the baleful primal

“HE’S FUCKED IN THE HEAD, THE WORLD’S FUCKED IN THE HEAD – AND YOU’RE FUCKED IN THE HEAD ‘CAUSE MY FUCKED UP HEAD IS INSIDE IT. GUESS IF YOU WANT TO SAVE THE WORLD, THAT’S THE FIRST STEP – GET FUCKED IN THE HEAD.”

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Jackie used to say there was something about the City of Dreams that kept pulling him back into the thick of it all. That legends were made, not born, in these streets, then immortalized in the neon green of the Afterlife. V always thought of Night City as a beast that only followed one rule: eat or be eaten. And like a beast, it was alive, unreadable, and unpredictable, even to its natives.

With an arm wrapped around her stomach, V leaned back in the red patio chair she had collapsed into, shutting her eyes while sifting through memories of past jobs, with Jackie and as a solo. Tonight, she needed to remind herself why she had become a merc in the first place: to nail corpo fuckwads who treat people like products to the wall, one bullet at a time. 

But the fight became personal. Very personal.

From the rooftop of Megabuilding H10, she could see the crawling Heywood traffic below as the sun painted the skies bloody. Neon signage illuminated back alleyways filled gang members and graffiti, and somewhere nearby a radio was cranked. The scent of greasy food and city vapors wafted up to her, and V tried to ignore the throbbing pain in her entire body by remembering Jackie instead.

“You scared the fuck outta me, y’know that? Thought you were going to die in there, the way you were bleedin’.”

Johnny Silverhand’s engram shimmered into existence and sat down on the rooftop ledge, lighting a cigarette. Infamous as both a rockerboy and terrorist, V long thought Johnny was just a self-centered prick with an ego bigger than Night City’s crime rate and a pointless vendetta against Arasaka. But the longer they were attached, the more she saw of who he had once been: a veteran of a war that was never his, that never played fair, and ended more lives of men and women long after its conclusion. Sure, he was still a prick, but now V knew there was more to him than that. 

Johnny removed his aviators, sparing a disdainful glance at the city skyline before turning his full attention to the dying woman before him.

Slumped in her chair, V met his stare comfortably. Vibrant cerulean hair fell in waves over shoulders, drying blood sprinkled over her shirt from nearly flatlining. Mecha-blue and green eyes were giving the rockerboy a once-over before settling somewhere around the ledge and his knees.

“Nope, still here,” she exhaled, unsure if she felt relieved or disappointed, then winced at the thought.

“We’re running out of time, V, we’ve gotta get ourselves into Mikoshi if we both want to make it out alive,” he began, but stopped abruptly as V shook her head. “What? Don’t tell you don’t want to go?”

“Johnny, I barely made it up those fucking stairs, never mind that you had to drag my unconscious ass halfway across the city to make it to Vik’s,” she replied with a pained smile. “I won’t make it to Arasaka Tower. Not like this, I’m not.”

On her left knee, V delicately balanced the pistol Viktor had given her, while the pills Misty had offered were held loosely in her right hand. She shut her eyes once more. She was exhausted, drained.

With an overabundance of gentleness he had shown only once, Johnny took up Misty’s chair next to the merc.

“I could get us there. Your body moves when I’m driving. Alt said she’d be waiting for us when we get there, all we have to do is smash through ‘Saka security, drop down a few floors of the tower, and boom. We’re in.”

V didn’t open her eyes as she said, “Just like that, huh? Fuck whatever tech is hiding up their sleeves, fuck the mechas, fuck Adam Smasher?”

He didn’t reply, and V didn’t press him any further. Instead, she picked up the pistol and weighed it in her palm as Johnny watched, resting his cheek on clasped hands with a deep breath.

“… I know I’ve been a dickhole, about a lotta things since we met. But I want you to understand that at the end of the day, I’ll go along with whatever you choose: no arguments, no ultimatums.”

He leaned towards her, his face soft. “But I also want you to know that you’re my best friend, Vale. And if I can save only one person in my entire fucked up life and death, I want it to be you. I… it will always be your choice. Your body.” He paused. “Your heart.”

V’s hand shook as she wrapped it around the pistol grip, knuckles white. When she opened her eyes, they were brighter than before.

“I know.”

With a choked half-sob, she rose from her chair and hurled the gun off the roof, watching it sail towards the streets below. She didn’t care where it was going, as long as it was far away from her. Johnny went to her side as V held out a bloody hand between them, palm up. The remaining pseudoendotrizine lay there. 

“What’s the plan, gonna ask Rogue for help?”

He nodded, stamping his cigarette out. “Yeah. Rogue’s got unfinished business with Adam Smasher, that should be enough to get her there. I’ve got a couple favours to call in, so we won’t be going in alone. Between that and my usual charming self, should be a walk in the park.”

They held one another’s gaze, V absently reaching up to touch the dog tags that hung around her neck. After a particularly rough Relic malfunction, she had awoken at the Pistis Sophia, a derelict hotel in the south end of Pacifica. Johnny had led her to a trashed room where he had hidden an army friend’s dog tags decades ago. He gifted them to V, as physical reminder of his promise to do right by her, and she hadn’t taken them off since.

She decided she didn’t want to know what the plan was, or what favours he had on standby, or how he was going to pull this off. She didn’t need to know, not this time. 

“I trust you.”

V tossed the pills in her dry mouth, swallowing hard. Her vision began to blur almost immediately as the pseudoendotrizine sank its teeth into her weakened system. Vertigo gripped V and she stumbled, the neon lights doubling up as she headed towards the ledge.

A hand clasped her arm tight, another around her waist as she was pulled backwards into something solid and warm that she couldn’t see, or at least recognize.

“I’ve got this under control, V. See you on the other side.”

The last thing V saw before everything went dark was the glint of aviators in the dying sunlight.

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