PRIVATE III: Codependent Strangers

[Vex Kiranova]

The ride had been dreadfully quiet for all the urgency it'd been consumed with. Just an hour or so ago Vex had been dead, and now he was sitting in the passenger seat of Wilma's borrowed Thorton watching the streams of neon flow by through hazy eyes. It was still early enough in the morning for the city to be cast in a sheet of darkness, only to be illuminated by its endless hordes of light pollutants. It was all just visual noise as they zipped through the relatively empty streets. Even NC slept sometimes, though there were still plenty of folks milling about whatever business one might find at three in the morning. Nothing good, Vex was sure.

He'd kept his mouth shut since they'd left the clinic. There were questions he was sure Wilma was going to ask, and some of his own he needed to broach. He lacked the mental energy to engage with such complexities at the moment however, and so he just stared out the window.

He didn't know where they were going and hadn't bothered to ask. Anywhere was better than @Anders Whitard's clinic. The ripperdoc hadn't seemed a bad sort but to say Vex's whole experience there was traumatizing would be an understatement. He would have to consider the extensive bill he owed Anders later, after a day's sleep and a few dozen beers.

It was quiet in his head too. Nyx wasn't always talking but her presence was always felt, and now there was naught but an empty space where her persona usually made its home. He'd have to dig into his neuroport and see what the problem was once he'd regained his bearings, though he imagined Nyx was just taking a nap, for lack of a better term. Wouldn't be the first time.

They cut a quick line through the city. Wilma was a local, and while she drove with the grace of a moose in heat, she knew where she was going. Vex placed his faith in her just as he'd been doing since they'd locked eyes back on the train. If she wanted to fuck him over, the time for such had long since passed. After what felt like an eternity, the Thorton pulled into an alley in an area Vex vaguely recognized as Kabuki.

Wilma had led Vex across Watson to the Kabuki subdistrict. Below the semi-tunneled road that split Kabuki in two along its length, were the sewer tunnels and undercity ventilation systems. The stench of sewage warded off most people, save for a few hobos who had no place else to go. A dozen enormous ventilation fans lined the concrete walls. They provided airflow for cooling racks of servers that generated heat from the massive data centers above like the business buildings and the medcenter. Each fan measured five meters in diameter; the only efficient way to ventilate these tunnels was at such scale. It was also big enough for B.R.I.C.K. to fit through.

The one farthest in line had been out of commission ever since Wilma was a little kid. It was safe to say it had fallen victim to the city's neglect and it was staying that way. Wilma skipped over the small streams of city bog, propped herself up the fan's ledge, and slipped past its immobile blades.

For his part, Vex followed along at a strangely brisk pace. His mind was a mess of fog and unprocessed emotions, but his body was instilled with a vigor unlike anything he'd experienced before. It was like he was high, but deathly sober at the same time. His entire body ached, and yet he felt he had enough energy to run for days. It seemed that Anders had been true to his word when he spoke of the supremacy of the new synthetic heart pumping in Vex's chest.

He paused as she propped herself up on the edge of the fan, a hand lingering on the lip of it as he regarded her with newfound coherence. He'd not had a moment to actually look at her until now - she couldn't have looked more haggard. She was young, but her eyes told of experience well beyond her years, and a fierce, perhaps even obstinate wit. Her half-dried grime-encrusted clothes clung to her in such a way that reminded him of a very fluffy, very skinny cat after being forced through a bath against its will. She was pretty somewhere beneath all that shit too, though he imagined she might shoot him if he mentioned it.

He wondered absentmindedly just how terrible he looked and made a mental note to find a mirror as soon as possible.

After a moment's silence, his lips pressed into an exhausted smile. "Pretty sure I asked a couple dozen times, but, -" he grunted as he lifted himself up into the fan. "- never got your name, and I'd like it before I follow you into what is clearly an implant harvesting den."

 

[Wilma F. Darcy]

Tag: @Vex Kiranova

Terrance and Skipper followed suit, sharing the load of the smuggled crate. Like two handymen carrying heavy furniture up a stairwell, Terrance pulled one end as he carefully backed past the still blades of the industrial fan, and Skipper hoisted the crate's weight with two sturdy arms. While they didn't possess personalities the same way B.R.I.C.K. did, Wilma often observed how curiously their mechanical demeanour imitated humans.

Pulling herself up to the edge nearly made her vomit on the other side. The warm air gently blew strands of hair stiff with dry blood. The hobos who had bunched up just by the ledge didn't even acknowledge her. Even though she was a familiar face to them, most of the time they were too hiked up on drugs to notice her or anyone else. They served as good deterrents for any unwanted attention. Wilma watched the two drones' strained work while taking a break and noted they were running low on power too. Her eyes then drifted to Vex, who had just lifted himself up. He asked for her name, again.

She was slightly bent over with hands on her waist, still catching her breath. "Oh, what the hell," she shook her head, more at herself than Vex. She looked down the dark tunnel, sending a command for Terrance and Skipper to switch to night mode. "It's Wilma."

Both drones revealed discreet torches that light up a few steps ahead. The wide tunnel was a domed semi-circle with a flat landing. Dry air had increased the accumulation of dust all over the warped panels and the heavy cables that stretched endlessly. Some of the screws had shrunk and loosened over time and static electricity had probably worn out more electronic components than the eye could gauge. The serpentine maze started to look the same after a few turns. There were no discernable markings to indicate where anyone was headed. The deeper the pair headed, the quieter it got too; apart from the whirring of the drones, there was the occasional crack of electricity and footstep echo, but the place was not inhabitable. The only directional hint was the barely perceptible direction of airflow that likely led towards the numerous exits behind.

"It's Vex, right?" Wilma eyed the skull Vex was carrying, "...And 'Nyx', I suppose." She stopped at a big sliding gate; they had passed a few of these now—battered, old, probably stuck, and with a plethora of hazardous warning signs bolted across them. "Are you new to Night City? Or do you just have nowhere else to go?" She wanted to ask how he was feeling, but the sheer fact that he was still standing was a good indicator. The gates that were open had revealed small storage units with empty pressure tanks or pipeworks. Maybe once they were integral to whatever they supplied, but now they seemed forgotten over the years. A fading sign on the grimy sliding door read "Restricted Access: Hazardous Materials Storage." A chemical tang lingered in the air, enough to discourage anyone curious enough to look closer. Wilma opened the electrical panel on the side of the wall, exposing a nest of tangled wires. Somewhere in there, she stuck her cybernetic finger between two rods, causing a short circuit. Her cybernetic eye's interface flickered briefly and a few sparks whizzed past her face. The shock tickled her numbed arm, but she couldn't feel it. The locks of the sliding door released and echoed as it drew back slightly. "If you touch the wrong rods, your brain gets fried," she cleared her irritated throat and closed the panel. "The voltage running through these wires is lethal."

Wilma struggled to slide the gate back enough for her, Vex, and the drones to pass through, then locked the mechanism once more through a similar panel on the opposite side. "These things don't emit signals," she clarified, "Meaning that they are not on a network that can be hacked by netrunners." The door wasn't impenetrable, but anyone without the electronic understanding necessary to disable the security system wouldn't be able to pass through. Unless they blasted the door open with a demolition-tier explosive.

Already, the air felt a little fresher on the other side. Spending even as much as ten minutes in the maze would sear your sinuses dry. A spacious freight elevator with battered steel doors stood before them, lit up by a single exposed light bulb—it looked like someone, something, massive had run into it but somehow it was still standing. Wilma stepped in, followed by her drones who finally set the crate down and landed beside it. Her body language indicated that she was already home. She leaned back against the gratings of the cage and sighed in equal parts of relief and exhaustion. She blinked slowly and her hands hung heavily like two weights on either side of her stick-figure body.

She lifted her tired eyes to meet Vex's, struggling to get the words out, "Step in, it can hold up to twenty-five hundred kilos," she nodded lazily at the sign that indicated the weight limit (5500 lbs) and scanned a chip against a sensor.

 

[Vex Kiranova]

Vibe



"Thanks for not leaving me Wilma." He managed a hint of warmth beneath the blanket of misery that was threatening to smother him. The gratitude was all too genuine - no one had paid Vex and Nyx much mind since coming to Night City. The Fixers and small-timers were keen to sick the duo on whatever problems might be ailing them, but none of them actually cared for the runners' wellbeing. If Vex died they'd just throw another desperate gonk on the job: such had always been the way of Night City. Vex had been aware of that before heading out west, and he'd not been surprised or bothered by the coldness of the city. He and Nyx had adopted a survivalist mentality just like everyone else in this concrete hell; no one gave a damn for them, so they'd not bothered to try and make any connections. Just another pair of passing specters in the eternal limbo that was NC.

Until now, anyway.

He followed after her with the dogged obedience of a lost pup as the drones lit their torches and illuminated the tunnel. He probably could have derived the meaning and function of the various cables and automata that lined the walls of the maze, but his mind had been well spent past that point some time ago, His thoughts moved with the sluggishness of swamp water, slow and sticky and without real form or purpose: like someone had covered his brain in packing tape and ran a blowtorch over it. He could almost smell the plastic melting over his neurons as they twisted around one corner, then another, Wilma guiding him deeper into her labyrinth. He was lucky she was paying him nothing but good intentions; he wouldn't be able to find his way out of this place to save his life in his current state.

He felt the slightest hint of air current caressing his sweat-caked face, leaned into it as much as he could manage, and regarded Wilma through a side-eye as she mentioned his name. "Yeah, I'm Vex," he drummed his fingers along the steel skull pinned beneath his armpit, "And this is Nyx, yeah, though she's currently sleeping right now." He really hoped that was all that she was doing.

She asked her question and Vex hesitated bodily. He halted just outside the gate, his lips pressing into a thin line, then twisting into something between a grimace and an apologetic smile. He supposed there wasn't much point in keeping secrets from her. She already knew who was hunting them.

"Both," he responded curtly, his gaze traveling off toward nothing as he desperately tried to avoid hers. An awkward silence hung as she pressed her cyberfinger into the rods and the gate slipped open. Another passed moment before he forced the words past his lips. "We're from Atlanta." Breathing life to that sounded painful. His lips parted as if he wanted to say more, but he hesitated, and Wilma fortunately ate up the silence.

She explained the secure nature of the network. Vex paid it half of a quarter of his mind. "Way I'm feeling touching one of those rods sounds like a good idea," he grunted as the meta-plastic molded to his brain.

An elevator Vex wouldn't have trusted drunk greeted them. Wilma stepped aboard, spoke of the secure nature of the systems, and once again Vex hesitated. "Damn, and I'm twenty-five-hundred-and-one kilos. Crazy." The runner stared down at the floor of the elevator, swallowed, and stepped forward.

He read Wilma's body language well enough to relax himself. Vex settled against the grating, leaned back, and slowly slipped down until he was a puddle on the floor leaning against the wall. He placed Nyx's drone between his legs as he looked up at Wilma, looked like he was fighting a sneeze, and spoke again, "We've been here a week." Vex shook his head. "Worked for Militech since I was a kid. They had me built Nyx. Supposed to be a combat program, lead automata into war." Vex's arms wrapped around Nyx's lifeless drone and hugged it tight. "When she started to develop sentience, they tried to take her away, but she wasn't ready. She was a baby, she needed me," he ran a red-stained hand affectionately over the top of the skull. "And she was so scared... I had to take her away from all that. Sold everything I had, changed my name, left the NUSA and disappeared into Night City."

He paused a moment to glance down at Nyx's drone, as if anything might have changed in the half-minute he was speaking. "I designed her neuroport myself. Every part of her is held in the implants in my head," he pointed a finger toward his temple, "And she's growing. Exponentially so - so much so that I have to spend every ed I have augmenting the port so her psyche doesn't destabilize and fry my brain in its death throes." Another pause. "Why we're working as solos. A solo."

 

[Wilma F. Darcy]

Tag: @Vex Kiranova


The acrid odour—half oil, half decay—drifted up from below. If the situation were any different, Wilma might have chuckled at Vex's remark about his weight. As they descended, a faint light shone from beneath the grating, creeping up their shoes, then knees, all the way to their faces, emerging from an opening in the wall. It was an airy room that appeared to have been repurposed into a workshop; a sectioned part of a building's unfinished underground floor, still in its construction stage.

Something in Wilma stirred when he referred to Nyx as his child. It was a little like how she felt about her own drones, minus the maternal instinct. It surprised her that an AI was capable of what Vex called "sleeping". Technical questions piled one after another about the intricacies of something so special, big enough for Militech to put out a manhunt, but she could barely string together coherent thoughts, let alone sentences. Her brain felt like an overclocked machine in overdrive. For now, she just listened.
When the elevator grinded to a halt, the doors shuddered open and Wilma stepped into her living space. A lightwell was the only source of natural light—a vertical ventilation shaft high above diffusing a pale, bluish hue that illuminated the dust motes drifting in its beam. Two concrete pillars supported the tall ceiling from which rebars poked out like little skeletal fingers. The room itself was cramped but efficient and every square metre was put to use.

At the centre of the main wall, a massive frame held up a slumbering giant, hooked into the charging station with thick, reinforced cables snaking into his patchwork chassis of scavenged parts—some bolted in place, and others still awaiting integration. It was a monstrosity built from the bones of a hundred different machines. His torso was a repurposed dumpster container which still bore faded hazard symbols and deep scratches. His weaponised arms were mismatched and unfinished, and a belt feed ran along his side like exposed ribs. Somewhere deep within his frame, something was cycling through idle diagnostics. Across what could only be described as his chest, imprecise lettering inscribed: "B.R.I.C.K.". The cables used to power it, along with all the other cables in the room, crept like vines along the walls and floor towards one big power generator that resided in the opposite corner.

In the middle stretched a big workbench littered with various tools and half-finished projects unevenly lit by a string of mismatched buzzing lamps. A nook snugly fitted a mattress and a few crates that were used both as furniture and storage. A third corner was dedicated to an open, barebones sanitation unit. It was precisely where Wilma was headed.

After she had barely taken two steps into the room, a grating metal-on-metal sound reverberated in the space, all the way up to the ceiling and back, "I CAN HEAR YOUR HEARTBEAT FROM HERE." Seeing as Wilma ignored it, the unnerving imitation of a voice seemed to be speaking to Vex. It was distorted and uneven; its intonation was half robotic, half human. It was as if something broken was trying to speak.

Wilma turned the shower's valve and water started pouring from an exposed pipe. Her mind felt like a swarm of flies that scattered the moment the cold started pouring down her neck and back. She leaned back and let the blood and grime wash off her. Her clothes stuck to her body like a latex suit and she felt suffocated by them but didn't have the power to take them off. She slumped to the ground and closed her eyes for a second, as the cold water hissed into steam upon contact with her burning body. The image of the grim cyberpsycho flashed before her eyes and she quickly opened them once more, visibly uncomfortable. Two small, bug-like drones stirred into being and crawled off the main table, skittering up and down Wilma's body. While one ran scans, the other was applying antiseptics on her exposed wound. Like busy bees, they treated her superficial wounds.

"I have a hammock and a spare mattress you can put in it," she gestured weakly towards a clothesline where her laundry hung. Bunched up in its end, hung loosely the hammock that would be slid down the line when the clothes weren't occupying it. "And there's soft drinks in the fridge. Just don't drink Smash... For now." She sucked at small talk.

Terrance and Skipper carried over the crate, leaving it beside the main table, then flying back to their respective maintenance stations mounted to the walls and hooking up like clothes on hangers. Wilma's gaze traced their movement and briefly lamented the other two frames where Winston and Armstrong would have been.

B.R.I.C.K. didn't have eyes, but if a mech would size up someone, it would look exactly like he did now, regarding Vex. In the same grating, unfeeling tone he stated, "SOFT PARTS WRAPPED IN STEEL, PRETENDING NOT TO ROT."

​

(edited)
[01:58]

 

[Vex Kiranova]

Despair snapped at his heels, its fangs dull and painful as they bit into the skin but failed to break the flesh. It was a familiar sensation: the anticipation of the crash, like a tidal wave had frozen in the half-second before it'd obliterated him, and now hung over him, a mass of roiling and roaring dark waters suspended solely by what little remained of his willpower. It yearned for him, raging against the invisible barriers that separated them with all the force the earth could muster, and he pined for it just as desperately, despite the logical part of his brain that screamed for self-preservation.

He was so tired; the kind of tired that seeped past the bones and chilled the soul trapped beneath: the kind that stuck with you in your dreams and left you feeling hungover after a good night's sleep. The kind that took every bright spot, no matter how minuet or pure, and made sure to remind you just how fleeting that moment of pleasure was, and that everything was going to go back to being fucked the second it was over.

That cynicism had been birthed on that chaotic night in Atlanta when he'd thrown his entire life away for Nyx, nurtured with every setback since, and had grown into a truly impressive beast once it'd been given Night City's blood to gorge itself on. It'd grown fat in the dark ignored corners of Vex's mind, occasionally offering its words of wisdom, its empiricism, subtly influencing every decision Vex made.

He'd gotten pretty good at ignoring it. Nyx had always been the realist between the two of them, she fulfilled the role of the cynic with a natural grace. He'd adopted the persona of the dreamer in response to her dogged adherence to reality, and the two had flourished in their newfound symbiosis.

But now Nyx was gone, and as Vex finished explaining how they'd ended up here, he became all too aware of just how quiet his mind was. There was nothing there, no one to greet him, save for the reflection of his own thoughts and that constant, nagging roar of the tidal wave. He longed to give in to it, to find an alcove hidden away from the world and smother himself in his misery, scream until his throat bled and crash his fists into the wall until his knuckles shattered. He knew it would do him no good - he'd done it before, so many times, and only ever came out worse for it. At the end, he always had to gather himself, always had to pretend to be a person and face the world once until things felt semi-normal again. Nothing felt worse than that dissonance.

Lost in the depths of his mindscape, Vex lingered on the elevator.

There was one permanent solution. One that he'd considered more than he would ever admit, one that seemed slightly less unrealistic, just a modicum more reasonable, each time it slithered into his mind. Its horrifying visage greeted him like an old friend. Its voice was warm, and it promised him escape, reminded him just how much this meat prison he so boldly called a body hurt.

Looking at nothing, Vex reached instinctively for the vape pen in his pocket. It lit up for a moment uselessly as he brought it to his lips, the electronics within having been ruined with their dip into the lagoon. The runner snarled a curse under his breath as he tossed it frustratedly aside.

"I CAN HEAR YOUR HEARTBEAT FROM HERE." The voice made Vex jump. He was ripped from his own thoughts and found himself standing in an unfamiliar chamber. The runner glanced around confusedly, unsure as to the source. He paid half a mind to Wilma as she made her way to the shower, and even clothed as she was, Vex made a point to keep his back to her while she was in there.

"Thanks," he half-spoke to her, half-panickily glanced around the room.

"SOFT PARTS WRAPPED IN STEEL, PRETENDING NOT TO ROT." The voice boomed. Vex whirled on it, his lips pressing into a thin line as he eyed the chrome chimaera.

The solo approached on shaky legs; Nyx's drone still held firmly beneath his arm. "I can feel this body dying all around me with every breath," he replied with uncharacteristic fatalism as he placed his free hand over the carbon that kissed his ribcage. He felt the dull thump of the synthetic heart beneath and winced. "No pretending here, machine. Rotting, sure, but honest." He spoke as much to BRICK as he did to the demon stalking his thoughts.

 

[Wilma F. Darcy]

Tag: @Vex Kiranova
Vibe: Spectre By Radiohead

Patter, patter, patter. It was the water meeting her skull, but it felt like bombs falling from the sky. Then it didn't feel like anything at all. Her thoughts were a glitching static. Wilma was so far out, she couldn't tell if her eyes were open; status alerts she was unable to comprehend flashed on her HUD. She took a deep breath and sighed, succumbing to the weight of her body and leaving the two crawlers to do their work.

It was that part of her mind she sought reclusion in—a borderless and infinite gridded cyberspace. Shimmering data was slowly building up walls around her as she lounged in a see-through chair. A cooler beside her stored beverages and an old TV set displayed her memories in front of her. There it was again, that horror from earlier. The distorted humanoid figure of the cyberpsycho had hunched over something, likely its prey, and was gawking at Wilma over its shoulder. She tried to switch the channel, but it only added a pink filter. Funny. She chuckled bitterly as the cyberpsycho revealed rows of sharp teeth twisting in a haunting grin. Wilma sipped from her can. The liquid was cold, but the dream didn't let her taste anything. She pursed her lips and stared back testily at the flickering image on the TV set. It made her skin crawl, unrelated to the actual tiny drones who kept themselves busy with mending her flesh in the present moment.

"HONEST." B.R.I.C.K. let the word settle, testing its shape in his iron throat. "YOU CALL IT THAT. LIKE DECAY IS A VIRTUE, LIKE FALLING APART MEANS SOMETHING IF YOU ADMIT IT."

His body remained still. Occasionally a wild, winding, alarming sound would break the silence and indicate a mechanical life behind the immobile chassis. "HUMANS LIE EVEN WHEN THEY DON'T MEAN TO. YOUR FLESH IS BUILT TO FAIL, AND YOUR MIND TO DENY IT." A beat. A low mechanical exhale sounded like a slow-turning engine. "I AM BEING BUILT TO EXCEL." Machines can't gloat, but this one just did.

Without warning, Wilma threw the empty can at the TV set. The neon walls had risen halfway in an upward waterfall of shimmer. The screen buzzed and lines of broken imagery erased the cyberpsycho. Now an old movie was playing—something mindless to focus her mind on, she hoped. But the black and white characters were junkies, meth dealers, booster gangs. The girl stirred uncomfortably in her chair. This is getting old. She changed the channel. A Magic 8 Ball was spinning slowly, a text surfaced in its triangle:

"Outlook not so good." Wilma rolled her eyes and pressed the remote's channel switch intently, but it didn't budge. The liquid in the 8 Ball swirled again, "Thinking is just another subroutine."

Wilma sighed frustratedly and slouched in her chair, arm propping her head. She had grown bored of those countless conversations. "If that were true, you'd be smarter."

"A machine that thinks it's free is just running a more convincing script," It replied simply, but the girl picked up on its provoking intent.

"YOU CALL ROT 'HONEST'. IT WILL BE THE LAST LIE YOU'LL EVER TELL YOURSELF." B.R.I.C.K.'s massive frame creaked as he shifted slightly, just enough to make the space between him and Vex feel smaller. He had no head, just a torso which served as both. Upon closer inspection, Vex would notice B.R.I.C.K.'s optics were a discreet thin line, stretching across the border of the dumpster body. They weren't like human eyes—evident when they were focusing on someone, but in B.R.I.C.K.'s case, one could tell when they were being observed by him.

"SO TELL ME, ANIMAL. WHEN YOUR SOFT PARTS FAIL YOU FOR THE LAST TIME—WHEN THE ROT WINS—DO YOU WANT TO BE REBUILT?"

"...And a human who thinks they're trapped is just making excuses," she replied off-handedly to the Magic 8 Ball, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. "You'll have to try harder if you wanna psych me out."

The letters changed one by one like binary numbers replacing a previous line, "Yet you still flinch when memories of the past creep up on you."

Wilma stopped like a still frame and cocked an eyebrow, "You're reaching," she muttered.

"I don't need to." The walls of the cyberspace had now risen to the heights of skyscrapers, but they were so far away. They kept Wilma safe, she thought.

"Conversation's over."

She closed her eyes, ignoring the Magic 8 Ball, but not before catching one final flicker of text."Then why are you still here?"

The water streamed Wilma's already smeared makeup down her face like black tears. She seemed to have fallen asleep, breathing ever so slightly. Over at the main workbench, where unfinished projects lay among scrap parts, a soft ding came from a computer. It was a message from Gunner. These had actually been piling up the entire time Vex had been here, but only now would he notice them.

If he were to open them, they would read:
---
1 New Message from: Gunner
Gunner: I trust you're not wasting the night. [Sent two days ago; 23:07]
---
2 New Messages from: Gunner
Gunner: Your silence speaks volumes.
Gunner: Should I be impressed or concerned? [Sent yesterday; 16:53]
---
4 New Messages from: Gunner
Gunner: Wilma.
Gunner: If you've found something more interesting than making money, I'd love to hear it.
Gunner: Or should I assume you're bleeding out in some back alley?
Gunner: Reply. [Sent yesterday; 21:11]
---
6 New Messages from: Gunner
Gunner: Enough games.
Gunner: Where are you?
Gunner: Don't make me come looking.
Gunner: If you're dead, I'll be very disappointed.
Gunner: And if you're not, you'll wish you were.
Gunner: Wilma. [Sent today; 03:19]

​

​

​

 

[Vex Kiranova]

voobe​

Being verbally assaulted by an iron god was a strangely unhinged way to end this terrible day.

The grease that choked the gears of his mind boiled beneath the heat of the automaton's words. Some part of himself flickered to life, a defiant and angry self-righteousness that remained with him even now. He grasped for it with the desperation of a drowning man, and in that flare of anger he found a moment of clarity.

A coherence akin to an adrenaline rush made the quake in Vex's legs cease. He peered up at the chimaera, his Kiroshi sputtering random tidbits of data pertaining to the myriad parts that made up the iron beast. There was no rhyme or reason to his design, save for what seemed to be efficient and available. There was a style all its own in that: gutterrunner chic.

The runner stood his ground as the sentient box bore down on him. His jaw was set, his lips pressed into a tight frown, but he gave the creature the courtesy of holding his tongue until it had finished berating him for his inferior organic existence. Much of what it said was valid, and yet Vex, in his arrogance, had his own answers.

"No." The conviction came easy. "That sounds exhausting. Rather move on when the time comes. There's a Hell, and we're already in it. Only way left to go is up." Vex offered a weak shrug, like what he said was simple fact and the chimaera had no further grounds for debate.

"Besides you've already shown your logic to be inherently flawed." Exhausted, but very much keen on the debate. "Rot, - death, it's the most honest thing in the world. It's inevitable: inexcusable, unavoidable," he paused, his eyes darting up and down the Chimaera's form as if to emphasize its inclusion, "Equitable. You know what it is from the moment you form your first thought, even if you can't name it. You might lie to yourself about its nature, but it never will."

"And-" Vex stopped himself as he massaged a spot of pain that flared along his brow. "I'll explain to you the meaning of suffering... but I need a nap first." The runner held up a dismissive hand, and not awaiting another word, whirled about on wobbly limbs to find the hammock Wilma had mentioned.

He allowed himself a cursory glance in the makeshift shower's direction. Lacking Nyx's company entirely, Vex found Wilma's presence strangely comforting, for all the unfamiliarity that came with it. Here with her, and even with the chimaera, he felt safe, an exceedingly rare thing as of late.

Nyx's drone was set down gingerly alongside the clothesline. Vex managed to slide the hammock down with an embarrassing lack of grace, cursing and hissing under his breath all the while as he somehow managed to catch the hammock on the line repeatedly. Eventually he overcame the monumental task and was stripping out of his greatcoat when he heard the quiet ding of a computer. His eye darted toward the source, and curiosity quickly got the better of him as he glanced back to the shower to make sure Wilma hadn't moved. Satisfied that all was well, the runner crept over to the console,

Calloused fingers curled over the edge of the bench, golden eyes narrowing into pinpricks as his pulse quickened with the speed at which he read.

If you've found something more interesting than making money, I'd love to hear it.

Beads of sweat poked up at the back of Vex's neck. His whole body felt hot and cold at the same time, and he could feel his blood freeze as it rushed from his face. The brief ember of warmth that had soothed his soul was smothered as he felt paranoia's teeth scraping the bottom of his brain. They left little bloody marks in their wake, and as much as Vex wished it, he couldn't just ignore them.

He was vulnerable here. Utterly powerless, really. If she sicked the Chimaera on him, he was done. If this Gunner guy showed up? Done. She knew who was after him, what the stakes were. Any gonk with half a brain would gut him like a fish and ransom his neuroport at the least, abduct him and throw him on Militech's doorstep at the worst. The reward was tantalizing enough, but then there was simple survival to consider.

Having Vex here now put a target on her back. Gunner, whoever he was, wanted eddies, he was on his way, and she'd better have some for him soon. All the pieces fell into place: it all made perfect sense.

She'd brought him here to keep him helpless and cut the ripperdoc out of the deal. She'd tricked him into lowering his guard for a massive payday and played her part oh-so-well.

And then Vex scrolled through the messages again, and they read like a business partner expressing concern, not one looking for a payday. Not entirely anyway. There were no replies from Wilma. He couldn't imagine she would have been so foolish as to leave the computer open if she was plotting behind his back.

Vex felt his heart drop as he glanced back in Wilma's direction, then to his hand, and moreover, the pistol in it. He'd taken his .50 from his pocket without thinking, and his thumb was lingering over the safety. A guilt-ridden scowl marred his visage as he stowed the weapon, scrolled the messages so that they appeared unread, and slowly returned to the hammock.

He wordlessly cast his shirt and boots to the floor, pulled himself up tight into the hammock, drew his coat over him to serve as a blanket, and squeezed his eyes shut. He stewed there for a few moments, wondering if he really would have walked over and shot her in the back had he not paused to reconsider. That brashness, that callousness, it was unlike him. The cognitive dissonance it stirred within him was too much for his psyche to deal with, and his body succumbed to its exhaustion.

@Wilma F. Darcy

 

[Wilma F. Darcy]

Tag: @Vex Kiranova
Vibe: Locrian Dominant - Aloboi

The water pouring from the exposed pipe had gone cold long ago. Wilma's body lay immobile in miserable defeat and deep slumber under the numbing stream. Her weapons had been scattered on the way to the shower, depicting the last moments of cognitive coherence. Her head was slumped against her drooping shoulder and her hands laid heavily on either side, palms facing up. Had Vex's conscience not interfered, killing Wilma wouldn't have posed a challenge at all. But there was another variable in the equation.

B.R.I.C.K.'s optics followed every move Vex made. From his hammock to the workbench where Wilma's laptop rested open, to the reaching for the gun, then back to the hammock. The lines of code in his computer module attempted to reason and juxtaposed every logged action of the subject, guest, intruder.

//Target engaging with private property.

//Unauthorized access detected with undefined intent.

Then, B.R.I.C.K. saw Vex reach for the gun. Every shift of weight, every twitch of muscle. The heat signatures of his body fluctuated and revealed an erratic pulse. Blood loss was estimated at [Moderate]. Safety was not yet off, but the tension in his forearm suggested intent. B.R.I.C.K. assessed the risk.

//Target has drawn weapon.

//Define threat: Unknown human target severely wounded. Likelihood of effective assault: 88%.
//Define threat: Drone of unknown origin. Currently appearing inactive.
//Define victim: Wilma Franco Darcy.
//Status: Unconscious. Vulnerable.
//Violence is a last resort.
//Cross-referencing previous directives...

B.R.I.C.K.'s targeting systems scanned for structural weaknesses in the human frame—center mass, femoral artery, cervical spine. His machine-gun arm was unreliable. Last field test showed erratic firing patterns and sputtering. Power fist at 73% efficiency—limited side-to-side rotation and phalanx mobility but sufficient for a single, decisive strike. The data remained incomplete. Unknown parameters. Vex's place in Wilma's hierarchy was undefined. No recorded hostility. No directive to protect her from him. Not yet. B.R.I.C.K. didn't possess impulse. Things were black and white for him. He just needed the necessary amount of data on which to act upon. His interface remained at one idly flashing line at the end of the code.

//No standing directive to neutralise subject.

If Vex had so much as twitched toward the safety—if his pulse had spiked, if his muscles had coiled the wrong way—B.R.I.C.K. would have reacted. Immediately. His silent frame worked to his advantage, blending him with the mechanical background of Wilma's basement. Not even a whir of servos had piped up, careful not to alert the unknown target, which eventually reconsidered.

Vex returned to the hammock, preparing to sleep. B.R.I.C.K.'s newfound priority was not letting him out of his sight, not even for a second. He logged the report of the occurrence and pinged it to Wilma, even though he was aware she wouldn't see it.
...

It had been six hours since the newfound duo had turned in for the night. The room quietly buzzed with the sound of various electronics. It was the most amount of comfort Vex and Wilma would have experienced since their encounter had they been mentally present for any of it. Skipper and Terrance were charging on their stations, still battered. The tiny mending drones had retreated to their stations, drying off after working so earnestly on patching Wilma up. It was barely any life-saving work, but it was enough to clear any potential infections. Pain was certain to be present in the morning.

Something echoed up the elevator shaft. The thin, long slit in which B.R.I.C.K.'s optics were based directed its attention to the source of the sound. Someone was entering. Then, the freight elevator creaked in a loud protest. The grates shuttered as its cage ascended. Someone was calling it up. The echo from above relayed pairs of boots entering the elevator's cage, yet no one spoke. And now the elevator was coming back down, just as loudly.

B.R.I.C.K.'s lines of code began to reason. The only people with knowledge of her basement were established. The only people with access were trusted. B.R.I.C.K. connected to the local network and checked the data from the elevator. It was not hacked; it was called via chip. Gunner.

Upon landing, a man stepped off the elevator with purpose. His head was hung low and his predatory cybereyes searched under brows and locked on their target: Wilma.

This was all the confirmation B.R.I.C.K. needed. He wasted no time unhooking from the charging station in a loud whir of servos, and his frame came to life in janky motion. A mechanical groan reverberated through the hideout, followed by the unmistakable sound of a machine gun locking into place. His barrel turned toward Vex. The gun was no more reliable than it had been earlier, but B.R.I.C.K. committed to intimidation more than intending to use it.

Behind Gunner, two figures sprouted into action. The first one was a boisterous, lanky, and unkempt man, somewhere in his thirties. His springy step squeaked with cyberware. He vaulted across the workbench, mindless of Wilma's projects which fell to the ground. He pushed past B.R.I.C.K. and tore Vex's coat away from him in one flourishing, violent action. Without waiting to see his reaction, he moved in close, a pistol in hand, and attempted to shove it in Vex's mouth as he grabbed him by the throat.

That was Jackal. Behind him walked a tall, bulky woman whom B.R.I.C.K. recognised as Ronan. She moved without rush and seemed to be picking up on the environment, scanning for threats or clues. Her weapon remained holstered. She stopped to inspect the skull that remained on Wilma's bench—Nyx—then set it back down without saying a word.

From a distance, Wilma looked dead. Like a homing missile—a shark in pursuit of its prey—Gunner cut across the room, stopping the running water. Wilma sat slumped against the wall, drenched and breathing slow. His fingers were already pressing against her throat and feeling a steady pulse. He exhaled, then gripped her shoulder. "Wilma." His voice was flat, but there was an edge to it. "Wake up."

Jackal whistled low and trilled with glee. "Hoo boy, looks like somebody's got a target painted on their ass." His grip was solid, but his focus flickered back toward the shower. "Hey, princess," he called over, teasing, "You done playin' corpse in there, or should we tuck you in too?" he split a shit-eating grin inches away from Vex's face. He had so many cybereyes, all darting neurotically in various directions. And his breath stinked.

Gunner, ignoring the noise, tapped Wilma's cheek with just enough pressure to pull her back. "Wilma," he said again, quieter now. He looked over his shoulder and his predatory face looked like it had frozen in a frame of severity. He nodded at Ronan who in turn handed him a syringe. He leaned Wilma's limp body forward, against his shoulder, and pulled down the side of her pants enough to reveal the skin over her Gluteus Medius where he stabbed the shot of adrenaline.

Whatever nerve it hit, it made Wilma jolt. Gunner withdrew the syringe and Wilma pushed herself off of him, a frightened look on her face. All the stiffness in her body seemingly dissolved and her chest rose and fell with confusion and anxiety as she met Gunner's steely, judging eyes. He clenched his jaw and a brief twitch of his mouth betrayed the imminent slap that seared Wilma's cheek. Her head whipped silently and she pursed her lips, looking away. She swallowed hard, then looked over to where Vex lay cornered. She meant to speak, but Gunner cut her off. He nodded at Ronan, who seemed to understand what he meant. She walked over to Wilma and hunched over, hoisting her weak frame over her shoulder and pulling her to her feet.

Wilma was too tired to be embarrassed, but she knew she was in trouble. She knew better than to push Gunner's buttons. She didn't even respond to Jackal's provoking quips. She stared at her hands as Ronan helped her out of her wet clothes and into clean, dry ones. For someone as abrasive and unrefined as Ronan, she was surprisingly gentle with Wilma.

While the two were busy, Gunner had turned to Vex. He cut the distance short and yanked Jackal away and, along with him, the gun that was lodged in Vex's mouth. B.R.I.C.K. understood to lower his arm, too. As Jackal stumbled back laughing, Gunner filled the space he left, now standing over the solo. His cybereyes bore down on him. He didn't speak right away, letting Vex sit with the reality of his position.

The man standing before him wore a nice three-piece suit and an overcoat. He had a buzzcut and a clean-shaven face split in two by a jagged scar that went over his unblinking cybereyes. Without the scar and mods, Gunner might have been considered disarmingly charming; with them, his scowl was a permanent mix of blank disdain and murderous intent.

For a moment, the only sound in the basement was B.R.I.C.K.'s reverberating steps as he hooked himself back into the charging station. Gunner rubbed his chin as if inspecting a piece of merchandise for defects, then finally spoke, "You're breathing. So you have some explaining to do." His tone was like a vice tightening, giving Vex just enough room to decide whether to resist or fold. Gunner turned his back and leaned against the hammock, swaying it ever so slightly. He didn't touch Vex but left the weight of his scrutiny speak the unspoken.

"I don't like unknowns." He tilted his head. "And I don't tolerate liabilities." Another beat passed. "Tell me," he continued with a low voice, almost curious, "which one are you?"

Everyone in the room was frozen still, looking at the beaten man in the hammock. Only Gunner stared back at Wilma. The tension had swelled to the ceiling, suffocating every molecule of breathable air. The climax—whether the atom would split in two and nuclear fission would demolish the space—depended entirely on Vex's next words.

 

[Vex Kiranova]

Death would have been sweeter.

The limbo between consciousness and desolation was a hell of his own making. His decaying brain begged for sleep, and his body denied it with a sadistic glee. His soul surged between warring despair, contentment, and indignation, none of which could gain more than a foothold over his heart. It was an uneasy tripolarity that bid his body into constant anxious alertness, even as it melted his perceptions into smeared color and garbled half-registered noises. The waking dream clawed at the corners of his mind and thick bouts of necrotic sludge poured out from the weeping canyons carved into his psyche.

It enveloped him, as entropy always had and always would. It was the sole truth he could discern amidst the shadow and the rot: an ugly promise and constant companion from the moment the neurons trapped in his skull had dared to form a thought. Life in itself was hubris: existence a monument to all creation's arrogance. The meat that made him existed solely because it demanded that it did so. Entropy, the one incontestable truth, that which had been and would remain, only smiled knowingly.

Everything would end, and he would suffer before it did. They all would.

And they lied. To themselves, to one another: they spat their certainty in entropy's face and grinned at it like their delusion was the word of God. He lied too. Sometimes it seemed like all he ever did was lie. A trillion truths watched him curiously from their parapets amidst the sludge-sea. When he looked upon them, the masses of ever-shifting emotion and coiling nostalgia, he saw his children, and they grew uglier and more deformed with each shuddering of his tar-choked lungs. Every one of them he had desired, planned, cultivated. Most of them, perhaps all of them, falsehoods.

Poorer foundations had built greater men, he'd rationalized. Entropy's grin had widened then.

His body twisted and rolled pointlessly. He found no purchase in the rot, and the many truths were multiplying into an innumerable legion. They pressed in on him, strangled the already choking waters until he felt their coiling forms crushing his body. His lips parted to scream, but the sludge crushed into his lungs stifled his last means of resistance. The trillion truths coiled into him, hooked into his flesh, and twisted. There was no pain as the pieces of him were ripped apart and incorporated into the mass of emotion. They'd been artificial too - masks upon masks upon masks glued and rotted together for so long and to such an extent that whatever lay beneath initially had long become one with the abomination.

There was no part of him that was real, save for the lie. The arrogance for which all beings were damned, from which some lingering part of Carter's sanity surmised sin bore its origin, was all he really understood. There was no alternative to it save for death, and the meat would not allow that.

The only winning move is not to play, but then I still lose.

Awareness was insanity. To understand was to understand how little one could understand. To know was to acknowledge the futility. To acknowledge was nihilism, and there too was death. Better then to deny, and to lie. To kill, eat, drink, fuck, use, conquer, take: to indulge in the eternal grand distraction that had intoxicated all men for all time. It was the only coping mechanism they understood - separated from God, man would inevitably seek to aggrandize himself and become Him, for only the all-powerful can deny the all-powerful.

The conflicting truths that were Vex ruminated on this revelation with the same self-importance they had the last few dozen times it'd been revealed to them. It felt so right, and it was for that very reason that he was skeptical. Without faith, entropy remained the only inviolate truth.

What then? He'd come to this conundrum before many times, and each time he came away from it feeling slightly less certain, just the least bit more shaken. Morality's chains, sentiments which he both loved and bore some degree of bitterness, forbid him from fully indulging the lie, and yet so many others did. Their sins had piled into the concrete mountains of Night City's skyline, and he was hopelessly trapped between them. He strived, suffered, bore his wounds, and found no relief. He simultaneously craved a reward and despised himself for feeling he was owed anything at all.

Being a good person should be good enough, but there has to be something more than just surviving. Why am I falling apart when monsters live like kings?

Envy is disgusting.

I'm smarter than them. Kinder than them. Better than them.

I'm disgusting.

The trillion truths nodded sagely. Carter breathed a silent sigh as the tar boiled up from his lungs. He felt his heart harden like a stone as he stewed in acceptance, his form restored, the truths whirling back into their dance of nothing. A familiar mask floated in front of him. Its single angry orange eye stared at him intently.

The sludge moved with the ease of running water as Carter donned Vex's mask. The storm brewing within and around him deadened, and a sharp jerk tore him from the dream.

The first thing he registered was how cold he was. He felt the draft whistling across his bare chest and suppressed a shiver. His 'ganic eye fluttered disorientedly as he tried to peer up at the mass of glowing eyes peering down at him.

There was pain and pressure at his throat, and then panicked fury as a sidearm was forced past his teeth. The existentialism that had gripped his unconscious mind was cast aside in favor of the demands of the material, of the flesh, and in doing so, Vex indulged the lie.

He sent a verbal command to Nyx for a scrap-code assault on the eye-thing and was left furious as he was reintroduced with her absence. He stewed for a moment, eyes darting over to Wilma and the big man before returning to the eye-thing. Its breath made his stomach turn, and it mentioned something about a target on his back. He silently debated whether living another few seconds was worth the indignity of his current predicament, and decided on the latter.

Vex was just about to kick the cretin in the balls when the big man came lumbering over and pulled him back. The runner blinked, exhaustion and adrenaline intermingling to make him a wide-eyed mess the big one loomed over him.

"Neither." His voice was hoarse and deep from his slumber. "I saved her life, she saved mine." Short and insufficient, but he was just sleepy and groggy enough to pay the severity of his situation no mind. "And if that bug-eyed fuck comes near me again, I'll paint the walls with his brains." He glared murder at Jackal from the edge of the hammock.

Pain thundered at Vex's temple like a staccato of nails. He reached to try to rub the building headache out of his skull, and silently wished Gunner would grant him some personal space. "Doc checked her. She's okay." The runner's brow furrowed as he glanced over toward Wilma again, a mote of concern flashing across his features despite his displeasure. "She is okay, right?'

@Wilma F. Darcy

 

[Wilma F. Darcy]

Tag: @Vex Kiranova
Vibe: Lost Bitches - Coconut

Jackal howled at the amusing threats Vex aired out. "They saved each other's lives! How touching!" He clasped his hands together in mock sympathy. "Why didn't you tell us about your new boyfriend, Wilma? Chum sounds like a hoot!" Jackal cackled and slapped his knee. "Paint the walls with my brains? Kid, I'd love to see ya try—hell, I'd even help ya load the brush!" His wheeze evolved into a fit as he ran out of air, pointing his thumb at Vex and looking over Ronan to see if she was laughing too. She wasn't.

Gunner's eyes were still set on Wilma, who in turn was looking down at the dry blood stuck under her nails. She couldn't tell if it was hers or Vex's. "Shut up, Jackal." He said coldly. Then, in a flash, the humor drained from Jackal's face like someone yanked the plug. His grin remained, but it was hollow now, like a dead thing forced into the shape of amusement.

"Neither." Gunner's voice echoed smoothly like a razor slipping beneath silk. He sighed, then looked at his feet before looking back at Wilma. It wasn't clear who he was talking to—Vex or her. He pushed away from the hammock and put his hands in his pockets, his motion leaving it to sway with Vex still inside. He slowly prowled around the room.

"At precisely 7:03 PM yesterday evening, a heavily guarded cargo train departed its scheduled route along the regional supply chain, en route to Night City. Manifest listed high-value cyberware—prototype augmentations, some experimental, all priceless to the right buyer." He stopped in front of B.R.I.C.K., who stood expressionless in his frame, and admired him. Even next to his dominating build, Gunner appeared taller. "For that reason, security was tight. Twelve corporate enforcers on board. At least twice that number waiting at the receiving dock. But the train never arrived." He continued pacing methodically.

"At 7:47 PM it was derailed just above the Laguna Bend Reservoir. External breach, explosive shell rounds blasting through the between-compartment door. Firefight followed." Gunner crouched by Wilma's discarded shotgun, picked it up with one hand, the other remaining in his pocket, and leaned the weapon against the wall. "One Militech AV was torn down responding to the emergency call. Witness reports conflict, but the pieces fit together: a cyberpsycho was loose on board, already pre-augmented, already armed." He exhaled slowly.

"The missing cargo?" Jackal was leaning his back against the table, toying with some of Wilma's gadgetry, when he realised Gunner was towering over him. He straightened up awkwardly, then scampered out of the way. Gunner rested his hand on the smuggled Zetatech crate left there by Wilma's drones as his fingers brushed along and traced the indentations left from the rough handling. He looked up at the girl, bearing a serious look—one that advised her not to test him. "High-end cyberware—prototype augmentations." He quoted the report once more. "As for the casualties? Still being counted. Militech scrub teams are on-site, but recovery has been slow. Scorched bodies, scattered remains. Corpses that don't match any listed personnel. Some were crew. Some were guards. Some? Unidentified."

Wilma shifted uncomfortably. Her brain was fighting an internal battle. Flashes of that cyberpsycho back in the train car, Vex jumping in time to take the blow. The stench of that beast felt like it had soaked into her skin. She just now picked up on Ronan's nasty sneer. Even Jackal had set aside whatever discarded gadgets he was fidgeting with. For once, he kept his mouth shut.

"The culprits, however—" Gunner tilted his head. "A man and a young female. No confirmed IDs. No known affiliations. Just two ghosts, accompanied by five rogue drones." He held his eyes on Wilma, waiting to see if she'd meet his gaze.

When she wouldn't look at him, he disappointedly turned to face Vex and rested his hands on the laundry line, leaning directly above him. A small shimmer gleamed off his skin and told Vex that Gunner was coated in the highest tier shield implant available on the market. "Neither." Gunner repeated again, letting the word fill the cramped space between him and Vex. Up close, the scar across his face looked especially gnarly. "That's what you're going with?"

Wilma's eyes were shifting frantically before her, as if looking for a physical answer. She bit her lip, then her face scrunched up with anger. There were buttons to press. She took a small breath. "Liability." She finally found her voice.

Gunner's grip tightened just enough for the laundry line's synthetic fabric to creak under pressure. He turned around once more, and the two finally met gazes. Wilma's muscles relaxed and she chuckled softly, brushing a wet strand of hair aside.

"Culprits…" a trace of smugness in her tone, sharpened by exhaustion. She pushed off her mattress and felt the adrenaline wearing off. Her body felt like sludge as she closed the distance between her and Gunner. "Makes you wonder if I'm slipping." She twirled a pointed finger at her temple, sounding bitter. She could feel Jackal's stare on her, hungry for the drama and teetering on the edge of his seat, but she ignored him. "I was playing the long game. For you." Gunner cocked an eyebrow.

The silence in the room thickened. She felt Ronan's stare drilling into her temple, and she knew Gunner was waiting for an explanation that wouldn't make him more irritated than he already was. She jerked her head at Vex. "Carter Kiranova. Former Militech engineer. Fired from his post. You can bond over your comically similar jaded pasts." she grinned in glee. Gunner's annoyed expression told her she had pressed a button.

"And most importantly—" Wilma spoke with newfound mischief in her tone, as she was about to reveal the sweetest part. She walked over to her workbench and grabbed a loose rag to wipe her hands, "—he swiped a top-secret asset he built right from under Militech's nose." She flicked the rag into Jackal's face and picked up Nyx who had been resting idly on the table, likely unaware of her importance at the present moment.

"They want it back bad enough to put his name on every blacklist from here to the other end of the New United States." She stared into the skull's empty eye sockets. A teeny twang of guilt pulled at Wilma's heartstrings as she remembered how Nyx patched her up back in the car. Then she dismissed it. "A clean ten thousand eddies for anyone who can merely point them in the right direction. Something called the N.A.P.O.L.E.O.N project… Top secret…" She raised her brows, sarcastically impressed and exaggerated the last part as if it were some mystery from a fairy tale. She shot a sly look at Gunner, taking the moment to study him and see if he was proud of her.

He had listened closely to her uncharacteristic monologue and seemed to think through every word that had come out of her. He cracked an ever-so-slight smile which was hard to read when paired along with his soulless stare. Wilma's mouth suddenly felt parched from talking so much. She took an innocent step closer to Gunner and handed him Nyx, twisting her hands anxiously, almost like a kid.

"So I gift-wrapped him for you. Forgot the ribbon, though." She giggled, then twirled on the balls of her heels, going back to sit on the edge of her workbench, picking up some of the scattered parts which Jackal had knocked down earlier. She gave him the bird. Jackal sneered back at her.

Gunner stared at the ground before him, examining Nyx, as he considered everything Wilma had just told him. He nodded a few times as the gears turned at the back of his mind.

"Give me one good reason not to turn you in, Kiranova," Gunner said simply. There was no need for theatrics, the cards were on the table. "And don't try to be smart with me this time." What he left unsaid was the implication that he was smarter.

...

​

 

[Vex Kiranova]

vob

Murder bubbled up from the battered ridges of Vex's brain. The desire, so primal and perfect, made his body quake with an intermingling of anticipation and rage. If looks could kill, then Jackal would be a red stain on the workbenches. It was an overblown reaction, but Vex was tired, and Jackal was pushing things. The runner's nose scrunched up with displeasure and his lips parted to bark a retort before the steady rumble of Gunner's voice stilled him to silence.

The strange giant recounted their escapades and Vex just nodded and shrugged along. He only had a moment of pause when the casualties were mentioned. A brief flicker of mangled bodies flashed across his mind's eye, one he willfully dismissed. None of that was his fault. As far as he was concerned, things would have gone quietly and smoothly save for a few hiccups. The train would have derailed with or without his being there, and the psycho's escape most certainly would have followed. He might have been concerned with the ease that he justified himself if he had the patience for proper self-reflection, but that was another part of himself he'd left in Atlanta.

"It's-" Wilma beat him to the response.

Vex's eye went wide. He cocked his head to the side, his expression shifting as warring emotions fought for prominence. Those emotions grew all the more intense as she continued, and it was a testament to Vex's self-control that he kept his mouth shut. By the time she mentioned his being a 'gift', his lips were pulling back in an involuntary snarl. The sludge that had drowned his thoughts evaporated beneath the heat of his outrage. The excited shiver had left him now, replaced by certain, steady intent.

He should have expected as much. His eyes never left Wilma, never blinked until she'd finished her piece. His expression morphed from shock, momentary hurt, mounting rage, and then placidified into quiet contempt. He physically leaned back from her, jut his chin up, and stared down at her from the bottom of his eyes, a twitch of disgust pulling at the top of his lip as Gunner spoke again. Vex was listening, but he wasn't looking.

He wasn't going to grovel for his life either.

"Be a pretty gonk move," he growled, all teeth. "They'll kill me, sure. Rip Nyx out of my skull. You'll get your eddies," the snarl warped into a self-assured grin as a bloodthirsty chuckle wracked his mangled body. "Maybe get to enjoy them for a few months, but they'll come for you too. Right now, your ties to me are thin at best. Hard to perceive. Turn me in, and they're long, thick, and bloody loose ends."

He placed his palms on his knees and leaned toward Gunner, finally tearing his eyes off of Wilma. "She already told you more than Militech would ever allow. She's killed you." He nodded pointedly toward Wilma, gleeful spite dripping from his voice like poison. "Or at least, she has if they know what you know, and if you turn me in, they will." His gaze fell toward Nyx, and he had to fight his instinct to jump up and liberate her from these thieves.

Thieves and traitors, all NC was. All this country was. He could play their games.

"Doesn't matter how well you play it, what kind of rapport you might think you have, how much you give them -- they'll kill each of you. Maybe not immediately after, maybe even years later, but they'll get you. They'll find you when you're taking a shit or having a drink, slit your throat or shoot you in the back. You'll never have a moment's peace for the rest of your lives. You're all liabilities now."

A pause. Vex sat up a bit straighter, "The only way you and your people survive this is if you leave, now, and hope no one tracked us here. Wilma's probably already fucked. I doubt that Ripperoc's going to have closed lips - bet he's talking to their dogs as we speak, if he hasn't already." he nodded in Gunner's direction, "You still have a chance. I'd advise for all our sakes you take it, and I wouldn't interpret that as killing me either. I guarantee you'll fuck it up and end up destroying Nyx's 'soft, and then they'll really be gunning for you. Only winning move's not to play."

@Wilma F. Darcy