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She looked down from the bed at David, sat slumped over on the couch, staring at static on the TV. Barely recognizable from when they had first met, a ‘ganic boy save for the Sandevistan and a determined look in his eye. Now, it’s difficult to tell what ‘ganics are left in him. Just staring, doing nothing else. He’s been doing that more, recently.
She knew people were talking, asking why she hadn’t returned to the crew. None of them know the true reason why she couldn’t come back. Her work wasn’t done, yet. He’s still not safe from them, those that made her what she was, those that made her run. But she knew she was losing him, slowly. Tonight had to be the night.
“David?”
“Huh?” He looked up and back at her.
“Oh, sorry, my bad. Did I wake you?”
“Can’t sleep?”
“Just couldn’t shut my brain down.”
Something else he’d been doing more of lately, too. Talking about himself as if he’s a machine, not a man.
“Oh.”
“I’ll turn it off.”
That was the problem with him, he can’t. Not in his nature. She descended the staircase and led on the couch next to him.
“Aren’t you watching?”
“No, just kinda zoning out.”
Something then transfixed him on the screen.
“... for only 250K eddies!”
It was a commercial, a one way trip to the moon. The “one way” part conveniently put in fine print at the bottom. Why did that grab his attention?
“Only 250K to the moon, cheaper than I thought.”
“Only for a one way ticket though.”
“Yeah, true.”
The poster in her old apartment, before they had moved in together. Telling him her dream of going to the moon. The braindance. The smile on his face. He had remembered. She smiled back at his boyish grin in her memory, and without her thinking it turned to a chuckle.
“You remembered.”
“Huh?”
He was gone again, lost in the static and the white noise of the droning commercials. She needed to sleep. She was going to get up to tell him goodnight, but something stopped her. Tonight had to be the night.
“David, can we talk?”
David turned to look at her. His face a mixture of puzzled and anxious. He just didn’t know how to relax anymore. It’s like he didn’t trust her, like she wasn’t safe to him. Then again, how could she judge?
“Yeah, uh, what is it? Is it about coming back to the crew? Because I know that Kiwi…”
She had instinctively put her hand on his arm. It stopped him mid sentence.
“It’s not about that.”
The puzzlement was gone, washed over by anxiety. And fear.
“You remember my dream that I told you about, to go to the moon?”
“Yeah, of course. I haven’t forgotten, I’m going to take you there.” He said with an animated enthusiasm that had only grown rarer since Maine. The pit of her stomach dropped out from under her.
Don’t make promises you can’t keep.
“I wanted to go to the moon because this life, on this planet, has brought me nothing but pain and hardship. I wanted to escape it all, and never come back. The moon… it seemed like just the place to do that.”
Sympathy began creeping its way across David’s face. Despite all the chipping, she knew him well enough to know what he was feeling from his facial features.
“But this life, it also brought me you.”
He let out a half-breath. As he did, his shoulders relaxed. Neither of them knew just how tense he was. But, for now, he had been disarmed.
“The moon is still my dream, David. But… my moon is right next to me.”
The hand over his turned into linked arms, and a lean into his shoulder.
“Lucy… I…”
“David. I don’t want anything else than what’s between us here, right now. If that’s all I get for the rest of my life, I would die happy. But this city… it doesn’t allow happy endings. It chews stories up, drains them of all life, and spits them out. Damn the destroyed lives, the broken hearts… the death.”
She had hesitated on that last part. Almost as if just saying it would cause it to come true. An atavistic fear borne of humanity’s naturally superstitious brain.
“Arasaka, the corps, the gangs. They aren’t the villains. They’re just… pawns like we are. Another part of the story the city will consume for its own nourishment and nobody else’s. It’s this city that’s the villain. And the way we win is by refusing to play our parts.”
Puzzlement had come back to David’s expression. She could see the cycles running in his head, trying to piece together what she was getting at.
“What are you saying, Lucy?” He said at last.
“I’m saying… leave. Leave with me. Tonight. We head north out of the badlands, up to Washington. I looked into it, Arasaka’s eyes are… dimmer up there. It will give us the chance to lay low. Cover our tracks. Start over.”
As she was saying it, fear washed over her. Fear of David’s rejection of her plan, and what that would mean. Fear of leaving this city with so many threads left untied.
“Are you worried about Arasaka coming for you? To finish what it started? You know I would never let that happen, Luce.”
There he goes again. The thing that would be his death. My own personal hero, in shining armor. Prepared to go into the fire for anyone but himself.
“It’s not me I’m worried about Arasaka getting, David. It’s you.”
She had shrunk slightly, her head bowed.
Time to confess everything.
“Me? Why? What could Arasaka possibly want with me? What are you not telling me Lucy?”
He had pulled away slightly, the guard raised ever so slightly once again. It hurt. But she knew she deserved it.
“Tanaka… when I dove and breached his system. I saw... things. A top secret experimental weapon. Fuck.. higher than top secret. I dunno. Tanaka had in his shard a list of potential candidates for… being a guinea pig for the weapon. Individuals with exceptionally high tolerance of implants, high resistance to cyberpsychosis.”
By the look on his face, it was piecing together in his head at last.
“David, I… I saw you on the list.”
There was a pause, as shock permeated the whole room. David slumped forward, elbows on his knees, head in his hands.
“Me? How do they… how do they know? I cut ties with them long time ago, told myself I’d never step foot in the academy…”
He trailed off. The words left hanging in the air, the academy . Realization, and horror.
“David, what is it?”
Was this a mistake? Her heart was racing, she felt like she was going to throw up. Just like in that ice bath after seeing David’s face staring back at her in Tanaka’s head.
“The academy… was the first time I used the Sandevistan. This kid, Tanaka’s kid, had been giving me trouble, beat the shit out of me one time. Tried to fight back, but he had goddamn implants. Never stood a chance. After my mom’s death, I just… snapped. I no longer wanted to sell the Sandy… I got it installed… in me. I wanted revenge. I just wanted to… fuck something up. I didn’t want to be powerless anymore.”
His head was bowed, as hers had been just a moment ago. This confession was going both ways.
“It was on academy grounds, in full view of cameras. They’ll have seen everything from at least 10 different angles. They’ll have known exactly what happened. Known that a kid like me with no training whatsoever being able to use the Sandy even once and stay standing was a damn miracle. That’s when they must have… identified me as a potential lab rat.”
He understood now. The terrible truth she wanted nothing more than to protect him from. But she knew she had to continue on.
“Since then, they’ve been sending runners after you, David. I knew from that moment they’d be hunting you, be piecing the puzzle together after Tanaka. And that’s why I’ve not been able to come back. To the crew.”
David looked up at her. His eyes staring intently into hers, taking in every bit of information.
“I’ve been… running interference. Taking out the runners as they come. I left some… trip wires of sorts in the net. Anything related to Arasaka, the cyberskeleton, and you, I get pinged. And then I…”
“You what, Luce?”
“I… protect you! I make sure they can’t come after you anymore.”
He slowly went back to staring at the floor, as if he was reliving every moment up until now. Wondering how things could have been different. How he could have stayed under the radar. The million different ways things could have gone.
“How many?”
“I don’t know. I lost count.”
She really didn’t know. But she never lost count, because she had never kept it in the first place. Panic was on the verge of gripping her throat. She had to press on. Convince him to leave with her. For both of them.
“David. Let’s get out of here. Together. As long as we’re in this city, we’re not safe. Arasaka, they’ll just keep sending runner after runner. And they’ll get smarter about it. They’ll always win, but only so long as we keep playing. Let’s just take the money, some clothes, and ourselves and run! Please, David, it’s the only way you… we… live, together.”
Tears were beginning to flow. Panic, sadness, terror. That’s what this city does best. Another pause. It felt like an eternity. Her forehead was against his shoulder, arms gripped tightly around his. As if this could be the last time. The pause broke.
“Okay, Lucy. Let’s go. You and me.” He finally said.
She let out a breath. Relief, happiness, joy. She hugged him around his neck as tight as she could. We’re going to be okay!
An alarm blared. Everywhere and nowhere at once, sourceless and yet ever present. The panic set in again as they both turned around to look at the door. Something was wrong, very wrong. David turned to look at her, but he wasn’t… he wasn’t the David from the night of that conversation. He was the David on the train when they first met. Boyish, scrawny, from an eternity gone by. There was no panic, no consternation, nothing in his face to suggest trouble. He was just looking at her. Taking her in, like a piece of art on a wall. Then, like a weakening signal, the room, David, the night faded away.
…
Lucy opened her eyes. The sheets were soaked with sweat, she could feel the trails of dried tears down her cheeks, her head pounded. Was it the grief, the anxiety, or was she just dehydrated? She hit the crude alarm on the end table to silence the blaring noise.
She fell back onto her pillow, doing her best to recall the dream. Or was it a nightmare? The torment of a happy ending cruelly put out of reach. She tried to coax that feeling back into her, the warmth that lit her soul when he had agreed to go. A version of David that hadn’t died, but had never lived either.
If only I could take that feeling with me wherever I go. I’d kidnap it if I could, and make no ransom. Because I’d never set it free.
Led there in the bed, she checked her messages. Just one, from Falco. They hadn’t spoken in a while. He had wanted to stay close. She figured it was out of some last duty to David to keep her safe. But she had insisted on going off by herself. Needed to get away from all the things that reminded her of that night. The night she lost him.
Falco looked the same as he always did, dark brown hair, thick moustache. An old west gunslinger flung forward into 2077. A pensive look on his face. What was he calling for?
“Hey, Luce. I, uh. I hope you’re doin’ okay. I mean… as okay as you can be. I kinda figured that you’d be wantin’ your space and I’m sorry, I don’t mean to intrude on that…”
Like the old familiar friend in front of her, the weight of grief and longing hung heavy on her heart once more.
“... but I got a strange call from that Santo fixer we worked with a couple o’ times, what-his-name, uh… El Capitan.”
A brief flash of anger skittered across her heart. Fixers, jobs, the city.
“Said that a solo had come to him asking about David. Apparently there was some XBD lying around in Santo that talked about David, piqued this gonk’s curiosity. Anyway, Capitan says they’re the real deal, one step away from legend status, likely would’a gotten on with David… and the crew.”
Falco’s voice trailed off at the end of the sentence. His own grief at losing crew members, friends.
“Anyway, wanted to run this by you. Don’t want this gonk looking into it any further if I gotta be honest. What’s done is… done. But I am curious about who this NC legend-in-the-makin’ is. Capitan is… a character. But I never knew him as someone that ran stories up the pole and back. If he says this solo’s a real one, then they must be a real one. Was wonderin’, y’know, if you felt like it, checking this solo out. Goes by a weird name. ‘Fact I ain’t sure it’s even a name, it’s just one letter. ‘V’. Anyway, if there’s anythin’ worth a wooden nickel, y’know where to find me…”
Falco looked like he was about to begin saying something else. But he caught himself. Maybe some half hearted encouragement or platitude he thought better of at the last moment.
“Stay safe, Luce. And be well.”
The message playback stopped. The part of the interface that contained Falco’s vid message now replaced with his profile pic she had for him in her contact list. It was a front shot of him in the driver’s seat of his vehicle, that stern look of concentration on his face; the one he always got when driving. This ‘V’ was certainly intriguing, though. And she agreed with Falco. Whoever they were, she wanted them to stop looking too. The netrunner in her urged her to begin digging. A natural instinct drilled into her at the facility. Information is power. She began reaching out into the net, putting out feelers, carefully. Just one search term, “V”, in the context of Night City, solos… Edgerunners.
A torrent of information came back. Chatter on various underground forums about a solo that chews through Animals as if they’re emaciated wimps, guns down entire Maelstrom strongholds without so much as a scratch. Shit, even code-breaking their way into some Militech and Arasaka places. News articles of cyberpsychos being subdued alive all by the same figure. An NCPD presser about a daring rescue of a teenager from captivity on an abandoned farm with the help of a fearless solo. Worked for the NC mayor. A buddy of Kerry Eurodyne; even played a gig with him, taking Johnny Silverhand’s place as the front.
The fuck was that about, does this gonk think they’re Silverhand or something?
Regardless, what she had seen was enough to convince her. This “V” was a real one. Worthy of the Edgerunner title. She lay still in thought for a long moment.
Perhaps it’s time to let it go.
She willed a text reply to come up.
“Yeah, they’re for real. If anything, Capitan was playing them down a lil. Falco, go ahead and give Capitan the deets on the jacket. Where I had it kept. And don’t ask me if I’m sure. It’s time to let it go. Hopefully it brings this V some better luck. Keep well, Falco.”
She hesitated, not quite willing the message to send yet.
I’m sure.
The message sent. Off into the ether, to never be taken back. Lucy stood up and opened the blinds. The morning light streaming through illuminated the dusty air of the motel room. She let the sun's rays wash over her face. Just like in the braindance that night with David, just like in the spacesuit standing on the dusty gray regolith of Luna. And now, in this cheap, rundown motel room.
The moon is still my dream, David. But… my moon is right next to me.
She considered her giving the jacket to that solo. She was giving up the opportunity to ever get it back. The opportunity to wear it like she used to in those nights where they made each other their own. The opportunity to be reminded of him by how he smelled. Regardless, this chain, one that was bound so tight that it bit into skin, began to loosen.
I will never stop loving you. And I will see you again. But, for now, I have to let you go, my love.
Lucy left the motel room, bag slung over one shoulder. The sun continued its near oppressive morning glare upon the landscape as she walked over to a pickup that had definitely seen better days.
Guess that makes us kindred spirits.
She threw the bag into the Colby she had bought from the shady used car salesman back in Jasper. On the interior it smelled like old cigarettes and must. She tried not to think about it too much.
The engine came to life with the push of a button, and she pulled out of the motel parking lot. As the miles passed by on the highway, she saw the sign she had been looking for.
Anchorage, 1040km
She didn’t know what was next. But, for now, the sun was shining on her face.