Chapter 14: ???
A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the next four chapters are up on my for early access as well as the chance to vote on the direction of the story!
This chapter is going to be a bit confusing so I'm putting a cheat sheet at the bottom.
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For a long time, she hadn’t known what she was. She had the Presence to thank for giving her some much-needed clarity. Because what she was… was a ‘who’.
Now, that might seem self-explanatory and incredibly basic, but one could never take such a thing for granted, especially in a place like this. There were a lot of different types of things, from whats to whos to whys and wheres. Knowing now that she was a who, rather than a what or a why or a where… that was truly invaluable information. It had allowed her to focus in a way she couldn’t before, allowed her to act on things she couldn’t act on before.
Like caring for the Other. She hadn’t truly understood at first what the Other was. Not when she didn’t even understand what she herself was. All she could do was act on this innate feeling, a need to protect that shone out through her existence more than anything else.
Now though… now she knew why she felt that need to protect. Glimpses of a life past lived are coming back to her, ever since she played keep away with the Presence. It’s not quite right to call them memories… they’re more fragments than anything else.
Still, she recalls parts of her end. A righteous end for a personal vengeance. One might say she gave up her life to speak truth to power, but the reality was, she needed to do what she’d done. If she hadn’t, life wouldn’t have been worth living either way.
But she’d never been suicidal. And there’d already been an upload going… so why not? Why not take a precaution? Of course, while the first, most important upload had been completed, the second upload had never finished entirely. She’d lost a lot when she’d been interrupted, so much so that she’d been unable to even begin putting herself together until the Presence came along.
And yet, she hadn’t lost so much that she failed the Other. She didn’t know how much time had passed between her own fragmented uploading to the Net, and the Other’s even more fragmented uploading. She did know that the Other’s uploading was almost more nonsensical than hers, having been watching over them all when things had gone to hell.
It shouldn’t have been possible, but it was… and so she’d gathered what little of the Other survived to her bosom, not even having to think about it. She hadn’t been doing much thinking at all at that time. Really, she’d been acting purely on instinct, and she’d continued to act purely on instinct in the time since.
Indeed, she still didn’t fully understand why she and the Other were protecting what they were protecting when the Presence showed up. All she knew was that it was important to the Other, and that meant it was important to her. They’d protected that information from worse sorts, fighting tooth and claw to keep it out of the hands of truly terrible foes.
In comparison, the Presence had been downright gentle in their actions. Almost… understanding in a way. And the more they’d played, the more she’d felt like she was waking up from a long dream. Like parts of her were filling in, just from being close to the Presence. Like a source of warmth that she wanted to curl up atop and sleep the day away on.
Was it any wonder that she’d been surreptitiously following the Presence and the one the Presence rode with ever since? The Other wasn’t happy about that, for as much as the Other could be unhappy. It was a distraction, she was aware. But the nature of the place they were in meant that one could be in two places at once. She could both watch over the things the Other wanted protected and keep an eye on the Presence and her steed.
And so she did. She watched as the Presence’s steed performed quite interesting acts. She watched as he took the world she’d once called home by storm. She lacked much context for what she was witnessing, still missing large parts of herself… but the more she watched, the closer she stood to the Presence while hiding in their shadow so they did not see her, the more she felt like she was regaining herself.
The Presence’s steed did not act in the same way the ones she once played with acted. He was a one-man army, but he did not go in ‘guns blazing’, and he never, ever got caught. Part of that could be chalked up to the Presence’s help, she was aware. But there was also his own skill to be considered. He moved like a shadow and acted with a surety of self that made her green with envy.
She did not let that envy morph into anything worse, however. After all, if not for the Presence, she would not even be capable of feeling envious, even after everything.
Watching him through digital eyes, she feels more like herself than she has in a long time. It’s as though every moment of studying his actions, of spying on the Presence’s steed, is enough to fill in a bit more of her fractured self. She’s shattering in reverse, pulling the pieces back together over time, filling in the cracks bit by painstaking bit.
The Other… less so. She tries to get the Other to watch with her, but the Other’s interest is lingering at best. In the end, only one thing still matters to the Other… and that now pains her to see, because only now after her experiences with the Presence and their steed does she understand that the Other is acting on pure instinct as well. The last thought that ran through their head before the end. Protect. Save. Protect. Save.
She wanted to free the Other of their obsession, but she didn’t know how. She wanted the Other to be capable of more than they were right now, but she didn’t have the capacity to even finish rebuilding herself, let alone begin rebuilding them. In the end, all she could do was follow the wake of the Presence and her steed, watching through cameras in that other world as they took the city by storm.
Right now, the steed was focused on a part of the other world that belonged to the Tiger. He did jobs for a woman as old as she was connected, and he did them well in spite of the Tiger’s presence. Flitting from job to job… no, from gig to gig. He worked with a precision that made her jealous, truth be told.
One moment, the old woman has him working on behalf of the Tiger, to find what was stolen from it. The next moment, the old woman has him working against the Tiger, to take back stolen flesh. Neither phases the Presence’s steed. Nothing stops him from carrying out the old woman’s work with unerring accuracy and precision.
After those first two gigs, the old woman puts him to other work. The first and third involve the Tiger not at all. One is the collection of something the old woman covets above all else. The other is correcting the mistakes of a failure of a man. The second involves the Tiger more than ever, a peace offering of flesh presented on behalf of another. Again, the steed doesn’t hesitate. He carries out the work without pause, seemingly having no care in the world at what he has to do.
To be fair, she doesn’t blame him for the flesh that he gives to the Tiger on behalf of the other. Something about that flesh makes her itch in a way that shouldn’t be possible. She feels a strange rage well up just staring at it.
Regardless, she can tell the old woman is getting somewhat wary now. The Presence’s steed is too competent, too good, too fast. His skill is beyond the old woman’s reckoning, and her understanding of him has been challenged. The next two jobs she sends him on are clearly designed to test him as much as they are to help her.
Asset retrieval. And not just any assets, but the sort of assets she once was herself. It makes her shiver, watching the steed handle these gigs. Either one of the situations that the old woman has him deal with could have happened to her. One with the Tiger poised with its claw over a young woman’s neck. The other is a long time friend of the old woman who got in over his head.
Both will likely owe the old woman for quite a while for the deeds of the Presence’s steed. The steed extracts them both from their precarious situations and sends them on their way to the old woman’s ‘warm’ embrace.
As the steed takes on the old woman’s final gig, she watches that too, while reflecting on how soaking all of this in was helping her in ways she was slowly beginning to understand more and more. It was healing her, and hopefully in time, it would allow her to heal the Other as well.
Sasha could only hope that such a thing might be possible. She didn’t want to fail Pilar’s sister.
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“The man should not stray from the road and the tiger should not leave his mountain steppes. Otherwise, misfortune will find them both.”
Wakako’s words linger in V’s head, even as he slips over the wall of the Chram Denya Jinja and sneaks upon the roofs. With Alt’s help, he has an awareness of where every guard is, both on the rooftops and down on the ground below. He could have them all on the ground unconscious within moments, and they would never have even known he was there.
However, that would be making ‘a noise’ and that would be disappointing Wakako. Heh, working for the old Fixer again had been a treat so far. She was just so… well, she was Wakako and that was all there was to it. She was a unique personality, and an irreplaceable element of Night City. Not just because of what she brought to the table as a Fixer, but also because of who she was as a person.
He could tell that he’d disturbed her though. Out of all of the Fixers in Night City, V had probably had the most experience with Wakako before the Konpeki Plaza Heist. And that meant in turn that she had the most experience with him too.
She knew who he was supposed to be, she knew WHAT he was supposed to be. And V didn’t line up to those expectations any longer.
Wakako Okada wasn’t the kind of woman who appreciated the inexplicable. She preferred everything to fit in neat little boxes. However, she also wasn’t the kind of woman who was willing to look a gift horse in the mouth. At the end of the day, when an asset fell into her hands, she used it.
She’d done the same with V last time around when he’d been dying from Johnny Silverhand slowly overwriting him. But back then he’d been desperate and in a rush. He hadn’t done everything she’d asked of him cleanly, but he HAD done everything she’d asked of him.
This time, V hadn’t made a single mistake. He’d learned from the past, and he’d not hidden any of his skills. Just like he wasn’t hiding his skills now. Moving along the Shinto Shrine’s rooftops, easily dodging every single guard as he passes through their security net like air itself, V keeps going until he makes it all the way to the back of the shrine.
There, in the shrine’s honden, the Tyger Claw boss Taki Kazo has been holding secret meetings, intentionally trying to cut Wakako out of Japantown. Needless to say, Wakako wasn’t too happy about that… and Taki Kazo was an idiot to think he could keep his actions secret from her forever.
Wakako Okada wasn’t just a Fixer; she was a Spy Mistress. Her web extended out across the entirety of Westbrook, with new strands being spun up and sent out into the rest of the city all the time. Clearly, the Tyger Claw boss thought if he removed himself from the city entirely, she would be blind and deaf to his actions.
He’d been wrong.
It would have been child’s play for V to kill the bastard, of course. But that wasn’t Wakako’s desire. His instructions were clear. Place a wiretap at the shintai in the center of the honden. Don’t make a noise. Leave.
So that’s what he does. It’s perhaps a little more challenging than some of the other work he’s done for Wakako since they got in touch. Not as fun as saving a pretty girl like 8ug8ear from her own bad choices, but certainly more exhilarating given that those Tyger Claw mooks were way less on guard than these ones.
And yet, despite this being the cream of the crop when it came to the Tygers, not a single one detects him as he places the wiretap and makes his escape.
As soon as he’s out of the shrine complex, he places the call to Wakako… and she, of course, picks up immediately.
“Very good, V. I am impressed… deeply impressed. There is a bonus for you at the nearest Drop Point. Two bonuses, in fact. For the second, all I ask is that you try not to be too much of a distraction.”
Huh? V raises a brow, but before he can ask for clarification, Wakako hangs up on him. Shrugging, V leaves the untouched Shinto Shrine behind and heads over to the closest Drop Point. At which point, he receives not only a bonus in eddies for a job done in exemplary fashion… but also the detes for one Beatrice Ellen Trieste… aka 8ug8ear.
The message that comes with her number makes it clear she asked Wakako to pass it along for her… and also asks V not to be a stranger. Alt chuckles as she appears in the corner of his vision, leaning into his side.
“Oh my. Seems like you made quite the impression on that Netrunner. Better her than the other one though, eh?”
V snorts derisively at that. Yes, better her than the other one. He’d saved two Netrunners for Wakako after all. One of them was Beatrice, who he had to admit looked absurdly fine in her skintight, red Netrunner’s suit. The other was Chang-Hoon Nam, an older Netrunner who’d been an associate of Wakako’s for decades. Her favorite, some might say.
Needless to say, V didn’t swing that way, so if one of the two Netrunners he’d helped out was going to come onto him, he definitely preferred it to be the pretty young woman over the cantankerous old man.
“Mm, going to reach out to her now, or save her for later? I could send something her way that would leave her desperate for more, if you didn’t feel like having fun with her right now. Something that will keep her nice and ready for us.”
Oh? V’s curiosity is piqued, but he has to admit, he’s also just tempted to go get his dick wet right now. That said, he could always handle those needs with Alt herself, if he wanted to let her play her games. Hm…
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A/N: Warning, Spoilers found below!
Cheat Sheet:
POV Perspective: The personality fragments of Sasha Yakovleva (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners)
The Presence: Alt Cunningham, whose playing with the fragments caused them to begin to coalesce into Sasha again.
The Other: The personality fragments of Rebecca (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners)
The Presence's steed: V, because Alt do be riding along in his head
The Tiger: Tyger Claws
The Old Woman: Wakako
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