The desert punched me in the teeth.
Not literally.
Probably.
Hard to tell with the way my skull was currently trying to open itself like a fucking flower.
"—BALL!"
I don't know if I screamed the whole sentence or just the end of it. My ears rang. My throat hurt. My knees were in the dust beside the overturned truck, one hand clawing at my head, the other still wrapped around the weird revolver because apparently survival instincts worked even when the rest of me was busy getting microwaved by haunted memories.
Smoke.
Fire.
A woman's hand.
A thousand voices screaming Rebellion.
Then gone.
Just heat.
Dust.
Blood.
The overturned Colby ticking like a bomb with commitment issues.
「Sync 99% Complete, Please finish assigning e.U for full completion. 」
".....ughhh I really wish this shit was less headache-heavy."
Cradling my head with my hands as I kneel on the floor is probably not a great interrogation tactic.
Oh shit.
"Tieler!"
I snap the Nova back out in front of me, aiming more or less where his head should be.
Should be.
The driver's seat is empty.
The seatbelt hangs loose, cut or torn or maybe just finally lucky. Blood marks the inside of the overturned cab in a smear that continues out the broken side window and down into the dust.
"...."
I blink.
Then I see the trail.
Little red drops leading away from the Colby.
Left side.
Behind the wreck.
"FUCK WHY ARE YOU RUNNING!"
The little shit is already limping hard across the dirt, one hand clamped to his face, the other swinging like he thinks speed will save him from consequences.
"COME BACK TIELER I HAVE MORE QUESTIONS!"
"You're psycho, man!" he shouts back, voice cracking, half sob and half rage. "You just wait! I'll get you for this!"
"THAT'S A TERRIBLE ANSWER!"
I try to aim the Nova.
He's too far.
Not impossible far.
Just far enough that my headache, the heat shimmer, and whatever the fuck my eyes are doing make the shot feel like gambling with a revolver and my current luck has already involved waking up in 2077.
Dammit.
I lower the gun for half a second and look back at the dead one.
Desden.
He is sprawled near the wreck, face down, limbs all wrong in the dust, the massive rifle still half-clutched in his hands like even death couldn't convince him to let go of his favorite compensation device.
"Jackpot."
The word comes out before I think about it.
I stumble over, still unsteady, boots dragging through broken glass and red dirt. My head throbs with every step. The goggles around my neck bounce against my chest, knocking against Pride like the universe is trying to play percussion on my bad decisions.
Desden's fingers are locked around the rifle.
"Kinda impressive."
I pry them loose.
It takes less effort than it should.
Again.
The rifle comes free.
Heavy.
Long.
Mean.
The kind of weapon that looks like it hates cover, walls, vehicles, and anything soft enough to breathe.
A name rises in my head.
SPT32 Grad.
Anti-materiel rifle.
"...."
I stare at it.
Then at the corpse.
Then at the gun.
"Okay, I know what you are now, apparently. That's not creepy."
The memory isn't mine. But it is mine.
It sits there like a file that finished downloading into meat.
I drag the Grad back toward the overturned truck and rest it across the metal, using the twisted chassis as a brace. My right arm burns when I settle behind it, dragon ink coiling over muscle and toward my throat like the bastard is curious.
Tieler is still running.
Badly.
Not fast enough.
Useful, not good.
I line him up.
"Sorry, choom. No loose ends."
baang---thip
The sound hits the desert first.
Then the body does.
Tieler folds into the dust a long way out, one leg kicking once, then stopping.
"...."
The rifle smoke curls in front of me.
My shoulder feels fine.
Mostly.
Which is its own fresh little horror.
I stare over the sights, breathing hard through my nose.
"Now what the fuck is 'choom' and why the fuck did I say it?"
No answer.
The desert remains deeply committed to not explaining shit.
「Sync at 99% Please assign remaining e.U 」
"I get it, I get it."
I slide down against the side of the overturned Colby and sit in the dust with a stolen anti-materiel rifle across my lap, a weird revolver in my other hand, blood on my boots, and the worst day of my life competing aggressively with several other worst days of my life.
"Well, at least you're not dinging anymore."
The gray screen opens again.
No sound. Just there.
Like it owns my eyes.
"Still hate that."
I stare at the panel.
The letters are clearer now. Not easier. Clearer. Like the last jagged pieces of my skull are deciding to cooperate with the haunting.
So this is probably like using optics.
"...."
I pause.
"Optics?"
The word feels normal.
Which means it is absolutely not normal.
"Great. Leaking vocabulary now. Love that."
The screen waits.
I don't touch anything because there is nothing to touch. No buttons. No mouse. No keyboard. No normal way to interact with the impossible murder-menu. I just focus on the numbers and the little plus-minus marks, and the panel responds like it has been waiting for me to stop being stupid.
"Okay. Creepy, but functional."
The first thing I change is the name.
Or the name changes itself.
Hard to tell.
Vicente David Stone stays in me like a nail in bone.
But something else slides over the screen.
Something from the body.
Something current.
Something alive before I got here.
---------
Name: Vicente Deimos Ophiuchus +/- (1)
Alias: V
(Prior Aliases are unavailable)
[Attributes]
{Energy Units Available : 0}
Body: 8 +/- (3)
Intelligence: 10 +/- (3)
Reflexes: 7 +/- (4)
Technical: 10 +/- (3)
Cool: 9 +/-
[Skills]
N/A Please assign all e.U for further information.
[Adventus]
-A King in Silver-
Life is not black and white, it is a muddy gray somewhere in the middle. Your nature lies at the peak of this divide. A King in Silver.
{Accelerates Skill Growth, Learning Speed, Reaction Speed, Thought processes, and Adaptability.}
{At the cost of pain reception enhances physical ability to the limit of potential}
{Vita Incerta, you are Immortal.}
As long as a piece of you remains you will return to Life. If nothing remains you will be moved to the closest viable vessel.
----------------------
"...."
I read the name.
Then read it again.
"Ophiuchus."
Serpent-bearer.
My eyes drop to the snake coiled around my left forearm.
Then to the dragon curling around my right.
"Of fucking course."
Deimos.
Terror.
"Also rude."
The numbers are different now.
Higher.
I can feel that more than understand it. Not like muscles swelling or bones cracking or any of that dramatic bullshit. More like my body stops arguing with itself. Like the pieces get tighter. Cleaner. Like someone took a badly tuned engine and made it remember it was supposed to run.
Body.
Reflexes.
Technical.
Intelligence.
Cool.
「 Confirm Assignment? Y/N 」
"Do I look like I have better options?"
Nothing happens.
"Yes. Y. Whatever. Confirm."
「Assignment Complete, Sync at 100% 」
The headache stops.
Not fades.
Stops.
One second, there is a steel rod through my skull and a choir of dead revolutions screaming behind my eyes.
The next, there is desert.
Wind.
Blood.
Heat.
The soft clink of metal settling in the wreck.
I sit there.
Very still.
"...."
I blink once.
Then twice.
"At least the headache is gone."
Which is about the only nice thing I can say about anything right now.
I push myself to my feet.
Too fast.
The world does not tilt.
My legs hold.
My hand tightens around the Grad like the thing is lighter than it has any right being. The Nova sits in my other hand, ugly and heavy and familiar in a way that makes my fingers settle automatically around the grip.
I do not like that.
I like that.
I hate that I like that.
"Fuck."
Taking the Grad back toward the trunk of my now slightly more banged-up Galena, I stop halfway.
"Galena."
I know the car now.
Thorton Galena.
Mine.
Technically.
Barely.
A cheap little Badlands shitbox with more dust than dignity and an engine that sounds like it smokes two packs a day.
"That's hurtful, actually."
The car does not respond.
Probably for the best.
I open the back and drop the Grad into the rear seat because the trunk latch is apparently moody and I do not currently feel like negotiating with a car. The rifle lands with a dull, heavy thud.
Then I walk back to Desden.
He is still dead.
Good.
I fire another round into his head for good measure.
bam!
The sound cracks across the desert.
My ears barely ring.
"Okay. That's new too."
I crouch and search him.
Pockets.
Belt.
Boots.
Jacket.
The work is quick. Practical. Gross, but not complicated.
Some strange inhalers.
A couple rounds of ammo for the Grad.
A few eddies.
A cracked shard with grime in the port.
Jack shit else.
"Makes sense why you tried robbing me when you don't have jack on you."
I take the ammo and the eddies.
The inhalers too, because the fresh little memory bundle in my skull says they might be useful and I am not in a position to turn my nose up at medical-adjacent mystery trash.
Then I walk toward Tieler.
He made it farther than I expected.
Not far enough.
There is no need for another shot.
The Grad handled that.
I search him too.
Only fair, I think.
More eddies. Less than Desden, which feels thematically insulting. A knife with a chipped edge. A pack of cheap cigarettes crushed flat by the fall. Two more inhalers. A little plastic baggie with something bright and stupid inside.
My memories offer a word.
Glitter.
"Nope."
I toss it away.
Then I pause.
Pick it back up with two fingers.
"Actually, maybe evidence. Or poison. Or money. Or all three. Fucking Night City bingo."
I shove it into a pocket and hate every possible future where that becomes useful.
The wind drags dust over Tieler's boots.
I stand there for a second.
Not grieving.
No.
Absolutely not.
Just looking.
Two idiots tried to kill me and strip me for parts.
Two idiots died.
Useful, not good.
The phrase sits in my head like it has lived there a long time.
Maybe it has.
I should get a move on though, wouldn't want to be late to meet the client.
"...."
I stop.
"What client?"
The question hangs there.
The answer hits a second later.
Not like the Prometheus memories.
Those came with fire and fury and a whole fucking speech to the world.
This is smaller.
Messier.
A life unpacking itself in cabinets I did not remember owning.
Yucca.
Border.
Night City.
A job.
A package.
A client waiting on the other side.
A garage that smelled like oil and dust.
A clan that used to be family until family became paperwork and arguments and the long slow sound of people choosing survival over each other.
Bakkers.
Snake Nation.
Nomad.
Not nomad.
V.
Always V.
"Fuck've gone insane."
「Full Sync; Memories of the current body have been integrated. Please review available Skills and all Pertinent Information」
The world goes sideways without moving.
I know things.
That is the problem.
I know the car is a Galena and the rifle is a Grad and the revolver is a Nova and the idiots were shivs, which is not a philosophical judgment but also absolutely is.
I know what eddies are.
I know what optics are.
I know choom, preem, gonk, klep, zero, delta.
I know Night City squats ahead of me like a neon tumor on the coast, all chrome teeth and open palms.
I know the NUSA exists.
I know Arasaka.
Militech.
Biotechnica.
Petrochem.
Kang Tao.
Zetatech.
Corpos with new names, new logos, same old hunger.
Not U.E.N.
Not the Council.
Not my old monsters.
Different monsters.
Same suit.
I brace one hand against the Galena and breathe through it.
Dust scrapes the back of my throat.
My fingers leave bloody smears on the sun-baked metal.
Greed looks up at me from the inside of my wrist.
The snake bends with my grip.
"Yeah, yeah. I see the fucking joke."
More memories settle.
A childhood that is not mine and is mine now.
Badlands heat.
Dust storms.
Engines.
Gun oil.
Cheap food.
Laughing around fires.
Someone teaching me how to strip a pistol before my hands were big enough to make it easy.
Someone else shouting my name.
Vicente.
V.
Deimos when they were angry.
Ophiuchus when some old bastard wanted to sound profound.
No Mamá.
Not mine.
Not the one from before.
Different ghosts.
Different losses.
Still losses.
"Preem."
The word slips out bitter as old coffee.
"Equally dead family to boot. Love that for me."
I lean harder against the car.
For a second, the desert doubles.
Not visually.
Historically.
One world layered over another.
U.E.N towers over Night City skyscrapers.
Corporate colossi wearing different brand colors.
Prometheus standing in smoke with blood under his nails.
V standing in dust with two dead shivs and a stolen rifle.
The same man?
No.
Yes.
Fuck.
"So...."
I say it slowly, because saying it out loud makes it worse, and apparently I am committed to worse.
"I'm not dead."
The car ticks.
"I'm in a fucking transmigration plotline that dropped me in a violently more shitty shithole because of some nondescript favor to my fucking Mamá apparently, by some random godlike being that goes by G, aka totally fucking mysterious by not literally calling themselves God, to fulfill a promise I made to my mom when I was fucking ten."
I stop.
"Shit. I'm talking to myself out loud again."
No one answers.
Because everyone present is dead, a car, or a hallucinated menu.
"Honestly, still one of my more stable conversations."
I push off the Galena and look at the bodies.
Then the road.
Then the mountains.
Then the sky.
The sky does not help.
The system sits quiet in the back of my vision, like a predator pretending to be furniture.
"Fanfiction."
I blink.
"....wait, what the fuck is fanfiction?"
The word is there.
Along with transmigration.
System.
Attributes.
Builds.
Stats.
All these stupid little genre-shaped pieces that I know and do not remember learning.
"Why the fuck do I know all the names of random-ass shit around me, but not where the hell half my own life went?"
No answer.
"Like why the fuck do I know what a Galena is?"
The Galena wheezes faintly in the wind.
"Don't look smug. You're still a shitbox."
「Full Sync」
"It's gotta be that shit."
I stare at the gray text until it fades.
Or hides.
Or whatever the fuck it does when it decides to stop ruining my day actively and return to ruining it passively.
Looks like my name was still V in this life too.
That should be funny.
It is not.
It feels like someone took a knife and carved continuity into the joke.
V.
Prometheus.
Vicente David Stone.
Vicente Deimos Ophiuchus.
Pequeño demonio.
A King in Silver.
"Too many names," I mutter.
The wind moves over the tattoos on my arms. Not really, obviously, ink does not move. But the dragon and the snake flex with skin and tendon as I close my hands, and for a second they look alive enough to disagree.
Pride sits over my heart.
Wrath on my right wrist.
Greed on my left.
Lust low under the beltline.
Gluttony against my ribs.
Envy and Sloth behind the ears, half-hidden under hair and chrome.
The sword I cannot see runs down my spine in memory.
A line of black ink from neck to lower back.
A blade drawn over bone.
"At least the symbolism stayed subtle."
I laugh once.
It comes out wrong.
Shit.
Can even die anymore, huh?
No blaze of glory for me.
No clean ending.
No heroic last stand with fire in my hands and the bastards finally screaming.
Just pieces.
Pieces of me left somewhere.
Pieces enough to come back.
Or nothing left and a new vessel waiting.
I remember the system's words.
As long as a piece of you remains.
"If nothing remains," I say, very softly, "closest viable vessel."
The desert feels too big.
My skin feels too tight.
My hands shake once.
Just once.
Then I make them stop.
Work is better than waiting.
Work has edges.
Waiting has teeth.
I collect the Nova.
Collect the Grad.
Collect the ammo.
Collect the eddies.
Collect the inhalers.
Collect the knife.
Collect the stupid glitter bag because apparently I am the kind of man who wakes up immortal and immediately starts looting drug addicts in the desert.
"Adaptable."
I walk back to the Galena, open the driver's side door, and sit.
Glass crunches under my boots.
The seat is hot.
The air inside smells like dust, old vinyl, blood, gunpowder, and the faint chemical sweetness of whatever the last owner spilled in here and never cleaned.
My hands settle on the wheel.
For a second, I see Mamá's hands instead.
Warm.
Steady.
Holding mine at a kitchen table.
Te quiero pequeño demonio.
Cumple tu promesa.
The memory hurts.
Not like the sync.
Worse.
Cleaner.
I swallow it down.
"One problem at a time."
The engine complains when I start it.
"Yeah, yeah, me too."
The car turns over anyway.
Good.
Useful.
I look out through the broken windshield at the road toward Yucca.
Toward the border.
Toward the client I remember and do not remember.
Toward Night City.
Toward whatever new brand of corporate hell this world thinks counts as civilization.
"Alright."
I shift into gear.
"Let's go be somebody else's fucking problem."
The Galena lurches forward.
Dust rises behind me.
The bodies stay where they fell.
And somewhere in the back of my head, where the gray screen had gone quiet and the old fire still smoldered, one thought sits down, lights a cigarette, and refuses to leave.
Fuck you, Greg.