Work Text:
It was an ordinary Tuesday.
She and her brother, Tim, were walking away from Corpo Plaza after watching the goldfish swim in the air for a few minutes.
They headed toward the med center to pick up some pills for their father, and that’s when the nomad car came barrelling out of nowhere.
It smashed into Tim.
He looked mildly surprised as he slid down the hood of the car.
And then he was gone.
The driver looked at her through the window. Catlike eyes met widened brown ones as he slowly reversed. She was vaguely aware of people screaming and running away.
He broke eye contact and hit the gas. Seconds after the car disappeared from sight, a couple cops ran past, shouting at each other.
She fell to her knees, cradling Tim’s head in her lap. She could hear Trauma Team, already on their way to fix him up, but judging from the odd angle of his neck, there was no coming back from this one.
It started to rain.
---
The cops did nothing about Tim’s death.
“Accidents like this are common, y’know,” one said, visibly annoyed. “He should’ve watched where he was walkin’.”
She wanted to scream. It wasn’t Tim’s fault; that car was going at a hundred miles an hour when it swerved and hit the corner, which was definitely illegal. But if she didn’t want to get shot by the cops, she’d have to hold her tongue.
Fine.
If the police weren’t willing to bring justice, she’d have to do her own investigating.
And as it turned out, she was not alone.
After a quick search on the Net of “nomad car hit and run,” several dozen results popped up. They all told the same story: a battered-looking nomad car would go past at a high speed, attempt to turn, and cause an accident. It always got away before anyone could stop it. She would’ve laughed at the awful driving if the situation weren’t so serious.
The driver’s identity was almost unanimously agreed on: V.
She didn’t know much about him, being an engineer with no underground connections, but she heard about him. Apparently he was one of, if not the best mercenary in Night City. He stole something from Arasaka Tower once.
Quite the colorful character.
It would be easy to contact him. He took gigs from everyone, all across town. The problem would be taking him down. If the rumors were true, he was a one-man army.
She paused, looking at the bracelet she’d been winding between her fingers. Tim’s bracelet, the one she made for him all those years ago.
It didn’t matter if she went down, too.
She’d take V with her.
For Tim.
She selected the first name on the posts, the fiance of the first person who was killed.
David Hassell.
Time to get to work.
---
David cut an intimidating figure. Broad shoulders, easily six feet, he looked like one of those Animals bouncers.
He scowled and jerked a thumb at the entrance of the megabuilding behind him. “We’ll talk in my apartment,” he said. She nodded.
They rode the elevator in stony silence.
As they were walking up the stairs, someone bumped into her. She turned around to snap at the person and froze. The icy blue hair and the tattoo was unmistakable.
“No way, you live over him?” she hissed.
David’s sour expression darkened further, if that was even possible. “Now you see why I haven’t been in the best of moods lately. Can’t touch the fucker, who knows how many weapons he’s got stashed on him.”
He pointed at a dark red stain as they reached his floor. “See that? Scavs jumped him once, tryna get revenge or something, he made quick work of ‘em. Now he’s hardly ever home. Not that he comes here often anyway.”
He opened the door to his apartment. She stepped in, her gaze sweeping around the room for threats.
It looked cozy, clearly lived-in. There were signs of two people everywhere. The contrasting and complementary clothes on the hangar, the photos of a couple on the walls, the two braindance wreaths lying on the couch.
David took a seat on the couch, pushing the wreaths to the side. He beckoned her to come over, pulling out a tablet. The hologram hanging overhead flickered to life. She sat down next to him. He slid a few things around on the tablet.
The hologram now showed a still of V, probably recorded on a bystander’s Kiroshis. His face was blurred but the rest of his body was clearly visible. His sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, bright orange mantis blades sprouting from his forearms. His arms and front torso were completely covered in blood. Dismembered bodies lay around him.
He clicked past more images, some short videos. A sniper, crouched behind a traffic partition. An exploding bullet from a revolver. A figure leaping across tall ledges in Japantown. Someone pulling the jacket off a dead body and admiring it. And of course, the many videos captioned along the lines of “wtf” as a nomad car speeds around the city.
“As you can see, this is V,” David said. She laced her fingers together, feeling sick. She looked away. “Pretty gruesome, right?”
She found her voice. “Any weaknesses?” she asked. There had to be weaknesses. There always was one.
He ran a hand through his hair. “Oh, there used to be one, an obvious one,” he said. “Used to have electric mantis blades. People didn’t trust him enough to go on stealth missions involving droids, he always made them blow up and got injured and alerted everyone in the building in the process. Swapped them out for thermal blades eventually.”
She leaned forward, the hologram switching to an image of the aforementioned electric blades. “I assume droids wouldn’t work, otherwise you would’ve mentioned it already,” she said.
He nodded. “He’s an engineer as well, he can rewire cameras, turrets, you name it, in a split second. No idea how he does it.”
She glanced at the hologram. “Wait. Pause.”
A clip from a gig involving the Peter Pan case. She remembered hearing about it on the news. On screen, V made his way around the barn, stopping every few paces to disarm the mines by shooting at them. She reached for the tablet, taking it from David. She sped up the video. It took him an absurd amount of time to reach the entrance.
“Explosives, maybe?” she mused. “Paired with an ambush? Look at that, in older gigs, he wasn’t so cautious around mines, but this place is swarming with turrets.”
David considered what she said. “That… could work.”
She rewound the video.
For the first time since Tim’s death, she allowed herself a small smile.
“Then let’s begin.”
---
They met with a few other victims. A woman who’s wife never came home and later received a call from a friend who was nearby. A person who lost their best friend. A father. A son. The list went on and on.
In total, they had about two dozen people to work with. They would’ve had more, but a lot of them didn’t want anything to do with V.
In between gathering resources and setting up meetings, she visited Tim’s grave and whispered apologies. Maybe if she didn’t drag him away from Corpo Plaza that soon. Maybe if she reacted faster.
He wouldn’t have approved of what she was doing. He believed in the good of the world; he wouldn’t have wanted someone to die for his sake. Well, Tim wasn’t around anymore, and she didn’t have to keep his opinion in mind anymore.
The plan was simple.
She would pretend to be David’s niece. He called a fixer, El Captain, saying that he had a disagreement with 6th Street and needed someone to smuggle her out of Santo Domingo. She would wait in a house surrounded by mines (“You’ll be fine, you won’t be in the blast range, can’t have you dying now,”) while David and his team watched on nearby rooftops. Once she gave the order to fire, they would shoot through the walls and windows of the house, killing V and ending the whole affair. He may be a one-man army but what can a one-man army do against a spray of bullets?
There were a few things wrong with the plan.
One, none of David’s team were professionals, except for this one veteran with an ancient rifle. If things went sideways, they wouldn’t be able to fight him off. The mines wouldn’t stop him, only slow him down.
Two, although he was known for often being loud, upfront, and brutal, lately he’d been completing gigs like a ghost. In and out with no witnesses, whether that be because he picked them off one by one or wasn’t spotted at all. David’s team would be the perfect target for this sort of thing. There was no telling which style of combat he’d go for this time.
‘Course, they had a backup plan. Trisha’s team would be on standby. Once he entered the house, an explosive would be placed in his car. If he survived Plan A, he would get in the car and boom, no more merc. If he survived the explosion somehow, he’d undoubtedly be injured, and Trisha’s team would finish him off.
She ran over the scenarios in her head. Any minute now. V would walk through that door. The ticking of her antique watch seemed to echo through the room.
Footsteps.
She drew her gun and aimed it at the door.
V walked in.
He looked… ordinary. Baggy hoodie, worn pants, sneakers, other than the gas mask, he looked like any other person on the street. She’d been thinking about this moment for weeks and it didn’t feel like the brave confrontation with the villain that the protagonist had in stories.
She realized that she hadn’t thought this entirely through. Could she really take a life? Watch him die in front of her, die by her hands? She should give David the signal. Right now. She was underprepared for a fight with V, she needed to call him right now. But she was a statue, her arms and legs unwilling to listen to her commands.
He raised his hands slowly, a pose of surrender. “Alright,” he said in an amused tone. “What’s this about?”
“You killed my brother,” she said quietly, her hands shaking. She gripped the pistol tighter. “He was the sweetest, kindest person I ever knew. And you killed him.”
V shrugged. “I may be a merc, but I only kill those that deserve it. Either you have me mixed up with the wrong guy or your brother was an A-class jerk-”
“You ran him over on the corner near Jinguji a few weeks ago.”
He squinted at her.
“I run over a lot of people. Can’t say I recall.”
Okay, she wasn’t expecting that answer.
“Do you have any pity at all? Any regrets about the lives you end?” she asked, astonished by his nonchalant attitude.
He crossed his arms. “Listen, I’m sorry about your brother, but I’m a busy man. Got anything better to do than yell at me all day?”
She scoffed. “Is that why you’re such a bad driver? Always busy, in a rush to get to the next gig? Get over it, you’re not the only person in the world who matters.”
She’d heard enough.
Despite all she discovered about him while planning this confrontation, somewhere, deep down, she hoped that there was some mistake, that he wasn’t the monster she made him out to be, maybe he’d say sorry and grovel and she’d spare him.
She ignored his sputtered “I’m not that bad… am I?” She put a hand to her pocket, hitting the transmitter and giving David and his team the go-ahead to shoot.
Nothing happened.
She clicked again.
The bastard was still in front of her, whole and unharmed, probably smirking beneath that mask. “What, you think I wouldn’t have noticed a buncha people camped on rooftops around here? In Rancho Coronado, of all places? I took them out.”
She pulled the trigger. V dove to the side, evidently not fast enough, and blood sprayed across the floor where he once stood.
She heard a muffled swear. She aimed again, at the table that he landed behind, fired again.
She caught a blur at the edge of her vision and felt an arm wrap around her neck. Cold metal pressed into her skin. She closed her eyes. It’s okay. Her sacrifice will pay off. He’ll leave now, the bomb should’ve been planted by now, he’s going to get in his car and everything will be alright. Just not for her.
“Nothing personal,” he muttered.
Everything went dark.
---
She woke up in the backseat of David’s van.
She groaned, shielding her face from the sun. Paused. She jerked into a sitting position. “Is he- y’know, gone?” she asked, grabbing at David’s arm.
The person in the driver’s seat turned around. It wasn’t David.
“Trisha,” she said, her face falling. Trisha did not look happy.
“He got away.”
All that careful preparation for nothing.
Trisha continued. “He started to head back to his car, but he randomly took off in another direction. Pulled the mantis blades, leaped, and sped away somehow.”
She dropped her head in her hands.
“Are… are you alright? I know how much this meant to you. We can always try again in the future.”
She shook her head. “No. I’m done.”
---
V leaned against the railing of the mansion he discovered next to his apartment. “Hey, Jackie,” he said. “Weirdest thing happened today.”
“Knocked out some snipers in Rancho today. Went into the house they were camping, and a girl threatened me with a gun and said that she wanted to get revenge on me for killing her brother or something. Thing is, I didn’t kill her brother. Not intentionally. Car accident, apparently. Never think about how my actions affect others, and it came back to bite me in the ass today. That could’ve ended badly.”
He paused, looking at the ring he’d been twisting around his finger. A birthday gift from Jackie, less than a year ago.
“There’s probably a lesson to learn from all this, but I don’t wanna think right now.”
“Anyway. Um. Bye, Jackie. Miss ya.”