It was official: the world wasn't going to shit, it had already gone.
Arasaka. Were it not for the memory of Alt and Soulkiller fuelling his rage, Johnny wasn't sure if he could muster anything more than apathy at this stage. After you nuke someone, and they still don't die, what can you really do but sit back and watch? He liked to think of himself as the bold revolutionary that took them on, but after seeing what it all amounted to, Johnny wasn't sure they saw him as anything more than a bug they scraped off the sole of their shoe and tossed in the trash. Not that his feelings mattered all that much, what with V and all.
V... Yeah, he regretted how he handled that.
After trying to get her to off herself, and by proxy, himself, Johnny cooled off from his suicidal rage, found a gap in her omega-blocker schedule, and sat down for a chat. Once he got to know her, being a petty merc-thief aside, he realised that she was actually quite a cool gal. She was overly cynical and naive at the same time, and a tad unstable 'cause of the hormone imbalance induced by the brain damage, but a stand-up gal nonetheless. In another world, he might have made her into one of his outputs. Not a groupie, but a proper output. As it was, there was little chance of that happening.
But that didn't stop the guilt.
He had already failed one output. Left her to die at the hands of the despotic machine that was Arasaka, and now in a strange, twisted way, it was all happening again. Incurable brain damage, technically not his fault, the stupid bitch didn't have to put an experimental chip in her head, after all. But still, Johnny felt those same feelings the more he got to know her. She wasn't just a solo anymore, just another merc-thief, she was a human. With hopes and dreams and a backstory and friends and shit. And now, Johnny was doing to her the worst thing it was possible for someone to do to someone else. He was ripping her identity, her mind, her very soul away from her.
He wasn't trying to be a monster this time, but what goes around comes around, huh?
Rogue, Alt, Kerry, and now V. And then, there was Arthur.
Johnny despised him, no doubt about it. Saburo may have rat-fucked the world, Johnny thought, but at least he had the dignity to be honest about it. This guy was not so honest. He was the kind of person who did nothing more than slap a new paint of coat on the same system fueled by broken dreams, and amazingly, the strategy seemed to be working. All around, wherever they went, people seemed to respect or in some cases, they even seemed to revere him. He's a corpo through and through, Johnny thought to himself, give it some time, and he'll show his true colours.
Hell, even V seemed to like him!
Okay... maybe he wasn't being quite as objective as he could have been. Johnny didn't doubt that Arthur was just another rat in a suit, just like a rest, but after perusing some of V's memories, he was actually doing some good. Agriculture, education, employment, a war on crime. Still, his deeds were motivated by greed, and there was no way to change that.
I've seen corps strip farmers of water... and eventually of land. Saw them transform Night City into the twisted machine it is today, fuelled by people's crushed spirits and emptied pockets. Corps've long controlled our lives, taken lots for that very same greed... and now they're after our very souls!
As it was, Johnny didn't quite know what to make of him. The more he learned, the more Johnny was certain that he was another corpo, just like any other, but he also found something of kindred spirit in the man. A few broadcast interviews revealed that he and Johnny were not all different, both trying to speak truth to power, to bring an end to the corruption and oppression that had been crushing the soul of humanity for the past century. The difference, however, was in the approach.
He declared war not 'cause capitalism was a thorn in the world's side or outta some misplaced nostalgia for an America gone by. His war was a people's war against a system that spiralled outta control. It was, is, a war against fucking forces of entropy itself, and the ever-present rot it spawned. I'll do whatever it takes to stop them, defeat 'em, gut 'em. If he had to kill, then he would kill. If he had to commit the worst atrocity possible, and rip V's soul away from her, then he would.
So, was it any surprise that Johnny wanted the world to burn? He had never made any bones about that. If that's what it took to stick it to those corpos, then that was what he'd do. Burn it all down till all the products of corporate colonialism were nothing more than ashes, and then start over. This guy, he wasn't like that at all.
Oh, to be sure, he had a ruthless streak a mile wide. There was a stack of bodies a mile high that could attest to that. When the NCPD pissed him off, he had stepped in with his ramshackle army and all but declared himself king of the streets, and he killed anyone who got in his way. 6th Street, Valentinos, Aldecaldos, the Mox, even the fucking Tyger Claws bent the knee to him, and they were all now more effective law enforcement than the actual police.
He made the police his bitch. Johnny couldn't imagine the humiliation.
Johnny didn't have to like the man, but after that? He could respect him.
Even in the middle of a gang-war that he started, however, Arthur seemed to build more than he burned. Factories, farms, offices and schools. Through V, Johnny had been caught up in a couple of those gang scuffles, and he'd seen how one side had behaved versus the other. They behaved more like professional soldiers than gangoons. Clear the area, evacuate civilians, coordinate, eliminate. Like a well-oiled killing-machine. It made some sense, they were mostly 6th Street after all, but the strangely methodical and calm approach to combat was a tad unnerving, to say the least.
These guys were not fucking around.
It strangely reminded him of his time in the military, which wasn't all that surprising, given that they were veterans. What was surprising was the fervour in their eyes.
Not all of their eyes, of course. Plenty were sceptical, and a few fanatical nut-jobs were to be expected in every fighting force, but there was just so many of them. They were fighting for the 'dream', whatever the fuck that was, and they actually seemed to believe in it. Even the sceptics didn't seem jaded. These were mercs, opportunists who would do anything for the right price, and yet even they seemed to think themselves on the right side of things, for once.
From these stories some of these people told, Arthur was a general, an inventor, a businessman, a negotiator, a genius, a revolutionary, a visionary with the luck of the devil.
Bullshit.
Johnny was familiar with propaganda, he'd felt it's corrupting touch in his youth, and he knew how it was used to mess with people's heads, to make them believe the unreal and do unimaginable things in service of those beliefs. He'd released 'Sins of Your Brothers' because he'd almost fallen victim to the same tricks. He was wise to it now. Pure, self-aggrandising bullshit. I'll suck my own cock if he's even a tenth of the man he's made out to be. He's dangerous, to be sure, but he's not god.
And the time had come to find out the truth. A quick phone call and road-trip later, and Johnny found himself stood outside his head office. It was a relatively dull, mostly nondescript industrial-looking building near the edge of the city. The building had precious few windows, and those it did have were covered by metal grills, like in a supermax prison. It looked like a dull, grey, concrete cube, very functional and very soulless. This literally looks like the place dreams go to die. Like my version of hell on earth. Johnny watched as V walked up to the door, and was led by one of the staff to the elevator.
Though the exterior had been ugly, the interior sported a more homely feel. There was an air of sterility about that place that still made Johnny uncomfortable, but it seemed more... human, somehow? There was no harsh neon in here, just soft, orange lighting, some carpets on the floor, and employees milling about, occasionally moving from desk to desk with mugs of coffee in their hands, the real stuff, interspersing idle chatter between their work. Papers were passed around, printed and reprinted. Hard work was still done, and yet jokes were cracked, laughs were had. There was an aura of professional relaxation about the place, and everyone seemed comfortable.
With Arasaka, everyone was always a corpo-cog, a replaceable part. Once they ran you into the ground, they booted you out, stripped you of perks, left you for dead. He didn't get that impression here, much as he tried to find it. The place seemed like a vision into the past. Nostalgia come to life.
All a dream, wait and see. All a fuckin dream.
The man who had led V here pointed her to a door, smiled and nodded, and promptly turned around and left. V braced herself, grabbed the handle to the surprisingly heavy, likely reinforced, door and pushed.
The content of the room were underwhelming. A wooden desk with a large sheaf of paper stacked on it, the same orange lights in the ceiling, a fairly unimpressive carpet on the wall. These were all ancillary details, and V focused most of her attention on the man behind the desk. He was an unimpressive man. He looked to be in his early thirties, and aging poorly, judging by the strands of white hair interspersed with the black. His eyes were slightly sunken and sported bags underneath. His nose was prominent in his face, his teeth unremarkable, being mostly straight and just slightly off-white.
This is the man who took on the police and won? Johnny shook his virtual head, I fuckin knew it. All propaganda.
He wore an old-school blue suit, which looked too cheap to be expensive and too expensive to be cheap, and it rustled as he stood from his chair. He eyed V up for a short moment, and Johnny felt a rush of protectiveness as the man's gaze turned a tad lecherous. Nevertheless, the moment passed and he came around the desk, extending his hand for her to shake, "V, right?"
She took the offered hand and shook it, "You Arthur?"
He looked her up and down as he shook her hand, and he nodded, "That I am."
He grasped the edge of his desk with his palms and leaned back in his desk, and V started the conversation, scepticism lacing her tone, "Why'd you call me here?"
V had wanted to be a living legend, and now she stood before a real one. A disappointment, mind, but still a living legend. For Johnny, however, it wasn't their legend that made a man what they were, but rather their value. Test of person's true value? Death: facing it, staring it down. Go on, stick a barrel down his throat. Let's see this corpo-rat's true value. Johnny positioned himself up against the side of the room, with a perfect view of everything. He saw V shoot him a surreptitious glance, chock-full of annoyance at his suggestion, and he saw Arthur light up a cigar, filling the room with smoke.
He waved his arm around, leaving a trail of smoke in its wake, and spoke, "Before we get to that, I think we have one more guest to greet."
"Someone else coming?"
Arthur smirked, "No, V, they're already here." He turned his gaze, and in that moment, Johnny could swear those sunken eyes peered into his very soul, "Aren't you... Johnny?"
Sorry, once again, for the long delay between updates. I was really nervous about writing Johnny and I kept redrafting. In the end, I just had to get something out.
Did I get him right? I think I could improve, but you guys let me know.
Feel free to comment and let me know what you think.
Hope you guys are enjoying the story thus far!
P.S. Didn't quite like the way this one came out. May be subject to rewrite
