Work Text:
Timebomb
“Fuck, Jude. You gettin’ this?”
V scanned the area to show Judy the mayhem that surrounded her.
“Jesus Christ. Haven’t seen one that messy in a long time.”
“You’d think by now they’d learn to be subtle. It’s almost like they wanted us to find out…”
Then it hit her. V lifted the optical scanner of her wreath and tried to turn around.
But she was too late.
As soon as she realized that this was bait, her attacker already had her in a chokehold.
V’s scrolling wreath fell to the ground and was crushed beneath the cyberpsycho that grabbed her from behind.
* * *
“V? V?!”
The feed went fuzzy before it completely cut off. However, as V’s wreath dropped, Judy noticed something on the feed. She paused and rewound the footage.
There it was. Just before the feed cut out, Judy noticed that V was grabbed from behind. The last thing Judy saw before the feed went dark was V’s face, contorted from the surprise attack and her struggle. Then, the feed was cut.
They had been doing this shit for over five years now. They knew every trick in the book, had already seen what they thought was the worst of it. But as Judy rewatched that footage, she realized they made a rookie mistake.
While they were tapped into the camera feed in the area, they didn’t look to see if the feed had been tampered. And Judy didn’t need to overthink it; she knew.
This was a setup.
Like V, Judy wasn’t one to sit around and worry, hoping that things would get better. No, she knew they wouldn’t get better, not unless she fucking did something about it.
She pushed her chair away from her workstation, removed her tuning glove, and stood up. Then, as Judy undressed, she walked to the closet and grabbed her netrunning suit. Once she checked to make sure it had coolant and was powered up, Judy walked to the back of her office and booted up the netrunning chair. Then, she checked the connections and entered her access code.
The monitors lit up with activity, and Judy reclined in the netrunning chair. As she connected her neuroport, the feed on her display disintegrated before she was fully immersed in the net.
Before their big adventure with the Aldecaldos over five years ago, Judy never really had the desire to do any netrunning. The Mox had their own runners, and Judy was quite content and comfortable in her basement, tuning virtus. However, when the shit hit the fan in Arizona, Judy sprang to action and quickly learned some netrunning skills. As time progressed, she got better and better.
Then, her netrunning skills were nearly as strong as her virtu tuning skills.
Judy used V’s last recorded location to navigate to the local network. This would have taken her much longer at a computer; while netrunning, she could do the same task in seconds instead of hours.
The camera feed wasn’t the most important part of this task. This was way deeper than just knowing where that cyberpsycho came from. This was about finding out why she was there, and who sent her. That level of destruction was deliberate. Someone was sending a message, and whoever it was, they wanted V to find it.
Judy found the camera feed from the area that V was in, and as expected, it had been manipulated. Once she found the breach protocol menu, she completely bypassed the code matrix and got to the root of the hack in the feed. Once the hack was removed, Judy activated the real time feed, toggled the cameras, and zoomed in on V.
Her wife. How Judy loved to watch her wife in action.
But she didn’t have time to sit and watch. She had a much bigger task ahead of her. This is why they were here.
While V handled the cyberpsycho, Judy worked on the feed.
Judy set the feed to record, since V’s wreath was no longer functioning. Judy made a mental note to make a new one for V. Recording their work was of vital importance in the grand scheme of things; the cyberpsycho project was still in full swing, even years after the failsafe had become widely available. However, there were still pockets of towns around the NUSA that still experienced cyberpsycho activity; mainly, border cities.
Judy and V were in El Paso for a very specific reason. They noticed that more and more of these attacks were happening in Texas border cities, and there was a huge spike in El Paso over the past few weeks.
There was a struggle for power in Washington, D.C. Rosalind Myers was being strong-armed by Militech. Clearly, Militech had bigger plans for the NUSA. It was clear that they had no desire to honor the Treaty of Unification anymore, which of course was the very thing keeping Myers in office. However, Militech wanted to completely get rid of free states. After the fall of Night City, Texas was the only completely autonomous entity in the New United States of America. Myers was losing traction. Militech, especially after the merger with Arasaka, had become seemingly unstoppable. And their sights were set on Texas.
Judy and V also knew that their deal with Myers wouldn’t extend to her successor; they’d have to come up with a new strategy.
And their strategy, as always, was rooted in amassing infallible proof.
Which was also why these fuckers kept coming after them.
Militech was unmatched in power. No one dared challenge them.
No one, except Judy, V, and their allies.
As Judy set the camera feed to record, she went deeper into the network to find the hack. In minutes, she found the time of the hack and began searching for the source.
* * *
V’s fighting instinct kicked in.
When she was in Cold Blood mode, the only difference between V and her cyberpsycho opponent was that she was in complete control of her mind. That gave her an edge; she wasn’t fighting blindly. She was using pure instinct.
As always, whenever V was in Cold Blood mode, time seemed to slow. Her senses were heightened. Every movement was like a well-rehearsed, choreographed dance.
Except this dance would end with V standing victoriously over an unconscious cyberpsycho victim.
V turned her head away from her attacker’s bicep, toward the gap in the cyberpsycho’s arm grip. This freed V’s airway. Now, V could breathe freely, without restriction. Then, she put her hand on her attacker’s forearm and gripped hard as she bent her knees. She tucked her chin, making it impossible for the cyberpsycho to crush her windpipe. Then, she swung her leg behind her attacker and bent forward.
In one swift motion, V swiveled toward the side where her leg was behind her opponent’s, and then she threw the cyberpsycho down.
Cyberpsychos are fueled by chrome-induced rage and adrenaline. Even with all of their strength, nothing beats good, old-fashioned physics.
V stood above her attacker and readied herself for her next attack. V reached up for her wreath so she could use her quickhacks, and then she remembered that the wreath had been destroyed.
Shit , V thought. Gonna have to do this the manual way .
V unsheathed her Black Unicorn katana, pressed the handle to the cyberpsycho’s trachea with her knee, and waited. The cyberpsycho struggled beneath her, but once again, even with superpowered strength and chrome in overdrive, V had the physical advantage.
Cyberpsychos don’t feel pain, but they all needed to breathe; even though the chrome had gone into overdrive and there was no humanity in their actions, they were still vulnerable, because they were still human .
V continued to press until the cyberpyscho’s strength waned. Ultimately, the cyberpsycho passed out.
Once V had her katana back in the sheath, she leaned down and checked her victim’s pulse. It was still racing, as the heartbeat of a cyberpscycho’s pulse was always high. But it was a good sign. She was still alive.
V bent over, lifted her victim, and carried her over her shoulder. Then, V walked over to her car, loaded her victim in the back seat, and checked for a shard.
This was new. There was no shard.
Usually when V and Judy encountered cyberpsycho victims, they would find scroller shards in their neurports. They were hired out by XBD studios to scroll their cyberpsychosis; it was very lucrative and the pay was higher than any merc work V had come across.
However, this person wasn’t scrolling.
Which meant something much worse.
This woman was hacked against her will.
And since this woman was hacked and sent into an area to cause chaos and destruction to lure V in, then ultimately she was there to destroy V…
BOOM!
The cyberpyscho was a bomb, and the car erupted in a ball of flames. Doors blew off, windows shattered, and fuel and oil ignited in the explosion.
* * *
There it is, Judy thought as she came across the proof of the hack. Whoever tapped into that feed had utilized a cyberpsycho hack on the victim. But as Judy went deeper, she came across a series of codes that kept running in circles. She downloaded the encrypted code and ran the decryption protocols.
A code matrix came up.
Judy’s display was filled with lyrics from an old song; a song that hackers have delighted in using to infuriate many netrunners over the course of many years.
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
“Mother fuckers!”
But then Judy got an alert from the perimeter security system.
She got made. Someone found her; someone found them.
The cyberpsycho attack, the journey into the net, all of it was planned by an enemy, and now that enemy was coming for Judy.
She exited out of the net and sat up in the netrunning chair. Judy ran over to the security monitors and found that the intruders had surrounded the perimeter.
Judy grabbed her tablet and the emergency bag that she had kept in her office. She pulled away the panel that covered the escape hatch on the floor, opened the hatch, and closed the lid. As she descended down the ladder, Judy used the tablet and selected the daemon to pull the panel back over the escape hatch. Her pursuers may eventually find the panel and the hatch, but at least putting the panel back would buy her some time. Maybe not a lot of time, but Judy and V learned over the past five years that when someone comes after them, every second counts.
Once Judy made her way through the emergency escape, she ran down the dark street until she was in a safe area. Then, Judy summoned her van and waited.
They still had the van that the Aldecaldos gifted them when they left Bellemont, Arizona. Panam wasn’t kidding; Nomad cars really do last. The van was sturdy, reliable, and whenever it would act up, Judy would have it fixed up in no time at all, as long as she could find parts. And whenever she ran into issues sourcing parts, Panam and the family were a phone call away.
Once the van was in sight, Judy checked to make sure the coast was clear. She activated the tablet again and checked the surveillance in the area. She hadn’t been followed, at least not that she could see.
Judy got into the van and tried calling V’s phone.
Nothing.
Judy removed the shard that she had inserted into her neurport when she was netrunning and slid it into the tablet’s side port. Once she found the camera feed from V’s last location, Judy tapped in. Now that the hack was removed from the feed, Judy was once again able to see events in real time.
Good, V got the cyberpsycho subdued without any issues , Judy thought as she watched V load the unconscious victim into the car.
Then, the explosion.
Judy slammed her foot on the CHOOH2 and sped toward V’s location.
* * *
V’s ears rang with a low humming sound. The tinnitus wasn’t a big deal; no, the issue was the burning hot car door that was on top of her, searing her leather jacket.
She was pissed. V really loved that jacket.
Oh yes, and she was fucking furious about what happened to the cyberpyscho victim. In addition to being hacked against her will, the woman was murdered in an attempt to murder V.
V hoped that Judy was somehow able to secure network access and obtain both the footage as well as any proof of who did this to the victim, and who did this to her.
The blast also obliterated V’s phone. She had no way to contact Judy, to ask if Judy was able to obtain proof, or if she had seen the explosion.
V then realized that if Judy had secured the feed, she probably also saw the blast.
Judy , V thought as she braced herself to push the burning car door off of her body. With immense effort and an adrenaline-spiked surge of power, V threw the door off of herself. Then, she rolled to her side and coughed.
She hated the smell of burning oil, metal, plastic, leather, gas, and flesh. As the car and woman in it burned, V could taste the woman’s seared flesh. The smell came in through her nose and mouth, and lingered in the back of her throat.
There was nothing she could do for the victim. No treatment could save her now; the victim was nothing more than pieces of burning meat, scattered across the scene.
V stumbled away from the explosion, hand on her katana. At least she still had her sword. That was something.
All she needed now was to find her way back to her motorcycle so she could get back to Judy.
A set of headlights came rushing toward her, and V’s instinct told her to stay. Though her brain told her there was nothing logical about walking toward the approaching car, her gut told her to wait.
The black van sped toward her and then swerved as it came to a screeching stop. The driver’s door opened, and Judy emerged, wearing a skin-tight netrunning suit.
“V!!!” Judy ran to V and wrapped her arms around her wife.
“Hey, Judy.”
“Shit fuck goddammit! Fuck! You okay?” Judy pulled back from the hug and held V’s face in her hands.
“Yeah just...Jude, I got nothin’. No shard. Victim’s been blown to bits. Whole fuckin’ thing was a trap.”
Judy wiped bits of charred flesh and goops of white gunk off of V’s face. “All this time they tried killin’ you and they still can’t. My indestructible wife.”
“I made you a promise, mi reina, ” V said. “No more dyin’. Remember what you told me?”
Judy laughed. “Yeah. I said ‘if you die again, I’ll fucking kill you.’ And I’m not joking with that shit. I mean it.”
V smiled. “Oh, I know it. Been doin’ my best not to die again. And I will uphold my promise to you. I will always come back to you.”
Then, V felt something in her chest. Initially, when she saw Judy, she was relieved that her wife came to the scene. However, Judy was in her netrunning suit. Somehow, Judy got to V’s location really quickly. Impossibly quick. That meant that Judy left their home way before she saw the explosion on the surveillance feed.
“Jude,” V asked. “Home’s gone, ain’t it?”
Judy nodded. “I got made. Grabbed the bag and tablet, that was about it.”
“Shit,” V said. “That means our clothes, your tech, what was left on the weapons wall...all gone.”
“Yep. Can’t go back. You know the drill.”
V ran her fingers through Judy’s long, brown hair. “No going back. Only forward.” V sighed. “Fuck. Well, at least we packed the necklace and the photograph from Laguna Bend. Sucks about the Mox shotgun.”
Judy replied, “You hardly used it anyway.”
“Yeah but it was a gift from you. One of the first things you’d ever given me.”
“Got more where that one came from. And look, we got what matters most.”
V wiped her face on her burned shirt, spreading soot and white goop all over her face, making things much worse. She leaned in to kiss Judy and said, “We’ve got each other.”
“Don’t you dare try to kiss me with that oatmeal-looking cybernetic scop all over your face.” Judy backed away and took out her tablet. She entered several commands and said, “We can’t stay here.”
Multiple drones deployed from the van to provide them with surveillance as they prepared to leave. Judy also activated the scramblers to ensure that their communications couldn’t be traced. Not that it mattered, now that V’s phone and wreath were gone.
“Take me back to the bike so I can load it up.”
Judy looked up at V and shook her head.
But V already knew. Before the words even escaped her mouth, she knew.
Scorpion’s Arch was gone.
V lowered her head. “MItch is gonna be so pissed.”
Judy replied, “Think he’ll be much happier that you’re still alive and not so hung up on his choom’s ride bein’ gone.”
“Thanks, Jude. For keepin’ things in perspective. And for comin’.”
Judy took V’s hand and kissed it. Then, she said, “We gotta delta.”
They both loaded into the van; V drove so Judy could monitor surveillance and keep the scramblers working.
V then said, “I hate to ask, but any luck? Figurin’ out who it was, why they did it?”
Judy answered, “Think you already know the answer to that.”
V’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. “Fuckin’ Militech. Not even trying to be subtle about it anymore. They’re the only ones with the balls to use that cyberpsychosis hack. And with Myers being scrutinized, let me guess. They’re tryin’a paint a picture about weak borders.” Then, the realization hit V. “They’re makin’ a move on Texas.”
Judy responded, “Yep. I’m thinkin’ the same thing.”
V drove them out of the city and onto Interstate 10. She headed east toward Fort Hancock.
“Figure they’re gonna wanna hit the bigger towns to really make an impression.”
“I agree,” Judy replied. “Laredo’ll be another big target for ‘em.”
V gritted her teeth. Then, V said, “Fuckin’ war’s comin’. And it won’t be pretty.” V then looked over at Judy. “We’ve been through it all, but things are about to get much worse. What are we gonna do, Jude?”
Looking back at V, Judy said, “We’ll figure it out. Like we always do.”
V asked, “With me getting my ass kicked and you comin’ to rescue me?”
“No, that’s not-”
“By me getting surrounded by a group of goons and you runnin’ them over with the van?”
Judy replied, “What I’m tryina say is-”
“Or like that time when that merc blasted the door off of the apartment apartment and you came in with Sir Phallustiff, and-”
Judy yelled, “VALERIE!”
V sat up straight. She knew what that meant. V was in trouble and she needed to shut the fuck up.
Judy sighed and shook her head. Then, she ran her hand through her hair. After a moment, she looked over at V. At first, Judy was kind of pissed. Then, only slightly aggravated. Finally, she cracked a smile.
V answered, “Together.”
“You know exactly what I’m gonna say next,” Judy said.
“Of course I do. You’re gonna call me a gonk. Then, you’ll tell me I’m your gonk. And then you’ll kiss me and we’ll have our moment.”
“Soon as we pull over, yeah. Yeah I’m gonna kiss you.”
V then looked at the clock on the dashboard and said, “Shit, I better pull over at the next exit or we’ll miss it.”
“Fuck. I almost forgot. With everythin’ going on…”
“Almost slipped my mind, too. But we’ve got a tradition and we better keep it up. With everythin’ going to shit, there are some things that shouldn’t ever change. This is one of ‘em.”
V exited off of the interstate and pulled the van into a dark area. Judy kept the scramblers and drones going as they left the van together.
They walked in front of the van. V kept the low beam lights on so they’d be able to see each other.
Then, Judy wrapped her arms under V’s and they pulled each other closer. Judy said, “I’ve got a counter going. Almost there...and here we go.” Judy leaned into V and said, “Ten.”
V said, “Nine.”
“Eight.”
“Seven.”
“Six.”
“Five…”
“...four…”
“...three…”
“...two…”
“…one.”
Their lips met.
After their kiss, V said, “Happy New Year, Jude.”
“Happy New Year, baby. Definitely the wildest one yet.”
V asked, “Really? You think? We’ve had some pretty wild ones.”
“Let’s see. We couldn’t bring our victim in for treatment because not only was she programmed to go cyberpsycho, but she was also a goddamn bomb. Lost our home again . Someone baited you in the field - that’s never happened. And not only did I get fucking Rickrolled on the net, but the asshole did it to close in on my location and almost trapped me in the net. Oh, and also, you know, we’re about to release incontrovertible evidence of an act of treason that will definitely spark a huge civil war across the NUSA. Can you honestly tell me this isn’t the wildest New Year’s Eve we’ve had yet?”
V answered. “You’re right. As usual.”
Judy scoffed. “Like it’s a surprise.”
“Hey, I’m just upholding a tradition here.”
Judy pulled V in. “You’re such a gonk.”
V grinned and readied herself for what she knew would come next.
Judy sighed. Then she said, “But you’re my gonk.” Judy kissed her wife once more.