent health checkup. If you were very unhealthy. And dying.
"DNA reconfiguration by the relic has progressed too far."
Those words began sinking feeling in V's heart, and it did not stop there. Her heart continued to fall. To go deeper. To get heavier.
"Added to aggressive invasive medications..."
And further. And further...
"The body's immune system attacking its own neurons-"
"Christ will you just skip to the end!?" V yelled out, her body stiff, head and eyes fixated away from Alt, barely able to watch the digital shadow dump all these negative sounding words on her.
There was yet another pause. The longest pause V had ever experienced.
"After I transfer your construct into your body, you will die. It is inevitable. It is imminent."
At that moment, V's heart, or the digitised equivalent of it, stopped beating. Her insides felt like they were squeezing. Her head became light. Her sensations overwhelmed with panic.
As V sat there, stiff and shocked, Johnny could only sit in pure disheartened disappointment. He crossed his arms, looked down at the floor, silent.
"W-what...? No...no way..." V said almost a whisper, shaking her head again slowly. "No..."
She brought herself to gaze at them. At Johnny, who was sitting with utter shame and disappointment within him even if he tried to hide it. Then back at Alt, who was gazing back at her ever the same emotionless being.
"Check again..."
"I have performed thorough checks."
"CHECK AGAIN!" V screamed, standing up in her seat.
"The circumstances are unchanging. You would have six months to live. Perhaps more."
"No no...fuck..."
V slowly plummeted back into her seat. Her breathing grew panicked. She joined her hands together and lowered her head into the table. It was a painful sight for Johnny to see, to witness the exact moment V knew her life was never going to be the same again.
He had to speak up.
"For fucks sake, Alt. You had one job and you fucked it up?!" He raised his voice, looking up at her with a fierce look. "You promised this sorry little shit a new life and you fucked it up!"
"I could not know of this development until V had reached Mikoshi."
"You LIED, Alt! You fucking LIED!"
"Johnny, shut up for two seconds will ya?!" V yelled out with her face still against the table. "I need to think."
As Johnny sat there for a bit, watched as V panicked and whimpered and cursed quietly...he tried his best to console her.
"Gonna be alright, V. We'll figure somethin' out."
But then he witnessed V's body language shift to anger. He saw her raise herself up again, her face fixated on him. Within it, was rage.
"Had this planned all along, didn't you?" V spoke out in a hiss to him, her teeth almost gritting. "Never had any intention of keeping me alive."
Johnny almost couldn't believe what he had heard. After all the times he had helped V, this is what came out of her mouth?
"Is that a fuckin' joke?" He could only say, his face presenting a questioning look.
"You backstabbing motherfucker!" V went on. "You just fuckin' kicked back, dumbass grin on your face and WAITED until I finally realised you had me FUCKED from the start!"
Johnny was still in disbelief. He admitted that he was rough to V for the first couple days and generally an asshole throughout. But he warmed up to her since. He remembered the times he would give advice to her on tricky situations, even if she never listened. The times he would bring up small talk like pizza or Judy just to make V smile. Or the intense times he would help her through a seizure when she had no one else.
This was his thanks? More doubt about his intentions?
"I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that." He simply replied.
He wanted to get agitated himself. But considering the circumstances...he could forgive V for having an emotional outburst.
"Alt, question." V spoke so quickly after him. "Will the body reject Johnny's construct?"
There was yet again another pause.
"No." The reply was simple. "They are compatible. The body is his."
"But it's my body!"
"The biochip's nanites have altered it permanently. The body is now Johnny."
"That's enough, Alt." Johnny spoke over the digital deity, with a certain softness...maybe because Alt was once his girlfriend or because of how tense the situation was for V...or both. "V and I need a minute."
Alt then faded away for now, no doubt returning her full attention to her takeover of Arasaka Tower and its systems. Leaving just Johnny and V sat at this digitally constructed table. They both sat there without a word. Johnny was sure he was witnessing V go through the stages of grief. She sat there with a pissed off expression, mostly directed at him. Then he would see the way her eyes shifted away, the way her fists slowly unclenched, her intense facial expression softening.
"V..." He tried to speak up, but didn't quite know what to say.
V resisted. Resisted her anger fading from her. But she couldn't maintain the hate within. Only sorrow replaced it. Johnny watched as V's eyes began to water, her lips quiver, her hands shake. When the streams of tears started falling down her face, she was so ashamed for Johnny to see it that she stood up, moved away, stormed off before parking herself down.
"I can't believe it. Everything. A-all we did- it...it was pointless..." Her soft, hopeless voice quietly spoke for him to hear as she slumped to the ground.
V immersed herself in her miserable feelings. She had come here with such high hopes. Hopes that her life could be put back on track. Then everything she had hoped for came crumbling down upon her.
What did she have left?
Once again, anger rose up within her. Her voice became bitter.
"I've had enough of this. Of everything."
Johnny appeared before her once again, taking a seat on a digitised chair, sitting on it back to front in true Johnny fashion, wrapping his arms around the backrest.
"Of YOU most of all."
Johnny could see the complete misery washing over V. The way she sat with her arms wrapped around her legs, her hair obscuring much of her face. He supposed he couldn't blame her for being thoroughly sick of him. She's had to deal with him being in her head nonstop for weeks, that could've driven many other people to madness.
Johnny knew that she deserved better than this. Despite the circumstances regarding her body being changed to perfectly accommodate him, he wasn't about to betray V's trust. They had a plan. He was going to see it through to the end.
"Perfect, cause we're stickin' to the plan." He told her." "I'm going with Alt, fuck knows where. You're keeping your body."
It was a bit reassuring for V to hear that even now, despite the way she had always treated him, he was looking to do right by her. As V scanned around at the emptiness of cyberspace, she would then eye him. What was to even happen to him?
"Where's she even gonna to take you?"
Johnny eyed at the emptiness of cyberspace too. To his next stop. To his future.
"Beyond the Blackwall, to become part of her. Whatever the hell that means."
It didn't sound...good. It sounded bleak. What was life like at that point? Was it even life at all?
"Jesus." V shook her head. "To be a shapeless shadow in a digital afterlife? Really think I'd rather die."
At that moment, Alt appeared before them once again. Clearly having listened to their conversation, and wanting to share a different perspective on life in cyberspace.
"It is freedom from the body's limitations, from the base worries of life in the world." She told her. "It is a new perspective on all."
V might have felt a bit better about that if Alt didn't come across as so creepy. Otherwise, it sounded like it might have some small amount of hope on the other side. Maybe...
"I...I don't think I like the sound of that, honestly..."
"Then take back your life- the six months you've got left." Johnny urged V.
Johnny didn't want Alt taking V. All Johnny could see was a young woman who got herself mixed up in some seriously fucked up biz. But her heart had never been in the right place for it.
She wasn't like him. He deserved whatever fate cyberspace had planned for him, he wasted his chance at life fifty years ago. V still had life left to live, and he wanted her to live it...no matter how short that remaining time was.
"Is there really no other way...?" She croaked weakly, hope draining from her with every moment, a complete opposite to the V that had arrived here not long ago.
"As I said, Johnny can retain the body. It has now been accommodated for him while it will reject you." Alt told her. "Instead, you can come with me. Live free in cyberspace. This is the most logical decision."
Her two choices had now been placed before her. V didn't know which one made her feel more miserable.
"I guess I meant...I dunno, a-a happier ending for everyone involved?"
Her frail, softened voice sounded so naive in that moment. Johnny was sorry to hit her with the hard truth.
"Here? For folks like us?" Johnny questioned, gesturing with his hand as his eyes narrowed. "Wrong city. Wrong people."
Another painful moment of silence stretched out over what felt like forever. Until Alt broke it.
"Yet the right to make a choice you have earned, through will and endeavour."
It was time for V to choose. Alt began to lay the choices out clearly to her. To her right, a pathway across the black void stretched out towards the bright light in the distance. The light that marked the entrance to deep cyberspace.
"This bridge leads deeper into cyberspace. Cross it and permanently sever the connection with your body."
V watched the highlighted path, the bright light of cyberspace. All she could do was swallow.
"The path to your body passes through that mortal well."
Another path to V's left led to a digitised well.
V would gaze at both her options, the heavy decision weighed on her hard. Once again she couldn't help but shudder, her arms wrapped tightly around her legs, face tipping against her knees.
"Alt..." V spoke out softly. "If you were me, what would you do?"
Johnny knew what Alt was going to say before she said it. And he knew he wouldn't like it.
"You should come with me. What you perceived once to be your body is no longer yours." Alt continued. "Even if you were to return, you will die. In the months leading up to your death, your body will slowly and painfully reject your construct. It will not be an ideal short life to live."
V did not think her heart could sink any lower.
"In cyberspace, you have the chance to start anew. Dangers may lurk and it may be no sanctuary, but it's better to be a free spirit shredded than to wither, trapped in a dying body."
When worded like that, it certainly sounded like one option was better than the other. Especially for one In her position...a brand new start. But then Johnny got his input in, and threw everything into doubt once more.
"Don't do it, V." He said with a slightly softened tone. "You've been running from this all along. It'll change you, you won't be you anymore."
For someone who is willing to throw himself into Cyberspace, he didn't sound too thrilled with the concept.
"And you?" V asked.
Was Johnny really willing to live a fate he was discouraging V from at this moment?
"Already took that first step a while back. I'll have an easier go of it."
Johnny certainly didn't sound thrilled to accept a life such as that. But he definitely seemed to prioritise doing right by V more than anything.
He owed her that much for all the distress he inadvertently caused her.
V tipped her head down, thinking about the paths before her. Johnny would just watch, see the sad look on her face obscured by her hair as she swallowed in such a big decision. Then, eventually, she would just shake her head.
It wasn't a good sign. Johnny knew only the words of a defeated, broken woman could come out.
"I got nothing to go back to, Johnny." She nearly whispered. "Not so for you."
She looked to her right. Saw the bridge into cyberspace. It was an unknown. It was scary. But it still filled her with a faint amount of hope. Hope for something better. Anything, even if she had to reach and grasp for it wherever she could out of desperation.
Anything sounded better than certain doom if she were to return to mortality.
"Alt, take me. Going with you."
Johnny was disappointed. He shook his head as Alt faded away once more, and V began to stand up.
Just like that? This is how it was going to end? With her giving up? V was running. Running from what scared her. And he had spent enough time in her head to know what exactly it was.
"Turning your back on the problem again?" He spoke out aloud, raising himself up from the digitised chair.
V didn't give him a response as she began to slowly walk over to the bridge into cyberspace. Johnny was pacing back and forth before her, looking like he was scrambling for something to say. The right thing to say, for this vulnerable position V was now in.
As V took her first step across the bridge snd began moving at her own defeated pace, Johnny appeared before her. Her eyes barely raised from the ground to see him.
"What? A little guilt creeps in and that's that? You give up?"
V just shook her head and kept walking, walking through him.
"Stop." She told him plainly with a miserable tone. "Just...stop."
Each footstep was heavy, walking towards that yellow light. It was a few steps later that V felt Johnny's hand make her turn around to face him. To make her stop.
"Gonna roll over instead of fighting for what's yours?" He continued, with a questioning stern look. "Decomish' yourself cause you're too fuckin' scared to say goodbye?"
Those words plucked a nerve within her. She didn't want to deal with him. She didn't have to. All she had to do...was cross this bridge.
"It's my decision, let me make it!"
She spun around, marched herself forward some more. But once again, she was stopped, grabbed by the shoulder and made to turn and face Johnny once again.
"You're loyal, I'll grant you that. But damn it, are you dense. Haven't changed a bit since we met."
V may have learnt to overcome her barriers as she so proudly preached earlier. But on the inside? She was still that same scared woman, always so quick to run from death. Run from what frightens her.
Johnny would know. He spent weeks in her head.
"Yeah? Dense, a gonk, stupid...whatever, maybe I am." V replied, becoming louder and distressed. "Maybe I am. Maybe I'm making a mistake."
She turned around again, looking over her shoulder at him.
"At least it's my mistake to make." She whispered. "I'm so tired of you manipulating me."
"We're split now, V. Want to know what decisions you're making?" Johnny went on. "You're making the decision to give up everything you've been fighting for. To pack it up and go away into cyberspace forever because you're frightened of facing death."
V stood firmly, but she shook her head once more, tending her facial features, screwing her eyes up.
"Six months, Johnny!" She reminded him. "You could live a full life in MY body. But I get six months!?"
It was a painful, unfair situation. She had taken losses before. But to lose her body? For it to no longer recognise her as its host? That was another level of fucked up.
An utter injustice.
"That's no time at all..." She trailed off weakly.
She thought back to when she would chat with Judy by the windowsill. About their plans to leave Night City together. Plans that filled her with such hope.
Now? It only gave her despair.
"No time at all?" Johnny questioned, raising an eyebrow. "I was in your head for a few weeks, and I've seen more shit through your eyes in that time than most ever get their whole fuckin' lives."
A few weeks. That's really how long all this took place over. V had done so much in such short time. An experience that had transformed her from a punk with her head in the clouds, to a respectable woman with real, grounded ambitions.
Got a little help, of course. But V really steered this boat. And it was admittedly amazing for Johnny to be along for the ride.
And he'd be damned if he let V give up now. They had gone through too much at this point.
"I fought, Johnny!" V raised her voice. "I fought so fucking hard to survive. And I lost. It was all for nothing."
"Was it?" He went on. "Think about where you started. Small time thief flatlined by Dexter fucking Deshawn. Dumped in a god damn landfill."
Certainly the lowest point of V's life. Quite literally. Johnny was amazed she didn't smell the inevitable betrayal from a mile away.
That error in judgement is the whole reason V stood here now.
"You died then. You came back. Think about what you've gained since then."
They just stared each other down. V giving him this irritated, grumpy look. Half her face concealed by her hair, and Johnny could still see the temptation rising in her to just punch him.
She just didn't want to listen to him anymore.
"A whole lot of fucking headache." She said in a bitter tone. "No. Goodbye Johnny."
Johnny let out a frustrated sigh as V turned around to start walking some more. With each step, he was losing her more and more. To Cyberspace. To Alt.
"So what, you're just handing me the reigns?" He yelled out after her. ""I'm out Johnny, take over for me?" Fucking hell, what the fuck do you expect me to say to Panam? She'll blow my head off soon as she figures out only I came back from this."
V continued on with her moody, defeated body language.
"You'll figure it out."
Clearly Johnny had to pry deeper.
"And Judy? What's she gonna think?"
There was a slight stutter in V's trodding towards cyberspace when Johnny mentioned that name again.
"I don't fucking know!" She called back, turning around again, distressed.
"I guess it doesn't matter to you, then?" He supposed. "What you had together?"
"No! I...fuck!"
These tough questions. Bringing doubt to V's decision.
As she pondered, the bright yellow light gleamed over V's figure. The stunning, almost...beautiful light. She turned once more, found herself standing at the very edge of the bridge. Before her hovered Alt, like a godly being. The netrunning Queen extended her hand out to V.
"Come with me." She spoke out, voice chilling and echoed and...powerful.
V stood there. Her hand twitched. She was hesitant. The more she looked, took it in...the more scared she became. Scared of what life would become if she took Alt's hand.
She barely raised her hand up slightly before her posture stiffened. Her breathing hastened. The courage she was trying to muster up...Johnny could see the doubt, the fear. He slowly approached from behind once again.
He had to make this count...or V would become lost forever.
"I barely fuckin' recognise her." He said plainly.
V turned her head slightly over the shoulder to him.
"Huh?"
"Alt." He clarified. "Looks like her. Sounds like her. But it's not her. Not anymore."
They both looked up at her. And she looked back. No reaction. No humanity. Just...a machine. With her hand still extended to V.
"That's what's waiting for you on the other side."
"It's not even...I'm not..." V mumbled a bit. "Fuck, I'm not even V...just a copy. A construct."
"Don't think about that." He went on, voice softer and...empathetic? "You're here. You're alive. You. That's what matters."
There was a moment of deafening silence as V considered what he said. Her hand continued to twitch, the temptation to raise and take Alt's hand ever present.
"...and what about you?" V asked. "You...so willing to go beyond into cyberspace? To become like her?"
Johnny looked up again. Up at Alt. At her complete blank face. Any affection for him she might have felt once? Gone.
"Well, then at least me and Alt will be together again."
His words carved deep into her. Moved her. For the first time Johnny had stirred up feelings inside her that weren't contempt or annoyance.
"V, come on." He went on, softer in tone. "This isn't about my life, this was never about me. Who do YOU wanna be with right now?"
Though V did not reply, he only needed to see the blank body language with the back of her Samurai jacket facing him to know where her mind lingered. This long pause, the only movement on V being the slight heaving of each breath she took.
She definitely knew where she wanted to be. Looking into her heart, her desires hadn't changed a bit. Six months or no...
V took one more look up at Alt. But the temptation to raise her hand had faded. She couldn't do it. Couldn't make that one more step to cross into cyberspace. She tipped her head back down, sighed out sadly.
Alt saw that V had made her decision. She retracted her digitised hand.
"So be it." She would say, with the slightest hint of disappointment. "You shall return to your body. It will slowly and painfully reject your construct. Then you will die. This is inevitable. This is imminent."
Her chilling words to V echoed in her mind. Then the net running queen faded away, dissipated from view. With her absence, everything seemed to get darker. As though things had lost power, somehow. A certain dimness immersed them both now.
V was stood stiff, her face heavy with sorrow. Her knees would slowly give out, Johnny stepping forward to her just as she collapsed to her knees. V couldn't help but quietly sniffle miserably to herself, in a manner that suggested crying was an unusual sensation for her. Though it certainly wasn't his specialty, Johnny felt the need to console her. These were tough times, and she had just made a tough decision.
He would crouch down behind her, and place his hand upon her shoulder.
"You made the right choice, V." He assured her. "Just think about everyone you'll get to see again."
V collected herself. Crying was a shameful, weird feeling for her.
"Six months, Johnny..." She croaked. "What do I do? I don't...I feel lost..."
She sounded so hopeless. All the effort and struggles she had gone through, she had hoped it would finally come to a close here. That she would get a happy ending after all this.
"You keep doing what you've been doing all this time." Johnny told her. "You grab onto life by its balls and you don't fuckin' let go...and you make sure you enjoy it while doing so."
V looked over her shoulder at him, feeling a bit moved by his encouraging words, but full of misery all the same.
"I can't do that without you..." She muttered.
It was touching for her to say that. Johnny might've let it feed into his ego a bit. But not this time.
"No, V. You can. All this? You and Panam's Tarmac rats? Killing Adam fuckin' Smasher? Getting to Mikoshi? This was all you. I was just a passenger along for the ride, and fuck me was it a show to behold."
He had to give V credit where it was due. She may have been a complete tool at times, but when she put her mind to something? Nothing could stop her.
If she could do all this in a few weeks, who knows what she could do in six months.
V silently turned her head to tip down again. They simply remained there for a while, Johnny letting the weight of such a big decision and what it means bare on her for a bit. Let things process in her brain.
But soon enough, it was time to get things going.
"Come on, V. Let's go."
He helped V stand up, and would gently guide by the arm back down the path they came. Across the path that had extended to cyberspace. V would look back over her shoulder at the emptiness behind her.
There was only one path forward now.
Soon enough, they reached the well. The digitised construct that would allow one mind to return to the body currently hooked up to Mikoshi.
But only one of them.
Johnny would let go of V as she sat down on the well. She would look up at Johnny, knowing this would be the last time she would see him. She should've been relieved. Excited to have peace of mind in her head.
Yet, her face? Her eyes? Utter sorrow filled them.
"Fuck. I'm about to carve a comrade and a piece of my own soul out in one fuckin' go..." She exclaimed, her eyes wide with fear. "You got no idea what that shit feels like..."
Johnny just stared at her. Before his eyes trailed off momentarily, then looking back at her. He gave a brief thought.
"Hmm. Sounds kinda familiar." He noted. "We know that attitude."
V just blinked. Then it hit her too. He was onto something. What she said...it was unlike her.
As Alt said, some changes could not undone.
"See, V?" Johnny said, seeing the realisation on her face. "Staying with ya whether you like it or not."
That was too much for V. It upset her. Moved her. She couldn't help but screw her eyes shut, tears flowing down her face once again. But in full force. Her breathing and lips quivering. She quietly sobbed, tipping her head.
V was going back. And Johnny would be left here. Left behind...as a shapeless shadow in a digital afterlife.
"Thank you." She croaked. "I-I know it's only six months but without you, I'd already be...I'd be..."
A corpse in a landfill.
V felt a hand place itself on her shoulder. She would look up to see Johnny looking down at her. A little smile on his face. The most sincere one she had ever seen from him.
Then, in another surprising turn, he'd lean down closer to her. He would wrap his arms around her, bring himself close. Johnny would tightly hug V, who was briefly stunned...before she then buried her head into him, hugged tightly back. Once again, her shut eyes let the tears flow.
Then he parted from her. Once again he rested his hand on her shoulder, smiling at her, sitting on the side of the well. V then felt a force. A slight push. From Johnny himself. A push that sent her down. Down into the well. The ground beneath her suddenly fading. Feeling herself slip by.
Deeper and deeper.
"Goodbye V." She would hear the echoed words speak to her." "And never stop fighting."
The world felt like it was slipping by. V felt everything become weightless. Even herself. Like she was being submerged in emptiness itself.
Then all went black.
The feint sounds of sirens could be heard emitting out from the bright view of Night City under the night time sky. Smoke and chaos was rampaging through the city at this very moment. But from a perspective way outside the city limits in the badlands...it almost looked beautiful.
V's boots made footsteps across the dry ground, the equally dry blades of grass protruding from the dirt surface. Step after step. Walking almost aimlessly. The woman would walk some distance before stopping. Then slowly going down on her knees. Her metal fingertips planting themselves on the earth ground. Her blue hair falling freely down her face.
She would take a deep breath. Then exhale.
It felt so different, that single sigh. Everything felt different now. Oxygen didn't taste the same. The cool air against her skin had a new sensation. The ground against her hands felt unusual. Every heartbeat, every word she spoke, every breath she took...
Everything was experienced differently when you knew you only had six months to enjoy it.
She felt a trickle down her face. Not tears this time, but blood. Blood flowing slightly from her nose. V would raise her hand to her face, and wipe it from her nose. Leaving a red smudge against her fair skin.
V had peace finally. Her thoughts were her own. Her mind had privacy. A sensation she had gotten so used to not having.
Yet...why did she feel so alone now? Her brain, it was filled with a deafening silence. It didn't feel right without the voice of Johnny Silverhand keeping it company.
"V?"
She would turn her head to the voice. But it was not the one she had almost hoped to hear. Not far behind her stood Panam. She had a concerned look on her face.
"Are you sure you're okay...?"
V looked her over, then turned her eyes back towards Night City. Just like everything else, she saw this too differently.
The shackles that bound her to this place...she no longer felt them. She felt like she could move far, far away from this place. And not regret a thing.
V would let out a saddened, weak chuckle.
"I'm good, Panam." She told her. "Really. I am."
V took in the sight again. She absorbed the many sensations going through her mind and body. Even the headache she felt ringing in her brain felt...good.
She never felt so alive. Like she had been living with a cloth around her eyes her whole life...and it had just now finally been removed.
It may only be six months. But V had a feeling it was going to be a good ride.
"C'mon, we need to head back." Panam told her, before walking off.
V would nod. But before going, she would brandish a pair of dog tags. The ones that had belonged to Johnny. With such affection, V would hold them. Hold Johnny's promise that he would save her life.
"You did more than save my life, Johnny..." She spoke quietly. "You gave me the chance to really live. For real."
What she had before, that was no life. But things were going to be different now. For the time she had left.
"I'll never forget you."
V placed the dog tags upon the ground. Then with her hands, she started sweeping and covering them with dirt. Before patting it down.
It was no great statue. But it was better than an unmarked grave in the middle of a oil field.
"Thank you."
Then she would raise herself up from the little tribute she left. Then turned to follow after Panam. Walking away.
Off to live a new life.
