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"Man, I swear on my life, that's Johnny—"
"Shut the fuck up, Tre, you're so fuckin' stupid. Silverhand's been dead for like a hundred years."
Ari rolls their eyes at their bandmates, arguing too loud over the trio that's been hanging around in a back corner of the bar all night. Even with the hat and shades, Kerry Eurodyne is unmistakable. The chick with him is probably his output. But the other guy is the subject of debate. They can't deny that the man looks… a bit like the Samurai front man. Older, maybe.
"Nah, see, 'Saka had him on ice. Mom's boyfriend worked there an' he told me—"
"He was a janitor, you fuckin' gonk. Like he woulda known shit about their fucked up experiments."
Tre and Brody are always like this. Practically brothers, and they sure bicker like it. Being megabuilding neighbors from birth will do that to you, though. Half the time, they tell people they're twins.
"Both of you shut up, before they hear you," Jo hisses from where she's sitting on the stage and trying to wrap up their various cables. "Maybe he's an agent or something."
"Yeah, like an agent would come to see us play."
"Eurodyne did," Ari finally weighs in, leaning back a bit from their perch on the edge of the stage to look at their bandmates. They shrug lightly when everyone turns to them. "Never know."
"He's not here for us, stupid," Brody nudges them in the shoulder with his knee.
Maybe it's a little too much to hope, sure. But crazier things have happened in Night City. Like the Samurai reunion show that happened on this same stage. None of them were old enough to get in, of course, but they sat outside anyway. Half hoping they might see someone after the gig. So what if Johnny Silverhand wasn't there? Whoever the band got to replace him was good. Even from the parking lot, they could still hear the performance, and they'd been riding that high for a week after.
Ari isn't really sure what compels them to do it. Why they hop off the stage and trail after the rockstar and his companions when they leave to ask the woman about her jacket. Why they come up with some gonk question about liking Samurai when the chick is literally standing there in a replica Silverhand jacket with Kerry Eurodyne.
The conversation, if it can even be called that, doesn't go anywhere. They don't know what they were hoping to get out of it, anyway. So when the trio continues on their way, Ari just wanders back toward the stage.
"Keep playin'," the other guy calls back on his way out the door, "you got soul." Somehow, it feels significant. Like that throwaway endorsement means more than the fact they were able to get this gig in the first place.
"The fuck was that, Ari?" Jo lays into them as soon as the door closes. "What were you thinkin'?"
"Just wanted to talk to them." They shrug again. Funny, almost, that they'd been more interested in the unknown pair than the rockstar. They had a weird kind of magnetism to them; something raw and real and powerful. "Neither one of them looked like an agent, though."
"Yeah, no shit," Tre laughs, shoving them toward the totes that hold their gear. "Help pack the rest of this shit up, bar's closed."
—
They don't go home. Because home for Jo and Tre and Brody is Jo's shitty studio apartment in an even shittier part of town. And "home" for Ari is their dad skezzed out on the couch and maybe overdosing again. They just park Jo's beat up old cargo van in an empty lot somewhere and sit on broken down crates while they share a single bottle of whiskey and a pack of cigarettes between the four of them.
"What do you think he was like?," Ari asks into a lull in the conversation, still thinking about the woman at the bar and "maybe I am Johnny Silverhand". "Silverhand, I mean," they clarify when everyone turns to look at them.
"I heard he brought a gun on stage one time," Brody says after a swig from the bottle. "Opens fire into the crowd, kills four people or somethin'."
"Nobody died," Tre corrects, like any of them know what the fuck they're talking about. "Kerry took the gun away from him before he could shoot."
"Whatever. He was a cyber-psycho, anyway. Murdered Nancy's boyfriend, that's why the band broke up."
"Husband," Jo says, more quietly than the boys. "It was her husband. And she killed him. Got locked up for it and everything."
None of them have actually answered Ari's question in a way that satisfies them. Any half serious rocker in NC knows the rumors, and legends, about Johnny Silverhand, about Samurai. They want to know what he was really like, as a person. Not that anyone can really answer that.
"He was with the nomads, for a while. My dad's brother knew him."
Ari sits up a bit straighter, all their focus on Jo now.
"People make him out like he's some kinda god, but my uncle said he just seemed… lost. Pissed off, and kinda sad. Never had a friend he didn't fuck over, too full of hate to be happy, always running from something." She swipes the bottle from Tre, tipping it up to take a larger drink than anyone else has. Maybe she's not talking about Johnny at all, or maybe the similarities just hit close to home. "Like everyone else in this fucked up city."
"Way to kill the buzz, Jo," Brody mumbles, without really meaning it.
The drop in mood won't last long, it never does. All four of them know those feelings, it's why they found each other, it's the reason they make music. The reason Jo screams into the mic until her voice goes out, or Tre and Brody play until their fingers bleed. When Ari's playing, especially when they're on stage, they forget, just for a little bit, how fucked up everything is.
They lean over to shove Jo's shoulder gently, grinning to lighten the mood. "… So you think 'Saka kept some depressed rockerboy terrorist frozen in the basement, or nah?"
She laughs and passes the bottle. "Fuck no. They probably didn't even bother to dig his ass out of the rubble. Bet he's still down there... His arm, at least." It's a pretty grim mental image, but it makes them all laugh. Snaps them out of the dip so they can go back to talking about something other than long dead legends.
Even if Ari is still wondering who exactly they talked to tonight.