Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

So, Phantom Liberty is obviously amazing and I love it dearly. However; there was one main thing that really got to me. No matter what you do Kurt Hansen dies and you have to side with either Reed, the FIA, and Myers or So Mi who is ex FIA and also using you. There is no good ending, obviously this is Cyberpunk and there are no happy endings in Night City. BUT, I really really really wanted an ending where you could betray everyone and side with Hansen and Bargheist (definitely not just because Hansen is really hot).

I know I’m not the only one who wanted this option. I feel like it makes sense. Hansen has what V needs, the neural matrix, and yea it does mean that Songbird would probably die, but she is kind of also horrible. There is no good choice between Song and Reed (although, I always choose Song because I sympathize with her). Obviously I’m not saying Hansen is particularly good either but think about it this way: there’s a comraderie in being fucked over by the same government, Hansen hates the NUSA and FIA, and V doesn’t like them either. Hansen is one of the only entities in the game that can reasonably stand up to the NUSA.

I also hate that he always dies. HES KURT FUCKING HANSEN WHY DOES HE ALWAYS DIE. Like even if you spare him he still gets assassinated in his own damn hospital. (Someone get this man better security.) It feels like the only reason he is assassinated is so Mr. Hands’ quest where you choose the new leader of Dogtown works. It’s not that I don’t like that quest, it’s actually one of my favorites, I love the characters (especially Jago (he’s the better choice in my opinion, but I do make both Charlie and Jago work together for the safety of everyone)), it’s just that I wish it wasn’t necessary. Kurt Hansen’s assassination just feels like a waste, I’m sure the writers probably had more planned because he is honestly one of the best written characters in the game.

Anyway. Rant over. I was sitting in the car listening to Hardest to Be and thinking about this so I’m writing an alternate ending. This is going to probably become self indulgent and I will seperate as much of that as I can. Enjoy.

Chapter Text

-
“Fuck”
V had barely begun to process the events that had just transpired. Running his hands over his face with a forceful exhale, he needed to think this over. This went so much deeper than V was ready for.

“You got yourself into this mess in the first place” Johnny flickered into V’s vision.

“I was tryin’ t’ do a good thing. And I don’t got a lotta options right now. It’s the best option we’ve got besides Arasaka, and you and I both know that’s not a real option.”

Johnny was now sitting on a traffic barrier, lighting a Digital cigarette “Should’ve backed out the moment Myers tried to recruit you”

“And then what? Lose what chance we have of a cure. We don’t have options here Johnny. Don’t know what you want from me!”

Johnny was up and pacing now, “Already told you what I want. We already worked it out with Alt. Get to Mikoshi, use soul killer, and let Alt burn it down!”

“Then, tell me: How are we gonna get to Mikoshi? It’s underneath Arasaka Tower, and they already have their sights on me! It’s fuckin’ impossible alone, and I’m not dragging anyone else into this mess!”

V’s optics glitched and Johnny was right in front of him “You know what your problem is? You’re too damn nice, you won’t even risk anyone or anything! Not even when you’re dying.
Gotta be more damn selfish if you’re gonna live in a place like this.”

V turned away, he didn’t want to deal with this. Not now. “Just, fuck off for a while. Need to hear my own thoughts”
-
With that V started the trek across Dogtown to the dilapidated apartment he’d made his temporary home. The place where he’d been dragged elbow deep into this mess. Now, if he didn’t back out he’d be drowning in it.

He should’ve never answered that holo, should’ve said no. Damn his empathy. Could’ve ignored Songbird’s desperate attempt to get help and carried on trying to save himself elsewhere. Johnny was right, a phenomenon that was becoming increasingly common. V hated that.

In truth, he didn’t hate the rockerboy, not as much as he probably should’ve. V was scared, deathly so. Not even scared to die, he’d already died once, knew what it was like. He was scared to lose himself, to become someone else entirely. Scared to be forgotten in his own mind.

He hadn’t been able to escape that fear, not since Clouds. Damn him for letting himself get distracted, letting himself get dragged in. The doll AI was spot on, read him better than he could read himself.

That scared him too, but that was a fear he’d put to bed years ago. Back when he first got his own cyberdeck installed, with none of Arasaka’s monitoring or limitations involved. That was when he first started to truly learn about cyberspace, the net, and AIs. He would never not be scared by the seeming all knowingness of AIs, but he could live with that.
-
V made it to the apartment, closing the door and pulling a pile of boxes in front of it. He should sleep, he could feel his exhaustion, but he was restless; he needed to sort through his thoughts first. He made his way to the balcony, the same one Myers had recruited him on, and lit up a cigarette. He was thankful that Johnny didn’t show up, for once. Didn’t want to face the rockerboy yet. He needed to breathe, to weigh his options without Johnny’s ever present input.
-
It looked like this was going to become a situation where V would have to pick sides.

On one hand there was Songbird. She was suffering too, and she had promised him a cure. She was also the one who knew how to get what they needed to be cured - the Neural Matrix. However, she’d also dragged V into this mess in the first place. And V now knew that she was the reason this mess happened in the first place. She offered up Myers to Hansen on a silver platter. Not only that, but she also brought V into this so she could backstab Hansen and save Myers, trapping herself in the process. She wasn’t trustworthy and she was the reason V was here in the first place; but, she was the person who promised V a cure and knew what that cure was. V also couldn’t deny himself from factoring in her situation. Years trapped by the NUSA working as Myers’ personal weapon to prod the Blackwall with. Songbird was by no means stable. V knew well enough how dangerous AI was on this side of the Blackwall, not to mention how much worse those within and on the other side of the Blackwall were. Songbird was desperate and undoubtedly suffering.

Then there was Reed. Myers’ loyal dog. V felt like Johnny calling Reed that, but he had to admit that it was accurate. Reed was loyal to a fault, not even necessarily to Myers. Reed was loyal to his principles. V understood having principles and being loyal to them, but he knew where to draw the line. Reed was going to hand Songbird over to the NUSA, to Myers. One last job, that’s what he seemed to believe, but V suspected that Reed knew just as well as he did that it wasn’t true. Myers screwed Reed over once and she would do it again. Despite this, Reed stayed loyal. For that V trusted Reed even less. Who’s to say Reed would keep Songbird’s promise and get V a cure. Who’s to say V wouldn’t be put down like a dog once he wasn’t useful anymore. Reed was a good man, V believed that, truly, but Reed was blinded by his own principles. He cared about Songbird, just not in the right way. Reed’s training was ingrained into him, he believed what he was doing was for the greater good. V knew it would be impossible to convince Reed to let Songbird go. It felt obvious to not help Reed, but at the same time : was it worth the consequences of betraying Reed? V would have an even bigger target on his head for betraying Reed and the FIA. He also had to factor in what would happen to Reed and Alex if they failed. Alex was stuck, she’d been stuck, and this was her one shot at getting a better life, even if only for a short time. Failure meant that Alex would never be free. Reed would be ruined too, there would be no coming back from this level of failure.
-
This was impossible. Neither were good options, and they were all people.
V had always hated decisions, especially when they involved people. It was easier to follow the decisions of others. That’s why he ended up working at Arasaka. All he had to do was turn his mind off and follow orders, pretend he didn’t know how much harm he was doing. He knew it was a horrible mindset, but it made life easier. Of course, he could never go back, and frankly, he didn’t want to. Jackie had always been right, working at Arasaka had done more harm than good. Then again, maybe if he hadn’t been terminated, if he hadn’t been asked to handle Abernathy, maybe Jackie would still be here. Fuck. He couldn’t go there, too late to change anything now anyway. He needed to sleep, needed to come back to this later.

So V slept, it wasn’t good sleep, and it took hours to fall asleep on the old, moldy, mattress, but V had slept in worse places. So V slept.

Chapter Text

V woke with a start to the rumble of an AV flying overhead and the boom of an airdrop landing far too close for comfort.

Checking the time displayed by his Kiroshis it was only 4:23 AM. It had barely been 2 hours since he fell asleep.

V was tempted to head to where the airdrop landed and see what he could find, but it was too risky. Especially after the not-so-subtle threats from Hansen the previous night.

BARGHEST would be at the drop point soon and they were likely well aware of V’s unwanted presence in Dogtown. V needed to turn off the generator and lie low for now. BARGHEST had already investigated the building once and V wouldn’t put it past them to check again.

-

Begrudgingly, V made himself get up and shut down the generator. He just hoped it would start up again. The thing may have very well been older than he was.

V knew he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again, especially with the sound of a firefight already breaking out nearby. So he made his way to the balcony and lit up a cigarette.

V never smoked before Johnny’s engram ended up in his skull. Yet another thing that plagued his worries. Every day it felt like he lost more of himself to Johnny.

Right now, V had other things to worry about, so he put out his cigarette and grabbed Panama’s Techtronika rifle. The rifle, Overwatch, had become V’s main weapon. He always preferred to keep his distance, primarily hacking into surveillance systems and sending out quickhacks to pick off enemies one by one. Overwatch made perfect backup for him on the odd occasion that he was found out.

-

V set up the rifle with a view of the drop point. If he wasn’t able to sleep he’d monitor the situation. It wouldn’t be a waste either; if BARGHEST decided to investigate the building he’d see them coming.

Without thinking, V lit another cigarette. He didn’t fully realize what he’d done until he was bringing it to his lips.

“Fuck”

Johnny flickered into view, leaning against the barrier, digital cigarette in hand.

“What do you want, Johnny?”

“I was thinking,”

“Oh yeah? Any useful thoughts, or are you just gonna keep stating the obvious: that I shouldn’t have gotten involved?” V went back to looking through his scope at the fight over the airdrop.

“It is obvious. Right from the start, told you the whole situation had a bad vibe about it and you agreed. But here we are”

“So, cut to the chase. What’s your point now?”

“You didn’t think about any other options besides the obvious”

V pulled back from the rifle, “The hell are you talking about? I have to side with one of them-“

“You really need me to spell it out for you? Don’t side with either of them. Said it yourself, neither is a good option”

“And what? You want me to just abandon this whole thing? Run away and hope they won’t find me?” V shook his head, “it’s a stupid idea; regardless, if I do that we’re back to square one with the cure”

Johnny flickered out of view for a second and reappeared pacing the small distance of the V’s vision. “Christ V. You’ve already avoided Arasaka, this isn’t much different. Plus, like I’ve said, we have another option for a cure. A better option, and you know it”

“A better option, maybe, but we don’t have a plausible way of actually getting to Mikoshi. We’re also dealing with the NUSA, not just a corp!”

V blinked and Johnny had invaded his personal space. “You’re right, NUS isn’t a corp, they’re easier to avoid. Don’t have the international reach a corp does. You, of all people, should know this.”

“Not havin’ international resources doesn’t matter when I’m on their soil, Johnny!”

“You’re not on their soil though. You’re in Dogtown, in Night City! Did they not teach you basic history in whatever fancy corp school you went to?”

“You know what I mean! It’s close enough to being their soil. It isn’t worth it, not after we’ve gotten this deep into the whole situation. And it’s not like I can actually stay in Dogtown anyway”

Johnny resigned himself to a cigarette and V went back to monitoring the situation at the drop point. “Fine, be stubborn. Not like you’re dealing with life altering decisions with no good outcome”

-

V didn’t want to think about what Johnny said, but as always, trying not to think about something made him think about it.

Maybe Johnny was right. Maybe V didn’t have to side with Songbird or Reed. It was a gonk idea, but maybe there was another person who could help him.

Johnny was right, they’re in Dogtown. One of the few places truly outside of corp or government influence.

That gave V a further idea. BARGHEST controlled Dogtown and Kurt Hansen was the leader of both Dogtown and BARGHEST. Hansen was probably the one person V could turn to to avoid both the NUSA and Arasaka.

It would be risky to show his face again, especially when he was associated with the FIA. Yet, if V did his research, knew the right strings to pull, what made Hansen tick, he just might be able to get away with it.

Johnny reappeared in the periphery of V’s vision. “Not exactly what I meant when I said other options.”

“Well, I didn’t ask for your opinion now. Did I?”

“Yea, yea. Just don’t get your ass killed by him”

“Exactly why I’ll be doing my research. I think I still have a backdoor into Arasaka systems. It’ll give me a start. He fought in the Unification War, they should have at least part of his skeleton. Just gotta get past their ICE.”

“You have fun with that. I’m doing my own thing until you do something actually interesting.”

With that Johnny flickered out of view to wherever he went when he wasn’t actively interacting with V.

Meanwhile, V got to work scrapping together a makeshift setup to interface from and got out his old Bodyweight Suit, just in case.

-

The setup was by no means pretty but it served its purpose. V got access to a large part of Hansen’s skeleton and other various details about him, Dogtown, and BARGHEST. V also took the time to touch up on Dogtown’s general history, anything that might be helpful.

He transferred the compiled data to a shard and slotted it in to check it all. It showed up exactly how he needed it to, a tab with the most important detes in the corner of his vision. He was frankly surprised he still knew what he was doing after going months with no practice.

Regardless, V had been in the NET for at least a few hours, he hadn’t bothered to keep track, and needed to stretch his legs.

V needed to get in secure contact with Hansen or at least BARGHEST. It would be tricky figuring out exactly how to go about contact but he had a few ideas already.

Arasaka had a handful of dealings with BARGHEST and V could probably manage to find their contact somewhere in their systems. He could also contact Mr. Hands, being Dogtown’s primary fixer he certainly has at least one BARGHEST contact.

It would be risky to contact anyone, but there was no guarantee that he would find anything in Arasaka’s systems. It was also risky to break into their systems more than once so soon.

That decided it for V. He needed a walk anyway, so he got geared up and started the trek to Heavy Hearts. He also had the courtesy to send Hands a message in advance.

-

Hands was sitting on the couch opposite V, one leg crossed over the other. “So, you’re in need of contact with BARGHEST. Why?”

“It’s complicated. After the situation the other night I came to some realizations, I guess.” V shifted, avoiding eye contact, he hated these questions. “Either way, need to get in contact to try and meet with Hansen. And, trust me, I already know it’s a gonk idea.”

“Certainly not the smartest move on the board. However, you’re in luck, I have a contact that can help, if you have the eddies you promised.”

“Of course I’ve got ‘em. Wouldn’t say I did if I didn’t, not that gonk.”

V’s Kiroshis lit up as he transferred the funds. A moment later he got the contact detes from Hands.

“I trust that this will stay between us.”

“’Course.” V got up to leave.

“And V. Do watch your step.”

Things were going surprisingly smoothly, but the worst was, as always, yet to come.

-

-

V didn’t like the idea of going anywhere unarmed but he had his cyberdeck. Plus, he was getting somewhere with this plan, at least.

V needed to go back to the apartment to run through what he needed to say and sleep, if he had time. He couldn’t fuck this up.

Chapter Text

As V approached the Stadium Johnny started to flicker into view.

“This is how you get killed V.”

“Very helpful Johnny. Too late to turn back now. Plus, if I die I don’t have to listen to you anymore.”

“Some true genius at work here”

“Says the one who recommended another option.”

“I did not recommend voluntarily walking into a death trap.”

“Well, we’re here now. So I need you to shut up so I can concentrate. Left the blockers back in NC so I’m trusting you here.”

“A horrible idea, according to most.”

“Only idea I have right now. Now please, fuck off.”

For once Johnny did just that and left V alone. With perfect timing too, since V was about to reach the meeting location.

It was a secluded area of the stadium that was clearly not meant for non-BARGHEST residents. But this was where Jago had told him to meet so he continued on.

-

V heard the click of several guns being primed to shoot the moment he stepped into the room. He had to play this safe so he raised his arms in compliance.

V was surrounded by 5 BARGEST soldiers, he could see at least one sniper and suspected that there was a runner nearby too. Hansen entered the room with another man in tow. A subtle scan revealed that it was Jago Szabó, V’s contact.

Hansen spoke, “You really thought you could get away with showing your face here. I certainly thought you would be smart enough to take the hint after our last meeting.”

V kept his composure, and told himself to handle this like he would handle a meeting with his superiors back at Arasaka. “Got no ill intent here. Just wanna talk.”

“Why should I let you? I should have you killed right now.”

“I have info on the FIA’s plans to extract Songbird. I’m willing to share it and help you prevent the FIA’s success.”

Hansen raised an eyebrow but didn’t speak again, so V went on. “Came fully unarmed as requested, you can give me a pat down if you want. I’m also assuming you have a runner with you. I’ll do you the courtesy of taking down my ICE as well. I just want to talk.”

Hansen nodded to one of the soldiers surrounding V. “Check him.”

V complied with the pat down, keeping his hands where they could see. “Only other defense on me is a bulletproof vest, can remove that too.”

The soldier finished the pat down and signaled that V was clear. Hansen moved to sit at the booth in the centre of the room. He motioned for V to sit, “You wanted to talk, so start talking.”

V kept his hands raised until he was seated across from Hansen, only then did he lower his hands to rest on the table in front of them. He saw Jago move to stand behind Hansen, likely recording the meeting.

“Like I said, I know what the FIA is planning. I’ll tell you everything I know and keep you updated in real time. I’ll even help you handle them. All I ask in return is protection from them.”

Hansen’s face stayed unreadable, doing nothing to calm V’s nerves. “Why would I do anything to help you. You have no leverage here, you can’t be trusted, and you’ve already helped the FIA export the president out of Dogtown.”

V expected this. “I know how the NUSA screwed you over during the Unification War, know you don’t like ‘em. I don’t like ‘em either. I’m offering you a chance to get back at them by using their own plans against them. You’ll also find that I’m damn good at following orders.”

Hansen brought a hand up to rub his jaw, V seemed to have piqued his interest. “Then tell me, why are you betraying the FIA now?”

“Didn’t have much choice but to work with them. They promised me something that could save my life. Now I’m backed into a corner, don’t trust Reed. Don’t trust Songbird either.”

“So you’ve come to me for an out.”

V hesitated a moment, this really was a gonk plan. “Yes. I did, and I’m hoping you’re willing to provide one.”

“Then tell me this: why give up on this supposed life saving cure? Or are you not telling me something.”

“Learned that the cure Songbird promised is the Neural Matrix. It’s what you plan to extract with her help.”

“Furthermore, what’s so life threatening that you need such rare tech for a cure?”

“It’s a long story.” V was hesitant to explain, but he didn’t have a choice. “In short: I have an Arasaka biochip stuck in my head. It’s slowly killing me and replacing my personality with that of the engram stored on the chip.”

“That something they did when you were in their employ or was it a result of your heist at Konpeki Plaza?” Hansen had clearly done just as much research on V as V had done on him.

“The latter. Heist went wrong and the chip needed to be slotted into a neural port to be preserved. Arasaka doesn’t treat its employees well by any means, but they wouldn’t waste such valuable tech on a lower level soldier.”

“So you didn’t like your options with the FIA and now you’ve run to me. The person who currently has your promised cure.”

“You know just as well as I do that the NUSA is by no means trustworthy. Got no guarantee that they’ll keep their promise. My other option is to exfil Songbird on my own with the Neural Matrix, setting both you and the NUSA after me.”

“If you’re so set on this, tell me everything you know.”

V had scripted out exactly what he was going to tell Hansen here. “Two FIA agents, Solomon Reed and Alex Xenakis along with myself have been tasked with extracting Songbird from Dogtown by the president. As you know we infiltrated the Saphire. The initial plan was to exfil Songbird at the party but she informed us of the Neural Matrix, changing our plans. What we did get from the party was complete behavioral imprint scans of Aurore and Aymeric Cassel. For now all I know is that myself and Alex will use behavioral imprint tech to impersonate the twins and infiltrate your meeting with them. That’s when we’ll get Songbird and the Matrix.”

“Will you be given more information?”

“Soon, in a few days Reed will contact me again to go over the rest of the plan and get me implanted with the necessary tech.”

“And you will inform me of everything he tells you and help us in ensuring that their plan fails.”

“I will. All I ask is protection from the FIA and the ability to use the Neural Matrix.”

“We may have a deal.” Hansen leaned in across the table, “If I even suspect that you’re lying or that you’ve told the FIA about this I will have you disposed of. I can assure you it won’t be pretty.”

“Of course. Nobody will know about any contact between us. And I swear to you, I have no plan to let the FIA know about this, including Songbird.”

“Very well then. One last question. What is your real name? My people were able to acquire plenty of info on you but your name is only ever listed as V. My assumption is that you changed your files.”

That, V hadn’t expected. He hadn’t assumed his name would be of any importance.

V hesitated before answering. “Volya. My name is Volya”

“An interesting name. It’s Russian; is it not?”

“I had eccentric parents.”

“Well, Volya.”

V interrupted him, one thing he hated more than decisions was his own name. “V, just, V.”

Hansen smiled, it didn’t reach his eyes, he was clearly annoyed. “V. I believe we have a deal. Don’t fuck this up.”

“I have no intentions of doing so.”

Hansen’s optics lit up and V received the transfer of a contact. “Contact me through this. It’s fully encrypted. I expect real time updates.”

“Of course.”

Hansen signaled something to the soldiers in the room. “You’re free to go. Don’t disappoint me.”

V stood with a nod and turned to leave. The BARGHEST soldiers let him pass.

-

Only once he was out of the stadium did V turn his ICE back on. He said he’d turn it off and he wasn’t going to take any chances.

That had gone surprisingly well. It didn’t sit right with V, there should have been more struggle. He suspected that he had just walked into another shitty situation.

“Don’t know what you expected. Going from one crazed dictator to the next.” Johnny was back again, although V couldn’t actually see him.

“Trust Hansen more than Myers, at least. If I make myself useful I shouldn’t get thrown out. Hansen runs BARGHEST like he’s still in Militech, it’s trained into him.”

“Once a corpo rat, always a corpo rat. You would know.”

“Yeah, yeah,” V rolled his eyes. “Least what I learned is useful here. Be a ruthless, useful, bitch and everything tends to work out.”

Johnny scoffed but didn’t say anything else. The quiet in his absence let V notice someone tailing him.

Whoever it was blended in well, but not well enough to evade V’s notice. At first V suspected FIA, but upon closer inspection the telltale neon green of a BARGHEST issue gun gave it away.

Hansen had sent someone to follow him. V should’ve expected as much. He was going to be under supervision until Hansen was certain he wasn’t lying.

It was going to be a long week.

Chapter Text

V got the message to meet Alex and Reed at the moth a few hours after his talk with Hansen. Stepping out of the elevator to the safe house he heard the pair arguing.

They were going on about a past op. Alex claimed it was all too similar; she didn’t trust Songbird. All the while, Reed defended himself and Songbird.

-

Once the conversation died down V stepped into the room.

“Ah, V. You’re here. It’s about time, too. We’re nearly done finalizing the plan.”

V ignored Reed for the moment and turned to Alex. “Op not sittin’ well with ya, Alex?”

That prompted a discussion of a past op. V sat and listened; any information could be useful.

-

Once the story was told Reed prompted them to move on to the task at hand.

On the way to the back of the safehouse V spotted a board. Classic detective style setup, including pins and red string. He made a note to look at it properly later.

After more discussion of Songbird, Reed, and who’s at fault, they got to work. V sat and slotted the provided shard. They’d covered all bases. All bases except V’s betrayal.

They believed Hansen didn’t know about the Neural Matrix, something V had changed. But, the most important details were where everyone would be. Reed wouldn’t be in the stadium itself, that would likely be a problem. Alex; however, would be easier to handle, as she would stay with Hansen.

Surprising to V was the fact that Myers knew none of the op’s details. Yet, that did make things easier, meant it would take a lot more time for any support from Washington to catch word of things going awry.

Most importantly, V had all the detes he needed. The whole plan, handed to him on a silver platter, with no suspicion from Alex or Reed.

-

Before he left V made sure to investigate the board from earlier. They had detes on every high ranking member of BARGHEST from what V saw. Not fully fleshed out, but enough to be incriminating.

V grabbed a scan of the board and made mental note to report what info the FIA had on BARGHEST along with the plan.

With that, V headed out of the safehouse and The Moth.

-

Stepping outside, V noted more activity than usual. Nothing truly worrying, but something had clearly happened.

He was meant to report back to Hansen about what he’d discussed with Reed and Alex immediately, V opted to eavesdrop until he found out exactly what went down.

The detes weren’t clear but the Scavengers were involved. V caught that they had supposedly grabbed someone from BARGHEST, someone relatively high ranking.

It was certainly someone high up enough to cause a buzz.

-

Most foolishly assumed that V was just another corpo soldier, only good at following orders. What they didn’t know was what he did before Arasaka. Running away from home at thirteen he found himself on the streets of Heywood. With a shitty pistol klepped from his father and no idea what he was doing he nearly died within minutes of getting away from his family’s security. If anything he was lucky, ran into the right person.

That’s how V found himself in the good graces of Jackie Welles. Jackie saved his gonk ass from getting shot by a group of Valentinos that V decided to try his luck with.

For the next few years he ran around with Jackie, dodging his parents and learning his way around the streets. He was by no means a streetkid but he knew enough to keep himself alive.

Yet, all good things must end, and eventually V’s family caught him. They dragged him back home under even tighter security and made sure he wouldn’t have any more smart ideas.

Of course coming from a family of Arasaka execs had its perks as well. Especially when you finally got out of the corp. And even more so when dealing with people like Hansen. V liked to joke that corpos recognize corpos, but it wasn’t a lie. Even without background on V he’d give Hansen five minutes tops to figure him out.

Regardless, his past gave him the insight to handle both Hansen and the Scavs currently picking a fight with the wrong people.

-

V had the idea to kill two birds with one stone. Rescuing a high ranking member of BARGHEST would put him in much better standing with Hansen, and it was always a good day to fuck up some Scavs.

Following the limited leads he had, V made his way to the Scav den on the outskirts of the stacks. Scaling the container stacks nearby V got into position. He was glad he brought his new Nekomata Rifle; he could finally break it in today.

V got to work disabling the cams and turrets he could see before breaching the cam network. Scavs generally lacked any good ICE so it wasn’t hard.

-

They were definitely holding someone high profile, security was double the norm for the Scavs. V breached his way to the inner cams and spotted what he was looking for.

Two Scavs dragging an unconscious person with a bag over their head. V lacked the visual for a clear scan but they were clearly BARGHEST. V’s time in Dogtown had made it easy to spot anyone associated with BARGHEST, even out of uniform.

V marked the two Scavs with the BARGHEST member before pinging the rest. Nearly forty Scavs total, a proper headcount showed V thirty-seven.

V could go in quietly, it wouldn’t be too much trouble if he was careful, but; he was in the mood to let off some steam.

-

Moving to better cover, V got out his new Nekomata, he’d gotten it off a sixth-streeter the last time he’d slipped out of Dogtown. It probably needed a tune up but he was excited to try it out.

He dropped a quick Contagion and Overheat combo into a cluster of Scavs before he started picking off anyone further away. It didn’t take long before V was spotted, but he wasn’t trying to hide anyway.

Strapping the Nekomata to his back, V started making his way to lower cover. The lack of any shots in the meantime made it clear that he was alone, but that was what he intended. He wanted the Scavs to underestimate him.

V was well known enough in NC proper that most people knew to steer clear of a fight with him. But Dogtown was new territory. Untouched by the sheer violence V could unleash when in a particularly bad mood.

V had to admit that he was a borderline cyberpsycho, it didn’t come as a surprise with how chromed out he was. This was how he managed it: getting into fights, outnumbered and away from bystanders.

V pulled out his pistol and the knife he kept strapped to his boot. As he moved in he threw out a few short circuits and cyberware malfunctions. Scavs were generally pretty chromed out so both worked well.

One unlucky Scav made it behind V’s cover with him and got a punch to the neck with the pommel of V’s knife before V shot him between the eyes.

-

The Scavs were quick to mobilize, sending wave after wave outside, but V was fast, even without a Sandy. V made his way through the Scavs, keeping an eye on the two he’d marked. He probably should’ve marked their captive as well but he hadn’t been thinking about that earlier.

Eventually he made his way inside the den and to the elevator. He primed his Nekomata on the way up, and the unlucky bastard waiting for him at the top got his head blown off.

The Scavs V had marked were moving away from him, bad sign, they’d probably guessed why he was here. It encouraged V to move faster. He was, admittedly, sloppy, but he made it work through use of sheer force.

By time he’d reached his target he was coated in blood and grime; he probably looked like a full cyberpsycho. He’d only counted thirty dead or incapacitated, meaning, there were seven more Scavs including the two now in front of him.

-

The bigger of the two rushed him. V moved fast, sidestepping and grabbing the Scav before jamming his knee up into his attacker’s groin. The Scav staggered, providing V an opening to pull out his pistol and shoot the Scav in the neck.

Once the first Scav was down V turned his attention to the other. Jamming their coms with a quick sonic shock before rushing them and throwing them to the ground. V wasn’t a particularly strong man but this particular Scav was smaller than him, clearly not someone used to hand to hand combat.

“There’s five more of you. Where are they?”

The Scav screamed before anything else. “FUCK! I don’t know you psycho!”

“Then find out.”

“How am I supposed to do that?!”

“Don’t play stupid. You’re on coms, I just stopped you from contacting them. Find out where they are.”

“Fuck, fine.”

V kept the Scav held down while they contacted their remaining friends.

“The fuck sent you? You ain’t BARGHEST.”

“Doesn’t matter. Where are they?”

“The fuckers ran, halfway across the stacks by now.”

With that V threw one last punch with as much force as he could, knocking the Scav out. It was time he handled what he came here to do.

-

Glancing around, V spotted his target in the same cage the Scavs had held Hassan in the last time he was here. It didn’t make sense to him that the Scavs hadn’t moved locations, but, then again, they were Scavs. If V was lucky they had also kept the code the same.

To no surprise, V was right, the code was the exact same. Propping the door open with the nearby Scav V made his way over to the bagged person. Pulling the bag off it was none other than Jago Szabó.

“Now that is a surprise." V laughed to himself.

“Did Hansen send you?” The disdain in Jago’s voice was clear.

“Nope. Don’t even know if they’re aware you’re missing yet. Just happened to be in the area.”

Jago rolled his eyes and glared at V.

“Sit still so I can scan you, don’t know if they hit you with anything.”

The scan revealed a whole lot of encrypted nothing. Only reason Jago’s name was registered was because V had added the info the last time he’d scanned Jago. The one thing that was revealed was a chip in Jago’s neuroport. The tech was sloppy but it was clearly designed to block comms access and most cyberwear.

V reached for the chip and Jago immediately pulled away.

“Got a chip in your neuroport, blocker for cybernetics. Sit still.”

With that Jago let V grab the chip. It was some shitty tech, clearly homemade. V crushed it underfoot before getting Jago out of the cuffs the Scavs put him in.

“Think ya can walk?”

Jago just scoffed and stood up.

“This one’s not a fan of you” Johnny chimed in.

“Clearly.” V thought back.

-

V nodded his head for Jago to follow him. Stepping over the corpses of the Scavs in his path, V made his way to the bridge he’d used when he rescued Hassan.

“Let’s see if they fixed this yet…” V fiddled around with the power box until the bridge started creaking. It was, in fact, fixed.

“After you.” He motioned for Jago to go first. After a moment, V spoke again. “The hell’d they even get to you? I remember you having a bodyguard ‘nd everything.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Alright. Was tryna be friendly and all but I guess you’re not in the mood.”

Jago just scoffed and carried on. V recognized that Jago had started a holo. Probably getting himself transport.

V wasn’t fully paying attention but caught parts of the conversation.

“Yes. I sent the cords already.” Jago finished and hung up.

“Transport?” Jago nodded, still clearly annoyed with V’s presence. “Don’t happen to mind if I tag along, do you? Need to hand over the detes on my… assignment… Is that what I should call it?”

“I do happen to mind actually.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have helped you. Could’ve just carried on with my day as usual.”

They’d stopped at the bottom of the container stack the bridge connected to. Jago scoffed, somehow more displeased, and turned to face V. “My people would have been there not five minutes after you arrived. Nobody asked you to help.”

It was V’s turn to scoff. “Don’t know. They didn’t seem all that worried or even aware of your absence.”

“Fuck off.”

“No can do until your transport arrives. I’m not getting blamed if the Scavs grab you again.”

So they stood there in silence until a BARGHEST transport arrived for Jago. As expected V was not invited to join, so a few minutes after they left V started the trek across Dogtown to give his report on the FIA to Hansen.

-

On the way to the stadium V was contacted by Songbird. Pausing, V slipped out of sight to listen.

“V, heads up - I can’t talk long, but two things, quickly.
First - good news. I managed to upgrade your Relic’s firmware. You’ll see what I mean in a minute. Don’t worry - completely painless.”

“‘First - good news,’ you said… So, what’s the second thing?”

“Right. It’s… super important. Stays between us. It’s gotta. Proof of my trust.
I’m sending you coordinates. Come after dark, we should be able to talk freely.
Ok, need to delta. But see you soon.”

With that their connection was severed once more.

V knew he needed to report this to Hansen too, but it felt so wrong to betray Songbird’s trust. He knew it was stupid, she lied to him, he had the right to lie to her. Still, the thought didn’t sit right with V, he sympathized with Songbird too much.

Moral crisis aside, V shot a message to the contact Hansen had given him.

-

-

It looked like V was, in fact, going to have to trek across Dogtown again.

Chapter Text

“You’re really going through with this?” Johnny chimed in as V approached the stadium.

“Yes, Johnny. I am. Already in too deep anyway.”

“Siding with a military dictator. Really thought you could do better V”

“Don’t got much experience with military dictators, but ex-militech soldiers. I’ve met plenty. Plus, like my odds with Hansen more than with Songbird or Reed.”

“Don’t trust any of them, you shouldn’t either”

“I don’t. I’m just doing what looks like the best option.”

“Yeah, still a shit idea, V.” With that, Johnny left V alone.

-

Thirty minutes was not a lot of time to make it across Dogtown and ensure that V had no one tailing him. In reality V had even less time, he was told to be in the stadium “within the next 30 minutes”. Meaning, V had under 29 minutes to make it to the stadium.

V got lucky; no issues with BARGHEST or the local gangs, and more importantly no contact with Reed or Alex. He made it to the stadium with 5 minutes to spare despite going on foot.

-

V wasn’t fully sure where to go. He'd been told when to be at the stadium, but not where to go when he arrived. On instinct, he wandered toward the place he’d met Hansen the last time.

V wasn’t surprised when a BARGHEST soldier came over to him shouting. “What do you think you’re doing here?!”

“If you must to know. I’m meant to meet with Hansen. Was told to be at the stadium, so that’s where I am.”

“You’re meeting with Colonel Hansen? Yeah right.”

V was in no mood for this. “You think you can stand there and yell at me? I think not. I do in fact have a meeting with him. So are you gonna get off your ass and help me get to my meeting, or are we gonna have a problem.”

“Right. I… follow me please.”

V did just that. If he’d learned anything from his time as a corpo, it was that a few stern words in the right tone could get you anywhere.

-

V was led to a different meeting room than last time. Hansen was there, waiting for him it seemed.

“You’re late.”

“By one minute. And it’s not my fault. You didn’t give me a specific location.”

Hansen motioned to the seat across from him. “Sit.”

V complied, far more relaxed than last time. It helped that he wasn’t being held at gunpoint.

Before V could say anything Hansen spoke. “I heard that you took a detour; rescued Jago from the Scavs. I trust you weren’t foolish enough to set his kidnapping up for your own benefit?”

“Of course not. Happened to overhear people talking around the stacks. Heard something about Scavs and kidnapping a BARGHEST member. Thought I’d investigate, if nothing else.”

“Word is, you took down thirty-some Scavs on your own.”

V scoffed, “What can I say? I’m a solo merc, being vastly outnumbered is how I operate.”

“Well. Jago sends his regards.”

-

Hansen started again. “Now, the plan. Explain it to me. In detail.”

“Objective is to free Songbird and expo her out of Dogtown, with the Neural Matrix. She needs the Matrix to cure whatever she’s caught in the process of breaching the Blackwall. The FIA believes you’re unaware of the Neural Matrix.” V paused for a moment, making sure that was clear.

With no comment from Hansen, V continued. “The plan is as follows: We kidnap Aurore and Aymeric Cassel to take their places at your meeting. To do so we’ll be hijacking their rental car.
I’ve been tasked with breaching the rental firm’s tracking system. I’ll be hacking into a tracking station in Pacifica, if that’s not enough I’ll try another.
Once we trace the car I’ll break into it and hide in the trunk. From there I’ll hack into and take control of the car to force the twins off route. And with them out of the picture, Alex and I will take their places.”

“And which twin will you be replacing?”

“Not certain yet, but I’ll be the one joining Songbird in the lab while Alex stays with you. Myers has officially ordered your death; Alex plans to use the element of surprise to take out both you and your guards.”

“How much does Myers know exactly?”

“Outside of the orders to kill you and rescue Songbird, she knows none of the details. I’m assuming the rest of Washington is in a similar situation.”

With no further questions from Hansen V spoke again. “While me and Alex are in the stadium, Reed will be running expo. He didn’t give the specifics but my guess is he won’t be far from the stadium.
That’s all I know of the plan so far.”

Hansen didn’t speak, thinking for a moment. “My people will handle Reed. As for you, I’ll need a clear line of communication the day of the meeting. Need to know exactly what’s happening on your end. I need time to plan out the details,” he paused. “For now, tell me about your chat with Songbird.”

“Right. She’s been contacting me through the relic, (Arasaka tech I mentioned before). She told me to meet her at a set of cords in Dogtown. Doubt she’ll be there in person. Regardless, all I know is she wants to talk, without any eavesdroppers. It seems like somethin’ personal.”

“Meet with her and tell me what she says.”

V was about to protest when Hansen cut him off. “Don’t care if it’s personal. We have a deal, you tell me everything in relation to the FIA’s plans.”

V sighed. “I will.”

“Good. You can leave now.”

-

With that V got up and left. He passed the soldier from earlier and gave them a dirty look. He was not in any semblance of a good mood and this was the best way he could cope with it at the moment.

Normally V would take his anger out on some Scavs or Malestromers, but he needed to meet with Songbird. So, V started another trek through Dogtown to the cords she’d provided.