Chapter Text
Though she knows now how to feel it coming, the pain still hits her like a speeding truck.
At first there’s the nausea. The sudden desire to upchuck whatever scop she last scarfed down. Then the headache, building alongside the ripples that tear through her optics, a cascading wave of blue pixels pulsating in time with her rapidly quickening heart. It could almost be pretty if it weren’t for how goddamn fucking awful she feels. Then, finally, the sensation like a six-inch rod of white-hot steel being driven into her skull with a sledgehammer. Her knees buckle, her vision glitches and restarts, there’s the taste of iron in her mouth.
Sometimes she wonders if all those scavs and corpothugs and gangoons she flatlines feel something like it when she overloads their cyberware, frying their synapses inside their skulls. At least for them, it’s over quick. V’s never been that lucky.
Shit, she might just be the unluckiest damn merc in all of Night City, and tonight ain’t proving that wrong.
It was a simple enough gig. Get into some corpo’s apartment, plant a virus in their subnet—quick and quiet, no one the wiser. She’s good at this kind of job. Shoulda been a piece of cake.
Instead, she’s only feet away from the corpo’s computer when she falls to her knees, screaming.
Instantly, she hears footsteps. Lights come on in the hall. Private security she so effortlessly slipped by earlier. They haven’t hit the alarm yet—maybe thinking the corpo asleep in the other room’s got night terrors. But they’re coming, and she hasn’t got time for—
The next wave of pain rips through her, and she nearly blacks out. Relic’s had some shit timing before, but never like this. Fuck.
V forces her eyes open, and there he is, crouching over her in a haze of fluctuating pixels.
“Shit,” says Johnny. “Shit, this is bad.”
There’s the quiet hiss of a door sliding open. Then— “What the fuck?”
The corpo. Goddamnit. He looks barely awake, staring down at her in confusion. Through her haze V sizes him up. If she moves now she could take him out quick, drag him back to bed. Hide and let security think it really was a nightmare. She could still fix this—
Another lance of searing pain, and this time she does black out. Only a couple secs, but when her optics kick in again she’s watching her limbs move of their own accord, grabbing the corpo and pulling out her iron, which she presses against the man’s head.
“One move, shitbag, and I pull the fuckin’ trigger!” she hears herself say. Then it’s too much, too much to even hang on as Johnny wrests control away.
There’s only flashes, then. Dragging the corpo down the hall—security with their guns trained on them, unable to fire. Corpo gets shoved into a pair blocking the stairwell—and she’s—Johnny’s running, barreling through, using her silenced pistol like a fucking shotgun—and there’s more at the bottom, and he sees a window—shoots it twice, smashes it in with her elbow—fucking ow—and then they slam into the ground and she loses time completely.
Of course, Johnny lets her go just as she’s about to puke her guts up behind a dumpster.
“Fuck, V,” he says, materializing beside her. “That coulda gone a lot worse.”
They’re a few blocks away, it looks like, and there’s no sign of pursuit. V lets herself slide down the nearest wall to the ground.
“Gotta feelin’ you’re angling for a thank-you, Johnny,” she manages. “Not sure I’m in a state to oblige.”
Johnny steps back, lights up his imaginary smoke and takes a drag. “You kiddin’? Woulda been flatlined for certain if I hadn’t stepped in.”
“Had it under control.”
“The fuck you did.” He leans up against the dumpster.
It’s hard being angry when she feels this shit, but V musters up what little venom she can. “The fuck I did, Johnny! If you’d’ve backed off, I coulda finished the gig. Now we’re both gonna be in the shit.”
“Well, there’s your fuckin’ problem, V.” He stares down from behind his aviators. “Just can’t stand not havin’ things your way.”
She forces a chuckle, and even that is an effort. “Oh, I see what’s goin’ on. Not a fan of the way I do things?”
Johnny takes a long drag and exhales in a cloud of pixelated smoke. “Nah.”
She wonders if he’s just gonna leave it there, but after a long moment, he continues. “Got no idea what it’s like, bein’ on the other side of this arrangement.”
He’s being vague and flippant again, and her patience is at rock bottom tonight, so when she opens her mouth, it comes out maybe a little more sarcastic than she intends. “You mean the side that’s not passing out, pukin’ up blood every other day? Shit, Johnny. Enlighten me.”
He flicks his smoke to the side and looks away, and now she knows she’s touched a nerve. He disappears, and then reappears a little further from her, pacing back and forth. “Sometimes it’s like sleeping,” he finally says. “Like watchin’ someone else’s dream. Other times it’s like I’m standing right there with you, doin’ whatever you’re doin’ like it was my idea all along.” He pauses, his back to her. “And sometimes it’s like bein’ trapped behind a glass door, punching and screaming, able to see everythin’ and do nothin’. Sometimes it’s hell.”
V starts to feel sick again, in a completely different way than before. “You’re right,” she admits. “I didn’t know.”
Johnny appears by the dumpster again, and this time he takes his glasses off. “Listen, V. I’m not askin’ for the whole pie. Hell, not askin’ for an even half, neither. But fuck, would it kill you to cut me off a piece now and then?”
V closes her eyes, leans her head back against the wall, thinking of all the pieces of herself she’s lost already.
“I’ll try, Johnny,” she says. “S’all I can promise.”
The buzz of a holocall cuts through her thoughts. It’s Regina. V feels her stomach drop, but answers anyway. No point putting off the inevitable.
“Hey, V? Don’t know what exactly went down back there and I’m not about to ask, but the client just called to tell me whatever you did had the exact results she intended. And hey, if the client’s happy, I’m happy, and if I’m happy, you’re happy. Funds are on their way.”
For a moment V thinks she must’ve misheard. Then she looks up at Johnny. He’s smirking.
“The hell did you do?” she demands.
Johnny shrugs. “Does it matter? Job’s done.”
V pushes herself to her feet, and by the time she’s upright, she’s alone again. If that call really wasn’t a figment of the pan-fried scop she had the misfortune of calling a brain... shit, she might just be the luckiest damn merc in all Night City.
Relic or not, that’s gotta count for something.