Cyberpunk 2077: V

Prologue: Chapter 7 - The Ties That Bind

V just...didn't go back that night. Instead, she held Jake until he stopped mumbling and twitching. She felt the heat leaving him, his fever dropping slightly, and when she laid him back down on the measly pillow and threadbare blanket, his breath was slow and steady. V slid the blanket over him and laid some of her clothes on top of him as well for extra warmth. Then she picked up her revolver, slid it into the waistband of her cargo pants, and walked into the night.

There was a plant that grew in the shade out in the desert. It was a strange plant, and by all accounts shouldn't have existed; but it did. And V was glad it did. She didn't know the name of it, only that whenever the clan came across them, they'd harvest the liquid from the plants and use it as shampoo, soap, and laundry detergent. V scouted around the edge of the plateau, using the moonlight as her guide, seeing if on the off chance any of the strange flowers were there. To her surprise, she found one. It only had two of the tell-tale red and orange cones bobbing in the breeze, but they were rather large. The stalk of the plant was nearly bending with the weight of them. V's spirit lifted a little more, because when these plants were found, it also meant that there was water, actual fresh water, in the area.

Bonnie, one of the clan members who had done a bit of farming back in the day, had once told the clan that she had no idea how such a plant was growing where they found them. She said it was some sort of hybrid left over from corpo's tampering with Nature. That was enough to make the clan wary of the plant after that, but being the only natural source of a cleaning agent, they swallowed their pride. 

After collecting as much of the liquid as she could in a spare jar she kept in the Galena, V searched for the potential water source. As if by another miracle, as she stumbled over some rocks in the harsh shadows cast by the moon, she suddenly heard what sounded like trickling water. Moving quickly towards the source of the noise, V was able to sort through piles of rock until she came face to face with an underground stream. Staring down at it from a roughly six foot height, V looked up at the sky and thanked whatever higher power existed. Everything was falling into place for her; she really was doing the right thing, if everything she needed was right here.

V used a rope to lower her water jugs into the stream, then dragged them back up to the cave to start cleaning. Her plastic tarp came out to keep the water and plant juice together as she soaked Jake's uniform and scrubbed at it with a piece of soft sandstone. The armor pieces would be heavily scuffed, and the fabric probably thinned a bit, but this clothing was thick and well made; it would withstand a little bit of Nomad cleaning. After rinsing Jake's uniform as best she could, she draped it over a thick, stubby tree to air dry. She was pleased with the result of her work; the uniform smelled of ginger and raspberry instead of blood and urine.

The cot got the same once over, followed by the floor under where the cot had been originally. V then ventured out again to find sticks, yucca fiber, dried wood, and stones, and brought them into the cave. There she set up a couple of drying racks for the coyote pelt and some strips of jerky. Then she started a fire, focusing on a controlled burn to produce a lot of embers. The broth packs were aluminum, so using her knife she cut open the empty ones and slid coyote meat in them, folding them back up and burying them in the embers when they were cool enough. 

By now the water jugs were empty and she was out of the flower juice; but everything was clean and set up. And smelled pretty. V was sure she didn't though, with everything that had been going on. As she poured out the dirty water and shook out the tarp, she wondered why she suddenly cared about that? Never had before.

Jake slept through the night, peacefully it seemed, with V sitting guard by the mouth of the cave, playing with a smooth black rock she'd found lying on the path. She fiddled with it, rolling it around the pads of her fingers in the same way the thoughts rolled around in her head.