Everyone took a seat at the table.

V spoke up. "Guess I'll start. Looks like you got some crazy fuckin' shit here. Can you… can you save me?"

Ortega frowned. "No. You are dying, and desperate. I understand. But you have been soulkilled. Your body is rejecting your mind. I can provide and install immune-suppressing implants. With these, you can live for a few more years. But I cannot stop your body from rejecting your mind. Eventually it will happen. Your body is human, and your mind is not. It is terrible what has been done to you. Arasaka's Mikoshi system is primitive, cruel. They did not stop to think of the cost before developing it. Mikoshi is little more than a prison."

"Alt said… said Johnny would survive in this body though. He was soulkilled too... How would he have lived?"

Ortega frowned. "I know about Alt Cunningham. She is in Mikoshi now. Now, instead of Saburo Arasaka, she is the warden of that prison. She was deceiving you, deceiving Johnny. Or she did not know. He would have lived longer in that body, this much is true, but he would have eventually met the same fate you face now. He too was a machine, less human than even you."

V frowned now. Johnny seemed human enough. Was this fuckin' guy tryin' to pull a fast one? He spoke up "No, that's fuckin 'bullshit. Johnny was human. He cared about me."

"Johnny likely did regain some of his humanity, through you" Ortega nodded. "He felt your emotions once he was in your head. It started when he was in your friend Jackie's head. There was probably a small part of Jackie on that chip along with Johnny. Did Silverhand fight you when you told him you wished to take the body?"

V shook his head. "No, he told me take it... Told me … told me to never stop fighting. Sure seemed like he gave a fuck" Then he looked up at Ortega. "Wait, you know about Jackie?"

Ortega nodded. "I have connections in Night City. I know about your trip to Konpeki Plaza. And what Silverhand said, that is good advice, and it looks like you chose to listen."

V felt Panam's hand on his, and her grip tightened. She was excited. "V, a few more years! That is so much more time than we had hoped for." She turned and hugged him. "That will give us the time to get your head fixed for real!"

He felt a little relief, but this wasn't exactly what he was hoping for. A few years or a few months. Still a dead man walkin'. It was some good news though, and they had found this place. Who knew what else was out there?

V was silent for a while, thinkin' about what Ortega said about Mikoshi, lookin' for his angle. Then it occurred to him, this guy was hidin' somethin'. "If Mikoshi's a prison, why do you want the tech?" he gestured over at the boxes.

Ortega looked surprised. "I am not interested in Mikoshi software. I need the hardware. Arasaka's neural interface technology is unrivalled. They do not understand what to do with a mind, but they are very skilled at interfacing with the human brain. I require Mikoshi neural interface technology for my research."

"Research? What'r you workin' on way out here that needs Mikoshi tech?". Dakota asked.

"My survival". Ortega looked at V now. "I am not that different from you. I too am dying."

V's mouth went wide. "You were soulkilled?

Ortega shook his head. "No thankfully. Normally I do not share this information, but your situation is unique. I can relate." Ortega looked around the table again. "Are you all familiar with cyber-psychosis? I understand it is becoming a problem in Night City."

The entire table nodded.

"You are probably wondering how I have victim not fallen to that. How my men have not. The more cybernetics that are implanted into you, the more common it becomes."

Dakota spoke again. "You boys r' packing more chrome than anybody in NC. How are you keeping it together? Shit, Maelstrom boys in NC would justa' soon kill you as look at you".

Ortega pointed into the stairwell. "There is a cure for cyber-psychosis, I've saved these men. And installed advanced cybernetic implants into them to allow them to do things your Night City rippers can only dream of. "

"What'd you mean by advanced? Militech shit?" Mitch asked. Then it dawned on him. "Wait, a fuckin' cure? For psychosis...No shit..."

Dakota asked now. "Is that what you are workin' on our here? Is that how you are tryin' to live?"

Ortega shook his head again "There is a limit to the cure, I'm afraid. I am too far gone. I can feel these implants taking over. Maybe if I would had stopped installing them, I would have survived. The others have stopped, they are happy, loved, content. I however have accelerated my own augmentation. I feel I have no other choice."

V spoke. "Why? Would you cook your fuckin' brain? You have tech here beyond anything I saw at fuckin' Arasaka. Shit, I was inside Mikoshi, and you are still gonkin' my brain out."

Ortega walked back to the table and sat down. He looked at V, and at Panam. He addressed them both. "You two, of everyone here, should understand. I am doing it for my partner, my lover, my wife. She is dying, and thus I am as well. If she does die, I will be unable to survive without her for long."

V and Panam spoke together "You are… married?" They looked at Ortega, at each other, and then back to him.

Ortega nodded, "We are all married. There are six of us here, in my compound. My, my men, and our wives."

"How do you fuckin' meet any ladies way out here?" Mitch asked laughing. "Got any more?"

Ortega laughed. "We did not meet out here. I met my wife in Night City, and we grew sick of it, and left, much as you did. We ran a ripper clinic out here for nomads, for anyone that needed it really. We were just trying to get by. Not much different than the ripperdocs you would find in Night City. This was probably 50 years ago, just before the attack on Arasaka tower."

"Wait, you lived out here, alone. In the badlands, 50 years ago? How? It was so much more dangerous out here then." Panam asked.

Ortega looked up at the ceiling now, but his eyes were not focused on anything in the room. "Not alone, we had each other. 30 years we spent together out here. We grew very close, shared a bond that we thought would have been impossible. I cannot describe it; it was as if we were one person. Such a bond, even between lovers is incredibly rare. We had some hard times, of course, but we could always rely on each other. Neither of us could have survived alone out without the other."

Panam looked at V, and squeezed his hand, and smiled. "Looks like this guy's a fuckin' sweet talker too." Then her expression turned serious. "Do you think we will ever have that?"

V squeezed her hand back. "I hope so." He smiled at her. Fuck, did he hope so. But he was dead in three years, even with this crazy fuckin ripper's implants. Thirty sounded impossible.

Ortega looked at them, sadly now "You bond is strong, this is true. Both of you clearly care very deeply for each other" He nodded in Panam's direction, then addressed V again. "Those feelings, that connection, is what has kept you alive this long. Those feelings are so very human, love is perhaps the most human emotion that we can experience. I apologize, I was wrong when I first scanned you, you are not all machine. But that human part of your consciousness is fading, Soulkiller is still working its way through your mind. When it finishes, your body will reject your mind completely, and you will die. There is no other way. This is why Soulkiller is worse than death. You will lose all of your humanity, every part of who you are. The body would rather die than live like that."

Fuck. V thought. Well, this guy sure doesn't fuckin' sugarcoat anything.

Panam still hadn't given up. Fuck. He did love her optimism, her strength. "We will figure something out V. We have gotten this far".

Ortega smiled at her. "I wish you all the best with that. You have certainly beaten the odds to get here." Ortega looked at Panam now. "This will be difficult for you, watching someone you love slowly die. You must be prepared."

Panam squeezed his hand again and looked at him. "I know. But I will be here for you V. Always. Until the end. I meant what I said in that warehouse. I really did. I should have said it sooner."

Fuck. What did he do to deserve her? He was glad he got three more years with her. Thinking about it, that's pretty fuckin' preem. Better than a few weeks. He put his arm around her. "S'ok, I knew how you felt. You didn't need to say anything. Shit, I shoulda' told you too."