Chapter Text
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1. Samurai
The sky above her is clear and bright, the sun shines with all its intensity, and the gentle breeze of the morning brushes against her flushed cheeks; it’s certainly a pleasant morning for all those souls in NC who love waking up early and strolling through the streets, ignoring the obligations of everyday life. However, for V, lying on the road leading to the entrance of Night City, her body aching and a headache beginning to form, there was nothing pleasant about that morning.
V doesn’t really know how she ended up there on the road, on the bridge, with her car beside her and herself lying on the ground as if she were in the comfort of her bed in the megabuilding — certainly, the excessive use of MaxDocs over the last few days and the Relic could be the answers to that mystery and to the blackout she must have suffered, but she decided to ignore the how and settled for partially remembering that, a few hours earlier, she had been in the middle of a firefight after finishing a gig for Dakota.
She was still getting used to the Badlands, as well as to the nomads and working for Dakota in general. V wasn’t used to the desert, the excessive heat, or dealing with nomads in general, but she was adapting. Panam was a good friend, although V was only applying the term “friend” on her end because she still didn’t know whether Panam considered her a friend as well, but they got along well; the clan was “fine” with the presence of an outsider on their land, and Dakota seemed to like the way V worked, so she kept giving her good gigs.
On her interface, the notification for the payment Dakota had transferred appeared, and V was satisfied with the amount; then she saw Dakota’s message congratulating her on a job well done and warning her to keep a low profile for a while because she had pissed off some people in the area. V simply replied with a brief “ok” and closed the messages.
She’d been pissing off a lot of people lately.
Occupational hazard, right?
V should get up soon; it was only a matter of time before some asshole spotted her lying in the middle of the road and decided to rob her or kick someone who was already down. But she was too sore, even feeling her toes aching inside her boots, and, strange as it was, the road wasn’t actually that uncomfortable — temporarily. Later, she’d spend the entire day suffering from back pain.
She also knew she had to be sunburned, sweaty, with her clothes sticking to her body, and that she should go eat something. V had a lot of things she needed to do, but she settled for staying on the dusty road a little while longer.
It was nine in the morning, almost ten. She decided she’d stay for just a few more minutes, then she’d get up and continue with her day as if she hadn’t blacked out in the middle of the road. Just a few more minutes…
She stared at the blue sky, watching the AVs flying overhead, doing whatever it was AV users did. V couldn’t help thinking that, if it weren’t for the massive pollution, the environmental crises, and those goddamn corporate wars, there would be birds flying across the sky right now.
It was really sad, if she stopped to think about it. So many animals wiped out because humanity played God every single day until it resulted in their extinction. There were so few animals left now…
V had been lucky enough to somehow find a kitten and adopt it, on top of stealing Yorinobu’s iguana egg, which still hadn’t hatched.
V remained lost in her sad thoughts about animals until blue glitches appeared in her vision, becoming increasingly familiar, a recurring part of her chaotic day. Johnny’s figure materialized in his usual clothes, and V braced herself for whatever speech he was about to give. She merely blinked as she watched him step a few inches closer to her, glitches running across his figure as he stared at her.
“Wake the fuck up, samurai. We have a city to burn.”
He crouched down, bringing his chrome hand to the frame of his sunglasses and taking them off, revealing his intense brown eyes fixed on her. V simply sighed in response.
Samurai, huh… That was a new one.