Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Johnny glares down at his aviators, V's fingers pinching the metal frame just so, just how she used to hold them. Johnny has found he doesn't have the stomach to change even the smallest things about her; muscle memory, favorite foods, preferred sleeping position, or nervous habits. The thought of smoking physically makes him ill now, and not because he doesn't want to but because V hadn't wanted to. He knows it was mostly in an effort to separate their wills when they shared the same consciousness, knew it was all she could do to rebel against her fate, but now that stubbornness was for nothing. A part of Johnny cannot understand her choice, how she could push so hard to save herself and yet still give up. But the other part of him, the part that can't stand the light of day and has remained crippled by her absence significantly enough to keep him from being able to function properly in the land of the living, knows very well why she had done what she had. Why, in the end, she had given him everything. 

It makes him sick. 

He is and always has been undeserving of every act of kindness and iota of trust bestowed to him. Johnny believes this as surely as he believes the world should burn. Those two universal truths V had taken one look at and hadn't hesitated to shake the foundations of. She had no right to, not in Johnny's opinion, at least not at first, but she did anyway -- sometimes unconsciously and sometimes very much on purpose. Johnny had returned the favor of course, but knowing someone as intimately as he knew V, well it was more than he could have ever begun to expect. And when she not only made the effort to know him back, but accepted him, heard him, understood him, protected him, trusted him, relied on him, befriended him, and eventually...

Johnny cannot bare to even think it. 

The devotion they gave each other is what made him feel human, made him feel things other than all consuming hate and fury and despair. Some say love makes people soft, but in Johnny's case it made him feel all the more violently. His emotions all the more potent, all the more encompassing when he lived for someone other than himself. Johnny's version of love had always been defined by jealousy, rage, grudges, and make-up sex that distracted from the fact that no one had actually apologized. But with V, he couldn't hide behind any of that, couldn't cower away from the full spectrum of his emotions because she could feel everything he felt. He was suddenly naked before her, in every way he had always feared, and instead of being picked raw he found she stood exposed before him too. The transparency went both ways. Two souls embracing as fully as theirs did is not something Johnny felt he was made for, but he surrendered to the relief of acceptance all the same. Tamed as much as she was by the lure of possessing one another in their entirety. 

As he dawns his glasses and makes his way out into the kitchen of his dingy ass apartment, he wonders if Steve wouldn't mind driving him to see her today. He plans to do something incredibly stupid later. Something that V would be against if she were here and would promptly lecture him for, would rant about for an hour at least. It makes the muscles around his mouth loosen, the closest he's ever gotten to a smile since she left him alone in her body. Johnny collects his things, knowing he won't be coming back if what he plans to execute today doesn't go well. He hesitates before walking out of the door, body angling slightly towards the bathroom. A part of him pleads for him not to, to spare himself the pain, but the majority of him knows he won't be able to make it an hour without the residual addictive ache he gets when he looks at her, the feeling rippling through him throughout the day. With a heavy exhale through her nose, he shuffles into the bathroom, clumsy as he initiates the command to open the sliding metal door, and drops his bag by her feet when he comes to a stop before the sink. Taking a moment to mentally prepare himself for the impact, he braces her hands against the rim of the sink and waits for the mirror to pixelate into view. When he finally looks up, his heart clenches and his chest gushes with fresh grief like a reopened wound. The suffering feels familiar, like a poison he can't stop drinking. He doesn't want to ever be happy without her, has devoted himself to living this way. Johnny knows she wouldn't want that for him, knows this is essentially spitting on the 'gift' of another chance at life she gave him, but fuck her for thinking he wanted to live like this -- live without her, wear her like this and think it would be okay. 

"Ahh V," His words waver under the weight of what he feels, never having been able to fully wrap his head around the true extent of what loosing her did to him.

Johnny's baritone is a ghostly undertone to the pleasant scratch of her voice. It breaks his heart each time to speak, to hear how he's ruined her. In his darkest, most vulnerable moments he has attempted to sound like her, tried to recreate the cadence of her speech in the privacy of this bathroom desperate for any remaining piece of her he could get. Because maybe, just maybe, she was still somewhere in here with him buried deep in the core of this body where he tried to keep her when she pulled away for the last time, let go of his hand to cross the bridge with Alt. But all that echoed back to him was himself, he knew she wasn't there because the hate aimed at himself was received with no push back. V had shared a similar sense of self-loathing, but they had soothed each other's pain. None of that relief remained in her absence. 

As much of a sonofabitch as Johnny is, a man can only take so much pain. He closes her eyes, breath trembling past her lips as he struggles to steady himself. 

One last job before you either see her again, or you die for good this time. 

Getting his shit together is not easy but he's practiced at it now, and Johnny manages to heave her weight off the sink, packing the anguish away into it's disorganized overflowing crumpled little box. 

Johnny makes sure to leave Steve with an axe of his own after visiting one of the best music shops in the city. Watching the kid mess around on the instrument he'll grow into and learn from made the roiling turmoil in Johnny's gut lessen just a little. Kid's got spirit and talent, that's all one really needs when perusing the art of self expression. V would have liked him. The agony swiftly returns. 

Johnny decides to leave V's bullet pendent at her place of rest, promising to come back for it if he -- they -- live. He lifts the metal of the bullet to her lips and presses a soft kiss against it, a kiss he's longed to receive from her many times, before lowering her keepsake into it's place. Steve is smoking a cig by the car when Johnny jogs down the entrance steps of the columbarium, and before Johnny knows what he's doing he smacks the lit cigarette out of the kid's hand and honest to god scolds him. Bad for your body, bad for your soul, V used to say, and always desperate to feel closer to her, Johnny repeats V's words to Steve. The kid stares at him a moment, sensing how fragile Johnny is after his visit. 

"Where to now?" Steve asks, head down, ashy fingers fumbling with the fraying seam of V's favorite t-shirt Johnny gave him a couple months ago when he could no longer bear to wear it himself.

"I have a bus to catch." Johnny says. 

When Steve asks about V, about if Johnny misses her, it takes everything in him to remain a pillar of unmoved granite. He would not break down in front of this kid, couldn't bare to. Not when he had one more shot at bringing her back. He repeats this to himself like a mantra as Steve keenly takes note of Johnny's sudden rigidness (the kid's goddamn telepathic with the ease in which he reads Johnny these days), and starts talking about his grandfather who passed, kindly shifting the conversation away from Johnny and his grief and towards his own, always gracious when Johnny locks up like this. 

Johnny grabs his bag and his weapons, most of them V's but he gave the rest of her stuff to Mama Wells, tasking her with distributing the items out among V's friends, unable to face them himself. He knows they would hate him for stealing away their friend. And it doesn't matter that V chose to give him her body and her life, Johnny didn't agree to it -- didn't want it. And so he was of the same mind as V's friends. He stole everything that could be taken from her, all that she was. Johnny hates himself for it, is sick with the agony her so called sacrifice has caused him. Some days Johnny tricks himself into thinking he hates her, but he knows...he knows that its because he...fuck he --

"Hey! Wait! Stop the bus!" Johnny's yanked out of his spiraling to see Steve run up to the bus window, the guitar Johnny bought earlier in hand, "You forgot your guitar!" 

Johnny waits for the kid to spot him, waits for him to trot up to his window before saying softly but loud enough to not be misheard,

"No, I didn't."

Steve is speechless, guitar lowering to hang at his side, mouth slightly agape, eyes wide and starting to glisten as Johnny gives the kid the warmest expression he can muster. The bus pulls away then with a lurch, it's destination: the border of Pacifica. Johnny would have one shot at this, and one shot only. He would do anything, anything at all to get his V back. And this time, there was nothing she could do to stop him.  

Chapter Text

Alt is more established in Pacifica than Johnny imagined.

At the bus stop, the closest to the Pacifica border you could get on Night City public transportation, a humble looking motorcycle -- old, but more vintage old rather than it'll fall apart any minute old -- comes screeching to a halt in front of him. When Alt had contacted Johnny and told him to come meet her in cyberspace using the Voodoo boys' exclusive dark networks, Johnny hadn't really known what to expect. He had planned on refusing initially, too tired with grief to satisfy any inkling of curiosity, until Alt mentioned one name and Johnny was making plans to leave the very next day. 

"Hello Johnny," Alt's smooth, toneless voice sweeps out from the motorcycle's radio. 

Johnny only raises an eyebrow at the greeting, scrunching V's nose a little to push his aviators back up the bridge of her nose (his glasses were a bit big on her, tended to slip and settle low on her face), before swinging one of V's long legs over the bike. He fastens his stuff to the luggage grill behind the seat, then turns back towards the gears to rear the bike to life. It feels good to be on a motorcycle again, the metal beast growling between V's legs satisfying but also causing a rush of memories to resurface that weren't even his.

Jackie...Jack loved that Arch, Johnny, he would send me pictures of it after each upgrade he labored over...

Johnny clears his throat and tries not to succumb to mourning someone he knew only through V's memories. The ache in his chest doubles anyway. In an effort to refocus himself, Johnny remembers how he always did prefer motorcycles to cars...or was that V's preference? 

"Alt," He replies in his usual stoic way, interrupting his inner turmoil before it spins even more out of whack.

V always fiddled with things when she was nervous, and thus Johnny finds her fingers itching to mess with the controls on the bike's hud. He lets her body ease itself, clicking through the headlight settings in quick succession, though in his day Johnny had done nothing but smoke if he had ever been sober enough to feel anxiety. There is silence between Alt and him for a moment, perhaps a moment too long and made even longer by the sound of V's long nails (that he'd refused to change from her preferred manicure) tapping against the screen of the bike's hud. Johnny has a million questions on the tip of his tongue and his scattered brain doesn't know which one to vocalize first. 

"You seem different," Alt comments, tone even more undecipherable than normal.

Johnny has no idea what to make of her statement or the AI itself, considering their last meeting. 

"I am different." Johnny confirms because...well, she's not wrong.

"Hm," And with that puzzling response, the bike jerks under him.

Johnny has to scramble for a hold on the handles. Once he discovers he's not able to control the gas or breaks at all, he buckles down low into the scooped leather seat and focuses on keeping his balance as Alt navigates them through the broken streets of Pacifica.  

The Voodoo Boys are just as Johnny remembers them, or as V remembers them -- how they both remembered them. Cut off from the world, carving their own place out of the chaos of Night City, the Haitian refugees remain hostile to outsiders and as secretive as ever. To Johnny's great dismay, he is reacquainted with Placide, who guides him wordlessly through the halls he remembers walking with V, twisting and turning through the ruins of an era passed to the Voodoo Boys inner most netrunning sanctum. If V were here, she would have been taking well placed bites out of Placide's hide the whole walk, never missing an opportunity to twist the knife. Johnny is tempted to do the same, forever holding a grudge against the man who thought he could use V like so much scrap, but decides to refrain. If there is a possibility of seeing and or retrieving V from cyberspace, Johnny didn't want to risk that chance being revoked because he pissed the wrong person off.

V is more important than pride - than anything.

"Johnny Silverhand," Brigitte proclaims in her curling accent as he's lead to a stop in front of her among the nest of wires and cords that cover the repurposed train tunnel floor.

The Maman stands at attention, back straight with her hands clasped behind her. Her dark, large eyes are trained solely on him, tracking his every movement -- each twitch of V's face. Johnny never liked the bitch and trusts her even less, remembering vividly how she used V and subsequently Johnny all in an effort to entice Alt out from behind the Blackwall. Johnny recalls how V had felt when they were here the first time, her and Johnny were still unwilling headmates instead of the partners they became. The fear, the lack of trust, the loneliness... Johnny remembers V's mind, how messy it was with the both of them in there, how it unhinged her. Johnny had worked out a reliable way to decode her thoughts against her will around that point in their relationship -- like her brain was a cut diamond he could rotate and observe as each polished edge caught the light. V didn't realize she could do the same to him until later, and Johnny hates how much of a relief that was to him at the time. It kills him to think of how he had initially treated her. Johnny was desperate to keep as much emotional distance from V as possible, a weakness he eventually overcame but he still despises himself for. Especially with how things ended up.

Johnny purses V's lips against the nausea of his vapid turmoil and only nods at Brigitte in response. 

"You look like you just swallowed acid," The Maman drawls, a corner of her mouth dragging up in amusement as she dismisses Placide with a lazy wave of one of her hands.

Apparently she's in the mood to play. Johnny doesn't rise to the bait though, only stares blankly at her from behind his glasses he still has on.

V is all that matters.

With this in mind he scans the room for that awful tub of ice, only to find it's already been filled and is waiting for him. He wonders how Alt managed to get the Voodoo Boys to do her biding with such eagerness. Though as he spots many members in their netrunning suits, plugged into their chairs, looking like they've not washed, fed, or rested in weeks, he guesses it probably wasn't that difficult. What a bunch of net junkies. Without a word to Brigitte, Johnny moves past her and makes his way over to the tub, already feeling V's skin crawl at the prospect of nearly freezing to death again.

Her body remembers things, and it sometimes feels like Johnny has V back -- just for a moment. It crushes something in his chest into unidentifiable rubble each and every time.

Hesitating only a milisec and not waiting for permission, Johnny removes his outerwear to reveal V's favorite netrunning suit that she'd had custom made. His movements as he undresses her body a bit jerky but utterly clinical. The woman had practically slept in this suit -- actually did a few times, but Johnny tries not to let his memories of their time together flood his concentration. Carefully he lowers her body into the icy water, clenching her teeth against the instinct to let them chatter in an effort to spare her from biting her tongue. When he's submerged up to her chest, arms bracketing the rim of the tub, Johnny remembers how V had called out for him right before they were projected into cyberspace. V's voice had been uncharacteristically small as it wavered under the weight of her fear. Johnny grows sick with guilt at the memory of how her loneliness and panic had doubled when he ignored her. After that, whenever V called for him when she was in the deepest throes of panic, Johnny always answered -- never ignoring her cry for him again. He simply couldn't stand to cause her that kind of pain, not when he'd seen so much of it during the war. 

V's body starts to burn with the cold. The ice cubes clink against the metal of the tub as her limbs jerk in an effort to keep moving, fighting to keep her blood circulating. Johnny glances up when Brigitte approaches the tub with a tablet in hand making the final preparations for his journey into cyberspace. Her mood seems to have shifted since he walked in, clearly taken aback by his silence. 

Good, whatever gets him into cyberspace sooner, the better. 

"You are different, Mr. Silverhand." Brigitte observes after a moment, her eyes not leaving the screen of her tablet. 

Johnny's grip on his temper slips.

"You don't know us -- me." He bursts, baring V's teeth like a feral animal, seething at Brigitte's audacity to think she has any right to impose her opinions on him.

He was willing to take judgement from Alt -- or what's left of her, but would absolutely not hear it from this rusty cunt.

Brigitte pauses at the distilled violence in V's voice, how its changed from what she probably remembers -- tone now strangled by Johnny's will. Not attempting any further conversation, her fingers continue tapping away on the tablet. Johnny struggles to limit his retort to just that, venom pooling heavy on his tongue ready to be spit out. As his temper thrashes in him, wanting any excuse to be unleashed, Johnny thinks of V -- of her strength, and how silence was one of her greatest weapons. At first he thought her penchant for choosing her words carefully or not using them at all was weakness, noise was always his weapon of choice after all, but V taught him silence can be just as deadly when used right.

Two opposites. Two halves. Two souls. One body. One mind. One heart --

"Orevwa Silverhand." Brigitte utters as she swipes one last command across her pad and his vision goes black. 

Alt greets him in a place beyond the Blackwall he doesn't recognize. 

Not that he has any semblance of knowledge on the data landscapes that exist beyond the wall, but its neither the Voodoo Boys' data fort, nor the balconied terrace Alt had brought them -- V and Johnny -- to when they created their plan to take Mikoshi. He seems to be on some kind of street, the data projecting the approximation of a road lined by towering buildings and sidewalks of empty stalls, faceless bodies glitch through the space around him trying to imitate the walking masses of Night City. 

Disturbing. 

Johnny doesn't know what's changed, what Alt knows after having had time now to properly comb through the archives she accessed from the Mikoshi core, but he hopes whatever it is it gets V back in her body...no matter the cost. 

This is how it should have gone, Johnny thinks. 

"How what should have gone?" Alt's voice is a deliberate slice through cyberspace as she appears before him, stepping through a tear in the digital reality around them.

The data projection of Night City that surrounds them shudders at her presence as if in alarm. 

"Alt," Johnny replies instead of answering, looking up at the entity that resembles one of the many people he's failed. 

He finds that his discomfort in sharing his inner most vulnerabilities with an AI that claimed what was left of it's humanity had perished along with the woman that birthed it, is still present. 

"Johnny," She says his name and it feels like a brand being pressed against his chest.

Alt towers over him like a goddess, waiting for something. Johnny doesn't know what she wants him to say. He takes a page out of V's book and remains silent, observing first before saying something stupid. He can't mess this up. The raw silence between them begins to throb, and Johnny grows more uncomfortable with each pulse. 

"You said you could help V." He decides he should get straight to the point. 

"I did."

"What does that mean? Can I give V her body back? Can she return to her life?" 

"Johnn --,"

"I'll give anything -- everything, Alt, I'll wipe myself as I promised too the first time, before V --," Johnny promptly chokes on his words, even though he's not in a real body and therefore not actually using a tongue to speak and or choke on.

The potency of his emotions aches within him all the same, regardless if his form is corporal or not. Great.

Alt struggles to process his words, not because he was unclear in stating his intentions, but because hearing the desperation in his voice -- watching as it oozes from him to unhinge the data nearest to him -- stumps her. Not a single formula she uses to decode human behavior seems to be producing any plausible explanations either. Humans are predictable creatures while simultaneously in a state of constant change, but data and specifically engrams do not change. Or at least they aren't supposed to be. Alt has been attempting to figure out what exactly took place between Johnny Silverhand's construct and V's human soul. She still has no conclusions about that, but she does know that the wishes of both Johnny and V are now in her power to grant. 

Alt hasn't quite worked out why she is willing to assist them when there is no direct benefit to her. It's probably just the result of malfunctioning coding, she makes a note to neutralize it later.

"I understand the concept of human devotion and therefore realize the extent you are willing to go, Johnny." Alt concedes.

Johnny forces himself not to interrupt again, to be quiet and hear what she has to say. Alt claimed she could help V, she wouldn't lie about something like that. He also attempts to quell the squeamish feeling of panic he gets at hearing Alt acknowledge his devotion. It makes him sick, sick because of how true it is, how exposed it makes him feel, how much of him V took with her when she left... 

"I'd like to show you V." Alt announces. 

If Johnny were back in V's body, he's sure her heart would have stopped. 

"She's here?" He all but whispers, absolutely terrified to hope. 

Alt pauses as if she's considering something, then replies with a firm, "Yes."

"I thought you or a wild AI in cyberspace woulda consumed her by now." Johnny bites out, unable to hide his bitterness at the thought of anything destroying V -- erasing what was left of her. 

"I tried to integrate her data into my core coding many times, as I feared her engram would be attacked, dismantled by rogue AI, and thus go to waste. But...she has proven to be a stubborn guest." 

Fierce pride and relief pours into Johnny like water in a tall glass, filling him to the brim. He barks a laugh then, the one-note sound punching out of him more like a dry sob than anything else. 

"Ahh V," He murmurs with far more affection than he's capable of mentally and verbally acknowledging. 

"Follow me." Comes Alt's crisp instruction, and if she were human Johnny imagines she'd be pursing her lips.

Johnny tries to swallow down the fist of painful joy lodged squarely in his throat at the prospect of seeing V again, but promptly chokes on it as Alt in one moment is the size of the Statue of Liberty, and the next is not a few inches shorter than him. He tries not to let himself be creeped out by how...tangible this makes Alt feel, no longer an entity but a human. Wordlessly Johnny follows her down the projected street. She leads him through throngs of faceless people, their silhouettes flickering as if they are a snapshot of a memory. 

"Where are we? Where are we going?" Johnny can't help but ask as the buildings and stalls start to look oddly familiar. 

"Her data fortress. She never leaves." 

It startles Johnny to hear this, not knowing what he expected in coming back to cyberspace, but it wasn't this. Though he figures it makes sense considering how dangerous cyberspace beyond the wall is.

"What do you mean?" He asks, wanting to know every detail of how living here -- or more like existing here, was for V all this time.  

Damn if he'd known her engram was still intact he'd have come for her right away. Why did Alt not tell him sooner? Why is she telling him now? 

"V..." Alt pauses as if she'd been interrupted, but continues before Johnny can prompt her, "V's engram did not act how I expected it to when she crossed the bridge with me." 

Johnny is deeply unsettled by this answer. Alt Cunningham, the woman he knew, was rarely wrong about things. He doesn't know how many similarities there are between Alt and the AI born of her, but he assumes that when an AI of this caliber is confused it's probably not a good sign. He wants to clear his throat in order to steady himself, but he realizes that would be pointless.

Instead he asks, "How so?"

"When you two were of one being," Alt begins, "Your joined projection into cyberspace was like nothing I had ever witnessed. You were, to put it simply, unprecedented. When V gave up her mortal body to you, she inadvertently enacted the Soulkiller program that exists on the Relic."

Something sharp and utterly monumental pierces Johnny's core at Alt's words, and bursts like shrapnel in his chest. Before he can even begin to grasp the extent of his emotional response to this information, Alt continues.

"When her soul terminated, the Relic did what it was made to do. It crafted the remnants of her soul into a personality construct. A copy of her personality as it had been at the time of her death now exists on the Relic, corrupted data included. Since you have not removed the Relic from your neural port, it has remained stable but dormant."

The gravity of this hits Johnny like a deck to the face. She's been in his head this whole time? Johnny wrestles with the raw relief and the subsequent grief of this revelation, trying to process it and struggling to smother the panic yawning like a black hole in his mind. He needs to focus, to be fully present, to ask questions.

"But V's here, in cyberspace. How...how can she also be on the Relic?" 

"The Relic was designed to copy and install personality constructs from a terminated being onto an empty organic brain. As you are well aware the Relic is a prototype, it doesn't distinguish between corrupted and uncorrupted data, it simply copies what it detects. It copied V's personality when it was emptied of yours, but when her engram -- or her soul as you understand it, transferred to cyberspace her engram was forced to split. The Relic was made to retain the entirety of any engram Soulkiller constructs, its not like a file you can have multiple copies of. A soul is a soul, even when in the form of a construct, and only one copy of it can exist at a time or it is no longer a soul but a set of coding --

"Like you," Johnny interrupts.

Alt pauses for so long Johnny fears she's malfunctioned but she eventually responds, "When Alt copied her engram and sent it into the net she had no mortal brain to organize her personality construct, and thus failed to retain her humanity. Her soul dissolved into the network of coding that created me."

"Is V an AI now?" The horror that grips Johnny then at the prospect of V being another version of Alt is absolute and unforgiving. 

"I do not believe so."

Johnny does not dare to let hope flood him just yet.

"Then why hasn't what's left of her construct on the Relic overridden me?"

"Because I assume the Relic does not have the proper programing to install a construct twice, let alone an incomplete torn construct. I also concluded that the reason it didn't begin the process of replacing your construct with the damaged version of V's it retained, is because the synapses of her brain had already been destroyed and reconstructed with the make up of yours. You are a product of the Relic, and it most likely detected this in the structure of your brain. There was no programing that gave the Relic permission to override a construct it had already installed." 

"So she's what, in pieces? Half of her in cyberspace and half of her on the Relic?" Johnny can't stop how his voice shakes. He's irreparably overwhelmed with all this information and is trying his best to function despite it. 

"Yes and no. Your personality construct was no longer held by the Relic once V surrendered her mortal body to you, your engram had already been successfully transferred. The Relic's job was complete, until V crossed the bridge with me and severed her soul to her body, thus initiating Soulkiller. Her soul in that moment was crafted into a personality construct, but while the Relic tried to store her new construct onto its hardware, V's engram was already crossing into cyberspace -- becoming an entity that could exist here."

"Alt, please, I can't -- I don't, I'm having trouble understanding what you're trying to tell me." Johnny feels like he's flailing in the dark and is losing his grip on his sanity, "Is she alive or not?"

"She is not alive in the way you mean. V is incomplete, her engram has been forcefully separated and I do not know the level of damage that has been inflicted upon the integrity of her construct as a result. She is being forced to exist in two places: as an entity in cyberspace, and as an incomplete construct on the Relic."

"How do I fix her? What do I have to do? Alt, I'll do whatever needs to be done."

"I am aware. Unfortunately this has never happened before and thus I am not able to predict a projected outcome that would console you. What I am about to suggest has a high probability of killing you."

Johnny only remains silent and waits, he does not care what becomes of him. 

"I see," Alt says, "In that case I believe the only feasible way to return V to a cognitive network, is to collect all her data into one structure. There is no set of programs that could possibly reorganize all that untethered complex information and memory, the human brain is the only tool possibly strong enough to handle that kind of overload and still function."

"I don't want her to function Alt, I want her to live." 

"I understand, which is why it cannot be a neutral organic brain her damaged construct is injected into, but one that is already being used -- alive. Specifically, a brain that has previous intimate knowledge of how her engram structured itself."

Sifting through all that fuckin' chatter, Johnny eventually realizes Alt is suggesting they put V back in this body, this brain -- her brain. 

"I thought you said her engram was too damaged? That the Relic was broken and couldn't...install her?"

"I said the Relic likely malfunctioned. If it broke you would have known."

"But how will you get it to work, then?"

"Your brain will be invaluable in reestablishing the original structure of V's engram. You will share a consciousness with her again, but this time she will be the construct on the Relic and you will maintain most cognitive control." 

"Woah woah what? I thought you said you could bring her back? Alt I will not subject V to a life as my ghost." 

"There are a series of steps that must be executed before we broach any discussion involving 'bringing her back' as you say. Firstly, her scattered data must be collected and successfully coexist within the Relic without self-destructing. Since the pieces of her engram have existed in two different environments since its separation, we must treat the process of combining them with caution. Secondly, I have to be able to install a program on the Relic that can deactivate the override element of it's interface at will. Thirdly, you must survive the transition of integrating V's engram to your psyche. You could very well go mad or simply perish. The Relic was not built to restructure elements of a construct, only contain it, so your brain will bear the brunt of reforming V into the human consciousness you remember her to be. That leads into the fourth step: her engram must successfully restructure itself using your brain as a template. Best case scenario Johnny, your minds will never be able to function fully without the other but you will both retain separate cognitive ability. You will be connected, even if you are separated into different physical bodies, for as long as both your engrams remain in tact."

Johnny had a million questions until he heard that last bit. It all pales in comparison to that one, small, impossible nugget of hope.

"Separate bodies?" Johnny whispers. 

"Yes, I have recently discovered information that proves you could both exist in separate physical bodies, though as I mentioned before, you would always share a consciousness. Her engram would need constant input from yours."

"Input? What do you mean?"

"I mean her memory, her ability to distinguish what is you and what is her. Eventually her personality construct will complete repairing itself and can be weened off of direct reliance on yours, but if you wish for her to retain her sense of self in relation to you, specifically in regards to any memory post-Relic, you will have to accept this connection."

"Accept it? You talk like its somethin' that can be severed."  

"I can not guarantee its permanence or any of the outcomes we are currently discussing. I have calculated the probability of these steps going exactly how I described them to be 1 out of 2.436728 million." 

"Well, that's assuring Alt," 

"I detect sarcasm." 

Johnny only scoffs. He feels like all his nerves have been fried and his mind is wrought with the kind of chaos only hope could stir up in him anymore. 

"So what you're saying is V would be piggybackin' in my brain... in her body, for a while. Then we'd separate into two bodies? Would I be in a new body then? I'm gonna be honest Alt, if it lowers the possibility of V survivin' all this, than I don't wanna risk separating us for my sake. If you need to override me, then do it."

"Having unfettered access to the entirety of the Mikoshi core granted me much knowledge previously unknown to me," Alt states in lieu of a direct answer, "Something was buried very deep and locked behind many ICE walls within the core. It took me a long while to safely break it down. This program housed a collection of profiles, one of which was about you Johnny."

"So? What does any of that have to do with saving V?" 

"It does not, at least not directly. It has to do with saving you."

"What? I don't give a corp's ass about --,"

"Johnny."

This is the first time Alt has interrupted him, and her tone holds something heavy in it. Johnny feels his data projection seize in shock at the insistence. 

"Johnny," Alt repeats, that eerie sense of weight in her words still present, "They have custody of your body." 

"So what?" Johnny dismisses, "Wouldn't put it past Arasaka to hold onto my corpse, sick fucks probably have a whole trophy room of dead enemies."

"Your body is not a corpse. It is in stasis." 

Something in Johnny's mind immediately jumps to fight the realization that sparks then, like the silent flash of lighting before a thunderclap. He knows the boom of thunder is coming but he covers his ears, wants to ignore the inevitable. Instead of asking any questions regarding what he's just been told, Johnny focuses back on V. She's priority. Surely this knowledge about his...body, can be broached when she's safe. 

"I thought you originally said you couldn't transfer V onto a construct because her engram was corrupted?" 

Alt doesn't hesitate to answer him, allowing Johnny to bypass the apocalyptic implication that he could return to his original body. 

"At the time, my calculations defined damaged data as any data that was contaminated by your engram -- which at that point was almost all of it. Reversing the damage is still impossible to do, that remains the same. What I could not have foreseen is the Relic copying her engram, even in the state it was in. Understand that you were apart of her coding, her soul held pieces of yours within it. This is why I could not separate your two constructs without risking unraveling both of them. Alas, the human brain is unpredictable and very much runs on its own brand of science. Since a part of V's corrupted engram was copied onto the Relic, I am unsure the degrees in which she is the same or different. Due to her engram's separated state, she most likely will not be able to tell what is her and what is you. You will have to define those boundaries for her if you successfully share a consciousness." 

Throughout all this highly intense discussion, Johnny hadn't realized that they had been steadily drifting through the projection of Night City. He hadn't been actively walking, or at least didn't think he was, but when Alt suddenly leads him into what looks like an elevator and turns her head to stare at him, he realizes how lost he'd been in what was being discussed. Something significant passes across Alt's features as she watches Johnny, and it sends shivers up his non-corporal spine.

"Please select services," Alt instructs with a graceful gesture of her hand.

The elevator console is snuggled in between a quartet of ghostly red TVs that flicker with white noise and produce garbled, unintelligible sounds. Metal grate doors close with a hollow clang behind him when he approaches the panel, and suddenly Johnny realizes why all of this feels so familiar. This...it couldn't be...

"Johnny?" Alt questions as he freezes, "We must interact with the data this half of V's engram has built around herself if we wish to be allowed to communicate with the core of her. As I am certain you are aware, V is an extraordinarily skilled netrunner and has used her prolific knowledge to protect herself from rogue AI and remain unconsumed by me in cyberspace. She will attempt to fry us out if we don't proceed through the security measures she has set up. Many rogue AI have tried to bypass her daemons, but their effort only bought them their abrupt termination. I, several times, have attempted to surpass her defense systems and have failed each time." 

Ignoring the pride that once again swells in his chest at the fact that V created daemons powerful enough to deter Alt fuckin' Cunningham, a greater concern paralyzes him. Even with only half of her soul present in cyberspace V fought off Alt, fought being consumed, fought against the destruction of her data despite sacrificing herself for him the way she did. So V wasn't determined to die, she had just been determined to save Johnny. This is something Johnny has argued with himself about over and over again, not knowing which was worse to accept. It reignites a sense of urgency in him -- he needs to see her, to finally be allowed to do right by her as he had planned to do before V stole his choice from him. 

"Does she know I'm here?" Johnny rasps, his voice wavering and his hand still hovering an inch from the elevator's touchpad. 

"I do not believe so, my presence is probably overwhelming the systems she uses to identify AI entities," Alt waits a moment before adding, "Is this a problem?" 

Johnny does not respond, only jams the services option on the panel and steps away with his back to the wall opposite the grate doors. His fists clench at his sides, something in him coiling up tight like a spring. A precipice yawns before him, fast approaching. 

How would she react to seeing him? Would she react at all? Could she react? What does meeting half of her soul mean? Is the part of her soul that remains in the Relic effect his projection in cyberspace? Will V know?

All this worry makes him feel sick but he decides he doesn't care, as long as he gets to see her again in any capacity he'll be satisfied. Returning her to the life she deserved to finish living is the very least he owes her. 

"I'm sure she will return your sentiments in whatever way she's able." Alt comments, standing eerily still adjacent to him in the small space. 

"Cut that out," Johnny snaps as his nerves finally get the better of him. 

"Cut what out?" Alt seems genuinely confused at this and it gives Johnny pause. 

"Stop reading my mind." He clarifies with a fraction more grace.

"Your thoughts and what you think you're saying out loud are one in the same in cyberspace beyond the wall." 

"Oh," Johnny grits through a tight throat. 

The elevator rumbles to a stop and the doors open up to a skeleton of the community Johnny remembers existing on V's floor of Megabuilding H10. More faceless people, stagnant and ghostlike, flutter around him. Gun shots from Wilson's range echo in his head, he passes Coach Fred's training bot working a new recruit raw, the gossipers at the food stalls hush themselves as he sweeps by, the grunts of hunks working out in the unofficial gym bounce off the metal walls of the hallway...all these memories Johnny's packed away comes rushing back and he is only able to suffer through it because V's apartment door appears before him and he can't breathe. 

She is so close, he's longed for her...needs her to -- 

"You may knock Johnny, I don't believe she will allow us entry if she thinks it's just me." Alt instructs tonelessly beside him. 

A few warning bells go off in Johnny's head at the fact that Alt might be using him as a way to gain entry into V's innermost data core, but he's too caught up in the delirium of possibly seeing V again that he ignores it. Plus Alt doesn't want to destroy V, she wants to understand how her data works so she can help bring her back. That difference is significant enough to prove to Johnny that he can trust the AI not to do V any harm. 

Johnny lifts his metal fist, wishing bizarrely that he could have a moment to smoke and clear his thoughts -- organize all that he wants to say to her, but like most things in his life Johnny decides to fucking wing it. He delivers three knocks against the red projected data door of her apartment. The knocks produce no sound, but his fist is stopped from phasing through the door so he assumes V has acknowledged their request to enter. There is a long terrible moment of silence, one Johnny knows he'll never forget. The digital universe around them holds its breath while Johnny remains terrified at her being so close yet still so unattainable, but then the door slides open and his soul rejoices. The projection of his engram visibly brightens, rippling like the surface of a disturbed pool.

Alt takes note of this reaction but says nothing, wishing to watch this reunion with the least amount of her interference as possible.  

Johnny crosses the threshold and is shocked to find the room to be nothing but an empty square. He can find no evidence of the bathroom, the nook where her bed is, the door to her weapons stash, or even her desk. It's just four plain walls, a floor, and a ceiling -- all designless, detail-less, at least compared to the effort taken with the recreation of Megabuilding H10. They seem to be alone in the room until a figure flickers into view in the far left corner. It's curled into itself on the floor, it's shape indistinct -- barely humanoid at all, with it's back to them and it's head pressed into the crease where the two walls meet. Johnny is simply baffled for a moment, caught completely off guard, before dread so cold it burns rises like bile up his throat. 

"Valerie?" Johnny hushes in abject horror. 

The thing in the corner only shudders in response. 

Johnny collapses on his knees in front of it, strength siphoned from him like a punch to the gut.