Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The city was a living canvas — painted in streaks of rain and neon, stitched together by power lines and arterial highways. Outside the cab, droplets traced uncertain paths down the window, refracting the world into a shifting watercolor. Skyscrapers loomed like monoliths, their edges softened by mist and grime. Billboards flickered overhead, glitching between ads for braindance clubs, cyberware clinics, and corporate apologies.

Titan Street slithered beneath them — a vein of cracked asphalt and flickering signage. The buildings here were old-world brutalist, concrete stacked like forgotten data blocks. Rusted fire escapes clung to their sides like exoskeletons. Vending machines blinked from alley mouths, offering glitter, ammo, and soy-scop noodles. The city pulsed — not with life, but with inertia. A thousand stories stacked on top of each other, none of them finished. From the speakers, a voice crooned — soft, melancholy, familiar.

"- And oh, just to be with you. Is having the best day of my life."

V sat motionless, her silhouette etched against the glass. Hands folded tight. Eyes rimmed with exhaustion. She counted the streetlights — fractured gold strung along the avenue — each one a distant promise. Each one a distraction. Jackie grinned, luminous even in the car’s shadows.

“Can’t stop diggin’ Night City.”

“Oh yeah?” she asked, voice low. “Why’s that? Isn’t it just another city, but bigger?”

He turned toward her, eyes twinkling.

“Morgan Blackhand. Andrew Weyland. Adam fucking Smasher. Legends are born here, V. You’ll see. Night City, you, us — it's all connected.”

The cab rolled past a mural — a chrome skull with a crown of wires, tagged with TRASHED. A billboard overhead glitched through a dozen ads in three seconds. One froze: MAJOR LEAGUES EAT THEIR OWN.

The rain softened. The lights blurred. The city’s pulse quickened.

V smiled.

She believed him.

She—

“—has passed. Where shall I take his remains?”

The voice sliced through the moment like a scalpel.

V flinched.

The cab had stopped. Engine idling, low and patient like a sleeping beast. The lights outside flickered — red, then blue, then static.

Her voice came distant, muffled by shock. “W-what?”

“The Excelsior package provides for the disposal of passenger remains free of charge. I merely require a destination.”

Delamain’s tone was crisp. Measured. Emotionless.

Reality started to bleed through the cracks of the numb void she’d retreated into.

What was he talking about?

It didn’t click in her head — a quiet rebellion against the truth. And yet, V turned regardless.

And saw him.

Jackie.

In her mind’s eye, he was smiling. Boyish grin making his muddy green eyes twinkle like stars.

In front of her, however, he wasn’t smiling. No.

He was still.

So terribly still.

Those same green orbs, usually so expressive, were open and looking at her — but empty. Hollow. Vacant.

His massive form, stuffed into that stupid corpo suit, leaned toward her like he was tired. Like he’d done so a thousand times before. His head on her shoulder, yawning loudly into her ear while asking if they could stop for burgers.

But not this time. He wasn’t tired. He wasn’t hungry. He would never be either of those things again.

His body was now just a statue carved from memory and loss.

The cab’s interior snapped into focus and everything flooded her at once. The now-cold blood spilled across the seat like an ugly pattern of warped roses. The scent of ozone and copper. The distinct lack of his warm voice and comforting laugh.

Disposal.
Remains.

The words echoed in her ears and rebounded in her mind like gunshots.

Hysteria surged through V like a serpent uncoiling in her gut. The world shrank down to a tunnel. A single bead of light flickering in a void. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. It felt like the walls of the cab had shrunk down against her with the light. Crushing in on all sides. Strangling the life from her.

No. Nonono, it couldn’t be. It wasn’t. This wasn’t real.

Her mind looped between old gigs filled with laughter and adrenaline, to snippets of the Heist. The drone. The gunshots. Jackie’s cry of pain as they’d slid across glass — and her not picking it up at the time because she’d been dodging bullets.

“V, I require a destination.”

“I—J—Just give me a second!”

Delamain’s face twitched and contorted — so fast, if V had blinked, she might’ve missed it.

“Apologies.”

When Del spoke again, his voice was low. Gentle. An attempt to be comforting. And knowing he didn’t have to offer her that kindness after she’d just snapped at him added a blade of guilt to her gut alongside the mounting nausea.

V blinked back tears, breath bursting from between her sticky, dry lips in ragged gasps.

What should she do?
Where did she send Jackie's bod—where should she send Jackie?

The choice was hers. But there was no good answer.

Mama Welles deserved the truth. But not like this. Not with Jackie’s body still warm and broken. With his hand on his lap, palm up and open like he was offering her a present. Not when the crisp white of his Arasaka-pressed shirt was torn in places and sticky and brown in others.

A little part of her brain jabbered uselessly about Vik being able to… to do something. To help. Because he always helped. But the idea of him having to be the one to peel back those blood-soaked layers — to wash away what should be inside, like if he cleaned enough of the blood it would magically heal what couldn’t be undone…

V nearly gagged.

She couldn’t do that either. Not to Vik. Not to anyone.

Choking down a sound that was probably hysterical and wordless, V slumped in her seat. Thinking. Tossing up her options and hating all of them. She knew what the right thing to do was. Even if it meant facing the brunt of Mama Welles’ grief. After everything the woman had done for her, it was the least V could offer.

Twisting in her chair — even though it caused her own bruises and wounds to twitch and ache — V rested a palm on Jackie’s cheek. Carefully, she used her thumb to wipe away a line of flaking red from the corner of his downturned lips.

“Nowhere. Stay here. Please. Keep him safe. I’ll be right back.”

“Understood. Mr. DeShawn awaits you in room two-oh-four.”

V let herself remain still. Lingered just a bit longer. Then gently pulled her hand away.

“See you in the major leagues, Jack.”

Even though she didn’t want to — and every ounce of her fought against the idea of leaving Jackie here for even a second — V opened the cab door and stepped out into the rain.

The door hissed shut behind her, sealing Jackie in silence. In solitude.

Like a coffin.

The thought was sudden and cruel and had her turning back, eyes searching through the mirrored glass for a glimpse of her friend. Like she needed to know he was still there.

And he was. Hunched. Broken. Unchanging.

Just as desperately as she’d sought to see him, V needed to look away. Couldn’t bear the sight. The reminder of what was truth.

The cab’s taillights cast long red streaks across the wet pavement, then dimmed as the engine powered down. The street swallowed the sound.

And V? She stood in the alley, rain slicking her skin, trash clinging to her boots, and forgot how to move. The chill bit deep, but she didn’t shiver. Her nerves were raw, exposed, humming like stripped wires. Yet she didn’t feel a damn thing other than a low churning in her gut and a faint buzz in her limbs.

A scuttling drone zipped past — low to the ground, as if it had made itself small enough no one would notice it. It skittered on twitchy spider-looking legs, its sensor array pulsing faint blue. Someone had tagged its chassis with a crude smiley face, half-erased by grime. It paused at her feet, scanned her boots, then clattered into a drainage grate, vanishing with a mechanical whine.

Titan Street stretched ahead — a corridor of decay locked in a time zone that had come and gone long ago. The buildings leaned inward, concrete giants hunched in conspiracy. Wind swept through them and whispered, like they too were judging her. Rusted signage blinked overhead: ROOMS BY THE HOUR. NO QUESTIONS ASKED. CLEAN ENOUGH. The letters flickered — some missing, some overwritten with gang tags and old protest glyphs.

A faded mural on the wall showed a woman with a chrome jaw and a crown of wires, her eyes hollowed out by epoch and weather.

The No-Tell Motel loomed above her — five stories of rot and resignation. Its facade was a patchwork of grime, graffiti, and broken promises. Like it knew what it was used for and had started to mirror the unsavoury acts that unfolded within. The atrium’s glass ceiling leaked light like a wound and inside, the air smelled of mildew, cheap disinfectant, and synthetic pheromones. The building hummed faintly, like instead of entering a building, she’d been sucked into the tubing of an old fluorescent light about to blow.

V passed the lobby, quiet, stiff, unsure of how she was making herself move, reflexively noting the lack of a receptionist. Just a wall-mounted AI terminal, its screen pulsing with light. Bright and pink and probably meant to be seen as welcoming.

“Greetings, valued guest. Room 204 is sanitized, and my records show no recent fatalities.”  

The voice was chipper. Too chipper. It echoed off cracked tile and water-stained walls like a threat wrapped in candy coating. Sweet, to hide the bitter.

V didn’t answer. Didn’t question how it knew why she was here or which room she was heading to. Nothing felt real. Maybe that was a blessing in disguise.

Every step deeper into the hotel’s interior revealed further rot. Sounds echoed from rooms she didn’t want to hear. Smells followed her nose like poison. Even the air felt heavy in her lungs.

The stairs groaned under her weight and led up to balconies wrapped around the atrium like a cage. Above, the glass ceiling distorted the city’s ever-present glow — a distant backdrop of flashing neon colours that bled into each other like smears of lipstick on an expensive shirt. It refracted through grime, giving it a sinful tinge. A flickering light buzzed overhead, casting shadows that moved along the wall even when she didn’t.

V counted each door as she passed them by, just for something to do. To keep her mind busy. When she looked up, Room 204 was there. Waiting.

The door was cheap wood, swollen from moisture, its grain warped into a permanent scowl. She knocked. Once. Twice. Then again, harder — not out of impatience, but to feel something solid push back against her skin. Or maybe she hoped if she hit it hard enough, she could punch her way out of this hellscape.

The door flew open, and a hand shot out — faster than she could draw her next breath — and yanked her inside by the scruff of her lapels.

Oleg Darkevich.

Chrome jaw glinting like a sneering smile in the dimmed light. Cheek plating winking like a dare. Black lenses where eyes should be, reflecting her own face at V like a mockery. His grip was firm, but not cruel.

“He waiting,” he said, voice low and flat, like a bored actor reading from a shit script.

The room beyond was dark, lit only by the flicker of a vending unit in the corner and a cheap-looking T.V. The walls were stained with old smoke and older secrets. The bed was unmade; sheets twisted like someone had tried to escape them. A braindance rig sat on the nightstand, still on. The screen displayed a frozen frame — a woman mid-scream, her eyes replaced with static.

V turned away and tried to pretend she hadn’t seen it. Wanted to scrub that little detail from her brain.

But not seeing it wouldn’t change the fact that the air was thick, polluted with the stink of cigars, body odour, and sex. V didn’t flinch. Didn’t curl her nose. She just stood there, dripping, blood drying on her hands, rain still clinging to her collar, and tried very hard not to breathe too deep.

Dex sat in the armchair like a man who’d already made up his mind. Thick legs spread like his balls were the size of watermelons. Gold chains dangling heavy across his chest. His eyes flicked to her, then past her. Like he was disappointed she dared to stand in his presence. A failure. An unwanted interruption of an otherwise pleasant evening.

Yeah well, I don’t exactly want to be here either.

“WNS, N54, even the pirate networks,” he said, voice low and gravelled. “You blowing up everywhere.”

He didn’t wait for her to respond.

“And the Jackster? He out in the car?”

V’s throat tightened. “Yeah.”

Dex raised an eyebrow.

“He’s there,” she said. “Dead.”

The word didn’t echo. It fell between Dex and herself like a cinderblock. Heavy.

Dex didn’t blink. Didn’t bother to even pretend he was sad to hear that news. “And the relic?”

V opened her mouth and nearly choked. As though her brain and mouth were at war. The silence stretched. Dex was probably wondering what her mental defect was as V grappled with the two sides of herself pulling her in different directions. It was natural for her to tell the truth. Just as she’d been about to. But something — a nagging sensation at the back of her neck — wouldn’t let her.

Maybe it was how cavalier Dex was about Jackie. Maybe it was the way the Fixer’s eyes seemed to look straight through her. But something told V to lie.

For a moment, she contemplated telling him anyway. Why bother with the lie when everything else about the heist had already gone tits up?

“No such luck.” Was what she grit out instead, her jaw locked uncomfortably around the untruth of her own words.

Relief flickered across Dex’s face — something quick and ugly on his already pig-like features. “Hm. That’s one piece o’ good news.”

V didn’t move. Didn’t blink. But something must have shown on her face.

Dex hefted his weight, rolling forward, elbows onto knees, and puffed out thick plumes of smoke from his cigar like a broken chimney. “Saburo Arasaka. Dead. You got any idea the shit you’ve pulled me into?”

“You’re the one that got us into this mess,” V countered, voice flat despite the indignant glint of rage she felt bloom in her chest like a flower made of fire.

“No one asked you to kill the old man!”

“That wasn’t us.”

Dex’s voice sharpened. “Try telling that to the ‘saka ninjas they send after you.”

The words bounced between them, seeming to echo louder each time they rebounded into V. Her jaw clenched. Her thumb found her teeth again, pressing hard, biting down on meat and bone until she tasted blood — but it was old. Not hers. So it didn’t help.

“Parker’s gone dark,” Dex muttered. “Eddies are frozen. My name’s on a dozen lists by now. You think I can walk away from this?”

V said nothing. Because there was nothing left to say. Truth be told, she couldn’t give a single crap what Dex did. It wouldn’t change what waited for her in Delamain’s backseat.

Dex looked her over — a flick of narrowed eyes. “Your face is a mess. Go wash up.”

She nodded. Not because he told her to — but because she needed a reason to move. Like if she stayed still for too long, she’d start to dissolve. Fade away bit by bit until nothing was left.

V turned and left Dex mumbling over the holo, turning her head to watch the wall as she passed the bed.

The bathroom was barely a room. More akin to a closet with its guts scooped out. Nothing but cracked tiles, a rust-eaten toilet that didn’t look like it flushed, a shower stall the size of a locker, and a tiny sink bolted to the wall. The mirror above it was warped, its edges flaking silver onto age-yellow porcelain. A single spluttering light illuminated the cramped space in shades of sickly yellow.

Something crunched under her boots when she walked in, but V didn’t bother looking. Merely moved to grip the sink like it could hold her back. Water sputtered from the tap — brown at first, then mostly clear. She splashed her face, watched blood swirl down the drain, and wished she could go with it — slip away, be flushed out of this moment, this body, this mess.

When V finally forced herself to look up, her reflection stared back — pale, hollow-eyed, smeared with guilt and coloured with bruises. Not chrome. Not wires. Just bone. Bone and blood and failure.

She was supposed to be enough. She had promised Jackie she could do this. That he could count on her.

What a fuckin’ crock.

Her fist hit the mirror. Quick and clean. A single jab that shattered glass and scattered her reflection into sharp, uneven fragments that crumbled down into the sink. An impulsive action that didn’t make her feel any better. Didn’t make her feel anything, really.

V left the bathroom as quietly as she had entered it, hand bleeding, breath shallow, eyes pinned on the wall to her right. Never, ever wanting to see what stained those tangled sheets on the bed.

So she never saw it coming. Didn’t see him.

Oleg.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t posture. Just moved — fast, brutal, practiced. His fist slammed into her cheek, a sharp crack of bone and impact. Her head snapped sideways, a spray of blood following soon after. The floor rushed up to meet her — a surprisingly solid foundation of rough carpet that felt like sandpaper as she bounced and then slid against it. Winded and dazed. Reeling and confused.

The room spun. Her vision blurred. She tried to roll, arms flailing like unruly wires — but Oleg was already above her.

V got a single flash of the underside of a boot before it came down — once, twice — heavy and deliberate. Her arms curled up, trying to protect her head, but they were too thin, too slow. The second kick caught her in the ribs. Pain bloomed, hot and immediate. Her body folded inward. Small, half-choked wheezes burst from her lips — involuntary, helpless, and animal.

V tasted copper. Felt blood pool in her mouth. Her fingers scrabbled against the carpet, searching for something solid, something real. But the floor offered nothing, nothing but soggy fibres, sour with mould and old sweat.

The vending machine blinked in the corner, indifferent.

CLEAN-UP PROTOCOL — 500 EDDIES.

"Would you like to sanitize this space?"

Dex hadn’t moved.

He was still in the chair, one elbow resting on the armrest, holo display flickering in front of his face. His voice was low, murmuring to someone she couldn’t see. His expression was unreadable — not angry, not gleeful. Just… absent. Like he’d already filed her under problem solved.

Oleg stepped back. Not far. Just enough to give Dex a clear view of V curled up on the carpet. A tight, tiny ball trying to make itself disappear.

The call ended. The holo vanished. And then, Dex looked at her.

Not like a person. Not like a partner who’d bled for him. But like a man checking the time, weighing the cost of a delay.

“I just can’t risk it,” he said.

V tried to speak, but all she could manage was a wet gurgle — juggling broken teeth on her tongue, trying not to choke. She didn’t beg. Didn’t plead. But her eyes locked onto his — searching for something, anything. A flicker of doubt. A splinter of mercy. Anything that might not completely crush the last grain of hope from her soul.

There was nothing.

Dex heaved himself out of the chair like he was prying himself away from a lover. His movements slow. Exaggerated. As if everything was happening in slow motion.

Oleg stepped forward, gun presented like something precious. Something delicate and breakable. And Dex took it — gentle, careful, a caress of fingers against the gold-plated trigger. The metal caught the light — bold, bright, familiar.

V’s breath hitched as hope turned to ash in her mouth.

She knew.

She’d suspected, felt it in her bones the moment Oleg had grabbed her, but now it was real. The shape of the gun. The silence in the room. The way Dex didn’t look angry — just infinitely tired. Like he’d had to do this so many times before, and now it was nothing but a normal Tuesday.

V wasn’t walking out of this room. She wouldn’t see Vik again. She wouldn’t be there to comfort Mama Welles when Jackie was… delivered. Never again would she watch the city lights from her apartment window and fantasize about the types of lives the people below lived. She wouldn’t jack in, wouldn’t chase the next gig, wouldn’t touch netspace again.

She was going to die here.

In a motel room that smelled like mildew and betrayal.

Dex raised the gun, sighted her down the barrel, and offered her a half-hearted shrug.

“Sorry, V.”

And in that final moment, her mind drifted — not to fear, not to pain, but to Jackie.

His grin. His voice. The way he’d said it like a promise.

“See you in the major leag—”

End.

Chapter Text

They came for the music, but left with ghosts in their lungs.
Every note was a wound. Every lyric, a funeral.
He didn’t sing to be heard. He sang to burn.

Darkness hummed around her like a machine breathing — steady, patient, alive. It wrapped her like a cocoon, circuits whispering warmth. She floated. Not falling. Held. As if the wires remembered her shape.

Then — a flicker. A pulse. Less heartbeat than jolt.

Doors resolved first: heavy pushbars, paint peeled to raw wood, hinges clicking into slow, obscene compliance. Close enough to touch. Close enough to prove she wasn’t just a flicker on a console.

Hands filled the frame. One chrome, segmented knuckles wrapped around a pistol. The other, skin — tanned, inked in bold lines that crawled up the arm. Not her hands. Not her.

They threw open the doors so hard the frame shuddered. Flaking paint danced like dandruff in bile-colored light.

Fluorescents coughed overhead — some dim ghosts, some stabbing sun — throwing puddles of jaundice that made the plaster look like old skin stretched too tight. Graffiti scarred the walls: raw tags slashed over fossilized slogans like poorly applied gauze. To the right, a mural bled a face — a singer mid-scream, chrome arm raised in accusation. She didn’t know the man, yet something in her gut twanged. A chord she couldn’t name. Pride? Memory misfiled as feeling.

No time to be tidy. The line tugged her forward.

Boots crunched glass. Flyers, soft and wet with grime, slid underfoot like old promises. The air was thick with the city’s breath — burnt plastic, spilled beer, a sweetness like old tears.

Half in shadow leaned a woman carved from gloom: chrome elbow, ink that read like a map. She wore waiting like armor.

Tch. Fucking groupie.

The thought was a hot pebble in V’s mouth — sour, not entirely hers. A reflex borrowed from someone else’s bitterness. Still, she watched. High cheekbones. A jaw that practiced trouble. Eyes holding a private joke.

“Hey Jjjj— //echo not found.”

Vision smeared into error. Code tore across the edges of sight. Static matted the moment. The corridor inhaled; walls closed like a throat trying words on and failing. Digital dust bobbed at the periphery like names waiting to be read.

“Y0u o O ok@@@@y?” the woman called, voice laced with modem whine — beeps and grinding wail braided awkwardly into human cadence.

Nausea crawled the back of V’s tongue. Burning plastic stung her nose — a sour chemical apology. Too much. Too fast. Too loud. Too quiet.

Then — a slashed answer: “Never been better.”

Relief dropped blunt and wrong, like a smile forced on a corpse. The voice wasn’t hers. It rasped, close, a match struck in the ear.

The words felt queued up in someone else’s mouth.

The woman didn’t buy it. Her stance shifted — not panic, not surprise. Just quiet recalibration. Chrome fingers flexed toward the heat tucked into her waistband. A decision to disengage.

“Sure don’t look it.”

V didn’t answer. Couldn’t. She howled questions that never left her lips.

Who are you?
Where am I?
What’s going on?
What is this place?

She moved anyway, arrogant in her steps. Lips curved in a half-grin that tasted of habit and muscle memory.

Around the corner, jittering against the far-left wall, was another. A man. Fingers twitching like he was strumming a phantom guitar. Eyes darting, never settling. Wired too tight. Every movement a stutter. Every breath shallow.

“I—I can’t let you on,” he said.

He didn’t mean it. Didn’t move to block the door. Bound by protocol. Eyes flicked to V’s chrome arm, then back to her face. His jaw clenched — not determined, but like he was holding back a scream.

V didn’t know what she was doing until it was done.

Her arm moved — fast, fluid, brutal. Grabbed his collar. Spun him. Slammed him into the wall. The mirror bounced, trying to flee the scene.

She felt the squeak of leather, the strain of fabric, the heat of his breath — all in detail. But none of it felt like hers.

Her leg slid between his. Her body pressed close. Her arm rose, pinning his throat with surgical precision.

She didn’t think.

She executed.

The man choked. Not a scream — a wet, startled hurk. His hands flailed, not to fight, but to beg.

V blinked — surfaced from depth — and thought, What the fuck am I doing?

Her face betrayed nothing. The mouth held its arrogant tilt. The man’s eyes changed — not fear. Something like worship. An animal’s recognition.

“Silverhand,” he breathed.

The name hit like a fuse. She didn’t know it, yet the syllable slotted into a hollow in her spine and sparked. Recognition without recall. A radio station finally tuned.

Silverhand.

The man’s eyes widened — awe, not terror. Reverence. Like he was staring at a legend. Or a bomb.

She held him there. Metal to skin. Breaths tangled in twisted intimacy. Then, like a passing storm, she dropped him and stepped away.

A nasty thought slid through her skull — Never did like Martin. Always giving Kerry eyes like he’s got a chance. Bitterness tasting of someone else’s history.

No answers. Just her body pulled along like packaged goods on a conveyor belt.

She turned. Boots crunching glass. For a split-second, saw herself mirrored in wobbling glass. A lean face shadowed by jet-black curls. Shaved on one side. Streaked with sweat and grime. Strong jaw. Stubble. Full lips set in a hard, rebellious line.

None of it mattered.

The moment brown eyes met hers — eyes so dark they swallowed light — everything else vanished.

W…Who the heck was that?

Her voice. Her confusion. A bird lost in storm winds.

No answer came.

The doors Martin had been guarding peeled open like a wound. Light bled through — red, pulsing, strobing in time with music that thrummed through her bones.

V perked. She knew this song.

Chip something?

She thought she knew it. Overplayed electro-pop. Faux rebellion. But this version?

This wasn’t that.

The rhythm was wrong. Lyrics twisted. Tone mocking and raw. Not a love letter to partying — a threat. A lullaby sung in a stranger’s voice. Familiar notes turned sour.

The air was thick. Smoke. Sweat. Ozone. Bottles stacked. Guitars half-tuned. A snare drum with a cracked head. A girl perched on a speaker, eyes glazed — waiting for someone worth waiting for.

A big guy stood nearby. Red pants. Arms crossed. Jaw clenched. He didn’t speak. Just watched.

She didn’t give him a cue.

V lit a cigarette with a flick of her thumb. Chrome caught the flame. A practiced movement that felt foreign. She didn’t smoke. But she inhaled. Held it. Exhaled.

The smoke curled like a signal.

She turned. Or the body did. Toward the stage.

No rush. No flourish. Just inevitability.

The curtain wasn’t a curtain. Just a gap in the wall. Cables like veins. The crowd beyond — blur, noise, heat. Fists raised. Eyes shining. Devotion humming like electricity.

Kerry was mid-chorus. His voice cracked. He saw her.

And stopped.

Not just the song. Everything. His stance. His breath. His certainty.

He moved away. Not fear. Not reverence.

History.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t fight. Just nodded. Made room.

V felt numb. Then terror. The body moved to take the space.

She didn’t speak. Just stood there. Pistol in chrome hand. Adjusted the mic.

Silence stretched.

The crowd leaned in.

She spoke — rough, cracked, soaked in smoke and fury.

“Tonight, I’m saying goodbye.”

V watched, waited, ready for any sort of clarity. All that came however, was a flash of fury and fire in her mind. Bitter as coffee and as sharp as glass. 

And if the city’s listening, maybe it’ll finally shut the fuck up.

The crowd detonated.

She holstered the pistol. A roadie stepped forward. Guitar in hand. V took it — not gentle. Just inevitable. Slung it over her shoulder. Fingers twitched. The riff already alive in her bones.

And V, trapped inside this body with a life of its own, felt every note like a wound. 

But it wasn’t Chippin’ In. It was something more explosive. Heavier. A song V didn’t recognise. 

The melody was raw — aching, deliberate, laced with finality. The crowd sang along, fists raised, eyes shining. But the lyrics were wrong. Twisted. Warped like corrupted data. 

Words bent mid-syllable. Lines reversed, then reassembled. Whole verses dropped out, replaced by static. V strained to understand, but the meaning slipped through her like smoke. 

She didn’t know the song. 

She didn’t know why it hurt. 

But it did. 

The sound warped — guitar notes stretched too long, then snapped back. Kerry’s harmony glitched, replaced by a burst of white noise. The mic in V’s hand pixelated, then re-rendered in chrome. 

The lights flickered. The crowd smeared. A woman in the front row split into three, then collapsed back into one. The cobra tattoo on her organic hand seemed to shift — its eyes glowing, pulsing like a warning. 

V tried to scream, but she didn’t have a mouth. Or maybe she did, but it wouldn’t listen. 

The stage fractured. The music slowed, then sped, then vanished. 

And then — 

She was somewhere else. 

No transition. No fade. Just cut, boom and she was backstage. 

The roar of the crowd muffled, distant, like it was happening underwater. Smoke and sweat still clung to the air, but quieter now. Dimmer.

She sat on a crate, one boot planted, elbow resting on her knee. Took a long drag of a cigarette she didn’t remember lighting. It stank like burning rubber. Despite the disgust curling in her gut, she held it. Locked it in her lungs. Exhaled.

The smoke left her like it was hers. The heat. The ache. The moment of stillness before the next storm.

She wanted to scream. To claw her way out. But there was no exit. No interface. No prompt.

Just the taste of nicotine and the weight of someone else’s breath.

A voice cut through the haze.

“You’re wastin’ your lives, followin’ us around like dogs.”

It wasn’t hers. It wasn’t meant for her. But it came from her throat.

She turned — or the body did — and saw them. Two girls on the couch. One blinked slowly, unimpressed. The other flinched, wounded by the dismissal.

“What crawled up your ass?”

She didn’t answer. Couldn’t. The body was already rising, already moving. Toward the exit. Toward the next scene.

A voice called out — male, familiar, desperate.

“J—[AUDIO FILE CORRUPTED]—wait up! Don’t do this. You can still change your mind.”
The voice stuttered through her like a broken modem. V flinched, unsure if the pain was hers or his.

He caught up. Hair tousled, eyes wide. Grief tucked behind bravado.

“Get over here, man. Fuck this band. Not your crowd, not your noise — do your own thing.”

The body turned. Looked him in the eye.

“Bastard,” he muttered. “Tsh… Gonna miss you something awful.”

A pause. Then a grin. Crooked. Final.

“See ya in the next life, friend.”

The words landed like a joke but rang like a eulogy.
V felt it — not hers, but his. A pang buried deep, grief misfiled as bravado.
The grin was crooked, but the goodbye was clean. Too clean.
It left her throat tight, her chest hollow.
She didn’t know him. Didn’t know the man she was riding.
But something in her gut whispered: this hurts more than it should.

She turned away.

The door opened. The night outside was loud — sirens, shouting, the thrum of rotors overhead. A helicopter waited, blades already spinning.

“You’re late,” snapped a woman dark hair and a sour attitude.

“Love it when you’re mad,” the voice said. “Gets my southern blood pumpin’.”

V rolled her eyes. A sentiment the darkhaired moment echoed, because she followed the action with her own. Turning on the heel of her beets with a disgusted ‘ugh.’

“Get in. ’Fore I change my mind.”

She climbed aboard, easy, casual, like this wasn’t her first time. She also didn’t turn to see if V had followed.

V did, rolling forwards like time itself would wait. As V climbed up and in, her eyes landed on a figure tucked to the side. Pulling as much of his muscles bulk against the edge of the door to make room.

“Hey,” said the huge man in chrome.

“Hey, Shaitan.” she replied, the name dripping from her tongue, easy and rehearsed.

“Here, put these’s on, and they fucking stay on!” The darkhaired bitch was next to V, features pulled up into a dark scowl that aged her about thirty years.

She nodded. Slipped it over her ears. The world narrowed to static and gunfire. 

They lifted off. Her hand flicked the cigarette out the open door, ember trailing like a comet. Below, the club shrank into neon haze. 

Then — another glitch. A stumbled in time.

The sky burned. Pacifica was cut off. APCs rolled through Watson. The city was already bleeding. 

“Piers’re on fire,” Shaitan muttered. 

“Sons of bitches,” she growled. 

“Skull-crackin’ out there,” said Thompson. “That us?” 

“FAILED (remote: Partition system not found)’s idea,” Rogue replied. “Weyland’s drawing Arasaka’s attention away from the tower.” 

“Collateral damage part of the plan too?” 

“This ain’t the Cub Scouts, Thompson. Chew it up, spit it out.” 

“Target range acquired,” Shaitan said. 

“Make it rain.” 

The gunfire started. Then the scream. Shaitan hit. Blood. Chaos. 

“[ERROR: FILE CORRUPTED]” Rogue shouted. “Shaitan!” 

“Taking over!” she barked, grabbing the controls. 

V felt it all — the weight of the gun, the recoil, the heat. But none of it was hers. 

She was just along for the ride. 

Steel and glass, lit from within like a wound that wouldn’t close. Arasaka. The name burned behind her eyes. Not hers — his. But the fury felt real. 

The helicopter dipped low. Wind howled. Sirens wailed. The city below was chaos — fire, smoke, the flicker of tracer rounds. A warzone dressed in neon. 

“Everybody! Jump!” the pilot shouted. 

She moved without hesitation. The body knew the rhythm. Knew the drop. Boots hit the rooftop hard. Rolled. Came up with the pistol already raised. 

Guards. Screaming. Muzzle flashes. Blood. 

She didn’t aim. Didn’t think. Just moved. The gun kicked against her palm, and bodies dropped like corrupted data. V felt every shot — the recoil, the heat, the sickening weight of impact — but her hands weren’t on the trigger. 

“Murphy?” Rogue’s voice crackled in her ear. 

“Found our access point. Get moving.”

The team surged forward.

Her team.

No — not hers.

She didn’t know these people.

But their voices rang in her skull like old songs she couldn’t forget.

“Jjj—

                   00 : 00 : 00 . 826  E  Loader Load: No ExeFS found in Memory Fragment.

The world went static.

Red. Angry.

Then cut to black.

As though she’d fallen asleep but stayed conscious.

As though her mind had been unplugged mid-thought.

V twitched in the darkness. Choking on broken syntax.

It wasn’t peaceful.

It was fire in her synapses.

A void stepped in errors.

She tried to scream.

No mouth.

She tried to move.

No body.

Just the ache of corrupted data.

Vision flickered. Then continued.

But even as she strained to hear, there was no sound.

Just flashes.

Rogue’s face — twisted in a snarl.

Mouth moving.

No voice.

Then — darkness.

00 : 00 : 00 . 082  N  Application PrintSystemInfo: Launch Mode : UserProfile

               00 : 00 : 00 . 101  I  Gpu : Backend Threading (Audio): True

                         00 : 00 : 00 . 811  I  Application LoadApplication: Loading as Memory Fragment.

                                  00 : 00 : 00 . 826  E  Loader Load: No ExeFS found in Memory Fragment.

00 : 00 : 00 . 827  W  Loader GetMemfrag: Memory file not found, using default values!

          00 : 00 : 00 . 946  I  Program Initialize: Initializing Profiled Memory Cache (enabled: True).

                 00 : 00 : 00 . 960  E  Loader LoadCache: Process initialization returned error ‘InvalidMemoryRegion’.

She didn’t know what any of it meant.

But her body did.

It shivered.

It rebooted.

And then — the scene resumed.

No apology.

No explanation.

Just motion.

Rogue shouting.

Gunfire.

The rooftop spinning back into place like nothing had happened.

V blinked.

The stutter was gone. But the dread remained.

-“Get the payload on the elevator, arm it, let gravity do its thing,” Rogue was yelling, part panic, part urgency, all wrath.

-

Something skipped, a moment not meant for her.

“-Explosion rocks the foundation, tower crumbles — chaos, screaming, roll credits.” 

The words came unbidden. Like a script she couldn’t stop reading. 

“Exit window’s gonna be tight,” Rogue warned. 

“Jacking in,” said Murphy. “Is grass green, do birds fly, do cats eat bats, do rats shit gnats?” 

“Mainframe’s not your playground, Murphy,” Rogue snapped. “Evac announcement — broadcast it across all frequencies. Let’s move.” 

“Sheesh. Who wrote this manifesto?” 

“Really need me to answer that?” 

“Jesus, [AUDIO FILE CORRUPTED]—,” Murphy muttered. “You’ve gone off the deep end. And that’s coming from a chairjock.” 

They breached the door. More guards. More blood. The pistol barked. V felt the heat of it in her arms, the sting of gunpowder in her nose. But she wasn’t the one pulling the trigger. 

“Come on! Get ready!” Rogue shouted. “Murph?” 

“She sought it with thimbles, she sought it with care, pursued it with forks and hope…” 

“//echo not found. Payload.” 

The elevator doors yawned open. She stepped inside. Dropped to one knee. Planted the bomb. 

“‘Bushido II’ — bomb’s name was what?” V felt her lips move, throat flexing as the words took shape in her mouth.

“Wrap it up, we gotta delta!” 

“The Demolitron,” A answer, one of few. Also found in her own mouth. But these wasn’t the rasp in which she’s first asked. It sounded similar but the cadence was off. The tone just that bit flatter. V was certain she’d spoken, but it echoed… wrong.  “We’re good to blow.” 

“’Saka elites incoming!” Thompson shouted. “Run for it!” 

“Get the fuck out of there!” Rogue’s voice cracked. “Shoot the cables! Get the rotors spinning! We’re on our way!” 

But the body didn’t move. 

“Not done yet,” she said. “Still need to feed this to their subnet.” 

“I fucking knew it!” Rogue snapped. “This was never about corporate colonialism — this was about your groupie output, wasn’t it?!” 

“You wouldn’t understand, Rogue.” 

“Givin’ you four fuckin’ minutes. Chopper’s not gonna wait one sec longer.” 

“Door lock breached,” Murphy warned. “Arasaka sons-a-bitches incoming.” 

“Love you, Spider.” 

“Whole world loves me.” 

“Fuuuck!” she hissed. “Closing in on the access point.” 

“Slot in. Sweet ICE-breaker. Foreign, right? Just wonder if we know anyone who can switch the subnet protocol…” 

“Hilarious. You gonna help or not?” 

“Do spiders spin webs? It’s time we caught some flies.” 

“Thanks, Murph.” 

“Now, just for good measure… Holy cybercow, we’re on TV! Take a look.” 

The screen flickered. A news anchor, calm and polished, spoke over footage of the tower. 

“An unidentified terrorist organization released a manifesto threatening violence… ‘topple a monument to corporate colonialism’…” 

V felt her stomach twist. Not from guilt. From the weight of inevitability. The script was still running. She couldn’t stop it. 

The rooftop blurred. 

Smoke. Wind. The thrum of rotors overhead. The city screamed beneath them — sirens, gunfire, the distant roar of collapsing infrastructure. 

She ran. 

Not by choice. The body moved on instinct, boots pounding metal, lungs burning with someone else’s breath. 

“Murphy?!” she shouted voice cracking through the comms. 

“Door’s sealed,” Murphy replied. “But it won’t hold for long. Run. Like the wind.” 

She ran.

Not by choice. The body moved on instinct, boots pounding metal, lungs burning with someone else’s breath.

“Move!”

She reached — chrome fingers outstretched — and for a breath, the grip locked. A hand. Real. Solid. Human.

Then the rocket hit.

The explosion tore through the air. Heat. Light. Finality.

The chopper lurched. Metal shrieked, and the woman echoed its chorus — not in fear, but in fury. The grip slipped.

She fell.

Not far. Not fast. But enough.

The rooftop caught her like a punch. The breath left her lungs. The world spun.

And then he was there.

A shadow in chrome. Towering. Inevitable.

“Told ya, J- FAILED (remote: Partition system not found). Told you I’d end you someday.”

She tried to move. The body twisted. Reached for the pistol.

Too slow.

The shot rang out. Her arm exploded in sparks and metal. Chrome shattered. Wires flailed. Pain lanced through her.

She screamed.

But it wasn’t her voice.

Another glitch.

She was on a gurney. Strapped down. Lights overhead. Cold metal beneath her.

Japanese voices. Clinical. Detached.

“Yes, he’s still alive.”
“Understood. We’re en route.”

Another glitch.

A room. Dim. Sterile. An agent loomed over her, face blank, eyes cold.

“Let us try once more.” Then slapped her.

Her head snapped sideways. Pain bloomed. The body groaned.

“Your associates — who are they? How did you acquire fissile material?”

She blinked. Tried to speak. The mouth moved without her.

“Gonna give good cop over there a chance to say something? C’mooon…”

The agent didn’t laugh. Just drove a fist into her gut.

“Which terrorist organization do you belong to? How did you acquire fissile material?”

The door opened.

An old man stepped in. Regal. Cold. Eyes like knives.

“Leave us. I wish to look him in the eye.”

She looked back, out the window, and right into the skyline. Against the thick velvet of night, the tower burned bright like a beacon.

“Hot damn. Done and gone.”

Another voice. A techie. Quiet. Bitter.

“My husband died in that tower. But there are fates worse than death…”

She placed something on V’s head. A halo. Cold. Heavy.

V flinched. But the body didn’t resist.

“I didn’t want him to die,” she said, simple, the truth.

The old man’s voice was calm. Almost gentle.

“Why did you do this?”

The techie echoed him.

“Why did you do this?”

V answered. Not with defiance. Not with rage.

With truth.

“To bring an end to the madness you wreak.”

The old man nodded. Slowly. Like he’d heard it all before.

“People lie — most often to themselves.
Not so the dead.
The dead are so very, very loud. And yet, lying is not in their nature.
It is so… humbling — to listen to the dead speak.”

“Begin.”

The halo clamped down. Cold metal. To tight. It pulled at her hair.
Light flared behind her eyes — not illumination, but extraction.
Her limbs convulsed. Her breath caught. Half expecting agony.

But there wasn’t.

V stirred in her prison, feeling the press of her mind brushing Netspace. It felt like coming home. Warm arms extending out to embrace her.

The feeling quickly changed when that same fimilar place turned on her, all teeth and anger.

V, the body, screamed. For once perfectly in unison.

The sound tore from her throat — raw, ragged, real. Not her voice. Not entirely. Something in between. Something breaking.

And then — the flood.

Flashes. Heat. Screams.
A kiss in a back alley. A riot in a club.
A woman’s laughter, then silence.
The smell of gunpowder. The taste of blood.
A hand on a shoulder — too late, too soft.
Every thought. Every fight. Every tenderness.
All of it twisted into code.

It didn’t come in order.
It came like fire — chaotic, hungry, cruel.

She felt it all.

As though it were own pain.

Her own memories being torn to shreds before her eyes.

Like she was being packed.
Stacked.
Compressed into composite.
A life reduced to data — not erased, but flattened.
A soul turned into syntax. A man turned into metadata.

Then — silence.

Not peace. Not stillness.

Just absence.

No breath. No heartbeat. No body.

She floated in static. A sea of white noise.
Time unspooled. Memory bled.

V screamed again.
But this time, it wasn’t pain.
It was terror.

Because this wasn’t death.
It was something worse.

She was V.
She was him.
She was no one.

And the static held her like a coffin.

End.