Chapter Text
Flashing light rippled across the condo’s exterior, red halos chasing endlessly after blue. It towered over the empty street, a stark contrast to the sloppy neighborhoods a few blocks east. Its brutal architecture style was probably meant to evoke respect, remind any 6th Street or Valentino drunk stumbling past that the NCPD was in charge here.
The cop rumbling in circles around the neighborhood certainly helped drive that point home.
A guard in blue shifted his weight at the condo’s front entrance. He nodded to the prowler as it rumbled away, blinding lights fading around the corner. Crouched in the shadows of a dumpster that reeked of rot, Vi lifted her middle finger at its exhaust pipe before climbing onto both feet. Familiar contempt bubbled in her gut. Cops weren’t anything out of the ordinary; she was in the Glen, after all. But the constant lights felt a shade past harshly excessive.
Head slouched between hunched shoulders, hood pulled low over her forehead and hands shoved into jacket pockets halfway down her midsection, Vi tipped forward to cross the street. She stumbled a bit as she crossed the guard’s face, letting him assume what he would and scoff at her retreating back. With a little trip over the curb for good measure, she toppled into the dark alleyway running along the side of the condo.
Jackie would be beside himself if he could see her now. Ever heard of subtlety, mi hermana?
She straightened and scanned the wall for a window on the second floor, running back through Padre’s brief in her head. A testimony from someone with a vendetta and the eddies to pass it on, one that had haunted her thoughts relentlessly in the hours since it had been zipped her way.
A girl died a while back in the Glen.
The window was exactly where she expected, a dozen feet up with a narrow fire escape running along the ledge. Far out of reach for any normal gonk on the street.
Her name was Rosita. I knew her. Seventeen years old, picture-perfect smile.
A dark grin crept across Vi’s lips. She felt power course into her legs, sparking through every muscle fiber and reinforced tendon, ganic and chrome. Springing upward in a blur, she catapulted toward the fire escape. At the apex of her arc, the power that gathered in her thighs exploded through the soles of her boots and she jetted upward another ten feet. A double jump, if she had to explain it.
She leaned over the fire escape railing to see the twin cracks running through concrete where she had been standing.
Never got old. Well worth the eddies.
Got hit by a car while she was crossing the road. I saw the CCTV - almost tore her legs off clean.
The window was locked, but the mechanism was cheap and hidden a mere inch into the brick. She dug her fingertips beneath the glass, vibrating them slightly to drill a little faster. A quick twist broke the lock in half.
If she'd've gotten to the emergency room sooner, she might've lived. Who knows.
Vi ghosted up the stairwell, scanning around each corner for a guard suddenly breaking from their route. Her fists were clenched at her sides, ready to silence any questions before they were asked.
But it was the middle of the night, empty street. Driver fled the scene.
She reached the top floor without incident, which was honestly pretty impressive, given her spotty track record with stealth gigs. Vi moved like a cat, dripping with feline grace, but patience wasn’t her strong suit. Guards talked too long, or began to drift to sleep at their station, or fixed the mirror with this look like they thought they belonged in North Oak instead of in the slums with the rest of Night City, and suddenly Vi’s knuckles were several inches deep in the drywall between her and their skull.
Vi wasn’t always… adept at keeping a tight rein on her emotions. There was a reason her weapon of choice was the gorilla arm enhancements wired through her own two fists.
Soon enough, the NCPD found our culprit. Lady's named Tucker Albach, vice managing director or something at Kiroshi.
The top floor wasn’t difficult to navigate. A quick scan showed only one office inhabited, a single lifeform standing out in the dead air like a neon sign. Vi narrowed in on it like a predator scenting out prey.
Her insurance covered vehicular manslaughter so as far as the NCPD's concerned - she's off the hook.
Vi slammed through the door with one shoulder. The wood splintered like paper. The figure inside flinched back so hard she nearly slipped off her pleather chair. A huge screen was set up on the desk in front of her, washing blue light over her dark features.
Only punishment she got is her insurance raising her premium. Hardly a slap on the wrist.
“Hey, wait! Wait just a sec, let’s talk!”
Vi considered the woman coldly, fists dangling loosely at her sides. Tucker Albach, Vice Managing Director of Kiroshi Optics. Somehow, she looked just as slimy as Vi had expected.
She rolled her shoulder in a half-shrug. “Why not. Curious how you’re gonna be able to worm your way outta this one. You gonna tell me you didn’t see that girl?”
Tucker gave her a look, half indignant and half confused. Her dark glasses reflected Vi’s intimidating figure back at her. “Slow down! Whaddaya mean? What girl?”
“The one whose blood was all over your limo.”
Vi knew to expect the response she got, but it stung nonetheless.
Tucker froze, then a relieved smile relaxed her features. “Oh, that. I thought one of my competitors sent you.” Moonlight shrouded her face in shadow. She looked down her nose at Vi, taking in the tattered top, leather pants, and loose jacket in a sweeping glance. “Look, this is all some gonk misunderstanding. I’m insured for ‘accidents’-- compensation’s already been paid out. Case closed.”
Blood boiled in Vi’s veins. A girl with all her life ahead of her, reduced to so many eddies in a grieving mother’s account. She should know better than to expect anything more from a dirty corpo, especially one with Kiroshi on the lapel. Her fists clenched tighter, nearly shaking with rage.
Over my dead body. This isn't what justice is supposed to look like.
Vi watched her tongue dart out from behind blindingly white teeth, shaved clean until they were nearly razor sharp. Pictured the impassive groan of annoyance when her ride hit a bump on the way home in the middle of the night, one more nuisance to pave smooth with the comp card. Imagined her in the same office, zipping bloody eddies to another gonk with a grudge and rent to pay.
Tucker extended a hand, fingers fanning out invitingly. “And as for this job of yours.” Sleaze dripped from every syllable. “I’m sure we can come to some professional understanding.”
Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, hand for a hand, wound for a wound.
Vi cocked her head. Leaning into the perverse sensation of toying with her meal, she let one corner of her mouth tug up into a crooked, flat smirk. “Thirty seconds. Change my mind.”
Tucker’s entire demeanor changed. She leaned forward, both hands pressed on her desk in a practiced scoop that pushed her chest up, out, and loud. She was probably used to weaponizing her tits in a boardroom, getting what she wants one way or another. She matched Vi’s smirk with one of her own, dry and vampiric. “Someone paid you to take me out, right? Her mom, dad, fiance, whoever.”
She dragged one finger across the edge of her desk, pulling Vi’s attention to a bundle of bills tied into a roll at the corner of her desk. Vi blinked at it. She never understood why rich fucks would leave so much cash lying around. Was it a show of power? Arrogance? Self-gratification?
“I don’t know how much they promised you,” Tucker purred, “but I’m certain my safe has more. A lot more.” Her finger trailed off the desk, dragging up her own side until it peeled off her chest to drape in the direction of a safe in the wall a few feet away. A digital keypad blinked at Vi suggestively.
“You let me go, everything in there is yours, and I’ll transfer somewhere else in the city. No one else, your fixer included,” She spat the word like it was poison. “--will have to know. It’s a win-win.”
It was almost tempting.
Rosita wants Tucker gone, and you're gonna pull the trigger.
Vi huffed a short laugh, then darted forward in a fraction of a second and slammed her fist through Tucker’s head. Her skull splattered against the wall with a wet squelch . The body dropped to the floor, folding over itself like a doll.
She looked down at it, stifling vague disgust with a sense of satisfaction. Blood began to pool around her boots. One less corpo-rat infesting Night City.
On a whim, Vi leaned over Tucker’s desktop and scanned through a couple recent emails. Her bloody fingers slipped slickly against the mouse.
Tucker, one read.
If this sounds like a punishment – good. That's the idea. Maybe you'll learn something. This isn't about that girl, obviously. Fuck her. It's because you were a fucking gonk. Driving alone, drunk, with important documents in the trunk. This could've ended badly for the company.
Vi stopped reading, swallowing the bad taste in her mouth. They’re all the same , she thought bitterly. Night City was full of distractions: gang wars taking and re-taking the same ten miles of dilapidated townhouses and abandoned factories, shootings in nightclubs and megabuildings, cyberpsycho locos razing squads of Militech goons until they burn themselves out. But there was only one real conflict that mattered: corps vs the people. Rats vs the proles. The comfortable vs the streetscum.
Vi looked back at Tucker’s decapitated body.
She wouldn’t let herself forget.
///
The Last Drop smelled like sweat, cigar smoke, and spilled tequila. Bodies filled it near to bursting, dancing to mesmerizing percussion and downing shots as quickly as Loris could pour them. Drunken desperation laid thick on the air, spiced with hot food and dust swirling in from the street.
Vi grinned and shouldered her way inside.
Her name rose above the crowd in a roar, chanted like a homecoming warrior. She cheered back, following the rippling bodies until she slipped out onto a bar stool, freshly reeking of body odor.
“Vi!”
The bartender, a hulking man with thick dark hair crossing his upper lip, slammed a glass in front of her. She took it gratefully. “Where’ve you been, mi amiga? ” Loris asked jovially. “ Tu hermanos have been insufferable, say you owe ‘em a couple dozen eddies for somethin’.”
Vi threw back some cold, bitter liquid and slammed the glass back on the bar. “Dogshit and you know it,” she laughed.
In the same breath, a hand clapped the center of her back. She choked on liquid and sprayed what was left in her mouth across Loris’s workstation. “Vi!” someone shouted in her ear. “You’re late!”
Vi elbowed the man in the chest, feeling gratified when he doubled over with a wheeze. “And you’re a goddamn liar, My.”
Mylo hacked a few coughs and lifted his middle finger in time for a much larger body to slam him into the countertop. “Vi!” Claggor slurred. His eyes were magnified behind thick metal frames, which only magnified his top-heavy body scheme.
Vi clapped his shoulder and let them both drag her upstairs with a final yell to Loris, who waved them off goodnaturedly to tend to the other drunkards clamoring at his bar. The corner table up top was already littered with empty bottles and platters of crumbs. Two figures looked up at the commotion and raised their cups.
“Vi!” Ekko cheered, taking a gulp of whatever was sloshing around his cup. His shock of white dreads were pulled up into a ponytail, something that he probably wouldn’t have thought to do himself without specific instruction.
Looking to his left, Vi had a sneaking suspicion she knew exactly what that inspiration was.
Shoved into Ekko’s side, Vi’s sister stuck her tongue out at him. “I told you she’d make it.” Jinx’s own hair was wrapped around them both in twin braids, blue as the morning sky over Westbrook. Her bright eyes darted between all three of them, sparking with razor-sharp mirth. She’d always been too quick for her own good; watching the speed at which she processed information was almost dizzying to Vi, who preferred to work things out the old-fashioned way.
She stopped in front of the table as Mylo and Claggor piled in on both sides, rocking the entire booth with their sloppy energy. “You got no faith in me?” To soothe her own mock hurt, she took another long draft of amber liquid.
“Nah, choom, got me all wrong,” Ekko drawled, edges of his words blurring. He pointed a finger at the offending party, tucked into his side. “And you know that’s not what I said earlier. Or what I meant.”
Jinx shrugged, a shit-eating grin worming into her expression. To fight it, she picked up her juice and stuck the straw in her mouth.
Before Vi could jump in, she noticed Claggor’s entire body still, like a barrel was aimed directly through the center of his goggles. She turned, ready for a fight, and came face-to-face with an elderly man, grizzled and relaxed in the chaotic environment. His sun-darkened skin shone under the bar lights.
“Padre?” Ekko asked, reflecting the shock shared by the table. “What’s up?”
Padre still stood like a priest, hands folded over each other like he was five seconds from blessing them. In a graceful move, he nodded to the table and gestured behind him. “God bless you, brothers and sisters. Vi, would you mind speaking with me for a moment?”
Vi nodded immediately, setting her drink down with a stern warning for Mylo to leave it the fuck alone before following the diminutive figure out onto a balcony overlooking the front of the bar. People had spilled out onto the street, swaying and jumping to the music that filtered over them. Someone tripped into one of the hulking figures taking a smoke break on a nearby wall, a massive woman with a cape covering one arm, who scared them off with a single intimidating step forward.
“Quite a crowd, uh?”
Vi nodded, studying him out of the corner of her eye. It wasn’t like Padre was never seen outside of his chapel HQ, but it was definitely safer to do his business over holo than in person. If she looked around any closer, she’d likely find the shadows of a good four chromed-out hulks keeping the perimeter clear. “You need somethin’, Padre?”
Padre chuckled. “Always so blunt. Only those who are innocent and who do what is right speak the truth from their hearts. Very well. I have another job for you, if you would take it.”
Vi frowned. “Another one so quick? You don’t got anyone else tryin’ to make a couple eddies or nothin’?” Not that she didn’t need the money herself, but she had been looking forward to letting loose for a bit after the last couple of weeks.
Not every job zeroed out as smooth as the Albach bitch did.
Padre’s eyes were inscrutable, searching for something in the crowd. “This client was particular, asking for one of my most reliable. Most discreet. She seems to have much personal stake in this task.”
Something about his description put Vi on edge. “Whaddaya mean, personal stake? Don’t they all got some kinda stake in the job? I mean, ain’t that what they’re payin’ us for?”
Padre inclined his head. “You are right, of course. I believe you are the best fit for this task, as I told the client, but I must warn you that it may not be comfortable.”
The edgy feeling pulsed stronger beneath her skin. “You sure ain’t sellin’ me on this one, Padre,” she said with a sigh. “But if you think I’m the guy for it, then I’ll be there.”
“ Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance . God will smile upon you,” Padre intoned with slight warmth.
“But I gotta say, a little more info about this… uncomfortable contact might go a long way here.” Vi swung her hands in her pockets. Her imagination was conjuring up anything from a Maelstrom psycho-borg to an Arasaka exec; she couldn’t decide which was worse.
Padre fixed her with a weary look. The bags under his eyes had been present as long as Vi had known him, but in the bar’s lighting he looked exhausted. “Expect someone from a different world,” he said after some time. “You may find it necessary to arrest any prejudices you feel could affect your performance before beginning your work.”
Vi scoffed. “You think I’m not gonna get the job done because some bitch treats me like streetscop? I can handle a nasty look or two.”
“As I am sure all beneath this roof are able,” he acquiesced. “I do not fear your efficiency, Violet. I only wish to provide a warning.”
The use of her full name sent bristles down her spine, but she swallowed the insult that rose. Padre was the only person after… the only person who wouldn’t die as soon as her name left his mouth. She’d leave it at that.
“Got a number?”
“I will provide her with yours. Expect contact quickly. God be with you.”
Padre bowed out and left Vi to scan the drunken rabble below. She looked up. If she squinted hard enough, she could almost imagine the shapes of stars in the sky above, clouded by light and smog.
Her thoughts turned to Padre, to this client she was sure to hate. It wasn’t hard to be on that list, Vi supposed; just about any corpo was there by default, same with some gangs and the scavs who trolled gutters for poor sops at the end of their rope. Whatever this woman was, she must need help desperately for Padre to put aside what he very well knew of Vi and her history to connect them.
Maybe she’s a Stillwater corpo , she wondered, eyes still wandering over Night City’s silhouette. One of the shitheads who profited off the privatized prison system. The worst of the lot, in Vi’s humble, biased opinion.
A roar went up behind her, shaking her out of her reverie. She made eye contact with Mylo, who beckoned her over so vigorously he nearly tipped backward. Ekko caught him awkwardly, spilling something all over the table. Jinx shot up with a shriek. Vi could see her eyes burning from a room away.
A laugh already bubbling out of her, Vi was halfway to the scrum when her holo rang. She slowed, looking at the unknown number in disbelief. How desperate is this woman? Muttering under her breath, she held up one finger to Mylo’s face, which disappeared into a crowd of drunken limbs like a captain down with the ship, and trudged back to the balcony.
As soon as the call connected, a cold pit formed in her stomach.
The face that turned to look at her was half-shrouded in darkness, like the figure was hunkered in a dark room. Light from screens around her silhouetted a long nose and sharp cheekbones. Bright blue eyes pierced through the shadows, pinning Vi to the spot. They flickered across her face so quickly Vi couldn’t tell what her first thoughts were before a vague frown settled on her features.
Vi could hardly keep her face straight, distracted by two thoughts shooting to the forefront.
She’s beautiful .
“You’re Padre’s contact?” The woman spoke with an accent so tightly controlled it almost made Vi laugh.
She’s rich.
“Guess so,” Vi said, instead of the gut reaction that sat heavy on her tongue. You mean to tell me people actually talk like that?
The woman studied her for another few seconds, then looked away to type something. “Very well. I’m sending you an address. Meet me there tomorrow, 9 AM sharp.”
“9 AM?” Vi asked. “No one’s up that early, lady, not unless you got an Arasaka shift or a stick up your Arasaka ass.”
Okay, so maybe she wasn’t doing such a good job maintaining the professional, neutral tone of a reputable merc. Vi could already hear Padre’s deep accent made thicker out of exasperation. Violet, you do yourself no favors by alienating clientele. And then some Bible verse that made her skin itch, somehow tailored exactly for the situation. Vi always hated how he did that.
She watched as the woman ignored her entirely and flicked an address to their chat. Vi narrowed her eyes at it: somewhere on the border of Charter Hill, almost touching Heywood but not quite. It might’ve been an attempt to bridge their two worlds, put Vi at ease for their first meeting, but she scowled at it instead. The lady couldn’t even be bothered to step fully out of Westbrook, touch the world of dirt and crime across the bridge where most of Night City was fighting for a fraction of the wealth she enjoyed.
“9 AM. I expect to see you there.”
The call cut off, leaving Vi with the distinct impression that she had failed some kind of test. The kind that rich people gave anyone who dared to make eye contact, with questions like “where is your family from” and “when was the last time you took a shower.” The kind that anyone without a fancy suit and lips for kissing ass would fail.
Maybe Padre actually hated her. Maybe this was revenge for that Karubo Bairei job. Vi wasn’t too proud to admit when a job went fuckways. But a few extra bodies was just a hazard of the job. How was she supposed to know that walking into that dive bar to ask a few questions would end up the way it did? She wasn’t the one to fire the first bullet.
A memory rose to the surface, hazy like a dream. She was in the basement again, terrified and acting tough to hide it. Vander stood over her, rigid with anger. You have to be smart, Violet.
I was being smart, Vi shouted back. This would’ve gotten us out, we could’ve--
Three rules, kid. Three rules. You broke every single one of ‘em . Vander sighed heavily. In her memory, he stood as tall as a mountain. You’re smarter than this.
Her heart twinged.
Mylo’s shrill voice rose above the crowd roar, shaking her out of her thoughts. Vi turned to see a dogpile of limbs and liquor at the table she had been standing at mere minutes earlier. Jinx was crouched on the back of the booth’s seat like a spider. She watched in horror as Ekko tried to reach for Mylo’s outstretched hand and was dragged down to the floor with him.
Vi pushed thoughts of Vander, of the gig and the bitchy aristocrat from her head.
She’d deal with it tomorrow.