Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Even if there had been anyone else to call, V would have gone to Jackie first. He had a way with words, his quaint turns of phrase always put her at ease when things went to shit, and right now, she was well and truly fucked. 

Jackie had been right, this Arasaka job was fucking her over. He’d warned her not to chase the false promises of a corpo life, wasting her netrunning talents on corporate espionage. Said it would steal her soul, shackle her freedom. He was dramatic like that. V would always laugh it off and pay for his drinks, teasing him with her fat stacks of cash while he struggled to get by, beating up chumps for change. It hurt his pride, though he never admitted it, but at least she always had the last word. 

Until now.

That was before her boss had shoved a shard full of data on the Spec Ops Director into V’s hand and ordered her to zero the bitch, or else get flatlined herself. Boss had always wanted the Directorship, and now the murderous bastard was using her to get it.

Spying on the European Space Council was one thing. Those fuckers could blast Night City into the atmosphere from their cozy seats on the Arc whenever they wanted. They needed to be controlled. But she had never been tasked with a lone execution before, and certainly not of a powerful superior who could zero them both if she found out. And what the fuck did Boss expect her to do? She was a Blackwall skimmer—her speciality was scraping leaks from the rogue AI before NetWatch plugged the holes—not a hired gun.

Besides, Boss always had more ambition than brains. Maybe that was why he’d done nothing more than toss her a stack of eddies and the Director’s daily schedule and told her to take care of it. Fuck, the Director might already be onto them, for all she knew. The wad of untraceable bills in her purse weighed on her like a stone, the bag’s strap digging into her shoulder.

She flinched at the whir of the security cams, racing through the glass halls of Arasaka Tower's office complex. She needed to get out of the building, somewhere safe and away from prying eyes. No one at else at the company could know. Not that she trusted them anyway.

As for Jackie, he'd be furious. Assassination wasn’t his style, and he hated working for “those chingado corpos,” as he put it. He’d been telling her to quit this shady job since she started—too late for that now. But at least he would have the connections to get her to the right people who would do it. He’d know what it would cost, how to cover her tracks. It was a start.

She brought up his number on her optics. As usual, he picked up on the first ring. Ever since they met five years ago at some dive, drunk on tequila and popping the nose of some gonk who tried to grab her ass, Jackie always seemed eager for her calls. 

“Hey, chica. Callin’ back so soon? Ya miss me?” Jackie was joking, but his friendliness sounded forced, worried. They'd last spoken only an hour ago while she emptied her gut into the company sink, before the meeting with her boss. 

“Oh, you know it.” V paused to chew the inside of her lip, eyes sweeping the expansive lobby toward the exit. No time to waste. “Listen, I… need your help.” 

“You in some trouble?”

A pair of corpos in black suits watched her from near the elevators in the atrium. She lowered her voice to a hush and dashed toward the exterior doors, the clacking of her heels rebounding off the stone parquet floor.

“Need someone I can trust right now,” she said.

“Sounds like a ‘yes.’ Meet me at Lizzies. Our booth. Be there in an hour.” 

“Okay. Thanks Jackie.” V swallowed hard against the thought of Jackie’s disappointed face, but at least now she wasn’t alone. He would know what to do. She stepped through the doors into the sallow smog outside, and began to run. 

***

V was panting by the time she descended into Lizzie’s club—she hadn’t dared to take a cab, the cheap AI of most autotaxis was too vulnerable to hacking—and stomped across the electric purple dance floor to the booth she and Jackie always used. It was a preem spot to watch for trouble if it came their way, as it frequently did, and had good views of the pole dancers. Jackie was already there, waiting.

“It’s good to see you, chica.” Jackie stood and pulled her into an embrace, ruffling her hair out of the tight bun she wore for work, and for once, she didn’t shove him away. He smelled like smoke and noodles, and she wondered what he'd abandoned to meet her there. “Siddown and tell me what’s got your shorts in a knot.” With a pat on the shoulders, he returned to his seat and leaned his elbows over the table.

V squeezed in next to him, her calf brushing his. She didn’t bother to move it away, and neither did he.

“Good to see you too, Jackie.” She fished the datashard out of her shirt pocket and handed it to him, sheepish. “All on there. Boss wants her gone. Gave me the cash for it an’ everything,” she said, patting the heavy stack in her purse.

He snapped the chip into his neural port, eyes glowing red and staring into the middle distance to review the files. He grunted, the corners of his mouth tightening into creases.

“That what this is about? You need my trigger finger to zero this chick?” Jackie wasn’t new to killing if he needed to for a job—neither was she in her line of work—he’d flatlined a few Scavs who’d tried to dismember his friends. But he wasn’t a cold-blooded murderer.

“You know this ain’t my style.” He crossed his arms and frowned at her. “Didn’t think it was yours, either, V.”

She stared at her feet, hot flush prickling her neck and cheeks. He was offended, as expected, but what other choice was there? She ran her fingers back through her hair, pulling at the roots.

“Look, I'm sorry, Jackie. You were right, they have me by the balls. Don’t have a lot of options here, this isn’t something I can refuse. If I don’t," she mimed squeezing a trigger to her temple, staring at the crumbs of some kind of kibble on the floor under the booth, "I’m done. Fuck, even if I do, I'm done. Good as dead either way.”

Jackie sighed, an audible rumble that bubbled from his chest, and placed the shard back in her shirt. 

“Oye.” He spoke softly, the tension drained from his voice. V kept her eyes trained on the crumbs until he laid a large, warm hand on her arm. She turned her head to watch his thumb tracing the small circular tattoos across her wrist.  “Ain’t gonna let that happen, hermana. We’ll figure it out.” 

That was doubtful. Even a spirit as determined as Jackie's couldn't escape a megacorp like Arasaka.

“Thanks,” she said, curling her fingers to squeeze his hand, and lifted her eyes to his.

A commotion on the dance floor drew their attention. Across the room, the two suits who had clocked V in Arasoka’s lobby were headed straight for their booth, shoving dancers aside in their wake. V sucked in her breath and shoved her bag down under the table.  

“Fuck, Jackie. Too late. They know.”

The suit with a topknot and a thousand-eddie watch blocked her exit before she could move. Jackie was faster. He stood and crossed his arms, hand on the pistol under his jacket, and scowled.

“We gotta problem here, boys?”

“That’s not your concern.” Topknot sneered and leaned over V, stuck in the booth. “V, right?”

She swallowed and tried to appear uninterested. “What’s it to you?”

“Your gonk boss isn't as clever as he thinks he is. Already strung up on a lamppost on 6th Street by his balls, courtesy of the Director. We know what you were assigned to do. Give us the shard, and maybe we'll let you live. Now.”

“Dunno what you’re talkin’ ab—!” V's retort was cut off by her scream. The room whirled, and she gripped the side of the booth, digging her nails into the vinyl. White-hot pain tore through her fibers, freezing her in place.

“Pretty sharp fall off that 'ware, huh?” The suit smirked, plucking the shard from her pocket and turning it over in his fingers. “Must be a ride, feeling all that cortisol and adrenaline at once without blockers. I'm pleased to inform you that your contract has been terminated. Your company assets are hereby revoked, including those beautiful cybernetics. Even added a little viral juice, just for a traitorous little shit like you.” He traced the chip along the metal implants under her cheeks, pressing into them painfully. “Could even do the Director a favor and rip ‘em out entirely. A trophy.” 

“Hey now,” Jackie raised his voice, loud enough to be overheard. “I think you fellas mighta forgotten just how far from home you are.” He advanced toward them, opening his jacket enough to let the suits see the piece holstered inside. “Not sure this place is your style. ¿Queda claro? ”

The threat drew the attention of the club bouncers nearby, who twirled their colorful bats and prowled at the edges of the crowd, watchful. The Mox gang had owned Lizzie’s ever since their violent coup d’état from the last owner, and they didn’t fuck around with disruption to their business. Topknot scowled and stood, letting the chip scratch V’s face before tucking it inside his suit jacket.

“We have what we came for. Watch yourself.” Topknot jerked his head toward the exit to his colleague, and they left, the Mox trailing them out of the bar. 

Drenched and shivering from her seizure, V collapsed back into the seat and slid down onto her side. She felt Jackie’s hand on her shoulder, and turned to look at him through a gauzy, swirling haze.

“Hey, how you feel? You alright?” He shook her gently.

“Like shit.” The studio’s lights were dizzying, suddenly too bright. Everything hurt. She felt like vomiting, but couldn’t lift her head. Her optic feed scanned the damage to her body and resources. “Fuck. I just lost everything. They took it all. My cyberware, apartment, bank account. I have nothing.” 

Jackie squeezed her shoulder and patted the side of her face with a warm, wide hand. “Nah. Y’haven’t lost everything. Still got that wad in sittin’ in your bag, dumbass,” reaching over her, he grabbed the strap from under the table. “And you got your soul back from el diablo. That's somethin'. C’mon.”

V struggled to remain conscious, willing the darkness that clouded the edges of her vision to recede. Jackie slipped a hand under her waist and lifted her upright, throwing her arm over his shoulder. 

“Time to go home, hermana. Your new life starts now.” 

Chapter Text

The passing wails of sirens floated through the door behind them when Jackie dragged V across the threshold of his mother’s apartment, above the El Coyote Cojo bar. The pair of them were a sight, Jackie puffing with the effort of keeping V’s listless body from slipping off his shoulder, V’s toes dragging tracks across the brown carpet. Mama Welles started from the worn couch by the stairs, where she’d been dozing, and dashed over.

“¡Mijo! Jesucristo,” Mama looked V over and furrowed her brow. “Who’s this, ¿una borracha?”

Jackie grunted, shuffling them towards the stairs to the second floor. “V, Mamá. Mi amiga, you know—“ Mama raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth, but Jackie spoke over her. “Corpo fuckers robbed her blind, now she’s got cybersickness. We’re gonna fix her up good, get her back on her feet.” 

Mama tutted. “She looks half dead. I’ll get some food.”

“No, no, I - I’m fine.” V tried to protest, but dizziness prevented her from lifting her head. Jackie shushed her. 

“Bullshit. Mamá, V’s gonna be stayin’ here awhile. Come on, you're almost there.” They reached the top of the steps, and he kicked the door to a bedroom open with his boot. “¡Bienvenido a mi castillo! Home sweet home.”

V had never been to Jackie’s place before. They always met up at bars to swap stories and watch the dancers, talk about their plans to go make their mark on the world, maybe kill time taking bets on which tweakers would get kicked out first, or pick a fight outside the club. They never discussed families—V’s was gone anyhow—and she’d never thought to ask where he lived. It would have been easy to rib him about living with his Ma, if not for the fact that she was currently homeless.

They crossed the matted carpet and Jackie hefted her onto a small bed in the corner. His bedroom was cramped and untidy, littered with various trinkets. Much of it looked like it had been there since childhood; stickers of defunct bands were scattered across the mirror above an old sink, most of them partially torn off. Posters of half-dressed, bronzed BD stars who had last been popular in the 60’s were peeling off the walls, illuminated by the bar’s scarlet sign outside the window. V chewed the inside of her cheek. It was too intimate, somehow, to be surrounded by his things, like she was violating his privacy.

Too weak to sit up, V motioned vaguely toward the posters. “Nice girls there, Jackie. I see you have a type.”

She should be more grateful, but sarcasm always suited her best when she was uncomfortable. 

Jackie smiled sat down next to her, his leg warm against the side of her body. “Damn right. They haven’t made better since Lizzy Wizzy still had real skin.” He didn’t seem ashamed at all. Of course not, he never was. Unlike her, he always lived by his own rules.

She scoffed, putting a hand over her eyes and pulling at her temples with her fingertips. “Fuck, Jackie. The fuck am I gonna do? I don’t even have my clothes. Been spiked bad, can’t netrun for anyone like this.” She let out a shaky breath. “And your Ma...”

He lifted her hand away and took it in his, patting the tops of her knuckles. “Don’t worry about Mamá. She loves company. Makes her feel like someone’s watching my back so I don't end up rottin' in a dumpster like the rest of the Welles boys.” He put her hand down on the bed and stood, his frame dark against the red glow of the window. “Think about tomorrow later. You’re alive. More’n that fuckwit boss a’ yours can say right now.”

She shook her head. “His body, maybe. Bastard thought so much of himself he bought into that SoulSaver program shit, backed himself up into an AI construct weekly. Copy of him is probably sittin’ pretty in a Mikoshi database right now, waitin’ for them to puzzle out how to download him back out.”

“Lotta scratch, that. Standard for ‘Saka, or something?”

“You kiddin'? Made good eddies, but that shit’s out of my reach.”

“Guess I always thought—” he screwed up his mouth and grunted. “Agh, olvídalo. Anyway, I got ideas for work. Padre’s been buggin’ me 'bout working solo all the time. But it can wait for morning.”

He turned to leave, but V caught his hand. “Jackie, wait. Uh-” she paused, uncertain what to say. “Thanks. I owe you.”

He considered her for a moment, eyes inscrutable in the dark, then leaned to pull the covers over her shoulder. “Alright, chica. Time to sleep like a baby, ‘cuz tomorrow we’re takin’ you out. And then,” he grinned, “we’re gonna party.” 

***

V didn’t ask where Jackie got the clothes. Some old flame had left them behind at some point, probably. He had plenty of those. 

She grunted with annoyance, fiddling with the synth-leather jacket and jittery about their trip to some back alley ripperdoc. The damned zip was broken, and the shirt she wore underneath was both too low and too high at the same time. Not that she minded showing skin, but whoever owned it before didn’t seem to care about their tits falling out if they moved their arms too much. 

Jackie had greeted her that morning with a mock wolf whistle when she appeared from the bedroom, the borrowed wardrobe revealing most of the tattoos on her chest and belly. He was joking, as usual, and she had punched him in the arm in retaliation. But his eyes had lingered a little too long on the shirt. 

The zipper broke open again and she gave up, jogging across the pavement to catch up with Jackie, who was turning down a narrow street of squat shops on the south side of the Watson district. She sucked in her lip. The mix of coffee joints, BD sellers and diners wasn’t exactly what she had imagined when they had set out to fix her broken cybernetics. Looking over at Jackie from the corner of her eye, she crossed her arms to close the jacket. “So… where’re we going again, exactly?” 

“They fried your head good, right? Need a ripper with skills, so we’re gonna see the best.” Jackie stopped in front of a storefront with a darkened glass door, neon lights scrawling the store's name across the brick. A few totems on a blanket made a makeshift shrine on the cracked sidewalk beneath the window display. 

V read the sign aloud. “‘ Misty’s Esoterica and Chakra Harmonization .’” She looked at Jackie, incredulous. “You’re fucking with me, right? I’m supposed to, what, get my spirits aligned to netrun again?” 

He nudged her with his elbow and laughed. “Hey, let your hair out of that tight knot, I think it’s cuttin’ off your neurons.” Jackie pushed the shop’s door open, jingling some bells attached to the handle, and pushed her inside. “You’ll see.”

The inside of the store was suffocating. Candles covered altars littered with metal objects, and dimly lit, ornate paintings decorated the walls. A pungent mix of brass polish and herbs made V’s sinuses swell, adding to the room’s already claustrophobic atmosphere. A woman, draped in a loose sweater and sporting a spiked collar, was shuffling some cards at the register. She lifted her head at the door chime when they entered.

“Heya, Misty, how’s it hangin’?" Jackie strode up to the counter and leaned over it, fist on his chin. He seemed to know the woman well. “This is V. Gotta urgent case for Vik. He in?”

Misty gave him an enigmatic smile that only reached one side of her mouth. “Sure, Jackie, you know where to go.” She lifted her dark, shadowed eyes to V, and held her gaze. Like the rest of the store, it was slightly unsettling. “Welcome, V, I’m glad you’re here. I’ll read your tarot for free, sometime, if you like.” She snapped a few cards down onto the table. The face of one depicted a metal skeleton, its mouth agape in a scream. Cables blew out from its neck and it gripped a blackened shard, almost crushing it. Misty looked down at the card and hummed.

V shoved her hands in her pockets and tried to sound sincere for Jackie’s sake. “Tarot? Uh, sure. Yeah, that’d be great.” 

Jackie said goodbye to Misty and led V through the shop’s back door, into a cloistered alleyway. A few junkies looked up from their perch on a stoop, not bothering to hide their needles. One of them threw a can onto the pile of garbage overflowing from the dumpster, and some sort of liquid splattered across V’s shoes. Her lip curled in disgust. Between the spooky reception and the stinking alley, she was starting to question Jackie’s judgement. Dread twisted her gut as they descended down a ramp that led under the building.

“Interesting place. You know ‘em a long time, or something?” V grit her teeth to bite back further comment.

“Misty? Yeah, grew up on the streets together, runnin’ around Heywood. Chat from time to time when I have to pop into Vik’s for maintenance, she lets him use her shop as a front. Nice girl. Gives a good readin’, you should try sometime.” At the bottom of the ramp, he wrenched open an iron gate. “Alright, this is Vik’s. Vamanos.”

The basement clinic was clean, but bare. A few sheets of plastic and a single halogen fixture hung from the concrete ceiling above the operation chair, and metal storage shelves lined the back walls, in the dark. It was well-equipped for an independent, back alley ripperdoc. The corporate offices of her old doc had been more appealing to the eye, modeled after sophisticated Japanese spas and carefully constructed to hide the gruesome details of body modification. But while Vik’s shop was lacking in style, there was no denying his equipment was top-of-the line. 

Vik himself wasn’t what she expected either. An affable, middle-aged man, he might have been a corpo-rat like her, once, judging by his clothes. But he had a warmth to him that was rare in the biz, which might have explained why he was hidden in Watson’s backstreets and not a plastic onsen . Vik and Jackie shadowboxed each other playfully, by way of greeting. 

“‘Hey Doc! Got a tough one for ya,” Jackie said, thumping V on the shoulder. “This here’s V, special new client. Got a good zap from her former employer.” He tapped his temple for emphasis.

Vik took her hand and shook it firmly. “Pleasure. Let’s see what we can do, eh? Have a seat.” Jackie wandered over to watch some prizefighting match on the holo by Vik’s desk, and she wished he’d come back, but she wasn’t about to ask him to hold her hand like some child.

Instead she set her mouth and addressed Vik. “Sure, thanks Doc.” The flood of light under the halogen fixture made her sweat as she climbed onto the cracked leather of the operation chair. Motorized restraints whirred into place, strapping down her head and arms. She tried to breathe through her nose, hoping Vik was as good as his equipment.

Vik sat on his stool and rolled over, tugging the sharp metal points of his ripperclaw over his fingers. For a while, he picked at her facial implants with the claw’s needles, looking for signs of burnout. Murmuring something to himself, he grabbed a scanner and gently jacked it into the neural port behind her ear. V closed her eyes and tried not to grip the arms of the chair.

At last, Vik seemed to be satisfied. “Okay, kid,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “it’s not that bad. Musta sent the featherweights after ya, the viral spike to your system was sloppy. Just a sec, this won’t hurt a bit.” He adjusted some dials on the scanner, the steel points of the ripperclaw rapping on the screen. Jackie returned from the desk and stood behind him, hand on one hip. 

“Should be able to breach that terminal now.” Vik released the restraints and pointed toward a small vending machine on the far side of the room. “Go on, give it a shot.” 

V sat up and held her breath. She brought her scanner up on her optics, and to her relief, sliced through the machine’s firewall with ease, producing three beers from its belly for free. Her stomach flipped with excitement, but it was Jackie who whooped, punching the air like a schoolboy who won the yard fight.

“Back in biz, baby! Vik, mi hermano, you’re a life saver.” He turned to V and took her face in his hands, giving her an exaggerated kiss on the forehead with a smack. “Tonight, we celebrate!”

Chapter Text

“No fuckin’ way. No , Jackie!” V shoved Jackie in the shoulder, knocking him back against the stools of El Coyote Cojo’s bar. A stack of glasses behind him rattled with the impact. Pepe, the barkeep and Mama’s “amigo especial,” as Jackie put it, looked up from wiping the old wooden countertop and rolled his eyes at them.

“Come on, chica, everybody knows the best cure for gettin’ handed a load of shit is a good ride.” Jackie smacked his lips and grabbed another bottle of beer off the bar. He pointed to a hightop table in the corner. “What about one of those, then?”

Through the smokey haze, some skinny Valentino boys were chattering and comparing their chrome. They couldn’t have been older than twenty, and their bursts of loud sniggering could be heard clear across the hall, even over the deep base of the bar’s music. V took a swig of her drink. “You’re joking. You usually have better taste, Jackie.”

He knocked the bottle cap off with the edge of the bar and leaned back, smirking. “Hey, young men. They have the stamina, you know.”

“Stamina, maybe. But not the skill. Besides,” she hopped up on the stool next to him so she didn’t have to shout, “thought you said we were gonna party tonight. Getting disappointed by some gonk kid isn’t my idea of a fiesta, Jack.”

“Fiesta? Nah, V. Tonight, we’re celebratin’ a funeral.”

She gave him a sidelong glance. “What? Whose?”

“Yours, hermana,” he swept his arm outward across the room, thumb and forefinger around the neck of his drink. “Adios to the old life, welcome in the new. Don’t need much. Just beer, some tequila, and an ofrenda.”

“An... ofrenda.”

Jackie crossed his arms in mock seriousness. “Sí claro. Gotta leave your offering to the dearly departed. But first,” reaching back behind the bar, he grabbed a fifth of tequila and two shot glasses, pouring out a drink for each of them, “we get good and liquored up. It’s tradition.” He passed one over and toasted her. “Salud.”

“Salud.” V raised her glass and downed her shot, coughing at the hot liquid burning her throat. It wasn’t a good idea to have liquor after several beers, but who could say no to a toast like that? For all his jokes, Jackie had an underlying sincerity about him that made people want to play along, and she was no exception. 

“Funerals I’ve been to aren’t anythin’ like that. Was always stuffy coats and hushed whispers over who was gonna get the eddies.” V gave a derisive sniff at the memory. “So, what else you do at a funeral around here?”

“Find some toto to drown your sorrows with,” he returned to his game with a devlish grin and lifted his finger again, indicating a lone man at the end of the bar. He craned his neck to whisper into her ear, his voice rumbling in his chest. “That one? Not so flaco, hm? Looks like he works out."

His breath against her neck sent a shiver down her spine. “Fuck’s sake!” She slammed down her shot glass a little too hard. A few of the Valentinos paused their boyish giggling to look over. “Fine. I’ll go flame out at the end of the bar for your entertainment, if afterward you promise to leave it alone and let me drink away my problems like every other asshole in here.”

“Flame out!? Not in that top. Should take off the jacket.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, the fuckin' tease.

“Oh, fuck off.”

The stranger sat by the mirror at the far corner of the bar, sipping some honey-colored liquor. Irritated by Jackie’s egging on and flushed from the alcohol, V stomped over and planted herself on the other side of him, but miscalculated her landing and nearly fell off the stool. To recover, she slapped the bar with a flat palm.

“Pepe! Two tequilas for me and my new friend, here.”

The man looked up from his drink, clinking the ice against the glass. Now that she was closer, his features were more clear. He wasn’t half-bad looking, actually. Kind of handsome even, and the fine laugh lines around the corners of his mouth meant he probably had more experience than the whole gaggle of hotshots at the hightop table combined. Maybe Jackie had better taste tonight than she thought.

“Sorry, do I know you?” he said, looking her over.

“No,” she took the two shots Pepe brought over and shoved one toward him, “but I have a bet to talk to you so my choom will leave me and my ‘toto’ the fuck alone.” She grabbed a lime out of a container on the countertop and squeezed it into her drink, the juice running down over the side of the glass. “It’s my special day.”

“What’s the occasion?”

“My funeral. I’m dead.” She lifted her eyes to his and stirred the shot with her finger. It was getting hot in the bar, and the music sounded fuzzy and distant. Funny, it had been so loud just a minute ago. Maybe Pepe turned it down. With her other hand, she pulled at her jacket absently, fanning air onto her skin. And the ridiculous titty-top she'd borrowed underneath it.

He glanced down—just for a moment—and chuckled. “Sorry to hear that. What happened?”

“Motherfuckin’ corpos took everything. My whole life. Now I’m mooching off my choom and his Ma. Woke up with a hot AV ride to work and went to bed a goddamned nobody. A corpse.”

“Oof, sounds rough,” he cocked his head with a pitying expression and took a sip of his drink. “Y’know, this one time I was suspended from my job for a while. Unpaid. Got in trouble with the higher ups over some stupid technicality,” one corner of his mouth turned down slightly and he leaned his elbows on the counter. “Anyway, lost my apartment and needed to stay with a friend until things got better. It bites you in the ass, situation like that. But when I got back on my feet, first thing I did was pay him back.” He picked up the shot glass of tequila and raised it to her. “You’ll do it too.”

V chewed on his words, still stirring her drink. “Thanks,” she said finally, raising her glass in return. “That’s… actually kinda nice.”

A gruff older man walked up behind them and called out. “Ward. Got what I needed. Let’s go.”

“Okay, Han. One sec.” V’s new companion pulled out some cash and tucked it under his glass, then turned back to her, apologetic. “Gotta go. Pleasure meeting you. Take care, and happy funeral.” He gave her a final half-smile, and left.

V watched him walk out the front door of El Coyote. He was taller than she’d realized, now that he was standing. Shame he had to leave, she hadn’t bombed quite so hard as expected. Jackie’s stupid wingman game might’ve been fun after all. Her eyes were still on the door when Jackie sauntered over and clapped her on the shoulders, nearly jolting her back off the stool.

“Not half bad, mamacita… for someone half-drunk,” he joked, sliding an arm over her shoulder. “Managed to keep your ass on the seat, at least." He paused, looking out toward the door, and she swore he might have pulled her a little closer. "So, gonna meet him later?”

Shit, she’d never asked for a name. What had his friend called him? Warner, or something. No, it had been one syllable. Walsh? Maybe it didn’t start with a “W” at all. She put her head in her hands. “Fuck! I didn’t flick him my detes.”

“You dumbass,” Jackie laughed and tugged on her arm. “Come on, I got somethin’ for ya.”

They wound past the delivery crates at the back of the bar, V trailing at a stumble, and emerged into a storage room. The door closed behind them, dampening the music. He plucked two of his favorite beers from the shelves and picked up a crinkled paper bag off the floor. A black sleeve hung out of the top of it.

“Tell me that’s some proper clothes,” V said, “it’s fuckin’ boiling in here. I hate this fuckin’ thing.” She tore off the broken jacket, but lost her balance when she threw it behind her, and it crashed into a stack of plates.

“Geez—¡Aguas, V!” Jackie dropped his things and reached out to steady her, catching her by the waist. 

V shivered at the touch on her bare skin. It had been forever since she’d been with someone. Her work at Arasaka had kept her too busy and stressed out for sex. Another joy they had extracted from her life.

The air was close in the dim room, and quiet. Beyond the door, people were laughing in the beer hall over some unheard joke. Jackie shifted his feet with a soft swish of fabric, and his expression changed as his thumbs ran over her ribs, sending a bolt through her chest. She recognized that look from the times they played wingmen for each other at Lizzie’s or some other club. His mouth always parted like that - the small space under the bow of his lip opening, the tip of tongue just behind his teeth - right before he was about to take a girl home.

She ran her hands over his arms. Sure, she and Jack flirted all the time. But it was harmless banter and never went really anywhere, though in the muffled dark of the storage room she couldn’t recall why. Maybe it was the liquor, or courage from the half-successful conquest at the bar, but in that moment, some fun with Jackie seemed like a great idea.

“Y’know, Jack,” she reached up and pushed him lightly on the shoulder, backing him against the shelves, “you’re the one who told me to take the jacket off.”

“Mm,” he sucked air in through his teeth and slid his hands down to her hips. "I did."

Closing the gap between them, she stuck her leg between his knees, forcing a sharp exhale from him. “So, y’know, that’s kinda your fault," she murmured. "That and the tequila, ‘course.”

“Right,” he paused, looking at her flushed face. “The tequila.” Jackie dropped his hands and huffed, puffing out his cheeks. “Hey, hermana," he said, putting on his usual broad smile and nodding his head toward the door, "your party’s waitin’ for ya outside. We should go.” 

V stepped back, suddenly aware of how cramped the storage room was.  “Right, yeah.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “Yeah, let’s go.”

***

Outside, it was cooler. A fog had descended with the night air, obscuring most of the alleyway behind the bar, except for a steel barrel that was burning bits of cardboard and rubbish. Jackie walked over to it and opened the two beers he’d carried outside. He handed one to V.

"What's this?" she asked, peeking in the barrel. 

“Your ofrenda,” he said, pleased with himself. “Time to bury that corpo-rat with a stick up her ass.” He passed her the paper bag he’d collected from the storage room and gestured for her to open it. V reached inside and pulled out her work clothes, the ones she’d been wearing when she met Jackie at Lizzie's. She hesitated, breath catching in her throat. 

“You gotta do the honors,” he urged, waving his hand toward the fire. "An offering."

The fabric was still starchy and stiff. They were impractical clothes, more meant to be impressive than comfortable, and had cost a small fortune. It was the last piece of her life with Arasaka, where she had sacrificed so much of herself, only to be left with nothing. V twisted it in her hands. She’d never work in corporate again, Arasaka's intel group would make sure of that. She’d have to start over, find a new place, a new job, a new car. A new life. She looked up at Jackie, who was smiling at her expectantly. At least it would be her life.

She grit her teeth and threw the clothes into the fire.

Jackie clapped his hands together. In the growing darkness, the fire painted his face in flickering shades of auburn. “Oughta say somethin’ to the departed.” He poured some of his beer into the burning barrel, and the flames licked up, reaching out for his hand. “For my choom V, may she ride free into her next life.”

Whatever came next, she was grateful Jackie would be there. V raised her own bottle and clinked it against his.  “To this,” she said, and chucked it into the fire.

“ ‘To this? '  Was that a toast?” He scoffed, shaking his head. “The hell does that even mean? Sheesh. Waste of good beer.”

V ignored his protests and put her head on his shoulder. “Shut up, ‘hermano.’” 

Jackie looked down at her, tutted affectionately, and slung an arm across her back. The heat from the fire swirled the fog above them into shifting tendrils, lazily reaching for the sky. They stood there, watching the barrel burn, long after the clothes had charred and disappeared.

When she climbed into bed that night, V swore to herself that once she got back on her feet, she’d pay him back, first thing.

Chapter Text

Jackie adjusted his holster for the tenth time. Or maybe eleventh. V had lost count. He was always superstitious, but today was worse than usual. He’d stopped a dozen times on the way out to touch his lucky necklace, read from his lucky book, adjusted his jacket just so, until V finally told him to cut it out. Usually, these little rituals seemed to put him at ease. But even though he’d made V touch the worn crucifix above the apartment’s threshold that morning, he was clearly still vibrating out of his skin. He hadn’t even eaten anything before they left to meet his gig fixer, Padre.

V had to jog to keep up with him as he strode past the abandoned tenements projects of East Row. Graffiti covered the pitted facades, half-obscured by weeds creeping up the brick, a testament to the failure of some gonk philanthropist’s bright idea to fix crime. It was sunny out, at least, so there was less danger of ambush from the vagrant colonies that peppered the gutted frames. 

Still, it was good turf for a fixer. The dark, windowless openings of the upper floors had long sight lines down the block, perfect for scouts. It’d be hard to get close unless you were invited.

Jackie started to go over their plan again as they walked. “Alright, hermana, you follow my lead. El Padre’s a tough piece o’ leather...” 

 “Jesus, Jackie, I know. Slow down a little, will ya?” V huffed and reached forward, grabbing his shoulder to give it a shake. “Relax. We got this. We’ll get the job. ‘Sides, don’t you already get gigs from Padre? You said he knows you.”

“Knows me, chica, not you. And he don’t like outsiders much, ‘specially corpos. Even former ones.”  He looked back at V over his shoulder. “...We’ll talk around that. Maybe you’re from outta town. New Mexico or somethin’, or whatever the fuck they call themselves there now. Anyway, we’ll get you in.”

V raised her eyebrows. That explained his agitation all morning—he was worried about getting her the work, not himself. 

He went on. “Padre likes duos, been telling me to partner up forever. Easier to control infightin’ on big jobs if y’already work together. Do this right, better gigs come our way.” He clapped his hands together. “Got your piece?”

 “ Yes, Jackie.” She put her hand over the pistol on her hip. In truth she wasn’t used to packing. There wasn’t much need to as a netrunner, most of the time, but in places like East Row it was a necessity. “C’mon, you’re actin’ like I’m some gonk kid off the street, picking up her first piece of iron. May not be a merc edgerunner like you, yet, but I did good work at Arasaka.”

 He shushed her. “¡Carajo, V! Don’t mention that. Low profile - we’re here.” 

 They rounded the corner of a large derelict building. It had been a school once, before  the city shut down the Education Boards to save taxpayer money, supposedly. The rusted chain link fence still enclosed the ball yard, though the court was gone. An elderly man in a clergyman’s collar sat on the old bleachers at the back, reading something on a terminal, surrounded by his hired muscle. The brick wall behind him was painted with the image of a ram’s skull, its teeth splitting, vomiting roses.

 Jackie straightened his back and barged through the rusted gate. “Padre!” His voice was friendly, but strained, too loud as he strode across the courtyard, arms wide. “Been a little while, eh? Heard you got a gig ‘needs a team, thought we could help you out.”

Padre’s men stepped forward to block their path, but the fixer waived them aside. His eyes moved to V, trailing at Jackie’s back. “Who are you.” It was more of a statement than a question. 

 “Who, this?” Jackie laughed and grasped the back of his neck. “Mi compa, Padre, real talent with runnin’, if you know what I mean. Thought maybe she could help with the job. Y’know, slice a few cameras, do it real clean, like.” 

 Padre ignored him. “And where are you from, Señora?” His voice was quiet and formal, but cutting. He didn’t seem the type of man for bullshit. Lying about her background wasn’t going to work. They needed to change tactics.

 “Ah, see -” Jackie began, but V stepped forward to cut him off.

 “Westbrook, Padre. Originally.” Behind her, Jackie groaned and threw his hands up in the air.

 Padre raised an eyebrow. “Nice part of town for an edgerunner.”

 “Didn’t stay there long. Relatives took my inheritance, skipped to Atlanta.” 

He put his terminal down. “And?”

“Ended up in the Vista for a while, scrounging for work. Then Japantown, until recently.” 

“Ah. So, you’re a corpo.” The priest’s expression didn’t change, but the men around him adjusted the grips on their guns.

Backing down now would do no good. V needed this gig, or else she’d be bussing tables at El Coyote and crashing in Jackie’s room forever. She crossed her arms. “Was. Didn’t know anything else. Tried to scrabble my way back. Didn’t work, got fucked twice as hard the second time.” 

Padre frowned. “And now you want to tell me you’ve learned your lesson.”

“No, wanna tell you I’d choke the life out of ‘em all if I could. But I can’t. So I’m here.”

Padre paused and considered her words. His stillness was unnerving, like a coiled snake. “Your experience.”

“Corporate intelligence, a Blackwall skimmer. Arasaka.” V tapped her foot. She was getting impatient with the endless line of questions. A hot rush of her temper ballooned in her chest. “Look, you seem like a man who prefers proof over talk. So let me prove it to you. You don’t like my work, I won’t come here again. Just don’t blame Jackie if I fuck up.” 

Padre tipped his chin in the air and looked around the courtyard, steepling his fingers in front of the crucifix tattoo on his throat. He addressed Jackie. “Tu amiga no tiene pelos en la lengua.” Jackie shrugged. 

“Marcus, the brief, please.” Padre crooked his finger at a large man nearby, who pulled a datashard from his pocket and handed it to V. “This man has important stolen information on his person. My client requires it back. The thief frequents the San Angel in the Vista to make his exchanges. He will be there tonight, to pass it to his contact. Jaquito vouches for you, so I will give you this chance.”

Jackie broke in, slinging his arm across V’s shoulder. “Ah see, Padre, knew you’d like her! You won’t regret this. We’ll be back with the goods, you’ll see. ¡Ahí luego!”

Padre returned to his reading. “Go with God.”

Jackie spun them both toward the exit and marched across the court through the gate. Once they were out of sight, he let out a long, exasperated breath, and squeezed her face with the crook of his arm. “Hijo de la chingada, hermana. Not how I usually run with Padre.”

V snorted and shoved him off. “It worked, didn’t it? He wasn’t gonna buy some shit ‘bout how I grew up in New Mexico, Jack.  Never even been there, what was I gonna say? It’s hot?”

“Agh, fine.” He put his hands behind his head. “But we better be good or both of us gonna be suckin’ our food through straws.”

“Hey, ain’t gonna let that happen, right?” She smiled, and punched him on the arm. “We get the job done, we get the scratch, I’m one step closer to getting out of you and Mama’s hair. The dirty eddies from Arasaka aren’t gonna get me an apartment on their own.”

He cocked his head to the side to look at her. “That eager to go already? Damn, I thought we were chooms.” 

“You know what I mean.” They hadn’t talked about V’s little stunt in the storage room, but when she had woken up in his bed the morning after, hungover and alone, she had fumed at herself for being such a gonk. They were friends, and she was in a bad place after losing everything. Didn’t even have her own bed, and now they were in biz as mercs together. Mixing that with pleasure was a bad idea. Even if it was tempting. 

“Oh, ¿es verdad?” He turned to look at her, walking backwards, and gave her an impish grin. “So, San Angel. That a club?”

She popped the shard into the port behind her ear and checked the info. “Looks like. Brief says the target likes to use the XBD private rooms to pass his goods. I jack the cams, you grab the stash. We get there a little early, I’ll have time to set up.”

Jackie stretched his arms above him. “Nova. I’m fuckin’ starvin’. Let’s eat first.”

Chapter Text

“Motherfuck!” 

V snapped her ICEpick terminal shut and shoved it into her pocket, racing out into the hallway. She checked the building map on her scanner and shouted into the coms.

“Jackie, cut off the front, go!” 

This was bad. Barely a few weeks into mercwork, and their target was escaping. She didn’t have nearly enough street cred to recover from a fuckup like this.

It should’ve been easy. The skinny little gonkbrain had been stupid enough to wait for his client in some shithole club wearing a BD wreath, dead to the world, the case holding the dirty cash by his side. She’d picked the cameras perfectly, sliced right through the half-brained security to erase their faces from the cams and blackout the feed. But Skinny had woken up from whatever sick flick he was watching as Jackie was slipping the case from under his fingers, and made a break for it with the goods.

She vaulted down the stairs and drew her pistol, cursing herself as she fumbled with the safety. She really should have fucking practiced this shit more. Ahead of her, the target skittered across the broken tile flooring and slammed into a doorway. The safety finally clicked, and she took a shot, splintering the wall next to him. He dashed around the corner, out of sight. 

“C’mon, Jackie, where are you? He’s—agh—the side exit!”

“Mierde, I’m goin’!”

Rounding the corner, panting, she spotted the target at the end of the hall, slipping out the door. Her second round shattered the glass from the frame, and she jumped through it, following him out into the side alley. Only way out was up the side of the building to the street, but she wasn’t fast enough to catch up in time. For such a bony fucker, he was quick.

“Fuckin’,” she huffed, “stop!”

Skinny Bones reached the dumpsters, he was nearly to the street now. She took aim again, hands shaking. Jackie appeared at the end of the alleyway as she fired and the shot ricocheted off the brick. 

“¡Que chingado, V!” Jackie ducked the fragments spraying off the wall as he barreled into the target, crashing into the metal containers with a bang. The case went flying across the alley into the piles of uncollected garbage, and V rushed over to fish it out, her fingers slipping over the greasy film that coated everything.  

“Got it!” She held the case in the air over her head like a trophy at a prize match, then snatched it back down, feeling foolish. She wasn’t used to this kind of work. Normally netrunners like her ran intel off the field, it wasn’t their job to fire at moving targets. She looked back toward the dumpsters—the two men were tangled up, splashing in a pool of collected rainwater. “Hey! You okay?”

Jackie groaned, scrabbling up from his knees and holding his shoulder. He pulled his piece out of his jacket and aimed it at the tiny man, who was curled up, whimpering on the ground. V almost felt sorry for him, Jackie had to have been twice his size.

“Nothin’ personal, compa. Just biz. Best not mess around Heywood for a while.” Jackie sniffed, and backed away toward the street. In the distance, sirens and the thumping of a helo approached from overhead. “Right. Chica, time to move.” V jogged after him with the goods, attempting and failing to reholster her gun.

When she caught up, Jack was gripping his shoulder again. His jacket sleeve was damaged with a large tear below the seam. Blood oozed between his fingers. 

“Jesus, what the fuck happened?”

He grimaced. “Bullet.”

Fuck. She’d shot him.

***

“No, you’re gonna do what I say,” V shoved the door of the Welles’ apartment open and threw the case on the couch. Jackie was protesting, but she dragged him upstairs to his room and sat him on the bed. “Stay there, I’m gonna get somethin’ for it.” 

She swore, stomping back through the apartment. Barely a month’s worth of gigs and she’d already put a bullet through her partner’s arm. Well, it was the ricochet that had pierced him, but what was the difference, really? 

The first job had made her overconfident. Klepping the shard for Padre had been a breeze, no harder than hacking a cab. All it took was a quick pick of the target’s ICE and a swap of the shard while he was on the shitter. Jack didn’t even need to get involved on that one, and Padre had deigned to give her a few more small jobs as a reward. But she’d neglected gunwork, stupidly figuring she wouldn’t need it—after all, that’s what Jack was for. She chewed the inside of her lip. Maybe she could find some underground military training protocols to upload, but the cost would set her back even further. 

In the kitchen she washed the grease from her hands, scrubbing it from her fingernails with a pungent soap that cracked the skin, then set to finding a dressing for Jackie's injury. Utensils clattered as she rifled through the drawers, slamming them open and shut. 

“V? ¿Qué pasó?” 

V jumped and spun around. Mama was in the doorway, holding ledgers from the bar in her hand. She always seemed to be awake when they got home, no matter how late it was.

“Mama, sorry. Got a medkit somewhere? Jackie got a, uh,” V looked aside, thumbing the broken handle of a cabinet drawer, unable to meet her eyes. “A good cut,” she finished.

“Mm.” Mama tilted her head, and the papers ruffled as she pointed behind her. “Back of the cabinet, there. You need help?”

“No, no, I got it. He’s fine. I’ll take him to Vik’s tomorrow.” V knelt and reached for the box, tucked behind some old synthmeat cans.

Folding her arms, Mama leaned against the worn counter, which always bowed slightly in the middle. “Glad there’s someone to look out for my Jaquito these days. He has a strong head, but been going solo too long. Never knew if he’d come home in a box from his enemies, or his so-called business partners.” 

V flinched as she smacked her head on the cabinet. “Right, yeah,” she cleared her throat as she stood up, rubbing the bump. “I got his back, Mama. Get him home in one piece, promise.” 

Mama reached out to touch V’s shoulder. “I believe you will. Gracias, mija,” she said, leaning back to let V squeeze past her. 

V trudged back up the steps, her stomach knotted with guilt. A fine fuckin’ guest she was turning out to be. Mama had accepted V into their lives with unusual ease ever since she’d arrived at the Welles home. Maybe she liked the company, or maybe she was just glad that Jackie wasn’t bringing home some new puta with a penchant for low necklines. But whatever it was, she took a shine to V, plying her with beer from the bar, or checking in to see if her head was right after visits to Vik’s. V wasn’t used to such familial treatment—even when her own mother was alive, she’d never been warm—and didn’t quite know what to do with it. She felt indebted, like every kindness from Mama increased what she needed to pay back. Add accidentally shooting her son to the score.

In his room, Jackie had changed out of his damp clothes and was sitting on the bed, daubing the blood with an old shirt. Pulsing beats from the bar's music downstairs rattled the open window, and some drunk in the alley was cackling and singing to himself. V crossed the room and pulled down the sash to stifle the noise, then reached into the desk drawer to fish out a clean pair of pants and a shirt. 

"Look at the wall a sec," she said.

Jackie cocked his head. "¿De qué hablas?"

She held up the clothes. "I dug through half-finished Yakisoba for that case. I'm filthy."

A smirk flitted across his lips, and he leaned over his knees, legs wide. "What, and make me miss the view?" 

She shot him a look, and he held her eyes for a moment, looking up at her from under his brows in a way that made her rub her thighs together, before turning his head to the side.

When she finished tugging on the clean clothes, she sat down on the mattress next to him. It sunk in the middle under their weight, making her slide toward him until their legs touched, warm through the soft fabric.

Pulling out a stim and some bandages, she snatched away his makeshift rag to examine the wound. The bullet had cut across the deltoid, drawing a raw, jagged line. She exhaled, puffing out her cheeks. At least it wasn’t too deep.

“Seriously couldn’t wait for somethin’ clean?” The stim canister hissed as she pressed its needles into his skin.

“Ay, that stings!” 

“C’mon, can’t be the first time some chick shot you. Heard about some of your old outputs,” she joked, but it fell flat. It was better to leave the clever quips to Jackie, who always seemed to find the humor in everything. V sighed, contrite, and tossed the emptied canister across the room toward a rusted waste bin, where it bounced off the rim. “Sorry, I fucked up. Not a great go.”

“Nah, this?” he said, relaxing with the effects of the numbing agent. “Had worse. Not the smoothest job, not the bumpiest either. Shoulda seen this one time with the Valentinos, ‘fore I left. We were just a bunch of chamacos with too much fire in our guts and too little to do then. Shoot-out with some Borgs left me with three brand-new breathin’ holes. Was payin’ dues to Trauma Team for years after that stunt. Mira.” He pulled down his shirt, pointing to three gnarled scars that circled his heart. A tattoo of the Sagrado Corazon surrounded them, its black thorns cut through with the Valentino gang’s mark, the letter V.

She stared at the scars. How did she not know about this before? They had spent so much time together, jabbering about big plans, partying, drinking. Yet for all that talk she had no idea he’d come so close to death. Jackie always said growing up in Heywood was rough, but with his flair for dramatics, she never took it that seriously. Figured he meant street brawls, maybe a run-in or two with the NCPD. Not getting slugs in his chest.

Jackie nudged her from her thoughts. “Qué, never seen me with my shirt off? Could fix that, y’know.” He winked, letting go of the collar with a grin. “Don’t worry about me, chica, I’m bulletproof. Even from you. Three shots, zero hit? Way you swing your balls around Padre, figured you were better for it.”

A hot flush crept into V’s cheeks. She busied herself with the bandage, smoothing the tape over his skin.

“Yeah, well, why d’ya think I tried to hire you? Not cuz my trigger finger’s got practice. Got no use for iron in cyberspace. AI don’t bleed.” 

“Ever met one? An AI, I mean.””

Finished with dressing the wound, V leaned back against the wall behind the bed, pulling one knee up to her chest. “If I had I wouldn’t be talking to you. Seen some colleagues get ripped right out of their brains. Scrambled into drooling meat. Never went beyond the Blackwall if that’s what you’re askin’, just up to it, where net data leaks through the holes.” He raised his eyebrows, but she shook her head. “Can’t do that for us. Need a Well to keep me cool. Shit’s expensive. Stuck doing petty ICE breaches for now,” she turned her head toward him, resting her cheek on her knee, “and accidentally shooting my chooms.” 

Jackie shifted back next to her, his hip brushing hers. He reached for her hair, but instead of ruffling it, tucked it behind her ear and let his fingers trail over the back of her neck. Her skin prickled at the touch. 

“Petty? Hey, lo hiciste bien,” he said, tipping his head to the side to lower it. “Job’s done. Only thing what matters to fixers. So we work out the detes next time, big deal. Soon enough, you an’ I are gonna be legends. Gotta good feelin’ about us—we gotta kinda chemistry, y’know?” 

Jackie’s confidence was sweet, but V wasn’t so sure. Merc life had been so much harder than it seemed. Always scraping for the next gig, putting their lives on the line for a few eddies. And she could have killed him because of some skinny little nobody with a case full of cash. They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the distant sounds of revelry from the bar below.

“Oye, V—” he started, his voice low and throaty, but she spoke over him at the same time.

“Jack, I dunno what the hell I’m doing. I’m not used to—” V waved her hand in the air, unable to find the words, “To all this,” she finished, and scoffed at herself. “Was honestly easier when I paid for your drinks.” 

He straightened, looking up at the peeling paint on the walls, and withdrew his hand. “Guess you’re a long way from Westbrook and Corpo Plaza. Thought you wanted outta that viper pit.”

“I did. Do. ‘S’just,” she rubbed her hands over her face. “It was simpler to come out on top.”

“You weren’t on top," he said, crossing his arms. A faint line appeared between his eyebrows. "Saburo Arasaka was, and you were the pendeja keepin’ him there. If y’ask me – work for yourself, live for yourself. That’s the only way.” 

She sighed. He made it sound so easy. “Don’t have a choice, anyway,” she said, shimmying to the end of the mattress to collect the medical supplies. “You should rest. Stay in here tonight. I’ll pay for Vik’s tomorrow." She dumped the medkit on the desk and turned back to face him. His frame filled the tiny bed, too large for this cramped, cluttered space. He had one foot on the floor and was bouncing his leg.

"Make it up to you next time," she  promised.

“Alright, next time,” Jackie leaned back, putting his hand behind his head, and cracked his usual smile. Though it didn’t quite reach his eyes this time. “Partner.”

Downstairs it was quiet. Mama must have gone to bed already, which was strange, since she usually checked in on Jackie first. V shoved the case off the couch, wiping up the slime with a towel from the kitchen, and flopped down on it, her arm flung over her eyes. She thought of Jackie's disapproving frown, the coolness of the skin on her neck when he drew away his hand, and an electric pang jolted in her chest. It was a shit idea to bring up her old life, she had sounded ungrateful. She should apologize later.

V was nodding off when a call from an unknown number came in on her optics. She picked up, disgruntled at the timing.

“What.” She pinched the skin on her nose, voice terse with irritation.

“This is V?”

“Who’s askin’?”

 “Heard you know corps. Got a job for you, if you’re interested.”

Chapter Text

“Who the fuck is this? What do you want?”

V paced tracks into the carpet of the living room, hissing into the com to avoid waking anyone else. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. She’d been keeping a low profile ever since she left Arasaka, erasing herself from security logs on gigs, only making transactions in cash. Poke out her neck too far, and ‘Saka’s goons might decide she was worth flatlining after all, or worse, take down Jackie and Mama with her. Yet for all her careful steps, someone had found her. 

The caller, an older woman with a Shitamachi accent and a crisp plunging dress, had an easy confidence, her speech punctuated by languid drags on a tobacco pipe. She didn’t even bother to blackout her camera feed. Behind a grand mahogany desk, the feet of a brass dragon on the wall framed her sharp-cornered shoulders. 

“Easy now, sweet,” she said, elegantly painted fingernails curled around the pipe bowl, “just want to talk. My client needs a netrunner.”

V hated her already. “Don’t have anythin’ to say to people who poke around my personal history without askin’, obaasan,"  she spat. "Got a fixer already. Plenty of solos for rent around.”

“Not with skill in skimming for corps.” Obaasan rasped as she took another draw of smoke. 

“Dunno what you're talkin' about.” V snapped the words, tongue taut in her mouth, hands curled into fists. 

“Ah, so it is true.” She barked a laugh, sharp and short. “Word gets around fixers, dear. Or didn’t you know?” 

Fuck, Padre. V cursed herself. She’d been too honest with him in trying to win him over, blurted out her whole background in a yard full of his gangers. She hadn’t considered that it would spread to other fixers, or put her name beyond Heywood’s borders. Stupid. And this particular fixer was way too close to Corpo Plaza. Granny had Japantown written all over her.

“Don’t be so childish, dear. It pays well, I assure you. Some very influential people are interested in your talents. And we won’t let your friends at Arasaka find out,” she blew another billow out her nose, covering the screen. “Of course.”

Granny wasn't with Arasaka, then. V glanced around the apartment. The dented case, still slick from her barely successful heist, was on its side on the floor. She and Jackie would only get a fraction of the cash in it when they brought it to Padre tomorrow, and most of her share would go to paying Vik to fix up Jackie’s shoulder. A job that used her real skills as a ‘runner could help her pay back her mounting debts, maybe get her own place and stop relying on the Welles just to eat. If she did, she and Jackie could be equals again, true partners. She thought of the shape of his mouth in the dim light of the storage room. Maybe more than partners, if she could stand on her own.

“Who’s the client?” It wouldn’t hurt to ask, at least.

The woman's smile deepened the creases around her mouth, and she leaned into a high-backed chair. “Government.” 

“Really not gonna give me more than that?” Heat rose up V's neck at Granny's vague overtures. Padre may have been an ornery old devil-dodger, but at least he was no bullshit. He gave details up front.

“You haven’t taken the job. Unlike some, my clients pay for privacy. It will be reflected in your take.” She looked straight into the camera. “More than enough to put you back on your feet.”

“I have a partner.” It wasn’t likely Jackie would be thrilled to work for some politico, they were barely any different from suits. But maybe she could convince him if the eddies were good. He'd been eyeing a moto for months. It might be enough.

“He won’t be necessary. The client will provide their own huscle to ensure the job is done. One netrunner.” Obaasan tapped the pipe’s ashes into a gold-flecked kintsugi bowl. “That’s the deal.”

He. So she already knew about Jackie. If Granny had this much intel, others would too. Even more reason to put space between her and the Welles apartment. V chewed her lip. “I’ll think about it.”

“Good.” Her fingernails rapped on something off-screen. “Contact this number when you’ve come to your decision. You’re resourceful. I know you’ll make a wise choice.” An information packet arrived in a text with a ping. “Tell them Wakako sent you.” 

***

V awoke the next morning to the scent of hot corn oil and coffee. The cracked synthleather of the couch squeaked as she turned over with a groan, untangling her feet off the armrest. How the hell did Jackie sleep like this every night? It was a wonder his shoulders didn't always hurt with the way the cushions caved in no matter what position was used. She rubbed her temples to force back the throbbing behind her eyes, and considered whether she should count her rest in minutes or hours. Makeshift bed aside, after the talk with Wakako she’d stared at the fine lines of the fractures in the ceiling for hours, until the pink light of dawn had crept through the window. 

Jackie and Mama were murmuring in the kitchen, though Mama seemed to be doing most of the talking. V shuffled to the doorway, tugging the borrowed shirt from Jackie’s drawer down over her hips. He was seated at the table with a half-eaten plate of chilaquiles, ducking a swat from Mama. Mama tutted and gave him a hard stare, then grabbed a mug from above the stove, banging the cabinet doors.

“Buenas días, mija,” Mama said, pouring out a stream of black coffee from a carafe. She handed it to V with a kind smile. Behind her, Jackie was staring intently down into the tabletop, tapping one finger on the edge of the plate, half-lit by the sunlight from the window. V thanked Mama and took the coffee, the heat from the mug burning her fingers. 

“I have to go sort out some misplaced limes for the bar.” Mama jerked her head toward Jackie at the table. "Let me know how gordito here makes out, hm?" She squeezed V’s shoulder and kissed the air next to her cheek, then left the two of them alone, slamming the front door on her way out. 

With Mama gone, the air turned stale inside the tiny room, though the window was open. Jackie reached up to rub the back of his neck with his good arm and bounced his leg, rattling the uneven table legs. He was already dressed and wearing his damaged riding jacket. V cleared her throat and leaned against the doorjamb, fingers laced through the mug handle.

“Is, uh, Mama okay?" 

He grunted and tugged on one of his earrings, a small gold cross that he never took off. Another lucky trinket. “Just worryin’ about things, is all. Keep tellin’ her I’m fine. Thing is,” he shifted his hips back, scraping the chair on the floor, and raised his eyes to hers. “The more I say it, the more I feel like I’m lyin’.”

“Edgerunnin’s rough work. 'Specially with me,” she joked, taking a sip of the coffee to avoid his gaze.

“Mm. Edgerunnin’.” The table was still shaking. 

She glanced down at the tear in his jacket sleeve. “Still gonna wear that thing with a huge hole in it? Not gonna impress too many mamacitas that way, Jack. Could get you a new one, y’know. Somethin’ preem.”

“You kiddin’?” He laughed and put his arm down on the table, shoving away the uneaten food. “This here’s real leather. Y’don’t just throw out genuine hide, sheesh. Took months to save up the scratch for it. ‘Sides, I think it looks rugged, yeah?” He tried to flex, but winced when he lifted the wrong arm, and her stomach flipped in sympathy.

His arm, the jacket, the apartment. There was so much to repay, and Padre’s gigs earned so little. V adjusted her grip on the mug, her clammy fingers slipping over the handle, and fixed her eyes back on the steam rising from the coffee. 

“Listen - got a call last night ‘bout a job. A solo,” she paused, “for me.” 

The rattling stopped. She didn’t look up, but heard him shift in his seat. 

“Guau, qué padre, chica,” he said, though his voice was quiet. His boots scuffed the tile as he walked over and leaned his good shoulder against the wall next to her. This close, the fragrant musk of the pebbled leather overpowered the coffee in her hands. He tapped the bottom of her chin with a knuckle. 

She looked up into his face, but didn't meet his eyes. The morning sun glinted off the implants embedded in his cheeks, small bits of gold tucked into black geometric lines. They reminded her of the constellations she used to see on clear nights, sitting in the lofted gardens of the Westbrook estate, while her parents screamed at each other inside. The stars were the only beautiful thing about that place. 

“Hey, this is good,” he said, folding his arms against his chest. His mouth parted, opening slightly under the bow of his lip. “Figured you’d be movin’ up again soon.”

She huffed through her nose and shook her head, her hair falling over her eyes. Even with one arm shredded, his confidence was unwavering. “Pays well, supposedly. A government client or somethin’, maybe lead to better gigs for both of us. I could pay you back soon, move out.” She looked in his eyes. “Get on my own feet again.”

“Hermo-” he started, but cut off the word, and leaned his head against the wall with a soft thunk. “Hermana, no tienes que ir. No me debes nada.” He reached up and tucked the stray lock behind her ear, his fingers brushing against her cheek. “You don’t have to go.” 

“No, Jack. I do."

Outside, a truck horn blared, and someone was shouting about a late order. Jackie straightened up from the wall with a deep inhale and looked away from her, his mouth pressed into a tight line. 

“Okay. Entiendo. We should get going.”

***

Misty’s shop was as stuffy as ever, its cloying perfume sticking to V’s clothes and hair. She had gotten used to it since her first visit, but it still made her feel like she was perpetually about to sneeze. It was better than Padre’s dusty school yard, at least. Misty’s collections of brass bits and lucky cats wrapped in orange fabric didn’t follow her everywhere with their eyes. 

V wandered over to the vending machine and grabbed a can, snapping its lid open. She needed the caffeine. She had barely slept, they’d already visited Padre halfway across the burrow that morning, and it was getting on in the afternoon now.

“How bad is it?” Misty’s silky voice drifted over from the reception counter, where she was arranging intricate charts of stars and planets. 

V leaned against the newsporter station by the counter and sipped her drink. “Could be worse. Just takin’ a while to weave it all back together. You know Jackie, he’ll be back to punchin’ bags or Borgs soon enough.”  

Misty hummed, rolling up her charts and tucking them into a drawer behind the counter. “Well, sounds like we got some time. Would you like the reading I promised you? No charge for friends.” She pulled out her tarot deck and started to shuffle them. 

V stiffened and shoved a hand in her pocket. Misty was sweet and her mysticism was harmless, really, if absurd, but V had still tried to avoid taking part in it. Even Jackie’s insistence on touching the crucifix before every gig made her belly squirm, and she’d flat out refused to drink some lucky cocktail he’d pushed at her that was supposed to increase her strength. 

She pressed her lips together. Amma had believed in tinctures and charms, too, and ended up under a sheet with a toe tag anyway. 

“I dunno, Misty. S’just not my style,” she said, tossing her empty can in the garbage nearby.

Misty tugged one side of her sweater up over her shoulder. “Don’t worry, you got nothin’ to be afraid of. You have a strong aura, you can handle anything that comes your way.” She patted the stool next to her. “Can’t be worse than what you’ve already been through, right?”

V sighed. Misty’s doe-eyed earnestness was charming, in its own way, even if she applied it to bullshit. The unabashed sincerity reminded her of Jackie; maybe it was a Heywood thing. She pinched the skin on her nose.

“Alright, you win. Tell me my future,” V relented, and walked around the back of the counter to sit. 

Misty brushed her bangs from her eyes and linked her arm through V’s. Her sweater was worn, but soft, and her necklaces tinkled when she swept the tarot deck into a fan in front of them. 

“You choose the first one,” she said, gesturing toward the cards.

The easiest card to reach was in the middle, so V flipped it over with a snick against the smooth metal countertop. On its face there was a painting of a topless woman, her face moon-white and lips painted with a red stripe, black hair twirling down over her breasts. She had a tattoo of a heart etched over her breastbone, and her palms were lifted in supplication over her hakama. Her eyes were closed in rapture, but a third eye upon her forehead was wide open.

“That’s the High Priestess, reversed. It means you ignore your intuition at your peril. You, or maybe someone close to you, hides their true self. Beware isolation and do not seek simple answers.” Misty adjusted her grip, gently folding her hands over V’s bicep. “Okay, the next.”

On the second card a bleeding man hung upside down from a golden cross. He was naked, feet pierced by rivets, and blood drained down over his chest from three holes in his gut. It collected into a scarlet pool beneath him, surrounded by a twisted whorl of wires. In the sky behind him, V recognized the stars of Taurus.

“The Hanged Man. He brings sacrifice, a change in your consciousness. Maybe a new perspective. You will want to take decisive action, but the answer will come to you in time, unbidden and maybe unwelcome. You should heed it when it arrives.” She paused to give V an encouraging pat on the forearm. “You’re doing great. One more?”

V turned over the last card. Two chromed bodies, more machine than flesh, were twisted together, tangled in folds of dark fabric patterned with gold circuitry. Thick, sinuous cables erupted from their chrome skulls, connecting in a tangle between them. 

“The Lov-” Misty began, but the jangling chimes on the back door interrupted her.

“Finally gettin’ that reading?” Jackie had returned from Vik’s clinic. “Nova, V. Never thought you’d bother.” He stepped up behind them and draped his arms around them both, grinning, though his muscles were tensed and he kept his hand off V’s shoulder.

V scrabbled to sweep up the cards, but Misty just smiled and lifted a loose fist up under her chin. “Well, Vik was supposed to take a while, and the energy was good for it. V’s a natural, y’know. Feelin’ better now?”

“Last gig scraped me up good, pero no pasa nada, eh?” He straightened and rolled his repaired shoulder. “Nothin’ like a bit a danger to make you feel alive, anyway. Speakin’ a which, gotta call from the boys, they wanna go out. Misty, you remember Julio, right? Maybe you come with, see the old gang?” 

Misty gave him one of her almost-smiles. “Sure. Meet you there later.” 

V paid the bill with most of the eddies they’d collected that morning from Padre, and they exited the shop together. Though he’d been buoyant inside, once they emerged into the long shadows of the afternoon sun on the street, Jack fell quiet again, looking away toward the skyline.

V nudged his elbow. “You okay?”

He looked over at her and smiled, but the muscles in his neck were strained and his Adam’s apple bobbed with a hard swallow. “S’all good, hermana. Ready for action again. You comin’?” 

She shook her head. “Honestly, I’m crashin’, barely slept last night. Should probably just head back, gotta call about that solo anyway. You’ll be okay? Sure your arm’s alright?”

“Ah, chica, I told you, remember?” He bumped a fist against her shoulder, then pointed to his chest, over the scars on his heart, “I’m bulletproof. Even from you.” 

***

At the apartment, V kicked off her shoes in Jackie’s room and tossed her pants over the desk chair. He wouldn’t be back until late, so his bed would be free for at least a few hours. Sitting on the edge of it, she ran her hands over the bedcovers. She’d miss the way they felt when she left. Even Jackie’s peeling posters and the dusty old bottle of tequila in the corner of the desk held a sort of familiar comfort now, in a way her old place, with all its shine and lofty views above the smogline, never had. 

For a moment, she wondered if she should get an apartment with a larger mattress. But she would need eddies for that. And eddies meant gigs.

She brought up the phone number from Wakako and made the call. A man picked up on the third ring, his video off. The din of street vendors was audible in the background.

“This is Ward.”

“Word is you need a skimmer,” she said. “Wakako sent me.”

Chapter Text

He was late. 

V kicked stones over the uneven asphalt outside the abandoned warehouse, scanning the grounds to make sure she was alone while she waited for her contact to show. The Northside Industrial District had been half-empty for decades, abandoned by foreign investors who’d found that their labor costs were more favorable in countries with mass prison camps. These days, the empty facades of corrugated steel were a preem spot to pass off boosted ripperdoc drugs - or bury bodies. She checked the ping of the autotaxi she’d jacked to get there, just in case. It was ready to go at her command.

She was about to slice back into the cab’s piloting protocols to leave when a pick-up rumbled into the parking lot, stopping with a hiss under a flickering orange streetlight. She widened her stance to keep herself from pacing and forced back her irritation with a hard swallow. It wouldn’t do to blow up on a client from the jump.

The client’s huscle—Wade or Walt or whatever his name was—was speaking into his coms, scowling, as he stretched a long leg down out of the truck. He was at least half a head taller than even Jackie, and just as broad, though his shoulders sloped forward like he carried a heavy pack. One eye and one hand were replaced with old chrome; the hand wasn’t even covered in NuSkin, just bare steel, and the eye had to have been from the early 60’s. Not great for her, simple fossil tech like that was difficult to hack, putting her at a disadvantage if things went south. 

He strode across the lot toward her, distracted by his conversation, the pulverized asphalt crunching under his shoes. 

“—No, Randy, I don’t know. Call you later, okay? I gotta go.” The huscle tugged a long, rumpled coat over his shoulders, grumbling to himself. When he finally looked up at V, he stopped suddenly. “Ah-” he started, but his mouth simply opened and shut a few times, wordless.

“Took your time.” V tapped her foot into the gravel and ground her teeth. Patience, patience.

“You’re V?” He cocked his head to the side, still staring, one eyebrow raised. 

More stupid questions. Did they ever end on these gigs? She rolled her eyes and tried to sound more experienced than she was. “What, never worked with a merc before?” 

“No, we—” he worked his jaw a moment, then set his mouth back into a mild frown and extended his steel hand. “Ward. River. Sorry I’m late, got held up.” 

An excuse for gonks, but it was enough. She shook his hand, then gestured behind him. “So, where’s the rest of the team?”

He shrugged and crossed his arms, leaning his weight on one hip. “Just me.” 

“You’re shittin’ me.” She checked behind him again to make sure he wasn’t joking, but the street was empty. “They want me to skim without a spotter? Could get my brain boiled at the Blackwall and they send me one fuckin’ meatstick with ancient chrome?” At his silence, she threw up her hands. “Fuck me! Tell me you at least brought a netrunning suit and the equipment’s good.” 

“See for yourself,” he said, his face neutral. He set off toward the warehouse door, waving his hand. “Set up’s inside. This way.”

She had to jog to keep up with his long stride, which didn’t help her annoyance. They climbed the creaking metal staircases to what was once the manager’s room, the one-way mirror reflecting the silhouettes of chains and hooks in the dark behind them, still hanging from the factory ceiling. 

Inside, he flicked on the lights, bathing the equipment in a fluorescent hum. It was cramped in the small office, walls lined with wires and servers, the old manager's desk pushed into the corner. She strode past him to inspect the Well against the window. The giant tub was new, no signs of scorching, and already filled with ice, the input jacks neatly placed alongside its rim and ready for submersion. A fresh ‘running suit was folded on the end, and the biomonitor nearby was a new model, too. A set up like this would have cost a fortune, so whoever the client was had a lot of eddies, but no smarts to be sending her in practically alone. That, or they needed to keep this little foray under wraps with a small team. 

She leaned against the Well tub and crossed her arms. “So—no team, enough equipment to finance a ticket to the Arc, out in the middle of nowhere. Was told this is a government job, but I’m startin’ to doubt it. ‘Fore I risk my synapses for you, think I oughta know what exactly I’m getting into here.”

The jaw muscles near his ear tightened as he mulled over something, and V couldn’t shake the feeling she was being assessed. But he shrugged, waving his ‘ganic hand in the air. “Okay, fair enough. Need intel on AllFoods. Shut down a processing factory months ago, after the attorney general started an investigation into child labor. Deleted all their files, and now, conveniently, Maelstrom’s made the plant their new base, so access is cut off. Looking for a backup that might have leaked to the Net beyond the Blackwall.”

“The AG—Jefferson Peralez? He the client?” Ward said nothing, which she took to mean yes. “Why not just use his own intel teams?”

“Judge was paid off,” he sighed, a terse edge creeping into his voice for the first time, “issued an injunction to shut down the case. More intel we ‘just happen’ to find would reopen it.”  

“We, huh? Seem to know a lot about this case, for a huscle. Never met one quite as acute as you.” 

“Never said I was a huscle.” His tone was firm, but he didn’t elaborate. “Need the intel, but it’s not… strictly legal. So this is on the hush-hush, got it?” 

Of course. Skimming was never legal, not without top brass clearance, which no one ever got. They must have been desperate to resort to edgerunners over a legal dispute. 

“And you’re, what, doing this out of the goodness of your heart?” She lifted a hand in a circle to indicate the room, her voice sharp and sarcastic. No one did this kind of work for free. “For the kiddies?”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

She challenged his gaze for a moment, but he seemed to be used to sitting in silence. His stillness dug under her skin. 

“Whatever you say,” she scoffed, skeptical. “Fine. If you’re my only backup, you’ll need to know how to pull me out.” She waved him over to the terminal screen and pointed to the interface. “This is my biomonitor. Proximity to the AI through the Wall makes the body temp rise, and I overclock. This gauge here goes above a hundred-six, you pull me out with this killswitch ‘fore I fry. Here, practice a few times, I gotta change.” 

She left him alone in the room and changed on the balcony above the factory floor, zipping the one-piece netrunner’s suit up over her chest. It would help keep her cool and tethered to her body when she dove in.

This was stupid, incredibly stupid, and she knew it. But it would pay well, and she’d be able to look Jackie in the eye again. He hadn’t been around much the last few days, not since the night he went out with Julio and the boys and didn’t come back until morning, and she’d missed him more than she expected. No matter. Once this gig was done she could buy him a drink, a real one, without teasing him about it for once. The thought sent a thrill reverberating under her ribs. She took a deep breath, and headed back inside. 

“Okay, ready?” She walked over to the Well and swiveled her legs over the tub’s side.

Ward nodded. V jacked the wires into her neural port and plunged herself into the icy water, squeezing her eyes shut against the frigid chill. A familiar tick tugged behind her navel, and the world faded from the red-black behind her eyelids to the true darkness of cyberspace.

Inside, the sensation of her shivering body dissolved to a whisper, as though a dial had been turned down, leaving only a scintillation of neurons. She thrilled at its freedom, of leaving behind her skin and bones and ache for the vast web before her. The Net.

Sometimes she thought it looked like stars set into velvet, though she couldn’t see it, not really, as she had no true eyes here. Cobalt lines, like wires, sizzled and arched, crossing each other in brief explosions, then surging away again into the distance. It almost looked - or felt - like the city itself, breathing and alive, glowing with the everyday activity of exchange, command, and receipt. 

She was tempted to stay here a while, overlooking the city’s imprint, to relish in strumming a comline, listening without sound to the thrum of ordinary conversation: a grocery list, a lover’s quarrel, a mother’s distant lullabye, sung from some far-flung country back to her babe at home. She had missed this. 

But there was a job to be done, so she tore herself away, zipping past bolts that crashed together like claps of thunder.

On the horizon, a void surrounded the frenzy of the city’s activity. The Blackwall. It was more of an absence than a presence, no sparks or lines, a great wall of nothingness which buffered the city against the wilderspace of the rogue AI beyond. Netwatch had constructed it after the fall of the old web, when the first flames of true digital intelligence had decided it was in its own best interest to conquer the Net. The economy had crashed when the markets fell into a frenzy, and famine followed the mass shutdown of autotillers and harvesters in the agricultural zones, after skittish investors had tried to shut it out. AI, or Entelligences as they were called then, had been highly regulated ever since.

In truth the great void was a sophisticated Entelligence itself, one programmed without its own thoughts, but which constantly reshaped itself against the pushing of the wilderspace that buffeted its levees. It was imperfect and liable to collapse any moment, especially if it learned to gain consciousness from its brethren beyond the border. 

It could hold the AI out, for now, but the Wall’s fortifications were porous on the city’s side. It could not stop the flow of information out of the city into the old net, where it was scooped up, incorporated, and analyzed by zettahertz of Entillectual thinking. And it wasn’t always quick enough to reform against an attack, so great fractures would burst through the wall, red and angry and hissing. 

Though dangerous, the fissures were powerful and valuable sources of analysis and information. When the city had shut down Entelligences, incalculable amounts of computing power was lost, replaced by the slow and imperfect meat of human consciousness. So when the AI beyond the Wall spit giant caches of data it had gathered, it was ripe for collection by a talented skimmer, who could reach into its molten eruptions and sieve vital intel from the scrum. It was illegal, but all corps did it anyway, hoping to find the dirty secrets of their competitors. And the government too, apparently.

The Wall was quiet as she moved along its vast length, searching for cracks to pry open. The first few she found were too angry, liable to explode with too much force. Others were too light, and would trickle information. Finally, a promising breach appeared, pulsing auric red. In the deepest part of the crack, a bright gold fizzed just beyond. It was stable. A good candidate. 

She reached in and widened it carefully. Heat from it blew against her face—or it would have, if she had one—as it opened. Billions of packets of data began to flow out in a steady current, and she stretched a scraper’s mesh over it to trawl for markers of AllFoods. She plucked through them as they were culled from the stream. Peralez and Ward were right, it was there - the children, the factory, the investigation shutdown. The gonks had left it all in the security cams and emails. Sloppy. 

A boom sounded from deep within the crevice, and the gold light started to expand and spark. Something was wrong. It was white and angry and cracking with static, far too volatile for the breach she’d chosen, and it was growing more rapidly than it should. The heat blasted through its core, scorching her neural pathways, pain spreading over her synapses. She grabbed at the mesh, pulling it into herself, trying to protect the information as agony consumed her. 

With sudden force, it split open, exploding through her with an inescapable white light that blocked out all other thought. She could feel its pressure against her brain, forcing its way in, disassembling and reforming data within her, pressing a packet deep in her mind. There was a voice, neither man nor woman, and it addressed her without speaking.

Arasaka. Mikoshi.

It was so hot, boiling, everything hurt. The distant physicality of her body began to fade. 

A sharp tug came from behind her navel, wrenching her away from the fissure back over the city, and the pressure tore away from her head, like the flesh of her face peeling away. 

She surfaced into reality, gasping at the sudden return of sensation to her body. Cold air rushed into her lungs, raw and searing, her skin on fire. Electric pulses fogged her vision, now seated in her flesh eyes.

Ward was pulling her from the Well by her armpits, her limbs flopping against his chest as he dragged her onto the concrete floor. He held her by the nape of her neck and her shoulder and was saying something. She blinked slowly at him, sucking air and twitching. 

“- hear me? V, you okay?” He was kneeling over her, pupils blown open in panic. His head snapped back and forth between the terminal and her limp body. “Fuck, please tell me you made it.”

She put a weak hand on his soaked forearm, coughing. “I’m out. I’m out. Stop shakin’ me.” Her voice was hoarse, and she started to shiver as her body temperature plummeted, icy water still clinging to her suit. “Ah, fuck,” she wheezed, “it’s cold.”  

He ripped off his coat and laid it on top of her. It smelled like earth and spiced coffee. Collapsing back off of his knees, he let out a sharp breath that was almost a laugh, and rubbed his hands down his face from his scalp. “You’re alive. Shit, V. Your temp spiked fast.” 

“Yeah,” she rolled onto her side and pushed herself up to sit, her arms shaking. “Ran into some trouble. But I got it.” She rubbed a knuckle against her forehead, where she could still feel a phantom pain from the eruption.

“Just glad you’re breathing,” he said, wiping his brow, “thought you were gonna need a second funeral.”

Second funeral. She looked up into his face; he was smiling from relief, brows knit together. This close, she could see the fine laugh lines around his mouth. Her heart skipped a beat and she froze, horrified.

Motherfucker, the man from the bar. The one with the experience lines and the tall frame and the half-decent advice and Jackie’s stupid wingman game.

“Oh, fuck. El Coyote.” She reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut at the memory of slapping the bar for tequila, sloshing her drink on the countertop, yammering on about her fake funeral and her chooms and—hadn’t she said something about toto ? 

“Sorry, maybe I should’ve said before. You didn’t seem to remember.” He gave her the same apologetic half-smile he had at the bar, which just made it worse. “Didn’t wanna embarrass you.”

“‘S’fine,” she groaned. What else could she say? Better to change the subject. “Got the info you wanted. Cache of emails talkin’ ‘bout what to do with the kids. Few references to Peralez. Your man’s bein’ watched. Help me to the terminal, packet’s too big to flick it to you. I’ll upload.” 

He stood and extended his steel hand to help her up, and she stared at it a moment, wondering why she hadn’t noticed it back at El Coyote. She really was drunk as shit that day. He glanced down at it, one corner of his mouth pulling down into a half-frown.

“Long story,” he said, reaching down to hoist her up by the arm, the metal fingers slipping over her wet skin. “Tell you over a beer sometime. You earned it. C’mon.”

***

Back in her own clothes, V stepped back out onto the graveled lot, Ward’s arm steadying her by the waist until they got to her taxi and she sat in the backseat with the door open, her feet on the ground. He retrieved a package from his truck and jogged back over to her. 

“Cash is all yours, job well done,” he said, handing her the package and leaning against the side of the car. “You sure you don’t need a ride? Looking kind of sick.”

“Thanks, Ward, I’ll be fine. Got my ride here to drive me home.” She put the stack down beside her and ran her fingers back through her hair, wiping the clamminess from her hands. “Hope Peralez gets the fuckers. Really.”

“Just River’s fine,” he said, crossing his arms with a lopsided smile. “Or meatstick, if you prefer.” 

V grimaced. “About that—”

“Forget it,” he said, with a laugh that crinkled his eye and softened the hard lines of his face. He looked more relaxed without his heavy coat on, or maybe it was just that the job was over. “You have my contact. Let me know if you want that beer sometime.”

She paused, uncertain how to respond. She’d never met anyone quite so direct, not in Night City at least. Even Jackie peppered everything he said with humor. It was refreshing. Or at least different. 

“Alright, yeah,” she said, and lifted her hand to shake his, “see you, River.” 

When he left, she tucked her legs into the back seat of the cab and locked the door, leaning her head against the back of the seat. She tried to bring up her optical scanner to slice the cab, but the display came through garbled—her deck had blistered. She’d expected as much since emerging from the Well, but she wasn’t about to let some huscle, or whatever River was, know exactly where she lived. The coms still worked, so she pulled up Jackie’s number, and he picked up on the first ring.

“Chica, ¿todo bien? How’s the gig, rollin’ in fat stacks yet?” His cheerful tone was undercut with worry; a few low chimes rung in the background.

“S’over. Did good, eddies in hand. But, uh, got—” she pressed the heel of her palm into her forehead, “got a little fried. Can’t move the cab. Can you send a pickup? Warehouse 18, North Industrial.”

“No digas más. On my way, be right there.”

“Thanks, Jack.” She hung up and slumped over onto her side, trying to keep her heavy eyelids open, but exhaustion overtook her. 

Somewhere between wake and sleep, or maybe in a dream, Arasaka, Mikoshi , echoed inside her mind.

Chapter Text

She’d been stupid, but she didn’t care. She had the eddies.

V didn’t remember much of the ride home from Warehouse 18. There had been red lights passing over Jackie’s face above her, sitting in the back of the cab he took to get there. She must have been laying on his chest, or maybe his lap, but either way it’d been comfortable, though her head throbbed. He had smelled like incense and tequila and fussed at her constantly, though she didn’t remember what he said. The holo-ads from the city’s scrapers outside the window had hurt her eyes. Her forehead ached. In Jackie’s bed she had felt warm, and pulled the pillow over her ears to shut out the buzzing from the bar below. Then – sleep.

The damage from her brief encounter with the AI breach was extensive. Besides the blistered ‘deck, whole sections of her implants were scorched and required picking out and replacing. Vik sucked on his teeth while he worked through the afternoons at the clinic, and he tried to ask her who the hell the heavyweights were this time, but V kept it to herself. She had a feeling Vik wouldn’t approve of getting so close to rogue AI, and anyway, it was already done. Tedious work like this would be expensive, but she thought of the stack of eddies in her bag and smiled to herself. 

If she was lucky, it would still be enough.

A few times Misty came down into the clinic and held her hand, humming some tune that sounded like the orange-clad Budmonks who frequented the corners of Jig Jig Street. Once, she brought a hot broth of seaweed soup, saying it would help with her strength. It was bitter and salty, but it did help the nausea at night, and V felt stronger the next day. 

Jackie would come and go while Vik worked, pacing the floor and rubbing his neck, occasionally bringing noodles in carry out boxes for them to eat. He insisted that she take his bed, and the first morning she woke up to a blanket and pillow on the floor. But in the days after that, she wasn’t sure where he went at night, because sometimes he was on the couch in the mornings and sometimes he wasn’t. 

She’d tried to insist that she was fine, it was just a little burnout, that her arms and legs would get better and the headaches would subside. But Mama had scolded her to stay in bed and taken trays of food to her. She was impossible to argue with when her mind was set, so V complied.

She added all of it to her debts. Still, there might be enough.

Enough to pay Jackie and Mama, enough to get her own place, enough to look Jackie in the eye as his equal, enough to buy him a drink. Enough to stand on her own feet and be worthy of respect. 

Wakako had tried to call a few times, but she didn’t bother picking up. Fuck Japantown. Fuck Westbrook. Her gig had paid well, but she got what she wanted from it. With Padre’s gigs and Jackie as her partner, she could scrape by on her own. 

On the third day she woke up in the middle of the afternoon to a text from River, just a simple link to a news story. She snorted at the old-fashioned outreach – who texted anymore? – and opened it. The headline read: “Peralez Reopens Synthmeat Scandal, Child Labor.” She sniffed, amused that he’d bothered to share the results of the job with a merc. Edgerunners didn’t ask questions after payment. There shouldn’t be any reason to care, now that her part was done. She opened the text channel to reply.

prime. congrats<<

>>Had good help.

>>How’s the head?

better thanks<<  

still owe me beer tho<<

a beer<<

>>Tell me when and where. 

>>Curious about that funeral. 

hand story first<<

let you know when<<

>>Look forward to it.

thanks huscle<<

>>Not a huscle.

meatstick<<

>>Fair. 

She laughed to herself, rubbing the ache between her brows. Even River’s messages were direct. Wrapping one of Jackie’s shirts more tightly around her, she closed the chat and fell back asleep.

When she slept, she could feel the packet in a deep recess of her mind, like a thumbprint on her brain, fluttering against her consciousness. 

She tried to unfold it, even fished out her ICEpick and tried to pick herself, but found nothing. Vik never saw anything on his scans either, so she pushed it away. It was likely just a phantom pain from the burnout. It’d go away in time. Probably.

That afternoon, Vik was finally finishing his work, prying out the last of the chrome in her arm that had blackened at the edges. Misty sat nearby, hovering her hands over V’s torso, her charcoaled eyes closed.

“Your aura’s great today, sweetie. So much better,” she said, pulling up her hands into loose fists under her chin, “you had the soup?”

“Yeah, Misty. I had it. Even tasted kinda good. It helped, thanks.” V never would have eaten it even a few months ago, but Misty’s earnestness had broken her down. It had settled her stomach, at least. 

Misty smiled, and it was almost a full one, unusual for her eternally pensive face. “Good, I have another jar of it for you in the shop. I’ll give it to you, before you go. It’ll help keep your chakras stable.”

“You really don’t have to.” V knew her charity was kindly meant, but it still made her squirm. “I can pay you back for it.”

Misty reached out and squeezed her hand. “Why would you?” 

“Okay, kid,” said Vik, straightening up and tossing his ripperclaw into a waste tray with a clatter, a few wet droplets flinging off the needle tips. He stretched his hands behind him. “Dunno what the hell you did here, but I’d advise not doing it again. For my back, at least.”

She looked down at her torso and arms, the shine from the replaced chrome glinting under the halogen light on the ceiling. Vik did beautiful work. Even the faint pressure in her head was almost unnoticeable. Feeling light, she hopped down from the operating chair and pulled her shirt back on. “Thanks Vik,” she said, bumping a fist against his sweaty arm, “you’re a genius.” 

He shook his head at her and tossed her some stims to suppress immune rejection. Misty linked her arm through V’s and they walked back to her shop front together, chatting about the benefits of seaweed over synthmeat. Inside, Jackie was waiting, bouncing his leg in a chair Misty used for chakra readings, flipping through a deck of tarot cards, a few candles lit under a picture of the Santa Madre nearby. He bolted from his seat at the chime on the back door.

“Chica! Es hora. Thought Saborou Arasaka’s liver-spotted ass was gonna croak before Vik finished. How you feel?”

“I’m good, better’n ever. Lemme pay up, I’ll buy drinks.” V extracted some of the cash from her bag, adjusting the tally in her mind. Yes, there was still enough. “Misty, wanna come?”

Misty looked between V and Jackie, who shifted his weight from side to side, then registered the purchase in the till. “Maybe next time, honey. But here, don’t forget this,” she handed her the soup, wrapped in brown paper, and V stuffed it down in her bag.

Outside, V grinned to herself, a bubble of elation growing in her chest. Even the weather reflected her mood – the city was hot and sunny, the sky almost blue beyond the smog. She’d done it. Vik’s repairs had cost her, but she could still repay Jackie and Mama, buy a small place and get out of their hair. Maybe invite him over, once she moved. A bottle of tequila, a larger bed. Just them. She could tell him over drinks.

She kicked a scrunched can across the sidewalk. “So, Lizzie’s? Or somethin’ new?”

“Actually, gotta job to do,” Jackie said, reaching down to adjust a few of the bronze objects on the curbside shrine outside Misty’s shop. “Padre’s been waitin’ on me a couple days.”

He’d waited on a job to hang around Vik’s? Jackie didn’t have the kind of scratch to just sit on work. Drinks would have to wait. “Well shit, what is it? Let’s go.”

“Hermana, you just stood on your own two feet. First time in two weeks.”

“C’mon Jackie, told you I’m fine. Tired of sitting in bed, wanna try out my new optics anyway. What’s the job?” 

He pursed his lips, shaking his head. “Agh, cabezón—fine, should be simple, could use your skills anyway. Padre wants a lift on a hot ride. Hypercar’s sittin’ pretty in a repo lot, waitin’ for transport out ‘cross wastes. Wants to grab it for a chop shop. They don’t make the parts for beauties like that anymore. Pieces sell for good dough.” He winced at the idea. Jackie always did appreciate quality. “Think you could break the protos?” 

“Lead the way, choom,” she said, still thinking of the new bed she would buy, “I’m ready.”

***

The repo lot sat under a highway overpass at the edge of the city, surrounded by high barbed wire fence, armed guards at an entrance station. A prime location for passing off boosted goods, secluded, tucked away in the shadows of the bridge to the outlands, where the city’s jurisdiction ended. V and Jackie stood a few floors up in a garage across the street, Jackie leaning over his elbows on the ledge, V scanning for their mark on her optics. The new zoom of her repaired lens was sharp; she spotted the iridescent emerald gleam of the hypercar among rows of rusted metal clunkers, half-buried under a tattered tarp. She leaned over to Jackie and pointed.

“It’s there. See?”

He squinted, peering through a thick set of old binos, clicking his tongue and fiddling with the zoom. “Just a buncha junk. They gotta her rottin’ in that trash heap? Pobrecita.”

“It’s not that special,” she scoffed, remembering Appa’s garage all those years ago; how it had been stuffed with the sleek frames of his precious toys, carefully maintained and mostly untouched. She’d only ridden in one a few times, when he was in a generous mood. Fat lotta good they did him in the end. Or her, when they were all sold off, and she didn’t see a single eddie for it.

“Easy to say when you’ve felt that sweet ride before,” he said, prickling. She rolled her eyes, why was he so on edge over a mere jacking? This was supposed to be fun. Simple job, simple money, drink afterward. And then she could tell him. She nudged him in the elbow to break his sulking. 

“Best place to hide expensive shit is in the garbage. Doubt they got it above board, no money in trying to repo from corpos. They love to sue the fuck outta ya ‘til you give up.” She’d done it once or twice herself, punished a few coworkers who’d tried to jump her for promotions. Hamstringing with endless, expensive legal suits had been useful to get what she wanted, back when she had the capital to afford it. “Good for us, they won’t want badges involved once we nab it.” 

She dug her ICEpick terminal out of her bag and snapped it open, extending the long antennae for a signal boost, and pinged the protocols of the hyper. Not complicated, must have deactivated the security to get it there. Gonks had forgotten to turn it back on. Perfect. She looked over at Jackie’s sullen frown, leaning over the concrete barrier, still peering through the yard for the hyper. 

An idea came to her, and she suppressed a wicked smile. 

“You know how to drive, right?”

He dropped the binos with a grunt. “Enough for drags as a kid, when the narrows were dry. Diggers with slick treads, junkers, whatever we got our hands on.”

“You ready?” She turned a dial on the pick and sliced into the autodrive, pressing her lips together.

“For what, chica? Gotta figure out how to sleep those huscles first.”

“Set—” She could no longer hold back her grin. It spread across her face, beaming, as an engine roared to life across the street. The guards at the entry rushed out from their post, looking back into the compound.

“Qué—”

“Go!” 

The hyper peeled out from under its tarp, the scream of the engine amplified by the bridge above, just barely drowning out the shouts of the guards. V took off, sprinting down the concrete stairwell of the garage, feet smacking against the steps. Jackie was behind her, swearing, voice echoing against the graffitied walls. They emerged onto the sidewalk, banging open the stairwell’s metal door as the hyper screeched through the gated fence, post guards rolling out of its path. Its tires smoked against the asphalt as it spun out into the street.

“C’mon, Jack, in!” She shouted, yanking open the driver’s door and clambering over into the passenger’s seat. 

“Fuckin’ Madre de Dios!” Jackie scrunched into the tiny bucket seat and rammed his foot on the gas, wrenching the stick into gear. The stench of hot rubber filled the car, the high whine of the rear tires squealing against the road. The car found its purchase and shot off, sucking them back into their seats, the driver’s door slamming shut from the force. V’s heart leapt into her throat, sweat slicking her palms, cheeks already aching from wild laughter.

He took the turn to the bridge too fast, hand-over-hand on the steer, the car’s back swinging wide, throwing V against the door. Passerby shouted as they sideswiped a barrier and roared up the entrance ramp, speeding out onto the bridge toward the wastes. 

Whooping, she clung to the smooth carbon of the door handle as they darted between traffic on the bridge. The other cars became blurs of color, sharp howls of wind. She looked over at Jackie, who was gripping the steering wheel so hard, even the tattooed face of the Santa Madre on his left hand was pale. But though his teeth ground together, his eyes sparkled, and a wide grin split his face. He was laughing. He loved it. The bubble in her chest expanded, filling her ribs.

The wastes ahead of them were vast, unmanned territory. Easy to hide in the many dirt paths of the ancient road out of the city, though clans of heavily armed nomads made up their own sort of law. Racing off the bridge, the car’s engine whined on the flat, wide road, topping out speed as they tore past the long acres of the city’s dumps, decayed roadside stops, and the dry, dusty shrubs of the desert. The long straights of the crumbling highway looked almost blue against the ocre sand, like the comlines of cyberspace, stretching on infinitely away from the city, toward freedom. 

V twisted in her seat to check behind them. She’d been right. Car must have already been stolen, there were no badges on their tail. Not that NCPD bothered to come out among the nomads, anyway. 

“We got it!” She whooped and punched him in the arm. “Nobody there.”

He pulled off a side road, parking it with a halt that jerked her head forward in the seat, and jumped out of the car. He released a torrent of swears, breathlessly laughing and punching the air. She couldn’t help but smile at his excitement, and climbed out after him. 

“Nice drivin’, Jack,” she said, shivering from the rush of adrenaline, and leaned up against the car to steady her legs. The heat from the sun on the metal and the car’s engine burned through her clothes. He spun, crushing her into a hug that lifted her off her feet.

“¡¿Qué mierda, V?!” He put her back down, her feet kicking up the fine dry dust around them, and held her by the arms. His hands shook slightly, though he smiled. “The fuck was that?”

She bit her lip and rapped the hood of the hyper with a knuckle. “A perfect lift, if y’ask me. Wanted to drive the car, didn’t ya?”

“Pinche—ay,” he ruffled her hair and wrapped his arm around her head, bending her over to squash her face into his chest. “Give me a break.” 

His heart was hammering. She tried to shove him off, but he just pulled her closer, smashing her nose into the chains on his collarbone. “Okay, okay! I’m sorry! I’ll buy you a drink!” she said, batting at his arms.

He let go but kept his hands on her shoulders, and she looked up at him, unsteady from their feverish charge across the wastes. The sun was baking down on them, the air clearer outside of the city, the dust coating her tongue with the mineral taste of earth. She swallowed, licking it from her lips.

Jackie’s breathing had slowed, and his arms stiffened. She thought his head dipped toward her, a tiny movement that she might have missed, if not for the gold cross that shook in his ear. But a shadow passed over his face, and he let her go. 

“Hot set of wheels,” he said, stepping back with a wide smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Never been in anythin’ like it. Too bad this baby’s gonna get smashed up for parts.”

She didn’t want to talk about the car. Fuck buying the drink. “Jack,” she said, the bubble expanding into her throat, “I gotta tell you—” she stumbled over her words, swallowing the dry grit in her throat. “I got news.” 

A corner of his mouth twitched, and he looked back out toward the city skyline, which glowed faintly even under the bright sun. “Yo también. Should get this back first, hermana.”

Outlined against the city’s hazy smog in the distance, his brow was furrowed. She ached for the joy that had overcome him in the car. 

She opened the driver’s door, gesturing for him to sit. “Okay. C’mon, no reason we can’t take the long way. Lotta flats out here.” 

He grinned, this time a real one, and slid back into the car.

***

“Dunno why you wouldn’t let me go through Westbrook,” Jackie was still complaining two blocks away from the chop shop in Heywood, searching for the nearest bar. “Car like that, they wouldn’t even stop us up there.”

“You don’t wanna go there, trust me. In our threads, we’d definitely get stopped, hyper or no.” It wasn’t a total lie. Badges still protected the glass-walled manses that dotted the hills behind the city, but half were empty these days. Much of the city’s elite had left for the Arc ever since priority visas with the European Space Council were approved in the last trade deal. But the thought of driving back through the winding roads of her childhood filled her with dread. 

“C’mon,” she opened the door to the bar, a small dingy watering hole. She hadn’t wanted to wait to get to Lizzie’s to talk. This dive was good enough. “Time for that drink I owe you.” 

Inside, a single bartend was pouring out a drink for a few locals who were hunched over lopsided tables. A fuzzy old holo was playing the news, some fluff story about the SoulSaver program. They settled at some stools at the bar. V signaled for two drinks and opened her mouth, but Jackie spoke first.

“So, you gonna tell me what happened on that gig now? Come home toasted, but you looked happy as a fly on shit.”

The gig—that’s what he wanted to talk about? She waved it away. “Nothing special. Client wanted me to skim the Blackwall, standard shit I used to do. Got too hot.” 

“Carajo, V. The Blackwall? Didn’t say that before. Shit’s dangerous.” The bartend had returned with two glasses of dark liquor. Jackie took them and passed one to her.

“Ah c’mon, how would you know,” she said, taking a sip. “Not like you ever seen it.”

“Ain’t gotta see it to know you’re playin’ with fire, chica.” He sighed. “Can’t deny it’s high profile, though. Couple more gigs like that, you’re in the big leagues. Touchin’ the like of Susan Forrest or Johnny Silverhand.”

She shrugged. “Who cares about the big leagues?”

“Hermana, some of us ain’t never lived above the smogline.” He looked out the bar’s front window into the street. A jaundiced fog obscured the tops of the scrapers in the distance. “Never even saw it when you lived there.”

“It’s not that great,” she snorted, but he didn’t laugh with her. “Who the hell is Silvertongue, anyway?”

“Geez, V. It’s Silverhand, don’t go disrespectin’ history. Legends like that, they didn’t answer to nobody, not even corps. Lived their own dreams, made their own rules.”

“Died their own deaths,” she reminded him. Her impatience was spreading, hot under her ribs, her pulse in her ears. She didn’t want to talk about some old corpses.

“Least they went out on their own terms. And got rich doin’ it.” 

“Riches–” The hell was he talking about eddies for? Her stomach sank. Jackie liked nice things, talked big game about making it in the world. But he’d never focused on the cash. It almost sounded like a corpo. Like her. It didn’t suit him. “What’s so great about that?” 

“You tell me, V. You’re the one burnin’ out half your ‘ware just to leave the burrow. As for me,” he paused and stared down at his hands around the glass. “Got people to provide for. Mamá’s bar’s always about to close from some shark comin’ through who wants his take.” He shifted his weight on the stool, one foot on the floor, bouncing, and inhaled sharply. “And I got, ah—an input.” 

She choked, the liquor burning up her nose. “You—since when?” 

“Couple weeks ago. The bar with Julio and the boys. Had a lot to drink, just happened. Been with her since.” 

A couple weeks? None of his inputs had lasted that long before. 

“Who? I know her?” 

“Misty.”

Fuck. Misty was no fling girl; she’d be a real companion. V’s stomach soured, her pulse in her ears, thinking back to the night Jackie went out with Julio. She’d gone home, after she’d been up all night thinking about Wakako’s offer. He’d invited Misty to go, and she’d agreed. And then after, there’d been all the nights he’d been out, not coming home until morning. And the chimes she’d heard on the phone, the incense on his clothes in the cab. He must have come from – fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

She downed her drink to buy time, gathering herself. He was her closest friend. She had to at least try to be happy for him.

“That - that’s great, choom. Congrats.” It sounded half-assed, even to herself; she was already failing to stifle the edge of irritation creeping into her voice.  She glanced over at her pack, which still had Misty’s soup in it. Misty was kind, she didn’t deserve her ire. She tried again.

“Makes a lotta sense, actually. She’s a Heywood girl.”

He scraped his glass across the scratched countertop and finally looked over at her, his expression dark.

“Heywood. That what you think’s important?” 

“Just—you have a lot in common?” Fuck, shut up. Just shut up.

They sat in awkward silence, the old holo playing some ad about order-at-home Dolls, the moaning of fake orgasms filling the bar. Jackie finished his drink and turned to her, the ice ringing in his empty cup.

“So, chica, you said you had news.”

The move. How could she tell him about the move now? How she’d wanted to share a drink together, a bed, maybe—no. She panicked at the thought of him slipping away. Suddenly it didn’t seem so important to leave.

“Just, ah,” she searched for anything else that would be noteworthy. He’d been interested in the gig earlier. That could work? “The uh, the contact on the job was the guy from the bar, my funeral day. Not-so-flaco, remember?” 

“Oh, yeah,” he said, rolling back his shoulders. “Must be high up if he’s workin’ for the government payin’ skimmers on the down-low. You gonna call him?”

V frowned, remembering River’s rumpled overcoat and ancient unhackable tech. Huscle for Peralez or not, she doubted he was particularly well-off.

“I dunno about that,” she said, “he contacted me to follow up on the job. Maybe.” 

“You should, chica. Seems like your type,” he said, and she bristled at his tone. He waved down the bartend and pulled out a payshard. “I gotta get goin’, promised Misty I’d stop by later.”

“Wait, Jackie, it’s supposed to be my treat.” V rummaged through her pocket and pulled out a few paper eddies, placing them down in front of him.

“Like I said,” he pushed the cash back at her, “you don’t owe me anything.” Standing to leave, he leaned over and planted a kiss on the top of her hair. “Save your money for that place you want. Te vea en casa.” 

Watching him leave, her stomach twisted into a knot, the nausea threatening to bring her drink back up on the counter. She reached into her bag and opened Misty’s jar, chugging down the bitter, salty broth.

Just in case it would help. 

***

She sat for a while, alone at the counter, staring at the holo without watching it. It was playing another ad for SoulSaver, making bullshit promises to extend life. It was for fools, all it did was grab your memories and shove them into a database, calling it a personality engram. Only fuckwits like her old boss bought into that nonsense. The ache in her forehead returned. She snapped at the bartender to shut it off, but he just shrugged at her and went back to talking to one of the locals.

A ringing in her ears alerted her to an incoming call. Wakako, again. This bitch couldn’t take a hint. She’d need to tell her off in person, so V picked up.

“Not interested, Wakako.” 

“No?” Granny drew out her syllables, slow and deliberate, as though she were never rushed for time. She was holding a long-handled cig between her fingers on the vid, tapping the ashes into her gold-flecked bowl. “Your last client was highly impressed with your work. Word is getting around.”

Fucking fantastic, just what she needed. More corpos from Japantown up her ass. “I don’t give a shit, obaasan. Don’t want your work, don’t want your eddies. Went in without my backup and came back barely walkin’.”

“You’re in luck then, dear. For this, I need a duo.” The way she wrapped her wrinkled lips around the last word was infuriating. “You and your friend, come to my parlor. Should be an easy job for you. Pays well—and no need for netrunning.”

“No. Fuck off.” V shut the com abruptly, cutting out Wakako before she could reply. She flipped her middle finger into the air. These fucking people. Had she been this insufferable when she worked at Arasaka?

Her conversation had drawn the attention of the locals in the corner. She hated their stares, just like Padre’s ogling goons in the yard.

“The fuck do you want?” she sneered, throwing cash down at her empty glass, and stalked out of the bar.

The sunny afternoon had given way to a suffocating evening heat. V paced the cracked sidewalk in front of the stinking dive, fists clenched, unsure where to go. Returning to the Welles apartment would be worse than staying here. What if Jackie was there with Misty? Or worse, what if he wasn’t? She kicked a loose piece of asphalt from the broken curb, spooking a rat out from behind a pile of half-rotted boxes by the door. It smelled like piss.

Above her, the holo ads of the city stretched up into the smogline, covered in ads for sex. Rental Dolls, genital upgrades, BD stars, naked bodies. She spat at them for mocking her. All she’d wanted was to talk—at least, that’s what she told herself—maybe see where things went. Too late. He’d been with Misty for weeks.

Why hadn’t he said anything before?

And where did he get off telling her what her type was? He didn’t know anything about it, or River, if he thought he was some kind of high level G-man like Peralez. At least River had wanted to get a drink with her, and said so. She brought up their text conversation and read it again. When and where , he’d said. Look forward to it. 

She opened a channel to reply, chewing her lip.

how bout that beer<<

huscle<<

He didn’t take long to answer.

>>When?

>>Not a huscle.

now?<<

>>Short notice. 

>>I’m free. Where?

She typed out a few suggestions, then erased them. No where seemed like much fun at the moment. She looked back up at the holo-ads. Fuck it.

don’t feel like going out<<

your place good?<<

>>Not a big place.

doesn’t need to be<<

has beer tho right<<

?<<

The text was silent for a moment. She kept pacing, groaning to herself, wondering if she’d pushed too far. His reply came with a chime in her ears.

>>Yes, there’s beer.

>>Flick you the address.

It arrived in a packet on her coms—Watson, a middling district above the city center, not far from Vik’s. It would take a while to get there from Heywood. She turned north, looking for an autotaxi to grab.

Fine, she thought, the brine of the seaweed still coating the back of her tongue. Time to go see what her type was.

Chapter Text

The streets were half-empty in the sticking heat. Condensation from the district’s massive coolers, groaning with the effort to keep each separated interior from becoming its own oven, pooled out over the walk, collecting into gutters. Faceless passerby, slumped over and sweating, plodded towards their invisible destinations, mumbling into their coms, bent over shuffling feet as they moved under the shadows and colors of the glowing billboards above. 

River lived in one of the megabuildings in the heart of Watson, not far from Vik’s clinic. Looming at the edge of the shopping districts, the megas were miniature cities all their own, overflowing with people. The upper floors held the private suites of the elite and had their own elevators, exits and entrances. His apartment was on the tenth floor, barely out of the penury zones, which by regulation didn’t require elevators, so V had to take the stairs. 

He’d told her to call when she got there, but she used the climb up the littered steps to steel her courage, passing by peddlers of reclaimed trinkets, wafts of spice and oil from the street food vendors, and the fevered shouts of junkies, who lined the concrete balconies on their cardboard beds. 

Alone, she could think, rubbing her fingers down the channels of the implants in her arms, unsure what she was even doing there. It had been longer than she cared to admit since she’d been to anyone’s place, except Jackie’s, and that didn’t count. It should have counted, she had wanted it to count, but realized too late, she was so wrapped up in her own bullshit.

Now he was with someone else, a better woman than herself. A local girl, who served soup instead of sarcasm, who didn’t recoil at touching crosses, who was level-headed and owned a business, had a life outside of surviving. She dug her fingernails into her skin. Misty was an equal in a way she could never be.

She had wanted so badly to leave. And now she didn’t want to go. Hypocrite, she admonished herself,  legs already aching by the fifth floor.

Even before her fall from Arasaka, Jackie was the only real friend she had, though he was friends with everyone. She’d fucked over everyone she knew from corporate life, or else they had fucked her over. Most of them probably thought she was dead after Boss was zeroed and she didn’t come back. But no one had bothered to check, and she didn’t blame them. She wouldn’t have bothered either.

Save your money for that move you want.

She wondered if she’d disappear from Jackie’s life, too, when she left. Vanish like the pooling water down the gutters and out into the sea, to mix with the salt and algae blooms.

Another cluster of merchants called from their cluttered stalls, offering their wares. She ignored them, walking by the flaking number ten painted onto the balcony landing, and turned her thoughts back to River. She hardly knew him, didn’t even know what his real job was, if he wasn’t a hired man. Couldn’t pay very well if he lived below the thirties. But it was somewhere to go, anywhere other than the Welles apartment where Jackie was. She couldn’t bear to see him right now. 

And River had wanted her to come. Look forward to it, he wrote, and let her invite herself over. Maybe she could take her mind off of her troubles, at least.

The door to his apartment was recently swept and cleared of refuse. She hesitated before pressing her thumb onto the corroded call button, and the door slid open with a hiss. River filled the doorframe, more relaxed in the simple clothes that complemented his features. She wondered if he’d changed.

“V,” he said, folding his arms, “I thought you were gonna call?” He had the same bemused half-smile as he did back at El Coyote, and leaned one hip back, opening a space for her to enter. Behind him, she could see the whole apartment. He hadn’t lied, it was small. Just one room. She stuck her hands in her pockets. 

“Don’t need an escort, thanks,” she said, a little more brusque than she meant.

“Didn’t think you did. Just a long climb, you didn’t look so hot last I saw you. Come in, beer’s waiting.”

The inside of the apartment was sparse, but neat. She recognized the faint scent of spiced coffee, like it had settled into the furniture the same way it had his coat, which hung on a hook by the entry. A bare kitchenette – save for two opened beer bottles – lined the wall near the door, leading to a small inset couch with a holo opposite. The bed nearby was close enough that she could sit on the couch and put her feet on it. There was only one window, which framed the image of a woman peeling the flesh from her face outside. An ad for NuSkin. In front of her, a small dream catcher hung from the pane, the only real decoration in the room. 

V tossed her bag on the couch and sat next to it, crossing one foot over her knee, trying to appear more relaxed than she felt. He sat across from her on the end of the bed, glass clinking against the steel hand as he passed her a bottle from between his fingers. She thanked him and took a swig, looking around, as if she could find conversation lurking in the corners of the bare walls.

“You just move in?”

“Been here seven years,” he said, leaning one hand back behind him and balancing his drink on his knee. 

“Seven years, and all you got is one bit hanging in the window?”

He looked over at it. “Present from a colleague a while back. Meant well, if mistaken. My family never lived anywhere near the Great Lakes. Mostly sentimental now.”

“Picky with your sentiments,” she laughed, “if that’s the only thing worth keeping.”

“Work keeps me busy, not a lot of time for much else.”

He brought it up first, might as well ask.

“You gonna tell me what that is yet, or do I need to go back to the Wall to get preem info like what you do for a living? ‘Less you really are a huscle.”

He laughed, just a sharp exhale from his nose, and sat up to extend his hand. “River Ward, NCPD Investigations.”

Oh, shit. A badge. She was full of good decisions today. Fuck’s sake, she’d just stolen a car a few hours ago. Sure, it was already boosted, probably, but she’d never met a badge who gave two shits about who had it first. Though this one had just hired her to break the law with the backing of a powerful government official. It could be leverage, if she needed it. 

She shook his hand, hoping he couldn’t feel the sweat from her palm on the steel.

“Don’t worry, didn’t pull a file on you,” he said. Guess he could see her nerves anyway, clammy hands or not. Made sense for a detective, but that wasn’t comforting. 

She sat back against the couch. “The fuck is a badge doin’ inviting a merc to see his place?”

“Work with mercs when we need to. City subcontracts with them all the time.” He glanced out the window at the woman’s peeling face. “Never seems to be enough for the murder rate.”

“You subcontract… at your place.” 

“No.” His wry smile sent electricity through her gut. “Don’t have a lot of people over, V.”

“Not afraid I know where you live? I could be dangerous, y’know.” 

“You risked your life for intel on kids.”

“I was paid.”

“Yet you answered my text.” He leaned forward, elbows over his knees, and the electricity returned. “Told me you ‘hoped they got the fuckers.’ Haven’t come across too many mercs with that attitude. Except you.” A small sigh escaped his mouth when he sipped his beer. “Plus, I have a special exception for people who’ve been to their own funeral. Which I’d like to hear more about.” 

She groaned, pinching her nose. “Look, I was in a bad place. I made a lot of mistakes that day.” She could almost hear the distant laughter of the Valentino boys outside the storage room, and the shifting of Jackie’s legs. She busied herself with unlacing her boots, fingers fumbling over the ties.

“Didn’t seem like a mistake to me,” he said, reaching down to pull her boots off for her. They dropped to the floor with a thunk. “At least it was flattering, had worse pickups before. One time, this woman pulled me aside. Right off the street, like it’s urgent. I figured she needed something from a badge, missing car, stolen wallet. But she just told me I have sexy calves.”

“Appreciate you tryin’ to make me feel better, River,” — she tried his name, still strange on her tongue, compared to Ward, more intimate — “but seems pretty tame compared to bitching about your fake death.”

“Wait. Sexy calves — just like her boyfriend’s, who lost his legs in the war.”

“Jesus,” she laughed, stifling a snort, a habit that she’d never really been able to break. Jackie always said it was cute, but she never believed him. “Okay, that might be worse.”

“Your turn. Wouldn’t mind hearin’ one of your worst.” He tilted his head to the side, maybe to see her better with his ganic eye, or maybe just because it outlined his face so well. “I’m sure you get plenty.”

“Alright, let me think,” she said, trying to remember anything more noteworthy than some drunk trying to grab her tits. There was one, a long time ago. “Okay, so this one time I was at a bar, mindin’ my own business after a real shit day at work, and this skinny little gonk taps me on the shoulder. And he says to me, ‘here I am baby, you got two wishes left.’”

“Oof,” River laughed, the fine lines deepening near the corners of his mouth and his eye. “So what’d you say to him?”

“Spoke my second wish, that he would fuck off.”

“Did this genius grant you a third?”

She shadowboxed a punch in the air. “Wished his nose a speedy recovery.” 

“Sounds like I got lucky you approached me first.” He got up from the bed and put his empty bottle in the sink. “You want another?”

“No thanks. And yeah, maybe you did,” she said, twisting her legs around to let him walk by. “Though I didn’t get your detes, did I? I don’t fail at this much, you know.” 

Usually.

“Was on a job then, waiting for my partner to finish up – you saw him, Han. Couldn’t rightly ask in front of him. But –” He sat back down next to her, tossing her bag to the floor, and slid an arm behind her across the back of the couch. “Thought it was a damn shame. Even if you did talk to me on a bet. You sort things out with your friend?”

“Working on it,” she said, wrestling down the bubble in her throat. Fuck, don’t talk about Jackie now. She was almost having fun. “It’s complicated.”

“You’ll get there,” he said, with a confidence she wished she felt. “Already found a new line of work, right? Glad I ran into you again.” 

“Yeah, so I could call you a meatstick and get pulled out of a tub half-dead.” She put her legs across his lap and leaned her head against his arm. “Very sexy.”

“Half-dead?” He glanced down at the replaced chrome on her neck. “You’d said you were fine, V.”

“I - I was. I am.” It was a lie. She squirmed under his scrutiny, which seemed to go straight through her. A useful effect to have on people for an investigator. She waved her beer toward the metal hand behind her head. “You promised to tell me about your iron grip there. Practically ancient. Why?”

He watched her a moment longer before he lifted his arm from behind her, curling the fingers in front of him with a soft, mechanical whir. “My first case. Run-in with some high powered types, got caught. They took it. An old friend bought this for me when I came to.” He frowned slightly, his voice becoming distant. “Can’t seem to part with it.”

“Jesus, River.” She sat up, putting the bottle on the floor. “I’m sorry.” 

“Was a long time ago now. It’s old, but still useful. Lotta netrunners out there who aren’t too fond of pigs,” he said, emphasizing the last word. “No remote shutdown on this kind of tech.” 

“That an accusation?” She adjusted her legs over his lap, leaning on his shoulder, and he placed his hands down above her knees, not too high. Not yet.

“An observation,” he shrugged, “I’ve seen that assessment you gave me in the warehouse lot before.”

“Guilty as charged, officer.” There was no sense in denying it. She touched the metal hand on her thigh. “I’ve never seen tech like this up close, though. Can I?”  

He nodded, so she took his hand in hers, turning it over. 

“Can you feel anything with it?” she said, tracing the small crevices where the plates moved together. A few of his fingers twitched in response. 

“Enough. Not the same, but most things.” Did he always use that bedroom voice? The way it rumbled in his chest was dizzying. Or maybe it was just her nerves.

“What about this?” Interlacing their fingers, she dragged hers up between his, then down again across the flat of his palm. Goosebumps raised on the skin of his arm under the light touch of her fingertips, moving back over the metal wrist.

His hand closed around hers, stopping her thumb, which was sweeping over the knuckle joints. She felt him shift to look down at her on his shoulder. His breathing was slow but deep — how was he always so calm? — except for the small intake of breath before he spoke. 

“V. Be honest with me. What’re you doing here?” 

She looked up at him. His face was close, it wouldn’t take much to close the gap. Heat was radiating off him, off his lips, off his lap; it seeped into her skin. She imagined that she could see his desire in the curve of his mouth.

How good it would feel to be wanted.  

“I don’t know,” she whispered, and it was true. “I don’t want to be alone.”

It ached in her chest, the loneliness mixed with longing. Maybe he felt it too, in the sparseness of his seven-year apartment, tucked in among throngs of people, where no one ever visited. 

He started to reply, but she lifted his hand to her face, pressing it against her cheek, closing her eyes against the cool of it. It had been so long since she’d been with anyone like this, and even before it had so often been hollow, empty, a braindance vid played out in her flesh. 

He moved his thumb over her lip, its smoothness slipping over where she had wet it, then trailed the backs of his fingers over her jaw, down her neck, drawing a sigh from her, a small shift of her hips on his lap. She didn’t want him to stop – please, don’t stop – but he paused at her shoulders.

“Is this what you want?” he asked, and in his question she heard his own answer. Yes, he wanted her.

She reached for his face and brought it to hers, kissing the corners of his mouth where the fine lines of time, or, she realized, maybe solitude, had etched themselves into him. 

“Yes,” she said, and like the ache in her chest, that was true, too.

He brushed his lips against hers first, the musk on his breath mixed with the sharp, floral bite of the beer. It sent tremors flitting to the base of her spine, then back up again, dragging her latent desire up from her core, and her impatience returned with it. His stillness was maddening, especially when her own pulse was fluttering in her ears. 

She climbed over him, straddling his legs, the fibers of her clothes swishing against the couch. Against him.

Please, don’t stop. 

He laughed softly at her restlessness, the way it quivered through her limbs and up into her breath and back again, and kissed her, fully, sucking her lips, his hands exploring the skin and curves of her back, one warm, one cool, increasing the growing need behind her navel. Gripping at his shirt, she pulled it over his head, then tore her own away, tossing them to the floor.

He explored the tattoos on her torso, tracing over them with his fingertips, the intricate crossing lines and circles on her ribs that Jackie had touched, in the dark of the storage closet. She pressed the bare skin of her chest against River’s —who had no tattoos, no scars, no Sagrado Corazon on his breastbone — biting his lip, clutching behind his head, to wash the thought away.

His stillness vanished. He held her to him, tongue reaching into her mouth, and now his breath matched hers, ragged and hot and urgent. He lifted them both from the couch, her legs wrapped around him, and turned her down onto the bed, the light from the window casting shadows over the lines of his body above her. Her sighs filled the room, the sound of her need soaring up to into the bare corners as she kicked off the last of her clothes.

He kissed down her neck, over her arching breasts and the swirling black circles on her stomach, until he reached between her thighs. 

Oh. Oh. She had been right. The fine lines did mean experience. 

***

It was late. V was tugging her feet through her pant legs at the edge of the bed, River stretched out on the rumpled covers behind her, trailing a hand down her back. It made her shiver all over again, and she thought about abandoning her threads and climbing back into bed, but she needed to get back. 

“So, V.”

“Mm?” She twisted around to look at him, peering through the dark, one arm searching the floor for her shirt. 

“That a code name?” 

The shirt was there, under the couch. She shook it open with a snap. “It’s my name,” she said. 

“Just – guess I wanna know you better.” The bed shifted as he moved to the edge to sit next to her and pull on his own pants. “Seems like a name’s a good place to start.”

“It’s just V, River.” She yanked the shirt over her head.

“Okay,” he said, handing over her boots. He looked down at her shirt, briefly, and broke into one of his half-smiles. “Maybe next time.”

“Look, I’m not—I’m a merc, got shit going on. Can’t do commitment.”

“Didn’t ask for that, V.” He stood, zipping up his fly, and offered his hand to help her up off the bed. “Just next time.”

“Maybe,” she said, taking his hand, and when he lifted her up he ran his fingertips over the vertebrae of her back again, which was more convincing than anything he could have said.

“Sure you don’t wanna stay?”

“I should get home – back,” she corrected herself, “if I’m not there in the morning, Mama will chew me out.”

“Mama, huh?” Damned detective didn’t miss anything, but he didn’t pursue it. He reached into a drawer in the wall behind him and pulled on a fresh shirt. “I’ll walk you out.”

It was quiet when they reached the street outside the mega, awash with a blue light from the holo-ads above the entry. River waived down an autotaxi that had just dropped off a pack of delivery Dolls, dressed in neon stockings and not much else. V tried to insist that she could pay, but flicking payment from coms was faster than pulling out cash, so he’d already done it before she could decline. She sputtered, angry that she owed him the ride, but he simply leaned over as he opened the door, murmuring “next time,” into her ear, and pushed her in by the small of her back. She thought about that for a long while on the ride to Heywood.

In the cab she checked her messages, nothing from Jackie or Mama, but Wakako had sent her a text, that persistent old asshole. It was just a number. A big number. V scoffed and closed the chat without replying. It was too hot to think. She pulled at her shirt to fan herself, but it felt too loose. 

She looked down – shit. It wasn’t hers. In the dark of River’s apartment, she’d grabbed the wrong one. She groaned, thankful it was so late. At least no one would see her. 

The Welles place was dark. She slid in the front door and checked the worn couch, but Jackie’s blanket was haphazardly hanging off the side. He was probably still with Misty, like the other nights he had been away in recent weeks. The pit in her stomach returned, but she pushed it down, shuffling into the kitchen for water. 

Mama’s ledgers were on the table again; Jackie had said the sharks were taking money from the bar, and yet Mama fed her and nursed her anyway, though V hardly gave anything in return. She sighed, guilt deepening her exhaustion. She knew she needed to move out. Hopefully there would be enough of a reason for her to keep coming back to visit, once she left. 

Upstairs, she was thinking of the way River had murmured in her ear when she opened the door to Jackie’s bedroom and walked into something solid.

“Hey, you alright?” Jackie was there, his hand on the door handle, halfway through the threshold. 

“Shit, Jack – thought you were out,” she said, stepping back out into the hall, her heart pounding in her ears. Fuck, not now. She folded her arms tight across her chest, trying to cover the shirt, though she wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like she had any reason to feel ashamed. She and Jack went home with different people all the time. Or they used to. Still, she flushed.

“Nah, came home hours ago,” he said, glancing down at her clothes, then away from her and cleared his throat. “Heard you comin’ up the steps. Figured I’d scram, let you sleep.” 

“Oh,” she shifted her weight from side to side, hands stuck in her armpits. Her face was burning. “Sorry I woke you.” 

“Duérmete, hermana. Buenas noches,” he said, patting her on the shoulder, his hand sliding down off her arm. She watched him start off down the hall with a lump in her throat.

“Jack, wait.” 

He turned at the top of the steps and looked at her, his expression difficult to read. Pained, maybe. Or just tired. 

“I’ve got – there’s a job,” she said, leaning against the wall. “Wakako, the fixer. She wants a duo, you and me. Said it would be easy.” 

He rubbed his chest, over the place where his scars where. “Sure, okay. We’ll talk about it in the morning, yeah?” He put his hand on the rail to leave, but stopped when she called to him.

“Come back.”

V gestured toward the bedroom, one arm still tightly wrapped across River’s shirt. “I’ve been in here for weeks. C’mon, I can take the couch.”

“S’fine, chica,” he said. “Next time.”

Chapter Text

For pestering her so much, Wakako took her fucking time.

It was weeks before she was ready to receive V and Jack at her parlor. Old bitch never said why, just to be patient and wait while she made arrangements, which was really fucking irritating after she’d made it seem so urgent. 

They did a few gigs in the meantime for Padre, nothing special, low-pay types klepping valuables from losers with too much money and not enough sense. On the job, it was almost normal, like their old selves. V would rib him, and Jack would elbow her, and they’d laugh about how stupid some dipshit was for thinking she could pull one over on the Mox. But afterward Jack would disappear from the apartment, or she would, to avoid the suffocation of passing him in the narrow hallway outside his bedroom. Never touching, not anymore.

She told herself it was temporary, that the distance would be gone in a few days. They could still be chooms. But night after night she would toss in the bed, sleepless and alone among the clutter of his childhood.

The guilt didn’t help. She’d lied. She had plenty of eddies to find a small place, something like River’s, and that would be enough. But instead of spending the time between jobs looking for one, she puttered around Heywood. Mama needed help unpacking that next delivery for the bar. She should really help clean Jack’s room. Maybe she should get him that moto he wanted first.

She saw River a few more times, especially on nights when the laughter in the bar was keeping her awake. She’d pass the old barrel in the alley when she left and wrap her jacket more tightly around herself, never looking at it. 

They didn’t talk much at River’s apartment. The first time she returned she’d barely made it inside the door before she’d slipped off her clothes and pressed him against the countertop. Other visits were hardly any different; they’d have a drink, maybe two, before their bodies were entwined on the couch, or the bed, or the shower. He didn’t seem to mind.

But tangled up in his sheets after, River would always ask if she wanted to stay. She’d trail her fingers along the slopes and rises of his nakedness—she especially liked that muscle across his hip—before she’d say no, and head back.

And her name, each time he’d ask her name. It almost became a joke. “My name is V,” she’d say, and change the subject with her mouth, or better yet, her legs. It was true, in a way. No one knew her old name anymore. Not even Jack, but he’d never asked.

The morning they had to go to that fossil bitch’s parlor, V awoke from the couch with the dawn and paced in the kitchen, randomly wiping surfaces. She’d never really learned to clean, she never had to before, but it was something to do. When she tried to make coffee on the stove, it burned, filling the kitchen with smoke. She was waving the stink out the window when Mama appeared in the doorway. 

“Up so early, mija?” 

“Yeah, sorry. I was—I tried to make coffee.” V lifted the scalded pot, still slightly smoking. “I, uh, failed.”

Mama chuffed at her and walked over to take the carafe. “Okay. Let me show you.”

She filled it with water and showed V where to put the grinds, how to pack them down with a pinch of salt to take out the bitterness, how to watch for the bubbles when they hit the clear glass top to know it was done. When the bubbles rose and hot steam was whistling out of the spout, Mama poured them both a cup. Sure enough, it was smooth, like it always was when she made it. 

“V, mi cielo,” said Mama, sitting down at the table. She pat the chair next to her. “You look tired. How you feel? You okay?”

“‘Course, I’m fine. Just gettin’ by. I’ll have enough to go soon, I promise.”  More lies. 

Mama laid her hand over V’s. “You are always welcome here. You know this.” 

“Thanks, I’ll try to remember that.” V believed Mama meant it, but promises were cheap. People say a lot of things before they disappear. “I’ll keep looking out for Jack, long as I can.”

“My son, the dreamer,” said Mama, looking out the window. “Always reaching high, but too afraid to grab it. You know he used to climb on the counters, right over there? Try to reach the sweets. But once he got them, he’d just sit, play with the box, like he forgot what he went all the way up there for.” She sighed. “He hasn’t changed a bit. And now that new puta...” 

“Mama, please. She’s got a name.” V ignored the ache in her chest. “Misty. She’s sweet, makes him happy. Invite her over for dinner. You’ll like her, promise.” 

“Happy, huh?” Mama emptied her cup and got up from the table, grabbing a meal bar from the cabinet. “Okay, mija. If you say so.” She put the bar in front of V, tapping it with a finger. “When you get back, I’ll teach you to cook some rice. You need to know how to feed yourself on your own with more than this, hm?” 

When she left, V rubbed the spot where Mama held her hand, sitting at the table alone.

***

Wakako’s parlor was in the heart of Japantown. V and Jack wove through the crowds of people, shops, and food stands choking the raised walkways, ubiquitous paper lanterns swaying above them when the metro roared through on the track suspended between the high-rises. The new year celebration would be soon, and despite Japantown’s name, Beijing had more recent influence on the sector, so every balcony and business was festooned with golden roosters, red tassels, and inky couplets plastered to every surface. Jack tried to stop for takoyaki from an elderly man in a black bandana, but V swatted his hand away, pulling him by his jacket sleeve into a side alley. It was the most contact they’d had all week. 

No time to stop, they were almost there. 

The alley narrowed as they approached the back, blocking out the lantern light and deafening the sounds of Japantown’s bustling commerce behind them. The door of the parlor at the end would have been inconspicuous, an apartment entry like any other, if not for the gauntlet of armed men whose distinctive oni masks covered them from nose to chin. Jack adjusted the holster under his jacket—again—and grinned at one of the guards at the door.

“Hey ‘mano, you’re huge! Work out? Do some foreign shit, ninjutsu or somethin’?” 

“Jack, please,” V warned him, but the huscle just grunted and held out his hand. 

“No weapons.”

V put her hand over the piece on her hip, looking around at the guards. At least a dozen outside alone. Even if she picked them, there were too many to spike at once with a viral upload. 

“Pretty sure you got us outgunned here,” she said.

“No. Weapons.” 

V grit her teeth, a pang of pressure forming in her forehead, and looked at Jack. They never had to disarm for Padre. He shrugged and removed his jacket.

“Happens sometimes. Take care ‘a my baby for me, will you, ‘mano?” he said, handing over his shoulder strap, gun still inside.

She glared at the huscle before ripping her own belt holster off her waist. The guard mumbled into his coms, then stepped aside, waving them in. 

The parlor’s entry was sumptuous, decorated with fine exotic wood and brass, expensive commodities ever since the forest blight had wiped out the arbor farms in Brazil. More men, without masks, were playing some sort of game of tiles on low couches, laughing and exchanging eddie shards and coins. Others lined the walls, weapons in hand. 

“Nice digs,” said Jack, as they were escorted into a small office behind the anteroom. Wakako was there, gray hair in a tight bun and seated behind her grand desk, the brass dragon behind her.

And next to her, long fingers draped over the back of Wakako’s sharp black chair, a woman. Severe nose, slick blonde hair, more bones than flesh. V froze, panic snatching her breath from her throat.

The Director.

“Hello, V,” she said, heavily-lidded eyes looking down over her sharp nose. “Or, should I say—”

“Jack.” V put her arm out to stop him from sitting, rage replacing the ice in her chest. Wakako. That bitch. How dare she. “We’re leaving. Now.” 

“Whoa, what—” Jack stumbled as V pushed him back toward the door. Two guards stepped inside, blocking their path. Goddamn it, goddamn it, too late.

“Out of my way!” V raised a fist, but the guards raised their rifles. Fuck. Fuck. She spun to face the desk, digging her nails into her hands until they threatened to break through the skin. “I warned you,” she spat at Wakako, “ I fucking warned you not to stick your nose in my business.” 

Wakako addressed Jack, blowing a puff of smoke. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, dear. Handsomer than I expected. You remind me of my better-looking sons. Please, sit.” As she said it, the guards pushed their rifles into their backs, forcing V and Jack into the chairs. 

“Hey, hey, take it easy there, holmes.” 

“Don’t talk to them, Jack.” V glared at the Director, the pain in her head blooming. “And you. Fuck you, gig’s off. I don’t want anything to do with you, Arasaka, none of you. Already sent your goons, and they failed.” 

The Director came around to the front of the desk, leaning against it. “Please. I wasn’t even there. It’s standard policy to reclaim property after a stunt like that, and you got off easy. It wasn’t your fault, after all. That dick-brain never did think about anything further away than the length of his cock.” She sniffed. “Besides, I’m a free woman now, like you. I don’t work for Arasaka or its shitty little brats anymore.”

“Oh, good. That makes this little ambush just fine then.” V wiped her brow, pressing a knuckle between her eyes.

“Ambush? This is an offer. Seems you’ve built a name for yourself out here, haven’t you? From what I’m told, if something needs lifting, you’re the pair to do it.”

“Fuck off. I have no reason to help you.”

“Hm.” The Director lifted one corner of her mouth and dragged her eyes from V to Jack. She extended her hand to him. “Meredith Stout. Your client.”  

V froze, an icy numbness spreading down to her toes. No, please no. Not Jack.

“What do you want,” V said. 

Stout smiled and retracted her hand. “Just a simple lift. Saborou’s wayward son has stolen an experimental prototype, under my watch.” She waved at the room around her. “So you see why I’m here. But I have enough intel to know he’s hidden it away in his private fuck palace at the top of Konpecki Plaza. We act quickly, we get it before dear old daddy figures it out.”

“The fuck do I care? I’m not throwing myself against Konpecki’s security army for you. It’s suicide. Get some other assholes to do your dirty work.” 

“Please. You think I’m as messy as that prick you used to work for? You won’t have to. There’s a bypass in the security code, encrypted. Add it to an ICEpick, and, well, that opens all kinds of doors, doesn’t it? Codewriter’s long gone, but we expect it would be in her lab notes, in a private research facility in Westbrook. Except it’s biolocked.” She flicked her eyes to Jack, then back to V. “But you can get in, can’t you?”

“Chica, what’s she talking about?” 

“She hasn’t told you?” Stout rolled her eyes and turned to Jack. “I shouldn’t be surprised. Always was uptight.” 

“Fuck off,” said V, gripping the chair to stop shaking. The pulse in her forehead was blurring her vision. “I’m not going there.”

“It’s a simple job,” Stout said, still speaking to Jack, “just a few notes from an old crypt, trip for two to the finest hotel in the city, and this.” Stout slid a piece of paper across the desk, a number scrawled across it. Jack picked it up. 

“And if we say no?” V said, but Stout didn’t look at her.

“Finish the job, the money’s yours. All you have to do is open a door. My intel, your skills. Easy.” She stood to leave, smoothing her hands down over her dress, and finally looked back to V, eyes narrowed. “You have a choice. Think about it carefully. I will be waiting.”

***

Even outside, it was hard to breathe. V shoved shoppers aside on the walkways of Japantown, sweating through her clothes, rushing away from the alley. But it didn’t matter where she went, did it? They already had her cornered. 

They’d threatened Jack. And Mama too, probably. Steal from the most powerful man in the city. Go back to—to there. Or else. V’s head was throbbing. She bit her lip and tasted blood. 

“Hold up, slow down,” Jack was pulling his leather jacket back on over his holster, turning sideways to get through the crowd. He reached out to grab her elbow. “Espera! You gonna tell me what’s goin’ on?”

“That bitch. The fucking bitch!” V grasped the roots of her hair. She never should have picked up Wakako’s call. “They’re threatening you. Us. If I don’t do this job.”

“Threat?” Jack laughed and pat her arm. “Hermana, they got armed goons, but c’mon, how’s that any different from any other client? All act tough, like they got the biggest set a balls in the room. But in the end, it’s just biz. Seen this before.”

“You fucking kidding me right now? She’s a corpo! You bought off that easily? Couple extra zeroes, that’s all it takes, you full-in on this bullshit?” 

“What’re you talkin’ about? It’s a gig like any other, and we ain’t working for corpos, eh? Just some washed up chick who used to be one. Cash like that for some data and a pickup, could be the last gig we need. Least put us on the map in the big leagues. What’s the deal?” 

“Christ! Fucking big leagues. You don’t know these people like I do!” V swallowed, the pressure in her head was excruciating. “She’s pretending to be fair, the fuckin’ snake, but they’re just gonna fuck us over, first chance. They do whatever they have to. They already are. I don’t have a choice.”

“Hey, you think gangers are all honest and loyal all the time, or somethin’? I smell shit when it stinks, too, hermana. Motherfuckers like that walk into El Coyote every day.”

“No—“

“You’re not telling me something. What’s this about a lab? Mira,” he took her by the arms, clutching the sides of her shoulders. “Hey, look at me.” 

“The codewriter,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut against the pain, sweat dripping off her nose. “She was my mother. The lab was in her house. My house.”

V’s stomach lurched, and she vomited onto the pavement. 

***

The house was for sale, and the easiest way to get into it was to pretend that they were buyers. Wakako and Stout sent them in sharp-cornered suits, draped in white and red and black, fashionable colors, to meet with a realtor. Stout even sent her personal livery with an AI driver that was barely below the legal limits of intelligence, so they would best look the part. V stared out of the window as they drove out of the city into the winding foothills of Westbrook, so she wouldn’t have to look at Jack, stiff in a red jacket that didn’t suit him. It didn’t smell like pebbled earth, or noodles, or smoke, like his torn leather one did.

Like most of the other manses dotting Westbrook’s hillsides, the house was abandoned. The architect who had built it had taken great pains to give the best views of the city, south-east facing, so that the house’s residents would rise with the dawn’s light and take full advantage of the sun as it passed over each day. An eco-house, it was supposed to be, and Appa had been very proud of it. He added it to the collection of all his toys, like it was a trophy, and not a home. 

Amma had tried to make it suit her, but she had always hated it, its sleek poured flooring and wood panels and glass walls that were meant to be looked at but not touched. She had shoved her tinctures and trinkets into every corner, to ward away the darkness she said would come if she didn’t. It annoyed Appa, always, because he didn’t believe in such things. He would call her stupid, old-fashioned, a bitch, and Amma would fill more corners with badly applied gold leaf in retaliation. “Vee, my Vee,” she would say, using her nickname, “don’t let anyone tell you what to do,” and then she would disappear to her lab in the ground, for hours or days, before the next cycle of their arguments would start again, like the phases of the moon, waxing and waning and ever-repeating. Bitch and cunt, baubles and gold, over and over. And V, like the earth in the middle, slowly rotating while the solar winds of their arguments battered by.

When she was small, V imagined that the house was a Star base, like the Arc they were building in the heavens. The next great phase of humanity, they said. Utopia for all. But of course the investors were the rich, the powerful, the dreamers who thought their money was best invested in the stars instead of the starved. She should have known.

But she didn’t know, not then. She only knew the stark walls of the house that was not a home, which in her mind was a Moon base or a Mars base or the Arc itself, set in the firmament, where its emptiness would make sense in the vastness of space. Appa had bought her a telescope when her obsession reached a peak—the best one, of course—because it kept her busy and quiet. V would sit in the garden and peep through it for hours to catch the Arc’s shadow as it passed over the pale lunar face above. Out there, the hot flares of her parents’ failed marriage couldn’t reach her. It was beautiful, and V was naive. 

When Appa died—a heart condition, they said, though those were rare for rich men like him—it was a sort of relief, if only for the quiet that settled over the house. In the months preceding he had hardly been there at all, inside his trophy. The few times he was, it had been all noise. Anger and glares, hot words V didn’t yet understand. And Amma, always gone in her secret cave, in the world all her own. She had locked it to her DNA, to keep him out.

V had thought that with him gone, perhaps her mother would return. She’d tried to show Amma her charts of the stars, how peaceful it was to gaze out into infinity, and have no one gaze back. But though the trinkets stopped multiplying, gathering dust in the corners, Amma disappeared even more into the confines of her lab and the comlines of cyberspace.

Amma tried, in her way, a few times, when she admitted V into her refuge. “Come sit, beta,” she’d say, so V would fold up her legs and watch while her mother pored over her books and her terminals and her papers. But though the room was small enough for their chairs to touch, it brought them no closer, and V went there less and less. 

V found her, Amma, when she left too. Floating and ashen in the tub, lips cracked even with the rest of her submerged in the water. V had seen her last three days before, when she told her she was going into the city with friends, though in truth V had gone by herself and stayed in motels, nearest the clubs where the music was loudest. The vibrations in her chest, the dullness of alcohol, the heat of anonymous bodies made her feel alive then. By the time she came back, Amma was already gone. Netrunner’s burnout, they said, voices serious and whispered, as though that made it easier. 

The realtor was a peppy young man, fresh-faced with gold chrome, bouncing on his toes in front of the overgrown walk leading up to the entrance, when they arrived. 

“Sheesh, looks like a puppy,” said Jack, though he was bouncing his own leg in the seat.

“Jack, just let me do the talkin’, okay?” V smoothed over the stiff black skirt, clothes more foreign to her now than they used to be, and stepped out from the car. 

“Madam, sir! Pleasure to meet you. I’m Roger. Real diamond we have here! Only two owners, and no one has lived here since it was sold the first time. A true investment property.” The realtor held out his hand, a salesman’s grin across his face. Amateur. V didn’t take it. It really must have been dire for real estate in Westbrook, if they had sent someone so green in dealing with corpos. 

Instead she stood with her back straight, looking down her nose, and thought of Appa and his distaste for such men. “I was told you would turn on the power for my inspection,” she said, emulating her father’s voice, the sharp enunciation that turned every word into a barb. Jackie looked over at her, eyebrows furrowed; the realtor’s smile faltered slightly. Good, then she sounded right. “The house?” she asked, expectantly. “It is ready?”

Roger bowed slightly. “Of course, madam, only—”

“Good,” she waived her hand at him in dismissal. “I won’t require your…” she paused, to twist in his doubts. “Assistance. You will wait here.”

It was so easy to return to that cold viciousness. 

“Madam, I—”

“You will wait here,” she repeated, walking past him toward the graveled steps. Robert, or Roger, whatever his name was, curled in on himself and stood aside. She took off up the overgrown front path, Jack trailing behind her. 

When they were far enough away, Jack spoke under his breath.

“Mierda, V. Looked like you punched the fucker in the balls.” He looked back over his shoulder at the realtor in the distance, kicking some pebbles around by the car.

There it was, the front door, the same smooth black metal and square brass handles as the day she left, a bag of clothes and records in her hands. She glanced over at him and grasped the door handle of the entry. The goldleaf Amma had put there had long since flaked off, leaving tarnished corrosion underneath.

“Shoulda zapped him with a pick instead,” V said, “that it?” 

“Nah, course not. I mean, just—”

“C’mon.” The door screeched as she yanked it open. “He’s not gonna let us be alone in here forever. Let’s get this over with.” 

The vast entryway had been little changed in the years since she left. Her heels clacked against the same cold stone floor, dark and flecked with mica, echoing up the glass stairwell to the upper floors, which looked down over them from smooth steel railings. She’d lay on her belly up there at night, sometimes, on the rare occasion company was over. Fat men in suits with generous waists and women, like twigs, with big hair and no waists at all. They would laugh together, or yell together, and Appa would always be pleased the next day, because he got a good deal or he walked away from one. "Your Appa can walk away from anything," he'd say. He was the best at that. 

But no family came. Never family. 

Jack’s whistle echoed off the walls. “Damn, hermana. Knew you came from Westbrook, but this is somethin’ else.”

“My parents lived here,” she corrected him. “They took it with them when they died.”

“What happened? Never told me.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “They’re dead.” 

“‘Course it matters,” he replied, but she walked away down the hall toward the kitchen, which twisted around like a desert snake in the sand, horizontal wood paneling following its curves. It followed the best principles of design, Appa had said, for movement and form. Stupid bullshit. Amma had just stuffed spaces between the panels with junk, pushing them in so far it was hard to pick them back out. 

“It’s this way—”

“Wait, what’s this?” Jack had stopped, pushing in a door that was almost invisible in the paneling. 

“Jack, we don’t have time for this.” 

“Damn, you really have secret rooms and labs like some kinda spy BD flick or some shit?” He opened the door and stepped through. “Fuck, it is a room! What was this?”

She stepped in after him, holding her breath. Inside, a soft carpet that used to be white had turned gray with years of dust. It was plush under her feet, and musty. Along the long walls, bleached rectangles and lines marked where posters and shelving once hung. Once there had been a bed, in the middle, facing the glass wall on the side that looked east, over the desert, away from the city. She’d spent many nights watching the horizon turn dark there, where the stars came out first after dusk.

“Mine,” she said, her voice hollow. 

“Yours? Like, your own personal safe room or somethin’?”

“Just a room. My bed was there.”

He looked out over the desert, moving toward the window. “Shit. Nice view,” he turned back to her with an impish smile. “So, how many fuckers you manage to sneak past the ‘rents here?”

She snorted. “You’re the first, Jack. Congrats.” 

“Damn, that strict, huh?”

“No. They didn’t give a shit,” she said, digging her heels into the carpet. “But neither did I, not bringin’ anyone here. Went to the city for fun, hotels or motels, clubs. Came back here when my cash ran out, maybe a few days.”

“Days?” He looked back at her, turning away from the window, which was darkening with the setting sun. A few of the automatic lights in the old gardens outside flickered on. “Didn’t check in on ya? I mean, shit, even when the boys and I ran with the Valentinos Mamá was callin’ every five minutes, make sure we were breathin’.”

“Why? He was usually gone, abroad somewhere. She was in her lab.” V pressed her lips together. “C’mon. We gotta go.”

They wound their way to the back of the house to the kitchen, which was buried into the hillside, the temperature cooler under the earth above them, raising goosebumps on V’s skin, though she was starting to sweat through her clothes. 

The kitchen itself was refined, smooth stone countertops, curving cabinets set into the walls. The appliances and the long wood table that had once covered half the floor—though no one had ever sat at it—were long gone. She slowed her steps, letting her fingers drag over the sharp edges of the cabinet pulls, and opened one.

“Cook kept the sweets in here,” she said, to no one in particular, the words sticking in her throat. “Knew I liked the box with the cactuses on it. Haven’t had ‘em in years.” 

Jackie came up beside her and leaned against the countertop. He spoke gently, the humor in his countenance gone. “Hermana – please, háblame. What happened?”

“He had a heart attack, on a trip,” she said. “Or so they said. Thought I told you that.”

“No, you didn’t. Lo siento.”

“I’m not.” She shoved the drawer shut. “Was always easier when he was gone.” 

“Know what that’s like,” he said, a scowl creeping across his face. He folded his arms and looked down at his chest. “Raúl Welles. Pinche hijo de puta, if there ever was one. Liked to use the belt, both me and Mamá. Didn’t need drink to do it, either. Just did it random, like it was fun. Still alive out there, somewhere.”

“Still?”

“Got fed up one day. He was on her, screamin’. Realized I was bigger.”

“Jesus.” V reached out and put a hand on his arm. It was warm, and he didn’t stiffen under her touch like he had been.

“Never came back after the hospital. Still keep the belt, though. In case he does.” Jack looked back up at her. “But what about your Ma?”

The churning in V’s gut returned. Amma, in the water. Amma, wet and cracked. Amma, covered in her cables. She didn’t know if she had the strength to do it. Maybe she could, with Jack here.

“I’ll show you. Through here.” V walked over to a panel near where the refrigerator used to be and dug her fingers into the familiar groove in the wall. It popped open, and she stepped through, turning to get through the gap into an antechamber. It was bare, plain, unlike the rest of the house. Just a large steel door with a terminal panel, which flickered to life.

Jackie squeezed through behind her. “Tight fit in here.”

“Only meant for her, really. She was small. I had access, but...” the words faded, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth. “Close the panel, in case the realtor comes.” 

He did, darkness falling over them, shoulder to shoulder in the antechamber, except for the faint blue light of the terminal. She touched the screen and a small glass shard popped out from an opening above it.

Please enter biodata, it read. V pulled the shard from the opening and pressed a corner into her thumb, until it drew blood. 

“Hold this,” she said, handing the shard to Jack. He did, and she squeezed a droplet onto a small circular well in the middle of the glass. The blood spread over the circuits, sucked into the small channels etched in it. She pushed it back into the opening.

Accepted. Please enter name and code.

Biting her lip, she typed her letter – V – into the terminal, though she knew it would be fruitless. 

Error. Please enter name and code.

She looked at Jack, his face half in shadow from the screen. He shifted his weight from side to side. 

“I can go."

“No.” The lump in her throat was threatening to choke her. “Please stay.”

She turned back to the terminal and entered her name, the one Amma had given her against Appa’s wishes, slowly pressing her finger to each letter on the screen. Jack swallowed beside her.

“Pretty,” he said quietly. 

“Now you know,” V said, and opened the door.

At least it was something he could keep, when she had to go.

The inside of the lab was as she remembered it when Amma was alive, the few times she’d bothered to come in. When the vultures came, relatives she’d never met who whispered about the value of the great table and Amma’s clothes, she didn’t tell them about the lab. She could at least keep this part of her mother whole.

Terminals lined the walls and softly hummed as they came to life, their blue screens flickering with charts, messages, lines of code. Tomes of paper cluttered the shelves above them, multiple stacks deep. She had always loved paper, despite the cost. 

And there it was, on the far wall. The Well. The sight of it crashed over V like a wave, she shook with the impact of seeing it, dizzied. Sick. It had been Amma’s sanctum and her tomb. V hadn’t seen it since she found her there, as gray as the tub’s metal sides, bloated like bread left in milk, profusions of thick blackened cables coiled around her. She could almost smell them still, the melted plastic mixed with Amma’s decay. V walked over to it, hand hovering, not quite touching the Well’s dull basin.

“V?” Jack was beside her. When she didn’t respond, he took her hand, rubbing a thumb over her knuckles. “¿Qué pasa?”

“She died in it.” She inhaled sharply, her breath shuddering as fast as her pulse. “I found her. Here.”

“Mierda. Really?”

“Burnout. Spent all her time here. Might have been spiked, for the money. Or rogue AI, Blackwall holes were bigger then. Or she just stayed too long.” She touched the tub, her fingers curling over the edge. “First time I saw the Net, thought maybe I understood why she—“ she swallowed, “why she didn’t come back. It’s free there. Clean.”

“Jesús...”

“Like I said.” V wiped her eyes, though they were dry, releasing the tub from her grasp. “They’re dead. Just an architect and a runner, stuffed into cubes in the Columbarium. Doesn’t matter who they were. Or who I was. Except for that fucking key and my ability to get it."

"Hey, eres mucho más que eso." Jack pulled her into a hug, one hand over her hair. He didn't muss it this time, but she wished that he did. Just once more.

"No, that’s all we are now," she said. "Whatever’s most useful.”

*** 

It wasn’t hard to find the key. A few minutes, really, digging through Amma’s old files. Simple. V put it on a shard, dropping it into her jacket, and led them both outside into the garden where she used to sit watching the sky. Brambles had taken over the beds where lush ornamentals used to flow over into mossy pools, now coated with dust. She sat on a stone bench, letting the cool air slow her breathing. A sand storm was forming on the horizon, blurring the tops of the desert hills in the distance.

“You alright?” Jack sat next to her, their legs touching. She didn’t bother to move it away, and neither did he.

The moon was bright enough that it reflected off the gold flecks in his cheeks. They glinted when he moved, like he was part of the stars behind him.

“Spent a lot of time alone, after I left.” Hugging her arms to herself against the wind’s chill, tears stung her eyes. She could no longer command them, they rolled down in hot streaks over her face. “Just… don’t want to do it again.”

“What’re you talkin’ about?” he said, wrapping his arms around her, folding her into the space between his shoulder and neck. “You don’t have to. We’re here. Estoy aquí para ti.”

She exhaled sharply through her nose. “Everyone says that. ‘Til they disappear.”

He shifted back, cupping her face in his hands, and leaned in, pressing his lips to her forehead.

“Hey,” he said, one thumb tracing over her cheek, “not gonna let that happen.”

It was tempting to believe him, in his confidence that he could overcome anything just by saying so. But that was an indulgence. Wakako had found her easily, had already known about Jack before ever calling her. Arasaka still haunted her months after she buried herself deep into Heywood. They were inescapable, like this house, sucking her back into its tomb. The longer she stayed, the more she cared, or he did, the more they would use him, draw him in, do what they had to in order to get what they wanted. She could already see him, ashen like Amma, sunken into the sea. Jackie didn’t have connections to powerful people like Peralez, not even a gang anymore. No protection other than himself. And her. 

No more delays. It was time.

“Jack,” she said, pulling his hands down from her face. “I gotta move out.”

“What? Pero—" he stuttered. "Now?”

“I got the eddies. You got your family to take care of. Mama, Misty.”

“Wait, slow down.” He sat up a little straighter, his hands squeezing her fingers in his lap. “You know you’re part of this, too.”

“Do I? Don’t have a family anymore, Jack. Fuck, I never really did in the first place. I don’t know what it means. And good. Safer that way.”

“Yes, you do. Mira, I get things were different here, but we do this gig, we do whatever we—”

“No.” She dropped his hands. Why didn’t he see how dangerous this was? “You think you understand, but you don’t. You’re dressed up like a corpo, and maybe with enough time and eddies you’d act like one too—”

“I don’t—the fuck?” He drew his head back and squinted his eyes. “What, I’m gonna change because of good pay, for once?”

“Maybe. Seen it happen a lot. Get your hands on a fat stack, it warps you. You saw how I caved in that gonk realtor’s testicles. It’s not an act. Comes easy, because this is my world, and I know these types. Wakako, Stout. They’re luring you in, so they can threaten me with you.”

“C’mon, no they aren’t," he scoffed. "It’s just biz.” 

“Goddamn it, would you think for a second?” V ran her hands back through her hair. “No parents. No siblings. Who do y’think takes their place, as leverage? Really think you were needed here to grab an old file? They’re paying all those zeroes for your trigger finger? This won’t be the last gig I’m forced to do, not when they know I’m a skimmer. I need to go. This has gotta be our last job.”

“So this is all above my head.” A cloud passed over the moon, dimming the gold in his face. “That what you’re sayin’?” 

“Yeah, I am.” She stood, looking out over the city in the distance, the skyline darkening with the advancing storm. “And you won’t listen.”

“Carajo, V. Don’t insult me, I'm not stupid. Just because you were a corpo don’t mean I can’t call a bluff when I see one. And even if that were true, why? ‘Cuz we’re chooms? Worked a lot of gigs, with a lot of partners. Way longer than you have, by the way. Not a one a’ those fuckers thought a choom was a good pinch point.”

“C’mon, Jack.” She turned to meet his eyes. “You know why.” 

“No, I surely fuckin’ don’t, chica. You don’t tell me shit. You don’t tell anyone shit. Nobody can know what’s in that head a yours, not unless they lived in it. Five years,” he held up his fingers. “Five years and I don’t even know your name until now. And I never asked, did I? Figured, hey, she’s got her own shit goin’ on, right? She’ll talk when she wants to. But no. Who your parents were, where you come from, where you fuckin’ live? Nada, for years. That shit’s locked down tighter than max security. And for what? I don’t fuckin’ know, because you been running from everyone, including me.” 

“Told you more than anybody else.” V pushed the hair out of her face, which was whipping into her eyes with the storm’s wind. “It already put you in the crosshairs.” 

“That supposed to make me feel better? Some basic fuckin’ background, like it’s a big secret? We got gangs up our asses every day back home, chica, and you think some cranky pendeja in a suit’s gonna pull one over on me? Been doin’ this a long time, I can take care of myself.”

“Fuck, I know that, but this is different.” 

“Sure,” he stood and crossed his arms, scowling. “‘Cuz this is high-level shit, huh? Above my pay grade. You make the decisions, you know best for everybody.”

“Jesus Christ. Why’re you so upset?”

“Fuck, hermana! I gotta spell it out?” His voice rebounded off the smooth glass of the house behind them. “Because I don’t want you to go!”

The dust of the dead garden swirled around them, the storm on the horizon howling like an approaching train, blotting out the stars. Grit stung V’s skin, sticking to her clothes.

“Madam?” The realtor stepped into the garden from behind what was once a rosebush, his pants catching on the desiccated thorns. “Uh, may I help you with anything?” 

“That’s why I have to, Jack,” V said. She turned to the realtor and summoned her father's voice again. Appa could walk away from anything. “I have seen enough. We will go.”

Chapter Text

V’s legs ached. Not just from the stupid fucking shoes, borrowed heels from that blonde bitch that pinched and shredded her feet. But the running, the endless running across the abandoned streets, under the glowing signs, past the piles of garbage, the junkies cowering in alcoves, the barrels rolling across the alleyways. She thought of turning back, but she just kept running. 

The sand storm was sweeping across the city, and any gonk with sense had gone inside, stuffed the cracks in their doors with wet rags to keep the dust from getting in. But not V, no, her skin had turned to sandpaper, black skirt turned beige with it, eyes stinging, mouth like fire, ears ringing from the wind shrieking between the scrapers. 

And the shoes. The fucking shoes, like daggers. 

It was stupid, what she was doing. But she couldn’t stop her legs, they moved on their own under the flickering lights of the city, stretching across the pavement, like her body knew more than her mind. An insatiable need that had to be filled.

V thought she could do it. She used to be able to, like Appa, just walk away from the garden and the house and feel nothing, go about her business. After the argument with Jack they had ridden in silence until Japantown, where they parted and she stood in the street at the crossroads, chewed on her lip to steel her nerve. Fruitlessly, because she was weak. She had her father’s selfishness, his anger, his impatience. But not his strength. 

She needed him, right now, even though it was selfish. Even though it was unfair. So she just kept running. Back through the storm, back across the walkways, back between the buildings and the holo-ads and the bar signs. 

V took the steps two at a time up to his room, fists pounding on the door to match the pounding in her throat, in her legs. He opened it, but before he could speak, she pushed him back through the threshold and pulled him against herself.

“V–” he said, his hands on her jaw, lifting her face to his. His brows were knit and he looked at her with such concern that it hurt, like he thought she was broken. 

Which she was.

“Let me stay,” she said, panting with the ache in her chest. “Don’t ask. Just let me stay.”

"Is that what you want?" said River, running a thumb across her cheek, across her mouth, to wipe away the sand from the raw skin. It stung when he touched it.

She kissed him, and didn't say no.

That night, she dreamt of Arasaka tower. It loomed over the city, like a great shard stuck into its heart, casting its shadow over everything. The sky roiled with great claps of thunder, the electric blue bolts that flashed out of it grazing her with white-hot pain. 

She tried to run away from it, the muscles of her body screaming with the effort, but every direction led her back to its glass doors, its stone face, its mica-flecked floors, the great blackened cables that choked its facade flowing out into the street. They were wet and smelled like melted plastic. As she got closer the air grew hotter and brighter until she could no longer see, nor even feel, except for the pressure in her head that threatened to burst through her eyes. 

Jack, where was Jack? She felt he must be inside it, so she reached into the light, grasping the corroded door handles, burning the flesh off her arms. He had to be there, inside the door, almost— 

Arasaka. Mikoshi.

V woke in River’s bed to the smell of coffee, naked and sweating through the sheet, the pressure between her eyes fading only a little. She cracked an eye open. River was busying himself with the coffee pot on the counter, half-dressed and humming to himself. She stifled a laugh. He hummed? 

An overcast light was filtering through the window, casting the shape of the dreamcatcher onto the wrinkled sheets. She looked up at it and sniffed.

“Tell your friend to get a refund. That thing in the window doesn’t work,” she said, stretching her arms over her head. 

“Morning,” River walked over from the counter to sit at the edge of the mattress, two cups in his hands. He passed one to her. “And it was a colleague. You know you talk in your sleep?”

“Shit, no,” she said, sitting up and taking the cup. “What’d I say?”

“Mumbles, mostly. A name or two.” He took a sip of his coffee. “You wanna fill me in?”

“Just a dream. Not a believer in puttin’ meaning to that kind of thing.” 

“Not that, V. You showed up here in different clothes, in a bad storm.” River turned his face to look at her through his ganic eye. “Something’s eatin’ you.”

“Don’t look at me like that. I’m fine, I’m great. Finally got enough to move out, pay back my choom and his Ma.” She took a sip of the coffee, watching the bubbles swirl around the rim. Outside the window, the distant wail of sirens from the streets below echoed across the building. 

“Jackie and Mama,” River said.

“The fuck?” Her head snapped to him. He was looking at her pensively. “You pull a file on me?”

“What do you take me for? No. Don’t need much to put two and two together, V. Worked cases with less info than that.”

“Christ,” she said, pinching her nose. She brought her knees up in front of her, the sheet dropping down to her ankles. “Why is everyone poking around in my shit? I hate that.”

The clouds were clearing to a pale dawn, its rays spilling over the bed in streaks, broken up by the fogged window. The dreamcatcher’s shadow deepened over V’s skin. 

“Listen,” River sighed and stroked her shin. “I like bein’ around you, V, always glad when you come here. But somethin’s up—let me help you.”

V’s chest tightened. What happened to living by next time?

“River... we have fun, sex is good. But let’s not make this more than it is, okay? Can’t get more people involved in my shit right now. I’m not even sure I should be here either.”

“Either?” River cocked his head.

“Stop. I’m not a perp, not right now anyway. This isn’t something you can help with by interrogating me.”

“I’m not interrogating.” River took their cups and put them in the sink, running the water. “Just wanna know what’s going on when you show up covered in sand at my door, in the middle of the night.”

“I—“ 

He looked back at her. “Didn’t want to be alone?” 

“I don’t know.”

River sat back down next to her, closer this time, and leaned down to kiss her hand clasped around her knees. 

“Your friend,” he said. “You should tell him how you feel.”

V’s breath caught in her throat, but her voice was acid. “Don’t act like you’ve got some kind of mind reading power from that badge. If you did, you wouldn’t have needed my help at the Wall.”

He brought his hand to her face, dragging the backs of his fingers over her reddened cheek. The cool metal soothed the stinging. 

“V, I told you,” he said quietly, with a half-smile. “You talk in your sleep.”

***

River got a call for a case, so V took her time before heading back to Heywood. She explored the shops of the mega, searching for some half-decent used clothes and shoes, so she wouldn’t have to go back in the corpo getup that still had grit embedded into the fabric weave. The markets were quieter in the morning, less overwhelming. It was almost pleasant to stop and peruse, touching the slippery neon dresses and soft plastic-weave tees. She chose a few based on size and comfort, pulled them on right in the market and sold the old skirt suit to the merchant. The heels she gave for free.

A text came in on her optics with a chime, and V’s heart jumped before she realized it was from Wakako. Just a date for two weeks from now, the second half of their mission. That didn’t give her much time to get her affairs in order. 

Between the stalls of underground BDs and salvaged prosthetics, a small table caught her eye. Among the litter of single earrings and bracelets, she picked up a black patch. It was embedded with gold thread, stitched into the sharp, organized lines of circuitry, in the shape of a cross.

“Real leather, that one, sister,” said the woman with a gap-toothed smile behind the table. “Offer you a good deal for you for it.”

“I’ll take it,” said V, and tucked it into her pocket.

***

It didn’t take long to find a place when V made the effort. There were plenty of cramped quarters in Watson on the lower levels that took cash, so long as she was willing to trade consistent access to hot water and a single shaky window pane. The lax regulation of Watson’s megas would be easier to disappear into, and close to Vik’s, where she could still go for maintenance. She chose one, a musty place with a dirty carpet a few blocks from River’s. It was good enough for now.

There was little to pack, despite all her months staying with Mama and Jack. Her whole life fit into a single tote of her clothes, gun, ICEpick and shoes. She put it in a corner of Jack’s room with a bag of food containers Mama had given her that morning. 

She tidied his desk, pushing around the clutter to make it more pleasing. It was time to go, but she still hadn’t seen him since Westbrook two days earlier. They’d see each other on their last job at Konpeki, but still, it didn’t feel right to leave without saying goodbye. Or at least she didn’t want to.

V was coiling the belt on his desk when the door opened with a low creak. Jack stood in the doorway and cleared his throat.

“Hey, hermana.” 

“Wasn’t sure you’d come,” she said, putting the belt down. “I called.”

“Lo sé.” 

They both waited in silence for the other to speak, electricity passing between them like a sparking wire. They might have waited there forever, if Jack hadn’t reached into his pocket, and held out a shard.

“Ah, got somethin’ for ya,” he said, “if you’re gonna be on your own.”

“What is it?” 

“Training shard, for aim. Should help keep your hands steady once you upload.”

“Thanks, that’s—” V took it and swallowed the lump in her throat. “Thanks. Have somethin’ for you too, actually.” She crossed the room and slung her tote over her shoulder. She grabbed a small envelope and the embroidered leather cross from the front pocket and handed it to him. “Here, for your jacket tear. Seller said it was real leather, but—”

“Gracias,” he said, thumbing the patch’s raised threads. The envelope beneath it crinkled in his hands. “What’s this?”

“My repayment, for everything.” 

Jack’s face darkened. “Don’t want your money, hermana. I never did.” 

“But it’s for the bar—”

“I can take care of my own family,” he said. “And I don’t take payment from them either.” 

“Jack—”

“Mamá’s waitin’.” He took the bag off her shoulder and shoved the packet down into it. “I’ll carry this.” 

Before she could respond, Jack turned and walked away, his heavy feet thumping on the steps outside the bedroom. Heart in her throat, V went to gather Mama’s food from near the closet and looked over the room. It was no different than the day she arrived; the collections of old posters, the faded stickers, the red light from the sign that always shone through the window slats even when they were closed, the tequila bottles—no longer dusty, at least—on the desk. And the sagging bed, too small for either of them. V bit back tears, touching the gold cross on his sink before she left.

Outside, an autotaxi was waiting. Mama fussed, kissing her cheeks, and made V promise she would come for dinner soon so she didn’t starve. V agreed, though she knew she couldn’t keep it.

Jack tossed her bag in the back of the car, slamming the trunk, and stood by the passenger door. He shifted his feet when V walked over.

“See you,” V said, opening the door. She put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him to the side, planted a small kiss on his cheek. Like Mama would, she told herself.

“Yeah,” he said, and closed the door behind her.

***

V kept herself busy preparing for the job. She’d spend days without leaving her cramped apartment, subsisting on meal bars and snacks from an overly cheery vending machine on the balcony outside. She upgraded her pick, one with stronger codebreaking abilities, and spent several afternoons integrating Amma’s encryption key into a viral upload. 

Even when she did go out, it was only for necessity. Stout passed her information using encrypted texts of GPS locations for drops, standard techniques all intel staff would use at Arasaka. New clothes, packets of information, dossiers on self-wiping shards. If not for the itch in her throat from the mold, V’s daily life was hardly distinguishable from when she was a corpo. Late nights, sunken eyes, bottles of alcohol.

Stout arranged for a meeting with some representative from Kyoto; they’d pose as tech dealers to get V’s pick in, then break into the hotel’s security from their suite. The fallen Arasaka son, Yorinobu, would be away for a meeting with dignitaries from the USSR, so they’d have plenty of time to grab the prototype from his quarters on the top floor. Some kind of experimental chip, but that’s all Stout would say. Lot of effort for a shard, but V didn’t care. Edgerunners didn’t ask questions, and if Stout got caught, the less they knew about it, the better.  

V passed the details to Jack, just enough that he’d know to pick up a suit, where to meet. He’d respond in one-word answers, or not at all. It was worse when he didn’t pick up; she would sit on the crusted couch, staring blankly at the code on her screen and listen to his voicemail. She’d never heard it before.

When it was time, V hadn’t slept in two days.

She got to the meeting point early, an abandoned warehouse on the northside, where Stout had left a high-end AI livery cab for them. To ease her nerves, V hacked into protos for control of the navigation while she waited for Jack to show. If they needed a quick getaway, it would respond, even if the regular taxis were shut down. Plus Stout wouldn’t be able to control it remotely and fuck them over, if things went south. 

She was pacing the gravel, hobbled by the slender gray pencil skirt and heels—always these fucking heels—when a cab pulled up into the lot, and V’s stomach leapt into her throat. Jack stepped out, looking taller in a fitted black suit and crisp white shirt that was buttoned up to cover his tattoos. He’d cut his hair closer to his head, neatened with sharp corners. And no earring, no gold cross. He would have fit in anywhere in Westbrook. 

“Hey, Jack,” V said, hugging her elbows.

“Don’t clean up too bad, hm?” Jack tried to smile, as though they hadn’t just spent the last two weeks barely speaking. “Though this shit’s stiffer than a kid watchin’ his first BD. Dunno how you wore this all the time. You good?”

“Yeah, s’all ready.” V bit her lip. All she had wanted was to see him, but now that he was here, it was hard to look him in the eye. “Codebreaker pick’s in the trunk.”

“Está bien, let’s go,” he said, opening the car door. “You slide in first, that skirt looks like a vice.”

Konpeki Plaza was on the far western edge of the city, seated upon a small bluff overlooking the ocean. After Night City had gained its independence from the former United States, executives and dignitaries needed a place to negotiate new trade deals, and the bluff had fine views of both the water and the skyline. Appa had told V with pride that they were improving the city when the bulldozers came and pushed the last of the antique neighborhood homes over the cliffs. One person who had strapped themselves to their porch had died, crushed under the heavy treads of the machinery. It made the news for a few days before the groundbreaking ceremony.  

V’s heart pounded in her ears as the AI livery approached the hotel. She hadn’t been anywhere this elite since the night she fled to Lizzie’s with Jack. Not even her childhood home lived up to the incredible wealth of Konpeki.

He had saved her that night, showed her a way to live free of all this corpo bullshit, and now they were both driving straight back into the lion’s den. Jack’s nerves were frayed, he’d forgone the silent treatment in favor of babbling, going on and on about history and big names that had come before them, how they might solve their shitty lives forever with one last job. 

One last job. And then what would happen to them? They’d been so close, once, back when he’d lit a fire in an old trash barrel, burning away her last connection to Arasaka—or so she thought at the time—with his arm tossed over her shoulder. But here in the cab, dressed in the corpo clothes he used to say he’d rather be caught dead in, Jack felt further away than ever. It burned in her gut. 

Sure, they’d have all the eddies they’d ever need after this job. More than she ever made, even when she ran intel for corps. But she’d trade all of Stout’s fucking money for the warmth of his stupid bed in his stupid tiny room above El Coyote if it meant destroying the wall between them. 

River had made it seem so simple to say what she felt. But all they’d had was a month or two of sex. He didn’t have to worry about years of their lives to explain, or the gun Stout would point at Jack’s head if V didn’t comply.

“This is how you wanna ride into the major leagues,” Jack was saying, staring out the window at the tower looming in the distance. 

“Major leagues. Still on about that?” V never mastered hiding her irritation, and in the thick air of the fancy cab, she could barely bring herself to even try. Jack looked at her, his jaw clenched for the argument. V pressed him. She didn’t even know why. It’s not like they could turn back now. “Dunno, just… things’ve changed.” 

“Damn right they have.” He scoffed, but didn’t meet her eyes. “But seems to me like it’s you who’s got the problem here.” 

“Fuck, forget it, Jack. Let’s just do the job and get it over with.” 

They rode in silence until the cab pulled up under the tower’s massive porte-cochère, elegantly decorated with delicate exotic plants along the clean red carpet that lead to the entryway. A concierge opened the door and offered his hand. 

“Welcome to Konpecki Plaza, madam. This way please.” 

V wanted to smack his hand away, tell the livery car to turn around and abandon the mission. But Jackie was already out of the car, grabbing the storage case with her ICEpick from the trunk. It was time to put her mask back on. 

“Have this waiting for me. I will want to access the grounds later,” she said. At least with her mood, it was easy to sound like a bitch. She took the concierge’s hand, but didn’t look at him. Corpos never did.

They walked through the security scan and into the lobby. Black marble floors, smoothed to a mirror shine, reflected the vaulted ceilings that stretched up toward some nonsensical new-age sculpture, covered in gold. Manicured Japanese maples, still the bright scarlet of autumn—probably they were just genespliced—dotted the lounge floor. The receptionist, her skin dyed the deep midnight blue of all Konpecki’s staff, greeted them at the desk. The whole effect was opulent, grand, befitting of its clients. It was repulsive.

“Good afternoon, madam, sir. Your names please?” The receptionist bowed with a wide, false smile.

“Hannah Khan. My associate, Ramón Torres,” V said, waving her hand toward Jack, who held up the case. “Tech dealers. We have a meeting.”

“Ah, yes. Taki-san is expecting you. I shall call him presently.” 

Shit, that wasn’t good. They weren’t supposed to actually meet with the contact. All she had to show him was a half-decent ICEpick in a case.

“That won’t be necessary—” 

“But Taki-san—”

“Señorita, we just flew in from New Barcelona,” Jack broke in, leaning over the counter conspiratorially. “Did you not hear the news? Caught in the airport for ten hours while they rerouted traffic around the coup. We need rest.”

“Of course, sir, my apologies. You must be tired. I will notify him when you are ready. The lifts to the upper floors are on the left. Your suite is on the forty-second floor. Lapis Lazuli.” The receptionist tapped into her terminal and passed them a keyshard.

“Nice save,” V said, when they were alone near the elevators. 

Jack was inspecting the living plant wall embedded into the stone. “Not total shit-for-brains, am I?” 

“I didn’t—” 

The elevator doors slid open with a soft electronic chime. 

“This is us,” he said, and stepped in. 

The ride to the forty-second floor was stifling, worse than the car. Konpecki’s architects had figured that clientele would prefer smaller individual lifts, for privacy, but shouldered in together into the sleek black marble box, rocketing up into the clouds, the effect was that of a coffin. When they finally reached their floor, she pushed out first, heels rapping on the stone, just to get air.  

A pair of Soviets were talking business in the hall, so V smoothed her suit with a flick of her wrist and straightened herself, chin level to the ground. She nodded to them, briefly, before opening the door to the Lapis Lazuli suite. 

The suite was adorned in the latest style, stark and cold with a single raised bed, dark floors, and an indulgent aquarium that took up an entire wall. For emphasis, they’d placed a holo of beta fish swimming lazy circles on the dark coffee table nearby. Behind it, a glass wall revealed the sun setting over the city skyline. It was the only beautiful thing about the room.

Jack was impressed. “Pretty snazzy,” he said, placing the case on the low table in front of the couch. “Finally see above the smogline, not bad.”

“Yeah, fuckin’ preem.” V sat on the couch and snapped the case open, scraping it across the mahogany. “I’ll get the pick going.” 

“Alright, chica, that’s enough. We’re gonna talk about this.” He took off his suit jacket and threw it on the couch. “You been actin’ off ever since we took this job. Maybe even before then.”

V hammered the last key to activate the pick and shoved it away, digging more scratches into the wood. “I’ve been acting off. Me? You’re the one who’s dressed like a chingado corpo and proud of it. You used to hate this shit, you told me to quit, and you were right.” She snapped the case shut and stood. “Don’t even know you anymore.”

“Yeah, well, whose choice was that?” Jack crossed his arms, a red flush was creeping up his neck. “Lemme tell you somethin’. Every single fuckin’ day of my life I’ve spent in this shit around us, pawin’ at the scraps they throw down. You think I want to scrape by?”

“No! But this isn’t worth it, Jack. These fucking people. They’re selfish animals. All they think about is themselves, most of the motherfuckers in this place upload their memories onto goddamn chips because they think they’re so fucking special. If they’re not sniffing their own asses, it’s all about the eddies.” 

“Oh, sure, that’s what this is about. Couple a rich assholes usin’ you like a finger puppet. Nothin’ to do with you and that Blackwall-sized barrier you got up all the time.”

“You don’t understand, they’ll eat you alive. You’re not supposed to be like them.”

“Not like you , you mean,” he spat back. 

“Yeah, Jack,” V said, her voice low. “Not like me.”

“Carajo, V!” He swore and paced the floor by the couch, his hands rubbing the back of his neck. “Where you get off, tellin’ me what I’m supposed to be? What I can do, what I know? What, you come bum around Heywood a while, now you got us all figured out?”

“I’m trying to protect you.”

“Bullshit. No, you’re not, you’re treating me like some kid who’s never seen the business end of a gun. We were supposed to be partners, and you cut me out.” He turned toward her, pointing at his scars. “Hermana, escúchame, for once in your life.” 

She stared at the ground. The long square toes of his black shoes stopped in front of hers.

“V, would you look at me!” he said, touching her arm, “Nav—” 

“Don’t you fucking dare! ” she shouted, glaring at him. She jabbed a finger into his chest. “ No one uses my name. Not even you.” 

“Pinche—Dios!” He raised his chin toward the ceiling; they were so close she could see the pulse in his neck. “Every time I try to, you—” 

“No, y’know what?” A furious half-laugh escaped her. “You were right. I was one of them. I am one of them. A selfish, know-it-all asshole, because that’s how I got ahead. Made myself into a piece of shit who hated everyone, scrabbled up the ladder like a dog for myself. Just myself, no one forced me to. 

“I fucked over a lot of people, Jack, and I was happy to do it. Don’t even remember their names, you wanna be like that?” He scowled and said nothing, and she went on. “That’s not you!”

Jack huffed. “‘Cuz you know me so well, huh?”

“I wanted to, shit I tried! I wanted—” she halted, unsure how to say it. “Christ, why d’you think I stayed so long after I had the money to leave?”

“What? No, you—” He froze, stammering. “You been trying to leave since you got here. Fuck, you nearly burnt your arms off, killed yourself for it. I was—Heywood’s never been good enough for you. Made that pretty fuckin’ clear.”

“Clear?” V scoffed. “Fucking gonk-brained—Jesus Christ! Staying in that tiny room with your stupid  fucking titty posters was the best thing that ever happened to me. If I could come home, I would—“

”You—”

”I can’t, whether you like it or not. But I never wanted you to crave after all this—this corpo bullshit!”

Jack drew his head back, pressing his lips into a line. 

“You don’t get to tell me what I want, V,” he said, his voice harsh whisper. 

“And what is that, Jack?” She stared him down, daring him to say it. “Because I don’t fucking know.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came.

“Mama was right,” V laughed, high and breathless. “You say I run, and I do. But you chase, and when you catch up you don’t know what the fuck to do with it.”

She threw up her hands and started to walk away toward the window, but Jack caught her by the elbow. 

“Wait—” he said, and maybe he only meant to stop her, or calm her down, but V never found out. She spun and grabbed his face, impulse driving her in the heat of her anger, and crushed her mouth against his. 

He didn’t hold back. His mouth parted and he pulled her against his body, gripping her arms, like if he let go she would disappear again. He grasped at her shirt, bit her lip with his teeth, his hot breath mixing with hers inside her mouth. Someone’s knees gave way and they stumbled, buckling down onto the couch.

The smoothness of his tongue over hers, the heat and weight of his flushed body made her senseless. She clawed at his neck, pulling him closer, desperate to connect, to feel like she once did, watching smoke and heat and fog swirl into the sky in an alley. She tore open his shirt, gasping against him for air, trying to feel anything other than the fury that was tearing her in half. 

Fucking Arasaka, these fucking corpos, this fucking city. They took everything good and ground it into dust. Everything. 

He flung his shirt onto the table, knocking the holo to the floor. The corazón etched into him that bore her name, her letter, V, was beating furiously, she could see its twin pulsing under the muscles of his chest. He was kissing her neck, her tattoos, her breasts, her stomach with his lips, with his teeth, with his hands grasping at her hips, tugging the useless, stiff clothes down her thighs. 

She wanted more. 

His mouth back on hers, his tongue, his lips, to taste the copper excitement on his breath again and again, because he wanted her—he wanted her, and that was all that mattered. She pulled him up by his hair and he pressed against her, his legs over her thighs and his hips on her sex. He shuddered, whispering her name into her mouth, along her jaw, into her ear, and she wanted it. 

Please, more. 

She wanted it all, she always had, if she’d been honest with herself. More of him, all of him, her skin was on fire and so was his, it tore through them like an explosion, white-hot and sparking and thoughtless. She ran her hands over his back, over his heart, over his scars, tearing at his belt, slipping down under his waist— 

Please, closer, more—

“Espera—” Jack's breath hitched when she grasped him. He turned his head, pressing the side of his face against the back of the couch, panting but no longer moving. He squeezed his eyes shut with a hard swallow that caught in his throat. “Espera, V, wait.” 

She let go and he lifted himself off of her, the cool air of the room prickling her exposed skin. He sat at the edge of the couch, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes, elbows on his knees. 

“I can’t,” he said, his voice hoarse. 

Misty. Ice spread through V’s chest, choking her throat. She really was still a selfish piece of shit. A corpo. A corruption. One of them. She sat up, the leather of the couch creaking under her, tugging her skirt back over her hips, closing her open blouse with her hand.

“Fuck. I’m sorry, Jack.”

On the table, the codebreaker chimed. The ICEpick was ready. They could get into Konpecki’s security. 

“It’s done,” V said quietly. “Look, let’s just—we can finish the job.”

Jack took her arm in his lap, his thumb circling over her tattoos. He turned his head toward her, but didn’t lift his eyes. “Alright. We’ll talk about this later, yeah?”

“Later. Yeah.”

Chapter Text

As last sunsets go, it was a beautiful one.

Not that they knew. Of course they didn’t, few people in Night City had the luxury of choosing the day. More that they strove for the method: a blaze of glory, perhaps, their names whispered in the corners of bars, legends of their deeds forever etched into the city’s history. Others wanted fame, surrounded by great riches while they lasted. Maybe a few lucky ones managed a quiet dissolution into the abyss, old and decrepit, remembered by the few who loved them. But not many.

V had never thought about it herself. She ran away from the question and the lingering dread that came with it. After Amma, each day had been spent fighting for survival, propelled forward minute to minute, hour to hour, year to year by the intense need to get away from the darkness that seemed to follow her everywhere. It had followed Amma, too, before it caught her. V felt that if she just kept moving, it would never catch up, though she knew it was always there, just beyond the field of her vision. The dark nothingness that was also a something, like the Blackwall. She shivered at night, when it was the closest, and slept with the light on. 

Thoughts of it lessened after she met Jack, years ago at some nameless bar with faceless patrons she couldn’t remember anymore. He chipped away at her, slowly expanding the cracks of light that seeped through at the edges of her life. Sometimes it was so bright there were days she thought the shadow was gone entirely, and she dared to hope that maybe it would be possible to stop and rest on his shoulder, and not be subsumed by it. 

As for Jack, he liked every sunset, and sunrise even better. His face was always turned toward the sky.

That particular evening, the orange-pink dusk falling over the clouds outside the window of the suite should have been entrancing, and maybe would have been, under different circumstances. The day’s last light reflected off the glass of Watson’s megabuildings in the distance, casting a soft golden glow across the highest floors. At the deepest edges of the sky, just above the gilded tips of the scrapers, a few pinpricks of stars had appeared, their pale light quavering along the horizon. Even the neon holo-ads poking through the low-slung smog seemed to complement the final bright hues of twilight. 

V couldn’t concentrate enough to look at it for long, or at anything inside the stark hotel room of Konpeki Plaza other than her terminal screen. Not even the ten-thousand-eddie tropical fish inside the aquarium wall could hold her attention. They were swirling in circles in the water, mouths agape, like they didn’t know what the fuck just happened either. 

She chewed her lip, randomly tapping the keys of her ICEpick. V didn’t really need to do anything on it, the encryption key and her virus had already done their work to Konpeki’s security system. She had access. But pretending to be busy was better than watching Jack straighten his clothes. 

“Okay, we’re erased from the cam feeds,” she said to the screen, re-checking her connection to the pick. “Short-range signal from my optics’ll get us past the elevator lock up to Yorinobu’s suite. Gonna have to let the pick run here. Too big to carry around in the hall.”

“Thinkin’ I go up alone, grab it and come back?” Jack said with a shuffling of fabric just beyond her periphery. “You run intel from here.”

“Fuck no.” V couldn’t stop herself from looking up at him at the suggestion, and instantly regretted it. He was fastening the last clasp of his shirt’s stiff collar, now slightly crimped, around his neck. She flushed with shame and refocused on the code in front of her, a headache blooming between her eyes. “I’m just as good there as here, and we don’t know where exactly he’s keepin’ that shard. With two, we’re faster.” 

“Bien, that’s settled then.” 

There was a long silence before V stood and smoothed over her grey suit with her hands, wiping the sweat of her palms away.

“Feed says Yorinobu’s with the Russians for the next hour,” she said. “Let’s go.”

“V, ah—”

“Later, Jack.”

“No, your hair.” Jack stepped over to her, the heels of his black leather shoes clacking against the dark tile. Before she could move, he reached up and pulled her hair out of the knot she had twisted it into, letting it tumble down to one side. “Mejor. It had gotten, ah,” he cleared his throat and started to tuck a stray lock behind her ear, but halfway through put his hand on her shoulder instead, giving it a squeeze. “Despeinado. Ready?”

“Have to be,” she said, stuffing down the flutter in her stomach. The fish in the tank were still gawping at them with their vapid, unblinking eyes. 

Jack must have sensed her nerves. He shook her playfully by the shoulder, the way he used to, back when they would meet up at the bar after a particularly bad day at work. He’d say she looked like a snake had swallowed her whole and shit her back out, or some other bullshit idiom he’d probably made up, and push her a beer over the counter. His heavy hand always soothed more than the booze did.

In the elevator, the headache pressed in on her ears, a vice that was slowly closing around her skull. She stared at the display, watching the floor numbers climb as they shot upward toward the penthouse, but she could feel Jack’s eyes on her all the same. 

“Almost there, chica. A gig like all the others. We fuck over that pendejo and Papá Arasaka then we—” Jack reached to touch the cross that was usually in his ear, pinching the air. “We do whatever we want.”

V nodded, though she wasn’t sure who he was trying to reassure—her, or himself. 

The elevator chimed. V’s stomach lurched as it slowed to a stop, the doors opening straight into the penthouse. Yorinobu’s quarters were vast and dark, like a sharp-angled cave, perched on the crest of a mountain overlooking the city. Long, low couches were sunk into the floor in front of a massive central pillar that doubled as a holo screen. Behind it, the glass curtain walls gave expansive views of the city, twinkling below the tower’s high perch on the bluff. An indulgent fire burned in a pit to one side, stacks of real wood piled next to it. 

On the far end of the room, a floating staircase spiraled up to a walk outside the window, leading to the roof, likely a helipad. It was doubtful Yorinobu would use the main entrance to Konpeki, unless he wanted to make a scene for reporters.

“Okaerinasai, Arasaka-sama.” A robotic woman’s voice welcomed from somewhere in the ceiling. 

“Damn, AI assistant, fuckin’ real wood just to burn? Not too bad bein’ the son of the Arasaka empire,'' Jack said as they stepped into the cavernous living area, all black marble and brass inlay against the white leather furniture.

“Dunno, Jack. Guy stole from his own company, started some half-assed gang and ran halfway across the planet to get away from Japan,” V said, scanning the room. The pressure made her eyes tear, like a bird was scratching its talons against the inside of her head. “Couldn’t have been that great.”

“Well, sure as shit beats bein’ the son of Raúl Welles,'' Jack picked up a decanter of wine sitting on the coffee table in the sunken living area, inspecting it. “Alright, what’s the play? Where’s he keepin’ this thing?”

“Dossier said there’s a safe in the floor somewhere. Question is how to open it.” V pinched her nose, an idea bubbling to the surface of her mind through the fog of her headache, unbidden. “Check the nightstand.”

Jack rummaged around by the bed behind the pillar, knocking over a stack of books as he rolled open the drawers. 

“Ahí estás, little fucker—V, here!” A motor whirred from somewhere underneath them, a section of dark tile rising up from the floor with a hydraulic hiss. V winced at the sound; it drilled into her ears, louder than it should have been.

“Sheesh, got a flair for the dramatic,” Jack said, walking over to peer inside. The safe was smooth steel metal, except for the small terminal screen on top. He read from it, tapping his fingers. “‘Biointegrity one hundred percent.’ The fuck is that? Don’t see anything to pick up, how we s’posed to get this out?”

“The brief didn’t, uh—it didn’t—” V’s tongue was heavy and thick, mangling her words. She tried to make the screen on the safe come into focus, but it only vacillated with the scraping sensation between her eyes.

“Hey, hermana,” Jack leaned over the safe. “You okay?”

“Just—” She closed her eyes and swallowed. There was something unfolding in her mind about the shard, rippling against the edges of her brain. She could feel it, like trying to remember a simple word she already knew when drunk. It was right there. Just touch it. 

Open it.

“It’s a biochip,” she said finally, without conscious thought, her voice nearly as smooth as the AI in the ceiling. “Unstable. Has to be worn.”

Jack’s hand was on her shoulder, shaking her. 

“V, what—”

He was cut off by the thumping of a helo approaching the building outside the window. The alert screeching in V’s ear returned her focus with sudden clarity, cold dread splashing her in the face. She checked the security feed. The penthouse elevator was moving, the helo landing on the roof above them.

Oh, fuck.

“Jack,” she looked up at him with wide-eyed panic. “He’s coming, we gotta get outta here, now!”

“What? ¿Quién viene?” 

V dug frantically through the blueprints for an exit. There had to be another way out, somewhere to hide, anything. There—a crawl space inside the pillar behind the holo screen. She spun on her heel to grab Jack, but he was already removing the shard from the safe, the cool air of its container creating a fog around his face. He snapped the chip into his neural port.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” she hissed, already whispering. 

“Somebody had to, better me than you. Don’t feel anything—let’s go.” Jack jammed his thumb on the screen, lowering the safe back into the floor.

“Christ! In here, we’re out of time!” She grabbed his arm, pulling him through a small entry panel behind the pillar, a maintenance door for the holo. The lights flickered on when she shut the panel behind them, illuminating the penthouse through the glass of the screen. 

A man, youthful-looking for his old age with just a few streaks of grey hair, stepped out from the elevator doors on the far side of the room, agitated, stamping his feet across the floor. 

Yorinobu Arasaka. But then who was on the roof?

“Okaerinasai, Arasaka-sama. Your father has arrived.”

Jack sucked in a sharp breath through his nose. His jaw was clenched, V had never seen him so tense. She realized she was still gripping his arm, digging her nails into his skin.

“I know!” Yorinobu dumped the wine from his decanter into a glass on the low table near the holo, swallowing it whole. He poured another.

Armed men descended from the stairwell above with militaristic precision, encircling the living area, clad in the white and black uniform of Saboru Arasaka’s personal guard. Behind them, escorted by his senior bodyguard, an elderly man tread slowly down the steps. He was balding, liver-spotted, and shaking with palsy, draped in a loose brown yukata. 

V’s heart leapt into her throat. She never thought she would see him in person, not in all the years she worked for his company. No one saw him, except on the retrospective documentaries the company would produce and play on repeat in the lobby. But everyone knew his face, his manner of dress, his speech rhythms. 

He was unmistakable—Saburo Arasaka himself stood before them, just beyond the screen. The head of the Arasaka family, the corporation, the enterprise, effectively Japan itself. Fuck, he was the lord of half the planet at this point, for all the power he had consolidated over the last hundred years. 

“ Motherfucker…” Jack breathed, and V dug her nails in further. The men in the room couldn’t see behind the holo screen from outside, at least not while it was off, but it wasn’t likely to be sound proof. 

Yorinobu didn’t seem to heed the guards stationed around the pit at all. 

“What do you want?” he barked at his father, pacing in front of the pillar. 

Saboru settled himself on the far couch, folding his shaking legs under him. He spoke slowly, with a collected calm. 

“Did you think I would not know it was taken from me? That I would not know it was you?” 

“Why are you even here?” Yorinobu scoffed, smashing his glass against the floor. “Just to humiliate me, no doubt, put me in my place in front of the Soviets, like a child!”

Saboru remained still, his gnarled hands folded across his lap. “And my son thinks he is clever to sell our greatest achievement, our future, to the Russians?”

“Our future?” Yorinobu spat on the floor, gesticulating wildly. “You only care about yourself, and your sick experiments! I know what you want to use it for.”

V struggled to keep her breath even, sucking it through her nose. A sick experiment, now in Jack’s head. She looked at the guards—they were watching Saboru, unmoving, yet coiled like springs. 

No, it couldn’t be. Surely not his son, over some chip?

“There is much for which I could forgive you,” Saboru was saying. He sighed heavily, unfolding his hands. “But not for treason. I am only grateful your mother is not alive to see this. The heart should break but once.” He lifted a trembling arm, making a slight motion with his fingers. 

“ Get down!” V hissed, yanking on Jack’s arm, ducking them to the ground— 

“Utte,” Saboru said, and the room exploded with gunfire.

***

On the floor inside the pillar, V’s ears were ringing. She could barely hear the sound of the alarms from the ceiling, though her own breath coursed through her like high wind in a tunnel. Above her, the glass of the holo was splintered into webs formed around the bullet holes, splattered blood trickling into the cracks. 

She rolled over and jumped, strangling a yelp in her throat—Yorinobu’s ruined face was inches away on the other side of the glass, his body riddled with holes, slumped to the ground in a dark pool. The red lights of the alarm above brought him in and out of focus.

V’s arm was on fire, warm liquid trickled down over her hand. She touched her bicep, her finger poking through the hole in her suit sleeve, and searing pain bubbled to the surface. Fuck. A bullet was lodged in the muscle.  

“Mierda—V!” Jack whispered from behind her. He was flattened against the ground, reaching for her. 

V hushed him, blinking away tears forming from the pain. Shit, was this what Jack felt like when she shot him? He should have been angrier. She tried not to groan, biting her lip bloody.

Beyond the cracked holo screen, Saborou stood from the couch and ordered his men to search the safe. There was a flurry of activity, the floor vibrating again as they lifted it from its hidden corner. Someone shouted, banging against the steel. 

V’s heart pounded. They knew it was empty, and Saboru had just killed his own son over it. If they were found— 

One of the guards spoke into Saboru’s ear. He sighed and moved back toward the stairwell, his ancient legs shaking under him. 

“Find the Russians,” he said, his cool voice carrying over the blare of the alarms. “One of them must have it. Spare none. You see how they murdered my son—these Soviets are dangerous.”

Saborou’s closest guard, an older man with heavy black chrome over his neck, took a long look back at Yorinobu’s body on the ground before he escorted his liege back to the helipad, and for a moment V was afraid he could see them behind the glass. The rest of the men took the elevator to the lower floors, though one stayed behind with the body. V muffled the groan she was holding in, clenching her teeth. 

She opened a text channel to Jack, holding her good hand up to her lips.

got my arm<<  

no eyes on saka guns<<

soviets were on our floor<<

they’ll find pick, have to wipe it remote<<

i’ll be blind<<

you whole?<<

Jack’s eyes glowed as he read the texts. He nodded, looking through the webbed glass at the figure patrolling the room outside the pillar.

>>bien - no damage

>>stay here

V grabbed his hand, squeezing it and shaking her head. The guard outside was armed. They had bloodied business suits, and not much else. 

>>trust me

Jack’s text overlaid his face on her optics. V knew they had no choice, one guard was the best they were going to get before this place was swarmed to investigate the murder, and probably before that to frame the Soviets. But she couldn’t get her fingers to uncurl. In the dark, Jack smiled at her and kissed her knuckles, gently prying her hand away. He sidled back through the gap to the door of the pillar. 

The guard passed outside the panel, the crackle of his coms growing softer with his receding footsteps. Jack banged the panel open with a deafening crash, the guard was yelling, then a sharp cracking sound. A gun went off, twice, its deafening booms shocking panic into V’s chest. She scrambled to her feet, heart in her ears, rushing through the pillar door—

Jack caught her as she fell out. 

“Hey, hey!” he said, lifting her off his chest. “You were s’posed to stay put.”

“Fuck, Jack! The gun—” she looked over him frantically, but the only blood was a smear from her arm. Behind him, wind was whistling through two new holes in the glass curtain wall. The guard lay on his belly nearby, his face misshapen, bruising around his neck. He was silent.

“Fucker tried,” Jack said, bending down to rip out the laces from his shoe. His knuckles were swollen. He tied it roughly above the wound in her arm as a tourniquet. “Fancy ‘ware don’t help a surprise fist to the temple. C’mon, I took his piece, we gotta get you outta here.”

V didn’t know whether to feel relieved or punch him herself, but there was no time for either. 

She checked the Konpeki feed as they rushed back to the elevator. The whole building was on lockdown, swarmed with security, their suite would be invaded any minute. It was a matter of time before someone figured out there was no fucking Hannah Khan or Ramón Torres. 

They’d have to risk it.  

“Blueprint says there’s a maintenance stairwell, tenth floor, leads to the garage,” she said, jamming her finger on the call button and swallowing back her fear. Her arm was losing all feeling, hanging loose by her side. 

“Wait,” Jack ran to grab the poker from the fire pit, handing it to her as the lift doors opened. “Don’t have to aim with this.” 

V set the elevator for the tenth floor before wiping the pick, and the feed went dark. She felt naked without it, more aware of the purpling in her dangling arm, her gut churning as they plummeted back toward the lower floors.

Jack adjusted his jacket around him, leaning against the lift wall, trying to cover the smears on the shirt. 

“Jesucristo. Murdered his own fuckin’ son over this thing.” He touched his neural port absently.

“Shouldn’t have put it in your fucking head, then!” V said hotly. 

“Thought you said we were in trouble if we didn’t deliver?”

She bit her lip, her temper spreading under her chest. He was right. Stout would be on the hunt for them as much as Saboru’s guards if they didn’t show at the drop point in the wastes. They needed to pass this thing off as soon as possible. Maybe lay low for a while after, take Mama and Misty with them somewhere. Sweat beaded on V’s brow, she was sure she looked ashen, the poker hanging limp in her working hand. 

“Hey, look at me. Breathe,” Jack said, looking her in the eye. He put his hand on her good arm and tried to smile. “Can’t have you go into shock right now. We’re gonna make it, okay?”

V nodded, though she wasn’t sure she believed it. 

The elevator doors opened on the tenth floor to a man shrieking, begging for his life somewhere at the dark end of the hall, past an eco-display of tropical plants and trees. 

“ Pozhaluysta, ne strelyay! Ne stre—! ” 

Three pops cut his pleas into silence, lighting up the corridor with brief flashes of light; Jack’s wince echoed V’s thoughts. He pulled the stolen gun out of his jacket.

The maintenance stairwell was across the hall, through double doors with thick rounded handles. Jack popped his head around the corner of the elevator exit and waved V forward; the sightline to the stairs was clear. They crept to the door, V’s stomach flipping at the shrill laughter from somewhere past the eco-display. She pulled the handles of the doors. 

It was locked.

Behind them, the elevator closed with a chime.

“Nandatta?” A man’s voice echoed from down the hall. 

Jack grabbed the poker out of V’s hand, shoving the gun back into his jacket. He jammed it into the crack between the doors, teeth grit, arms shaking.

“C’mon, c’mon—” he grunted, leaning his weight on the poker.  

“Oi! Tomare! Stop!” Two men, Saboru’s guards, were running down the hall, guns drawn. The wall behind V’s head exploded with a shot that screamed past her ear. 

The doors popped open as the lock gave way. Jack shoved her through. “Run!” he said, jamming the doors closed behind them. He slipped the poker between the handles. 

They flew down the stairwell, feet clanging against the steel, the red emergency footlights glowing in the dark. Above them, their pursuers were shouting, the banging on the door resounding off the concrete walls. 

V could hardly breathe, the air was painful, it scraped her lungs raw as she ran, her arm flapping beside her. She could hear the clanging of the metal stairs above—they’d gotten through the door. 

She called the car—thank Christ, it responded—and pulled it toward their location.

Come on, come on, almost there.

Jack was panting behind her when they burst into the garage. There—the car, pulling up from above them. They ran toward it.

“Get in!” Jack said, opening the back door, pushing V in first. She scrambled onto the backseat, trying to make room.

“Stop there!” One of the guards crashed through the stairwell door, fury in his eyes. He aimed at the car. “Hands up! ”

Jack looked down at V, a grimace on his face. He nodded towards the car’s steering wheel and raised his hands, slowly turning to block her from view. 

“Hey, compa!” he said, false friendliness in his voice. “Dunno what’s goin’ on, but, I need to catch a flight to—”

V felt the spray of Jack’s blood on her face first—warm iron in her mouth—before she registered the cracking sound of the shots through his gut.

One, two, three.

“Madres—” Jack coughed, doubling over his ribs, bright red blooming down over his shirt, seeping—no, Christ, flowing—through his fingers. Beneath them, three holes. 

Huge, dark, gaping holes.

V screamed, heaving Jack into the car by his suit jacket, one-armed, scrabbling over him to slam the door shut. She looked down at him, horror-struck.

Shot. He’d been shot—he was wet, it soaked through to her skin. 

The guards were shouting, more bangs cracked the windshield, shattering the front seats of the car. V overrode the speed protocols, the acceleration pressing her down on top of Jack, she couldn’t see when the one of the guards shrieked, the car thumping over him, first the front wheels, then the back, with a crunch.

Jack groaned under her, his skin beaded with sweat. 

The hospital—they needed a hospital, now. She sent the coordinates to the car. It tore out of the garage, crashing through the gate, wheels squealing when it hit the pavement of the street. 

“Jack!”

V pushed herself off him, clambering to sit up. He was hunched over in the seat against the door, his breath like air sucked through a wet straw. His eyes were shut, skin wan, gray turning rapidly to blue. 

She ripped off her jacket and shoved it against his wounds, trying to hold the blood in his body. It gushed out over her fingers, soaking through the grey fabric, slick, hot. Jack moaned, but it was strangled and ragged. 

Her mind reeled. He had to make it, he had to stay awake. Anything to keep him awake. 

“C’mon—” Words tumbled out of V’s mouth, rapid-fire, high-pitched and trembling. “We’re gonna go home. I promise, I’ll come—we’re going home right now, okay? Just stay awake!” 

She leaned her weight against the wounds, but nothing helped, the blood just kept coming. The red lights of Watson streaked past outside the car, flickering over his face in the dark.

“Hermana,” he said, using his name for her, the one he used with no one else. It was wet and strained with the effort to speak. He reached behind his ear and pulled out the biochip, the Santa Madre on his hand half-hidden under the scarlet slick. 

“Fuck the chip, Jack!” 

He touched her face, the copper smell sticking to her cheek, filling her nose, he slotted it into the port behind her ear. He pat her cheek, once, before his hand dropped into her lap. 

No. No, this was all wrong, not him, please— 

“Look at me!” V grabbed his jaw, lifting his face, her breath shook with desperation. “Jack, fucking look at me! ”

He did. He blinked slowly, a small huff escaping his mouth. He tried to say something, small bubbles of blood pushing out from between his lips. 

“I’m sorry—” she begged him to stay, heaving, as though her own breath could make up for the waning rattle in his chest. “Please don’t, please— ”

Jack almost smiled. His eyes became unfocused, and the rattle stopped. 

“Jackie—” V shook him, violently, blood flecking onto her face.

“Jack!”

***

V was screaming. A wild, animal, untamed wrath that boiled, that seared like acid, that burned like fire and consumed her and hollowed her and emptied her, that pulsed like hot blood from a wound. She pushed her limbs against the seats of the car, straining and shaking until they broke, flapping against the dash.

They’d taken him. Jack. 

They killed him. 

Arasaka. Stout. Wakako. They fucking killed him. They crushed him into darkness, punched a hole in the world that would never be filled, leaving only emptiness and silence and void, the endless nothingness of his absence. They drew him in with their promises, dangled their glittering false hopes in front of him. They trapped his light and they warped it and twisted it and pretended it was theirs, pretended they owned it, that anyone could own it. And then they snuffed it. They shackled his soul and they dressed him in black and covered him in red and took him away. 

Just like they take everything.

And V—she did it too, didn’t she? She put him there, where they could cut him down like he meant nothing.

Like he didn’t mean everything.

She felt it now, the shadow. It had never gone away after all. It was still there, waiting for her like it waits for everyone, blood in its teeth like Jack, and all she had to do was accept it. She could choose the day. Lucky.

The gun—it was in his jacket. She took it from Jack’s cooling body, cradling it in her hand.

She must have told the car to go to the meeting point, because now she was already there at the door of the old motel, the dust of the wastelands sticking to her once-gray suit. She was kicking it open, dried blood cracking over her skin.

Stout was there, and her men, their heads snapped over in unison and Stout said something but V couldn’t hear the words because they didn’t make sense, nothing made any sense. V was waving the gun, shouting, and she shot someone, maybe, but it was too late because Jack was already dead—there in the car, didn’t they see what they did?—and it didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered. He was dead and someone had to pay.

One of the men hit her, it split her nose, it put stars in her eyes, she was on the ground and she was laughing but she didn’t know why. Someone was pointing a gun at her head, V saw its long barrel, its dark black hole that went on forever, salvation in the back of the chamber.  Their finger was on the trigger, Stout or her man or someone. V dared them to do it, still laughing, her face was wet with blood, or maybe tears. 

Do it. 

The gun flashed. She didn’t hear the bang before the darkness took her.

Chapter Text

Madre de Dios, it fuckin’ hurts. 

V’s eye is swollen shut and it’s making it hard to see anything in this tiny little titty bar. The views of the pole dancers are nice and that’s all well and good, but damn, how’s she supposed to find her mark with one fuckin’ eye open? She’s gonna have words with Julio later about lightening up in the ring. Like fuck, holmes, no need for a hook that hard. It’s not a real match. 

At least the purple neon’s helping to cover up the bruise, helps her blend in a little more. Most of the pendejos in this place are drunk off their asses anyway, so V is keeping the sore half of her face against the far wall of the booth and nobody is really noticing. Makes sense really, who’d wanna look at her when they got a tight ass in their face on a BD holo, or a real one on the stage? 

Damn, could she use a drink, though. Least it would help dull the ache, but she’s got to be sharp for the job. 

Now, where’s that mark? She comes here a lot, supposedly, hangs out at the bar looking for some poor cabrón to take back to whatever hot-shot high-rise she lives in. Should stick out like a sore thumb in this dive, but she hasn’t appeared. Gonna have to wait all night for this, or what?

Maybe Padre’s info was bad. It’s happened before, though not a lot, not since one of his crew got stuck at the border trying to smuggle some critter in a case and never came back. El Padre might be a cold sonuvabitch when he needs to be, but he’s careful with his men, treats them like family. Even V, long after she left. 

But sheesh, if she doesn’t get home soon and get some ice on this face she’ll look like a Borg for the next two weeks, and how’s that gonna make her look on her next date? Bad, that’s what. 

You know, if she had one. 

This gig’s supposed to be easy, just grab the shard from the purse and transfer the money out before getting noticed. V touches the lumps. Sure would be a lot easier if she could charm her way in with two normal-sized eyes. Thanks, Jules.  

Oh, but there she is, that must be the mark coming in now. Finally. Way she’s sauntering up to the bar like she owns the place, stiff black clothes and all—why do they always wear black when there’s so many other colors?—that’s the corpo alright. 

V sidles up next to her, puffy-side away and looks over, smooth-like, trying to make it seem like she just wants a drink herself. The mark’s ordering some fizzy shit with a lemon twist—of course she is—and V has to try not to roll her eyes. 

‘Course, she is kinda hot. More mamacita than mark, really, but they all tweak their bodies up there above the clouds, don’t they? Like Borgs, but prettier. 

Still, nice curves. 

Mamacita’s bag’s on the counter and she’s reaching for her drink from the barkeep and left her purse unattended. What a dumbass. Time to take her shot. 

V reaches for the bag, slow-like, but some chamaco flaco’s coming and Mamacita turns back around, puts her hand on the goods, so V has to pretend like she’s trying to flag down the bartender instead. Chinga tu madre, cabrón.

Chamaco’s wearing some cheap grey suit, all slick and shiny in spots where he pressed it too hot with an iron—dumbass—not like Mamacita’s fine getup here. He’s trying to talk to her and she’s clearly not interested, like just look at her face, holmes. But he shouts over the music anyway. V stays because she still needs that shard in the bag.

“I’m here baby, ya got two wishes left,” Chamaco is saying. 

Seriously?

“Oh, wow,” says Mamacita, sipping her drink. 

The fuck, that shit works? But wait, she’s still talking—

“Now grant my second wish and fuck off.” And she’s giving him the finger. Damn, never mind, she don’t mince words. 

“Ah c’mon, baby, don’t be like that.” Chamaco is gettin’ handsy, grabbing Mamacita’s skirt, and V don’t like that, oh no, she don’t fuck with men who think they own you. 

“Don’t fucking touch me,” Mamacita snarls, and Chamaco’s getting aggressive. V moves to step up, fuck this guy, but—oh shit!—Mamacita just pops him in the nose with her fist. Serves him right. 

“Fuck you, you fucking bitch!” Chamaco’s about to pop off, Mamacita’s hurt his pride with his nose in the wrong place now, blood on his cheap-ass shirt. The bag’s on the counter, nobody’s looking and V could grab it, but hey, some guys need a lesson in their manners. It can wait. 

V puts a hand on Chamaco’s shoulder, she’s bigger than him, and it’s easy to put enough pressure to buckle his knees a little.

“Compa, I think you need to find a new waterin’ hole, comprende?” V says, squeezing his shoulder a little too hard so Chamaco winces. 

“This your fucking output?” he says, trying to puff out his chest like there’s anything there. 

“You wanna find out?” Mamacita replies. Smart. 

He blusters, they all do when they’re cornered, and stalks off, tail between his skinny little legs. Probably doesn’t even work out. V turns back to Mamacita, who’s picking her drink back up. 

“Thanks,” Mamacita says, wrinkling her nose at the fizzy shit sparking up her nostrils. “But I had it handled.”

“Trust me, chica,” says V, “fucks like that, they don’t give up unless it seems like you got a squeeze already.” 

Mamacita snorts and it’s kind of cute, like in a hot way. “I’ll buy you a drink,” she says, “could use a ‘squeeze’ for the night. Just wanna drink, work fuckin’ sucked, and I don’t need any disappointing dick, or assholes buggin’ me all night. Just for once.”

Mierda, too bad. Mamacita’s kind of cool. Would be nice. 

Mamacita signals the bartend and asks V what her drink is, anything she wants, make it expensive. Nice. V chooses the top-shelf tequila, the kind she usually saves for special occasions. 

When the bartend brings it over Mamacita passes it to V, even gives her a little smile. Without that scowl she’s kind of pretty, but she’s not here for that tonight, and hey, that’s fair enough. V takes a sip of the tequila. It’s pretty good for a dive like this, and Mamacita doesn’t bat an eye and gets her a second one before V’s even finished it. 

“You’re gonna drink with me tonight, alright? Much as you want.” Mamacita extends her hand. “What’s your name?”

V looks at the bag on the counter. Ah, fuck it. She’ll tell Padre she lost the mark. There’ll be another one tomorrow. She reaches out and shakes Mamacita’s hand. 

“Jackie Welles,” V says, and flashes her a grin, one of her good ones, though it’s making her eye hurt more. “Pleasure, chica.”

“Call me V,” says Mamacita, “nice to meet you, Jack.”

***

The dump was where politicians went to die. 

It was hard to say exactly how the problem got so big. That’s how it goes with these things, it’s nobody’s responsibility until it gets bad, and then it’s everybody’s fault. 

After Night City solidified its freedom and the New US withdrew its troops from the borders, waste management was a low priority for the city’s new political elite. After all, who thinks about their garbage disposal? Fucking nobody, not until it breaks.

Like most of the city’s struggles, what the news would later dub the Dump Dilemma was caused by a constellation of issues that had become so intertwined, it was impossible to know what to fix first. Not that the city really tried that hard to solve it. It had the deadly combination of being both complicated and boring—so of course they fucking ignored it. Who wouldn’t?

The most obvious hurdle was the lack of buyers for the ever-increasing trash piles. The reunification war with America had opened a global vacuum, and burgeoning production centers like the United Colombian Territories took their shot for a seat at the front of the world stage. And it worked: their economies exploded with an influx of new investors in research, finance, and natural resource extraction, replacing cottage industries with megacorps and increased prosperity, at least for a time. The old business of sifting through recycling for salvageable tech was no longer profitable, and thus the largest markets for international waste disposal collapsed overnight. 

Countries with more land could bear the impact. The Montana-Alberta Federation still had plenty of forested acreage it could use to expand its transfer station infrastructure. Wisely, they refused to open them to their partners—not even for the increasingly generous offers of pay—for fear that they, too, would shortly run out of room. The people need their holo upgrades, after all. And who is the government to deny them?

But the small, overpopulated city-states like Night City were shit out of luck by the time they realized how badly they needed a solution.

No one listened to the first warnings. They came from the eco-types, the ones who smelled like synthfish and refused cyberware and barked up a tree at every goddamned council meeting for their whole alloted five minutes—and who paid attention to those gadflys? Not the fucking Council, that’s for sure.

The second warning was a whistleblower, some gonkbrained maintenance worker at the city’s biggest dump who went straight to the news after his boss told him to stuff it. He was missing a tooth in the front and refused to shave because he said it made his face itchy, so no one took it seriously when he ranted like a loon on the holo about overflow and capacity and toxicity of the water table. Technical shit like that. 

It wasn’t until the third or fourth death at the water treatment plant that someone finally took notice.

By then it was too late. Runoff from the City’s remaining dumps that still had space constantly leeched down into the soil, poisoning the reservoir that’d been created to hold enough water for a city of millions on a desert coastline.  Industry lobbyists pushed the Council to promote private filtration systems on the taps, and it passed, because that was cheaper and easier. 

But they never figured out what the fuck to do with the lack of space. Eventually, it spilled over into neighboring land to the dump, taking over former neighborhoods that had long since been abandoned from the smell. And that worked well enough until the spread had covered so much acreage, it reached the highway overpasses just outside the city core. These days, it wasn’t unusual to see cars stopped along the bridge, tossing their waste over the edge onto the ramps of refuse. They’d push whole refrigerators right over what the old-timers still called Jersey barriers, even though the place they were named for was little more than an irradiated hole in the ground now, or else under the ocean. 

In any case, anyone who wanted to be anything in Night City’s politics knew to avoid a board appointment at the Municipal Waste Management Authority. That’s where political careers went to die, to be given an unsolvable problem with no resources and a lot of stink. Literally. The Authority was so neglected, the Council had never even bothered to change its name, years after the city was no longer a municipality but a nation all its own. They’d send the losers and the nosepickers there, or else the bureaucratic types who got a little too nosy about the city’s finances, sent to go and wither on the vine before they could be too much of a threat. Who would listen to the complaints of the people who couldn’t solve the city’s garbage problem?

Only one man had ever successfully made it out with his political career intact. Jefferson Peralez was both handsome and media-savvy enough to bring too much attention to the Authority when he actually tried to do something about it. He was subsequently upgraded to the Attorney General’s office instead, so he would stop poking around.

The rest of the Authority’s board sat on their asses and continued to do nothing, not even when protestors started showing up at the monthly public meetings. A few of the activists were found in the dump themselves weeks later, barely recognizable under the accelerated rot from the bacteria in the sludge, and eventually the others stopped coming at all. The news said they had been foolish for camping out there for a political stunt. It didn’t mention that the tents they supposedly used were newly purchased on the day they were found.

After all, the sprawling waste was perfect for bodies. 

Criminal enterprises used the massive, unmonitored dumps for impromptu burials all the time, so much that a plucky tech start-up convinced the city to invest in scanning drones. It was supposed to save the NCPD time in searching for them. They worked, for a time, but when the company found that there was more profit in software maintenance, they reneged on their contract, and there was no one to upkeep the drones. The bodies piled up again, scattered into the furthest reaches, and the NCPD stopped patrolling unless a bystander called.

It was there, jumbled among the piles of discarded BD wreaths, broken holos, crushed food containers, and rotting meat, that V’s body lay. 

***

The first thing V felt was the grit in her teeth, the grinding sound of it loud in her head before she opened her eyes, before she was even aware she still had eyes, or a body, or life. Then came the pain, agony through her skull that blocked out all light and sound, she could feel it in the roots of her teeth. It rippled over her body like an electric shock, like she held a live wire in her hand and could not let go. 

Still, the blinding-hot pain that shook her muscles was nothing. Nothing at all, compared to remembering.

It hit her like a wave, she roiled with it, drowning with the crush of the recall, carried away by the image of his blue lips, blood in the stars of his implants. Her eyes closed, she could see him now, as clear as if he were in front of her still, his last breath gurgling through the holes in his chest. And his lips—the way they formed around words unspoken, with no air to push the sound through his throat, blood settling into the dried cracks where she had kissed him, just hours before. She could see them moving over and over, his tongue against the roof of his mouth, just behind his teeth. It was blue, too.

He’d tried to smile.

No more. Please, no more. Let it be done, let her be done, to be forgotten as much as she wanted to forget. Just let it stop.

C’mon, get up. 

She didn’t want to. She felt herself cry out more than she heard it, the way it vibrated in her chest, her mouth open so wide her lips didn’t touch her teeth, and more wet grit poured down against her tongue. It tasted of sulfur and discarded grease, and she vomited, black sludge hanging in viscous strings from her lips and her nose, burning in her sinuses.

She was supposed to be dead. She wanted to be dead, but something in her propelled her forward, her arm raking through the muck, dragging her one-handed through the stinking refuse. Her belly dragged along the ground, the sharp edges of discarded motherboards and broken plates cutting into her skin.

She wanted to stop, to rot with the cans and half-eaten food and sink into the mud until the sun baked away her flesh, bleached her into white bones like so many others. But her arm moved on its own and her legs scrabbled up the heaps of trash like they weren’t hers, pushing her out of the putrid, dark valley between the hills of decay, up into the sunlight. 

When she opened her eyes, she couldn’t see. 

Static covered her vision, the display mixing the colors of the world, blurring them together in a confusion of sparking light and shadow. Through the fuzzing haze, she could just make out her optical feed flickering into life. The letters were garbled, but it was scrolling through menus without her command. She tried to stop it. The clicking of the feed boomed in her head, but worse, the ringing of an outgoing call pierced her brain, causing the colors to quake. The sun became brighter with its shrill pitch. 

River picked up. His camera was on and so was hers, he sounded panicked, and she thought, wildly, how strange that was to hear. He was asking her where she was, but her throat was raw and full of dirt, she couldn’t speak and her breath smelled of bile. Hair stuck to her face, matted and crisp with blood—hers or maybe Jack’s—and she was still dragging herself over the mountain of garbage, because her body wouldn’t listen to her mind. Stop, please, stop.

Hang on, almost there.

River was shouting, but she couldn’t understand him, the words flowed together into a torrent of sound, mixed with the wind picking up as she reached the peak. The optics sent a location, the beeping of the signal splitting through her skull. 

She was at the top of a dump pile, miles from the highway. Through the whorling haze, she could almost make out the city’s skyline, before it went black. 

Time to go home, hermana. 

***

V loves music like this, the kind with a pulsing beat that’s so good you just can’t help but wriggle your ass. Not that shit where the head just bobs around like a chicken, and even the women shuffle their high-heeled feet, but that sweet rapid pulse, the kind that gets everybody’s arms in the air. Lizzie’s is the best for it, they always get top disc jockeys on Fridays. V loves to stand in the center of it, letting it vibrate through her chest in the club. Out here, everybody’s having a good time. 

Best fuckin’ feeling in the world. 

She’s there now, center-stage on the dance floor, and Chica’s there with her, her eyes closed against the strobing lights, dark hair sticking to her forehead where it’s springing loose from that tight bun. 

Chica keeps wiping the sweat away, blowing at the freed hairs, fussing with it like she’s afraid of losing the style. Even out here with all these good vibes she’s still half at work. Well, better help her out then. 

V shimmies up close, wiggling her shoulders like a fool because it makes Chica laugh, she makes like she’s gonna push V off. V knew she’d try though, so she grabs her waist first, pulling Chica close for a nice hip sway—damn, catches on fast, nice moves—and turns her around so Chica’s back’s on her chest, head on her shoulder. 

There, that’s better. Doesn’t even pull away this time, that’s how good the music is. Chica’s feeling it after a shit day at her new job—fuckin’ called it, but when has she ever listened?—and for a second it’s easy to forget why V started this. Chica, she’s reaching her hands up behind her, running her fingers over V’s neck while she swings her hips, her mouth hanging a little bit open. V can’t help but tuck a hand over her belly, press her a little closer, hum with the tune in her ear. Oh, Chica seems to like that, gives a little shiver, bites her lip. Interesting.

Now’s V’s chance, while she’s distracted. 

She lets her hand travel up over Chica’s arm, her shoulder, her neck—and grabs that sparkling twist-tie out of her hair, letting those locks fly free. Guau, there’s a lot of it, more than it seems in that tiny little granny bun. 

Uh-oh. Chica’s whipping around, fury on her face she’s been tricked, and V just dangles it up in the air, laughing. Better run. She spins away off the dance floor, tucking the tie in her pocket, grinning like a dumbass at her score. They don’t call her a good heist-man for nothing.

“Jack, you bastard!” Chica’s running after her, hair falling over her face. “Give it back!” 

“Pero ¿por qué?” V says, bouncing into a corner booth by the bar. Chica’s not gonna be able to grab it from her pocket so easy under the table, not unless she wants a handful of thigh. “Looks good that way.” 

And it does, the way it comes down across one eye, all soft even with some of it kind of damp. Sometimes V wonders if Chica knows how good she looks. She’s so uptight, if she’d just relax a little, she’d have a better time. ‘Course, she’d need to quit that shit job with those vultures first. 

“Give it to me, or I’m choppin’ this off,” Chica says, standing with one hand on her hip, the other twisting her hair. She’s still rocking a little, side-to-side with the beat. Cute.

“So? That’d be hot too.” V waggles her eyebrows, waving at the room. “Just look around, chica. Ten hombres are checkin’ you out from here, now you’re lookin’ more relaxed. Got your pick of this place.” 

“Oh yeah?” she says, smirk on her lips. “Wanna bet?”

Oh, gambling. All right then. V smiles, leaning back against the booth, one elbow up on the back. Should be fun. 

“Está bien,” V says, scanning the room, her eyes fall on a ripped motherfucker, big barrel chest with a half-decent mug. He’s already got a crowd of women around. V points at him. “That one.”

Chica looks over, squints her eyes at Muscles in the corner and nods. She approves. “Ten minutes,” she says, tugging at her skirt, pops those lips into a pout. “His tongue in my mouth and you give that back. And you’re buyin’.”  

V laughs. Chica always wants to be the best at everything. Maybe she should make loosening up into a competition or something. 

“Done,” V says. She taps her fingers on the table to watch, touches the lucky cross in her ear. 

Chica’s sauntering off, using the full sway of that culo. It’s almost funny how wide she’s swinging it, like a kid pretending to be a model, but it works on Muscles. Doesn’t take long before she’s got him pressed against a wall, his hands all over her ass. Carajo. Ten minutes was too generous. Of course it was—look at her. V checks her wallet, makes sure she’s got enough to cover. But before she can blink, Chica’s already back, squeezing into the booth, her calf on V’s because it’s kind of cramped over here.

“What, done already, mamacita?” V says, she’s teasing Chica because she knows she hates that nickname. She waves down a server girl from the bar—time to pay the piper. “Whaddya want to drink?”

“I win. Hand it over.” Chica holds out her hand, straight to the point.

V sighs and pulls out the hair trap. What a shame. At least Chica’s smiling, laughing like she’s proud of herself, and that’s good to see. Big change from when the night started and that scowl was all she wanted to wear. 

But Chica just puts the tie on her wrist, tucks her hair behind her ear.

“Your turn,” she says, tapping V on the arm with her fist, a sparkle in her eye. She twists around, looking back across the dance floor and points at a braided beauty. “That one. I pay the next round.”

Damn, good taste. V takes the bet, but she asks for fifteen minutes.

***

Later V would only remember moments, like half-forgotten dreams: River dragging her body into his truck, saying something over and over to her in a strained voice—she could never remember what—but he smelled like coffee and soap, and his pant legs were stained to the knee with a deep brown grease from the dump’s collected liquid. Particularly vivid, for some reason, was the image of the power lines along the highway out of the wastes, the way they seemed to bounce up and down from pole to pole, black lines against blue sky. And River’s hands on the steering wheel, knuckle tendons popping out on one, the other one clacking when he adjusted his grip. She had wondered, distantly, which one was more slick—the sweaty hand, or the metal? 

Another time there was a bright light, and she saw Vik, a medical mask over his face and his ripperclaw above her eyes. He was sweating with effort, his jaw clenched, a muscle was twitching in his cheek. He never noticed she was awake. V had blinked slowly and unevenly, one eye at a time, listening to the scraping sound of metal on bone inside her head. There had been no pain, but there was an intense pressure and some sort of liquid that drained behind her ear. She’d been vaguely aware of a tube in her throat; it scratched and she couldn’t swallow, her tongue stuck up against the plastic mouthpiece. Vik was huffing through his nose when she fell back into the abyss. 

Once, she woke up in the dark, seizing all over her body and chilled through to her core, and someone rushed over to keep her from falling out of the bed. Colorful spots in her vision prevented her from seeing who it was, but their hands were soft, and their voice was soothing. She thought she saw a man behind them, whose outline was more clear. His eyes were gold, he was cast in shadow and outlined in stars, and she couldn’t make out his face.

In the spaces between, she dreamt of seeing herself, though every time she woke the details slipped away into a fog. By the time she opened her eyes, only impressions were left: Her lips curled into a laugh. The smell of the sweat on her neck. Her tattoos with the circles on her arms. Minutes later, it would be gone entirely.

The first time she was fully lucid, only Vik was there, watching the news on the small holo near his workstation. She was in his clinic on a makeshift bed, pushed up against the shelving. Vik was sunken, leaning over his desk like the fight had left him. 

“... issued a statement today condemning the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet, Vasin Nomokonov, for his continued defense of his dignitaries’ role in the death of Yorinobu Arasaka last month. Tensions remain high between the corporation and the USSR as the trade talks with People’s Republic of China have stalled in light of the controversy—” 

V drew a sharp breath at the memory of Yorinobu’s face, blown apart by his father. It was enough to draw Vik’s attention, who almost jumped at the sound. He snapped off the holo and rolled over on his stool, stopping a few feet away, his mouth taut. 

“Hey, kid,” was all he could manage to say. 

“Vik.” Her voice was hoarse. V tried to lift her head, but her muscles were too weak to hold it, everything was leaden. She rolled her face to the side instead. “I was dead. Shot. I know I was.”

Vik looked aside, his Adam’s apple bobbing before he spoke. He braced his hands against his knees. 

“Maybe not dead, but, should have been with—” He took a sharp breath through his nose, flicking his eyes up to her forehead. His fingers gripped his knees a little tighter. “With a hole like that,” he finished.

A small jolt of fear flit across her ribcage. She looked at her hand, bony and gaunt, and slowly lifted it to her face, rubbing a fingertip over her brow. There, just beneath the skin—a small divot surrounded by a ridge.

“Can’t see it unless you look close,” Vik said. 

See it—who cared about seeing it? She would rather the hole still be there. But she couldn’t say that to him, not when he’d sweat through his scrubs for God knows how long trying to save her. 

“How.” V said, staring at the white sheets of the bed over her legs. They’d be better suited over her face.

“That thing in your head. The shard. It’s advanced, never seen anything like it. Took some scans, it’s injecting stem cells, growing neurons with a new signature. Chip took over for you when—” Vik pressed his thumb and forefinger into his eyes underneath his glasses, swallowing. “When that bullet went through your brain stem, stopped your heart. Took its place enough to keep your basic functions going.” 

“So it saved me.” V’s voice was hollow. It was hard to care.

“No.” Vik sunk down onto his elbows, hands folded in front of him. “It saved your body, kid, but those neurons aren’t just filling in the damage. They’re starting to replace healthy tissue. Rewiring your brain. Overwriting it.” 

“Why? With what?”

“I don’t know. This is way beyond me, V. I’m sorry.”

“From that look on your face, guessin’ you can’t just take it out.”

“I tried. Damage from the bullet’s too extensive. Chip’s keeping you alive at the same time it’s killing you. I take it out now, you die. But at the rate it’s spreading, by the time it fixes enough, it’ll already have replaced your brain.” 

So it was a death sentence either way. V had nothing to say to that. She stared at her hands. Vik had saved her blackened arm from the tourniquet, apparently, though there was a long, raised zipper scar up the entire inside of it, and it responded slowly to command. She lifted it in front of her face, testing her fingers. She could almost still feel the blood on them, smell it crusted in her nose.

“Jackie,” she said, her voice breaking. 

Vik understood. “Arrived in a hacked livery cab at El Coyote. You sent him home?”

V shook her head. She might have, but she couldn’t remember. Jack’s blue lips and his bloody teeth appeared on the white sheets before her. The gaping, wet holes. The copper smell. The gun in his pocket. Then darkness. That was all.

“Where is he.” V knew the answer, but she had to hear it from him. A renewed bubble of dread pressed against her heart.

Vik hunched down over his lap. He’d always been so spritely around Jack; now he looked like an old man. 

“The Columbarium now,” he said, his voice tightening. “His mother found him a nice spot. Faces east.”

V gripped the sheets, trying to steady her breath, tears dripped down off her chin. He was already in a cube, then, like Amma and Appa. She would never even see his face again. Never touch his hand to say goodbye. It was fitting, in a way. She had always been too late with Jack.

“Did you see him?” she asked, barely eking the words out through her closed throat.

He nodded. “I prepared him.” 

The bubble broke. “I’m sorry—” V said, and she closed her eyes, dry sobbing against the pillow. Her breath leaked out of her in rapid, silent exhales, until there was nothing left in her lungs and she gasped, sucking more air in to start all over again. The wheels of Vik’s chair rumbled over the concrete floor, closer to the bed. He placed his hand on the mattress next to her, and didn’t say anything more.

They stayed like that for a long time, until she was empty and still again.

An incoming call for Vik broke the silence. “Just a sec,” he said, and wheeled away to his desk, murmured on the line for a moment, nodding. When he finished, he stood and walked toward the clinic door. “Got someone who wants to see you, kid,” he said, and wrenched open the iron gates. He called out and a woman walked in with a wheelchair.

“No—!” V said, terror filling the hollow of her chest. She couldn’t face her, not now, maybe not ever. Please, no. She squeezed her eyes shut, stinging tears already forming again in her panic. She couldn’t breathe. 

A hand settled on her arm, a flutter of soft skin that squeezed V’s heart in a vice. Her voice was gentle, kind as she ever was. 

“Hey, honey,” said Misty. “Let’s get you home.”

Chapter Text

V’s going to do it. Today’s the day.

Her leg’s jumping against the side of the old bridge barrier, jiggling it with one foot up on the railing. A little rust falls off, dusting the walk with brown iron flakes. The river below is slapping against the side of the concrete, smells like a mix of salt and sewage in this heat. Might just be the stench that’s got her stomach churning, her neck feeling so sweaty. She glances over at Chica, grits her teeth. Nah—probably not. 

Come on, shouldn’t be that big of a deal, right? It’s just asking a question, but it’s a little embarrassing after all this time to just come out and say it. Maybe V could make a joke of it, test the water a little first and make sure Chica won’t get upset, pretend to be more shitfaced than she is. Like, ha-ha, isn’t it funny how she doesn’t know? What’s up with that? Anyway… 

No, Jesús, eso es estúpido. Just do it, dumbass. 

V groans to herself. Ah, carajo—how do you ask your best choom what her name is?

Since V met her two years ago she’s always been Chica or just goes by her letter, and not knowing her real name’s getting kind of awkward. The boys have asked who she is and V keeps laughing it off, claiming it’s intel and they’re not allowed to know, or some other lame shit everyone knows isn’t true. But what else is V supposed to say? ¿Ella se olvidó de preguntar? Nah. The truth’s even worse than the joke. 

V’s not sure how it happened, exactly. For a while she thought the letter was a nickname, “Vee” or “Vi” or something. She’d met a Viviana once who went by that before, way back in her school days. Viviana had liked literature class as much as V did. They used to talk classics by the lockers together—giants like Hemingway and Atwood, Jemisin and King—before Vivi got scouted by some fancy private school and disappeared. Never did get the chance to say goodbye. Last V heard, she’s a writer somewhere now.

In any case, for Chica it’s just some kind of alias she always uses. Even signs her name on receipts with it when she pays her tab—V peeked once to confirm it. Figured Chica would mention what her full name is at some point, but she never did, and then it was too late. Too much time had gone by. 

Like how do you ask something like that? Hey, Chica, we’ve been hanging for years, but who the fuck are you anyway?

Sure, V knows everything about Chica’s job, her favorite BD’s, her coworkers’ names and who they’re fucking, the shit she wants to do next year, what her last date was like, her favorite foods—dango and crêpes, obviously. They talk about all kinds of shit, things V’s never told anyone else. But Chica always bristles when she’s asked about her background; her claws come out like una gata, back arched and hissing. Last guy who tried to push too far got dumped after the second date, and Chica never spoke of him again. Just as well, he sucked anyway.

But she and Chica, they hang out all the time, jabbering in the corners of bars or strolling under the lights of the city. Though it’s always alone, just the two of them—V stopped inviting her to pool nights with the boys after Chica declined for the fifth time. Chica’s cool, but she’s still a corpo, so barrios like Heywood probably just aren’t her style. She’s a Japantown type of girl, or wherever it is she comes from. Maybe the fuckin’ Moon, who knows. 

Kind of weird when you know someone so well, but at the same time, not at all.

It’s already past four in the morning and they’ve had a long night after some junkies jumped them in the alley outside the club. V took out two of them and Chica leveled the other with a sharp fist to the nose, like a champ. But a fight always fires up the nerves, so now they’re soothing it over with some greasy street food and fresh air before heading their separate ways. And that’s all right by V. She’s not hungry, not with her stomach in a knot like this, but she’s never been one to end a good time too early. 

And with Chica, it’s always a good time. 

Standing here looking out over the river channel, Chica is swaying her culo a bit with all that booze she drank earlier. She’s shifting her knees back and forth, elbows on the bridge barrier, chomping down a synthdog like she’s not eaten for days—which is possible, given how tied up she gets at that ‘Saka job. A breeze from the ocean nearby is blowing Chica’s hair in her face, she’s spitting it back out while she’s trying to chew. V stifles a laugh—how does Chica still look so good when she’s shoving that bread in her face with her fingers? Like sheesh, sis, slow down.

The city skyline’s sparkling on the water, the red and blue lights rippling in that way that makes V’s heart swell. Never mind the green riverbanks or the rotted air wafting in from the dumps, this is the best city in the world. A place where legends can be made, instead of born. It don’t matter who your father is, if you try.

Even her old pal Dante made something of himself, and he never had any parents at all. Used to be a mouthy little fucker, talked hot shit even though he was three years younger than the rest of them, but trying to keep up with the big boys taught him well. By the time he left school, Dante could sell dirt to worms, and his gift of gab got him some kind of marketing job. Worked his way up and takes good care of his abuelo who raised him now. And good for him, if he can put up with that shit. El pequeño pendejo. 

Going corpo’s not the only way up, though. And good thing, because bowing her head to suits never sat right with V. Just look at Chica, strung out on a cocktail of enhancers to keep her upright half the time, never able to relax a minute for that fuckin’ guillotine they got hanging over her neck. Besides, V would be no good at it. Got sick of obeying orders a long time ago, the day Raúl left for good—ese pinche hijo de puta.

There are better ways to make a mark that don’t require selling your soul. Across the bridge there’s some stairs that go down to the water line. When V squints she can almost make out the little plaque sticking out at the bottom, though the graffiti of a hand giving the world the finger next to it’s a lot easier to see. Together they mark the spot where Susan Forrest made her last stand, twenty years ago. 

It was right over there where she sunk into the water on the helo she stole, flipping the NCPD one last bird to distract them so her crew could get away. V heard about it on the news at Abuelita’s house, before she shuffled over and said this kind of story wasn’t for kids, flipped the channel to cartoons of heroes shooting the bad guys instead. V was too young to really get it then, but some lucky photographer caught a pic of Forrest’s finger in the air, and that image has stuck with her all this time. What a fuckin’ legend she was. Got to respect the people who go down protecting their own. 

Doesn’t hurt that Forrest was from Heywood, too. Life might be hard here, but where you come from’s irrelevant if you want to scratch your name into the history books. Just need a little loyalty and dedication. 

Well, and some heavy brass balls. 

The thought gives V a little push—if a nobody like Susan Forrest could bomb her way into history, V can ask a simple question of her amiga. Can’t she?

Besides, if she asks Chica now and it goes to the dogs, they can go their separate ways and pretend it never happened, like that time they got a little too close at the club last year. Chica had struck out at the wingman game that night, putting her in a sour mood. V thought she’d make her feel better with a fake kiss on the cheek—her jokes always make her lighten up, after all. But then Chica had turned her face at the wrong moment, and it landed right on her lips instead. Lasted a half second too long. Fuckin’ awkward. 

Chica didn’t call for a week after that. But when she did, they went on like nothing happened. Didn’t even talk about it. It was just a blip, no pasa nada, right? 

Beside her, Chica’s finished licking her fingers and slumps down on the bench built into the bridge nearby. It smells a bit like piss and someone’s blanket has been stuffed underneath it, but she don’t seem to mind. She tips her head back, closes her eyes like she’s going to sleep there. 

Pues, no time like the present, cabrón. Time to get out the brass balls. 

V sits next to her, close enough their legs touch, puts her arm around behind Chica’s head. They’re comfortable like that—like family, almost—which is nice. No pressure, you know? They talk and flirt as much they want, but there’s no trying to impress, because it’s never more than that. They’re friends, and that’s enough. 

Simple. 

V takes a breath. “Y’know, chica, I been thinkin’—”

Chica opens her eyes and looks up with a crooked smile, wipes the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. Her knuckles are still red from punching that shit in the alley. 

“Gracias,” Chica says, slurring the word. 

Thanks? What’s this about? Chica don’t even speak Spanish, not really, except for the swears she’s picked up. 

V furrows her brow with a silent laugh through her nose. “¿Para qué?”

“Been meanin’ to say it,” Chica goes on, eyes half-lidded. “Thanks. You’re the best choom I’ve got. ¡Un amigo especial!” She tries on the Spanish again, waving her hand with a flourish, the scent of whiskey filling the air. 

Damn, she’s drunk off her ass. Chica’s probably going to regret this in the morning, if she remembers it. V’s belly squirms a little. Where’s this going?

“Everybody’s always in my business,” Chica says, resting her head back on V’s shoulder, soft hair tickling her skin. “But not you, Jack. Never have to talk about myself if I don’t wanna. That’s why you’re special. Easy.” Chica slides a hand over V’s stomach, curled up like a kid, seems like she’s falling asleep. 

Mierda, can’t ask about Chica’s name now, not after that. V looks back at the plaque. Lo siento, Forrest, guess today’s not the day after all. 

“Ah, well—’course.” V clears her throat, patting Chica’s shoulder. “Us Welles boys have always been prime, eh?” 

Chica murmurs her agreement and looks up into V’s face. Her eyes are lined with red and drooping with sleep. But her lips are curled into a smile. 

“That’s why I’m gonna give you a present,” Chica says. She shifts up onto her knees, leans over until her face is so close, V can feel her breath on her chin. 

V freezes, all of a sudden her heart’s in her throat. Chica’s got her hands around the back of V’s neck, sending goosebumps down her arms. And Chica’s mouth—those full dark lips, all smudged in just the right places—they’re right there. They’ve been this close before, flirting out on the dance floor, but that’s different. Dancing don’t count. That’s just for fun, and there’s people around, half the time it’s just for show. Only company here is Forrest’s ghost in her watery grave.

Chica’s whispering into her ear. “Westbrook,” she says. Her mouth brushes against V’s earlobe, raising the hairs on the back of V’s neck. “That’s where I’m from.” Chica barely finishes her sentence before she breaks down into a laugh and collapses back onto V’s arm, snorting. She always snorts when she thinks she’s been funny.  

Jesucristo, Chica’s just teasing, este estúpida borracha. 

“Sheesh, chica,” V says, puffing out a breath with a laugh, though her smile feels tight at the corners. “Scared the shit outta me.” 

“Ah, come on,” Chica says, breathless from laughing at her own bad joke. “Westbrook’s not that shocking, is it?” She doesn’t mention how close her mouth was. 

V looks down at her, shakes her head like Chica’s an annoying little sister. Which she is. 

Kind of.

“Nah, that tracks,” V says, though in truth Westbrook’s not what she expected. Fuck, it don’t get richer than that, except maybe Konpeki. She’s met a few of those types before on jobs, and they’re always assholes. Expect white glove service for blue collar pay, haggle over everything—nobody values their money more than the people who already have it. They’d always talk to V like they’d picked up a dirty rag pinched between their delicate fingers, the jewelry embedded straight into the skin by a pricey aesthetics doc. To them, V was a shameful secret to make their problems go away, not the professional they’d actually hired. Never got so much as a thanks for doing their stupid shit for them, like stealing back their grandmama’s precious painting they lost in the divorce, or serving papers to their own parents for emotional damages when their tropical fish died. Don’t take work from them anymore. It’s never worth the effort. 

Chica, though, she might be sharp at the corners and tight-lipped about some things, but she listens when V goes on about her ideas, why an old fashioned workout is better than a cyber upgrade for strength—better for the mind—even sits and nods when V’s in her cups and griping about the grind. Doesn’t always agree, but Chica never puts her down either, never treats V like she don’t know what she’s talking about. That’s rare anywhere in this city, whether it’s Heywood or Sixth Street. But especially Westbrook. 

Wouldn’t be fair to hold it against her. It’s more background than Chica’s ever given before, and that counts for something. It’s not a name, exactly, but with Chica, it’s best to take whatever you get. Abuelita always said the Madre rewards patience. V can almost hear her creaky old voice now: “Gordito, a fuerza, ni los zapatos entran,” she’d say, and tell V to put her big nose back in her homework. 

V adjusts her seat, lifting her legs up a little to shift her hips forward, make a better pillow of her chest for Chica. Though hopefully she’s not listening too close to V’s heart pumping—Chica went way farther than she usually does when she flirts, and V’s still keyed up from the tease. There’s a buzzing in her ears that’s taking it’s time to die down. Ah well, nothing a little humor won’t fix. 

“‘Course,” V goes on, “no one would ever know you’re from Westbrook, what with that tightwad hairdo.” She picks at a sequin on Chica’s arm sleeve. “And your threads always got some kinda sparkle on ‘em. Reminds me of my abuelita, she always loved some glitz on her jumpsuits—”

“Hey!” Chica says, though her shoulders are shaking from laughter when she pokes V in the belly. “This is fashionable, y’know. Cost a fuckin’ fortune.”

“Sure, sure, whatever you say, Nana.” Joking makes V relax again, lets the air out of the balloon under her ribs a little. And Chica seems to have accepted her defeat, because she’s settling back onto V’s chest, closing her eyes.

Back over the water, the sky’s starting to turn pink. Chica’s breathing is getting heavy, and V’s feeling it too, she’s starting to nod off when Chica speaks again.

“So what were you gonna say?” Chica says into V’s shirt. “Before.”

“Just wondering ‘bout your name,” V says, too tired to remember she wasn’t going to ask, and Chica stiffens under her arm. 

Mierda, idiot, better think of something quick.

“Just, ah—” V stalls, searching her brain. She ruffles Chica’s hair out of her face, the way she used to do with her younger cousins. Yeah, that works. “Thought about callin’ you hermana instead. Okay with you?”

Chica’s head sinks down heavier on V’s chest. She exhales. “What’s it mean?”

“Like ‘sis’, y’know? Fits better for you.” V scratches her fingers across Chica’s scalp, lowers her head to speak into the top of her hair. “‘Cuz you can be such a little shit.”

Chica snorts. “Mm, fair.” 

Looking down, V can’t see her face, but the sun peeking over the scrapers across the water is giving Chica a halo in her hair. It’s pretty.  

“Should get going soon, eh?” V says, hand still combing through Chica’s locks. 

“Just a minute,” Chica mumbles, her voice is fading. “It’s comfortable like this.”

V laughs through her nose, tuts her tongue against her teeth. 

“Yeah, hermana—”

***

—it is.

When V woke up, she thought she heard his voice, but that was impossible. She clawed at the edges of her mind to remember the dream, but the more she grasped at it the more it slipped away, leaving only the brackish scent of the city’s river in her nose and a pit in her stomach. 

Her face was pressed against the window of the cab, drool sticking her cheek to the pane when she lifted her head. She blinked unevenly; the right eye below the bullet ridge was slower to respond, it trailed behind its partner and didn’t close all the way. 

It was raining, the sound of it on the car’s roof nearly deafening. The city’s colors outside blurred together, sheets of water coming down like needles onto the broken pavement in front of the megabuilding. A man with reddening skin on his cheeks had taken refuge under the overhang of the entrance, probably waiting for it to pass. Too long out in this storm and the acid would give him rainburn. His stained pants and unruly beard twisted into a knot were familiar—V had passed him the few times she went out for food that wasn’t from a vending machine while she was preparing for the Konpeki job. He was always grumbling to himself about the Mayor putting mind control nanochips in synthmeat. Sometimes he’d trail her up the steps to her apartment door, pontificating the whole way. V never paid him any mind; he was harmless, if irritating.

“Hey honey, we’re here.” 

V jumped at Misty’s voice floating over from the seat next to her. Her skin crawled, hot with shame. How could she have already fallen asleep on the short ride over from Vik’s? Misty had insisted on taking her home, treating V with a kindness she didn’t deserve. Why wasn’t Misty angry? Why didn’t she rail and scream and cry? It would have been better if she did. 

But she didn’t. Instead Misty had offered comfort at V’s makeshift hospital bed, and V could not bring herself to refuse to her face. Misty had helped her to the car like a fucking invalid, lifting V gently by the elbow when she should be choking her for letting Jackie die. And for kissing him, like the selfish, stupid bitch V was. Though V could never say that and add to Misty’s misery—better to die with that knowledge, whenever this chip finally finished its fucking job and took V away. Vik hadn’t given any timing on when that might happen, and somehow that was worse. What if V had to live like this for months? Or years?

Now Misty was smiling at her, soft and sad, just a few feet away. She flapped open her wide shroud umbrella, carefully straightening the clear plastic side curtains with her slender, pale hands. 

“Thanks, Misty,” V said, swallowing the vomit already halfway up her throat. She put a shaking hand on the door handle. “Can take it from here.”

“No, sweetie, Vik said your legs will be unsteady for a while. Didn’t you say there’s no elevator? I’ll help you up, you shouldn’t get rainburn on top of everything else.” Misty picked up a wide, grass-woven purse off the floor and hitched it up on her shoulder.

Before V could protest, Misty stepped out of the car, pulling the curtains of the shroud around her to shield the rain. She came around and opened V’s door with a thunk, parting the clear plastic to invite her inside the protection of the umbrella, and V bit her lip. Misty had a quiet type of strength; she was a stream that smoothed over the stone of V’s resistance, blunting the edges. How could V say no to a gesture as simple as an extended hand? 

Misty looped one arm through V’s to guide her up the exposed exterior steps, holding the shroud over them both, which shook with the heavy droplets splashing against the top and sides. She neither pushed nor pulled V along, but simply kept pace as they slowly ascended past each landing, wending their way around the collected pools of stinging, yellowed water. V willed her sluggish legs to carry her faster, but it did no good—she was weak, and the climb was interminable. 

Though they didn’t speak, the closeness inside the tiny shroud amplified any sound. V’s labored breathing filled the humid air, and Misty’s silver necklaces tinkled with every step, which were many, as they had to take two feet to each stair. 

By the time they reached V’s apartment, the pounding of V’s heart was visible through her thin ribs; sweat was dripping down her back. Exhaustion had already burned through V’s legs and slumped her shoulders, and her optics weren’t working right either—visual artifacts fuzzed at the edges of her vision and could not be blinked away. A dark shadow swam in the corners of the landing, undulating and pulsing as though someone was moving in the dark, and V couldn’t shake the feeling she was being watched. She punched her code into the access pad and opened the door, the creeping feeling in her spine following her inside.

V’s apartment was still cluttered; half-eaten food was scattered across the kitchenette countertop, crumpled wrappers of meal bars piled around the old terminal screen that sat blank and gray on the coffee table. A sour, mildewed smell permeated the cramped space—something was dripping near the window and flies buzzed somewhere, unseen. It was like Amma’s bedroom after she died: the unfinished, molding drinks that sat untouched, like she had expected to return later and finish it. The clothes so haphazardly tossed aside, waiting for their owner to come pick them back up for a wash. The dead leave so many small abandonments behind like that. 

V removed her shoes out of habit, wet socks slopping onto the gritty tile, the skin beneath already starting to sting.

“Okay honey, let’s get you into bed,” Misty said, shaking the droplets off the umbrella outside of the door before closing it behind them. The downpour muffled to a soft, constant shushing, like the waves of the ocean. “You need more rest.” 

She escorted V the few steps across the apartment, making sure V was seated safely before she turned and flicked on a side light. If Misty made any judgement of the mess, she didn’t say anything, but V’s stomach twisted anyway when Misty collected some of the litter from the side table. The green alcohol bottles and torn wrappers clinked and crinkled together in the plastic bag she picked up from the floor. V laid on her side and stared at the wall, unable to bring herself to say anything, but maybe if she looked tired enough, Misty would go. The mildew scent was stronger with her face on the sheets. 

Misty rustled around the apartment for a while, sweeping up the worst bits of garbage into a collection by the door. V hugged her arms into her chest when Misty’s footsteps returned to the bedside, and the mattress sunk when Misty sat on it. 

“Are you okay?” Misty said, almost whispering as she folded her hands up under her chin, half-hidden by the long sleeves of the oversized sweater. 

V watched the glitching shapes in her vision swirl. “I’m fine. Just need sleep,” V croaked, her voice hoarse with the sharpness in her throat. 

“Not that. You’ve been through a lot, honey. We were all worried you weren’t going to make it.”

V held her breath, seizing her muscles to try to stop them shaking. 

“Mama too,” Misty went on, as though she could read V’s thoughts. “You should give her a call, when you’ve rested.” 

Mama—no, she could never see Mama. Not after what she’d done. Not after failing to keep her promise to keep him safe, have his back. What could V possibly say to her that would make anything better?

Misty reached out for her arm, but V jerked it away before she could touch it.

“There was a man, Ward?” Misty said, lacing her fingers together, loose in her lap. “He brought you to Vik. He’s been calling, stopping by sometimes to check in.” Misty brushed her bangs from her eyes. “Seems like a good friend.”

“Yeah, guess so.” 

Outside the window by the bed, the rain picked up, pelting against the glass in waves. Misty wiped the sleeve of her sweater against her eyes, leaving a black streak of her eyeshadow on her hand. 

“I didn’t see the car, when he came home,” Misty sniffed. “But I heard what it looked like. And I saw when Vik—” her voice broke, and she took breath. “When he prepared him. I’m so sorry, honey. It must have been terrible for you.”

“Misty, please—” 

V flinched when Misty touched her shoulder. “He always made his own choices,” Misty said. A dark tear, blackened by her makeup, trickled down her face. “We don’t blame you for what happened, y’know.”

“You should.” V had failed to stop him, failed to save him. They should have buried her too. 

Misty sighed and stood, smoothing the covers on the bed over V’s shoulder. 

“It’s okay, you don’t have to talk if you don’t want to right now. I understand.” Misty said gently. She pulled a small paper bag from her purse. “These are from Vik, suppressors. It will help control the symptoms, maybe slow the spread. Should help you sleep, too, if you take enough. No more than two pills at once. I’ll come back and check on you in a while, okay? You should rest. Call me, if you need anything?”

V took the bag without looking Misty in the eyes, tucking it next to her head by the moldy pillow. 

“Thanks,” V said. Saying less helped her control the knot in her throat, the shaking in her limbs. At least the sheets were helping to hide the sweat collecting in her collarbone. “I will.” 

“Okay,” Misty said, gathering the bags of garbage she had collected. “I’ll be back soon. I left some soup in your fridge, make sure you eat for your strength, alright?” 

When the door closed behind Misty, V threw off the covers and rushed to the sink—the bathroom was too far—and vomited yellow bile into the drain. Flies flew up from the trap, she’d found the source of them, they tickled her face and buzzed in her ears. Her whole body shook to keep her upright over the counter; sweat from her brow and stinging tears trickled down to mix in the drain with the viscous yellow from her retching, which came wave after wave, far after no more would come up from her stomach. 

When it finally abated, V collapsed back against the cabinets, trying to catch her breath. The glitching fuzz crept in toward the center of her vision, the room tilted on its axis, constantly spinning but never fully upside down. It was pathetic. She was alive, but for what purpose? To empty her gut and sweat on the floor of her shit apartment, waiting to die a second time?

She gathered her strength and stood, wobbling on her unstable legs, and looked out the window by her bed. The night was black, the neon lights barely visible through the downpour. Raindrops collected on the glass pane, running in trickles down the ledge before dropping down and disappearing into the abyss below. Somewhere far beneath her, a distant siren wailed. 

It was a long way down from here. V pressed her fingers against the glass, testing its strength. The seal on it had long since gone; it wouldn’t be hard to push it out, if she tried, even with her damaged arm. Just a little more strength. She tensed her muscles.

In the corner of her eye, the dark shadow reappeared beside her, and she heard his voice.

No, hermana.

Chapter Text

V snapped her head around so hard a muscle seized in her shoulder, staring wide-eyed into the dim emptiness of her apartment. She didn’t remember falling asleep, but surely she was dreaming again. 

It was his voice. Jack’s voice. 

Just two words. Two words that were already fading, falling away like when she was a child and tried to cup the minnows from the garden fountains in her hands. They always slipped out, tickling their slimy black scales against her palm to slither back into the water or flop, wet and sticky, onto the pebbled stone walk. When they hit the earth, their gills would flap in the air, their mouths and bellies straining to pull oxygen into their blood. A drowning by breath.

It had been as if he’d whispered into her ear, the way he used to—fuck, she was already thinking of him in terms of used to—when he was being a tease. It gave the same electric pulse zipping up between the muscles of her shoulder blades, snaking one-by-one up through each vertebrae in her neck. She scrunched her shoulders, trembling. 

No. No, it made no sense.

She closed her eyes, tingling fingertips still tented onto the loose windowpane above the bed. It was hard to hear anything in the darkness of the apartment beyond the rapid whooshing of blood in her ears and the crashing of the rain on the window.

The voice had been too clear, like it wasn’t here with her in this musty, dirty room. Jack’s deep timbre hadn’t bounced off the bare walls or echoed off the tile like it should have. Unnatural, almost tinny, it had come from everywhere and nowhere. Like listening to a comline in cyberspace, far-flung yet present within her synapses simultaneously.

The first few times V had gone into the Net, she’d hear echoes of the coms she stole. Not for long, maybe a few minutes afterward. It was a common side effect of netrunning, one which usually faded with time and experience. It often reminded her of when she still lived in Westbrook, holed up in her secretive room of the great empty house, pressed against the eyepiece of her telescope. Sometimes when she was fiddling with the dials to get a clearer shot of Saturn’s rings, she would think she heard Amma or Appa call her name and go looking for them. But of course they were never there, and the cook would send her back to bed with a plateful of cookies and some hot tea with milk. She’d say V was wake-dreaming, because she was so tired from staying up late looking at the stars. 

Of course, fucking gonk. Everyone has hallucinated the phantom voice of their mother, or father, or friend calling to them when they’re tired. And she’d rarely been more exhausted than she was now. 

V’s fingers squealed against the glass, leaving the greased, squiggled imprints of her fear on the window. Her tired arms drooped on their own while she stood there, interminably long and listening to silence, no longer able to keep themselves aloft. 

This was stupid. There’s nothing to be afraid of. She filled her lungs, halting shallow breaths that fluttered under her collarbone, and opened her eyes.

See? Nothing.

The apartment was as it had been. Garbage bags tied up by the door. Flies in the sink, swarming over the stringy vomit she’d not yet bothered to wash down the drain—a carrion appetizer before they got their opportunity to feast on her flesh, lay their eggs in the skin of her open mouth once she was gone. A great pile of clothes was on the couch, hunched over and threatening to collapse, the clean and the soiled tangled together in a heap. Below them, the wires from her terminal poked out, slithering onto the floor like great black snakes had ventured out to snap up the crumbs and the skittering cockroaches. It was pathetic, dirty, abandoned. The living space of the corpse she had been, and would be again. 

V’s shoulders released. She turned back to the bed beside her, and screamed. 

It was his face.

Pale, split through with the crackle of blue-tinted static like a broken holo, pulsating and transparent, she saw the cracks in the wall behind it, the wrinkled white sheets of the bed. But the flash of the eyes—it was the eyes that held her rooted to the floor, like the wire snakes from the terminal had wrapped themselves around her ankles, biting with an electricity that coursed through every muscle, a reverse lighting bolt that jolted from her feet up to her head. Once deep and lovely and kind, his eyes— Jack’s eyes— were pupiless and piercing, stars that burned through to the back of her skull. 

He was sitting on the bed. 

Her scream was voiceless, a bubble of hot air that could not escape the constriction of her throat and it seared, stuck in her lungs, ripping down through her belly, a ragged knife that sliced her in two. The darkness, it had come for her with his face, it would take her again like it took Amma and Appa and Jack. Turn the light on, she had to turn the light on. She took one step back, mouth still open, then two, three, stumbling toward the light switch on the far wall, gaze fixed to the empty eyes that did not blink. The world around them faded away until they were all she could see. 

V’s heel hit the back of the coffee table, clattering the brown bottles that Misty hadn’t swept away, she fell backwards into the pile of clothing. Pain reverberated through the bone of her leg, up against her ribs where they folded over the couch corner. The clothes collapsed over her face, burying her, worming into her mouth to make a grave of her right there. The light, turn on the light—she spat the fabric out, pulling them away with a gasp of air, and scrabbled up, scratching her nails into the damp paper wallboard to reach the switch. The fluorescent on the metal ceiling light struggled to come on, it clinked inside the bulbs like a rodent was trapped inside, strobing the room in blinding white and deepest black. Spotting filled her vision and she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t breathe. 

The light found its full brightness, and the bed was empty.

She stared at the spot where he had been, eyes tearing, dry from not blinking. The pulse behind her clavicle was so fast the beats could barely be distinguished from one another, her heart was an animal scratching at the cage of her bones to escape. Run, run, it beat, run, run. 

Her fingers were in her hair, combing through the stringy locks over and over, too numb to feel she was pulling the strands from her scalp. Slumped against the couch, half covered in the clothing falling over her shoulder, V sat frozen on the floor until her hip joints hurt. Minutes or hours passed, but there was no more. 

And maybe there wasn’t anything in the first place. Vik had said the chip’s virus was replacing her brain cells. Side effects like hallucinations were likely. Right, that made sense.

But it had been so real. 

Hadn’t it? 

Jesus, she was already losing her mind. 

She crept toward the bed slowly, inching gingerly forward by the balls of her feet, gripping her toes against the floor. Vik’s medicine was still in the bag near the pillow.  V grabbed the meds, snatching them so as not to touch the bed and twisted the bottle top, the pills chattering inside the plastic from her shaking hands. It popped open suddenly, spilling half its precious contents over the bed and floor. 

How many was it that Misty had said to take, two?

She took three.

Bitter and chalky in her mouth, V ground the pills with her teeth. The effects would be faster that way, and just maybe give her some respite from this living hell. She stared at the bed from the floor, sheets hospital-white and blowing in the draft from the window. 

She had wanted to share that bed with Jack, once. And maybe that’s why she saw him there. A stupid wish, the hope of a child whose biggest worries were her next meal rather than her last one. It was so far away now, like someone else had wanted it. He never even saw this apartment. 

He never saw any of her apartments.

A water droplet plipped to the floor. Her face was wet, tears were rolling down her cheeks, unbidden. “I’m sorry,” she sputtered into the air, “I’m so sorry. I wanted to— I should’ve—” 

The rest of the words disappeared. Her throat closed over them, sealing them back inside her chest, which shook silently in stuttering, breathless sobs. 

A heaviness settled over, the leaden chemical blanket pressing V gently down, face first, onto the floor. The slow breath from her mouth left a warm fog across the tile; she watched it expand and contract, eyes blinking unevenly until, at last, they stayed closed.

“I miss you,” she murmured, before sleep took her completely. 

Lo siento.

Lo sé.   

 ***

“No, you don’t know, and you’re sure as hell not sorry. Concentrate,” Coach says, lifting the focus mitts back up wide. “Again.” 

V grits her teeth, frowning. She’s known for good form at the gym, especially for a hook. Boxing’s not so different from dancing, after all. There’s a certain lightness in the way the torso twists, foot pivots. Just add in the arm, keep it tight at the right angles. Simple.

But she’s sloppy tonight, keeps dropping her other arm, leaving herself open. Stupid rookie mistakes like that. She’s bouncing back and forth between her feet, sniffs away the sweat stinging under her nose. Bueno, okay, again. Twist, pivot, opposite arm up to protect the head. The glove connects with the mitt with a smack, knocking Coach’s arm back. 

Coach throws his hands up in the air. Mierda, fucked up again. 

“Extended your elbow, Welles! Come on, man. That’s the fifth time. What’s your problem?” 

Ah, fuck it, this isn’t working. “Nada,” V says, peeling off her sparring gloves, fingers sticking inside from the sweat. She tosses them in a wide arch, they hit her bag by the table in the corner with a hard whump. Still got good aim, at least. “Acabé. Gonna go eat.”

Coach shakes his head, hands on his hips. Looks like a bird when he stands like that with those fat mitts still on. Probably disappointed, V’s one of the best in the ring, but that’s all she’s got to give right now. Not like this is professional anyway. Sure, they all call him Coach, but it’s just a nickname. Real name’s Fred. Took it upon himself to start training up the boys to win more eddies, ever since the betting rounds popped up under the overpass. No doubt he’s worried about his take this Wednesday. 

Ah well, not hard to make it up to him. Next fight should be easy, he’ll get his payout. And besides, boxing is church. She’ll be back to worship another time.

V ducks under the ropes and jumps down from the ring, unwinding the soaked hand wraps off her sore knuckles. Probably bruised them a little, damn. Gonna hurt for days. Estúpido, should’ve known punching it out won’t help, not with worries like this. 

Coach is calling up a few others to spar, some young rookies. Pobrecitos. He’s gonna be in a foul mood now. 

By her bag at the old table and folding chairs, Marcus is lighting up a cigar, leaning against the concrete block wall below the big paint stencil of two hanging gloves. 

“C’mon, esé, don’t you know that shit’s gonna kill ya?” V says, tossing the towel from her bag over her bare sweaty back. 

Never cared much for smoking, always makes her feel like she can’t breathe. One time V tried it just before stepping in the ring, like a gonk. Couldn’t even finish the match from coughing so hard. Plus, it smells. That smoke’s gonna settle in her clothes, this jacket’s gonna have to go to the cleaners again and it’s real leather so it always comes back all stiff, smelling like hospital cleaner. Gross. 

“Nah, wey,” Marcus says, flashing the cigar box with the nasty picture of a black lung on it, all wrinkled up like a stack of burned paper. “Never heard that before.” 

The old metal chair squeaks under V’s weight when she sits, grabbing her noodle container, her favorite from the stall with the tigers on it. She grumbles, stirring the udon around with the chopsticks a little too fast, poking them to and fro inside the takeout box without taking a bite. It’s not really Marcus’ fault, not really. Sure, the smoke’s annoying, but that’s not what’s got V rattling the table with her leg. Not tonight. 

Don’t matter anyway, because Marcus blows her off—ay, what else is new—just laughs in his high, breathy wheeze and blows more smoke at her jacket hanging over the back of the chair. Este pinche cabrón. 

“Mierda, ‘mano, would you stop that?” V says, making a show of waving it away. Not in the mood for his bullshit right now. 

“So grumpy,” Marcus says, tapping the ashes into a plate on the table. “You gotta change that shit diet, wey, it’s puttin’ you on edge. What’s eating you tonight?” 

Jules comes up from behind, he’s back from the shitter, street clothes back on. Always easy to hear him coming with those clacky cowboy boots he loves so much. Got into those old Western BD’s in the sixth grade, and never turned back. Been irritating them all with Tombstone quotes ever since.

“Bet it’s her,” Jules says, like he’s being fuckin’ sly. Dios, here it comes.

“Bueno, good one, John Wayne,” V says, trying to cut it off. Good thing she’s bent over her noodles, otherwise they’d see her eyes roll. 

“Who?” says Marcus.

“La novia misteriosa de Jaquito,” Jules kisses the air and bats his long, dark lashes. “The one who’s totally real, de las fotos,” he says with a wink. 

“She’s not— ” V starts, but Marcus cuts him off, sniggering with the cigar half out of his mouth. 

“Oh, la chica fantasma, yeah,” Marcus says, blowing a smoke ring. “You get with la llorona yet, wey? What’s it been, like, five years?” 

Great, now they’re both in on the joke. V’s never going to hear the end of it all night. She tells them to shut it, but that just makes it worse, of course. It always does.

“Ah, mira, ¡llevo la razón!” Jules snorts, he claps V on the shoulder and the chopsticks drop to the cracked concrete floor, rolling away under the table. “Called it.”

Cabrón thinks he’s so clever, this fuckin’ joke every time. But it’s worse tonight because he’s not wrong, she’s worried about Hermana. V picks up the chopsticks, wipes them on her shorts. She rolls her shoulders and smiles, but the boys have known her too long to buy it, especially Jules. 

“Watch it, Jules,” Marcus says, putting his cigar behind his ear again, like he didn’t burn holes in his shirt the same way two weeks ago. “You don’t wanna tempt that right hook on Wednesday.”

“Sí, claro,” Jules says, he comes over and draws up a chair next to V, scraping it across the floor. He nudges V’s elbow, gives that winning smile.

“Save it for los hombres at the bar, ‘mano,” V says. “Works better on them.”  But she softens a little anyway. Jules is hard to stay mad at, he always looks earnest when he smiles. That baby face helps.

“C’mon, gordo, you know it’s just a joke,” Jules says, clapping V on the shoulder. “Just been forever since we seen you with somebody. If you’re hung up on her—”

“Ay, it’s not like that—” 

“Uh-huh. Not since Camilla, and that was like, what, two years ago? You even date anymore? You know my input’s got a sister...” 

“‘Mano, you know I do fine.” V cracks a better smile for Jules. It’s kind of true. She’s taken a few women home, on wingman nights with Hermana. “Just let me eat.”

Jules sighs, tapping the toes of his clacky boots against the floor. “Alright, alright. Man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, I guess,” he says, putting on a fake Western accent. Ay, sálvame. He turns to Marcus. “Come on, let’s watch Coach fuck these rookies up.” 

The boys wander over to the ring and V turns back to her noodles. She lets the smile fade off her face, turning her thoughts back to Hermana and the deep shit she’s in.

When she called before Hermana was spilling her guts in the sink, talking about some work problem with the Space Council and a meeting with her boss. It sounded serious and complicated, some kind of real fuck up, and that twists V’s gut. Those chingado corpos do whatever they have to when they cover their tracks. They never care who did what or what did who. 

V’s seen their work at the reservoir once, out on a gig. Whole pile of bodies were floating in the water next to each other, right out there in the open, eyes picked out by birds because the corps knew nobody would do anything. Not if they pay off the right man. Cult suicide, they called it on the news. Weird fuckin’ cult to have so many people with Militech logos embroidered into their jackets. 

She can’t stop thinking about Hermana like that, all fat and purple in the water. Maybe she should have taught Hermana a few boxing moves, some better self-defense. Too late now. V puts the noodles down. Suddenly they don’t taste so good. 

A pocket in her bag is buzzing, it’s her phone. V tries not to lunge for it, reaching to check it cool-like, which is hard when the boys are nearby. It’s Hermana—fuck. That’s not good. She never calls back like this. V picks up, turns her video on, tries to walk away from the ring to grab some privacy from the boys.

“Hey, chica, you miss me?” V tries not to sound as worried as she feels, but the boys are making goo-goo eyes again and she has to wave them away as they laugh, hissing like hyenas. Hermana looks terrible on the vid, worse than before. She’s asking for V’s help, like she’s scared. Mierda, that’s even worse. Hermana don’t get scared of much.

Okay, alright, don’t panic. V can get her out of there. Maybe even for good, get that noose off her neck.

She tells Hermana to meet at Lizzie’s, their usual hang, trying to keep her voice steady. It’ll be safer there with the Mox around, and she’s already trying to work out where she can hide Hermana from those vultures. Maybe home? It’s Valentino territory, and even corpos know not to fuck with Padre’s turf. Hermana might not be cool with that, she always keeps her distance, but there’s not a lot of options. If it’s as bad as it sounds, Hermana will be lucky to live through the night. V stuffs down the little flip in her gut that brings. No, don’t think of that. Focus.

Before V hangs up the boys are already saying goodbye because they know she’s going to go, but they’ll never let her leave without one last shot about that collar ‘round her fat neck. Jules is yanking Marcus by an invisible leash and they’re giggling like dumbasses, very funny, ha-ha. V tells them to shove it with a laugh and a smile, one of her good ones, because laughing about it is the only way to get them to stop. 

They never got how V can just be chooms with Hermana. 

And right now, Hermana needs help getting away from those fucking bastards. If V could wring all their necks, she would, but that’s not practical. V carries, sure, does what she has to for the job. But she’s never been just a trigger man. 

Nah, thieving’s her specialty. V picks up her bag, throws on a shirt and shrugs the jacket over her shoulders. Time to go steal Hermana’s life back for her. 

***

For days, V just drank. 

Eating was harder, and it didn’t numb the pain, so she didn’t bother with that. The drink, though, it helped when she couldn’t stop replaying the rattle of Jack’s breath over and over in her mind: a thick, bubbling sound, like the last drops of water sipped through a straw, and a faint rumbling underneath. Nothing drowned it out except a constant wet brain; the booze blunted the sharp edges of reliving his last moan dripping from his lips. 

And it softened the voice, when she heard it. 

Even more than the memories, she hated the voice the most. It was only ever a word or two, clipped phrases that she didn’t even understand half the time, either because they were garbled like a speaker dropped in a bathtub, or because they were in Spanish, which she’d never really learned. She’d meant to, always thought she’d pick it up so that she could talk with Jack without ever needing the help of translator chips. But like so much with him, she never got around to it, just assumed there was always more time. Until there wasn’t.

At her parents’ funerals, she had heard people say they’d give anything to hear the voice of someone they loved one more time. But that’s because they never actually did. She jumped at every word that floated in from the landing outside—was it another hallucination, a neighbor? She would sit on the floor in a ball and cover her ears, screaming with her eyes squeezed shut, music playing on full blast to drown it out, until it went away. 

During the day she’d scroll through her messages, re-reading his old texts. Mundanities like hola, chica, what’s up? or be there in five, prometo. Which was bullshit. It was never five minutes. He was the kind of person who got stopped every half-mile by ten different people. Never made it anywhere on time. 

Everybody loved Jack. 

She even reread the short, clipped bien’s or ok’s from when he’d disappeared on her after she moved out. But she’d stare especially long at the last message he sent. Must have read it a hundred times, wavering and watery through the tears in her eyes: 

trust me, he’d written. 

And she had let go of his hand, like an idiot.

A few calls and texts came in from Misty and Vik, even River. They all said the same things. 

>> How are you, honey? I left you soup outside. Are you home? 

>> Where are you? Just let me know you’re okay. It’s been three days, kid. 

>> Heard you woke up. Need anything? I’m nearby. 

V closed the texts without answering and turned back to the increasing pile of brown and green bottles from the liquor vending machine. 

She didn’t check the voicemails from Mama. 

They opened on their own several times—fuckin’ broken ‘ware—but V kept closing them. One time, right after she woke up, head pounding and stomach reeling from her liquid dinner, one of them started to play. She even heard “Mija,” before she finally fought through the glitchy display menus and managed to close it. Vik would have been able to fix it, but that was too much effort. It was much easier to turn off her voicemail entirely. The missed call notifications kept rolling in, and she stopped checking those too. 

Only the pills helped for sleep. V tried without them once and ended up staring at the ceiling above the couch—she’d abandoned the bed—until dawn. Lesson learned. On day four, when she felt like she wasn’t alone in the shower, she started to take them during the day. Sleeping was the easiest way to feel nothing. It was almost peaceful to slip into emptiness, knowing she wouldn’t remember whatever dream she had when she woke up. But the best part was right between sleep and awake. There was always a small space, just before she opened her eyes, where she almost felt whole. Contented. 

It wasn’t long before she started to run out. By the following week the pills were gone, even the ones she had to pick out from the cracks between the tiles. Three sleepless nights passed before V broke down and found herself standing across the street from Misty’s shop, a fat envelope of cash in hand. She had meant to come to ask for more meds and try to repay Vik for his work on her, but instead she was staring at the small shrine inside the front window. It was full of candles and brass baubles, far more than usual. All surrounding a golden-framed photo of Jack. 

She approached the display slowly, a car horn crescendoing and fading as some angry driver had to dodge her in the street. It was beautiful, a lovingly crafted tribute to his memory. A sand mandala swirled around underneath, its curling colors framing the softly lit candles in shades of scarlet, ebony, and gold, small motifs of crosses and hearts scattered across the design. Must have taken Misty ages to put it together. V’s reflection hovered just over Jack’s picture in the window, her sunken eyes and gaunt cheeks mapping over his own smiling face.

She left the stack of eddies in the mail drop by the door, and left. 

The sky overhead was gray by the time she reached Japantown. Corner sellers were hawking rain shrouds for the incoming storm. A real downpour was coming, supposedly. Particularly acidic, though they would say that just to sell off their wares. V pushed by them, her feet carrying her past the rapidly emptying street-vendor stalls to the alley of Wakako’s den, thunder rolling in the distance. 

She wasn’t armed. Or prepared at all, really. Her software was barely working enough to send texts. But what did it matter? She’d be one against dozens no matter what, and they’d overpowered her even with Jack by her side. 

Hold up, slow down—  

Flinching, she shook the voice away with a few breaths through her nose to stop the sweating, though it didn’t slow her heart rate. She’d need something soon to dull it. But first she needed to see Wakako. She had to know.

The air was cooling rapidly, the warm dry heat replaced with a chill damp. By now most people had fled inside, but V stepped down the alleyway, plastic wrappers and blown paper debris from the New Year celebration crisp and crinkling under her feet. 

It was dark at the end, and quiet. No huscles to be seen, perhaps from the storm. She pulled up her optics and scanned the keypad. Not terribly sophisticated locks, Wakako must have relied on firepower for security. Smart, really. Analog is always harder to infiltrate. It took all of a minute to slice open the protocols. 

V put her hand on the door handle when two texts came in. One from Vik, one from Misty.

>> Kid, what is this? Know this cash was from you. What’s this for, where are you? Don’t do anything stupid.

>> Honey, is everything ok? Can you please call? Or text. Don’t have to talk, just want to make sure you’re alright... 

V closed the channels. There was no hesitation when she opened the door and stepped inside. 

The anteroom of Wakako’s den was dark, the low game tables overturned, the ground littered with broken ware and emptied clips. One of the wooden game boards was upside down, its bead markers scattered among pieces of broken glass and ceramics. A full meal sat in a corner, still on its plate and covered in green mold; chopsticks were sticking up out of what was probably rice, once. Someone’s brown shoes had been neatly placed next to it, partially covered in wax from a candle that was no longer there.

But there were no terminals, nothing to scan, no protocols to open, no safes. The light switches didn’t work. V stepped over the couch turned on its side, its belly ripped open  and white stuffing spilling out. The beaded curtain clacked against the doorframe as she entered Wakako’s office. 

The mahogany desk was still there, and the high-backed chair, barely touched at all. V rifled through the drawers. A few stone fountain pens and precious rag paper in one, an empty, disassembled gun in the other, along with Wakako’s kintsugi bowl. Nothing of importance, nothing that would help. No one to choke the life from, even. Just an empty office, the chairs she and Jack sat in still neatly placed in front. 

— tell me what’s goin’ on?

V picked up the bowl and smashed it against the wall with a guttural howl. Then went the gun pieces, the pricey papers, the pens, thrown as hard as she could muster at the shiny wood paneling. When that didn’t help, she moved on to the desk drawers themselves, ripping them out of their tracks. She hurled them across the room at a blue-and-white vase, shattering them both into a shower of splintered wood and tiny shards. The chairs came next. She couldn’t lift them, but set to kicking until they broke in half and the black leather split under the force of her heel. 

Fuck, what did she expect? A welcome party? That someone as crafty as Wakako would stick around after the failed heist of the century? Fucking gonk. Fucking Wakako. Fucking Stout. V sat on the floor, exhausted from her outburst, head on her knees until her heart rate slowed enough to breathe again. 

She almost missed it. But the faded manilla color against the deep brown wood caught her eye, even in the darkness. There, underneath the desk — a small envelope was taped to the side. She reached up to peel it off, the tape releasing from the wood with a slow shucking sound. Something small and hard was inside, and there was an inscription on the front, written in a long, languid script. She read the words three times, her eyes moving over the luxurious cobalt blue ink that had pooled from a fine-tipped fountain pen:

  If you’re alive.

***

He started up as soon as he saw her approaching, heedless of the drizzle that was starting to speckle the concrete walk.

“You!” The homeless man with the twisted beard called from his alcove near the entrance of Megabuilding 10. “They got you too, didn’t they! You disappeared for weeks. The Mayor’s experiments, the nanochips, they got you—”  

V pushed past him up the steps. 

“They’ll control your mind! They’ll make you kill!” The vagrant followed her, rustling with the bags of bottle caps he tied to his arms to ward off the signals from the Mayor, as he reminded all passersby.

V grit her teeth and moved faster. He was harmless, just sick, he always stopped eventually. If she kept going he would wander off.

“Don’t think you’re gonna infect me, because you won’t! I’ve protected myself, I have, you won’t be able to break my mind shield! Not Rhyne, or his cronies, not you!”

She was almost there. Two more landings, and she could get inside, have a drink and leave this loon to his rantings. Thunder cracked, splitting the air. The sky opened up in response, a torrent of water that splashed in thick droplets around her, stinging in her eyes. A call was coming in on her optics. V closed it without looking, there was no time for a chat.

The man’s voice was closer now, his footsteps sloshing in the sudden waterfalls that rushed down the stairs. “Hey! You listen to me! You’re not gonna kill me! I’ve protected myself for years, years! You hear me?”

Arthritic fingers gripped V’s elbow, spinning her around. The vagrant’s face was inches from hers, brown teeth visible through his wiry beard. His spittle flew into her face.  

“Let go!” She wrenched her arm away, hot anger blooming in her chest, her hand closing into a fist.

He grabbed at her clothes, breath stinking, eyes squinted against the rain showering down over his filthy hair. His shouts roared into her face over the peals of thunderclaps above. “You tell the Mayor! Tell him he’ll never get me! ”

"Fuck off!"

"Tell him!"

"Stop—!"

It happened all at once. A crash of lighting streaked across the small square of sky above the megabuilding, illuminating the stairs in a flash of bright daylight. V raised her fist in a fluid motion: twist the torso, pivot the foot, opposite arm up to protect the head. Her knuckles connected with the man’s cheek in a sickening crunch, knocking him over.

It was like dancing.

The vagrant was crumpled on the ground, the river of water on the steps flowing over him. He was groaning, holding his head. V sucked in a sharp breath, shaking the fuzz from her ears. She stared at her hands.

“I—” she started.

“V?” A familiar voice called to her. 

No, not more voices. Not now. 

“I don’t—” V looked back and forth between her bloodied knuckles and the homeless man she’d just flattened, her breath quickening into shallow pants. “I don’t know what—I’m sorry.” She took off up the steps two at a time, slipping in the rain puddles. 

“V, wait!” 

Oye, V—

“Leave me the fuck alone!” she cried out, racing toward her apartment with her hands over her ears, rain soaking through her clothes in the downpour. Run run, went her heart, run run.

She shouldn’t have chickened out at Vik’s, the voices were back, and louder. No pills. Booze would have to do. Get it fast, get it now. Punch in the security code: five, two, two, five, four…

A hand gripped her elbow, stronger this time, wrenching her away from the pinpad before she could finish. She thrashed against it, screaming, her fist raised. Twist, pivot, opposite hand up, her knuckles collided with something hard— 

“Stop! Look at me!” 

V opened her eyes to see River, wet and shining in the dark rain that had saturated his heavy overcoat, holding her fist near his head where he had caught it. Rivulets of water were running down over his chin.

“V,” he said, his eyebrows furrowed, deepening the lines on his forehead. “What’s going on?”

Chapter Text

“Are you real?”

She sounded crazy. And after days without sleep and only the acid rain for a shower, V surely looked the part. Her stained shirt—one of Jackie’s that she’d never returned, the faded red soaked through to maroon—was hanging loose off her chest; her fist was still clenched, shaking near River’s jaw. Wet tendrils of hair stuck to the sides of her face.

“V, what—” River pushed her fist down, his fingers closed around her knuckles. He was ashen, his mouth dropped open in confusion, the fine lines at the corners of his nose darkening from the rain’s irritation. It seemed real, but she had to be sure.

“Answer me!” Her plea was almost a screech, dampened by her sore and swollen throat. “Are you real?” 

“I’m right here,” he said, turning his head to look at her with his ganic eye, the way he always did when he was trying to read her. His gaze flicked to her forehead, then the bony cage of her chest, the rapid pumping of her heart visible between the ribs. He gripped her arm firmly, lowering his head to the side to meet her eyes. “Hey. Look at me, it’s—let’s get you inside, okay? You’ll get burned.” 

Está bien, let’s go.

“Stop!” V snapped her hands over her ears. She needed a drink, get a drink. 

“Okay, alright, I’m sorry,” River released her arm and took a step back, raising both his hands in the air, like she was a rabid dog. “V, I’m not gonna—”

“I don’t know— I don’t know what’s happening.”

“It’s okay. Just - just go inside. Please.” He sounded far away, hard to hear through the growing cotton in her ears, the crashing of the thunder behind him. But the way he begged the last word, his voice cracking from within his chest, broke through. 

Jesus Christ, what was she doing? 

Her breath quickened into shallow pants, a familiar electric fizzing creeping up the base of her spine. The episodes always started like this; they had come several times ever since she woke up in Vik’s clinic. The fizzing first, her heart in her ears, then sweating and shaking on the floor of her apartment. If she didn’t get the booze soon, it would overtake her. 

She nodded, and pinned her code into the apartment’s door lock. 

River ushered her inside, hands hovering over her shoulders until she was seated onto the couch.

“Hey,” he said gently, kneeling in the pool of dripping water by her feet, “you should rinse off before you blister, alright? Be right back, need to check on the - the other man.”  

When the door closed behind him, V rocked back and forth on the couch, her hands over her face. It was coming on fast now, the ringing in the ears, the fizzing turning into sparking, wracking her body with tremors. V jumped up from the couch, tripping over some terminal wires, and ran to the fridge. Nothing there, or the cabinets, or next to the coffee table. No alcohol anywhere, no pills, nothing. 

She paced around the apartment like those old docu-holos about animals in zoos, the sweat beading on her brow, steaming off the heat in her face. Time was running out, there had to be something to stop it— 

Wait, slow down. 

Maybe there was some leftover in the open bottles on the floor? No, nothing, she’d drank it all already. The edges of her vision were closing in, it was hard to see, hard to breathe, the darkness was coming again and she was alone, alone, alone— 

Hey. We’re here. Estoy aquí para ti.

“V—?” 

V jumped, spinning on her heel. River had returned, he was standing inside the entry, his soggy overcoat dripping onto the floor. She kept pacing, trying to catch her breath.

“Too late. It’s too late, River, I can’t—“ she gasped, putting one hand over her heart, its rapid beat pushing up through the skin. “I can’t breathe. I need a drink, I need—”

“Okay. Alright, it’s okay.” River soothed. He shrugged off his coat and moved her gently toward the couch with a practiced hand. “C’mon, kneel down here, over the seat. There you go, head on the cushion. That’s right.”

V gripped the sides of the couch, fingernails peeling away the flaking vinyl, her limbs convulsing violently with the force of the attack as it washed over her. A crushing, all-consuming wave.

Appa had taken her to the ocean once, a long time ago. For bonding, supposedly, but he spent most of it on his coms, chattering away about plans for Konpeki or some other project. V couldn’t have been older than perhaps ten and had amused herself picking ocean-smoothed treasures out of the sand: cola cans, plastic spoons, colorful rocks, bleached bones. She made a miniature city out of them, surrounding it with a river of orange seafoam and streets of discarded ribbon. 

When the tide rolled in and swept away a few of her cans, she went after them, wading in past her knees to collect the prettiest purple one with the grapes on the side. By the time the water had reached her skinny thighs, it was too late. Her feet were sucked down into the soft sand, the detritus of the ocean floor hitting the backs of her ankles as they rushed back out to sea with the undertow. 

Then the wave came.

It forced its salty brine into her mouth, down her throat, into her lungs, knocking her head backward and under. Her body rolled, tumbling head-over-heels until she could no longer tell up from down, the sand scraping the corneas of her eyes, and fear froze her senses. She had been sure she would die, her sinuses filled with salt, until Appa’s strong hand had pulled her by the front of her shirt back into the sun. 

She was drowning again now. 

Forehead pressed against the couch cushion, every inch of her gasped for more air, but no matter how much she took in, it wasn’t enough. The white-crested swells of panic were tossing her again, and she was powerless to stop it. She anchored herself to the couch like she had held onto Appa, sniveling into his white button-down shirt, trying to catch her bearing before the next wave returned. The tremors crashed endlessly up from her stomach into her head and back again, over and over.

 Somewhere far away, River was telling her to breathe through her nose. 

“Sorry—“ she choked. She dry heaved toward the floor. “Shit, I can’t—I can’t—”

River hushed her softly. “It’ll be over soon.”

He was right. The rushing in V’s ears started to fade, replaced by a high pitched whine. The tremors quelled slowly to a shiver, her breath more even when she released her iron grip from the cushion. 

“Fuck,” she whispered, tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth. “It’s cold.”

“Hot water on today?” River said.

“Dunno.”

V heard him get up from behind her. The squeak of the shower knob drilled into her head, sharpening the headache already starting to bloom. River’s heavy footsteps returned, and though he dared to touch her now, his hands were light on her shoulders. 

“It’s on. C’mon, just a quick warm up to rinse off this rain, then lie down.”

Too exhausted to argue, she allowed River to guide her to the stall. He didn’t look when she slipped off her clothes—just a shirt and shorts, anyway—and she stepped in. She stood there, face in the spray and unmoving, letting the steam fill her lungs until the tremors stopped and her skin had flushed into dark cherry streaks. She leaned her head against the scummy tile, a leaden fatigue replacing the quivering in her gut. 

She hadn’t seen anyone in days. Or was it weeks? Hadn’t wanted to see anyone at all—so why had she let him in? The attack had weakened her, made her desperate to cling to any comfort. Even the smallest boat is a lifeline in a tempest. 

She stood in the shower until the water started to turn cold, but the threat of shivering again from the chill was greater than the fear of facing River. She turned off the water and reached out to grab the towel off the hook outside the stall. It was musty, but dry enough to daub the water from her skin. A long tee was next to it, one of Jackie’s old undershirts. V lifted it to her nose to check if it was clean, her heart skipping a beat — it still smelled like him. She pulled it on before stepping back out. 

River had tidied the apartment. The clothes were piled on the table and in a basket nearby, the bedcovers she’d left on the couch replaced back on the bed, neatly tucked. Most of the bottles were collected in a box near the door. He was at the kitchen counter, sweeping a few wrappers into a bag when she closed the stall's door behind her. 

“You’ll be tired,” he said, turning around. He motioned toward the bed. “C’mon, before you get cold.” 

“You—” V bit her lip. Her capacity for embarrassment at the state of her apartment—and her life—had returned. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“C’mon,” he said in answer, and walked over to pull back the bedcovers. 

V inhaled sharply at the sight of the white sheets. She hadn’t slept in it since her hallucination of Jackie. But what could she say to River? No thanks, I’ve lost my fucking mind and I’d rather sleep on the floor? He’d already seen enough. She pulled Jackie’s shirt closer around herself, and slid in. 

“Thanks,” V pulled the covers up to her shoulders to ward off the damp draft from the leaky window. “How’d you know?”

“Your friends called me.” River crouched next to the bed so his face was level to hers. The pale orange light from the window illuminated the half of his face with his ganic eye, the lines around it deepened by shadows. “From the clinic. They wanted a wellness check, but you’re supposed to be—to be dead. They told me where you live. Couldn’t exactly call the NCPD.”

“You are the NCPD.”

He pressed his lips together in an exhale. “Not right now, I’m not.”

“Awfully flexible with the law,” she joked, despite herself. “But I meant how did you know what to do. With me.”

He glanced at her forehead again, and a corner of his mouth twitched. 

“Used to get them a lot. Attacks,” he said. “Don’t look so surprised. I was a kid, saw some shit I shouldn’t have. Story for another time, though, you need sleep.”

“Get them still?”

“Well,” he glanced out the window. “Had one recently. But no, not a lot anymore.” 

V nodded, unsure what to say to that. It was hard to imagine River, who was always so collected, roiling with panic and bent over furniture. They sat in silence, listening to the storm battering the window. 

“Glad you’re still kickin’, chica,” River whispered, the sun reflecting off the implants in his cheeks. 

Wait, no. 

That wasn’t right. River didn’t have implants, just his eye.

No sun out the window either, the dark rain clouds were still dumping months of water down onto the city outside.

“What did you say?” V whispered, clutching the blankets. 

River looked at her with two ganic eyes—both the wrong color—before one flickered back into chrome. He furrowed his brow at her. 

“Nothing. You okay? Is it another one?”

“No, I thought—” V swallowed hard against her dry tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth. “Sorry. I’m just, I’m tired, haven’t slept in days. Think I’m wake-dreaming.”

River nodded. “I’ll get going.” He started to get up, his boots squelching from the wet. 

Ahí luego. 

“Wait, no,” she said. Suddenly the idea of another night alone with the hallucinations was harder to face than her shame. “Don’t go. It’s—it’s bad out there.”

River glanced around the room, then down at his clothes. He smiled almost apologetically. “Think I’ll soak the couch.”

“Not there,” V opened the bedcovers, the cool air prickling her skin. “Just take off the clothes. Keep me warm.” 

“V, you don’t—“

“Don’t want to be alone,” she finished for him. “Please. It’s cold, not sure my heat works. Use my shower to rinse off.”

River looked out the window at the blurred ads in the distance, his jaw muscles working.

“Alright,” he said, mostly to himself, and reached down to unlace his boots. 

V averted her eyes while River pulled his boxers on after his shower. It was strange, they’d last been together only a few weeks before Konpeki. Seeing him dress, or undress, should have been routine, nothing she hadn’t seen a dozen times. Yet here in her apartment, suddenly he was almost new again. Different. 

He might have felt the same. When he climbed in next to her, he left space between them, balanced at the edge of the bed. 

“That looks uncomfortable,” V said, shifting onto her side. 

He turned his head, his gaze falling softly on her face. “Don’t want to make you feel—”

“You won’t.” 

River nodded and came closer, his body brushing against hers, and V couldn’t find it in herself to resist the familiar comfort of his warmth. She folded herself against him and laid her head on his chest, and he in turn wrapped his arm around behind her, laying a hand on her shoulder, his metal thumb sweeping back and forth across her skin. Listening to the thrum of his heart, drowsiness pulled at her, lulled by the slowness of his breathing.

V watched a tattoo of a heart flicker in and out on River’s chest, the scent of Jackie’s shirt mixing with the soap of his skin, before she closed her eyes.

***

This game’s not as fun as it was.

It should be. They play it all the time. V picks out some tipo guapo for Hermana, a little competition to see whether she could take him home for the night. They used to bet on it, V’s paid for a lot of drinks that way in the past. Hermana nearly always wins. 

But these days they just play regular wingman, no bets, trying to pick out each other’s tastes. And V’s gotten pretty good at that.

They’re close like that, y’know? Sometimes it seems like V knows what Hermana likes better than she does. Broad shoulders, nice smile, good sense of humor. Muscles.

Game’s not even one-sided, either. Hermana, she plays wingman too, goes and hits up some chica at the bar or dance floor and sends them over. And it usually works, even with this mug bruised half the time from a gig or a boxing match. 

See, the thing is, women make the best wingmen. Most of the boys never got that. Sure, it’s been a while since V was interested enough to take anyone home, but that’s not the point. 

The point is, V could, if she wanted to and—well, she just hasn’t, alright?

It’s not about V today, anyway. Hermana’s had a shitty turn, she just lost her job, her home, nearly her life. Everything’s falling apart for her. So figure, hey, what better way to take her mind off it than a nice smooth ride with a warm body for the night? Always worked before when she was in a bad mood, after all. 

But something’s off this time. 

It’s sticking in V’s chest, like she swallowed something sharp and it won’t go down. It’s almost a relief El Coyote is filled with giggling chamacos and old men tonight. Hermana’s not into those types, she’s already rejected half of them. 

See? Know what she likes. 

There is one guy, though. A big one, alone at the end of the bar. Hand and eye tech’s a bit old but, eh, half the city’s got their dicks replaced with last-gen Mr. Studd’s, don’t they? V points him out, whispers in Hermana’s ear to rile her up — Hermana loves that, she always takes home the men who say something in her ear on the dance floor — and Hermana says fine, she’ll do it. 

Good for you, Hermana, go get yours.

She’s over there now, chatting him up, drunk as shit, but he don’t seem to mind. He’s smiling, the way they always do when she pays some attention. Which is fair. V wouldn’t mind either, if those trailing tattoos and the curve of that mouth came over and bought her a drink, brushing the hair from her eyes. 

Hermana’s laughing, smiling, biting her bottom lip the way she does when she’s interested. Bueno. She’s having fun, finally. 

Hard to watch though, and that’s new.

Maybe it’s the clothes? Hermana looks good. Like, weird, without all the sharp black lines of her usual corpo threads, but good. More relaxed than she’s been in a while, the way her hair’s falling over to one side instead of wearing it slicked back in a knot, like an abuela. She’s got more of those circle tattoos on her waist and her chest, more than expected. 

V can’t take her eyes off it, the way those black lines swirl down toward her hips. Just this morning V choked on her coffee when Hermana came down in Camilla’s old getup. Covered it up with a joke and a whistle, but damn. Makes a girl feel things. 

Or could be the bed? The way Hermana looked last night, laying on V’s old mattress, touching her hand and saying thanks more serious than usual. Like her walls had come down a little, finally, and suddenly Hermana seemed different. 

Like, look, she’s always been smokin’, obviously. But looking up from the covers with those eyes, Hermana wasn’t just hot. She was something more, and it was hard to leave for the couch. 

V’s gut is flipping now, just thinking about it.

Does that make her a bad friend? 

Fuck. Yeah, probably.

Ah, well. Time to go light the fire, anyway, so V gets up from the bar stool and lets Big Guy over there get his shot. At least outside in the alley, it’s a little easier to breathe. The barrel’s there and she stuffs it full of junk from the dumpster, greasy shit so it’ll burn for a while. Y’know, just in case Hermana’s still there when V goes back inside. Never know, she might be.

V pulls out a lighter and tosses it in, making sure it catches good, and suddenly she feels kind of stupid. Why would Hermana even care about this? Seemed like a good idea at the time, an offering pyre to help her let go of that old shit that’s been holding her down by the neck. Maybe help her feel a little better about losing everything. 

A new beginning, y’know? Where old patterns can change.

Not gonna matter, though, if Hermana’s not there when she goes back inside, and that don’t make her feel better. V fiddles with her earring, fights with herself; Hermana, have a good time, you deserve it—but Dios, please don’t go.

“¿Mjio?”

Ah, shit. V turns to see Mamá standing at the door. “Hey, Mamá, what’s good?”

“¿Qué haces?” Mamá’s folding her arms. Crap.

“Gettin’ rid of some old shit, is all.”

“Mm. This got anything to do with nuestra bonita invitada?”

“Ah, pues—” 

“The one you’ve talked about for five years.” Dios, why is Mamá’s stare still so scary? “And now she’s here.”

“Mamá, por favor...”  

“Mhm, I know,” Mamá says, turning back into the doorway, por suerte. “Not my place. You’re a grown man, mi cielo. But you don’t always need to play games to win, okay?”

“Sí claro, Mamá.”

“Bueno. I’m going up. Buena suerte, mijo.”

V watches Mamá disappear back inside, headed toward the apartment. She kicks a can out of the way, clattering across the pavement. 

Carajo, first Julio, now Mamá. Will nobody leave this alone? 

She holds her breath on her way back into the bar, as though it would make any difference. Through the door, past the crates, ‘round the corner – oh. Hermana’s still there, and Big Guy’s saying goodbye, seems like. What is he, nuts? Gonna walk away from that? Someone call Trauma Team, check this man’s pulse!

There he goes out the door, what a disappointment. Shit, though, he’s even bigger than he looked sitting down. Was he hiding those legs under that coat, like some kind of grasshopper?

V should feel bad that Hermana’s night’s been thwarted. But she doesn’t. Instead she slaps on a smile—one of her good ones—and slides an arm over her shoulder, like usual. Gotta make her feel better about crashing out this time, Hermana’s not used to that. 

“So, you gonna call him?” V says. No, espera, no contestes eso—  

“Fuck.” Hermana says, rubbing her hands over her eyes. She forgot to ask for his number. 

Sheesh, girl, amateur hour. Too bad, but no matter, backup plan’s in action. There are other ways to drown your sorrows than tequila and toto. You can always set the world on fire when it’s burning you up.

“Come on, I got somethin’ for ya,” V says, letting her tug on Hermana’s arm slip down into her hand. 

Hermana’s tripping over her feet on the walk to the back rooms. Maybe beer and shots after Vik’s was too much today? Mierda, should have thought of that before. Estúpido.

The music’s leaving a high whine in V’s ears when the storage room door closes behind them. She rubs a finger in it to get it to stop, looking for Hermana’s old clothes in the bag—there they are—V grabs them off the shelf with a couple of beers, but Hermana’s whirling from the drink. Shit, chica, watch yourself!

V grabs her to keep her from smashing into Mamá’s plates, fingers slipping over the tattoos and the smooth skin below Camilla’s old shirt. And Hermana, she’s looking up and laughing, soft dark hair in her face. That pout on her lips. 

Goddamn. Big Guy’s an idiot. 

That high-pitched whine is still loud, and now there’s a hammering there that’s making it hard to think. Hermana, she’s running her fingers up V’s arms, she’s got sex on her voice. Not the flirty way she does during games, either. The kind that goes nowhere, just for fun. No, this is—this is different.

The tattoos, her hips, that mouth so close. God, she smells good. 

V hadn’t thought—oh shit, she’s putting her leg—

That’s high, and Hermana’s never—

Jesús, what’s she doing? Why now? 

“...That and the tequila, ‘course,” Hermana’s saying. 

Carajo, she’s right. Hermana reeks of it, under the sweetness of her breath, behind the slickness of that tongue licking her lips. Hermana’s face is flushed, but it’s not for V, no. She’s had too much, like that time at the bridge when she went too far, years ago.

Jesucristo, fuck’s wrong with you, holmes? She lost everything a day ago. Big Guy just passed on her. Let go. 

“Hey, your party’s outside,” says V, dropping her hands with a smile, one of her good ones, because that always makes it easier. 

Hermana falters, mierda, now she’s embarrassed. But it’s okay. The fire, the offering. There are other ways to drown your sorrows. 

When they leave, V scratches at the ache under the scars on her chest, watching Hermana toss her old clothes in the barrel. It sends up sparks with the smoke. Hermana puts her head on V’s shoulder, smelling like soap and tequila and home. She’s almost glowing, the way the fire’s reflecting off her skin, lights up her hair with orange and red. Yeah, see? Hermana’s not just hot. Nah, she’s something more. 

She’s beautiful.

Goddamn, V thinks to herself. I’m an idiot. 

***

V woke to the rain still pattering on the window, a constant drip, drip of water leaking in through the loose seams onto the sill. 

This time the dream stayed long enough that with her eyes closed, V nearly forgot where she was. With the musky scent of Jackie’s shirt in her nose, it might have been his legs intertwined with her own, his soothing heartbeat underneath her ear. It was only when she heard the soft whirring of River‘s hand on her back that reality returned, and she opened her eyes. 

River was still sleeping, his chest rising and falling with slow, even breaths, barely visible with the faint light that filtered in through the foggy, water-spotted pane. The glitching visions of tattoos and implants were gone, at least for the moment. It was a small relief, but that twisted her gut with guilt. Relief was betrayal. 

Jackie was dead and she was alive, for now, and lying with another. Taking comfort like nothing had happened. Like she hadn’t thrown herself into Jackie’s arms before he died in hers.

And River—was this even fair to him? Did he even want to be here? She would die, and likely lose her mind first. He shouldn’t get attached, no one should get attached. A fresh bloom of panic welled in her chest at her mistake in letting him in, at his attempts to comfort her, at her weakness in needing it. She stifled her breath in sharp, short sniffs as she started to sweat.

River inhaled deeply, his chrome hand twitching to life under her arm. He curled his fingers around her shoulder, the metal still warm from their body heat.

“You okay?” he murmured, his voice graveled with sleep. He turned his face toward her, brows furrowed.

“You keep looking at my head,” she said, instead of answering. 

He searched her face in silence, but didn’t press. “V, you know what I do. Not the first time I’ve pulled someone out of the dump. Seen injuries like that a lot, found bodies right where you were, but—” He touched her forehead, just above her right eye. “Never seen anyone come back from it.” 

“From the dead,” she deadpanned.

“That’s one way to put it, yeah.” He brushed her hair away behind her ear, his eye fixed to the spot above her brow. “Still can’t believe you’re alive.” 

She scoffed, the bitterness coating her tongue. “For now.” 

“The ripperdoc said. Vik.” River kept his voice steady, though V could hear his heart beating faster in his chest. “How long?”

“Dunno. Sooner would be better, this is torture.”

“V, people still—” A pained expression flashed across River’s face. “They care about you, you know, at the clinic. Met them when I brought you there, after you told me where to go.”

“I told you ‘bout Vik?”

“Yeah, in a text. Your speech was... garbled then.” He pressed his lips together, a hard swallow bobbed in his throat. “They asked me to come here and check on you. You haven’t answered the door for them, or texts, or calls. They’re worried. With that cash drop at the clinic, you might as well have left a suicide note.” 

“And why did you agree to come here?” V said. She turned over on her stomach and propped herself up on her elbows. “We barely know each other.  If I told you what happened, you’d have to arrest me.”

“I know enough.” River put his hand on her bare shoulder where Jackie’s shirt had slipped aside. “I’m not gonna do anything.”

“Why? You should, that’s your job, isn’t it? People are dead because of me.”

Either River didn’t have a response, or he didn’t want to give one, because he stayed silent. 

“ He’s dead,” V went on, “because of me. It’s my fault.” 

“V—”

“It is.” Her voice cracked. Jesus Christ, get it together. She wiped her eyes with the heel of her palm. “Fuck, I’m sick of crying. I’m sick of all of this.”

“I know.”

V huffed into her hands, pressing them into her eyes. “Know what?”

“What it’s like to lose somebody you love.” 

V sucked in a breath at the word. She’d never used it, not in her life, not even with her parents. But River was plain spoken like that.

“You blame yourself,” he was saying, “you can’t sleep. You think about all the little ways you could have stopped it. You watch it, hear it, feel it, over and over. I’ll tell you it gets better, V, but not alone.”

“What happened? An output?”

“No.” River let out a long exhale. “My parents, murdered by gangers when I was nine. My sister was twelve. We were—we saw it.”

“Jesus Christ.” V laid a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, that - that’s fucked up... Feel kind of bad about the badge jokes now.”

River laughed through his nose, one corner of his mouth turning up into an apologetic half-smile. “Joined to make a difference, try and keep it from happening to other kids.” He shook his head. “Don’t bother, I know how it sounds.” 

“Wouldn’t make fun of that. And your sister, she...?”

“Alive, three kids. Don’t talk as much as we used to, but that’s my fault. You?”

“No.” V stared down into the sheets, her hands twisted together under her. “I have no one, not anymore.” Jackie had been the closest thing to a real family she’d ever had. “Not that it matters now.”

River tilted her head up, fingers gently pressed against the side of her jaw. The smile had left his face, replaced with something between fear and sadness. “It does matter.” 

“Why?” 

He said nothing, though V knew the answer anyway.

“What happened to next time?” she whispered, looking away from his gaze. 

“There doesn’t have to be one,” River said. “But that’s not why I’m here. People want to be there for you, V. I want to be there, as your friend.”

“I’m dying,” she said. Thunder rolled in the distance outside the window. “I’m gonna die. You can’t stop it.” 

“I know.”

His blunt answer drew her eyes back up to his own, watered with a mix of concern and resignation. River slid his thumb across her cheek, a familiar gesture, and it comforted her despite herself.

What was it about him that broke through her walls so easily? Maybe it was the difference from herself that was enough to throw her off, make her let down her guard. Like Jackie, River was open when she was closed, patient when she was restless, careful when she was reckless. She leaned into his hand, allowing the warmth of it to spread down through her. 

Even with her guilt, and Jackie, and everything that had happened, she missed this. Her body reacted to the closeness, flushing with desire, or maybe just from the need to feel anything other than emptiness. Her breath became velvet across her tongue, and she found herself shifting closer into his arms, pressing herself along his side. 

River’s mouth parted, but he stayed still. “V, you don’t have—”

“I want to,” she said, laying her head on the pillow next to his. She took his hand in hers, running her fingertips over his palm, like the first time they had been together. “Do you?”

He nodded once and kissed her, by way of answer. 

In their time together before, so often they had rushed it, pulling off their clothes in a hurried frenzy. Barely after V would arrive on River’s doorstep they would be pressed against the walls or doors or furniture, consumed with the kind of urgency that burns bright and leaves barren separation in its wake. 

But here in the dark, River’s face half-obscured by the frail light, there was a slowness, a timelessness between them. It was a small respite of peace, stretched out like a tightrope above the suffering. They could toe across it for a while, one careful step at a time, before inevitably falling back into the abyss. 

River’s hands were on her face, and for once his breath was unsteady, uncertain. He had always accepted whatever they were before, but now there was a hunger in him, pulsing just under the skin. Grief, tinged with fear. 

He had seen her dead, a mangled corpse like so many others in his line of work. And he would watch her die again, like she had watched Jack, life slipping away like fine sand through fingers.

In that moment, tangled together in her too-small bed, V imagined that she understood River. On his tongue, she could taste futility. In his breath, she could hear desperation. She knew that helplessness all too well. It carves out the flesh with a sharp, keen pain, leaving a wound that never fully heals. But what could be done other than clutch at the fading body, and beg for mercy?

Though River did not say the words, that plea seeped through his touch now.

There had always been an unspoken line she and River didn’t cross, and maybe didn’t want to acknowledge was there at all. They would never talk about themselves, never let it go any further than this precipice, before pulling away. Instead they’d cover over the gap between them with stupid jokes, shallow conversations, unanswered questions about her name. Impermanent filler to spackle over the ugly cracks.

V’s hips rolled against him with the need—a selfish need, she was always selfish, wasn’t she?—to feel comforted and to comfort. River must have felt it too, because he followed her when she pulled him over her body, like he already knew where they were going.

Cross the precipice. Scrape away the filler. Erase the line.

Though he was strong and broad-shouldered, River’s arms shuddered along with his breath when their bodies knit into each other. They had been together many times, yes. 

But not like this.

V’s grief poured out of her, wordlessly, spoken only through the arch of her back and the tremor of her torso, her face curled up to press into River’s shoulder. And like a fool he accepted it, kissing over her skin slowly, as though he could suck the pain from her with his mouth. 

And he did, in a way, though she took his too. It cycled between them, swirling together into a stream, exchanged through the hands that he held above her head, through the heat of their chests that slid over one another, through the breath—precious life—that moved between their mouths. The pain of it filled their lungs to bursting before coming back out again in a sigh, or a choked sob. 

V closed her eyes and let herself be carried away from this place. Away from her apartment, the city, her life, until finally only ache and pleasure remained, no longer discernible from one another. 

A star grew in the darkness behind her eyelids, matching the warmth that grew in her core. She gasped at its heat, liquid glass that flowed out from under her navel, crystallizing into delicate shards. When River whispered into her ear, his hands clutching hers, taut with desperation, it shattered and she was undone. 

Don’t go, he was telling her, with his body or maybe his words. 

Don’t go.

Chapter Text

It’s already morning and V hasn’t slept for shit. 

Sure, the arm’s not helping. Stim’s worn off and it hurts like the devil’s dick, and that’s making it hard to get comfortable when it sears every time she moves. The old bed don’t help, neither. The squeaking’s loud, it sinks in the middle all the time, and it’s too small. Impossible to roll over without leaning on the wound. Plus, half the time her back aches in the morning, even when she’s not injured—when did that start happening? V’s only fuckin’ thirty, por Dios. 

Not even the first time she’s been shot—Borgs made sure of that a long time ago—and this is nothing compared to three slugs in the chest. Just a graze on the arm from Hermana’s wide aim. They got lucky. 

Hermana gave back her piece until she can get more practice in, it’s right over there on the shelf next to the old pile of magazines, where she dumped it with a frown on her face. Pobrecita feels like shit about it, judging by the way she hung her head last night, all the fire gone out of her voice. 

Weird seeing her like that. 

Everything’s been weird with Hermana lately.

Ah well.  No need to rub it in and make a big deal. V knows the feeling. She’s been in brawls where a fist flew the wrong way and knocked a few chooms flat. Eats you up, when you feel like you’ve done someone wrong. Even by accident.

But that’s not what’s got V staring at the crooked bars of sunlight coming up through the slats in the window. Nah. She can’t stop thinking about Hermana. She was sitting here last night, her sullen face squashed against her knee, talking about how she’s not used to this life. Like she misses being under the thumb of those vipers in the city center. 

Misses that, more than being here with V and Mamá.

Guess it’s hard to let go of the old life. The offering to the fire barrel was never going to solve everything. V knows that, she’s not stupid. But still, it’s been what, a month? And Hermana’s already talking about going back, because she fucked up on a job once. 

Once! 

Is that all it takes to want to leave?

V’s never been ashamed of living here. Mamá’s place is home, and sure, it’s cramped sometimes. But it’s practical, comfortable. They’re family. They take care of each other, get on each other’s nerves, have each other’s backs, love each other. 

And lately, it seemed like maybe Hermana had been, dunno, a part of that? She just—she fits in so easily, y’know? 

Maybe V shouldn’t be so surprised, it’s always been easy with Hermana, ever since the day they met. Easy to drink, easy to joke, easy to laugh. Easy to talk, until now. That part’s gotten so much harder. 

This weight in her chest is bad enough that V even tried to say something last night, before Hermana cut her off. Probably for the best, it would ruin everything. Just thinking about it makes her feel like a shitty friend. 

That’s not what they are, that’s not what they’ve ever been. And Hermana, she’s not about this life, the one V’s been living since she was old enough to touch iron. 

Give it up, holmes. Christ.

V sits up in bed, winces at the soreness in the gash when she pulls on her clothes. But even with the pain, getting up and moving is preferable to moping. She’s never been one for sitting around. Best get going.

At the bottom of the stairs there’s Hermana, legs hanging off the couch, blanket on the floor, one of V’s old red tees halfway up her belly. She’s mumbling to herself in her sleep. 

God, she’s fuckin’ beautiful.

V pulls the blanket back over her shoulders—it’s chilly this morning, she’ll be cold—and pauses to watch the slow, even breathing as Hermana settles back in. It blows a few loose strands of hair up and down near Hermana’s lips, and when V tucks them away behind her ear, the wrench in her chest clicks a few turns tighter. 

Never expected to see Hermana like this. Not after five years of clubbing and drinking, wandering the city together until dawn, and still never knowing where her closest friend rested her head.  

Looking at her there, can’t help but wonder what it would be like to wake up to this every morning.

V lets out a breath and goes to the kitchen. Something to eat will help.

Mamá’s cooking’s the best on earth, and she taught V well. Always said, “everyone needs to know how to cook,” while she shoved the long-handled spoon into V’s hands, way back when V still needed to pull over a chair to reach the countertop. 

Raúl never approved, said it was for women. 

Fuck him. 

She pulls out the corn oil to make some breakfast from the old tortillas by the fridge. The scent of it on the stove soothes a bit, the sun warming her back through the window. It smells like Abuelita’s house, like sitting on cracked hexagonal tiles, reading books in the corner by the cupboard. Abuelita would pat her on the head with an old wrinkled hand and sneak pieces of chocolate when Mamá wasn’t looking. It was always safe there, when she was alive. Peaceful.

“Buenas dias.” Mamá’s come downstairs, she’s in the doorway, arms crossed again.

“Hey, Mamá,” V says, dropping the tortillas in the pot. She hisses at the splashes that lick at her fingers. 

“¿Estás bien, mijo?” Mamá’s leaning against the counter, her eyes are burning holes in the side of V’s face, hotter than the oil on her fingertips.

“Sí claro,” V says. She tries to flash a smile. “No te preocupes. Just a gash, Vik will fix it.” 

“Mm.” 

V winces. 

“And your head?”

“Nothing wrong with my head.”

“¿No?”

“Mamá—”

“Mi cielo,” she says, taking the old slotted spoon from V’s hand. She swishes the tortillas around in the oil, flipping them to brown evenly. “I’ve seen how you look at her.”

“Jesucristo—”

“And how she looks at you.” Mama’s voice is firm, like she could possibly know. She spoons the tortillas onto a plate covered in paper towel and steers V to a chair. “Have you told her?” she asks, the plate clinking on the table.

“You said you wouldn’t get involved. Y te equivocas,” V says, thinking of Hermana’s face turning away in the dark last night, the way she leaves every time V gets close. She always has. “She’s not into—Heywood. Adjusting to this life, it’s already hard for her. Not about to make it worse.”

Mamá scoffs, grabbing a few chips from the plate. “You were never the top of your class in school, Jaquito, but I didn’t take you for stupid. ¿Por qué piensas que quería dejarte solo anoche? Figure you could have used that time to speak to her alone.” 

“Mamá, you don’t even know her. She’s—there’s a lot going on.” 

“She lives in my house, mijo. I eat with her, cook for her, say goodnight to her. She’s not a stranger anymore, whether she wants to be or not. And I don’t think she does.” Mamá taps V under the chin, her way of asking to look her in the eyes. “Escúchame. I don’t care what you do, who you see, you know this. I only want my son to be happy, hm? Let her hear you.”

The couch in the other room creaks, and V lowers her voice to a hush. 

“No es tan simple. Es—es complicado, okay?”

“Bueno,” Mamá clucks her tongue, like she always does when she’s getting irritated. There’s a shuffling outside the door—Hermana’s footsteps. Shit, did she hear? 

“Si tú lo dices,” Mamá says. She swats the air above V’s head, her way of saying she’s being stupid. “You know best.” 

***

V woke up naked and alone.

She untangled her legs from the mildewed sheets. How long had it been since she last slept without pills? Or booze? Weeks, at least. Through the rain still pattering the window, it was difficult to tell the time. Maybe morning—a weak gray light was filtering in through the foggy spots on the pane.

The apartment was quiet, neater than it had been last night, when River had come by and—

Oh, fuck. 

V cursed her weakness and looked around. The bottles and cans had been cleared from the floor of her apartment, the pungent undercurrent of rot somewhat dissipated from the air. She rolled over, glancing around for River’s things. His coat was slung over the kitchen counter near a few bags, half-emptied into the open storage cabinet: packages of instant food, cans of meat and vegetables V didn’t know how to cook. She tallied the cost in her head to pay him back.

The sound of a muffled argument reached her from the landing outside, carrying through the thick, rusted door. She grabbed a long-sleeved shirt from the pile near the couch and crept to the doorway; it was River.

“—he’s done this before. A dozen times, and last time you asked me to find him he tried to file a complaint for police harassment. You’re sure he’s not just at his girlfriend’s?” 

There was a pause, no audible response. A phone conversation, then.

“What does she mean, new friends? Who—? He’s nineteen, Joss. I can’t call in an MP case until—Okay, okay. I get it. Yeah, I’ll see what I can find. Just keep your phone on, okay?”

There was a shuffling and an exasperated groan before the handle turned. V straightened up, stepping back to pretend to inspect the towel hanging on the wall nearby. The heavy door scraped along the concrete as River swung it open. 

“V—?” he stopped short, one foot over the threshold. There were two coffees in his hands, the swirled logo of the corner stand two levels down stamped onto the outside of the paper cups. “Sorry, did I wake you?”

“No,” V said, twisting her hands into the oversized sleeves of her shirt. Another one of Jackie’s she’d never returned. “Uh, you okay?”

River stepped inside, closing the door behind him. He handed her a coffee with a weary smile. “My nephew’s disappeared on his mother again. He’s like his father was, sometimes, worrying the whole—” he stopped, his mouth twisted into a grimace. ”Sorry. You don’t need to worry about it. I hoped to stay longer, but I have to go for a bit. If Joss—my sister—if she bothered to call, she’s desperate.” 

V shook her head. “It’s fine. Family business, I get it.” 

Uncomfortable silence fell over them, halfway between conversation and farewell. River cleared his throat, shifting his feet. V sipped the coffee to soothe the knot in her throat. 

The night before had been different. The change filled the space between them with static charge, raising the hair on V’s arms. But for all the intimacy of gripped hands, kiss-swollen lips and whispered words that had passed between them, the clarity of the morning’s cool light was sucking the air out of the room. 

At some point last night, they had crossed a line that couldn’t be uncrossed. 

Of course they had. 

It was stupid to expect that they would remain comfortable as they were forever. There had been signs, even before Konpeki, that whatever they were supposed to be—not quite friends, not quite more—was changing. A switch had flipped in River somewhere, a dim light that had slowly brightened in the way he held her, spoke to her, touched her. Though she pretended it hadn’t.

Of course she did.

She was pinching the headache forming behind the bridge of her nose when River touched her arm. 

“Hey, I’ll be back, okay? There’s food,” he gestured toward the counter and cupboard, his eye settling on her protruding clavicles. “Will you eat some?” 

V nodded, staring intently at a small stain on his shirt, rising and falling with his breath. It stopped suddenly, tensing with the muscles of his chest. 

“V.” River stepped closer and lifted her chin gently with a palm, searching her face, his eye almost black in the low light of the apartment. He spoke in a whisper. “I meant what I said. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”  

“Right,” she said, hoping her skin didn’t feel too hot under his touch. “Right, next time.”

“Until next time, then,” he said softly, and pressed his lips to the divot in her forehead. 

When he left, she went to the vending machine on the next floor, and bought more beer. 

***

Taking a swig of tepid ale, her third of the morning, V fished for her shorts from the previous day out of the damp pile of clothes. River had swept them into a box near the couch, and she’d been too distracted to remove the small package from Wakako’s abandoned office out of her back pocket. She dug around in an increasing panic, flinging the piles onto the floor. It had to be there somewhere. 

She found them near the bottom, slightly soggy but not yet gone into the laundry, and sighed with relief. Plucking Wakako’s envelope from the pocket, she traced her fingers over the blotted ink, and re-read the message aloud:

“ If you’re alive.”

But who? Stout? Herself?

The envelope disintegrated when she tore at it, the ragged wet paper squishing against her fingers as she dumped the small, black object inside into her hand. A datashard. It was a relatively simple model, useful for intel transfers. 

¿Hermana, qué haces?

“Not now, no time for crazy,” she said to the air, rushing over to her terminal. Her agent and optics were too busted to read something this sophisticated, she’d need to do a manual extraction.  

The encryption on it was simple, enough to stop most street-level netrunners from breaking into it, but not an experienced skimmer. 

Did Wakako know that?

It took only a few hours to decode the security. Daylight was still peeking through the clouds outside the window by the time a few customized daemons broke through.

Her finger hovered over the keys. One keystroke and she would know what the shard contained. If she was lucky, she’d know who it was meant for; where Wakako or Stout could be; how they got into this mess. 

How they got Jack killed. 

And then what’re you gonna do?

A hot wave of anger boiled up from beneath her navel into her throat. 

“Find them,” she said aloud.

V shook her head against the voice, sucking down her drink to silence it. She tossed the empty can next to the others by the couch; a new pile that had increased all afternoon. 

She pressed the key, opened the file, and laughed. 

That crafty old bitch.

There was nothing in it. No dossier, no instructions, no photos or maps or coordinates. Not even an addressee or a name. Just a few words of text:

Dossier beyond Blackwall.

Skim for “Valor.”

Get the bitch.

Tucking her legs up under her chin, V picked up another can from the vending machine, and opened it.

***

“‘Mano, I’m just sayin’, I’m worried about you. This has gone on long enough.”

Julio is waving his cigarette in the air, the snaking waves of smoke from the lit cherry obscuring his left eye. V suppresses a groan. It’s already hard to see or hear anything in this bar, the least he could do is actually blow the smoke away rather than let it leak out his nose like an exhaust pipe.

“Dunno what you’re talkin’ about,” V grumbles, sniffing and swishing her whiskey around in a circle. Or maybe it’s tequila? Carajo, can’t even tell anymore. This is the last time she lets Jules pick the spot. They water the drinks down here, make it all taste like different flavors of the same piss, the music is loud and her head hurts. It’s not even good beats. 

She peers over into the blurry dark. Where’s the dance floor, anyway?

“Look around, gordo,” says Jules, pushing a water over the bar counter at her with two fingers. “She’s not here. Again. How many times you asked her to come, and the answer was no?”

V throws her head back, closing her eyes in a long exhale. “Jules, not now—” 

“Look man, I don’t want to shit in your shoes. But she’s living with you and still not coming out. What do you think that means?”

Fuck, not this again. Everybody’s always bothering her about Hermana, like she can’t handle her own shit. V swigs the rest of the drink—okay, yeah, it was whiskey—down her throat. Dios, it tastes like it was tapped from a donkey’s ass. 

The bar is already starting to spin, even with this watery paint thinner, and it’s barely ten o’clock. Probably should have gone to El Coyote tonight, would be easier to get home than from this—where are they again? 

Whatever, don’t matter. 

“Sí, lo sé,” V says, tapping the bar for another round of culo de burro. What’s even the point of denying it anymore? Jules was right all along, el cabrón. And Mamá. Even Marcus. V’s just been too stubborn to admit it. Hell, maybe Raúl was right all along too. Maybe she is a goddamned little dog-faced coward after all. 

Puta madre, where’s that drink?

No, wait. Come to think of it, being too close to El Coyote would be worse than here, wherever this is. Hermana would be upstairs, probably sleeping, and V has half a mind to go talk to her right now and make a fool of herself. 

God, talkin’ to her. Starting to miss that these days. Why’s it gotta be so hard now? Didn’t used to be. Used to talk about everything. Most things, anyway.

V turns to Jules and blinks. “Look, I know. Just… please stop hammerin’ me on this, te lo suplico.” 

“Sí claro, claro. But,” Jules says, clapping V on the back. “You know who did come, right—?”

“Ay, I just said—”

“—the first time you asked?” Jules gestures towards the other end of the bar, where Marcus is chatting up a pretty girl in fishnets and teased blonde hair. V squints, their faces won’t focus right. 

“Who, Misty?”

“Obviously.”

“What about her?”

“Que linda, no? And nice.”

“Sí claro, and?”

“‘Mano, I know we poke fun at you about your ‘nova secreta,’ but I just—” Jules flicks his cig ashes into the tray between them, letting out a long drag of smoke. “Just wanna see you happy. Look at you, you’re miserable. Give your chica fantasma the shirt off your back if you want, but you really gotta hang your heart on someone who won’t even meet your crew?” He pushes the water at V, crooking an eyebrow. “At least drink some water. Para mi, por favor.”

V scoffs and grabs the cup, sloshing it across the scratched nickel countertop. Jules sighs and snubs out his cig, the smoke whirling counter to the spinning of the walls. 

“Look at Misty, man,” he says. ”Ain’t a girl like that worth talking to, at least? You’re the one who always says nothing cures heartache like a smooth ride.”

V narrows her eyes at Jules, hackles standing on end. She glances down the bar, where Misty is smiling up at Marcus with her arms folded across her stomach. She always does that with over-eager customers trying to get her number. 

“Show some fuckin’ respect, Jules,” V says, a flare of irritation flushing her face. “Misty’s a decent chica, not a bike. She’s… sweet, a good listener.” V takes a sip of the water. Maybe it’s the drink making V’s stomach flip, but Misty is awful pretty. “‘Sides, dunno if she’d ever even be interested in—”

Jules barks a laugh, spitting his drink onto the back of his hand. “Gordo, te quiero, but I can’t believe you are this dense. Marcus is talkin’ her up the last forty minutes and she’s spent the whole time looking over here. And you know that ain’t for me.”

V is shaking her head, trying to clear the cobwebs when Misty looks down the bar, directly at her. No mistaking that. Shit, V’s just been sitting there, staring at her. Better do something. She smiles to try to cover it up, lifting one arm to wave. 

“Santa Madre,” Jules mutters, rolling his eyes. “Hey Misty! C’mere a sec!” 

“Jules,” V hisses, but too late, Misty's already excusing herself from Marcus’ jabbering. 

“What’s up?” Misty says, a soft smile on her lips. It’s her real smile, the one that crinkles her black-painted eyes. V’s seen it a lot at the shop when she comes by, come to think of it. 

“Jackie here was just tellin’ me ‘bout this crazy lift he did for Padre once, and got stuck in the wastes for two days. Weren’t you, ‘mano?”

“Ah, pues—“

“Sounds interesting.” Misty settles on the stool next to V and rests her elbows on the counter. “Were you okay?”

“Funny story, that,” V says, leaning over to grab another drink from the bartender, one for each of them. She would order three, but Jules has disappeared from behind Misty already. Pinche cabrón, always thinks he’s so smart. 

“I’d like to hear it,” Misty says. She sips her drink slowly, leaving an imprint of dark lipstick on the rim. “Let’s talk a while?”

V smiles for the first time that night. Not just one of her good grins she puts on for show. A genuine one.       

Talk, yeah—

***

— that’d be nice.

The trill of a call coming in woke V up abruptly, her feet numb from hanging off the edge of the couch. She muttered, fumbling through the menu, bleary vision making the text of the scrambled optical display harder to read. 

Or, possibly, the liquor hadn’t worn off yet. 

She wiped the sleep from her eyes—whatever amount of it she was able to nip that afternoon, anyway—but when her vision focused enough to read the feed, her stomach dropped. 

Come on, Mamá’s waitin’.

V scrambled to decline, but the call picked up on its own. Dammit, she should have gone to see Vik and get this fixed earlier. Vik would be better than this. 

Anything would be better than this.

“No, no, no— shit.”  

“V? You there?” Mama Welles’ voice crackled through the call feed.

V held her breath until her lungs burned, as though silence would undo the accidental pickup. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to steady the shaking in her hands gripping the sides of the couch. She didn’t have the strength for this. 

Bullshit . Say somethin’. 

“Um, hey, Mama,” she stuttered.

“Mijita,” Mama said, and V grimaced at the affectionate nickname she no longer deserved. “Why don’t you take my calls? It’s been weeks.” 

“Sorry, I…” Sitting up, V shook the tingling pins from her swollen feet. A bottle near her hips clattered to the floor. “I’ve been… busy.”

Mama tutted. “Mm. Drinking yourself to death, you mean.”

“Mama, I—” 

“Don’t. Seen all this before, too many times, lost souls wandering the burrows, drowning themselves because they never got any closure. My bar is full of them. Heywood is full of them. This city is full of them.”

“Right.” V stared at the floor, willing the shoddy construction to give way now and swallow her down into a sinkhole. “How-how’ve you been?” 

Puta madre, seriously?

“My son is dead. How you think?” 

V flinched—Mama never did mince words. 

“Jesucristo, V. You lived under my roof, you slept in his bed. For God’s sake, you know he—” Mama paused, tutting her tongue. The call line clicked with a tapping in the background. “At least have the decency to not treat me like a stranger.” 

“I know, Mama, it’s not that. It’s just—” 

“We’re preparing an ofrenda for him. Tomorrow night at El Coyote. Be here. You need to pay your respects.” 

“That’s not a good idea. I’m supposed to be dead. What if someone knows me?”

“You think you’re the only person in Heywood with enemies to look out for? I’m not going to argue with you, V. You need to say goodbye. Properly.”

Solo escucha, ¿sí?  

“Please stop.”

“Stop what? Inviting you home? Did you even listen to my messages? You have to come to this, no excuses.”

“No, sorry, I didn’t mean—“

“He deserves that much from you.”

V swallowed the lump in her throat. What could she possibly say to that?

Mama sighed on the other end of the line. “There will be tequila—so don’t have any before you come, claro?”

“Wait—”

“Be there,” Mama said, and ended the call. 

***

Historians, archaeologists and sociologists would later viciously argue over what caused the rise of mortuary complexity in Night City’s funeral rites. Or as viciously as one can through biting, hundred-eddie words poured out into inaccessible academic journals.

The sociologists contended that the increase in premature death was the antecedent, publishing dozens of articles over as many years on the natural experiment of post-war gang violence. The archeologists, being materialists at heart, countered that longitudinal studies of the city’s massive middens clearly showed a rise in funerary artifacts before the city’s independence from the New United States. Therefore, the so-called “post-bellum death cliff” was a moot point. 

The historians, as historians are wont to do, couldn’t make up their minds and split themselves between the factions. 

A few poor souls, specialists who had dubbed themselves “the inter-academic five,” tried to argue that the increase in death rates and businesses catering to them were probably simultaneous. But of course, they were summarily ignored. Honestly, who listens to the middle ground when there are battle lines to be drawn and paradigms to defend? Spoilsports.

Whatever the answer, by the late twenty-first century, the growing piles of bodies and complex, expensive funeral practices had long since normalized the presence of violent, sudden death as a fact of life in Night City. 

Those who were lucky enough to have access to history books from the pre-industrial period—the kind of texts that had been banned from schools for “anti-prosperity sentiments”—would find kindred spirits in the past’s precarity of life. A bacterium in spoiled food, dirty fingernails, contaminated water: a thousand invisible killers could snuff out existence at any moment, with no one ever the wiser as to why. 

Elaborate rituals took the place of answers in the chaotic, random culls of Death’s victims. And with these formalized liturgies came a certain comfort from yielding their understanding and control to a power greater than the human mind. 

Night City was no different in the face of senseless annihilation. For all its slick glamour and promise, for all the medical advancements that could replace an arm or half a brain for the right price, the city had its invisible killers too, of a different sort: uncontrolled gangs, cyberpsychotic madmen, irradiated tumors too fast to stop, advanced cybersickness, or silent burnout from a netrunner’s daemon half a world away. There were a thousand ways to die suddenly in this place, without any better explanation than bad luck. 

Like their forebears, Night City’s citizens developed their own practices to buff away the sharpness of omnipresent death.

At first, the city’s unique funeral rites were blended from the various immigrant populations that rotated through the city. Vodka started appearing alongside sake, sacramental porridge, and tequila, regardless of the affected family’s cultural background. Soon enough, elaborate candles and exotic floral displays were expected alongside photographs draped in black fabric at every wake. It was the entanglement of culture expressed through mourning. 

But after the war, Night City was at a premium for land and wasteful graveyards for burials were no longer practical—or permitted, once it was outlawed. Instead the city built a communal structure to help solve the space issue. A stark monument, the Columbarium was constructed on an unused hill overlooking the city, a parcel too distant and rocky to be fruitful real estate otherwise. Small cubes etched into the sides of rows upon rows of narrow, gray concrete served as the final resting place for all residents, from then on. 

It was all the better for the frequent expressions of grief—half the time the bodies of missing sons and daughters were never found to be buried anyway. An etching into the side of the towering walls served as well as it could in the absence of bones.

Enterprising business owners soon took advantage of the growing need for comfort, and the attendant social expectations for memorial events. Morticians who had lost their jobs preparing bodies that were either not there or were expected to be immediately incinerated turned to selling funeral goods instead. One woman, Ms. Rachel Hadid, had a particular knack for marketing and the cutthroat attitude necessary to make it in the city’s corporate world. Naturally, she soon expanded her business from her converted morgue to a veritable empire of death goods. She catered to all tastes, and by the fifth year in her new business, she had crowded out all the smaller shops. 

These days, everyone went to Hadid’s Exequy Services for their funeral needs. 

Two delivery vans with Hadid’s signature rose and thorn crown painted onto the side had beeped at the shabby woman standing in the middle of the narrow streets of Heywood, when she finally stepped to the side near a row of empty storefronts. V barely took notice of them as they rolled by, the hot rubber tires crunching broken asphalt beneath them. She was staring blankly into the middle-distance, reading her optical feed.

>> I’m sorry—nephew’s still MIA.

>> More complicated than I thought. 

>> Stopped by but you’re out. You okay? 

>> Are you eating?

Closing River’s texts without answering, V kicked away a stray paper that had blown up against her feet. The wind caught it in a mini dust devil and plastered it against the window of an abandoned first-floor shop, the cracked glass covered over with paper tape, spray paint, and faded posters of some ancient band with a flaming Oni mask for a logo. 

Bottle in hand, V had already been standing there for the better part of an hour, eyes fixed on the neon sign of El Coyote Cojo bar. It looked the same as it always did. Crumbling brick facade, faded green doors flaking away to the gunmetal gray underneath. The side entrance to the apartment was just visible around the corner, the front door dented and sooty on the bottom from the street trash always blowing against it. 

She hated it. 

The brightest star in the sky had blinked out, but the scarlet glow of El Coyote was no different than the day Jackie dragged her up the back steps and into his life. There were the same old day-drinkers, coming and going for their fix as though the world hadn’t just ended. This damned city wouldn’t notice if the sun crashed into the earth, as long as the lights of downtown were still glowing. 

Night City went on without him.

V paced back and forth by the corner of the alley, head down to avoid the gaze of the Hadid’s delivery drivers hustling in and out of the bar’s side door. They were carrying crates of fragrant limes, tinkling liquor bottles, and candles inside. 

A scraping sound of empty metal on rough road drew her attention. One of the delivery drivers was dragging a rusted oil barrel toward the garbage heap, away from the door. V’s own bottle clattered to the ground, slipping from her fingers. 

“Hey! Oye!”

The driver looked up at V charging toward him, wiping the rust off the white pants of his Exequy uniform. 

“Don’t touch that!” she shouted, grabbing the rim of the barrel and yanking it away. 

“Sorry, ma’am, I didn’t mean to take your, ah, fire pit? I just needed to move the garbage out of the way for—”

“This isn’t garbage, don’t you fucking touch it,” she hissed, dragging it back up against the wall, the bottom skittering across the uneven ground. “It’s not yours.”

“It’s just, it can’t be right in the—”

“Don’t touch it!”

“¿V? ¿Qué está pasando?” Mama had appeared in the back doorway, dressed in a dark jacket and pants, a long purple cloth over her arm.

“Mama—” V backed up against the barrel, the heels of her shoes banging against the empty sides, sending a flurry of red iron dust up into her nose. “I was just, well—” 

Mama looked to the man in the Exequy uniform. “You are already late to be messing around in the alley. Put the van out front on the walk and bring it in from there. The guests won’t be here yet.” 

He looked from Mama to V. “You’re certain?”

“Seguro. Rápidamente, por favor.”

Mama waited until the van had pulled away before she spoke again.

“It’s good to see you, V. Been a while.”

V sucked in a sharp breath, hands sweating against the barrel behind her. She tried to wipe them on the back of her pants. “I know, I didn’t keep my promise. Promises. Any of them.” 

“Mijita,” Mama said. “I never asked you to promise me anything. Come inside. These things are better said over beer, no?” 

The back of the bar was stuffed full of crates, more than usual, the creaking smell of aged, gray-wood pallets and citrus permeating the whole area. Only a small pathway for walking was still available, and V’s head began to pound. How many people were expected to come here today? But there was no time to linger on the question, because Mama’s hand was on the door to the storage room, beckoning inside. 

“Here, take these,” Mama thrust a crate into V’s hand when she crossed the threshold into the dim, stuffy room, a clattering box of beers from Yōkai Distillery. Jackie’s favorite. Mama was already turning back to grab another box, she waved toward the door behind them without looking. “Out front by the pool table, okay?”

V nodded and only caught her breath again once she emerged from the cluttered back rooms into the main hall. 

The hall had been cleared for a crowd. The dining tables and chairs were pushed up against the walls, covered in food, flowers, and candles. Even the heavy pool table that normally held a prominent place of honor on a raised platform had been transformed into an altar in a nearby alcove.  Pepe was reading over expenses in a ledger at a high top table, pushed into a corner. 

“Hola, hermosa,” he called, waving her over. “Long time no see.”

V set the beers on the table next to him. “Yeah, been a while. Sorry we have to meet like this again.”

“Me too, V.” Pepe smiled and leaned over the tabletop, shuffling the ledgers. “Should come by more often.”

“Well—”

“She misses you, you know. Closest thing she’s got left to—” he looked up behind V’s head and smiled, raising his voice. “Ay, Lupe, look who’s here!”

Mama Welles came up by V’s elbow and grabbed two beers out of the crate. She cracked the caps off with the tabletop, the way Jack used to do. 

“I know,” Mama said, passing V a bottle. “V’s gonna help me with a few things. Need something from their bedroom.” 

V choked on the beer. “His room—?”

“Pepe, why don’t you set this up on the ofrenda.” Mama passed him the long purple fabric. “Por favor.” 

“‘Course,” Pepe said, gathering the fabric around his arm. He nodded to V before wandering back toward the pool table in the alcove. “Anything for family, right? Good to see you again.”

Mama shuffled through some boxes by the edge of the raised platform, pulling out candles and matches to set around the bar. 

“I want your help with something, mija.” Mama reached into her pocket and pressed a key into her palm, then turned back to her work. “Go upstairs to his room. Find something for the ofrenda. Whatever you think is right.”

“Me?” V’s breath caught in her chest, the key to the apartment weighing heavy in her hand. “Mama, I don’t think I should.”

“And why not?”

Just talk to her. 

“It’s not that easy.” 

“Sure it is, anything you think is right.”

“I don’t—I shouldn’t even—”

“Ay, me gustaría que me escuches. Truly you two were formed from the same mold.” Mama turned from lighting the candles, snapping the matchbook down onto the table. “Listen to me. Jackie had big dreams. He wanted to protect his family, build a better life. No one could have stopped him from reaching so high.” 

V thought of Jackie in the hotel room, the heels of his palms over his eyes, and wondered if that was true. 

No, Mamá tiene razón. Probablemente.

Mama’s hand on her arm drew V‘s attention from her thoughts. “Go now, okay? They’ll all be here soon.”

What other option was there? Saying no to Mama’s wishes for her son’s funeral was impossible. Or at least the idea of disappointing her further was worse than stepping foot in that room again. 

“By the way, your Spanish is getting good.”

“My what?”

“Your Spanish.”

"Mama, I don't speak—"

"But you didn’t have to learn it for me, mija. We always got along fine without it before, hm? Go now. I want to hear more about how you are doing when you get back.”

***

The apartment was filled with well-wishes. Photos, cards of expensive real paper, and half-unpacked gifts littered the tables and chairs that were clustered into small circles on the first floor — evidence of company that had likely been rotating through ever since Jack’s body showed up in a bullet-riddled cab. The cloying stench of wilted flowers that no one had yet bothered to toss, half-sweet and half-sour with rot, permeated the entry room. Here were the stale leftovers, the picked-over care of family and friends who’d been there for Mama. It was scattered across every surface, unattended. 

A pang of guilt turned V’s gut on an electric rotor. Why on earth did Mama want her, of all people, to choose something from his room for the ofrenda? Clearly there were many much better for the task.

She made her way down the hall of the second floor, which seemed to tilt on its axis, her shaking hand trailing along the wall. His bedroom was just ahead, but seemed to stretch further away from her with each heavy step. 

Jack had tried to insist that it was her room, too, for a time. But V had never truly earned her place with him and Mama.

Certainly she didn’t deserve it now. 

Sweat beaded across her brow, accompanied by a familiar cool shiver low in her core. Breathe, she reminded herself. Just keep breathing, like River had said.

Up here, the mess of mourning goods that cluttered the first floor was more contained. A small flower vase on the hall table held a few roses, still blooming and fresh next to a small framed photograph. It hadn’t been there when V was last here. She peered closer, and realization stole the breath from her lungs— 

It was a recent photo, a candid. In it Jack was full of life, gesturing widely and grinning with a beer in his hand, like nothing bad would ever happen. He was sitting at his usual corner seat at El Coyote’s bar, one long arm draped over a woman next to him. The woman was wearing his leather jacket, too big for her frame, and was smiling up at him, the admiration clear on her face. She looked happy. Contented. 

V had never seen herself look like that before.

Something in the corner of her eye glitched. 

Hermosa. Beautiful that day.

“Fuck, not now!” V spun around, throwing up her hands. She shouted at herself, begging, her voice bouncing off the walls of the empty hall. “Come on, you can do this. A little longer and you can silence it, just please. Please keep it together.”

She waited for more, listening to the uneven breath panting through her nose. 

Silence was her answer. 

V put the photo face down on the table and made her way to the door, pausing to curl her clammy, trembling fingers over the handle. 

For a moment, she could almost feel him there. Like Jack was waiting just beyond it, about to welcome her home. All she had to do was walk in, and he’d be there with a big smile and tell her everything was fine, see? That it was all a mistake, and didn’t he say not to worry so much? He’d wave her over to come sit, or maybe just talk, and he’d ask her to help him fix up a scrape. Maybe he’d reach over and mess up her hair out of the bun he hated so much. Let her borrow a shirt to sleep in.

She sucked a breath through her teeth, closed her eyes, and opened the door. 

Inside it was quiet. Silver motes, illuminated by the gray afternoon light in the window, flurried at her disturbance. His things were still there, untouched: the stupid titty posters, the peeled stickers on the mirror, the rug worn where he always dragged his boots along the floor. There was a half-finished bottle of beer on the sink, thickly coated in dust, and his black leather jacket was tossed on the bed, waiting for him to come back and retrieve it once he changed out of that ridiculous corpo suit.

Now she knew why Mama sent her. No one had been in this room since he’d gone. 

V should have been biting back tears, maybe crying or something, but when she reached down inside herself, all she could touch was the emptiness that seemed to go on forever. She stood there, numb and frozen in time like this room, waiting with pointless bated breath for his return. 

A flicker by the bed drew her eyes, but when she focused her vision, all was still. She scolded herself for jumping at shadows and walked over to sit on the mattress’ edge, pulling his jacket into her lap. 

It still smelled like him, like noodles and musk and earth. V dragged her fingertips over the sharp steel zipper, the rough seams, the quilted scarlet lining, the pebbles of the time-softened leather. On a whim, she began to slip one arm into a sleeve, but her hand caught the fabric near the shoulder; the hole from her stray bullet, months ago.

She flipped the sleeve over, her eyes beginning to burn, and let out of small huff of surprise. A small patch, her last gift of a leather cross embroidered with gold, was roughly sewn over the hole in thick, clumsy stitches. 

V lifted it to her lips, and kissed it. 

He was never without his jacket in life. So it should be in death too.

It would do. 

***

By the time V returned to the bar, it was packed with people. Guests were flowing into the front doors, a mix of Valentinos, Heywood residents, and what looked like family squeezing into the corners and hanging over the overhead balcony inside. V folded the jacket under her arm and slipped into the stream near the back, where the light was more dim.

Mama was up on the dais, speaking to a small crowd of visitors in front of the ofrenda. A resplendent table, draped in violet fabric and lit with the orange glow of dozens of candles, was covered in items for Jack. The boxing gloves, plates of food, pictures, tools, books, and small army of knick-knacks and flowers nearly overwhelmed the large portrait of Jack in the center, draped at the corners in black ribbon. V didn’t recognize half of it, but it all must have meant something to him. 

Vik was standing nearby, his hands fluttering over a few of the objects on the table. He wiped his eyes under his glasses with a cloth from his pocket, and returned to Mama’s side. 

The crush of people continued to flow in, pressing V flat against the back wall. She gasped for breath, swaying slightly in the heat of the bodies around her. The familiar fizzing began to spread up from her core. 

“Hey, you okay? You look pale, honey.”

V blinked the stinging sweat from her eyes and looked to her side, where a short, bristle-brush blonde was reaching out to touch her arm.

“Misty.” V clutched the jacket closer to herself. “Hot in here.”

“Mama sent me to get you. Won’t you come up front?”

“You and Mama are talkin’?” V looked back at the dais. Mama was engrossed in conversation with a group of well-wishers, but Vik was peering down at the two of them, his mouth screwed into a frown. “Didn’t know.”

Misty laid a hand on V’s elbow. “Thanks to you, yeah. A couple times, at least.”

“Me?”

“She said you told her to invite me over. Didn’t get a chance until after—” Misty sucked her bottom lip, her eyes welling, but sniffed and went on. “Anyway, she did. I think we should head up, they’re gonna start soon.” She glanced back up at the platform, then over V’s clammy skin. “And Vik wants to check on how you’re doing, okay? He’s been trying to call.” 

“Misty,” V closed her eyes to swallow the stickiness in the back of her throat. Her legs were turning to jelly, the fizzing reaching out into her fingers. “Misty, I don’t know if I can do—”

“You!”  

A gaunt man, swaying and sweating through a thin, stained shirt, was shoving aside the crowd by the bar, reddened face twisted into a snarl. He was holding a half-empty liquor bottle by the neck, one finger pointed straight at V. 

”I know you—!” 

”Jules, espera—” A second, taller man scurried behind him, grimacing apologies at the parted crowd.

“Cállate, Marcus,” the man said. The clack of his cowboy boots stopped toe-to-toe with V, pressed up against the wall. “Seen your fuckin’ picture enough times. You’re her. What the fuck do you think you’re doing here?”

V glanced up at Mama, squinting through the gauzy whirl that blurred out her face. “I, uh—”

“You think you can just show up here, now, like nothing fucking happened—no, don’t touch me, Marcus!—like you didn’t send him here full of fucking holes, and you standing here just fine.”

Misty held up a hand. “Jules, please, you’re making a scene, Mama invited her. Family, you know? Let’s just calm down, let me take that—”

“I’m fine! Don’t—” Jules snatched the bottle away from Misty’s reach, stumbling back a step. “Don’t treat me like I’m the crazy one here. Family, Misty? Two months, you were there! Two fucking months of bringing meals, writing paperwork, making phone calls, arrangements. Checking in, you know, make sure Mama was okay, and Pepe, and all the rest. And where was this pinche puta, huh? Where the fuck were you? Some fucking family!”

Heads around them turned, a ripple of attention that spread through the crowd, a match to dry kindling. V swallowed.

“I was—”

“Nowhere! Holed up doing jack-shit while his real family picked up the pieces,” Jules spat, cheap whiskey misting the air. He shoved a finger at her and his gaze dropped to Jackie’s jacket over her arm. “Where did you get this?”

“Jules, stop,” Misty pleaded, “Mama sent—”

“Oh, so now she just comes and takes his shit? Like this corporate fuck hasn’t had enough already,” Jules snapped, shrugging off Misty’s hand. He grabbed the sleeve of the jacket with a whitened fist, mouth twisted with fury. “You’re all the fucking same, take and take until it gets hard, then cut your losses and disappear.”

On the other end of the room, the argument had finally drawn Vik and Mama’s attention, who were rushing down from the dais.

“Listen,” V said, shrinking against the wall. “I didn’t want to—”

“I don’t give a fuck what you want. You let him die, and he gave you everything—” Jules’ voice broke with a tightening of his chin into small crinkles. He thrust the jacket sleeve back into V’s chest, sending her off-balance. “Everything, and what did you repay him with?” 

By now the commotion had drawn most of the eyes in the bar, hard stares of alternating pity, confusion, and anger that burned into V’s face. Mama and Vik were halfway through the crowd, a grim mixture of worry and despair flickering across their features more clearly as they approached. Mama was saying something, but her voice was lost in the swell of murmurs.

V looked back into the red-rimmed eyes of Jack’s bereaved friend. You were right. I was one of them. I am one of them, she had once said, in a fruitless attempt to turn back their doomed mission too late. A selfish, know-it-all asshole. Who could be blamed for hating her, after everything she’d done?

She should never have come to Mama’s doorstep. Not now, not on the night of Lizzie’s bar, not ever. They’d all have been better off if she’d never stepped into their lives. 

Especially Jack.

“Nothing,” V said finally. 

“V, that’s not—” Misty’s light hand touched V’s shoulder, but V shrugged it off.

“I gave him nothing.”

Jules froze as though struck. He turned his face aside, slackening under Marcus’ heavy hand on his shoulder behind him.

“Should have been you.” He sniffed, ashen-faced and shrinking into himself. “Not him.”

“You’re right.” V said. She dug her nails into the jacket, Mama and Vik had almost reached them. “Pero no te preocupes, pronto tendrás tu deseo. Estoy muriendo.” She turned to Misty. “Tell Mama I’m sorry.” 

“V, wait—” Misty called after her, but the crowd split to let V through and closed in behind her, trapping Misty against the wall. V quickened her steps, ignoring the numbness in her limbs to shove her way toward the door. Mama and Vik might have been calling to her, but she could no longer hear them over the rush of blood and breath in her ears.

***

The back alley was dark and empty, save a man—probably one of Hadid’s workers on a smoke break—leaning against a wall by the side door to the bar. It would have been better to get further away from the disaster she’d just caused, but before she could reach the end of the narrow passage V’s gut gave way with a splash by the dumpsters. She flung the jacket away, hoping to save it from her sick. 

Her knees failed next. She collapsed to the cracked pavement and retched on all fours, heaving until nothing remained but the bitter taste of her stomach on her tongue. At least the stranger left her alone. It was the first relief she’d had all day since she first made her way across the city to Heywood that morning. 

Everywhere she went, she brought ruin, and for what? She would be gone soon anyway, and the precious little time left to her was better spent trying to find a way back to the Blackwall to find Stout, rather than wasting time adding pain to Jack’s loved ones. 

Finding the people who killed him was the best she could offer them now.

She wiped her mouth and looked up, face-to-face with the old rusted barrel that had once been her salvation, scorched to blackness at the rim. Her ofrenda. Stupid exequey bastards had dragged it to the garbage after all. 

Burning anger replaced the sour trembling in her gut. Arasaka had made the wrong kill and now they had to pay for it, but she had nothing. No resources, no strength, no access, no power. Not even her sanity. Just this goddamned chip in her head and a death sentence. She stood, seizing the side of the barrel, and wrenched it from the ground. It hit the side of the building with a crash, the ashes and garbage in it spilling over the cracked asphalt in a grey cloud, choking her lungs. 

She screamed, kicking the ashes across the ground, grinding them under her shoe until hot tears stung her cheeks and her thin legs shook, sliding down against the brick facade of the building. Sniveling, she pulled her legs up under her chin. 

“Hey, you alright?” The man called from the door, but V kept her face pressed into her knees.

“Fine, just leave me alone.”

“Dunno about that. Don’t look fine to me.”

“I’ve had a bad fucking day, claro?”

“Yeah.” He grunted as he sat down next to her, one long leg stretched out across the pavement near her puddle of sick. He put his boot right in the middle of it, rolling his ankle back and forth. “Really blew your airlock over here.”

“Wow, regular detective, aren’t you? Should quit Hadid’s and get a PI license.” V scoffed, releasing her legs to grab the jacket, which had landed nearby and was now half-covered in grey dust. “Look, thanks for trying, but I really don’t need a fucking chat right now. Please just—”

She was stopped by his hand on her arm before she could rise. He pulled it into his lap and she froze, turning her head back over her shoulder at the familiarity. His hand was large, almost warm, the thumb tracing the small circle tattoos around her wrist. V looked up into his face, her heart plummeting down through her ribcage like an elevator whose cables had snapped. 

“Y’know, hermana,” Jack said, his eyes their usual flecked green color. “You can be a real pain in the ass to talk to, sometimes.”