Even in these chains, you won't haunt me
"I don't understand," whispered Vi next to her. "Why didn't you bring Judy?"
"She's not a merc. Blood ain't her business, art is. She doesn't belong here. I'm not taking any risks."
"I get it, but..."
"I'm the one dying. Not her. I don't mind not waking up tomorrow, but if I do and she's not next to me, I... I don't know what I'll do. But I can promise you I will dedicate my last days turning this city into a warzone. I'll wash it clean with rivers of blood, I can tell you that."
Vi scoffed.
"Well, I've seen scary bitches, but you're there all the way to the top. With my sister, that is."
"I'm not sure how to take this."
Vi shook her head.
"It's not important. What I meant to say is, I understand. I really do. I really thought Cait and I were invincible, you know. Back home, nothing can resist us, we're the top of the top, the whipped cream and the whole shebang. Even Jinx couldn't manage to take us down, although she keeps eluding us. I really thought we were untouchable. Until a few days ago. That bullet... One centimeter to the side and she was gone. Out of my arms, out of my life. I would have been alone. That time she was on the chair, I didn't know if she'd ever wake up... I thought I was going to die. I couldn't breathe, I was suffocating. Swear to god, if she had flatlined, I would have too, right here right then."
"Vi," sighed Caitlyn's voice on both her comms. "You know I'm hearing you, right? We talked about this."
"I know Cupcake. I got nothing to hide from you, especially not how I feel. But my point is, V, Caitlyn's still here. She's got her rifle, she's got our back, and even though for the first time in forever I'm scared shitless, I couldn't leave her at home even if I tried to. She came back to life, it wouldn't be right for me to take it away from her just 'cause I'm scared."
"There really is a big sweetheart underneath all that steel," said Caitlyn fondly.
V looked at Vi straight in the eyes, hard.
"Not that I don't appreciate judgment on my relationship from a rando, but she is not a merc! That's the difference! I ain't taking Judy's life away from her! On the contrary, I want her to keep working on her BDs, keep making art! She doesn't belong here with us. She shouldn't have a fucking gun in her hands. Now, can you please get your head back in the game, your eyes back on the fucking docks, and let's be ready for when the Animals show up."
The good thing about the docks was the abundance of vantage points. Just a hundred meters separated the two mercs from the dozen Maelstrom members pacing the dock, waiting for their delivery, yet they were completely safe and out of view. Caitlyn was two buildings over, high on a roof, her custom Techtronika SPT32 Grad sniper rifle in hand. Moreover, she and V had discovered they both wield similar quickhack capabilities, excellent netrunners that they were. The Tetratronic Rippler Mk.5 cyberdeck, implemented into V's brain, could serve as a relay for Caitlyn's hacks, doubling her usual destructive power. They were ready for war.
And ready they needed to be, as they were already vastly outnumbered by the Maelstroms alone. The scavs coming shortly would add to that number, and if the Animals would show up as expected, they would probably be fifteen to one.
It didn't scare V; she had faced worse odds, and she was confident that, with Caitlyn's hack alongside hers, they could fry easily a small dozen opponents before they even noticed they were here.
Still, she was tired. Hadn't slept enough, again. A small cough rose in her lungs, and she suppressed it, ignoring the bitter taste of blood on the back of her tongue.
"Look up," whispered Vi. "I see something."
A speedboat, loud and fast, was heading in their direction. It was smaller than any of them expected, arguably not big enough for the shipment they were waiting for. Maybe it wasn't the scavs, but who else would be coming at five in the morning to a Maelstrom-controlled dock?
V breathed with relief.
"Small crew. Three people only. Wanted to be discreet."
"With that engine? Half the neighborhood gotta be awake now," scoffed Vi.
"It's not unusual in Night City. Doubt anyone noticed."
"Look alive," whispered Cait's voice in their head. " They're unloading the cargo."
In place of a cargo was only just a box, a big one, but still just a box. Two tattooed men with scrapy cybernetic arms dragged it out of the speedboat onto the concrete while the third one marched to the Maelstroms.
Vi shivered. She had heard of this gang, which took cybernetics and shedding flesh for metal to the point of fanaticism, but seeing those bodies distorted, desecrated with metal, with four or six red globes instead of eyes, with a caved chest filled with lights and strings of iron... It was a disgusting view.
"Talk to me, Cupcake," she whispered on the comms.
"Nothing special. I see standard irons and low-level augments. Wait a sec, they're opening the cargo. It seems to be nothing but cyberdecks and chips. I can't tell what kind, however."
"Probably some daemons and quickhacks," answered V. "It's strange to have it coming from scavs, but not unheard of."
"I count fourteen," said the sniper. "Scan isn't pinging any hidden threats."
"I can take six before they move," affirmed V.
"Same. Which means there will be two left."
"Just tell me which ones, and I'll get it done," finished Vi.
"Give me a sec," ordered Caitlyn.
Soon after, all the targets on V's scan lit up in a different color. Six red, six blue, two green.
"Cool tech," she whispered.
"Thanks. Developed it myself. Ready when you are."
V took a deep breath. Her grip tightened on her Seraph, the pistol that Padre, Heywood's fixer, had offered her as a token of gratitude. She checked the silencer on the canon, the MaxDoc inhaler at her belt, and decided she couldn't be more ready.
"On my mark. Three. Two. One. Go."
All happened at the same time. She triggered the Overclocking mode of her cyberdeck and marked all her designated enemies with the Short-circuit hack, her favorite, especially against heavily modded opponents.
She noticed immediately that something was wrong. Overclocking always had a cost, usually a massive headache, but this time it was different. It felt like someone had stuck a screwdriver at the base of her skull. She thought she had been hit.
Vi got out of her hiding spot yelling, jumping high in the air with her modified legs, and landed heavily on her two targets, crushing their skulls on the concrete with her iron hands.
All V's targets seemed to be struck by lightning after the second of loading time, and among Caitlyn's victims, two drew their own guns to put a bullet through their own brains, two others just collapsed on the floor, and the last two got fried from the inside, all their cybernetics overheating like a furnace.
Three against fourteen. Cleaned up in a literal couple of seconds.
"Good job, girls," panted V. "Easy," grinned Vi. "Your fixer will be happy; that box of chips will be easy enough to transport."
At the same time, V triggered a text message to Rogue. Got the cargo. Provide deposit location. A few seconds later, as per Rogue's habits, an answer came in, stating that a car was waiting for them two streets away. V shared the location with her two partners of the day.
"Thing is, we're not really here for the box, are we?"
"Cupcake, any signs of life around?"
"Negative. Could your fixer have made a mistake?"
V shook her head.
"I don't think Rogue has made a single mistake in her life. Aside from her love life, that is. If she said they'll come, they will."
"Should we hide again? Ambush them?"
"And the fourteen bodies on the ground won't tip them? No, we just gotta be ready. Maybe fortify our position."
"Well, we won't have time for that," interrupted Caitlyn. "I pinged four vehicles coming in our perimeters. Scans count twenty-one weapons, too much to be a coincidence. Big fight incoming, get ready."
Vi didn't smile; she grinned. Carnivorous, like a predator licking its lips in anticipation before pouncing. V felt a deep chill going down her spine and was very happy to have the brawler beside her and not facing her.
The NC merc crouched behind a crate and entered the cyberspace. She connected to the network of surveillance cameras surrounding the docks, using the backdoor she had installed during their recon.
"I got eyes on them," she confirmed. "Incoming fast. I'm gonna trim that a bit."
Using the cameras as a relay for her hacks, she felt like an omniscient god. She saw all, controlled all. She could kill anyone before they even knew she was there; she was the best netrunner merc in that city! That's how she got to the heart of Arasaka; that's how she burned it all down to the ground.
The cars were approaching fast, however, and her time-window was limited. Still, she smiled.
"Burn, motherfuckers."
She targeted not the men inside, but the cars themselves. Two of them were familiar models, which she had hacked before and knew the system of. Accessing the controls of the car, she triggered the self-destruct command. The subroutine sent all electronic systems into the red, and after two seconds, the chain reaction translated into a massive explosion, burning the driver and passengers alive in their steel prison.
Checking the RAM capacity of her deck, she realized she didn't have enough to investigate and explode the other ones. Instead, she used all she had to hijack the accelerator of one of the engines and pushed it to the max. The car jerked, and with no chance of hitting the brake, it went crashing against the wall, the driver and the passenger going through their windshield and cracking their skulls against the building.
V disconnected from the camera, panting.
"Three cars down," she said. "One left. Enemies inbound in less than a minute."
Vi whistled.
"Daaaamn, girl. Impressive work! You got competition, Cupcake."
"Should I be worried?" asked the voice in their comms.
"No, I meant…" blushed Vi. "On the netrunning field. You know you're the only one for me!"
"Hum hum. Look alive. Six coming in!"
Busting the front gate of the dock, the car puked a small squad, armed to the teeth with shiny chrome.
"Shit," groaned V. "Doesn't look like regular Animals for sure."
While the gang's style usually put huge muscle and gigantic stature above all else, these ones looked... more refined, she decided. Rather than the usual show-off tank top most liked to display, they were dressed in three-piece suits, perfectly showcasing the muscle curves of the arms and shoulders underneath. One even wore what resembled a fedora hat.
"They hired a tailor or what?"
In place of an answer, she only got a hail of sub-machinegun bullets, hitting the steel crate she was hiding behind. Caitlyn responded in kind, the silenced sniper mowing down one, two, then three targets in a matter of seconds.
"I'm going!" roared Vi.
V saw her getting in position, arming her right arm as if she were preparing a big right hook into the wind. She saw the electricity going through the metal of her Gorilla implant, and she released it with a scream. It was like the arm went forward by itself, dragging her behind like a kite. She hit one of her targets straight in the chest, sending him flying and crashing against the car he just came out of, and a massive blue shield of static energy enveloped the brawler, protecting her from the bullets aimed at her back. With a simple twist of her hips, she smashed the man's head with the back of her hand.
"What the fuck is that…" whispered V.
"Hextech Exclusive," answered Vi in her head. "Can't find those beauties anywhere else."
"We still need to keep at least one alive," reminded Caitlyn, as she aimed and shot for the last fighter, hiding behind the car. "Wait, I got something incoming. On your right!"
By the sea, two speedboats, lighter than the first one, were riding the waves in their direction.
"How many are there?"
V scanned the newcomers despite the distance and triggered a Contagion hack on the driver of the first boat, using all the RAM that she had restored since the car hacks. Then a red alarm appeared before her eyes, and a progress bar started filling at a terrifying speed.
"Shit!" she screamed. "Caitlyn! They got netrunners! They're onto me! At least two!"
"On it!"
V activated her camouflage skin, rendering herself translucent and almost invisible, using that opportunity to run to cover behind a concrete pillar, and to focus on reinforcing her ICE and forcing the runners out of her brain. The more she battled them in cyberspace, the blurrier her vision became, but she didn't notice, too focused on protecting her systems, and her life.
"Found one," claimed Caitlyn. "I got him! Now… What the hell? Shit! They found me! Two on my position! Vi!"
Vi didn't even hesitate, nor did she look back. Ignoring V and the last incoming boat altogether, she turned back and ran toward her wife, using her enhanced legs and arms to climb the closest building like an overly developed monkey.
"Fuuuuck" groaned V again. "That's why I prefer to do things solo and quiet…"
She reported her attention to the boat. It arrived behind the scavs, and the men jumped to the ground before the engine was cut, inspecting the corpses the three women had dropped. V noticed one seemingly more modded than others, and twice more dangerous. A lieutenant, likely. Two of the men she had targeted with her Contagion hack fell down the boat onto the ground, puking their guts on the concrete.
She checked her cyberdeck for capacity, but her RAM was still down to critical levels, and cherry on top, the overclocking mode was not yet available again.
"Dammit. Not my day."
She dug deep into the subroutines of her own cyberware and finally found, and broke, the limiter. The interface in her field of vision suddenly went from red to blue, and she targeted the biggest enemy.
"Suck it, bastards."
She activated the Cyberpsychosis hack.
It took a few seconds, during which it felt like every single shred of missing RAM was paid for with her flesh, but finally, the lieutenant froze in his tracks, and his eyes went red. The man roared, and started punching the Animal closest to him, grabbing him by the collar and pummeling his face until nothing remained.
Gunshots rang, people screamed, a grenade went off. V couldn't tell. Her eyes went dark. The Overclocking mode died off again, but she didn't notice. Neither did she register her camouflage wearing off. Something was different, unusually painful, but also relieving. Her lungs filled with lava and her mouth with blood. The carmine drops splattered on the ground as she coughed them up. One leg gave in. Her mind joined with the clouds above.
V heard something through the fuzz. A familiar voice, deep, male.
"Hang on, V. Get the fuck up!"
"Johnny..?" she whispered.
The second leg gave up. She collapsed. All was dark.