Realizing the red strobes were part of the club's gimmick, V relaxed. Her and Judy danced to the angry throb of the music, the blackhole swirling around them, red strobes reducing them to juddery shadows on a floor of high-definition stellar debris. Even Gotoda danced, kicking through the steps of an angry rockerboy shuffle beside her and Judy—a dance, he told V, that had been popular in Osaka nightclubs, back when Osaka had been his home. "I am happy, Valerie-san," he told her, smiling. "For the first time in a very long time, I am happy. Still, do not forget—"
"Oiwa. I gotcha, Goto," interrupted V, mimicking his steps. After a few pointers from Gotoda, she managed to nail the dance, weaving through the choreography with a precision that surprised her. Judy laughed, asked her what she was doing. "Some dance Goto knows," said V, shrugging and grinning. "C'mon," she said, "try it," and she grabbed Judy, coaxed her through the steps.
Judy quickly picked up the dance, incorporating steps from some Latin dances that had been popular in the Heywood clubs. She looked over at Buster, who'd found a couple of women to dance with, her giggles hiking a few octaves until they exploded into full-blown laughter. "Look at abuelo!" she exclaimed. Then she cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted across the dance-floor: "Get it, abuelo! Show 'em how we do things on the ground!"
"Shut it, Alvarez!" Buster called back, grinning his steel rictus, lumbering through the steps of a dance that was probably older than V's grandparents. But his girls seemed to love the vintage moves, egging Buster on, clapping and cheering.
Ayako materialized beside V, watching her with a grin. "See Gotoda taught you some moves," she remarked, dancing up beside V, Panam dancing with her.
"Y'seem t'be enjoyin' yourself," said V.
"Figure I'm gonna die, might as well have fun on the way down," said Ayako, laughing. V, however, didn't laugh, and Ayako said, "Chill, Valerie. Just some edgy humor."
"Ain't a joke if it's the truth," said V, wincing.
"Don't let it piss on the party," said Ayako, smiling. "Just fuckin' enjoy yourself. Jesus fuckin' Christ, it's always doom and gloom with you."
V smirked, then shifted the subject and said, "Thought clubs weren't your thing."
"Get some sake and beer in me, that changes real quick," answered Ayako, giggling. Then she added, "At least until the fuckin' microfilters in my liver kick in, ruin the fun."
At some point later, V found herself at the bar, knocking back shots with her crew. The club was still raging, the electronic thunder of some pulsing EDM number throbbing in her phonics. She was feeling good, but not drunk; she'd been careful to pace herself, just in case things went sideways.
And they did go sideways, eventually.
At first, nobody noticed the first couple of bodies drop: everyone was so high and drunk out of their minds, gyrating to the loud thumps and snares of the music that the idea of some dire shit hitting the fan hadn't even occurred to anyone. But when some guy's head tumbled off his shoulders and rolled across the dance-floor, a perfect gout of arterial spray catching the faces of the people around him, there was a sudden, coalescent howl of panicked fear, and people started stampeding toward the exit, trampling and scrambling over one another in an effort to escape the quick lightning-flash of an invisible blade.
Oiwa's metamaterial cloak melted away, and she lunged toward them, her katana raised above her head, the pieces of her victims strewn across the dance-floor behind her. In the red stop-motion light of the strobes, she looked like some demonic thing that had clawed its way, howling and screaming, up and out of the Nine Circles, her oculars burning red.
Gotoda said, "Move!" and V slewed to the side as Oiwa's katana came down on the fluorescent bartop, shattering the glass into jagged shards. Out on the dance-floor, in the blackhole darkness, V could hear people mewling.
"Gotoda, where the fuck is Trauma Team?"
"I can tell you that, Valerie-san," said Oiwa, even though V hadn't spoken aloud. She grinned. "I got the list," and she giggled, tossed the bouncer's dataslate, sticky with blood, onto the ground. "I terminated everyone's coverage. Nobody is coming to save you."
"This is fucking why I never wanted AI," said Buster, and he grabbed Judy. "Alvarez, help me stabilize the wounded."
"Buster, I—"
"You wanted to be a ripperdoc, right? Here's your trial-run, kid," said Buster, raising his hand, the RealSkinn tearing, bursting at invisible seams as his hand performed its multitool origami trick. Then, to Panam, "Leave the fucking bot-bitch to Ayako and Valerie. I need your help with the victims, Palmer."
Panam looked like she wanted to argue, but decided against it. "You're right," she agreed, hurrying over to him.
Oiwa giggled. "Yes, go. Help them. You won't be able to."
"I'm a damn good ripperdoc, 'Saka cunt," said Buster, hurrying off into the darkness, toward the sounds of people dying.
"Don't you dare fuckin' die," Judy said to V, and kissed her. She hurried off with Buster and Panam.
Oiwa turned her attention to V and Ayako, who'd appeared beside her, Onibi in her hands, its molten blade pointed outward. "This should be fun," said Oiwa, her pale face in that void-darkness like some grinning Noh mask.
The lights started to strobe red again, Oiwa rushing toward them like a demon animated in skipped frames. Ayako parried Oiwa's blade, launching herself into the teleportation steps of a Sandevistan dance. "I got this, Valerie," said Ayako, her and Oiwa disappearing and reappearing like some glitch in realspace.
They were both moving too fast for her Kiroshis to track, which meant, V knew, that she'd have to tap into her own Sandevistan to join the dance. "Fuck no," she said, and threw the synaptic switch of her Sandy, ignoring Gotoda's repeated warnings that it'd tax the shit out of her system, could maybe kill her if V wasn't careful. "I'm helpin' Ayako," she told Gotoda, the world slowing down into singularity, Ayako and Oiwa weaving through their slow-motion dance, slowly syncing with her relativity until they were all moving at the same speed.
"When I ask to override," said Gotoda, his engram mirroring her movement, "please let me, Valerie-san."
"No problem, Goto," she said, and lunged at Oiwa, trailing afterimages of herself as she moved, uncoiling her loop of monowire. V whipped her arm, the monowire flashing toward Oiwa in an arc of hairfine lightning. Oiwa quickly parried the wire with her katana, then sprang at V, trailing ghosts in the slow-motion matrix of Sandevistan-space, grinning like a skull. V swayed back and dropped into a sloppy handspring, and, upon sticking the landing, drew Johnny's Malorian from inside her snakeskin blazer and squeezed off a shot.
Oiwa smoothly deflected the bullet with her blade, moving toward her. "I can calculate your moves before you even make them, Valerie-san." Her auto-translator glitched out on Oiwa's Japanese, so V missed some other things she'd said, the words sounding like garbled hell-static. "You are incredibly predictable," continued the rogue AI, the hell-static gradually coalescing into English again, "and I have had ample time to observe, learn how you work. Ever since Night City."
"We ain't never met until Phoenix," said V, side-stepping the katana, feeling it powerfully carve through the air beside her head.
"Don't you recognize me, Valerie-san?"
"You're Ayako's fuckin' corpse. Stolen from her by fuckin' Arasaka."
"I am that, yes. But Valerie-san, look at me! Don't you recognize what I am?"
"You're fuckin' insane is what you are," said V.
"I'm Soulkiller, Valerie-san."