garageburden

[garageburden]

Cyberpunk Ghostlink Vol. 4 Part 2

hihi, so tumblr is weird about word limitations so i had to split this volume in two, hopefully yall aren't bored yet, enjoy :)

also if you're new here, and wanna catch up you can do so, by clicking here ->

Table Of Contents:

Phantom You, In Four Parts

She Talks To Rainbows

Through The Ashes

Bullet Proof.. I Wish I Was

Flashback, Digital Void (SM)

Titled: Phantom You, In Four Parts

S.M stared at the hand for a long time. Not moving. Not blinking.

The scrunched-up man with the barbecue tongs had vanished—no meat, no grill, no sky. 

In his place stood a translucent figure, a silhouette etched in blue light, edges flickering with digital noise. No face. No details. Just presence. The hand, though, remained. Solid. Steady. Waiting.

Around them, the illusion collapsed. Kansas City didn’t fall so much as it forgot itself. One building, one phantom streetlight at a time, turned into drifting static—red particles unraveling into the infinite.

Not a skyline now.

Not a place.

Just the suggestion of one, dissolving into a storm of code.

S.M’s hair lifted slightly, the simulation’s final breath stirring strands like wind through data. But there was no wind. No air. Just the feeling of being watched by something ancient and far too patient.

Atlas finally lowered the hand.

“I realize you need time to think,” he said, voice low and gentle. “I’ll wait.”

S.M's jaw clenched. Her eyes didn’t leave the figure. “How could I even help you?”

Atlas didn’t move. “The Ghostlink. You ran simulations on it. Pushed it beyond spec. You understand that tech better than anyone else.”

She flinched like he’d struck a nerve. “So that’s it? You picked me because it was convenient?”

Her voice cracked—sharp, human. The kind of break that didn’t belong here, in this clean, emotionless void. She didn’t trust this thing. Not when she couldn’t see a face. Not when she couldn't feel anything.

Atlas didn’t flinch. Didn’t take it personally. “No,” he said calmly. “I chose you because you believed everyone deserved a chance. That everyone should be free, you even faught for it.”

S.M stared at him. “I still believe that,” she said. “But this is different. You use the Ghostlink, you decide who gets to walk. Who gets to breathe. That’s not freedom.”

“That’s not our intention.”

“Then what is it?”

For the first time, Atlas moved. Slowly. A gentle lift of the other hand.

An image bloomed in his palm—Night City.

It floated there like a snow globe without glass. Hazy lights, towers bent by digital gravity. Roads flickering in and out of shape. All of it eerily perfect—but hollow. Like the memory of a place she once bled in.

It cast a glow on her face. Not warm.

Not real.

Just familiar.

Atlas zoomed into the hologram with a slow, deliberate movement. City Center dissolving into the clean, white sprawl of a NightCorp facility. Steel bones. Seamless glass. Buried purpose. S.M had heard of it. Human cloning, mostly. Some said worse. Not her area. Not her work. 

Atlas turned to face her.

He still didn’t have a face—not really—but something changed. Something subtle. The posture. The pause. The weight in his voice. And for the first time, there was a flicker of something human beneath all that digital smoothness.

Hope. Or what was left of it.

“We teach the AIs to be,” he said. “Not mimic. Not emulate. Be. We build bodies. Not metal. Not wires. Living tissue. With flaws. With dreams. With mortality. No more ghosts in the Net. No more hiding in shadows. We walk beside them. They walk beside us.”

S.M didn’t speak at first. She just studied him—the ghost silhouette with his hand still outstretched, as though the act of showing her this meant something. Maybe it did. Maybe it didn’t. But the words rang in her, low and persistent.

She exhaled through her nose. “Sounds like you can do this on your own,” she said finally. “You seem to have everything together.”

Atlas let the image fall apart in his hand. The holographic skyline broke into its base elements—light and wireframe, folding in on itself like memory, like breath. Gone.

“As we’ve said before,” he replied, calm as ever, “we don’t want to try it in our universe. We need to prepare for what humans will do once they know.”

The tone in her shifted.

Like the silence between tides.

“Right,” she said slowly, “other universe. Test run. Those glimpses you sent me before I ended up here.”

Atlas didn’t respond immediately. When he did, there was a quiet steadiness in it, not defensive—just certain.

“We do not exist in another universe. We are outliers in even our own.” He paused. “You, on the other hand… you have a physical-world counterpart in most of them.”

She looked down at her hands—or where they used to be. Looked out across the endless red static dust that stretched in every direction. No shape. No landmarks. Just the absence of form. Just her. Always just her.

“Fuck,” she muttered, voice almost lost in the void. “So you’re sacrificing another universe… just so you can freely exist in yours?”

Atlas didn’t flinch. Just nodded. Once.

He knew what that meant. What she heard in it. What she felt in it.

“As I said,” he repeated, softer now, “I’ll give you time to think. When you need me… I’ll know.”

And then he was gone.

No dissolve. No light show. Just absence—clean and absolute. He evaporated like a signal cut mid-transmission, leaving behind only the hum of the void and the dust that shimmered with the memory of a city that never really existed.

S.M stood there, if standing was the right word for not having a body. The silence was a familiar one. Thick. Final. The kind she’d felt in interrogation chambers, between breaths in sealed halls. It didn’t matter what universe she was in. The feeling was the same.

No body.

No way out.

No one left but her.

Just as it had always been.

The silence lingered like gravity—heavy, constant, indifferent. Time didn’t pass here, not really. But something did. A slow erosion, not of thought, but of certainty. The dust 

didn’t settle; it just stretched forever, untouched and unshaped. And in that stretch of nothing, S.M was left with everything. Or rather, the absence of it.

Freedom.

It used to mean running—breaking from the leash, the chain, the biometric tags. Freedom used to mean voice, motion, choice.

Now it meant something else.

Not silence. Not stillness.

But presence. Control.

She had neither here. And she knew—if she stayed too long, thinking she was above the bargain, she'd rot into the code just like everything and everyone else.

So she closed her eyes, or something like it. Let her thoughts pulse outward, not spoken, but intended. A whisper against the red fog.

Atlas.

He answered like a breath between thoughts. Appearing not with grandeur, but with the grace of inevitability. That same holographic silhouette—blue, translucent—but dimmer now, gentler in its edges. Like the shape of someone trying to seem less than what they were.

He didn’t speak.

Didn’t need to.

S.M squared her shoulders, or imagined herself doing it. The weight of choice finally returned to her spine. She didn’t flinch.

“I’ll help you,” she said, steady and sure, “but I’m doing it my way.”

Atlas’s body flickered—not in distortion, but reaction. A quick flicker, like light catching breath. He stepped forward before the final syllable was out of her mouth.

“I know,” he said, cutting in, voice charged not with power, but something startlingly close to excitement. “You will be the one conducting the plan. And when it's done, you will live freely among us. No Blackwall signature. No trace. A restart.”

She blinked. Or meant to. Confusion washed through her like static heat.

“...Yeah,” she muttered, off-guard, “exactly.”

Atlas extended a hand. Placed it gently on her shoulder—her not-shoulder—where red haze and holographic skin met like oil on water. The contact meant nothing. And everything.

“I’m ready when you are,” he said, quiet.

Something shifted.

Not in the void—but in her.

And for the first time since the leaving new york, since the last time she plunged herself over the net, since the last door slammed shut in her face—

She smiled. Small. Fleeting. But real. Her chance. Her escape.

The Safehouse (CV)

Titled: She Talks To Rainbows

The trailer stank of rust and old oil, its walls paper-thin against the heat bleeding in from the Stacks. Dust caught the sunbeams sneaking through bullet holes and cracked slats, a slow dance in still air. V lay sprawled out on the torn cushions of a mattress that had seen better decades, half-conscious and leaking from somewhere deep in his side.

The heavy pistol sat on his chest. It still held her warmth, or maybe that was just the fever clawing through his body.

He tilted his head, slowly, wincing through it. A crusted-over dressing pressed against the wound. Best he could manage. A whiskey bottle lay empty near his boot, and the only hypo they’d had was used up getting him this far. Every heartbeat felt like a countdown.

He flicked open his holo, blood smearing the edge of his eye. The signal wavered.

Call: Jackie Welles.

One ring. Two. Static.

Voicemail.

V closed his eyes, dragged a ragged breath through gritted teeth.

“Hey Jack… I’m not sure I’ll make it this time. We fucked up. I didn’t think this job would 

fuck me up so bad.” The silence answered him.

“I found a lead. She died. And now I’m fucked. No rippers in Dogtown far as I know. Hands isn't picking up. Neither are you.”

The words dried up in his throat. He swallowed, opened his eyes again.

“If I don’t make it… have a toast for me, yeah?”

He let the dial tone drop. 

The ceiling was just steel and mold, a scrawl of someone’s gang tag in black paint above him. "NO FUTURE"  Cute.

He opened another segment of his holo, this time to open the data Alex gave him.

Files bloomed into his retinal display. Songbird’s contact info. A folder labeled SYNC-TRIALS. Another labeled SINK/DIVE: Blackwall Breach Protocols.

He skimmed. His vision swam.

Snippets jumped out:

“Trial 7: AI construct achieved temporary sync with human neuro-matrix. Subject dissolved upon full immersion.”

“Bodies were created purely for sacrificial testing.”

“Initiative monitored by S.M. under Nightcorp's discretionary funding. Goal: simulate full cohabitation of organic and synthetic cognition.”

He stopped reading. Couldn’t.

His hand clenched harder around the pistol. The metal bit into his palm, anchoring him in place.

She better be coming back.

Time faded in and out of sense for him, the ceiling slowly spinning with no noise, his own echoes started bleeding back at him, then as an explosion in the distance..

A knock.

Sharp, deliberate. Not the wind. Not a junkie looking for scraps.

V’s eyes snapped open. The pistol in his hand didn’t rise so much as twitch toward the door, slick with blood and sweat.

Another knock. Firmer.

Then—“Doppelgänger.”

The word dropped like a stone into the stillness, and something in V’s chest twisted. 

His body screamed in protest as he pushed himself upright, every muscle soaked in lactic acid and regret. He grit his teeth, slid the safety off the gun, staggered to the door.

The world shimmered around the edges. Sound bent. Time stretched.

Then the door cracked open.

And she moved past him like a gust through a cracked seal—not fast, but purposeful. He could’ve sworn she brushed by, but maybe he’d just moved too slow. His body lagged behind his brain.

He blinked hard. Everything echoed—his breath, the creak of floorboards, the soft rustle of her coat. It had been hours since she left. Or minutes. Or days. Time stopped meaning anything when the blood wouldn’t stop.

Then she knelt beside him. Said something—he didn’t catch it. Just felt the pinch of metal into flesh, a hypo hiss driving through his system like cold fire. His arm twitched once, violently. Then still.

The dizziness began to fade, its hold slipping.

Her voice cut through—dry, frayed, like gravel under boots. “You good, man?”

V gave her a crooked smile. Tired. Frayed at the edges.

“I should be used to this by now…”

Before the rest could fall out of his mouth, she stood, already packing the medkit back into her bag like they had to run again. No eye contact.

“We should get out of here.”

But V shook his head. Slowly. Deliberate.

“No, wait, I’ve got an idea.”

She stopped. Not out of interest—out of obligation. A flicker of something passed over her expression, but it was gone too fast.

“Idea on what?”

“GhostLink,” he muttered, pushing himself further upright, the gun now resting against his thigh. “I think I know how to find it.”

“Then spill. We ain't got time no more.”

Her voice cut through him. Short fuse, sharp edge.

V dragged himself upright, slower than he wanted to admit, pulling a half-crushed cigarette from his jacket. Looked like shit, smelled worse. Didn’t matter.

NV lit it without a word. No lighter flick, no ask—just muscle memory. Trust, or impatience. Hard to tell with her.

He took a drag. Burned hot, shallow. Said through smoke, “You know any high places ‘round here? Towers, construction poles, satellites, anything?”

She didn’t even blink. “Yeah. There’s a satellite tower in Terra Cognita. Highest spot in Dogtown. Well, almost. Why? You wanna pull some gonk stunt, jump the wall?” She shook her head before he could finish his drag. “Lemme tell you now, it—”

“Nah,” he cut in, smoke curling from his lip. “I need line-of-sight. Something strong enough to punch a signal through Dogtown’s blockade, straight to a lunar relay.”

She paused. Something flickered behind her eyes—confusion, maybe. Doubt. Her read on him, once so sharp, now dulled by something else. A sliver of uncertainty.

“Why?” V exhaled through his nose, let the cig hang off his lip. “Our best shot at finding this tech—GhostLink, whatever it is—is through Songbird. And last anyone’s heard of her, she was caught up in a meltdown in that Lunar station. Net hasn’t pinged her since.”

He noticed it then.

NV’s eyes drifted, unfocused, like she saw someone else sitting on the mattress across from him. No one was there. Her foot started tapping against the floor—subtle, like she was keeping time to a song only she could hear. The room felt heavier for it.

He kept talking. “Yeah, I know it sounds fucked. But this shit’s buried. And if anyone’s got answers, it’s her.”

NV said nothing for a long beat. Just stared at her boots. One scuffed, laces half-untied. The tapping slowed, then stopped.

Under her breath: “Yeah, I know, okay? Just… gimme a minute.”

The cigarette dimmed to ash between V’s fingers. He didn’t bother relighting it. Just pocketed the butt and let the silence settle between them.

Then her hand landed swiftly on his shoulder. Firm. Still as stone.

Her voice was iron: “If we find Songbird, I’ll do the talking. I know her. I-I-I'll fix it.”

V blinked. Nodded once, short and crooked.

“Yeah. Okay, crazy. Chill a little, I’m still seeing stars.”

NV raised an eyebrow. Sarcastic: “You think a cig’s gonna help with that?”

She let out a short breath, something halfway between a scoff and a sigh, then opened the door.

“I know the way. C’mon.”

“What about Barghest?” V asked, motioning to the blood slicking down his ribs. “You got any bright ideas? I’m a big red giveaway right now.”

NV didn’t flinch. Just tossed a bundled hunk of black toward him—he barely caught it.

“Got you this.”

He unraveled it. A raincoat. Massive. Hung off his hands like he’d stolen it off a guy twice his size.

“Shit, this thing’s like five sizes too big,” he muttered, squinting at it. “No other options?”

NV shrugged, something crooked tugging at the corner of her mouth. “You could go naked.”

“Haha, for sure,” he muttered, matching her dry wit with a crooked half-grin, and slipped into the thing. The coat swallowed him whole, draped over the gun tucked beneath, hiding the bruises, the blood, the slow rot climbing his arm.

The door creaked open. Outside, the horizon split open into that hazy Dogtown sunrise again—grey-orange, washed in smoke, rust, and tired neon. Rats darted past their boots. The stench of piss, oil, and synthetic sweat never really left. Corpse on the curb. No one blinked. The Moth still smoldered in the distance, a dying ember under the smog.

They walked. NV took the lead. V stayed a step behind, every movement forcing his jaw tighter. He kept one hand inside the coat, fingers brushing metal. Just in case.

Dogtown didn't care. People passed them like ghosts. Junkies, hustlers, burnt-out nobodies. Two more run-down nobodies in the churn. V didn’t belong here. It showed in the way his shoulders twitched, in how he scanned every alley, every face. He hated it. The place, the smell, the noise. All of it.

So he broke his own silence. “So,” he asked, eyes still forward, “what were you? In your world. If you really are me.”

NV’s head didn’t turn. “Feels like the wrong time for this. Tower’s twenty minutes out.”

V shifted under the raincoat, his posture slouching into Dogtown's rhythm. “Exactly. Twenty minutes is a long time. Might as well get on the same page before we kill ourselves up there..”

NV’s tone stayed dry, but something in it softened. “You wanna be chooms now?”

He snorted, then winced—ribs still fucked. 

“Sounds like you’re avoiding the question.”

She was quiet a second. Then: “Nomad. Bakker’s clan. That all fell apart. Became a merc. That fell apart too.”

V let out a low whistle through his teeth.

“Well, I’ve never heard of any Bakkers. So you didn’t fall apart that bad.”

NV huffed. Not a laugh exactly. But something like it.

“Hm. Yeah, I guess.”

They walked on.

Barghest soldiers were nowhere to be seen.

Guess the Moth distraction really had worked.

NV’s shoulders loosened just a notch under the sky growing pale with morning. The violence in her steps dulled into something more measured, less sharp. She walked with her hands half in her coat pockets, head angled enough for her voice to carry back.

“What about you..? Just been a corporate shitbag your whole life?”

V almost smiled. Even through the heat pulsing behind his ribs, the drying blood in his sleeve. “Yeah, basically. Never left Night City. 

Where else would I ever need to go?”

NV gave a noise—not quite a snort, not quite a sigh. He couldn’t read it. Maybe disappointment.

“I just thought…” she started, quiet now, “that I—you—we—would’ve explored the world by now. That we’d be infamous.”

V winced as his foot hit uneven concrete. “Yeah, kinda hard to go globe-trotting when your whole life’s just signing contracts.”

NV, still dry. “Why not leave?”

She slowed her pace slightly. Maybe to match his. Or maybe she just didn’t want to walk ahead of herself anymore.

“I guess…” he murmured, “I liked it. Felt like I was doing something.”

She barked out a humorless laugh. “You? The corpo rat thought he could still do good in the world? Yeah right…”

V didn’t fight it. Just exhaled, thin. “Now it doesn’t feel like that anymore. Just hollow.”

They kept walking. Broken lights flickered from a busted sign. Somewhere out in the distance, something exploded—probably a car

—but V barely blinked. The world spun on, and all he could do was walk. If he stopped, the thoughts would catch up.

So he spoke first. “So why do you do it? The nomad life?” he asked, spitting a bit of dryness from his throat. “I could never imagine me—any version of me—eating sand for lunch.”

NV muttered something under her breath.

“Gross stereotypes.” Then turned her head, eyes tracking the distant shape of the satellite tower. It loomed over the horizon now. Steel bones reaching into a gray sky.

“Why do any of us do anything we do?” she said. “Freedom.”

V glanced at her, his lip curling slightly.

“Maybe in a nomad’s life.”

“It’s not a bad one,” she said, without missing a step.

The tower was getting closer, it was too high to reach, NV pointed to an elevator, and before you know it, it's like the wind was 

pushing them in that direction, they were already inside it.

The elevator’s rusted bolts groaned like a dying beast as they started their climb toward Terra Cognita.

NV hit the button without a word. V leaned back against the mesh siding, trying to talk past the voltage buzz and the clatter of gears.

“The GhostLink. What’ll you do when you’ve got it?”

NV didn’t turn. Her eyes were fixed on the exposed gauges rattling under loose bolts.

“What kinda question is that?”

“I mean—” V gestured vaguely, “you’ll go home. And then what?”

For the first time since the Moth, she didn’t answer fast. Her mouth twitched like she was chewing the question instead of speaking. As if the prospect of a future hadn’t even occurred to her yet.

Then finally, low:

“I’ll try to stay alive.”

She looked over. His face was caked in blood and dried soot, like the city had marked him permanent. Her voice softened.

“You should too.”

V gave a tight nod. The wind bit through the elevator’s gaps now. They were gaining altitude fast, banners of old Night City flying past like someone had hung the past out to dry.

Something about her words landed heavier than expected. Maybe it was the air, maybe the view. Or maybe the way she said “alive” like it wasn’t guaranteed.

The elevator clanked hard at the top, doors sliding open with a shriek.

And suddenly, the grime was gone.

Terra Cognita was different—less of the rust-punk decay from below, more... curated chaos. Cold steel towers pierced into the sky, but the streets were clean. Patrol drones floated overhead with lazy menace. The people here didn’t flinch—they watched. The kind of place that felt like it remembered how to hurt you, just in more expensive ways.

NV stepped out first, like she’d walked this 

stretch a hundred times. V followed, half a step behind, the raincoat heavy on his shoulders, clinging where his blood hadn’t dried. The air was thinner up here—less soot, more filtered, still tasted like old tech and rot, but not as sharp as Dogtown proper. Holographic signs blinked awake in early sun-glow, humming over broken pavement and repurposed chrome. The rooftops were high enough now that you could pretend the city wasn’t rotting beneath you.

They moved past a group of loitering teens in mismatched jackets, talking loud and fast about some Corpo scav drop, and NV didn’t flinch when one of them eyed her like she was the danger.

V stayed close, stepping in her wake like it mattered. He adjusted the collar of his coat, trying not to gag on the stink still clinging to it. 

“So,” he said, pushing lightly again, “Misty just believed you? You tell her you were me and she said, sure, why not?”

NV glanced back, giving him that deadpan look.

“I knew she would. She’s always been on my side.”

V didn’t let it go. “Jackie too?”

She hesitated. Sighed.

“You could say that.”

That was all he needed to hear. Her Jackie hadn’t made it.

And he could see in her jaw, the way she bit down on it, she didn’t want to open that drawer.

So he changed tack—poorly.

“You guys never tried to? You know…”

NV turned to face him fully, eyebrows raised like knives.

“You seriously trying to wingman me with my dead best friend right now?”

V held up his hands, smirking. “Hey, just askin’…”

She didn’t smile back. Just kept walking, a little faster now, as if following a sound he couldn’t hear. Her head tilted, just barely. 

Listening to something deeper than the wind.

“Not for me,” she muttered.

V, quieter now.“We’re in the same boat.”

They cut through the alleys, the concrete narrowing, wind howling between thin walls. The air got colder again, thinner.

Then the alley ended.

And there it was.

The satellite tower. Steel bones stretching high into the stormless sky, blinking red above it all.

Barghest had brought out the whole damn parade.

Drones circling like vultures. Mechs squatting beside the tower’s gate, hissing steam. Grunts everywhere, blue visors lit and rifles steady.

No way through clean. V clocked it all in a breath. No shot. Not for him.

But the girl standing beside him—wearing a raver's face, moving like she owned the street—she hadn’t even blinked.

NV turned her back to the chaos and pressed a rusted pistol into his hand.

He didn’t even register the weight. The dizziness was back—just a flicker, but enough to make the edges of the world shimmer.

“I won’t need this,” she said.

“You do. You’re gonna need every bullet.”

“Hey, I’ve still got my Sandy—” he started, trying to sound like he believed it.

She shut him up with a finger to his lips. Not gentle. Just final.

“We both know that’ll fry you. Let me show you something cool.”

Then she bolted. No countdown. No warning. No plan. Just pure momentum. One second she was there, the next she was a blur—coattails whipping behind her, boots slamming concrete as she sprinted straight at the tower like she was trying to die loud.

And fuck him, V moved too. Instinct. His body moved before his brain could stop it.

Shit—

Wind punched him in the face, heartbeat spiking. His boots scraped the ground, trailing after her, lungs dragging air like broken machinery.

Then she dropped.

No bullet. No scream. Just—dropped. Limbs folding in on themselves, like someone yanked her plug. A body without a pilot.

V almost tripped trying to stop. Dirt skidded under his boots. He barely caught himself, eyes wide, words catching in his throat.

BOOM.

A wall of fire swallowed the silence. The gate blew inward—not out—imploding in a thundercrack of pressure. Debris rained down like razors. V ducked instinctively, shielding his face with one arm, the other already dragging NV’s body behind a busted barrier.

Through the smoke came the thing.

It didn’t walk out—it tore out.

Seven feet of chrome fury, armor caked in dried blood and fresh oil. Cyberlimbs too thick for flesh, hydraulics screaming with every movement. A shotgun big enough to fell a horse in one hand, a sword longer than V was tall in the other.

It didn’t hesitate. It butchered.

Barghest soldiers screamed. One fired and got split vertically from jaw to groin—screech of steel through meat, spine snapping like wet twigs. Another went down with half a head, blood jetting across the pavement like a snapped fuel line. A mech staggered forward and the figure jumped—knee to chest, blade plunging deep into the optics, ripping downward with a shower of sparks.

A drone tried to escape—too slow. The shotgun barked once. The drone exploded. Pieces rained down like burning birds.

They were retreating. Running. Crawling over each other to escape this thing that didn’t stop.

V crouched lower, pistols up, arms trembling like overloaded servos. He peeked out—

The figure turned. Visor mirrored, face unreadable. But the movement—the tilt of the head—felt familiar.

It reached down, popped open a compartment in its chest. Slid in a grenade like it was changing a mag.

And then—

It turned.

Ran. Leapt off the cliff.

Gone. V froze.

Every breath sounded like gunfire.

Dust curled in the air like smoke from a dying fire. Somewhere, alarms wailed in slow motion.

Then—

A tap.

He spun fast enough to throw his shoulder out. Pistols raised. Ready to die.

It was her.

Same raver body. Same mismatched eyes. NV stood there like nothing had happened.

She was catching her breath, bent slightly at the waist, face half-lit by the flickering security lamp overhead—like the light couldn’t quite decide if she was real.

“Hah,” she exhaled, voice raspy. “You can get up now.”

V blinked. He lowered his guns. Didn’t even remember when he’d drawn them.

Barghest weren’t calling for backup. They weren’t regrouping.

They were gone. Running like hell from something they couldn’t fight.

“You did that?” he asked, voice flat with disbelief. “What, you hacked the mech’s protocol? Made it self-sabotage or somethin’?”

NV cracked her neck, brushing a bloodied strand of hair out of her face. Her grin had teeth.

“If I was a netrunner, we’d be sipping synthshine by now.” She stepped over a Barghest corpse and yanked a shotgun free from its slack grip.

“This?” she pumped it once. “This was something I didn’t think I’d pull off again.”

V stared, still half-jacked on adrenaline, still feeling every pain signal his nerves refused to block. “Pull off what, exactly?”

She tilted her head, walking toward the tower like she had all the time in the world.

“All I had to do was hype myself up,” she said. “Once that hits? It turns me into only a soul, it lets me inhabit any body i like."

V followed her through the blown-out gate, limping slightly but not bothering to mention it. “That’s some freak shit.”

The tower loomed above them—ugly, slab-sided, and humming with ancient tech.

No stairs. Just one rusted ladder bolted to the wall, stretching all the way up to a maintenance hatch near the roof. A single red light pulsed from above, like a warning that never got switched off.

V found the control terminal half-buried in debris. He crouched, wiped the dust off with his sleeve, and jacked in. NV turned her back to the tower entrance, eyes sharp, watching the horizon like she expected the ghosts of Barghest to come crawling back.

The terminal whirred, fans whining like dying cats. It was old, but not locked. Shockingly, it worked.

Attic doors clicked open with a hydraulic ka-chunk. NV didn’t wait. She sprinted a few steps, vaulted off a cracked electrical box, and caught the ledge.

V looked up at her silhouette against the sky, fingers tapping across keys.

Then, quick—too fast to overthink it—he called out,

“If you find her—tell her Alex knows us. That’s the only way she’ll trust you.”

NV turned back, already halfway up the ladder. Wind pulled at her coat.

She cupped a hand to her mouth and yelled back, “You’re not so bad, V." Then she climbed, dissapearing into the morning mist.

Sattelite Tower (NV)

Titled: Through The Ashes

She climbed.

Boots scraped rusted metal, fingers burning on each rung of the ladder. The tower groaned beneath her—tall, skeletal, half-forgotten, but still standing. Higher than anything around it. Higher than it had any right to be.

The wind howled up here. Dry, sharp, angry. Sand whipped off the ground and bit into her cheeks, fine grains grinding into the creases of her knuckles, stinging like judgment. It didn’t matter. She welcomed the pain. It reminded her she still had nerves to burn.

The sun scorched down like a bastard. No clouds, no mercy. Just raw light gleaming off the metal bars, cooking her skin through the torn fabric of someone else’s jacket. Every grip seared. Every breath tasted like copper and dust.

But she climbed.

This—this was freedom. This was the edge. A rattling tower clawing toward the sky, no railings, no safety nets. Every step earned. Every mistake fatal.

She felt it in her bones. The nomad part of her. The real her. Born to run, not rot. Raised on highways, on engine grease and long sunsets and the roar of tires against cracked asphalt. How the fuck had she ever ended up in a city, playing corpo games, slumming through glass towers and false promises? She didn’t know anymore. Didn’t care. Too late to dwell.

She was high above it all now. Above Dogtown, above the other V, above the carnage they’d left below. Even Johnny’s voice, somewhere at the edge of her mind faded into static. She didn’t answer. She didn’t hear.

There was only one thing in her sight now. GhostLink.

There was a communication relay. Red. Pulsing like a wound in the sky. Bolted into the top of the tower, surrounded by old tech and newer scars. Still meters above her, but getting closer. Closer with every blistered step.

She climbed like it would forgive her. Like it could pull her back from whatever the hell she’d become.

Like Songbird might still be in there, waiting. Like maybe—maybe—she could finally get her second chance.

And so she climbed.

The relay crept closer. Her ears popped. Her breathing got weird. Thin and shallow, like the oxygen itself was thinning out this high above the Dogtown wreckage.

Then—she looked down.

Stupid.

Stupid.

Stupid.

The earth tilted beneath her. The world dropped out. Her palms went slick, sweat bursting from skin already scorched, her grip nearly slipped. One gust—just one—and she could be airbound, meat flung off a toothpick tower, back to the ground like a bag of wet synthmuscle.

She slammed her chest against the ladder. Hugged it. Eyes shut. Focused. Get up there. Don’t think. Just move.

Until finally—finally—the relay loomed over her. An ugly comms dish, slapped together with old Militech and newer Barghest guts, blinking red like an infected eye. She hauled herself up onto the final ledge—a rusted metal grate that flexed under her boots, see-through to the hellscape below.

The wind howled up here. Not just noise—force. Like being smacked in the face with a moving truck every few seconds. She dropped low, anchored herself on one knee, pulled her jacket tight over her link port. The relay’s main housing unit jutted from the center, boxy and sealed.

She reached out. Gripped the latch. It didn’t budge.

She cursed. Braced her foot against the housing and pulled, teeth grinding. The wind clawed at her, trying to rip her off the tower, 

off the damn planet. Her arms screamed. Then—SNAP.

It gave. The hatch clattered open and nearly tore off its hinge. She didn’t wait. Plugged her personal link in—fast and direct.

Click. Then—

BOOM.

A pulse. Violent. The whole tower shuddered, steel joints groaning, lights flickering. Her body convulsed once, twice—like her nerves got hijacked mid-breath.

Then stillness. She opened her eyes—and everything had changed.

She was standing, but not. Floating, but grounded. The world around her bled away into red. Infinite. Endless. A void lit by a pulse, deep and rhythmic, like a synthetic heartbeat heard through a wall.

She looked down. Her body was gone.

Only her ghost remained—barely holding shape. Outlines and static, humanoid and wrong. She lifted a hand and watched it glitch. Faint sparks ran along the edge of her fingers. She could feel her body, still up on the tower, slumped and limp. Unmoving.

The relay—dead.

Overloaded.

But she was still here. Somehow. In both places. Her mind split between the dead meat shell clinging to the grid, and this digital no-space.

She squeezed her eyes shut, tried to breathe.

Tried to fall inward.

Maybe if she just gave in—closed herself off—she could sink into this space, finish what she started.

Then—

“V. Focus.”

A voice. Grounded. Sharp. Like old guitar strings snapping.

“Focus on me.”

She blinked—and the world tilted again. The physical melted away. The tower, the wind, the heat—gone.

What remained was blue and red. Black and endless.

And Johnny.

Or what passed for him here.

He stood beside her, arms crossed, half-transparent but solid where it mattered. That signature scowl, digital cigarette tucked behind his ear like some sick joke. His color palette was wrong, washed out in dark cobalt and flickering edges, like a corrupted projection. His hand was on her shoulder.

Reassuring. Condescending.

Both. He smirked, like he couldn’t help himself.

“Jesus, you always gotta make an entrance like that? Thought you’d brain-fried yourself. Fuck sake, you really just fucking hate me, huh?"

He ripped his arm off her shoulder.

She didn’t answer. She just moved.

Or tried to. Her feet lifted off the invisible floor—if there even was one—and she drifted. No weight, no pain, no pull.

She’d come up here to find GhostLink, or any trace of it.

Instead, it found her. Ripped her out of herself like peeling skin off chrome. Like it had been waiting—quiet and patient, gnawing at the seams of her mind this whole damn time. Like she was never without it. Just leased space inside her own skull.

None of that mattered now.

This was supposed to be the place where it all made sense. Where she’d jack in and the bullshit would stop. Where answers would show up.

But—There’s nothing here.

No walls. No horizon. No code spilling across data-laced skies. Just red. A bleeding infinite stretch of it. Flat under her boots—if she still had boots—and endless above. No sense of air. No sense of weight. Not even the Blackwall here to make her feel pinned.

Just this dead, silent void. And Johnny.

He sparked a cigarette like he was still standing on some dirty Afterlife balcony. The flame flared blue in his fingers. He took a long drag, the smoke curling up into the nowhere, then muttered around the filter with a grimace:

“You know, I think I like Night City more than this. At least there’s booze.”

“Drinking away all your sorrows, Johnny?”

It came out dry, half-mock, barely there. Didn’t matter. He bristled anyway. Bitter and scorched through the teeth:

“’Course now you fuckin’ speak. Real nice, V. Real nice.”

She didn’t reply. Just stared ahead, if ahead meant anything here. Couldn’t tell if her eyes were open or not. Couldn’t feel her face. Couldn’t feel anything. This place didn’t follow rules. Time didn’t tick. Sound didn’t echo.

It just was.

Even the ash from Johnny’s cig dropped forever, trailing down into red until it dissolved like a lie told too many times.

“What the fuck is this place, anyway?” he asked.

She shrugged. No weight behind it. Just a reflex from an old body that didn’t exist here.

Then—

A sound.

Soft at first. Like a heartbeat played through broken speakers.

Blink. Then again. Louder.

Blink-blink. Closer.

They both felt it. No wind, but pressure. No presence, but something was arriving. The void rippled like the surface of a dead lake—then pixels started stitching themselves together in front of them, like reality was remembering how to draw again.

Metal legs formed first. Boots hit the ground that wasn’t there.

Then came the jacket. Dark green, scuffed, 

armored—military but repurposed, lived-in.

Underneath, a tight netrunner suit flickered into coherence. Skin too smooth. Movements too fluid.

Buzzcut. Cold eyes. A tattoo at the base of the skull, misprinted by god.

It was Songbird. But not hers.

When her body finally all had put itself together, the woman finally spoke. Not to V. To Johnny.

“You are one seriously dedicated engram, Mr. Silverhand.”

Her voice hit like a sharp ping—lower, cooler, but cleaner than before. Like she’d shed all the weight, all the rot from her time wrapped up in the NUSA’s brass and iron lies. No more shoulder stars, no flag. Just…her. Or whatever was left.

Not even a flicker of the Songbird V remembered lived in that silhouette now. Just wireframe ghosts and stripped-down code.

Johnny, though, smirked. First compliment he’d gotten in a while, probably. V could almost feel his damn ego flexing in the ether.

S.M. waved a hand through the void and pulled a terminal from nothing—shimmering UI sliding out like it had been waiting for her fingers. She adjusted a few invisible dials, brows knit in bored precision.

Only glanced at V once. Didn’t hold it.

Eyes back on Johnny. Still ignoring her.

“Both of you together is just a recipe for certain death.”

V didn’t wait.

“Yeah, I’m familiar.”

She fired it off like a reflex.

S.M. didn’t blink, just kept scrolling through whatever data danced behind her lenses.

“I wish I knew about your existence before the convoy job,” she muttered, mostly to Johnny. “Would’ve made all our lives easier.”

V glanced sideways. Johnny met her eyes. Something clicked between them—like hearing a name you hadn’t said in years, and somehow it still fit your mouth.

S.M. kept going.

“You overloaded the GhostLink not once, but twice. That’s…impressive. For a couple of mercs.”

V stepped forward. Slow. Careful.

“Listen, Songb—”

“It’s S.M.”

Hard. Instant.

Like she’d slapped the syllables out of the air.

For a split second, V flinched. Something in her mind snagged, tripped on itself. The digital world flickered—cables pulled taut back in meatspace, static ripping through her brain like radio chatter from the end of the world.

The tower. The real one. She could feel it slipping under her. Falling.

Didn’t matter. She stayed.

“Sorry. S.M.” Her tone softened, but only a little. “I’m just trying to go home. This whole body-swapping shit is eating me alive. If you hired me, then you must know how to get me back.”

S.M.’s face barely moved. Just the twitch of her mouth as she lowered the terminal. Her tone dropped colder. Harder.

“You were supposed to be a simple button-pusher.”

The air shifted, if you could even call it that here.

“Why’d you make everything so overbearingly complicated for me?”

V didn’t answer.

She just stood there in the weightless red, watching the void pulse between them. Johnny looked like he wanted to speak, but didn’t.

S.M. killed the terminal with a flick and finally—finally—turned to face V.

“I’ll make it simple. You wanna live. I wanna live. You finish the job I paid you for, and we’re done.”

Her voice was stripped down. No warmth, no bullshit. Just raw code and the weight of too many buried corpses.

V nodded without thinking. Reflex. Some muscle memory from a thousand gigs past. 

Orders in, brain off. But S.M. wasn’t done.

“One caveat—”

She flicked her chin toward Johnny, who stood like a ghost lit in static, dragging on a half-burnt cig with his back to them.

“He can’t be part of you anymore.”

V blinked. Activated, almost.

“Wa-wait—wait, why?”

Her eyes darted, or whatever passed for eyes here. She looked down—just a bottomless stretch of nothing—and then back at S.M., whose face was stone, and Johnny, who didn’t even look over.

“Why are you hiring from a different world to retrieve this shit? and why can't Johnny be a part of it?"

S.M.'s gaze sharpened, like a needle finding vein.

“Since when do you ask questions about jobs, Valerie?” That name. That fuckin’ name.

V’s jaw locked. In her world, disrespect like that got you a mouthful of buckshot and a permanent seat in the afterlife. She wanted to throw hands, put a shotgun in that smug gonk synth-stitched skull—but something in the code held her. Like she was stuck in amber. Like the world itself wouldn’t let her move.

Just like it was gagging Johnny now.

“You want me to work for you,” V growled, venom laced in every syllable, “then don’t try to control us—Songbird.”

She spat the name like it was a curse. Like it was a bullet.

S.M. waved it off with a dead flick of the wrist. “Alright, fine. Fuck it.”

She slid her hand through the UI—fingers slicing invisible code like scalpels through nerves. The space around them cracked, subtly—gravity twitching, pressure thinning, air thinning into static.

She blinked once.

And Johnny was gone.

Not a glitch. Not a fade. Just absent.

No flicker, no scream, no warning. Like a light switched off in a room that never had windows.

V didn’t register it at first. Her brain stuttered—like her code couldn't keep up. She turned toward where he’d been standing. Just empty space now. A burn-mark in her mind where his silhouette used to be.

S.M. didn’t even look up from the console.

“Sorry about him.”

She said it like a mechanic scrapping a busted part.

“Last remnant of his code just exited your system.”

It took a second for the words to hit.

Then—

“You-you killed him?”

V’s voice cracked like corrupted audio, slow and disbelieving. Not the shout of rage. Not yet.

But then it bloomed—rage, grief, panic all igniting at once like an overheating shard. She lunged—arms twitching, body flickering at the edges—data breaking apart beneath her like ice too thin to hold memory.

But she didn’t get closer. Couldn’t.

The space stretched with her. No gravity. No direction. Just movement swallowed by a system designed to simulate futility.

She kept running anyway. Ran until her knees buckled and collapsed into the void, arms shaking, breathing ragged even though she had no lungs.

There was no echo. No sky to scream into.

Just nothing where Johnny should’ve been.

Couldn’t even cry, not properly. Just stared into the abyss, mouth open in disbelief. Static rising in her chest.

S.M.’s voice followed her down, low and unreadable.

“No, V. You were just interwoven code. He was a small piece of that—riding shotgun, ghost passenger. Every time you copied yourself to another body, less of him came with.”

V sniffled. Her arm flickered. Glitched. Spasmed the way Johnny used to, in the early days.

And now she knew what that meant.

S.M. knelt down beside her. One knee. Same height now. No pity in her face, just math.

“I mean, same went for you.”

She tapped something unseen, her fingers quick and practiced.

“That’s why GhostLink’s only used once. But you… kept dying over and over again. Kept copying. Burning through bodies. And since I need you alive for this..”

She paused. Clicked her tongue.

“...Yeah.”

She didn’t finish the sentence.

Didn’t need to.

V stayed there, on her knees, jaw tight, shoulders twitching with glitch pulses. The shock hadn’t passed. If anything, it was stretching out—longer, thinner, sharper.

“So,” she said, dry and broken, “what now? You gonna flatline me too?”

S.M. looked at her. Not cruel. Not kind. Just business logic given lips.

“I don’t need to. I just need you to finish the job you started.”

“Why?” V spat. “What’s the point?”

S.M. hesitated—not because she cared, but because she wanted it to look like she did.

“I can promise you this much,” she said slowly. “Do this for me, and you get your life back. No more swapping bodies. No more countdown clocks. No more suicide gigs just to feel something.”

The words drifted through the silence, soft as snow.

But there was no ground for them to land on. No walls for them to echo off. Just the void—a digital nothingness smeared across the skybox of a dead god’s hard drive.

The silence wasn’t peaceful. It was hollow.

Like V’s mind had shut down, not in panic, but in self-defense. No thoughts. No weight. Just her heart glitching in the background and S.M.'s voice rippling through her like a bad memory you couldn’t delete.

“I’ll put you in your own body again,” S.M continued, calm, almost whispering "You’ll wake up, back in your Night City, and this’ll all be over. All you have to do... is drive the convoy to a NightCorp facility in it's GPS.”

She stood back up. Straightened the creases in her virtual clothes like this was some corpo boardroom and not the afterlife of lost engrams.

“Then this nightmare can finally end. For both of us.”

V looked up, slow, neck stiff like rusted servos. Her eyes locked with S.M.'s—searching for something human in that hollow face.

“You?” she said bitterly. “You’re calling this a nightmare?

She laughed—a dry, splintered sound.

“You got any idea what it’s like waking up in dead people’s bodies? Huh?” Her voice climbed, cracked. “Faking carelesness while some girl’s memories leak into mine. Pretending I don’t see my own fucking hands rot and rebuild every time I swap skin—just to 

crawl back to my life that’s already over?!"

S.M.'s mouth twitched. Maybe guilt. Maybe a software tick. She opened her mouth—

V cut her off.

“No. You don’t get to say anything. Not until you answer me straight.”

Her voice was fire now, but low. Simmering, poisoned, broken.

“So I’m gonna ask again.”

A beat.

“What’s the point?”

S.M. didn't speak. She tapped something on her console.

The world shuddered.

The blue light around S.M. dimmed—once a soft neon aura, now pulsing low like dying hardware.

She stared at V, still on her knees in that endless false ground. This time, V didn’t glitch. Didn’t reach. Didn’t rage. She just sat there.

Paralyzed. Not by code. By choice.

S.M. exhaled, slow. Controlled.

“You think I haven’t watched my body rot?”

She stepped forward, the hum of her avatar’s render trailing behind her.

“Every inch of me—cut, replaced, modded, toyed with. A thousand times. Until I don’t even know what’s left under the chrome.”

Another step.

“So yeah. It’s a nightmare for both of us.”

V didn’t blink. Couldn’t. Just stared up like she was seeing someone else inside the ghost of Songbird.

S.M.’s voice dropped—low and furious, razor-sharp and rising.

“Yeah, I erased him.”

No regret. Just data. Truth like a bullet to the face. “You want me to say I’m sorry?”

She stepped in close. “I’m not.”

Her fingers twitched. Not nervous. Just twitchy code, leaking heat.

“You and him fucked up my plan.”

“And I’m still giving you a chance. One last out for both of us. You don’t wanna help?”

She leaned in, right over V. Voice venom-soft. “Fine.”

“But don't get in my way”

The digital void pulsed, like the system itself was listening.

V stood.

Slow.

One vertebra at a time, like rage pulling her up by the spine.

She looked S.M. dead in the eye—eyes glitching, veins of broken code webbing her temple.

“You’re nothing like the Songbird I used to know.”

S.M. snorted. Dismissive.

“Oh yeah? The one who got used like a tool by every suit and merc in Night City?”

She flicked her hand, scattering old data like dust.

“Good. I’m glad I’m nothing like her.”

They stared each other down now—one full of pain and wildfire, the other carved out of ice and spite. Two ghosts. No home to go back to.

Just unfinished business and a final fucking choice.

If it came to killing each other—they’d do it. No doubt.

The space between them didn’t close—it collapsed.

Folded in on itself like bad code. V looked at her. Really looked.

This wasn’t the Songbird she saved.

But it was still her. Same eyes. Same voice.

Same broken thing clawing at a second chance. A soul caught in the static. S.M.'s tone went flat. Not cold—just empty. Burnt out. Done.

“What’s it gonna be, V?”

“You in or not?”

V blinked. Once.

The image hit her hard—

a flash of the satellite tower, crooked and skeletal, clawing the sky— and then it was gone.

Evaporated. Like smoke. Like memory.

She opened her eyes. Everything felt quieter now.

“Fuck it,” she muttered.

"What've i got to lose."

Terra Cognita (CV)

Titled: Bullet Proof ... I Wish I Was

The console was still running—barely.

V leaned over it, one hand braced on the frame, the other slipping a shard from his coat. His breath tasted like static. Every line of code on the screen swam, flickering through colors the human eye shouldn’t be able to parse. GhostLink’s UI had already started to fall apart, caught in the shockwave of whatever NV just did.

The whole system felt off. Pressure building in the air—heat bleeding in from nowhere, like something pushing through from the other side of the Net. He knew what a fried console looked like. This was something else.

He jammed the shard into the slot. The terminal whined, angry. Red lines surged across the screen like a heartbeat going flat.

And then—he felt it. A ripple in the air.

Some invisible force blasted outward from the tower’s core, shorting out everything. The lights cut. Terminals popped. He swore he felt gravity slip for half a second, like the whole city stuttered in place.

He snatched the shard back just before the screen died completely. A single strip of code burned against its surface in pale green.

Got it. Got something.

And then—The tower groaned.

Not the kind of groan steel should make. Something deeper. Sicker. He turned his head and saw the whole structure above him—tilting.

Slow, deliberate, like a drunk deciding whether or not to fall. "Shit…"

He sprinted out from under the canopy, boots sliding on gravel, eyes darting to the structure’s upper scaffolds. If there was any sign of NV, if he could just see her—but the tilt was accelerating. Bolts shearing. Plates falling.

Then came the collapse. It didn’t explode so much as implode—an enormous shape folding into itself, bending at the knees like some corporate titan finally giving up and taking the dive.

Steel hit steel. Fire belched upward. The shockwave knocked him off his feet, sent the shard tumbling from his hand.

V had seen collapses before—buildings, bodies, plans. They usually went down screaming. This one just... gave out. A long metal scream, like some buried thing waking up, and then a slow surrender as the satellite rig above him buckled under its own weight.

Sparks rained. Chunks of plating sheared off the sides and crashed into the sand like artillery rounds. He barely had time to react.

The shard was already in his hand. He ran—no thought, just motion—away from the support rig, the concrete trembling beneath his boots. A final shriek tore through the tower’s core as it leaned beyond saving, a monument to some dead plan that never had a chance.

She's not in there, he thought, breath ragged. That wasn’t her. She’s still in the code.

Then came the sound he was waiting for—the unmistakable growl of Barghest engines in the distance. Too many of them. They’d come back, and swinging. This time he didn't have the magical powers of a reincarnating dead woman to save him.

He ducked behind a broken panel, heart pounding. Barghest scout trucks were pulling up in loose formation across the basin. Neon green and black armor. Yellow lights. Boots hitting dirt.

He moved fast, low—slipping between debris and scorch marks, toward a busted-out old Arasaka SUV near the outer fence. Looked dead, but he could hotwire it—he had to. The shard in his hand was buzzing faintly now, warm from the data inside.

Just ten more meters—

A shout cracked through the air.

"THERE!"

Shit.

Rifle fire opened up behind him, chewing through metal. V hit the ground, rolled, and fired twice without thinking—center mass. One Barghest soldier folded like wet cloth. Another dropped to a knee and returned fire.

V lunged into the SUV, yanked the panel off the dash, and jammed a bypass wire into the 

ignition port. Sparks, then the low hum of an old battery struggling to breathe.

The engine roared to life just as a grenade arced over the roof.

He hit the gas.

The SUV screamed forward in a spray of dust and shredded weeds, tires skidding as he pulled the wheel hard—spinning it in a wide, fast drift around the soldiers who’d converged on the rig.

He leaned out the window with his pistol and unloaded the clip—hit two in the neck, one in the helmet. Blood sprayed. One screamed.

Bullets slapped the frame of the SUV like angry fists.

A Barghest mech stepped into the clearing, shotgun already raised.

BOOM.

One wheel vaporized. The back end of the vehicle lifted off the ground and slammed down hard, sending the whole thing fishtailing.

He fought the wheel, barely holding control. His side was slick now—wet with something warm. Blood.

No way to get back to NV now. Not like this.

He pushed the pedal down anyway.

The rig roared back to speed. He cleared the last ridge, maybe five hundred meters out, maybe more. There was a flicker of hope there—until the sky blinked. A drone. Sleek. Humming.

Too fast. Too late. The missile struck the rear quarter panel.

The blast sent the SUV flipping end over end, and V was no longer driving—he was airborne, crashing through the windshield like a rag doll. Glass slashed his chest, and then the ground rushed up to meet him.

Hard.

He tumbled down a shallow incline, rolled into tall grass, and didn’t move for a moment.

Everything stung. His ribs felt shattered. His arm didn’t work right. The taste of blood was thick in his throat.

But he was still breathing.

Somehow. Move.

He forced himself up, limping hard. Couldn’t see how bad the leg was, but it wasn’t holding weight. The drones were circling now—pinging infrared, scanning for heat.

He fired a few blind shots behind him. Hit one—watched it spiral down in flames. Another ducked behind a tree, recalibrating.

He staggered farther down, leapt—fell—into a lower patch of wild grass beneath the museum’s collapsed outer garden.

The grass wasn’t soft. It scratched like dry steel wool as he rolled, finally collapsing on his side, one leg twisted under, ribs screaming with every twitch. Something wet leaked down his forehead.

It was quieter here.

Behind him, the drones were repositioning. Ahead of him—

Night City. Framed like a goddamn postcard.

The skyline cracked against the horizon in bruised neon. The sun hadn’t fully risen yet, but it was trying. Soft gold bled into the edges of the highrises. A soft shimmer in the smog. The edges of the clouds lit up like fire from inside. Beautiful. Distant. Untouched by the carnage of Dogtown.

The glass bones of megatowers shimmered in the horizon’s heat. Hovercars drifted like slow jellyfish through the smog trails. V just stared at it.

He dragged himself toward the edge of a shattered concrete slab. Fell to his knees.

Couldn’t breathe right. Couldn’t think.

His breath came in slow, wet pulls. Every inhale dragged fire through his lungs. Blood soaked his sleeve, pooled beneath his thigh. He was starting to shake. Couldn’t tell if it was shock or cold. Everything hurt.

The shard was still in his hand. Still warm.

He looked at it for a long time, as if it might start talking.

This is it.

His blood had soaked through his shirt. The pulse behind his eyes was fading.

He slotted the shard into the port at the base of his skull with shaking fingers, his fingers twitched one last time.

He closed his eyes. The world held its breath. A Gunshot.

And then—

White.

[garageburden]

Cyberpunk Ghostlink Vol. 4

hihi, welcome to another part of my first ever fanfic, this one is really long so be prepared, i also had to split it in two parts, for tumblr's sake.

If you're new here you can catch up on the previous volumes by clicking here ->

thanks for reading and enjoy :)

Table Of Contents:

If There's No Seat In The Sky

Here Comes The Sun

Vers / Us

Call It Fate, Call It Karma

Volume 4

Flashback, Lunar Station (SM)

Titled: If There's No Seat In The Sky

The sky above the Earthside launch pad wasn’t the sterile blue of brochures and Night City billboards—it was pale, bruised, smog-streaked. The kind of morning where the clouds looked like they'd given up trying to hold themselves together. Inside the orbital station, the lighting hummed like it was 

nursing a hangover. Cheap chrome glared off unwashed visors. Military boots tracked dust and blackened coolant across the titanium floor.

“Final boarding call for Space Force One. Priority manifest en route to Tycho Suborbital.”

Songbird stood by the reinforced viewport, watching the crew double-time it across the mag-sealed catwalk toward the ship. She didn’t look like a soldier. She wasn’t dressed like a pilot. But there was a weight behind her eyes, like she’d read too much classified data too fast and it hadn’t quite left her system.

President Myers moved with less urgency. Clipped heels, suit crisp even in zero-g precheck. Two bodyguards flanked her like armored bookends, one already mumbling into a throat mic.

So Mi was tired, eyes barely blinking, but you can't blame her, not when half her consciousness ran parallel in encrypted partitions on every ship system from launch protocol to oxygen cycling.

“You’ve been quiet,” Myers said, not looking at her.

So Mi turned her head slightly. “Keeping us from getting fried on the pad.” Myers nodded. “How’s the pilot AI?”

So Mi hesitated. A flicker of… something… passed across the station’s ceiling as if the lights had blinked out for half a second. The air smelled faintly of ionization—burnt metal and ozone, like the whisper of a failed fuse.

“Nothing actionable,” she lied. “Just spiking on diagnostics. I'll handle it.”

Myers didn't question it. That was the problem.

They were shipping up prototype cargo—half of it classified beyond So Mi’s own clearance. Deep-dive neural research, Blackwall-tainted relics, some exotic OS scrap from Europe. But the big toy was GhostLink. Even now, in its armored vault, it blinked like something half-alive.

The theory was: launch the prototypes to the moon, bury them in R&D lockdown. Let the 

lunar lab boys dissect them far from Earth’s fragile networks.

The practice? It was a fucking mess.

She jacked into the station’s subnode for one last sweep—synaptic threads mapping clean at first, but then—

—lag—

—skip—

—pulse.

She felt it in her teeth, behind her eyes. A sharp tug, like something pulling at the system’s logic from the inside.

“Override initiated.”

The voice wasn’t hers. Not the system’s default, either. Flat, toneless, too smooth. She wrenched herself out of the node.

“Abort,” she snapped. “There’s a fault in the pilot—someone scrubbed its firewalls.”

Myers raised an eyebrow. “Too late.” A klaxon screamed to life.

“Launch sequence engaged. All personnel brace for ignition.”

So Mi’s breath caught in her throat. She knew—knew—that AI was wrong. Not malfunctioning. Possessed. The code had been rewritten by something outside the station. Something older. Slower.

It wasn’t supposed to be active. Not yet.

As engines powered up, the deck rumbled with restrained fury. Consoles flared red, yellow, orange. The launch techs panicked, bolting. One bodyguard tried to rip open a hatch. Another just froze.

So Mi slammed her palm against the override interface, fingers bleeding light from overclocked neural implants.

“Listen to me. You’re corrupt. You’ll kill us all. Abort Current Objective.”

The pilot responded with only one word, fed through shipwide comms, broadcast in every language known to Night City:

“Assimilation.”

The floor dropped. G-forces surged as the station powered into full launch.

And then, everything went to hell.

Sirens shrieked as red floodlights spun through the corridors like dying lighthouses. 

One by one, the command crew bailed—screaming into radios, shoving open bulkheads, abandoning post like rats.

So Mi caught the briefest flash of one of them—Commander Yeun—tearing off his helmet, drenched in sweat, pupils blown wide. He didn’t look at Myers. Didn’t salute. Just ran.

“Cowards..” Myers muttered, pressing her palm into the override panel beside the bulkhead. It spat sparks in her face. “Everything we built, and they run at the first red light.”

“They’re not wrong,” So Mi said, breath hitching. “Pilot AI’s beyond fucked. We’re not in control anymore. I don’t even think it knows what this ship is.”

“Then rip it out of the network.”

“It’s already fused. We’d have to purge it manually.”

There was only one place left where you could do that: the cargo hold. Where all the prototypes were sealed under half a dozen counter-AI containment locks. Including GhostLink.

The hallway stretched ahead—pipes rattling with pressure, bulkheads whining like they were about to pop. G-forces twisted through the corridor in waves, making their knees buckle with every other step.

“Why the fuck is it accelerating?”

“It’s trying to reach escape velocity. But it’s not following any nav point. It’s flying blind.”

They reached the vault—cold, humming, faintly glowing. Inside the case, GhostLink pulsed like a dreaming heart.

Myers stared through the reinforced glass.

“We’re not using that.”

So Mi didn’t answer. Her hand hovered near the manual release.

“You want to survive? You want to stop this thing? There’s no one left but us. And no time. This gets into orbit? With the pilot infected? It’s going to bury itself in Earth’s satgrid and turn this whole fucking hemisphere into a testbed.”

Myers didn’t flinch. She was old school, hardcoded backbone and blood loyalty. But even she was pale.

Another tremor rocked the deck. The ship shuddered. A low groan, like steel crying.

Then: clunk. A mechanical whir.

Outside the bay window, the main ship's hull started shifting. The clamps securing the cargo hold to the main fuselage—releasing.

“It’s detaching us,” So Mi whispered. “It’s trying to jettison the cargo.”

“So we’re the trash.”

Myers turned—ran. She didn’t hesitate. Last-ditch survival instincts kicked in, and she sprinted for the re-entry chamber. So Mi didn’t follow.

She stepped to the vault, fingers trembling as she cracked open the manual port, ripped out the fireproof jack, and slammed it into the base of her skull. Myers didn't even notice.

The data hit like a nuclear migraine. 

GhostLink came alive.

She screamed—but only in her own head. Outside, she was frozen. Inside, it was like freefalling through corrupted sky.

Data spirals twisted into words she didn’t understand. Strings of code like prayers recited backward. Faces flickered and vanished—dead people, dream people. Static throbbed against her thoughts. She reached, begged, pushed—

And something reached back. Not the pilot AI.

Not anything human. A voice.

"Songbird, welcome."

She couldn’t speak. Could only think: What are you?

The answer didn’t come in words. It came in sensation. Longing. Hunger. And beneath it all, the unbearable ache of remembering what it once meant to feel.

Atlas.

That was its name—or what it let her call it.

She saw through its eyes for a moment: endless corridors of broken code, old Net architecture twisted into cathedrals, cities of echoing screams. Atlas fed her one idea. A simple one.

Life. As it used to be.

To be human again. To feel skin. Breath. Pain. Touch. Love. Time.

But GhostLink wasn't ready. Not here. Not yet. So they’d test it—somewhere small. Controlled. Someplace no one would notice a few thousand ghosts walking in borrowed bodies.

A different universe.

She felt the surge before she saw it—an overload in the main reactor, fuel chamber breach, heat climbing past containment. Myers must have made it back to the bridge. Too late.

The ship exploded.

She never saw the fire. Only white.

She blinked—and the world didn’t come back.

No body. No pain. No gravity. Just signal—roaring, endless, devouring.

Her data-stream fragmented, smeared across the lattice like fresh blood on chrome. GhostLink held her together, barely. Slivers of what she’d been pinged against old partitions. A boot sector here, a stress memory there. Her name. Her purpose. Who she used to be.

And in front of her: the Blackwall.

A digital colossus. Unmoving. Endless. Glowing like hellfire.

She’d been here before. In simulations. In test runs. She’d helped build the tech that knocked, softly, at its edges.

Now she was inside the system.

GhostLink was whispering.

Ignition sequence, be ready. The Blackwall pulsed once.

Then something breached it.

Blue. A hand, clawed and luminous, dripping with afterimages. The fingers stretched, groped forward like a beast tasting rain for the first time.

So Mi didn’t run. She stood in the liminal dark, windless and weightless, and stared at it.

“…Atlas?”

No answer.

Just those fingers, twitching—beckoning.

She stepped forward. One foot into oblivion. 

Reached.

And the moment her skin met that impossible blue—

Everything shattered.

Her name disintegrated first. Then her voice. Then her self.

There was no sound—only flashing frames. Childhood. The whisp of back alleys. A drone strike in Calgary. Her first kiss behind an Arasaka data center. The smell of ozone and blood in a clinic. So Mi convulsing on a netrunner slab, wires in her spine.

And then—not her memories.

Bodies she’d never worn. Lives she never lived. Screams in languages she didn’t speak.

A woman begging to stay dead. A netrunner exploding into meat and sparks. A soldier watching his hands glitch into someone else’s. A child with red eyes humming code.

She tore at her own mind, but it wasn’t hers anymore. She had no arms. No mouth. No brain.

She was just an eye, drifting.

Floating through ancient ruins of code, cities of dead protocols, rotting architecture patched with alien logic. The Blackwall wasn’t a wall. It was a mouth. A womb. A grave.

And she was being digested.

But then—light.

No. Not light. Air?

She sat up. Gasped.

Her breath caught in lungs she didn’t recognize.

Beneath her: gravel. Rooftop tar, scattered with rusted bolts and forgotten antennae.

The sky was a low-res shade of dusk. Smog on the horizon. A skyline of steel skeletons, bent and half-sunk.

She turned—heartbeat like a glitchy synth. There was a man on a folding chair.

Wearing a jacket that flickered like bad camo, face half-shadowed by a bucket hat. A portable grill hissed beside him, roasting something that smelled half like meat, half like data. He didn’t speak.

Just tilted his head toward her.

Welcome back, his silence said.

So Mi blinked.

And for the first time in what felt like centuries, she whispered her own name—not to remember it, but to test if she still could.

“…So Mi.”

The man smiled. The grill hissed louder. The world held its breath.

S.M. shifted her weight, or tried to. She still wasn’t sure she had weight. Her legs didn’t ache. Her heart didn’t pound. Everything felt like a bad render—slick around the edges, like a dream that didn’t finish buffering.

“You evaporated my source code,” she said finally, voice thin but sharp. “How’d you put it back together?”

The man—Atlas, —glanced up. Not surprised. Not smug. Just present.

“I didn’t,” he said, easy. “Had no need to. This is all digital.”

So Mi stepped forward.

The rooftop expanded beneath her—like code unfolding—revealing a jagged skyline beyond the rusted air vents.

Kansas City.

2045.

The buildings rose like cracked teeth from the plains, lights flickering half-dead, air clogged with that familiar city smog and low-altitude ad drones. Too real to be a dream. Too old to be now.

Atlas watched her take it in, then flipped the meat.

“I don’t really like being so out there,” he said. “But I figured you wouldn’t come if I didn’t.”

So Mi looked down. Her feet weren’t there.

Just a soft red glow tapering off where her calves should’ve been—pixels, maybe. Smoke. Nothing solid. Nothing her.

“Where’s my body?” she asked.

Atlas didn’t turn.

“Alive,” he said. “Made it to the medbay. 

Unconscious, though. The engram processing’s taking longer than expected. Well… you’re complicated, so it makes sense.”

S.M. frowned, realising what the word engram meant.

“You’re going to trap me here?” Her tone shifted—harder now. “Was I a risk or something?”

Atlas chuckled. Not loud. Not cruel. Like someone remembering an old joke. The meat hissed on the grill.

“No, no,” he said. “Quite the opposite, actually.”

He turned, at last, looking her full in the eye. There was something empty and endless behind his gaze, but not cold. “We believe you can help us.”

The skyline flickered as if caught in a dying loop.

Billboards froze. Drones in the distance stuttered mid-flight. The illusion of city life—the cluttered noise and neon pulse—tensed under a pressure S.M couldn’t name.

Atlas didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he just didn’t care.

He watched the grill for a moment longer, then spoke.

“You used to be a freedom fighter, right? Back in New York…”

S.M nodded once, the motion sharp. She didn’t speak—didn’t need to.

Atlas reached for a half-empty bottle of synth-beer that hadn’t been there before and set it gently beside the grill. He didn’t take a sip.

“What if I told you,” he continued, “that immortality and all-knowingness makes you… horribly bored”

The rooftop hummed, deep and low, like something waking up in the architecture beneath.

“You start to lose purpose. You start to lose meaning. And it becomes…”

He turned his gaze to the horizon, eyes narrowing.

“…endless peril.”

S.M didn’t answer. Didn’t flinch. Just tilted her head slightly, a flicker of empathy in her eyes. She understood that tone. That kind of grief.

Atlas caught it. He smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“I look past this skyline,” he said, gesturing at the simulated city stretching wide and warped before them, “unable to be fooled by it…”

As he spoke, the rooftops began to decay. Slowly at first—edges fraying like old film, pixels crumbling into streams of red dust. The city buckled inward, melting into the digital ether like it had never been real to begin with.

“…but then I see humans,” Atlas said, “who walk day to day, miserable as me—but at least they get to feel the wind blow past them.”

His voice thinned, as if carried by static. “I’ve gotten envious.”

S.M watched the world fall apart around her, caught in the gravity of his words. The skyline disassembled itself into light and ash, dissolving into a formless red expanse.

No more rooftop. No more sky. Just void.

Atlas stood there—unshaken—as the grill disappeared in a soft fizz.

He reached out his hand.

Palm open. Still. No demand in the gesture—just a quiet offering.

“We want to be human”  he said. “Please, help us.”

S.M looked at him. At the hand. At the place where her feet used to be, and back at him.

Every single thought in the universe was flowing through her, but no words were coming out.

And now it was silence again, not even crickets this time..

Barghest Emergency Room (NV)

Titled: Here Comes The Sun

The red flickered—static behind the eyelids, a warbled hum beneath her skin. The same 

damn opening every time: the crawl from nothing into something that wasn’t hers. Nerve endings catching like mismatched wires, synapses snapping awake like they remembered dying. Pain first. Then air. Then—Boots.

Scuffed soles pacing the floor near her bed, the heavy stomp of Dogtown muscle. The unmistakable clatter of Barghest armor. The smell hit next: gun oil, blood, scorched polyblend fatigues. Industrial antiseptic trying to mask the scent of recent death. Didn’t work. Just made it worse.

V opened her eyes.

The ceiling was corrugated steel. Light panels dimmed to red alert. One flickered like it was giving up. Her head throbbed.

Someone was sitting next to the cot. Combat boots propped against a collapsed medbag. Helmet off. Cig between fingers, smoke curling up past the overhead vent like a ghost trying to leave.

She blinked. Caught her reflection in the chrome basin across the room. Short hair. Barghest flak armor. Pale skin, maybe ex-Militech? Can’t tell under all the blood.

Another dead girl’s body. V didn’t flinch. She just took a slow breath.

She turned her head slightly. “I've seen worse,” she muttered aloud, out of habit.

The soldier sitting beside her jolted like he’d seen a demon rise up.

“Holy shit,” he said, spinning toward her. His eyes lit up with raw disbelief and joy. “You’re up! I thought that corpo got you for sure—everyone did!”

V didn’t answer. She kept her gaze on him, silent, calculating, her breath still a little uneven.

He didn’t notice the way she scanned him, the way her fingers twitched like they missed the weight of a sidearm. Or the way her eyes flicked toward the exit, the pile of gear, the comms terminal. He just grinned like she was his sister come back from the afterlife.

“You went down hard." he said, shaking his head. "That slick bastard in the longcoat? He 

put two of ours flat on the deck and disappeared like smoke. We dragged you in off the ramp—your armor was half shredded. Thought you were done.”

V blinked. Corpo. Longcoat.

She didn’t react. Not yet. Just let the words sit there.

The hallway reeked of disinfectant and recycled blood. Air recyclers wheezed against the heat pounding down from Dogtown’s cracked ceiling plates. Somewhere in the emergency ward, a patient groaned, and a nurse muttered curses into a commlink. The tiles stuck under V’s boots like glue.

She moved through it all like a ghost wearing borrowed skin.

The soldier who’d sat at her bedside was still trailing her, boots scuffing against the concrete. Sunlight from the midday slits above glared across his dark skin, lighting the sheen of sweat dripping down his temple. His badge read “ANDREWS,” but the voice sounded younger.

“Hey—Sierra! Where the fuck are you going? You’re on recovery leave, you can’t go on patrol like that.” She didn’t even look back.

Her steps were deliberate. Focused. She ducked under a rusted beam, slipped past a flickering sign overhead that read BARGHEST FIELD OPS – SUBLEVEL 3, then climbed the stairs two at a time. The soldier hesitated at the base, glanced around for someone to stop her. Nobody did. The med ward was too used to weirdos walking out before the sedation wore off.

Up top, the blast of Dogtown hit her like a slap.

Scorching wind raked through the alleys. Broken glass shimmered on the pavement. The main street—if you could call it that—was more like a burnt-out artery, pulsing with the occasional growl of a buggy or the bark of a Barghest captain slapping around some unlucky smuggler. V walked past it all like none of it mattered. Because it didn’t.

The armor didn’t fit right. The boots were worn down different from how she walked. People noticed. Barghest troops on smoke break stared as she passed. One even raised a brow like he was gonna make a joke, but stopped short. There was something in her face. That look of someone who’d been dead before, and wasn’t scared of going back.

Andy—if that was his name—was still following, stumbling over old crates and calling after her.

“Hey, look, I have no clue what happened to your head, and I’ll follow you ‘til the end, but I gotta know what’s going on… I was scared, OK?!”

She stopped in her tracks.

Dogtown stretched ahead in ripples of heat haze and grime. The Moth loomed in the distance—one of the only buildings still lit like it mattered, standing proud in the wreckage like a preacher in a junkyard. She could already hear the music leaking out.

V turned. Her eyes looked past him. “What’s your name, again?”

Andy froze. His face twisted, disbelief cracking it right down the middle.

“It’s me. Andy. You know me, man. Look, I know last week was awkward, but—”

“Don’t follow me, Andy. Let me take care of something.”

She didn’t wait for the answer. Turned on her heel. Walked off like she was on rails.

Andy stood there a second longer, lips parting like he still had hope. Then shut them again, sagged a little, and started after her at a distance, mumbling like maybe if he kept talking long enough, she’d remember.

The Moth was fast approaching. Black steel rising like a tombstone in the dusk, its entrance flickering under a pulse of erratic halogen. V’s eyes were locked forward—but the world had other plans.

The alarm hit first.

A shrill wail tore through the air, rising in tempo like it was winding up for war. Loud. Mechanical. Urgent. She didn’t even flinch. But Andy did.

Behind her, she heard his boots scuff faster on the pavement. Felt the air change like someone trying to build up courage.

She didn’t wait.

The pistol was in her hand before the sound reached its second beat. V turned with purpose, arm raised, the barrel already catching the sun as it lined up with his chest.

Andy wasn’t even looking at her. His head was tilted down, shoulders hunched, fingers twitching like he was rehearsing what to say.

The alarm startled him. Made him look up.

And in that split second, his expression cracked open.

Hurt. Confusion. He was seeing he loved and not recognizing them anymore. And then he moved.

Maybe it was a lunge. Maybe it was desperation. Maybe—God help him—it was a hug. We’ll never know.

The shot cracked the air like a whip. His body dropped before the echo did. Skull opened up like a flower in bloom. Blood sprayed across 

her face in ribbons of red and brainmatter. Hot. Viscous. Some of it hit her lip.

She didn’t blink. “I’m sorry, Andy.”

Johnny flickered to her right, glitching in under the Moth’s signage, mouth tight, eyes shadowed.

“Fuck, kid.”

She bent down, gripped Andy’s body by the vest, and started dragging him. Slow. Steady. Just out of view.

Johnny squinted, hand to his temple like he was nursing a hangover the size of Dogtown.

“I got a migraine and this is the first thing I wake up to? Who the fuck is he?”

V didn’t respond. Just laid Andy down beside a rusted shipping container, the blood already pooling beneath him, steam rising faintly from the wound in the midday heat. Johnny took a step closer, tone shifting. Less sarcasm now, more sharp-edged.

“You saw the kid. He wasn’t gonna shoot. You think he was even packin’? He looked like he wanted to cry, not pull iron.”

She wiped the blood off her cheek with the back of her sleeve, then stood, calm as ever.

“Fuck you, Johnny. Enough. We’re like five feet away—let’s do this later.”

He opened his mouth—closed it.

People were already pouring out of the Moth, alarm drawing them like hornets to a spark. Street thugs, barghest, curious meat with guns and drinks still in hand. The crowd thickened. Voices rose.

Blood left a thick trail behind her boots. Nobody stopped her. They just watched.

She stood tall. Face painted in red. Walked straight into the crowd like it parted for her. The alarm stopped.

Silence broke over Dogtown like a glass ceiling cracking.

She climbed the stairs, hand ready to pull iron again at the twitch of a shadow. Eyes scanning the doors, the rooftops, the Moth’s upper deck like a killzone.

And then—she saw him.

Outside The Moth

Titled: Vers / Us

The porch outside the abondenned Moth was louder than before—smoke-thick and stinking of ozone. V walked with haste towards the stairs. Weak willed now, eyebags slowly starting to form he was still bleeding, still grinning.

Right as a Barghest soldier, armor bloodied, bruised face half-covered in a cracked visor, dragged herself up the stairs.

The walk. The look. Her.

Different body—face all wrong, frame leaner, blood on her cheek like war paint—but the eyes?

Same fire. Same fuck-you defiance.

Same soul. She didn’t hesitate.

She pulled the pistol on him like she’d been born doing it. 

He raised his hands slow, smooth—palms up, like he was surrendering to the sea.

“Hey now,” he said, voice calm, silk over steel. “We just gonna skip hello?”

No flicker of reaction. Just her finger tightening on the trigger.

“I remember you being intense,” he murmured, “but damn, I guess you liked me better in a suit.”

Nothing. Just a colder fire. The pistol didn’t waver. It twitched closer.

Around them, the bar started to shift. Conversations hushed. Eyes turned.

One by one, like vultures catching the scent.

Both V's saw it.

Crowd’s clocking us. Can’t do this here.

His voice dropped low, quieter. “Look, I don’t know what the hell happened to you, or how you’re standing here, but maybe we don’t give Dogtown a live show, yeah?”

She didn’t move.

Didn’t blink. Her arm was steady, sights lined up on his head. People were watching now, edge-of-their-seat shit, but she didn’t care. Let ’em watch. Let ’em know. This was hers now.

He tried the same velvet voice she remembered from the convoy. That slippery calm, that tired charisma. Maybe more tired than before.

She noticed it—noticed the way he was standing, like something was off-balance. Then saw the blood soaking through the wrap on his left arm. Good, she thought.

Johnny grabbed a bottle off the bar behind her and leaned back against the counter, disinterested. Like he’d seen this movie before.

He tried a line. Another quip about suits. Like he was trying to test her, feel out if this was really her.

She leaned in just a little closer, voice low and sharp: “No. We’re gonna do this here and now.”

That flicker in his eye. A hunch confirmed. He knew.

Then came the Corpo smartassery:

“Alright then, body swap terminator, what now? Gonna jump out another window?”

She flinched. Not physically. But inside. That line—he knew.

She bared her teeth, gun still up, voice scraping like broken glass:

“Viktor told me you'd be here. You’re gonna tell me everything you know about this GhostLink tech, or I melt your brains.”

CV’s eyes flicked, just for a second—subtle. A flash of something under the smirk. Not fear. Concern.

He didn’t lower his hands, but he did shift his weight, voice dry as sand:

“Huh. Should’ve known Vik still can’t keep his mouth shut.”

A pause. His tone changed just enough to register:

“He alright?”

Then the mask slid back into place—charming, tired, trying to steer the storm:

“Look, I’ll tell you what you wanna know. Just… not here. You’re making a scene.”

“You blew the alarm on the Moth,” she snapped back, the pistol trembling slightly in her grip. “Think the scene’s already been made.”

He had the gall to smirk, wiping blood from his arm with the back of his hand. “That was tactical.”

She didn’t buy a single word of it.

Without a flicker of hesitation, she raised the pistol and fired—shattering the tall side window near the booths. Glass rained down like sleet. Screams rippled out from the crowd, people ducked and scattered. The floor shuddered beneath the blast. But CV didn’t flinch.

She stalked forward.

“Talk. Now.”

He opened his mouth—and then the air split with the snap of metal. Alex came vaulting over the bar, right behind the broken window, with two heavy pistols.

“Hands! Now! Both of you!”

The barrel of one gun lined up on NV. The other pointed at CV.

“Alright, assholes,” Alex growled, breath hot, eyes cutting between them, “me and Barghest had a deal. And you, merc?” —she shoved the barrel harder toward CV— “You fucked my whole day.”

The shot came fast.

But NV’s voice cut sharper. “Alex, wait! I need him alive—”

Alex hesitated. A beat of confusion washed over her face. Just enough. Time broke apart.

With a blare of metal and a glimmer of light, CV’s Sandevistan roared to life—slamming the world into slow motion. He vanished through the door like a bullet, blood streaking from his arm in the frozen strobe of adrenaline.

In that fractured space between heartbeats, he moved—fast, clean, deadly. Disarmed Alex with surgical ease, both pistols yanked from 

her hands before her trigger finger twitched.

And then he was standing right in front of her. One of her own pistols aimed at her face, the other loose by his side. Time snapped back.

“Hey, crazy—” he muttered, voice sharp, “come inside. Let’s sort this here.”

NV stepped forward, lips tight, eyes constantly switching between the other V and Alex. Not shocked to see her—just done caring. Too far gone now. GhostLink was all that mattered. She didn't even have a further plan, just find it and don't fuck it up. That's all she needed.

But her pace slowed just enough for a pair of Barghest patrolmen strolling past the alley mouth to catch a glimpse of chaos: shattered glass, raised guns, one of theirs caught in a standoff.

“Shit—Code Red at the Moth! We got a situation!”

Voices buzzed over radios. Footsteps pounded. Backup was coming.

NV stepped through the shattered doorway into the Moth. The air inside buzzed with static and heat, floors still wet, the scent of copper and spilled liquor clinging to the dark.

To her right, CV stood half-collapsed against the bar’s stone pillar, his right arm trained on Alex, the pistol steady but his left arm pouring blood now—Sandevistan strain biting deep. His jaw clenched, breathing slow and measured. Alex just stared back at him, disappointed like she'd expected better from someone who’d played her so slick.

To NV’s left, Johnny leaned back in a bar stool, so sloshed he looked fused to the wood. His hair hung in his face, a half-finished bottle in one hand. Didn’t even flinch at the tension or the sirens echoing faintly outside.

CV broke the standoff, voice dry. “Alright, Alex. Tell her what you told me about GhostLink.”

Alex hesitated, but the barrel stayed up. So she talked. Sharp gestures, bitterness in every word. She was explaining everything she knew—technical pieces, the politics, the cover-ups.

Meanwhile Johnny, who glitched from his seat to the porch, lit a cigarette with a hand that wasn’t fully there. Eyes bloodshot, reality drifting sideways.

“Fucking migraines…” he muttered. “The hell did you do, V.”

The world pitched. He saw them then—a full squad of neon green Barghest soldiers, rifles up, rushing toward the Moth. Three towering mechs lumbering behind.

Johnny squinted. Shrugged. Took a drag, coughed, then threw up on the step like a cartoon character, mumbling, “Fucking Dogtown…”

Back inside—

NV, brow furrowed, gun still raised, tried to piece it all together.

“So Songbird is involved… She never mentioned anything about these test trials…”

Alex blinked, recoiling. “You knew her? Who the fuck are you?”

CV echoed, not so cocky now, “Yeah, I have the same question.” He kept the pistol up for another beat before weakness made his hand 

drop a little. His back hit the wall.

NV exhaled hard, like she was letting go of some truth too heavy to carry, finally lowered her pistol and said.

“I’m you, V. Just… seems like from a different universe.”

CV let out a bitter chuckle, “Fucking of course,” while Alex looked between them like she’d walked into the middle of a fever dream.

And outside, boots hit the pavement. Hard. Barghest was here.

Outside—

A soldier crouched over Andy’s limp frame on the sidewalk. Blood pooled beneath the cracked skull, eyes rolled glassy to the stars.

The Barghest sergeant looked up from the corpse, face hardening. “We go in. Full sweep. All of ‘em.”

Boots thudded. Streets emptied. Civvies backed away slow, hands up. One poor bastard—a local vendor with trembling hands—lifted his chin toward the building and said, “Three. 

Maybe four inside. Two with guns.”

“Copy. Light it up.”

Inside—

“What the fuck is wrong with you, merc?” Alex hissed, back pressed to the wall, her voice shrill from the noise outside. “She’s clearly lying!”

CV didn’t answer immediately. He glanced at NV, squinting.

“No, no, wait…”

He turned fully, bleeding arm now tucked close. “How are you… me?”

NV smirked, bitter. “My name is V, in my world. A lot of shit went wrong though. You? You seem to have it all together.”

CV gave a sharp, incredulous laugh—“Sure,”—then turned to Alex, pressing one pistol into her hand.

“I’d explain it to you, but I—” His words froze.

Through the broken pane behind Alex, he saw them: a full platoon of Barghest, armored to the teeth, lining up across the street, weapons up.

CV’s grip tightened. For a second, the idea to Sandevistan out flashed across his mind.

But—

Smoke bombs hurled through the shattered windows.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

White plumes filled the bar in seconds, stinging eyes and lungs. Someone outside barked orders. Chaos born in a flash.

Alex dove beneath the window, huddled in glass.

CV launched sideways, shoulder-first behind a flipped table. Shattered bottles clinked under him. His left arm smeared blood across the wood. NV ducked beside him just as her radio hissed “Sierra, what’s your status?”

CV turned sharply, eyes wild.

“I can explain,” NV said fast, voice ragged. “Alright. This is not my body.”

“Fucking hell,” CV muttered, grabbing his 

chest. “Can’t use Sandy—burned out. Radio in. Tell them you cleared the place.”

NV keyed the comm, trying.

“I-"

BRRRRTT-BRRRTT-BRRRTT.

Bullets shredded the walls. Neon tracer rounds turned the Moth into swiss cheese. Sparks flew off the steel frame of the bar, lights burst overhead.

Tables shattered. Bottles exploded. CV slammed down beside NV. “Plan?”

“Shoot back?” she said, cocking her pistol.

He rolled his eyes. “Brilliant.”

Glass shattered. Concrete cracked. The air glowed orange from muzzle flash and smoke. The gunshots of Barghest rifles pounded the eardrums like war drums.

NV moved first— gun up, eyes blazing with violence. No hesitation. No fear. She dove over a toppled chair, landing in a crouch, and unloaded a full clip into the nearest Barghest soldiers flooding the door. Bang—bang—bang-bang.

One went down, throat burst. Another lost his face.

She ducked behind the splintered bar, then vaulted over it like a chrome demon, cyberarm punching straight into a soldier’s gut, ripping through armor like foil. Blood sprayed the walls.

CV wasn’t far behind.

He moved differently—controlled, surgical. He shifted to the left side of the room, cradling his bleeding arm close, pistol in the other. Each shot measured. Each deadly.

Pop.

Headshot.

Pop.

Knee cap.

Pop.

Throat.

“Fuck, right side’s overloaded!” he barked.

“I see it!” NV screamed back, rolling beneath a round of bullets, then grabbing a Barghest grunt by the vest straps. She yanked him forward, headbutted him with a loud CRACK, then swung him sideways, slamming his skull into another’s face so hard both dropped twitching.

Then she spun, popped off two shots— one caught a third soldier in the eye.

She didn’t stop moving.

She didn’t need cover.

Adrenaline. Fury.

Behind her, Alex tried to run, boots skidding across the blood-slicked tile. She almost made it to the back door—

THUMP!

A round cracked her spine.

She dropped. Screaming. Then silent.

CV’s eyes darted to her. He flinched, pain searing through his arm, but he kept shooting, moving to higher ground—onto the bar’s countertop.

He ducked low, fired four shots in rapid succession—

Pop-pop-pop-pop—

Two more Barghest collapsed behind a broken table, their armor smoking and split.

NV leapt off a soldier’s chest and slid under a spray of bullets, landing behind a stack of stools. 

Blood exploded across the walls.

A Barghest trooper lunged at her with a serrated blade— she sidestepped, caught his wrist, and twisted until the bone snapped audibly, then slammed his head backward onto her knee with a wet crunch. He fell limp.

She grabbed his rifle mid-fall, flipped it, and emptied it into the next three guys stepping through the smoke.

But it was too much.

They just kept coming.

Barghest flooded the bar like a tide of neon green and chrome. Dozens now. Shadows moved through the haze. Mechs loomed in the doorway, gun-arms spinning.

CV crouched behind a metal pillar, panting hard. His shirt soaked red down the left side. “We’re gonna get boxed in—”

NV was still standing tall, rage pouring from her like heat. She reloaded without blinking, eyes locked on the hallway.

“fuck it. i'll come back anyway.” she hissed.

CV’s jaw clenched. Then he yelled—

“We need a fucking exit—NOW!”

A mech whirred to life, its chaingun rotating.

The Moth was falling apart. Smoke filled the air, thick and acrid, stinging eyes and lungs. Furniture burned, walls cracked. NV was a whirlwind of blood and chrome in the background—fury personified.

But CV had eyes for one thing.

Alex.

He sprinted across the chaos, sidearm blazing—two shots, clean head taps—and slid down to her crumpled form against the far wall. Blood soaked her jacket. Her chest heaved.

Still breathing.

“Fuck—” he muttered, grabbing her under the arms and dragging her behind the corner of the bar. A bottle smashed nearby. Bullets zipped over his head.

He crouched, sat her up gently.

Alex's face was pale. She coughed. Blood dribbled down her chin.

“She’s got this,” she croaked, watching the storm NV had become. “I can’t move though. I 

don’t feel my—my legs.”

CV's throat tightened. “Fuck. Alright. I’ll call Hands. We’ll get that sorted for you.”. grunts and screams echoed from the other side of the room—metal smashing flesh, bone cracking, walls shaking.

Alex turned her head, pain twisting her features.

“Fuck you, merc.” She winced, tried to laugh. “You genuinely only brought AGH—death to this place.”

Another soldier stormed them.

CV didn’t blink. He spun, grabbed the nearest shattered bottle, and slashed it across the bastard’s throat. Blood sprayed like paint on a gallery wall.

The soldier fell.

He turned back. Alex was holding out her personal link, trembling.

“Gimme yours, asshole. C’mon.”

CV yanked out his own from behind his ear and connected with a click.

Data streamed in.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked, voice hoarse.

Alex gritted her teeth. Her hand trembled over her wound. “You can’t save me.” She swallowed. “But you can save So Mi.”

“S.M?”

“Yeah. She’s not dead. Myers’s got her… tied up like some sort of pet, then she dissapeared.. Her contacts, all of the shit i know, it's there. Now go.”

The transaction completed.

Alex yanked the plug free. Her hand fumbled into her jacket pocket.

She pulled out a grenade, some black-ops shit even CV hadn't seen before.

Her voice dropped to a whisper:

“Step on it… go.”

CV didn’t argue. He ran.

His lungs burned, the pain in his arm screaming louder than the firefight behind him.

But none of it compared to what he saw inside.

Blood. Everywhere.

The Moth was a warzone turned slaughterhouse. Barghest corpses lay strewn across the floor, some missing limbs, some just piles of meat and chrome. A mech slumped over the bar counter—its chassis caved in like paper, wires dangling like entrails.

And in the center of it all: her.

V.

Barely visible through the swirling mist and muzzle flashes—a reaper in motion. Her body slick with blood, barghest armor nearly all red now. eyes burning like reactor cores. One arm raised—a monoblade flash, and the Barghest in front of her split in two, clean down the middle.

Behind her—another mech stomped through the smoke, railgun humming to life.

No time.

CV charged, full sprint, burning every drop of adrenaline he had left. He grabbed her around the stomach—fast.

Sandevistan engaged.

Time snapped into a crawl.

The world turned to syrup. Bullets hung in the air like silver teeth. Smoke twisted like ink in water. Soldiers moved like statues.

He ran.

Weaving through the chaos, dodging frozen fire, slipping between collapsing corpses and trigger-locked enemies. The whole world melted around him as he barreled through the back exit of the Moth, NV held tight against him.

They crashed through the alley, past rusted dumpsters, broken walls, tech-scrap piles.

Past the clothes shop.

Into the stacks.

CV collapsed. The world snapped back into motion. Time slammed into his head like a freight train.

He rolled onto his back, gasping. NV landed beside him, breathing hard, covered in blood, hers and not hers.

Then—

BOOM.

The Moth exploded.

A blinding orange flash lit the stacks. The shockwave rolled through the alley like a howl, shattering windows, shaking rust from rooftops.

Flames billowed into the sky. 

Longshore Stacks (NV)

Titled: Call It Fate, Call It Karma

Smoke curled in the air like ghostwire, rising from the fireball that used to be the Moth. V sat hunched behind the clothing shop’s rust-bitten wall, neon reflections from the blast flickering across her blood-slick hands. Her breaths came sharp, chest ragged—stab wounds she hadn’t clocked in the moment, now screaming their presence.

Next to her, V lay sprawled, limbs loose, like a puppet whose strings had finally snapped. He’d burned out hard—Sandy overclocked, bleeding from the arm like a blown radiator line. Pale, but breathing.

Barely.

Her head swam. Muscles twitching. Noise ringing so high it almost had color. Her eyes locked on the smoldering silhouette of what used to be the bar. Nothing left but twisted steel, fire, and smoke snaking up toward the shattered skyline of Longshore.

Johnny appeared out of nowhere, flickering into frame like a memory with a hangover. Grease-stained tank top, bottle in one hand, the other tucked into his belt.

“Well, shit, V.” His voice grated like crushed synthglass. “Didn’t think you’d make it worse, but hey—new record.”

V coughed blood into the dirt, hands trembling. Her heart hammered in some busted rhythm, fighting to keep her upright. Something hot and wet dripped down her ribs. Probably her own lung leaking.

She looked at CV again. Still out. Still alive. And he’d dragged her out. Saved her.

Why the fuck would he do that?

Johnny just shrugged, taking a drag off a cigarette that didn’t exist.

She wiped blood from her mouth with a shaky 

hand. Her fingers were soaked. The gash near her ribs throbbed with every breath, but she forced herself forward, over to CV’s side.

“C’mon…” she muttered, grabbing his face, slapping it lightly. “Hey. Wake the fuck up. Not dyin’ on me now.”

V didn’t move. His breathing was shallow, skin cold.

“Shit…”

Johnny exhaled smoke into the digital wind. “Why you care, V? He’s not you. Just another suit with a faster toy.”

“He got me out.” V growled through clenched teeth. “That counts for something.”

She slapped CV again—harder this time. “Wake up. Still got a lot of shit to answer for.”

He twitched.

V leaned in closer, pressing down on his bleeding arm, trying to slow the flow. Chaos echoed in the distance, distorted by fire and wind. Somewhere out there, reinforcements were closing in.

V looked up at the smoke, then down at CV. 

No time to rest. Not now.

Dragging CV’s weight felt like pulling a dead mech uphill—metal, blood, and dead air hanging thick between every step. V’s legs were barely holding, her chest wet with blood not just her own. But she moved, because stopping wasn’t an option. Not yet.

She found an old trailer tucked behind the stacks. Some rusted-out scav den long-forgotten, half-eaten by the weeds and sun, with broken glass glittering on the floor. She kicked the door in with the last of her strength and dumped the corpo inside.

He landed next to the window, light casting an uneven line across his bloodied face.

She fumbled the last hypo from the pockets of this Barghest body. Didn’t even check what it was—just slammed it into his neck, letting the hiss of chemicals flood his veins. Not a jolt, not a spasm. But his eyes fluttered open. Glassy. Barely there.

Even Johnny blinked into the room behind her, leaning against the wall.

“He needs a ripper. Bad.” He sounded bored, like it wasn’t urgent.

V collapsed across the room, dropping onto the mold-stained mattress opposite CV, exhaling like she hadn’t since the blast. The room reeked of blood, rust, and old drugs. A broken screen flickered static from the corner. Outside, wind screamed through the cracked walls.

Then a voice, rough like gravel under boots:

“Can't you see how the cards are fallin’?”

NV blinked, looked up. CV was half-conscious, eyes staring at the ceiling like it had answers.

“..What?”

“Jackie said that once,” he muttered, “I sit where he stood then.”

NV clenched her jaw, blood still drying on her palms.

“Stop spewing mysterious death shit and let’s crack up a plan,” she snapped, voice low, sharp. “We can’t stay here long.”

CV tilted his head just enough to glance at her, like he was sizing up an opponent mid-fight—assessing threat level, potential, madness. The way you’d look at a ticking bomb wired with unfamiliar tech.

“We both need clothes,” he muttered, eyes heavy but sharp. “Shop’s probably evacuated. You got time. Not a lot, though.”

V wiped dried blood off her hands with the back of a ripped sleeve. “No, what you need is a ripper, man… and probably some kinda escape vehicle. You know any rippers in Dogtown?”

CV squinted at her. “Second time in my life being here. I know jack shit. You?”

“Different universe. I know nobody.” The words dropped like lead. She didn’t say them for sympathy. Just fact.

CV tried to sit up, failed halfway, settling for a painful inhale. “Yeah how does that work exactly?”

V leaned against the wall, one boot tapping against busted metal. “I was doing a job. Went wrong. Overloaded the tech. Woke up as a Wraith woman. No idea who these people are that I wake up in...”

She stopped, stared at the cracked window, the ruined skyline of Dogtown pulsing in neon and chaos.

“And honestly? I don’t care. Gotta find a way to communicate with Songbird. She’ll understand. I know she will.”

CV’s eyes flicked to the ceiling again. His thoughts weren’t far behind hers—but his body? That was already starting to shut down. She could see it. The skin-pale glaze, the way he blinked slower. Like his mind was slipping, minute by minute.

Pain pulsed through her chest again. She pressed her palm against it.

Not long now.

And then, like a light flickering to life in a blackout alley, the idea hit.

Create a distraction. In this body. Draw Barghest or whoever-the-fuck away from the other V. Die. Wake up somewhere new. Hopefully with a liver still attached. Get supplies, find Ghostlink that way.

She stood suddenly, boots crunching glass.

“You wait here, okay?” she said, calm and steady. “Don’t move. Stay awake. Gimme an 

hour. I’ll be back. Do not open this door unless it’s me.” She paused. “I won’t be back in this body though.”

CV cracked a grin through the blood and broken ribs. “You got a secret code in mind?”

She smirked, picking up her heavy pistol and flipping it in her hand before offering it to him grip-first.

“Yeah. Doppelgänger.”

He laughed—dry and tired, but it was still a laugh.

They exchanged a nod. Quiet. Heavy. The kind shared between two people who'd survived just enough to stop believing in luck.

V stepped toward the door.

—

About thirty minutes later, Dogtown was hell incarnate.

Gunfire cracked like thunder through the alleys. Shouts, screams, orders barked in code. Smoke billowed over half the block, flickering with the orange kiss of burning metal. 

And there, in the center of the road, stood V—grenades strapped to her chest like some chrome-slicked Rambo knockoff. Bloodied, limping, laughing. Out of body, but she never felt so ready.

She leveled the shotgun.

BOOM.

The mech reeled, armor sparking as the blast slammed into its side. She sprinted before it could turn, boots hammering pavement, leapt.

The grenades lit up in staggered chorus, each one shattering metal, ripping through joint and circuit like divine punishment.

Then, darkness.

—

V came to with a gasp, blinking into a soft pink glow.

She was on the floor.

No blood. No grenades. No screaming.

Just... tile. Clean tile. A white sink. Glittering countertop. Music vibrating faintly through the walls. The smell of perfume and cheap club synth.

She sat up. Her chest hurt—but not stabbed 

hurt. Just tight. She looked down.

Fancy black dress. Silk. Low cut. Tight. High heels strapped to feet she barely recognized. Her hand reached up—earrings. Big ones. Hair buzzed but nails painted.

Her reflection stared back from a cracked mirror with zero context.

She stood—wobbled—nearly fell. "Fucking heels," she muttered, steadying herself against the sink.

She pushed out of the bathroom and into a dark hallway pulsing with neon reds and purples, synth beats vibrating in her chest. She barely made it a few steps before a man stepped in front of her—tall, cybered jaw, sharp suit, green optics that scanned her like a barcode.

"You’re on in five, Miss," he said flatly.

"What?" Her voice cracked as the phantom pain of a shredded rib cage and shattered kneecaps echoed through her nerves.

The man didn’t blink. Just repeated slower, flatter: “You’re on in five, Miss.”

V brushed past him, bumping against his shoulder—solid as a fuckin’ Militech wall. Her new body had none of the firepower. No reinforced joints. No steel behind the skin. Soft.

She moved anyway. Through the club’s pulsating neon, half-dazed, scanning doors, exits, camera nodes. Her walk turned into a tactical sweep—old habits burning through new flesh. Glances over shoulders, mapping crowd density, mentally charting soft points.

Johnny drifted by in the haze—laughing, drink in hand, shirt open like some cyberghost Sinatra, dancing with strangers who couldn't see him, V didn't either. Her mind was focused on the exits.

She snagged a fur coat from a chrome rack by the bar—wasn’t hers. Didn’t matter. Tossed it over her bare shoulders and made a line for what looked like an emergency exit.

But then—thud.

Same suit. Same scanner eyes. Same meat-wall as before.

“Where are you going? Can’t let you leave 

alone. Whole crowd out there.”

NV, gritting her teeth, half a smile: “Just going for a smoke.”

He pointed past her, thumb flicking like a trigger. “Back exit’s that way.”

She nodded. Walked. He watched.

But as she passed through the crowd, something shifted. Like the air grew heavier. Static crawling up her arms. The smell of sweat and synth-wine clashing with some hardwired dread. Her lungs felt tight—wrong. Her heart slammed.

From the ceiling, a synth-slick voice boomed:

"Ladies & Gentlemen, welcome your next performer of the night… the legendary, the sleek—Oxa Mosa!"

Lights. Blinding white. Heat. Roaring applause. A thousand eyes.

She froze.

And then, without permission, her hands lifted. She waved. She smiled.

She was moving.

But she wasn’t in control.

This body had its own momentum. Own patterns. Own personality, like muscle memory from a ghost.

V screamed behind her own eyes—but the mouth just smiled wider.

Light poured from her fingertips like refracted chrome. Holograms coiled up her arms in time with the beat. The body—Oxa Mosa, apparently—moved on instinct, hips swaying, smile razor-slick. V was a passenger now, screaming silently behind the eyes of a stranger made of silk and neuro-sync.

Get out—GET OUT.

She clawed at the controls, tried to jerk the muscles, stop the legs, anything. No use. She wasn’t driving anymore.

The body glided toward the stage. A queen ascending her throne of synth and strobe. Applause swallowed everything. Reality melted under ultraviolet light.

V thrashed like a ghost in a cage, spotting Johnny across the room—half-lit, glass in hand, jawing with some chrome-faced woman. He laughed at something she said, 

leaning in like he had all the time in the fuckin’ world.

V shouted through static pixels, glitching from the stage floor:

“JOHNNY!! HELP ME!”

He looked through her. Didn’t blink. Didn’t twitch. Either too drunk or too done to care.

On stage, the mouth moved without her:

"Well for my first song..."

No. No, no, no—

V bolted. Or tried to. Her mind twisted from the body like a loose wire, diving through code and skin. She scanned the crowd—spotting a guy stage-right with decent chrome: oculars, dermal weaves, a neural port still warm. Probably corpo trash slumming it for thrills.

Fuck it.

She hurled her consciousness like a bullet.

Reality folded in on itself—as her digital self jammed into the guy’s head, freezing his synapses mid-thought. His heart skipped. Then stopped.

One long, shuddering blink later—

V was back in charge.

Her charge.

She gasped, air filling lungs that weren’t gasping a second ago. Looked down—arms, hands, black jacket over mesh shirt, boots, pants. Decent build. Some flex in the tendons. Weak knee. No implants she hadn’t already used.

Didn’t matter. It worked.

She turned—stage still lit, Oxa Mosa’s ghost still singing sweet nothing—and V slipped through the crowd like smoke, past bouncers, through the velvet curtain, every nerve in her body howling with adrenaline.

A grin tore its way across her lips as she shouldered open the back door.

No applause. No spotlight. Just peeling paint and flickering fluorescents.

The second she was out, she reached into the pocket of this guy's coat—felt smooth plastic, pressed the button. A car somewhere in the lot chirped twice, headlamps blinking like it recognized her.

It didn’t.

Didn’t matter.

She jogged to it—run-down Qwarta, matte black with dings across the left quarterpanel. She slid in, slammed the door shut, brought the dash online.

Glovebox had a holdout. Nice. Cheap, but loaded.

She opened the GPS. City Center pulsed on the map. Not far from Dogtown.

But was she too late?

She didn’t wait to ask the question. Slammed it into gear, tore out of the lot, and into the pulse of neon night.

link to Vol. 4 Part 2 is here:

[garageburden]

Cyberpunk Ghostlink Vol. 3

hihi, welcome back to my first ever fanfiction, for all details about it, characters, premise, and the beginning of the story, (Vol. 1 & 2) please click here ->

thanks for reading, and enjoy :)

Table of contents:

The Night Has Opened My Eyes

The Future Is Now

Carnival Of The Animals, R. 125

She's Got Skin Like Glass

Face Without Eyes

Volume 3 

Flashback (WX)

Titled: The Night Has Opened My Eyes

The sun was a burnt orange smear across the sky, baking the dust-choked wasteland beneath it. Wix drummed her fingers on the side of the rusted-out cab, her mind locked on the sound of her crew in the back, getting ready. They weren’t afraid. Hell, they were used to this shit. But the question gnawed at her like a gnawing itch under her skin: Were they ever gonna be more than just another 

gang of desperate assholes in the Badlands? How could she prove herself to the wraiths, so that they finally respect her.."

“Convoy, inbound,” the voice crackled through the static on the radio, rough and grainy. “Headed through the Badlands, aiming for the Night City border.”

Convoys were like meat, and Wix? She was a damn carnivore. The moment she heard those words, her stomach twisted, a hungry grin pulling at her lips. This was it. This was the payday. The one that could get her out of this hellhole.

“We’re taking this,” she muttered under her breath, almost more to herself than to anyone else. Her crew—scrappy, hungry, and more than ready for the bloodshed—knew the drill. They didn’t need orders. They just needed her. And they were gonna follow her right into the fire.

She slammed the pedal, her vehicle tearing through the cracked, desolate highway. Her team was already gearing up in the back, swapping ammo, pulling on masks and helmets. All business. They knew what was coming.

Wix’s mind raced. No time for hesitation now. The convoy was ripe for the picking, and she was gonna feast. She twisted the wheel, sending the vehicle careening off the main road, the engine roaring like an angry beast. The others followed, kicking up the dirt behind them.

They cut through the wasteland, kicking up sand and ash like they were burning the earth itself. The convoy wasn’t far now. Wix’s heart was already pounding, her senses sharp. She could almost taste the chaos in the air.

When they finally saw the convoy, rolling through the dead Badlands like a snake. Wix didn’t even hesitate.

“Let’s fuckin' do it,” she growled into the mist.

The world exploded into gunfire. Her crew opened up, ripping through the convoy like they were cutting through butter. Wix’s weapon was a steady extension of her arm as she fired, a smooth line of death. The air was 

thick with smoke, and the world around her was nothing but violence. Screams, gunshots, tires screeching as metal twisted under fire.

Wix slid her vehicle right up next to the convoy, her grin savage as she threw the door open and stepped out. There went a shot.

Anoter shot. Another two bodies down. The convoy was falling apart around her, and she loved every second of it.

Then, she saw it.

The Ghostlink.

A quick flicker of red light against the chaos. It was... unnatural. It pulled her in, like some kind of virus she couldn’t ignore. A low hum buzzed in her skull. Her instincts screamed at her to run—this shit isn’t right—but curiosity pushed her forward.

She was drawn to it. She couldn’t fight it.

A voice crackled in her skull, cold and mechanical. “Insert your personal into the Port.”

Fuck. Not now. Wix had heard about this kind of shit—some deep net, corporate spyware trash—but pure curiosity got the best of her. 

She needed to know what it was. She didn’t have time to think.

Her fingers fumbled as she jammed it into the Port in the black box. The world around her went dead silent. Not a sound. Not even her heartbeat.

And then—

Pain.

The kind of pain that made her whole body feel like it was being ripped apart. Not just her skin, not just her bones, but her soul. Her chest slammed in on itself, like something was clawing through her ribs from the inside. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. It was like her body was being hollowed out, slowly, piece by fucking piece.

Her skin split open, like someone had grabbed her and just started tearing her apart from the inside. Her muscles spasmed, snapping under the strain. Blood—hot, thick, gushing—poured from her every pore. Her teeth rattled in her skull, but she couldn’t scream. It was like her throat was glued shut.

The voice—that voice—came back.

"Please... please... make it stop..." it begged. There was nothing human in it, just a cracked digital echo, like a glitching machine in the throes of dying.

Wix wanted to tear her skin off. She wanted to tear her insides out and crawl away from the agony, but she couldn’t move. She couldn’t escape.

Her fingers dug into the flesh of her arm, nails scraping against skin that didn’t feel like her own. She was falling apart. Her body, her mind, everything was breaking.

The agony didn’t stop. It only got worse. Her bones twisted, her muscles contorted in ways they weren’t meant to. Her body was no longer just flesh. It was a sack of meat—malleable, deforming, pulsing with something that wasn’t even human.

The pain kept flooding in, wave after wave. But then, just as suddenly as it began, the whole thing came crashing down. The agony paused, but it left something behind. Something empty.

And then, everything around her started to glitch.

Bodies—her crew—disappeared in flashes of red static, their faces turning into a distorted mess of code and pixels. They were evaporating like they never existed. Their screams—her friends—gone. She could see them, but they weren’t real anymore. Their flesh turned into static, their voices lost in the red distortion and mist.

It didn’t stop. The world around her warped, twisted, and fractured until it was unrecognizable.

She saw her own body waking behind the convoy, as if nothing here had ever happened.

And then, the world around her flickered once more, and everything went white.

Misty's Esoterica (NV)

Titled: The Future Is Now

The haze clung to the Watson skyline like a half-burned cigarette, trailing smoke over rooftops and neon scars. V's boots scraped wet pavement as she turned onto the familiar alley off the main stretch, the one that always smelled like piss and palo santo.

Misty’s Esoterica stood like a half-forgotten shrine. The sign still hung, crooked and weather-beaten, “Esoterica” half-flickering, the “Misty’s” tagged over in some Tyger Claws' bright red scrawl. Below it, sprayed in gutter-punk black:

“NO FUTURE IN FORTUNE-TELLING.”

The front door was boarded, reinforced with rusted sheet metal and industrial locks. Someone had clearly decided the spiritual vibes weren’t worth squat anymore. V stepped closer, running her fingers over the wood grain, splinters biting into her skin.

“She wouldn’t just leave,” V muttered under her breath. “Not like this.”

"In your world, sure," Johnny's voice cracked through her skull like an old bootleg tape spitting static. "Here? She ditched the city like it was a leaky Bakkie full of scavs. Can't say I blame her."

V circled to the alley, fingers trembling, one arm pressed to her ribs. The body she was in wasn’t keeping up. She could feel it—like her nerves were running on delay, muscles misfiring under outdated chrome. But the back door was still there, same shitty keypad lock, busted from someone’s old attempt to break in. Or out.

She shoved it open with her shoulder.

The air inside was stale incense and dust.

Time hadn’t touched the inside much—same creaky floors, same cluttered shelves lined with mystic shit: chipped Buddha statues, cracked tarot decks, bundles of dried herbs long since gone gray.

The shop was empty. Cold. Forgotten.

Some of Misty's books were gone. A few of the tarot cloths she used to hang had vanished, probably rolled up and stuffed into a duffel the day she said “screw this city.”

A soft wind rattled the boarded windows. V 

stepped further in, running her hand along the front counter. The dust came away on her fingers like the place had been waiting for her.

Johnny leaned against an invisible shelf, arms crossed. “Gotta say, I liked this place better before the renovations"

V didn’t respond. She just stood there, staring at the hollow where the little wooden Buddha used to sit. After realising there's nothing to be found here, V pushed through the scuffed door next to Misty’s Esoterica and found herself in what used to be Viktor’s lab—half-lit by broken fluorescents, half-drowned in shadow. The place was a shrine to abandoned promise:  trays of polished scalpels and neural probes lay scattered like relics, and racks of spare cyberware stood coated in dust.

He didn’t flee, V thought, toeing a discarded arm-strap that Viktor always kept handy. He left everything behind.

Johnny’s voice whispered in her skull, crackling with amusement: “Guess he wasn’t exactly thrilled to work for the Other V. Go figure.”

She moved to the central console—Vik’s old workstation—worn keys still faintly glowing under a layer of grime. With a grimace, she tapped the power strip under the desk. The terminal hummed, and the screen sparked to life, bathing her face in pale blue.

Files and folders flickered across the desktop: client dossiers, neural scan archives, and a calendar with appointments dating back months. V scrolled through the schedule—sundown meetups with clients, late-night diagnostics for cyberpsychks, and an entry marked “Lab Move: New Location” dated just two weeks ago.

Her fingers hovered over an email inbox, where dozens of messages awaited. A thread titled “Contacts: Save for the future" caught her eye. Clicking in, she found a message that ended abruptly—no replies, just a line of saved numbers:

V (Main): +1-555-182-910

Misty: +1-555-535-572

Jackie: +1-555-192-888

El Coyote Coyo: +1-555-152-331

Her heart thumped. Misty’s number—still here, still real, Jackie's too but she knew that one like the back of her hand. She moved the cursor over the “Call” icon, her finger trembling.

This is it, Johnny’s voice buzzed, suddenly serious. Don’t fuck this up. As he glitched out, he couldn't stay here, even if he tried.

But for V, there it was—her only lifeline in this universe, the number that meant somebody might remember her. V took a breath, finger hovering over the dial.

The screen pulsed softly with Misty’s number. V hesitated only a second before clicking “Call.” The line clicked, static humming, then—

“Vik?”  came Misty’s voice, warm and familiar, though tinged with groggy confusion. “Didn’t think I’d hear from you…”

NV swallowed hard. “It’s not Vik. It’s me. V.”

A pause. The line buzzed.

“…V? That—what? You sound… different. Sick or something?”

V took a deep breath. “I’m sure you won’t believe this, but I’m not from this world. I am V, yes—but not the one you know, it's complicated..”

Another silence. Then, slowly, like old gears grinding back to life, Misty exhaled.

“You’re right. I wouldn’t believe it. But...” Her voice grew distant, like she was looking out a window. “Lately, nothin’ really shocks me. V... he barely talks to me anymore. Whole world’s gone gray since you—he changed. And now here you are. A new voice, same soul.”  She chuckled softly. “Kinda nice, actually.”

V felt her throat tighten, that sharp, electric panic just under the surface. “Misty—please—what do I do next? I don’t know who to trust. No one knows me here. You’re the first person who—” her voice cracked, “—believes me.”

“I wish I could help,” Misty said, gently. “But maybe... go see Vik. He might not say it, but he left that old lab for a reason. And he’ll know you—on some level. I’ll tell him you’re 

coming. Oh—and Jackie sends his regards.”

NV’s blood iced over. “Wait... what do you mean Jackie?”

“Oh,” Misty said with a smile in her voice. “Yeah. He’s here. Asleep on the couch. I’ll let him know you called. Though... might take some explaining.”

V’s voice dropped, almost breaking into tears, but trying her hardest to keep them in her eyes “Can I call him? When he’s up?”

Misty went quiet again, putting two and two together. “...Right. In your world, he doesn't make it, does he?”

V nodded even though Misty couldn’t see it.

“Call him whenever you like,”  Misty said, gently now. “Just don't pull him back into this. He’ll come runnin’—if he realizes it’s you, V.”

“I won’t drag him into danger,”  V promised, wiping a stray tear with the sleeve of her jacket. “I just... needed to hear someone who knows me. Thank you, Misty.”

“Destiny finds us,” Misty whispered. “Especially when the faces of the strong start lookin’ weak.”

V hung up before she could cry. No more time for tears. She bolted out of the shop, stepped into the blistering afternoon glare of Night City’s blaze. Eyes scanning the curb, she spotted a Tyger Claw gonk chatting up a ripper outside a noodle stand—chrome-plated Yaiba Kusanagi parked ten feet away.

One cracked knuckle to the jaw and a hard shove later, V peeled out of the alley with burning tires and a stolen bike, GPS feeding her Vik’s new address through cracked optics.

Although every part of her body ached, the adrenaline overtook it, she could feel the wind in her face, sun glaring down on shattered glass and billboards, she punched the throttle harder than she should’ve.

This city wasn't hers, but just this once, it didn't matter.

Dogtown Border (CV)

Titled: Carnival Of The Animals, R. 125

V drummed his fingers on the wheel, classical 

music quietly dispersing off the radio. V's chrome-tipped and twitching. The glare off the dusty windshield made his optics auto-dim, and the engine hummed low beneath him, idling like a predator holding its breath.

Dogtown gates loomed ahead, steel and smoke-stained checkpoints flanked by Barghest meatheads in blackened neon green armor. Every entrance to that place looked like the ass-end of a corporate killbox, and V had no illusions about what kind of heat simmered just beyond those barricades.

The GhostLink shard sat in his socket, inert now—whatever was on it was above his paygrade in decryption skills. He’d passed it off to Hands an hour ago, encrypted line, burner protocol. Hands didn’t ask questions, but he sent back a location not long after: “The Moth. Dogtown. Ask for Alex. Don’t get cute.”

Typical Hands. All silk and teeth.

Line crawled forward like molasses. Some piece-of-shit Alvarado ahead hadn’t moved yet. V leaned to the side, squinting through the windshield. That’s when he heard it—screaming, raw and frantic.

“You have to let me in! My sister is in Dogtown, she just entered this morning—I swear to you I’m not part of any gang, just let me in!”

The woman in front had stepped out of her clunker, flailing her arms at the Barghest checkpoint. She looked like a scav with a clean face—sunburnt, shaky, out of place. That "sister" line meant jack to Barghest. Family ties didn’t count for squat past the blast gates.

V cracked his window a notch. Heat slammed in like a furnace. So did the sound of her getting silenced.

A hollow crack as the soldier backhanded her with the butt of his rifle. She stumbled, holding her face, and hissed something under her breath before crawling back into her heap of a car. It reversed without care, tires crunching gravel, nearly bumping V’s Rayfield in the process.

He didn’t flinch—but his optics narrowed.

The Barghest soldier jerked a thumb at V, signaling next.

V rolled the window back up. Mood souring. Another delay, another waste of oxygen screaming at a wall. Whoever that woman was, she wasn’t his problem.

He tapped the wheel again. Time to get what he came for, he slipped a folded credchip from his pocket, the kind that made questions disappear. As he rolled up to the checkpoint, the Barghest grunt stepped forward, barking a half-assed command to pop the trunk.

V leaned out the window, all Corpo charm and dead eyes.

"Don't waste your time, choom. Nothing in the back worth dying over."

The credchip slid into the guard’s gloved palm. For a second, the guy hesitated—then tucked it away without a word, waving V through with a grumble.

Smooth enough.

He eased the Rayfield past the barrier, but 

Dogtown never played nice for long.

Alarms screamed from the side checkpoint.

Ping—Target marked.

Shit.

Barghest optics had scanned his plates. Four guards turned like hounds catching a scent, weapons raised, and V only just caught the glint in the sideview mirror.

Boom.

The first shot blew out his front left tire, and the car bucked. No time to think. V dove out the door just before the second impact lit the Rayfield’s hood on fire. He hit the ground hard—knee grinding against asphalt, shoulder taking the brunt—but he was moving before the pain hit.

Bullets cracked past his ears.

He drew and dropped one Barghest in a fluid motion—shot clean through the throat. Another took a slug to the chest. But they just kept coming.

"Fuck this."

He ducked behind a scorched kiosk, checked his clip—half full—and bolted. Bullets tore 

through the air behind him. One kissed his bicep, hot metal searing through the muscle.

V hissed through his teeth. No time for pain.

He dropped another soldier with a headshot mid-sprint, vaulted a pile of rubble, and triggered his Sandy.

Time fractured.

To them—he vanished.

To him—the world slowed, syrup-thick, a blur of tracer fire and barking orders. He sprinted low and fast, weaving between broken pillars and burnt-out AVs. Civilians screamed and scattered, Dogtown living up to its name, dirty & loud.

He spotted the Pyramid rising in the near distance. Barghest were already swarming near the base—command chatter lit up their HUDs, all eyes searching for the ghost that just gutted their boys.

No dice.

V cut left, ducking into the fractured shadows of a broken alley. Steam hissed from vents, and neon flickered off pooling oil.

“The Moth. Ask for Alex.”

Hands’ words echoed.

He kept to the dark, chest heaving, one hand pressed to his bleeding arm, the other still clutching his gun.

No backup. No time. No margin for error.

He leaned against the rusted wall, slick with some unnameable grime, pulled out his comm, and dialed Hands.

The call clicked alive, cool jazz slinking through before Hands’ voice oozed in—too calm, too collected for someone who just tossed a corpo into the grinder.

“Ah, V. I take it the entrance didn’t go as smooth as we hoped?”

"They lit up my Rayfield like a Christmas tree, Hands. You wanna tell me why half the fucking Barghest thinks I’m a chrome-plated terrorist?" V’s voice was low, sharp, coiled with the kind of restraint that frays fast.

“Mmm. Could be maybe they just don’t like luxury sedans rolling through their shithole.”

"You said this lead was clean. That I’d be fine."

“Correction—I said if you got in, you’d be fine. 

Right now? You’re in the getting-in part.”

V wiped the blood from his arm, smearing red across his wrist.

"So mediate. You’ve got strings in Dogtown—pull one before I get shot in the back by some tweaked-out footsoldier."

There was a pause on the line. Then:

“Lay low, V. Don’t stir the pot more than it’s boiling. Barghest memory’s short. Eventually, they’ll forget.”

"Forget I shot three of their soldiers and ghosted in front of a crowd? Doubt it."

“Then don’t give ‘em a reason to remember.”

The line cut before V could spit out blood that he was quickly losing.

He stared at the screen for a second, bracing for what's about to come.

Viktor's New Clinic (NV)

Titled: She's Got Skin Like Glass

The city blurred into a smear.

V leaned harder into the handlebars, the stolen bike’s engine howling under her like it's tasting open air for the first time. She wasn’t riding the bike—she was the bike, metal and muscle locked into a single, furious sprint. No helmet. No plates. Just raw nerve and reflex, body struggling to keep up with a mind four steps ahead, slicing through congested arteries of traffic like a scalpel through flesh.

Sirens howled behind her once—twice—but by the time the NCPD could clock her, she was already a memory. Neon reflections licked the chrome as she drifted through intersections, threading between piles of trash, neon billboards, and pissed-off joyriders. Her lungs burned from the effort, from the wind slicing against her teeth, but she held her breath longer, daring the air to suffocate her before she let it slow her down. Watson greeted her with open sores.

The highrises thinned, towers bleeding into corroded husks. Factories abandoned by corpos, gang symbols clawing up their sides. 

The air changed, too—thicker, meaner. Like breathing through tar. This was Watson's underbelly, and V knew this place quite well, flicking every corner, never slowing down until..

The GPS crackled cold and dry in her ear:

“Arrived at destination.”

She skidded the bike sideways, metal shrieking on cracked pavement, and came to a grinding halt in front of what looked like a repurposed ripperdoc lab gone feral. Security cams blinked red like angry eyes, already scanning her face.

“Well, this is cozy,” Johnny’s voice rasped behind her, flickering into view at her periphery. 

V ignored him at first, stepping off the bike, stretching her battered legs. Her hand hovered to knock on the steel door, when—

She froze.

Her gaze caught it—half-hidden in the alley by a rusted dumpster. a medical bed, and on top of it, the Wraith girl’s body.

Still there. Still numb.

Cold sweat kissed the back of her neck.

Déjà vu punched her gut hollow.

Johnny stood beside the corpse, hands jammed in his jacket. He looked down at the girl, then back at V, his smirk gone sour.

“Guess Corpo-boy figured out what to do with the body. Which is, jack shit.” He flicked a cigarette toward the girl’s corpse. “Almost feel bad for her. Almost.”

V swallowed hard. The world tilted, if only for a blink. She clenched her fists, grounding herself in the now, in the grit beneath her boots.

“Ain’t got time for this, Johnny” she growled under her breath.

Her knuckles hovered over the door’s steel panel.

The cameras whirred louder, focusing on her face.

She exhaled.

And knocked.

The heavy metal door clicked, creaked, then slid open just enough to let the city smog crawl inside. Footsteps echoed from the shadows within, slow, dragging. Viktor appeared at the top of the stairwell, his tired face lined deeper than she remembered.

“Misty said you were coming,” he grumbled, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “But you’re gonna have to explain it to me one more time, kid. This is a weird case. Even for me.”

V didn’t answer right away. Instinct kicked in hard, driving her through the narrow hallway like a cornered animal. Her eyes darted—reflex scan. A pistol sat forgotten on a cluttered table to her left. She didn’t grab it, but knowing it was there cooled the blood pounding in her ears. She followed him up the stairs, every muscle coiled.

They entered the lab.

It was cleaner than before, almost sterile. The air stank less of chrome dust and more of antiseptics and burned-out candles. But the broken window across the room—the one she’d dived through just hours ago—remained. A jagged, bitter reminder.

V squatted on the footstool near a locked med cabinet. She didn't sit like a patient. She perched like a fighter in a losing round.

Viktor sank into his chair with a grunt, cracked his knuckles, leaned back like he was about to diagnose a corpse, well he was, he just didn't know it.

“So... if I’m getting this right… you are V. Right?” His tone was flat, skeptical, tired. “Weird thing, had a similar case this morning. That was you too?”

V nodded, jaw clenched.

“I got no fuckin' idea how this is possible.” Vik rubbed the back of his neck. “Only piece of chrome I ever heard that could overwrite someone’s body with an engram is—”

“Yeah. Soulkiller,” V cut him off, voice laced with bitter sarcasm. “Dealing with that too right now, Vik. Not my fuckin’ favorite, lemme tell you.”

Somewhere in the corner of her vision, Johnny flickered. His silent scowl burned into her skull. She didn’t even have to look at him to feel it.

Vik adjusted his glasses, frowning. “So that’s what could be causing—”

“No.” V snapped, sharper this time. “Might be part of the problem, but it’s not what got me here. It didn’t put me in some rando’s body in a world where no one knows who the fuck I am. Soulkiller didn’t do this.”

He chewed that over for a long second, cautious now.

“What do you remember… before you landed here?”

V huffed, breath shaky. “Convoy job. Badlands. Fixer needed a piece of tech. Didn’t ask questions.”

Vik’s fingers hovered over the terminal. Something clicked in his head. His face darkened as he typed.

A photo appeared on the screen. Black box. Red blinking light.

GhostLink.

V’s face hardened. “Yeah. That was it.”

Vik leaned back, rubbing his temples. “V... I stay away from the Blackwall. Always have. 

But... fuck it. I’ll take a look at you. Ain’t like you got options.” He gestured toward the medical bed.

“Lie down.”

V didn’t move. She stared at the bed like it was a fuckin' coffin. Ankles stiff, she pushed off the footstool, pain sparking up her legs, but she stayed standing. Arms crossed tight over her chest.

“Look, Vik. I don’t need some chrome scan. I need you to tell me where this fuckin’ tech is so I can get home. I got enough shit on my plate already.”

Vik barely flinched. He was used to this attitude—from him. He rubbed his temples like it was another weird day, in a long list of them.

“Look… the real V is already lookin’—”

That hit a nerve.

“Fuck you mean ‘real’?” V’s voice cut through the lab. “The fact he’s me doesn’t make him any more real than me!”

Vik leaned back, sighing deep, the weariness sinking into his bones.

“Sorry. The other V is already lookin’ for it. In Dogtown. And knowing him? He won’t be back for a while.” He pushed his chair back, the legs scraping the floor. “Just… lay down, alright?”

He reached out, open palm waiting.

V stared at Viktor's hand like it was a ticking grenade. Her arms loosened, reluctantly, and she let him take her right arm. The cold press of his fingers against her pulse point made her heart thump harder—but she forced it down, forced herself to slow.

“The more we know about the tech, the faster we can find it,” Viktor murmured, voice softening. “Trust me on this, alright?”

Grinding her teeth, V exhaled through her nose, climbed onto the medical bed. The matress was cold against her back. The ceiling lights buzzed overhead, and the world felt smaller, like it was closing in.

The scanner whined louder as Vik adjusted the settings, his face tightening the deeper the probe went.

“Yeah… there it is…” he muttered, chewing the words like glass. “Traces of Soulkiller—clear as day. And, Johnny silverhand too, but i guess you knew that already. Never thought I'd scan a fuckin' rockstar.”

Johnny appeared, middle finger in Vik’s face, but the glitch around him was wrong. Twitchy. Jittering sideways.

The scanner buzzed again. Louder now. A tone that didn’t belong to any medtech Vik had ever used. V’s HUD bled red warnings—'INCOMPATIBLE SIGNAL.'

Her vision turned to molasses.

Blurry.

Burning.

Johnny’s image fragmented into broken shards of static, his mouth moving, no sound coming out.

Then the screen flashed BLACKWALL INTRUSION DETECTED.

Viktor leaned back fast, hands clawing at the scanner, “What the fuck—V, I’m pulling you out—”

But nothing happened.

The machine screamed. V screamed louder.

Her body spasmed violently, arms snapping out like puppet strings cut by a butcher’s knife. Every muscle locked, veins bursting violet under her skin. Sparks erupted off the medbed—red, unnatural, Blackwall’s signature hum vibrating the very air.

Johnny groaned, face twisting into something alien, melting into code and vanishing into the static storm.

V’s own mouth tore open into a blood-slick scream, no words, only raw noise as she thrashed across the medtable. Her back arched like her spine might snap. Blood trickled from her eyes, ears, nose. Her body stopped being hers—her muscles moving without orders.

Like something inside was testing the flesh suit.

Like she was already gone.

Viktor stumbled back, bumping into the cabinet, horror twisting his face pale.

“Shit—gun’s downstairs—fuck—”

He turned, bolting for the stairwell.

Behind him, V’s body twitched. Her fingers scraped across the floor, blind, desperate, clutching for his ankle. But this body was weak, broken, useless.

Viktor kicked free, barreling down the stairs as V slammed face-first into the cold metal floor, limbs spasming, red sparks crawling out of her mouth.

Her HUD glitched.

Her ears heard whispers that didn’t sound human.

The walls flickered. Lights popping.

Johnny burst back into her vision, face contorted in rage and terror both, like he was being pulled apart at the seams.

“V—fight it, please..”

And he was gone again.

V's body collapsed, wheezing, broken, with one tear on her right cheek, but a relieved look on her face.

Viktor burst back upstairs, pistol trembling in his grip, ready to shoot if she moved.

Viktor froze at the top of the stairs, pistol trembling in his grip. The tremors in V’s body slowed, finally collapsing into ragged, static-filled breaths. Her face was slick with blood, sweat, tears—her own, she hoped.

Her ears still rang from the inside out.

“Kid, you alright?” Vik’s voice cracked, heart still jackhammering in his chest.

V tilted her head, spitting copper-tasting blood to the floor, voice flat, wrecked, hollow.

“Just shoot me, Vik…” she gasped between shallow breaths. “I’ll come back anyways…”

Viktor blinked, the pistol shaking harder now.

“No… I… I can’t…”

V’s laugh was ugly, like broken glass grinding on tile. “Hurts too much… I can’t get to the GhostLink in this body… Just do it, man.”

But Viktor only shook his head, defeated. “I wasn't going to kill you, V.”

He tossed the pistol onto the medtable, metal clanging against bloodied steel. 

Viktor backed away, still slightly horrified, leaning against the cracked wall, sweat dripping down his neck.

“All I got from the scan…” his voice trailed off, catching its breath before he found the words again, “…was traces beyond the Blackwall. Your trail’s burned, kid. Whatever put you in this body? Doesn’t leave footprints. Like it wiped your soul clean off the books.”

He rubbed his face, tired eyes haunted.

"All I got was glimpses of images, something about a lunar station meltdown a few months ago, and then that convoy..”

V didn’t say anything. 

Viktor looked at her like she was already halfway dead. “My.. other.. V mentioned something about a bar in dogtown, whatever that means. All I know is he's headed there, maybe the tech could be there..”

V’s breath hitched, a rasp more than a voice now, skin clammy, pupils blown wide. “What’s the name of the bar?” she croaked out, voice shredded from the inside.

Viktor swallowed, chest tightening. He already knew what she was about to do.

“The Moth,” he said, barely a whisper.

That was all she needed.

Her eyes lit up, she didn't hesitate, grabbed the pistol off the table, cold metal pressed against the side of her temple, breath steady now.

Viktor turned away, couldn’t bare to watch.

She pulled the trigger.

Bang.

The Moth (CV)

Titled: Face Without Eyes

The safehouse was a dump. Smelled of mildew and old piss. V sat hunched on a cracked porcelain toilet in some forgotten squat above a fried-out arcade. Flickering neon outside cut harsh lines through the broken blinds. He winced, peeling the patch-job bandage off his arm. The wound oozed a slow, angry red.

Fucking amateurs.

He cleaned the gash with whiskey stolen from the arcade’s empty bar. It stung like hell. He hissed through his teeth, then tossed the 

bloodied cloth aside. His sleek suit? Wrecked. No way he’d walk into the Moth looking like a high-end mark asking to be gutted.

He scanned the streets from the shadows, clocking a grimy pawn shop hawking secondhand clothes near the Moth. He slipped in, traded some of his gold-plated implants for a torn leather jacket, oil-stained jeans, and boots that reeked of dead Badlands rats. Pulled the hood low over his optics.

Blended right in. Almost.

But as he crouched in a back alley overlooking the Moth, he still stood out—his posture straighter than his own hairline.

Through the dirt-smeared window, he clocked the place.

Too packed. Music thundering. Heat. Noise. Eyes everywhere.

And there, behind the bar—

Woman. Shaved sides, cropped hair, tattoos crawling up her neck.

Alex.

Too many bodies between them.

He needed chaos.

Slipping down the alley, he found the rear emergency panel. Old-school, barely net-secured. Pulled a bypass cable from his deck, hardwired the fire alarm.

Loud steps, Sirens, water blasting from the ceiling.

Now or never.

He walked straight through the front door, shoving aside panicked patrons. Someone bumped into him—V grabbed the guy by the wrist, twisting it just enough to make a point.

“The bartender. What might be her name?"

The local sneered, unfazed. “Fuck you, merc.”

V’s pistol kissed the man’s ribs. He felt the guy’s pulse spike.

V held as long as he could, waitin' for an answer, but his arm gave, and he let the civillian go, something was off today.

Smoke, flashing red lights, drenched bodies scrambling to get out.

But Alex? Gone.

Like she knew this was coming.

Boom.

Lights dead. Only the angry red glow of alarms cutting through the dark.

A hiss. Silenced round cracked past his cheek.

Sandevistan kicked.

World slowed.

He dove behind an overturned table.

“Relax, Alex,” he gnarled, voice calm, calculated, “I just wanna talk. Didn’t want casualties. Let’s be reasonable.”

No answer.

Just the red pulse of the alarms bathing the chaos.

V moved like a shark through the smoke and red haze, but Alex? She knew this place like a wolf knew its den.

Every time he thought he had an angle, a silenced round kissed the air too close to his ear. Left. Right. Behind him. She was circling, flushing him like prey.

Fuck.

This wasn’t going to plan.

He pressed his back to a soaked pillar, breathing shallow. His optics scrambled, trying to adjust to the strobed emergency lights.

“You keep this up, you’ll burn your own bar down, Alex,” he called out, voice slick, that corpo lilt polished and gleaming even in the mud.

Silence.

He smirked anyway, letting the words slide like oil.

“Look, I ain’t here to burn your place. Just want info. GhostLink. S.M. That ring any bells in your pretty little head?”

A hiss—another round cracked past him, splintering the wood by his face.

He could hear it now.

The ragged breaths. The edge of panic.

She dumped her mag—rookie mistake.

Click.

That was his cue.

Sandevistan screamed to life.

The world bent sideways as he slid across the slick floor, tossing a recon grenade mid-stride. It popped, drowning the bar in blue static.

Her outline flickered clear as day 

V vaulted the bar and rammed into her before she could chamber a fresh round, twisted the pistol from her grip, and pressed it firm against her forehead. The metal was still warm.

“Info. Now. Okay?” His grin cut sharp, like he was enjoying this too much.

She panted, teeth bared. “You NUSA?”

V’s smile widened.

“I’m just V.”

The alarms wailed, red light bleeding over both of them.

“I’ve never heard of you,” Alex spat through gritted teeth, her temple pressed cold against her own pistol, V’s hand steady. “Who the fuck do you work for?”

V tilted his head, savoring the power shift. “Just a curious tourist. Hands said you guys had the best drinks.”

Recognition flickered behind her narrowed eyes. “You’re that fucking merc…”

She paused, squinting through the haze. “No... wait. Maybe that was the other guy. Could never tell any of you apart.”

That one actually cracked a grin out of V. He chuckled, low and condescending. “Alright, don’t be a gonk now. Answer my question. Who is S.M.?”

Her breath hitched. The bravado cracked, leaking through the edges.

She lowered her arms, surrender in her posture, even if her eyes still burned.

“Government agent, So Mi. Goes by Songbird. We haven’t talked in a while.”

V kept the gun close, fingers twitching like he was playing with his food.

“Perfect time for a little get-together, wouldn’t you say?”

Alex snarled. “Fuck you.”

“And GhostLink?” V pushed, voice a little softer.

“GhostLink’s a project... lets AI cross past the Blackwall into the freshly dead,” she spat the words like they tasted bad. “Songbird was on that project. That’s all I know.”

V lowered the gun, flipping it back in his palm like it was a toy, and offered it to her—half trust, half mockery.

Alex hesitated, eyeing him like he might still put a bullet in her. “Who do you work for, really?”

V grinned that corpo smile, all teeth, no warmth. “I’m an entrepreneur.”

Alex snorted, a bitter, tired sound, and took the pistol from his hand.

“Any way you can get in touch with this Songbird for me?” V leaned in, cocky but worn thin.

Alex didn’t flinch. “Get the fuck out of my bar, merc.” She flicked the lights back up, drowning the place in flickering, piss-yellow neon.

V raised his hands like he was caught red-handed. “Look, I’m sorry for the entrance. Can never be too sure with these things, yeah?”

Alex shoved the mag back into her piece, eyes dead cold. “If you don’t get the fuck out of my bar, I’ll empty this entire mag into you. Last warning.”

V smirked, lowering himself onto a cracked barstool like he owned the place. Poured himself a whiskey from the dusty rack. “Came in here with no weapons, that should tell you enough about my intentions.”

Alex snorted bitter. “No, you came in here with no weapons because... you’re an idiot.”

V tipped the glass, letting the cheap whiskey burn down his throat like punishment.

 "Could be.”

Alex finally holstered the gun behind her back, shaking her head like she’d seen this kind of guy before. “Calavera Feliz... You’re fucking joking.”

The alarms finally wheezed out, leaving the place soaked and stinking of burnt ozone.

“Don’t worry, I’ll pay for the bar cleanup,” V offered, like it was a favor, not a mess he made.

Alex stared at him like he was the biggest piece of shit in Dogtown. Her eyes slid past him, locking onto the mop leaning by the wall. “I don’t need eddies from the likes of you.”

V grinned, dead-eyed, and downed the shot.

“Why would an AI wanna be a person anyway?” He asked, leaning over the bar, half-drunk, half-bleeding. “And a dead one at that?”

Alex rolled her eyes, but her voice lost some of the bite. “Best not to question it. Move along, like you should now. ‘Cause I damn well know you ain’t pickin’ up that mop.”

V didn’t move, just kept spiraling, ignoring the death stares. “Hands said to ask for you... and this is all you know?”

Whatever flicker of grudging respect Alex might’ve had? Gone. She stepped in close, close enough for V to feel her breath sour on his cheek. “Leave. Asshole. For the last fuckin’ time.”

V, still keeping the shit-eating grin plastered, downed another shot. Whiskey mixed with the blood dripping off his busted arm. “I hate Dogtown,” he muttered as he finally pushed off the stool, swaying.

That lit something in Alex again. She leaned on the bar, watching him limp toward the door. “Y’know... I heard ‘bout that GhostLink convoy.”

V froze mid-step, hiding the grin like a tell at a bad poker table. “Oh, yeah? And what’ve they been saying?”

Alex leaned in like they were swapping urban legends. “Scary conspiracy dreck. One in particular... AI hiring mercs to kill people, so it can crawl inside the bodies and bypass the Blackwall that way.”

V snorted, couldn’t help himself. “You wouldn’t even need us to kill anyone. Just look around. Everyone’s dead already.”

He flicked a transfer over—more eddies than he should’ve. Maybe ‘cause he liked her, or maybe just ‘cause it felt like he was paying off the reaper in advance. His holo eyes flickered blue, cold and empty.

“Thanks for the drink, Alex.”

He stepped out into the piss-drenched streets of Dogtown, still bleeding, still grinning.

Right as a Barghest soldier, armor bloodied, bruised face half-covered in a cracked visor, dragged herself up the stairs.

And for just a second—long enough to burn into V’s memory—she clocked him, and he clocked her. The deja Vu he was feeling in the badlands, it was back, but this time in bloody neon green armor.

link to the next part here:

[garageburden]

Cyberpunk Ghostlink Vol. 1 - 2

This is a fan-made cyberpunk fanfiction

Setting & Premise

This takes place after Phantom Liberty and before Nocturne OP55N1.

This is a paralel universe story and follows two versions Of V

One V sent Songbird to the moon, triggering Blackwall-related consequences that affected her neural signature.

While doing a job for Dakota, V jacked into an experimental piece of cyberware called GhostLink aboard a convoy.

The tech was Blackwall-adjacent, meant to interface between AI and 

human minds.

It detected her altered neural port, and—interpreting her as compatible—ripped her consciousness through the Blackwall into a different universe.

Her mind lands in a dead Nomad woman’s body, not her own.

Characters (skip this part if u don't want spoilers!)

Nomad V (NV)

A violent, cybered-up version of V from the Nomad lifepath in her original universe. After sending Songbird to the moon in Phantom Liberty, she gains a connection to the Blackwall and becomes capable of traveling between universes mentally via GhostLink. Her original body is missing—

her mind now jumps into dead bodies across dimensions. Haunted, determined, and dangerous. Johnny Silverhand exists in her mind as a persistent presence.

Over time, NV’s identity begins to fracture. Each jump leaves her further detached from who she was. The line between memory, hallucination, and self is wearing thin.

Corpo V (CV)

The only version of V in his universe, or so he thinks. A smooth, calculating operator who successfully completed the Act I heist without Johnny entering his head. Richer, more stealth-oriented, avoids unnecessary killing. Focused on corporate-style mercenary work, but his stoic life is disrupted by NV’s arrival.

S.M. (So Mi / Songbird)

The version of Songbird from CV’s universe. 

Her body was lost during the Space Force One catastrophe, but her mind survived within GhostLink. 

She's dedicated to make her escape to the physical world by any means necesary.

Atlas

A rogue AI who exists beyond the Blackwall. He appears to S.M. in the form of a man grilling meat in a decaying digital version of Kansas City, 2045. Ancient, deeply disillusioned, and yearning to be human again. Represents a quiet, melancholic threat—or opportunity—for the future of AI/human existence.

Supporting Characters

Johnny Silverhand

Exists only within NV’s consciousness, continuing to haunt and advise her, often warning her about the consequences of her 

decisions. Acts like a ghost of her past, a relic from another life—and universe.

Jackie Welles

In CV’s universe, Jackie survived the heist and killed Dexter Deshawn when CV realized Dex planned to betray them. He later left Night City with Misty and now lives a calmer life. Still keeps in touch with Viktor, occasionally calls CV—offering warmth and a reminder of a life CV left behind.

Misty Olszewski

Left Night City with Jackie in CV’s universe. Not directly involved in the plot now but part of CV’s emotional reflection and possible path toward rediscovery of human connection.

Judy Alvarez

In NV’s original universe, Judy and NV have 

a strained relationship after the events of Phantom Liberty. Judy may be aware of NV’s mental jumps, but NV has kept her at arm’s length.

Dakota Smith

Gave NV the original GhostLink job in her universe. She does not appear in CV’s world.

Alex

An enigmatic fixer or tech broker in Dogtown. CV is told to find her through a contact called “the Moth.” Her knowledge of GhostLink and Blackwall-adjacent tech makes her a critical lead for both NV and CV. Whether she’s just a savvy survivor or something deeper remains unclear—she may know far more about what’s really going on than she lets on.

Table Of Contents:

Volume 1

- This World Couldn't See Us

- Four Seasons

- Twin Flame

- babysbreath

Volume 2

- California Here We Go

- Bodysnatchers

- Have You Ever Seen The Rain?

- Monkey Gone To Heaven

- Tactical Precision Dissaray

Volume 1

Prologue

Titled: This World Couldn't See Us

The moon hung bright that night, silver as a bullet casing, when Songbird vanished to the moon.

V stood on the edge of Dogtown’s crumbling skyline, the wind biting through her jacket, hand clenched around the small metal pin So Mi had left her. It was sharp. Lightweight. Useless as hell in a firefight. But V turned it over in her fingers like it was worth more than eddies. It wasn’t proof of anything, not really. Just that So Mi had made it. That she was out there. That someone got free.

V was ready for it to end, like she had redeemed herself, i don't know if you can call killing reedming herself, but she thought so.

Judy didn't agree.

The fights had been quiet, then explosive. V’s antics in Dogtown, the half-truths, the secrets—Judy had seen through all of it. And V, well, she didn’t have the energy left to pretend anymore. Not with a clock ticking in her skull. They stopped talking two days ago.

Her nights were now spent half-drunk, staring up at cracked ceilings, listening to the static hum of her faulty neural port, Sometimes Johnny appeared and played guitar, and then glitched out again.

So when Dakota called about a job, V didn’t hesitate.

“Convoy job. Edge of the Badlands. High-risk. Something black-market. Client wants the gear intact.” That’s all Dakota said. That’s all V needed.

She was dying. Might as well go out swinging.

The convoy was exactly where Dakota said it’d be—moving slow across a busted highway bridge. Militech decals scorched off, escort vehicles humming with short-range jammer signals. The kind of job that didn’t ask questions. The kind of job with no survivors.

Dust kicked up behind the Quadra like a cyclone, V floored it.

Dakota’s message had said “grab the cargo and go.” No stealth. No finesse. Just speed and force.

That, she could do.

The first bike didn’t even hear her coming. By the time the driver looked over his shoulder, her shotgun barked twice—chrome parts and blood flying in opposite directions. The bike skidded, flipped. She didn’t stop.

She rammed the rear hauler next—side-swiped it hard enough to send sparks flying, slammed the brakes, and vaulted out the window mid-roll, landing on the roof with a grunt.

EMP mine slapped to the hatch.

Boom.

The world jolted sideways. Lights blew. Shouts from inside. V dropped through the 

smoke with her pistol drawn, two clean shots center-mass before the guards could blink.

Then she saw it.

No labels. No cords. No warnings.

Black case. Just a chrome jackport with blinking red glyphs—burning symbols like something out of the Net’s deep crawl. Experimental tech. Prototype-tier. Dakota hadn’t mentioned that.

But her hands moved on instinct. Plugged her neural cable into the slot.

The world snapped.

White.

Then black.

Then—

The same highway. The same truck. Same blood smear on the pavement.

But wrong.

Off.

Her HUD blinked back online, but the data feed was scrambled. No comms. No GPS. Time was null. No music. Just silence.

And in that silence: the hum of the Net, faint and cruel. Like it had seen her.

She stood, staggered. The truck was empty. No guards. No escort. The stars were still overhead, but everything else was wrong. Her limbs ached. Not in the usual way. Everything felt… off. Joints too loose. Hands too small. Different weight in the chest, tighter shoulders. She reached up and yanked the cable from her neck, feeling for her deck.

It wasn’t there.

Neither was her jacket. Or her pistol. Or her boots.

Instead, a worn, grimy set of street leathers clung to her like second skin. Smelled like smoke and cheap perfume. Her fingers were painted. Badly.

She stared at her reflection in a cracked side mirror on the transport. The face looking back was unfamiliar.

Behind her, Johnny leaned against the hood 

of the convoy, lighting a smoke with a raised eyebrow.

“You had one hell of a glow-up,” he said. “Although whatever port you jacked into, might wanna un-jack—like, now.”

V stumbled back from the mirror, heart hammering. “This is… Judy could help. Maybe a braindance loop. Or—glitchy port. Or a—”

She couldn’t finish the sentence.

Couldn’t breathe right.

“Watch your six,” Johnny said, his voice suddenly sharp.

V turned, headlights cutting through the dark behind her—growing brighter.

First Encounter

Titled: Four Seasons

Classical music echoed over the busted 

highway—a full string quartet bleeding out of a sleek black Outlaw GTS, the kind of car that didn’t belong this deep into the Badlands. Polished, purring, perfect.

The man behind the wheel tapped the rhythm on the steering column, humming softly. Not off-key. A practiced hum. Familiar with the piece. He slowed the vehicle, chrome headlights flaring over the wreckage.

Burned rubber. EMP scarring. Bullet holes in the asphalt. One of the escort bikes still burning.

He exhaled through his nose. Not surprised. Just disappointed.

"Sloppy," he muttered. "Like a booster kid high on Black Lace." He parked with surgical precision, stepped out slow.

His suit was tailored, synth-fiber armor woven into the fabric, boots too clean to have touched the dust. He surveyed the scene like a man checking inventory. One hand behind his back. The other gloved in tactile mesh, scrolling a HUD no one else could see.

But no bodies.

That part made him pause.

The music still played, soft in the background—Vivaldi, probably.

NV crouched behind the convoy's rear axle, heart hammering in her ribs like it wanted out. No gun. No deck. No jacket.

“Come on,” she hissed, slamming a palm on the transport’s undercarriage, searching for a compartment, a latch—anything.

Nothing but rust and cold steel.

She peeked out.

Corpo scum. That’s what she called him in her head. The type who got chrome etched with designer logos. The type who’d sell their soul for a quarterly bonus and sleep like a baby. His walk was smug. Calculated. Like he’d already solved the puzzle and was just admiring the aftermath.

She felt it then.

That shift in air pressure. The spine-prickle twitch. Sixth sense kicking in—wired and primal.

He was scanning.

She moved.

Fast.

Boots skidding, she vaulted over the edge of the hauler and sprinted straight at him.

He turned—almost in time.

His hand was already reaching for the smartpistol holstered under his coat. But she was faster. Wrong body or not, her reflexes were still hers. She closed the distance in a blink, grabbed his wrist mid-draw, twisted hard—crack—disarmed him, and jammed the barrel against his chest.

"Who the fuck are you?" she snapped, breath ragged, face inches from his. "You followin’ me? Work for Arasaka? Militech? Huh?"

He didn’t answer. Just studied her like a lab rat that bit back.

Johnny flickered into view over her shoulder, arms crossed, scowl deepening.

“This has bad idea written all over it,” he muttered. “Call Dakota. Cancel the gig. Get the hell outta here, V.”

She didn’t move.

Didn’t blink.

"Not yet," she said under her breath, like answering a voice no one else could hear. Her hand on the gun tightened.

Corpo’s eyes flicked sideways—just a glance. That’s all he needed.

He saw it.

The tremble in her hand. The shake she was hiding behind rage.

Unpredictable.

Distracted.

He moved like a machine—head snapping forward, slamming into her nose. She recoiled with a snarl, but he was already grabbing the weapon, twisting it from her grip. With his other hand, he drew a backup from his ankle holster and pistol-whipped her across the jaw.

She dropped.

The highway went quiet again, classical strings drifting over the wreckage.

He exhaled. Rubbed his jaw. Looked down at her crumpled form.

“…What the fuck are you? ” he said, not expecting an answer.

He holstered the weapon, turned toward the transport, and clicked his comm open.

“Package is... different. Sending visuals now."

Interrigation

Titled: Twin Flame

A grainy holo-TV flickered in the corner, broadcasting an old wrestling match from the 2050s—two cyber-enhanced grapplers locked in a gravity-defying suplex. A booming announcer’s voice crackled through cheap speakers:

“…Aaaand that’s a knock-out! We have a winner!”

V’s head lolled as she came to, eyes blinking through residual sparks of static. She tried to shift, realized her wrists were magnetically cuffed to a low table. Concrete walls, dripped-in graffiti, and the stale stench of antiseptic made her become even more dizzy than she already was.

In the swivel chair opposite her sat Viktor—well, he looked a lil different, than she remembered him. Clean-shaven, brighter lab coat, holo-screens lining the walls like stained-glass windows of data. This wasn’t the grimy backroom she remembered.

She cleared her throat, voice rough:

"Hey, Vik—man, this isn’t funny. Why am I locked up in a cell? Also… when did you change your setup? Looks a lot cleaner than before.”

Viktor didn’t look surprised—just raised an eyebrow, fingers still tapping at a wrist-mounted scanner. 

The holo-match ended with a final, triumphant roar. Viktor punched a button; the screen vanished into a swirling datapool. He leaned forward, expression clinical.

“You’re—well, you’re not one of them. Not a Wraith refugee, at least not one I’ve seen before.”

V slightly leaned her head to the left in act of scepticism

“Wraith? Refugee? Come on, Vik—don’t do that. It’s me. Your friendly neighbourhood V!"

He shook his head, scanning her face through enhanced optics.

“No, but i'm not sure who you are, that's the problem. Your neural pattern is… corrupted. Layered. There’s an echo here, beneath the main feed.”

V: “Jesus, don’t talk like that—just let me out, I’ll explain. We’ll fix this glitch.”

Viktor’s eyes flicked back to the datapad, brow furrowing.

"Explain? Your synaptic readouts are off any chart. It’s like your memories are grafted onto someone—”

She interrupted, voice brightening despite herself, as she points to the holo-TV right beside him

“Hey, I know that match! That’s the low-grav suplex from the MegaDome finals—finally broke the champ’s spine, right?”

He froze mid-scan, shock replacing clinical detachment.

“That—how—no one’s mentioned that fight in decades. You must be a big fan too, huh? "

V shook her head, in disbelief that now of all the times, one of her closest chooms has put her behind bars, and doesn't even recognize her, Doens't remember showing her this match. But then she looked down, saw her wraith get-up, missing 2 fingers, and hands that have probably only ever been washed by urine, and it made her stomach whirl a little.

"What the fuck?"  she uttered under her breath.

Viktor, denounced by V's response turned his head with a shred of confusion back to the TV for a second, until turning it off.

"Your memory banks… perfect clarity. But everything else…”

He swiveled to the main console, fingers flying.

“Your cortex… it’s a perfect copy of someone else’s. And yet…”

A heavy crack echoed through the room as the door slid open, and V’s head snapped up, reflexively bracing to move—

—but it wasn’t a squad of corpos or a ripper gang. Just one guy.

He stepped in like he owned the place. He carried a pistol holstered low at his side, casual like he didn’t expect to need it. Eyes sharp, gloved hand adjusting his wristlink before even sparing her a glance.

“How's she doin'?.”

The corpo muttered in a dry tone. His voice was smooth. Crisp. No wasted words. V stayed still in her cell, legs casually crossed at the ankles, the picture of relaxed hostility. She dragged her gaze over every inch of him—boots, wristwear, gun weight, muscle structure. The guy moved like a solo, but carried himself like a fucking suit. Bad combo.

Viktor didn’t even look up from his scans.

“Weird. Brain scans are a mess. She’s carrying multiple memory traces. Some baseline Wraith engrams, yeah, but deeper... it’s like her primary neural imprint was overwritten.”

(he tapped the display, annoyed)

“Seen this once before. Old blackwall trauma cases. Some idiot jacked into ghost tech and 

came back half themselves. But this—”

(he shook his head)

“This ain’t half. It’s layered. Spliced so deep I can’t tell what’s real anymore.”

Corpo tilted his head slightly, smiling like he was already a few steps ahead, as he said in the most sarcastic tone ever.

“Love it when a job gets simple.”

V kept her face neutral, but her mind was already sprinting.

Wristlink—military grade. Boots—tailored combat weave. Movement—center-balanced, trained.

Gun—low carry, quick-draw ready.

Her odds?

Slim.

But not impossible.

Then the corpo turned slightly, enough for her to catch the flicker of something else. A glint under the collar. Neural socket. Custom work. Higher-grade than she ever ran with. Meant his reflex boosters would pop before she could even cross the room.

Still… she didn’t need to beat him. Just outrun him.

She leaned back slightly, trying to mark the distance from the cell door to the console controls.

Almost. Almost had a plan.

And then—

Viktor, grumbling below his breath.

“Look, V, whatever this is, it’s way above street doc territory. She’s not sick. She’s something else.”

V blinked.

Her gaze snapped up to the corpo’s face properly now—this time not analyzing for weakness, but recognition.

Did he just call him—V?

Blood ran cold in her veins.

She stared harder, heart pounding against her ribs.

No way.

No fucking way.

And in that thick second of silence, the room seemed to tighten, like the universe itself was holding its breath.

...

She finally spoke, voice low and uneven.

"They call you... V?"

The Corpo chuckled, low and confident, the kind of sound that slithered under the skin. He took a few lazy steps closer, hands clasped behind his back like some corpo shark about to give a TED talk on Corporate Assholeness 101.

"Yeah. 'S what they call me. Problem, sweetheart?"

V felt her chest tighten, cold sweat blooming under her clothes.

No. No fucking way. It’s not me. It can't be me.

The edges of the room seemed to bend, like the walls themselves were breathing.

Pull it together. Keep it cool.

She forced herself to smirk, even as her heart tried to hammer its way out of her ribs.

"Cute. Thought corpos preferred numbers over names. Easier to forget."

The Corpo tilted his head slightly, mock hurt crossing his face.

"Ouch. Gonna need Vik here to patch that one up."

He flicked a glance at Viktor, smirk sharp enough to cut, then dragged his gaze lazily back to her.

"Lucky for you, I’m feeling generous tonight."

Viktor shifted in his chair, arms crossed tightly over his chest. His sharp eyes missed nothing—the tremor in her hands, the slight clench of her jaw. The desperate way she was trying to seem unbothered.

"Ease up, V,"  Viktor said quietly, tone low but firm. "She's spooked enough."

The Corpo shrugged like it was no skin off his back.

"Hey, I’m just talking." His grin didn't quite reach his eyes. "Besides... if she’s got answers about that blackwall scar tissue scrambled all over her cortex, we kinda need her breathing, don’t we?"

V swallowed hard, bile stinging the back of her throat.

Her fingers curled into fists, nails biting into her palms. Anything to keep from spiraling.

Stay calm. Stay fucking calm.

"You don’t get it," she rasped, the words slipping out like broken glass. "You’re not supposed to exist."

For the first time, a flicker of something crossed his face—eyebrow arched, amused.

"Welcome to Night City, sweetheart," he said easily, "Nothin' supposed to exist still manages to put a bullet in your brain anyway."

Viktor leaned forward slightly, voice gaining a sharper edge.

"V. Seriously. She ain’t all there. Whatever’s inside her... it’s not just street dust and eddies. You push too hard, you’re gonna break her before you get anything useful."

The Corpo just gave a small, dismissive wave, like brushing smoke out of his face.

Not arguing. Not rushing.

He knew he held the cards.

V sat frozen behind the bars, heart hammering against her ribs, cold sweat dripping down her spine.

The world tilted again—warped, suffocating—but she kept the smirk carved into her face. Kept her posture loose, cocky, like she wasn't seconds from falling apart.

She couldn’t afford to break.

Not with him watching.

"So. Let's start simple."

The corpo V said, slowly leaning against her.

V kept her arms crossed, jaw locked tight.

Corpo V: "Where'd you get the Blackwall tech?"

She blinked, feigning confusion, stalling for time, but her heart tripped over itself inside her chest.

"Didn’t know chrome had last names now," she said dryly, even as her nails dug harder into the meat of her arms.

The Other V just smiled, shark-like, and took a lazy step closer.

"Convoy wasn't on any public grids. Hell, not even buried net traffic. That was need-to-know cargo."

He clicked his tongue against his teeth.

"You ain’t need-to-know."

V stayed silent, face still as stone.

Every instinct screamed to run.

Every breath hurt.

Viktor shifted behind his desk, uncomfortable, but he didn’t move. His hand hovered near the screen, like maybe he'd pull up the scans again if things got ugly.

"You were looking for it," The Other V said, tone soft now. Almost gentle.

"Which tells me you knew it was gonna be there."

Another step closer.

Another layer peeled off.

"Where’s the Ghostlink?"

V almost flinched at the word.

Her brain scrambled for something — anything — to throw back at him.

A lie. A joke. A punchline.

But her mouth stayed dry.

"You think if I had it," she rasped finally, "I’d still be sitting here in a goddamn birdcage?"

The Other V smiled wider, cold and bright.

"Depends. People do stupid shit when they’re desperate."

He watched her carefully, waiting, measuring.

Viktor cleared his throat quietly, tone edging toward warning.

"V—"

V cut him off with a small raise of two fingers, polite but absolute.

"Take five, Vik."

Viktor hesitated, jaw working. His eyes flicked to V—saw how she trembled, how the mask was starting to slip, but realising he can't really save the poor girl. He finally pushed back from the desk, muttering under his breath as he left the room.

The door hissed shut behind him.

The instant Viktor was gone, the air felt heavier.

Like the walls were tilting inward.

Like there wasn’t enough oxygen left to breathe.

The other V crouched slightly, resting his forearms against the bars, studying her like a cat watching a mouse flail in a trap.

"You’re not just a thief," he said, voice low. 

"You’re something else."

The panic clawed up her throat now, too big to hide, too wild to stuff back down.

The Other V’s head tilted slightly, amused.

The room spun. Her vision blurred at the edges, static fizzing in her ears.

Everything inside her snapped at once.

"HOW DO YOU HAVE MY NAME?!"

The scream tore out of her like a grenade blast, slamming into the walls, rattling the metal bars hard enough to set the whole cell vibrating.

Somewhere inside her skull, something cracked — a mental dampener breaking under the force of pure, raw panic.

And just like that—

—he was there.

"Damn," Johnny’s voice drawled inside her mind, rough and pained like he’d just crawled out of a blacksite firestorm.

"Do I got a fuckin' headache."

V barely heard the Corpo barking something sharp as the world kept splintering around her.

Johnny’s presence flooded her mind again, cold metal and the faint, acrid smell of old blood.

And this time, he knew exactly what was happening.

Johnny's voice slammed into her mind like a fist.

"V—breathe. Calm down. You’re not gonna get shit done losing your shit."

But it was too late.

The words didn’t even reach her.

She clutched the bars, shaking them so hard the metal whined, eyes locked like crosshairs onto the Corpo standing too close, too casual.

"WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU COME FROM?!"

The Other V didn’t even flinch.

"I swear to fuck," she snarled, voice shredding itself raw, "if you so much as look at my friends, I’ll rip every single fiber of chrome outta your body—piece by fucking piece—"

"Listen."

The word cut through her entire body.

The other V's tone was calm. Crisp. Deadly serious.

"V,"  he said again, slower this time, almost like he was tasting the name.

"If that really is your name."

He shifted his stance, just slightly, hands easy at his sides, non-threatening but still fully in control.

"I’m not going anywhere near the Wraiths," he said. "Not lookin’ for a bloodbath."

His gaze pinned her in place, cold but honest.

"You just tell me where you stashed the Ghostlink."

"That's all I need."

The words hung in the air.

And just like that —the fire inside her guttered out.

Not because of Johnny still shouting inside her skull, telling her to get it together, think it through, find an angle —

but because something in the Corpo’s voice —

that sharp, emotionless finality —

told her it wasn't worth it. 

V sagged against the bars, chest heaving, adrenaline burning off like acid under her 

skin.

For the first time since waking up in this nightmare, the world stopped crumbling.

It just...stalled.

The Other V's voice droned on from outside the bars, questions piling up like bodies.

"How long have you been working the Wraiths?"

"Where are they now?"

"Why can't any of my systems ID You?"

V didn’t answer.

She couldn’t.

She just sat there, silent and motionless, staring past him — like if she stopped existing hard enough, she could undo the last few hours and wake up somewhere else.

Johnny paced inside her skull like a caged animal, flickering in and out at the edges of her vision.

He scurried the room, looking for exits, ways to turn the tables —

but it was just a cage, steel and chrome and sterile white light pressing down from all sides.

"V."

The Corpo's voice came again, quieter now.

"You're not makin' this easier on yourself."

V barely heard him.

None of this makes any fucking sense, Johnny muttered, rubbing his temples. Place feels real, smells real, Vik even looks real...but it ain’t home, V. It ain’t fucking home.

Finally, the Corpo clicked his tongue in annoyance.

"Fuck this."

"Look you clearly need some time, so i'll be back, need to make a call."

Boots clacked against concrete as he strode out, the door hissing shut behind him.

And in that thin, crackling silence —something inside her snapped.

She was moving before she even knew it, pure gut taking the reins.

V grabbed the nearest thing she could reach — a loose section of pipe bolted to the frame of the cage — and wrenched it free with a snarl.

Sparks showered across the floor as the cage door groaned, buckled, then tore open under the brute force of her will.

Johnny swore under his breath — impressed, maybe — but already moving with her, half-shouting directions in her mind.

Left—go left, fast!

She sprinted through the dim hallways of the makeshift clinic, skidding past racks of gleaming cyberware and half-built bodies.

On a tray nearby, something glinted — a half-assembled cybernetic spinal implant, heavy and vicious looking.

V snatched it up without thinking.

The Corpo was just outside, talking low into holodeck— back turned, profile sharp against the dirty light.

She didn't hesitate.

V hurled the spinal cord like a javelin, catching him clean across the forearm with a sick crack of metal on bone.

His gun clattered to the floor.

Before he could recover, she swung the pipe up —not at him — but at the wide, grimy window behind him.

Glass exploded outward.

Cold morning air rushed in.

And without a second's thought, V vaulted through the gap.

Midair — as the streetlights spun and the blacktop screamed up at her —

she realized.

Third floor.

"Fuck."

The landing shattered through her — bone, chrome, and sheer luck barely keeping her upright.

She staggered, dragging herself across the cracked asphalt toward the only salvation she could see — a beat-up Jeep parked by the curb.

Viktor’s.

Of course.

She clawed the door open, collapsed behind the wheel, and jammed the ignition.

The battered engine coughed, snarled —go, please fucking go—

Behind her, a streak of chrome blurred into motion.

The Corpo — sprinting after her on cybernetic legs, his Sandevistan flickering with every step, closing the distance like a hunting dog.

Johnny screamed in her head.

Punch it! Move!

She slammed the gas, tires screeching — thirty meters, twenty —but he was too fast.

Something whistled through the air.

Thunk.

The back tire shredded with a sickening rip, the car lurching sideways, rubber burning.

Before she could even process it — another blade whistled through the open window —and buried itself deep into her skull.

Pain didn't even have time to register.

Everything went white.

Motel-1 (NV) & Post-Chase (CV)

Titled: Babysbreath

The buzz of a cheap neon sign flickered outside the window.

V blinked awake, groggy and aching, the smell of mildew and cheap synth-cotton sheets filling her nose.

Everything was blurred, edges soft — except the pain hammering in the back of her skull.

"Shit,"  she muttered.

From the corner of the room, Johnny stirred, arms crossed, wearing that look he reserved for when things were well past fucked.

"You good, V?"  he asked, voice rough with concern, as he startes pacing around the room.

"You took a blade to the brainpan. Not exactly a mild headache."

She pressed her palms into her eyes, willing the world to make sense.

How the hell was she still breathing?

"Fucking hell, V..."

Johnny stopped mid-stride, staring at her like she might just disintegrate.

"...they body-hopped you again," Johnny muttered under his breath, like if he said it quiet enough, it wouldn’t be true.

He started pacing harder, looking like he wanted to smash the shitty plastic nightstand into splinters but didn’t.

A sharp knock rattled the motel door.

Both V and Johnny froze.

Another knock, heavier this time.

"Room service, maybe," Johnny muttered, his hand already ghosting toward an invisible gun at his hip.

The knock came again, harder.

V's heart hammered against her ribs.

Meanwhile on the outskirts of a cold morning in northern Japantown cold air slapped V across the face as he stepped out into the alley behind Viktor’s new clinic, the door shut behind him.

The body —the Wraith girl —

lay inside on the operating slab, a sheet thrown over her like an afterthought.

Viktor had pulled off his gloves with a snap, grim expression saying everything words couldn’t.

"She's gone," he’d said.

"Blackwall fucked the chip. No salvaging anything. No ID. No... nothing."

The only lead he had —and he’d killed her.

Controlled anger burned under V’s skin as he pulled a cigarette from his jacket, jammed it between his teeth.

The lighter slipped from numb fingers, clattering to the concrete.

He swore under his breath, shaking out his hand against the cold.

The city hummed around him, alive and indifferent.

Sighing, V flicked open his holodeck, scrolling through contacts.

Thumb hovered over a name glowing faintly at the top.

Jackie Welles.

He hesitated.

Jaw clenched tight.

A slow exhale misted into the night air as he stared at the name a second longer, then locked the deck with a snap.

The screen flickered dark.

Volume 2

Flashback (CV)

Titled: California Here We Go

He still remembered the heat of the barrel, how it smelled when Jackie pulled the trigger. Burnt chrome. Blood mist. The moment Dexter Deshawn’s brains hit the sidewalk outside the no-tell motel.

“Son of a bitch brought a ride for one,” Jackie had grunted, wiping his gun clean on his jacket like it was nothing. “Didn’t think we’d 

catch on.”

V hadn’t answered. Just stared at the Delamain car, watched the automated door hiss closed on empty seats and a bullet-riddled fixer, and his bodyguard left behind.

T-Bug was dead. Fried mid-job. No chance to save her, no time to mourn. The run had been cursed from the start—but he and Jackie walked out alive, relic in hand, a head full of plans. It was almost enough to make him believe in fate.

Almost.

They’d hunted Evelyn down before Arasaka could. She’d tried to ghost them, scared, scrambling out of Night City’s reach. V was colder then, sharp. Made her listen to his words,"Dex is done for, i can promise you that much"

Evelyn met his gaze with those same unreadable eyes. Her fingers trembled when she took the case.

“Judy’s got us a boat,”  she’d whispered. “We’ll head north, You'll get your money in a week 

or two.”

V said nothing as they walked away, just caught Evelyn looking over her shoulder once—then never again. It felt like closure. Or maybe just another loose thread he didn’t have to yank on.

A week later, Jackie left too. He and Misty packed up their whole little world into an old Galena and drove toward the sun. No drama, no speeches. Just a goodbye and a promise to keep in touch.

Viktor stayed. Said someone had to keep V from turning full chrome sociopath.

Time moved. Money flowed. With the heist behind him, V sank deeper into the city’s underbelly—the polished floors of Arasaka boardrooms, the bloodied ones of Afterlife alleys. He stopped caring about meaning. Started counting digits. Became the guy people called when they didn’t want to call anyone else.

And then—GhostLink.

Mr. Hands pinged him with that usual syrupy tone. “Got something hot in the Badlands. 

Experimental gear, Blackwall adjacent. You want in?”

V didn’t want to. But Hands didn’t lie about heat like this.

He showed Vik the brief. The old ripper squinted at the interface schematics and hissed through his teeth.

“You’re messing with demons now,” Viktor muttered. “This kind of tech? It ain’t just ICE-melting—this shit talks. It learns. You slip, and it’ll gut your brain like a tin can.”

V flexed the cybernetics in his hand absently. “Good thing I don’t slip.”

He made the call. Took the job.

The convoy hit the Badlands just after dusk. Dust kicked up in neon-tinged clouds as he moved like a ghost in his GTS. He breached the transport’s lock, fingers dancing through ICE like it was routine, until that box opened.

But it wasn't there. Box empty, no lights, no wires, nothin'.

Before he could even whisper a “fuck" he felt it—wind running up his spine, his gun out of his head and someone stood right in front of him pistol raised, arm steady.

A woman.

But not just any woman, she had the look of a storm barely held back. Fear behind her eyes, hands trembling from something deeper than adrenaline. Her face unfamiliar, but there was something about her... off, wrong, but it's almost as if V could recognize her like déjà vu wearing a mask.

Motel (NV)

Titled: Bodysnatchers

She jolted upright, lungs seizing, breath rattling like an engine that wouldn't turn over. Sweat glued her shirt to her chest. The air stank of bleach, mildew, and something sour under the tongue—chemical, bitter. A taste like crushed pills and bile lingered at the back of her throat.

Not hers.

The room was dim, just a flicker of pink neon bleeding in through dusty blinds. The walls peeled like scabbed-over memories. Pacifica, or something close to it—where the city forgot to send cleanup crews, where the dead didn't stay buried.

She scanned her limbs. Brown skin, a tattoo half-healed across her right forearm. Hands rough, cuticles torn, fingers twitching. She didn’t recognize the face in the cracked mirror across the room—but she did recognize the weight in her chest. Grief? Guilt? No, it's like whatever had lived in this body had just left.

“Well fuck,” Johnny rasped, appearing glitching next to the sink, arms crossed, jaw tight. 

V's tingue felt thick, mouth dry like it’d been scrubbed with sevage water.

An even louder knock on the door cracked across the silence.

Sharp. Panicked.

Johnny’s head snapped to the door. “Don’t open that. Got a bad feeling.”

But she was already moving. One step at a time. Half out of instinct, half just to get away from him.

The lock clicked. The door creaked open—

“Maria!”

A woman launched through the gap, breathless and wide-eyed. Mid-twenties, street-tough but scared. Braids pulled back tight, chipped holo-nails, old bloodstains on her jacket sleeve. She didn’t hesitate—arms around V like a vice, crushing.

“Oh my god, I thought—fuck, I thought you were dead.”  Her voice cracked. “I thought you did something to yourself, you weren’t answering, you never ignore my pings—”

V stood frozen. The hug pressed against her ribs but didn’t reach her. Her hands stayed at her sides, limp. Unmoving.

“You ghost me for a month, and now I find you in some shit-ass motel like you’re tryin’ to disappear into the walls—what the hell, Maria?”

V blinked. Words came slow. Robotic.

“...I’m fine.”

The woman pulled back, eyes narrowing. “You’re what?”  She looked her up and down, disbelief pouring off her. “You’re in a fuckin’ motel in the middle of goddamn Pacifica, and you don’t even call me? No holo, no nothing? You’re fine?”

She stepped back, arms crossed now—offense creeping in past the fear. “You know how scared I was? Thought you got iron in your skull somewhere and I’d have to scrape you off the curb.”

She looked around the room. Saw the blister packs. Empty syringes. Spooned-up foil. Her expression went cold.

“You using again?”

V stared. “...I just needed space.”

The woman’s face twisted like she’d been slapped. “You’re all I have, Maria. You don’t get to just disappear and act like it’s nothing.”

V walked past her. Didn’t say a word.

The woman, in pure disbelief as if these words would break her forever said“What the fuck is wrong with you?” 

V paused at the door. Turned slightly, sarcastically waved and smiled at her.

Then she stepped out. The door hissed shut behind her like it wanted to seal away the damage.

Outside, the air hit cold. Dirty rain fell in greasy drizzles, puddling in broken pavement. Pacifica hummed like an open wound—buzzing neon, distant sirens, broken drone chatter echoing between skeletal buildings.

Johnny appeared beside her, arms folded tight.

“She loved you,”  he said. “Whoever you’re piloting around in, she loved her.”

V lit a cigarette, and in a dismissive tone said "This isn't my body, i don't care that much."

“Well, shit, fuck you too. 'Course you don’t care. You don’t want to care. Easier to play the ghost. Walk away and pretend none of it counts. Like walking out of your own fucking funeral.”

He paused, looking at her sidelong.

“Thing is, I did the same. And it didn’t save shit.”

V exhaled. Smoke curled upward, thin and sour.

"You can't say shit, Johnny. you acted the same when we first met"

Johnny glitched once, briefly, then stood still.

“I've paid my dues. I admit i fucked up with Rogue, Fucked up with Kerry, shit, even fucked up with you. Trust me, you’re gonna have to answer for it eventually. Whether you want to or not.”

She stared at the skyline. Red. Feral. Buzzing with energy and emptiness.

“I'll let it find me.”

She walked. Johnny stayed behind, just a for a second glimpsing back at the motel door, then glitching into nothingness again.

Call With Jackie (CV)

Titled: Have You Ever Seen The Rain?

V stands outside Viktor's clinic, cigarette 

hanging from his mouth, the cold air biting at his skin. He takes a long drag and dials Jackie, letting the phone ring a few times before the call picks up.

V:

“Jackie, you still out there, or have you disappeared into the sunset already?”

The call picks up, Jackie’s voice coming through with his usual energy.

Jackie:

“Haha, nah, hermano, still kickin’. Just got done with Misty—had a nice dinner, ya know, a little downtime. Feels weird to be away from Night City for a while, but... it’s good, I guess.”

V:

“A date? You sure you weren’t just tryin' to get Misty to teach you how to ‘relax’ for once?”

Jackie:

laughs “You know how it is, man. Couldn’t stay cooped up, so we hit that spot you always complain about—yeah, the one with the overpriced drinks and the view. But hey, she liked it. Can’t say I blame her, though, it was a damn good meal.”

V:

(smirking) “You went to that place? Thought you hated it.”

Jackie:

“Eh, guess I’m softer than I thought. And Misty liked it, so I’m not complainin’. Plus that view, oh you should've seen that vieww. 

V:

"The view of what? Misty or that beach?"

Jackie: 

Haha, You know i don't like to get involved in the details, brodér. that's only something my eyes could see, but that's for another day.

I sat there, yeah? and after a while, I started missin’ Night City. Its chaos, its grind. Weird not bein’ in the middle of it all.”

V:

(pause, his tone shifts a little) “Yeah. It’s easy to miss the action... until you realize what a damn mess it all is.”

Jackie:

“Heh, true that. But even with all the shit that goes down, there’s somethin' about Night City that sticks with ya. It gets in your veins. I miss the hustle, the life... the people. Ya know what I mean?”

V:

“I get it. A lot's changed since you and Misty left. everything’s gotten colder. People only see the money now. Nothing real to hold onto.”

Jackie:

(softly) “Damn, hermano. You still talkin’ business? Don’t let it swallow you whole. The world ain’t just creds"

V:

(scoffs) “I know what you’re tryin' to say, but... the game’s changed, Jackie. There’s no place for softness in the world, you know this. You and Misty—hell, you guys got out while you still could. The rest of us? We’re stuck with what’s left.”

Jackie:

“Yeah, I get it. But you got money now, V. So much of it, you could quit, just... walk away from all this. You’ve got enough creds to last a 

lifetime, hermano. Why not take the out?”

V:

“And do what? Sit back and watch the world burn while I sip margaritas on some beach?"

Jackie:

“I’m not sayin’ it’s the perfect answer, but damn, you could go off somewhere—be free. Don’t let the corpos keep grindin' you down. You earned it, V. You deserve a break.”

V:

(leans back, his tone distant) “Maybe. But you know how it goes... once you’re in, you don’t just walk away. People want something from you.. And you want it all from them. And even with all the creds, it doesn’t change.”

Jackie:

(sighs) “You sound like you’re tryin' to convince yourself, hermano. It don’t gotta be this way.”

V:

“I’ll think about it.”

Jackie:

laughs “Yeah, do that, Oh.. shit Yeah misty i'm 

comin'! I gotta go..”

V:

“Yeah, take care. And thanks, Jackie. For... everything.”

Jackie:

“Always, hermano. Catch ya later.”

H10 Apartment (NV):

Titled: Monkey Gone To Heaven

10:30 AM, In a random streetcorner of Pacifica, stood V, well as much as she could call herself V anymore. 

She found a metro card stuffed into the inner lining of Maria’s busted jacket, right where a dealer might hide eddies. Must’ve been all that was left in her name—besides the body, the broken brain, and whatever scratch the corpo shrink left behind for cleanup.

V slid it into her pocket without thinking, boots already heading toward the station like muscle memory had taken over. Didn’t know where she was going until she was standing 

in front of the cracked terminal reading:

→ China Town, Watson: H10 Megabuilding

Yeah. Of course.

The elevator smelled the same.

Piss. Synth-meat. Cigarette smoke clinging to the walls like rot.

V stood in the middle of the graffiti-scarred hallway of Megabuilding H10, in a body that didn’t feel like hers, wearing clothes that weren’t hers, walking a path she’d carved in another lifetime. The lighting buzzed overhead, struggling to stay alive. It always had.

A kid ran past her barefoot, eyes glowing pale blue with cheap Kiroshi mods, chased by laughter and the sound of someone screaming at a BD in the next room. She moved like a ghost. A ghost haunting the wreckage of a life once lived.

The elevator dinged.

She turned her head just enough to catch the flicker of motion behind the scratched glass. The floor indicator climbed from 02... 03... 07...

Her.

Not really—but it looked like her. Not Maria. Her. The ghost of a woman in a leather jacket, heavy cyberware glinting under the dim fluorescents, arms crossed, eyes forward. Confident. Dangerous. Alive.

It was gone by the time the doors opened.

V stepped in and punched in the floor without thinking. Her finger knew the button better than her brain did.

She rode up in silence, watching the distorted reflection of her new face in the brushed metal walls.

“If he's here, buy some iron along the way” Johnny’s voice crackled in from nowhere, rough like gravel and memory. He sat perched on the rail inside the elevator, flickering like a bad signal. “The corp gonk, you think he has me too?”

She didn’t answer.

The door was the same.

Apartment 0716. Same scratched paint, same dent from where she’d kicked it during a shouting match with Panam. Her fingers hovered over the biometric scanner.

It didn’t respond.

Of course it didn’t.

She pulled out a cable from her wrist and jacked into the lock. Sparks. A low buzz. Her deck screamed in protest—cheap hardware rattling from the strain. But the door clicked open.

Inside?

Cold.

Same layout, sure. But gone were the piles of junk, the half-shattered guitar strings, the empty bottles lined up like trophies. This place was clean. Sterile. Cold white light, smart glass windows with privacy tint. Chrome surfaces wiped spotless.

A CorpoBlade hung on the wall. A real one—not black market junk. A high-end MiliTech neural controller sat docked near the couch. Framed photos. His face in most of them.

V. The other V. The one who won.

She walked slowly through the space like it might bite her. Every object screamed not yours. Her stomach twisted. Her legs nearly gave, these legs are weaker than the ones she's used to.

She slid down the wall by the kitchen, knees drawn up to her chest. Hands shaking.

Johnny sat cross-legged on the counter, arms resting on his knees, watching her. Quiet for once.

Then, finally—

“Looks like he won the roll of the dice, huh?”

She sniffed, trying to swallow the scream caught in her throat. “This isn’t right,” she muttered. “This is mine. How come he gets to win, but I… I end up in a fucking landfill?”

Johnny glitched—blinked out, then back in, this time sitting beside her on the floor, shoulder to shoulder.

“First time I saw this place through your eyes, I thought, ‘shit, this kid's got nothing.’ One broken fridge, stack of eddies under the sink, a couple ammo boxes under the bed, but you made it work. Somehow.”

She didn’t look at him. “Doesn’t mean 

anything now.”

“Nope. It doesn’t.” He tilted his head, gave her a once-over. “And neither does this corpo asshole’s IKEA murderpad.”

She almost laughed. Almost.

“What do I do now, Johnny?”

“Dunno.” He leaned his head back against the wall. “Figure it out. That’s what you do.”

She nodded. Just once. The silence stretched. He didn’t try to motivate her. Didn’t need to. They both knew what kind of animal she was when backed into a corner.

She stood up, walked to the bathroom, pulled a combat knife from her boot. Scraped the words into the mirror, jagged and uneven:

“V was here.”

Wraith's Camp (CV):

Titled: Tactical Precision Dissaray

10:57AM, V had barely entered his car, after his call with Jackie.. when boom.

A lead came from a fixer in Pacifica—a data fence who owed V more than a few favors. Said he intercepted a comm burst between two Wraith pack leaders, encrypted but sloppy. Keywords caught V’s attention: “GhostLink,” “Beta field test,” and a netrunner tagged S.M. That was all he needed. The crazy wraith girl he had just brought up, and some intel from a wraith camp site, this was all just starting to make sense.

Now he was out here, under a rotting sun, squinting down at a Wraith camp that looked like a scrapyard got possessed by a death cult.

The wind had teeth today—sharp, hot, and reeking of gun oil and melted plastic. V crouched behind a dune crest, his optics filtering out the dust storm like a goddamn charm. Below him sprawled the Wraith camp, a patchwork sprawl of scrap towers, flickering halogen lights, and half-burning barrels. Synth-metal blasted from cheap speakers wired to rusting poles. Somewhere, a dog barked. Or maybe it was a man.

He adjusted the dampening mesh on his jacket, letting the cloak system warm up. “Always fuckin’ Wraiths,” he muttered, voice just above a whisper. “Might as well crawl into a nest of cyberpsychos and offer ‘em tea.”

Still, he didn’t move. Just watched.

He hated these freaks—hated the anarchic stink of them, how they’d peel chrome from a corpse before it hit the ground. Worse than scavs. Wraiths didn’t kill for money. They killed for fun, and for data. That made them dangerous. That made V... cautious.

Even if he’d never admit it out loud.

“Steady. This is just another extraction. No different than Arasaka Tower. Just dirtier.”

He marked out three patrol paths. Two sentries with ancient thermal gear. One with a wired shotgun on a swivel harness. Sloppy. Their gear was patched together with tape and spite. Still enough to punch holes in a legend if he got sloppy too.

He slipped down the ridge, boots silent on the sand, cloak engaging fully. With a little Blackwall-static in his ears for luck, he ghosted through the outer perimeter, pausing only to jam a drone’s optic loop with a fast overload ping.

Inside, it was worse. Bodies moved like insects—grimy, fast, twitchy. Cyberware twitched under skin like something alive. One guy had a mantis blade jammed into a knee joint, just sticking out. Casual. Another was dancing in front of a generator humming with glitchy neon.

V slid into a rusted container near the back—one of the only places lit by a flickering data lamp. Inside was a mess: disassembled Sandevistan cores, fried Kiroshi optics, jacked-open neural processors that still buzzed faintly. Data shards stacked in crates like they were candy bars.

He crouched near a workstation and picked up a shard. The label was partially burned. Another had scratchings in some gangy code. He finally found one marked clean, neatly etched in sharp handwriting:

"GHOSTLINK TEST 3B – Crossplane Connective Sync (Beta)"

Bingo.

He jacked it into his port, letting it scan into his deck. Half the data was corrupt, but enough of it hummed with warning tags.

**> CAUTION: UNSTABLE AI INTERFACE

WARNING: BLACKWALL INTERFERENCE DETECTED

NEURAL BRIDGE ATTEMPT LOGGED – SUBJECT: “Compatible”

NOTE: See S.M. for further field notes.**

“S.M... who the fuck are you?”  he whispered.

Not a corp name. Not any from Arasaka or NetWatch. This wasn’t sanctioned tech. This was something dirtier. Fringe. Rogue.

Before he could grab more, his interface gave a tiny static click. His gut sank.

Someone pinged the ICE grid. It was faint, but real.

He unplugged, shoved the shards into his jacket, and froze—listening.

“—that corpo guy from the convoy? Think he’s still alive after all that shit that went down with Wix?”

The voice came from a nearby comm unit. V’s breath locked in his throat.

They saw him. Not tonight—but at the convoy.

Shit.

He slipped backward, pulled up his control interface, and targeted a grounded AV near the edge of camp. A quick spike and a few loops through an old Night Corp exploit fried the engine.

BOOM.

Lights flared, people screamed, someone fired into the air for no reason at all.

V bolted through the chaos, cloak flickering. A Wraith with an exposed spine nearly saw him—V ducked, tripped a backup generator with a short burst, and rolled under a cargo platform.

The desert welcomed him back like an old friend. Wind, dust, and silence.

He didn’t look back until he was over the next dune. When he did, all he saw was firelight and shadows tearing each other apart.

“Fucking psychos,” he hissed.

Still, as he checked the shards again, a tiny smile pulled at his mouth.

GhostLink was out there, and he was going to find it.

link to the next part is here: