Chapter Text
Chaos: When the present determines the future but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.
- Edward Lorenz
It goes a little like one of those jokes one would find in a dated, dusty book: two men enter Konpeki Plaza, three come out.
Of course, it’s not exactly like that, but it’s close enough.
*
First, there’s V and Jackie, both in over their head, both too naive and too stupid to understand just what and who it is they got involved with in the first place. They don’t treat it like any other job, sure, but they’re also not as careful as they should be, they don’t plan well enough, they trust their shitty fixer too easily, blinded as they are by the possibility of success and fame and riches and becoming legends.
(Later, maybe, V will look back at who he was and regret his carelessness, but it will be too late for him to do anything about it.)
But even with all the prep in the world they couldn’t have predicted the unpredictable. They were there for the Relic, a tiny little chip; how could they have known that the chip would be slotted in someone’s head already? How could they have planned for Saburo Arasaka’s surprise visit to his son, and the old man’s subsequent murder? No one ever accounts for a patricide when prepping for a heist, even though, maybe, they should. (For sure, from now on, maybe, V will. For every job he'll take, he'll wonder if it's the kind of job where he could witness a son kill his father, and then realize that there’s nothing he could do to prevent it anyways.)
It’s like this: sometimes, things just… turn to shit, and you can’t do anything about it but watch said shit happen with bile rising up your oesophagus and a cold sweat drenching your back, thinking man, I sure hope this is a horrible nightmare.
Of course, it's never a nightmare, not when you want it to be.
Everything happens too fast for either V or Jackie to be able to really process it. They get in the penthouse just fine, a bit too easily, really, and they open the refrigerating unit where the tiny little chip is supposed to be stashed and they find a man instead, frozen and asleep but alive, and they get him out, because what else could they do, and Jackie all but looses his shit when he sees the man's face, because holy shit, V, that’s Johnny fucking Silverhand!
And V, he’s never really been into those things, old music and urban legends. Sure, he’s heard of the man, he’s heard of the Night City Holocaust and everything that followed, but he couldn’t pick the guy’s face from a crowd (not yet). But he trusts Jackie with those things, because Jackie’s always been more of a nerd than him, and if Jackie says that the man in the fridge is Johnny Silverhand, who died more than fifty years earlier, who is V to argue? Sure, the live body in the fridge is Johnny Silverhand. Sure. Stranger things have happened (or will, maybe).
And then there’s T-Bug on the holo, asking to know what’s happening, panicking, because apparently the whole hotel’s abuzz, and there’s something going on that she can’t pinpoint, it's something big, but V and Jackie don’t have the time to deal with this, they barely have the time to deal with the fucking body they just discovered, and that has to be a bigger deal than whatever is happening outside this room. T-Bug panics even more, she says hide, fuck, you gotta hide, so Jackie lifts up Johnny Silverhand’s cold body fireman-style and they squeeze, three grown men, inside the pillar, only hidden by a screen.
There, behind the glass, Silverhand’s head bumps against V’s shoulder. He looks young, nothing like the eighty-something-years-old he’s supposed to be. His breathing seems even enough, his eyes are closed, and V wonders what it will take to wake him up. But shit, that’s kind of the least of their problems, isn’t it? Because Saburo Arasaka walks in the room, getting down the stairs in a slow, deliberate pace as he stares down his son.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t notice its absence?” He asks his son, and Jackie and V exchange a look.
He’s talking about the relic, he has to be.
(Later, maybe, when people ask what Yorinobu and his father talked about before everything went down, V will say he couldn’t hear well enough. Anything, really, not to reveal that in that moment, he was too busy trying to keep his breathing in check, holding back panicked tears, because he knew, he fucking knew he was fucked, he could feel it, and when he turned to look at Jackie, he could see that his friend knew it too. They didn’t listen to the conversation happening before them, could just look at each other, heart in their throat, eyes shiny, jaw clenched, with the knowledge that these were their final moments. Just two mercs and Johnny Silverhand, surrounded by servers.)
They witness the murder with their jaw slack, disbelieving, because there’s no way this is really happening, there’s no way Saburo Arasaka is being strangled just inches from them, there’s no way the impact of his skull on the screen just cracked it. Yorinobu has a violent glint in his eyes, something desperate, something both sad and irate, and he keeps his hands around his father’s throat, keeps pressing his fingers on the skin, digging, mouth warped into a horrible grimace.
Saburo chokes for an eternity before his son finally releases him, and his limp body drops to the floor without any of the military sternness it had a few moments before.
Even the most powerful men are still just bags of meat, in the end.
When the hotel goes on lockdown, and T-Bug asks what the fuck just happened, V doesn’t even know how to say it. “Yorinobu just offed Saburo,” he whispers-screams, voice tight, and T-Bug, bless her heart, actually manages not to sound completely off her kilter when she tells them that they have to get the fuck out of there.
“What about Silverhand?” V asks, because Jackie’s still holding him, and they can’t carry a dead weight if they have to run.
“Who cares, V? Leave him!”
“We can’t just leave him!”
“For fuck’s-” On the other side of the line, Bug inhales deeply. “Alright, you’ll have to jolt him awake. He’s probably in cryosleep, so just jack into his port with your personal link and it should be enough.”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
“What do you want me to say, V? If it doesn’t work, then it doesn’t work, and you get outta there without him. Who the fuck cares, at this point.”
*
It happens a little like that: Jackie lowers Silverhand’s body on the floor and V kneels besides him, pushes the guy’s hair out of the way, and jacks in.
And then-
Shit, he wouldn’t know how to describe it. Wouldn’t know what words to choose, what feelings to settle on. It just… It just happens, the thing. It’s over in a flash, a half of a half of a second, even less, and then, when it’s over, the world has moved on its axis, not much, but just enough for things to feel-
Just enough for things to feel different. Not weird, not really, but different.
V blinks. Silverhand blinks. Sits ups, facing V. A flash of something passes in his eyes. V couldn’t put words on that either. But it reminds him of something. Of someone. He’s probably seen it in Jackie’s eyes, before the heist, some kinda doubt, some kinda uncertainty. He-
Looking at Silverhand like this, V realizes he’s probably seen his face before, on old records or videos. There’s something that wasn’t there before, when the man was still asleep or offline or whatever. Looking into Silverhand’s eyes sparks a feeling of déjà vu in V’s guts that he can’t quite shake off.
V’s personal link is still connected to Silverhand’s port. He makes a move to unplug it, reaches for the nape of the neck, and Silverhand flinches violently, trying to pull back only to bring V with him. His eyes are wild, they remind V of a cornered animal, a feral cat. Johnny Silverhand bares his teeth, reinforcing the association.
(Like an idiot, V wonders if the man can speak. Later, maybe, he will discover that he sure can, and that being able to do something doesn’t mean you should do it, and he’ll ask Silverhand to shut it, just fucking shut it, asshole.)
And then, like he heard his thoughts, Silverhand speaks.
“Pull this out,” he orders, and his eyes are piercing, and there’s something, there’s something there that V almost recognizes, almost grasps. It’s over before he has the time to think about it. Next to them, Jackie grows restless, he says come on, we gotta leave, V, and V knows, V knows he should just unplug without a fuss, but he thinks about the way Silverhand flinched away from him just a few seconds earlier, and he can’t help but think that he has to be careful, because cornered animals are always the most dangerous ones.
He nods, hesitates as he lifts his hand again to reach for the port. He’s grateful Silverhand doesn’t just pull it himself, grateful not having to deal with the terrible feedback it would send through the link if the connection was ended improperly. His fingertips brush the skin there, around the port, and V jolts, because he could swear-
But this isn’t possible, it has to be a trick from his mind, the stress getting to him. He disconnects, and as soon as he does, a searing pain seizes him, nesting right behind his left eye. Silverhand seems to feel it too, his hand reaching for his face, eyelid twitching.
“The fuck did you do to me?” He asks, and V couldn’t fucking answer, he wouldn’t know, he feels it too for fuck’s sake, like someone just stabbed him in the eye, but there’s no blood, there’s nothing.
“I didn’t do shit. I fucking woke you up!”
Silverhand does not like that answer (though to be fair, he doesn’t seem like the type who likes anything). His jaw clenches, he inhales sharply, his metal hand still covering his eye (the pain is still there) and he reaches for V’s gun in its holster. V, like a complete gonk, lets him grab it, lets him point the barrel at his forehead.
“Get me the fuck outta here,” Silverhand says, and his voice sounds different than it did ten seconds ago, like he’s not the same man anymore. No anger, just cold, distant pragmatism.
Jackie gasps. V nods. “I’m gonna need my gun back,” he says, and it surprises him how even his voice is.
“Fuck you. Find another one.” Silverhand puts the gun in the back of his pants. It’s not safe, but V could not give less of a shit if the guy shot of his own leg.
“Fine” he shrugs, and holds out a hand in Jackie's direction. Just like that, his choom hands him one of his own pistols.
*
It happens a little like that: that whole thing, waking up Silverhand and the world shifting a degree and the searing pain, it’s over in a minute. The pain stays, and V struggles seeing from his left eye, his vision blurry, swimming, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on it, they have to leave, they have to find a way out of there. Then, only then, will he be able to wonder where the fuck it comes from, only then will he be able to go to Vik’s and get his implants checked.
Of course, though, it won’t be that easy.
T-Bug manages to open the doors before she gets fried, and her scream will stay with V for a long time. He’s never lost a team member before. Never lost anyone before. But right now, as it happens, he doesn’t have the time to dwell on it.
(Later, maybe, when everything will have gone down and everyone will be dead, V will wonder about T-Bug’s true intentions towards Jackie and him. He’ll wonder, because she’d known Dex for a long time, had worked with him before. He’ll wonder, because she told them that she was planning on retiring after this job, cutting all ties, pretend she never existed. And then he’ll realize that her true intentions don’t matter, that they never did, because T-Bug died a horrible death and he will keep having nightmares about it for the rest of his life.)
They find themselves on the balcony like a bunch of idiots, hearts still hammering in their chest unlike T-Bug’s and there’s nowhere else to go but down, V says so, he says they have to jump, and Silverhand laughs, he says It’s too high, we’ll die if we jump, and V insists, he says you’ll die anyways, asshole, but Silverhand and Jackie both deny him.
Jackie, who’s usually an extension of V, who V usually works so well with, feels distant, feels like someone else. Ever since that stupid heist started, he’s been different, stressed out and tense, and now V realizes that they stress differently, that Jackie becomes scared and useless when he’s stressed out, and it pisses V off, and he wishes his friend would just fucking listen to him and jump off the fucking balcony instead of suggesting the roof like a moron.
But it’s two against one, because Johnny Silverhand doesn’t want to jump either, Johnny Silverhand doesn’t seem to like either plan, not V’s, not Jackie’s, but he doesn’t have a plan of his own.
So they follow Jackie’s lead and they walk on a ledge with their back to the windows, trying desperately to reach a ladder that would bring them to the roof, from where they could get… shit, anywhere else, anywhere far from this fucking penthouse, anywhere far from this murder scene, from this gigantic failure.
V is not afraid of heights but he knows, somehow, that Silverhand is. He can see the slight tremble in his hands with each step sideways, the slight sheen of sweat covering the man’s skin. Without even seeing his eyes, V knows they’re furiously blinking back tears. He doesn’t know why, or how: he just does. He thinks about slipping his fingers through Silverhand’s, maybe it would comfort him (either of them), but he doesn’t. He doesn’t even know why he feels a pull to do this, really, doesn’t really care about Silverhand’s comfort, his wellbeing, but also he does, he cares, because the guy is obviously confused, and scared, and he doesn’t really know where he is or what’s happened to him, and V is sensible to that. He doesn’t act on the impulse, though, he keeps his hands to himself, and he keeps looking at Silverhand’s trembling fingers as they almost reach the ladder, they are so close, and then Trauma Team’s there and shooting at them, and they end up jumping anyways, they all scream, but V think’s Silverhand’s scream is louder, and their fall is slowed by the windows they go through, arms first, trying to protect their head, their face.
V feels the shards of glass ripping his clothes, lacerating his skin, and then they land in a server room, and the lights are all so red that V can’t tell if he’s bleeding or if this is just by design, if those are shadows covering Jackie’s abdomen or something much, much worse.
His face is fine. He knows for sure his wrist is broken, and his shoulder might be dislocated, too, but his face is fine. (It’s a testament to how vain he is, V thinks, that the first thing he thinks about is that his face is fine, that he isn’t disfigured, that he still looks like himself. It’s a testament to how vain he is that he feels for cuts on his face before he feels for blood on Jackie’s stomach, and he will never forgive himself for it.)
Jackie’s been shot. His breathing is uneven, he’s struggling, but he still manages to reassure V, to say he’s fine, to say he’ll make it out of here alive. V gives him an airhypo, and Jackie mumbles a prayer as he injects it. Silverhand tells them they have to run.
So they do. They run across the hotel, shoot their way out of every room they find themselves in. V’s heart sits in his throat for the whole time, and his eyes are burning, but no tears fall out. He can’t — he won’t — allow himself to cry when they’re in the middle of a gunfight, he can’t spare the energy, can’t spare the anything. He just runs to the elevator with his terrible, terrible headache, and he snaps at his dying best friend like an asshole, because no, Jackie won’t make it out of here alive, he knows it, he’s certain of it, and he knows that Jackie knows it too.
Silverhand is restless and twitchy next to them but he’s blessedly silent, doesn’t even look at them, eyes fixed on the door. V is grateful for it.
Jackie’s laboured breathing fills the small space, ominous. It sounds wet, mouth filled with blood, he’s dying, his body is giving up on him, on them, on everyone. But he doesn’t say it, he keeps his face neutral, a warrior bracing himself for his last mission, the face of a man resigned. When the elevator’s doors open, they run to the cab, and the three of them squeeze on the backseat, and they tell the car to gun it, for fuck’s sake, and Jackie groans, hands on his stomach, trying to keep the blood from seeping out.
V bats his hands aways, he says let me, Jack, and his voice is trembling almost as much as his fingers, almost as much as Silverhand’s fingers when they were trying to escape the balcony earlier, but somehow he manages to apply the correct amount of pressure, and Jackie groans again, louder, eyes going glassy.
“Hey, hey,” V stutters, looking for something to say, for anything, for any word, “It’ll be okay, Jack, it’ll be fine. Think about Misty, yeah? She’s waiting for you, you know, she’s waiting for you at home. Keep your eyes open. You’ll see her soon. Jackie, stay with me. Jackie, you’ll be fine, I promise. I promise you’ll be fine.”
Now he’s the one lying. He knows, Jackie knows, and Silverhand knows. He’s grasping at straws, trying to find any modicum of truth in his words. Maybe Jackie will be okay. Maybe, by some miracle, the bullet and the glass and the blood loss won’t get to him, maybe he’ll hold on until they get to Vik’s, maybe they’ll get to Vik’s in time.
But the Delamain refuses to change the itinerary, tells V they’re going to the No-tell-Motel and that’s that. Just like that, Jackie’s fate is sealed, and no one but Dexter Deshawn had a choice in the matter.
“V,” Jackie whispers, his best friend whispers. “V, it’s okay.”
V wants to scream. It’s not okay, it’s not fucking okay, and nothing will ever be okay again. His throat closes up, his eyes fill with tears.
“It’s okay,” Jackie repeats, like he’s giving V permission to cry. “I promise, it’s okay.”
He puts a hand on V’s shoulder. The light in his eyes goes out, and the world shifts on its axis a little more.
*
It happens like that: for a few seconds (minutes?) V shuts the universe out. He doesn’t see anything anymore, doesn’t hear anything anymore. There’s only the overpowering smell of copper surrounding him, filling his lungs and his brain. Even the headache subsides, overpowered by the grief, the loss. And then things settle, and he hears Delamain’s question (Mister Welles has passed. Where shall I take his remains?), and he can’t answer, and Delamain asks again.
He tells it to wait here, because what else can he do, and when he blinks, he realizes Silverhand’s not sitting next to him anymore, passenger door open.
*
V walks up the stairs to Dex’s room with the weight of the world on his shoulders. He’s drenched in sweat, in blood, in rain. His hair sticks to his forehead in that way he hates but his arms are too heavy to do anything about it, so he lets it happen.
And then he’s standing in front of Dex, and Dex is ripping him a new one, spitting and panicking, and V tries desperately to explain, to say that wasn’t us, but Dex won’t listen, doesn’t care, because it happened, and if it happened, then it was them. No matter the truth. He asks about Jackie (dead in the car), then he asks about the chip.
V thinks about telling the truth, thinks about saying the chip escaped when I was busy watching my best friend die, but he doesn’t. He lies, he tells Dex they didn’t get it, and Dex actually seems relieved.
“You’re disgusting,” his fixer says. “Go wash your face.”
V goes. In the bathroom, he’s aware of Dex making a call but he doesn’t listen in on it, doesn’t care. He looks at his reflection in the mirror, face caked in blood, tears streaks running down his cheeks. He looks like a wet rat.
(But his face is fine, a voice in his head says, and it’s a testament to how vain V is that he feels relief at that fact. He’s just lost everything, but his face is fine.)
*
As it turns out, his face isn’t fine for long, because as soon as he walks out of the bathroom, he gets punched, and then Dex tells him he can’t take that risk.
He barely has the time to say I’ll fucking kill you before he gets shot right in the middle of his forehead, and he remembers, with a twinge of irony, that Silverhand had pointed his own gun there earlier.
So no, V’s face is not fine, and everything sucks.
*
It goes a little like a clickbait article you’d see somewhere on the web: two mercs enter Konpeki plaza, three come out, and only one survives (you won’t believe which one!).