Cyberpunk 2077: V

Chapter 56: Pressure

V decided to take the Orange out and about with her that day. The roar of the dual engine was aggressive white noise, drowning out the thoughts in her head. She felt off, though. Cold. Shaky. 

Finally uninterrupted, V was able to get to a local strip mall and pick up the few items from T-Bug's list. She chatted with the clerk at Stylishly for a few minutes, and on a spurt of inspiration, asked him if he knew Jeanie Jean. The guy lit up like a new taillight bulb and said he did—that she was a genius—and that he was glad at least one clothing designer was still out there doing it all "analog" after AI took over all design jobs. V agreed with him, then said her goodbyes. After a quick call with Bug to make sure that V had gotten the correct perfume and accessories, she got in the Orange, stuffed her bags in the glove box, and sat back in her seat, staring at the dashboard lights.

Coffee with Misty and Jackie hadn't helped. Somehow, V felt even worse than before. She kept thinking back to the shadow she'd seen pass behind Misty's eyes, and the darkness that curled up into Jackie's face. She hadn't physically seen those things—more like... felt them. "Saw" them, but not...

V shook her head. She couldn't make sense of it. She didn't WANT to make sense of it. She just wanted things to be normal again, so she could focus on the Big Gig and be ready to protect Jackie from whatever it was that was setting off her internal alarms.

She leaned forward and reached for the ignition. Turned the key. The engine kicked on with a roar. V leaned back.

THUNK-PEW!

V jumped in her seat when something shot through the driver's side door, perpendicular to her, rocketing through the interior and out the passenger side door. She stared at the hole—a small, perfectly round punch through the metal and orange and black leather. A bullet hole. If she hadn't sat back just that split second before, the bullet would have ripped through her torso.

Whipping her head to the left, V looked out over the parking lot toward the edge of the strip mall that faded into a tangle of abandoned buildings and sagging chain link fences. She saw two people standing down there, both facing an alleyway that disappeared into the shadow of one of the megabuildings. One of them was holding a gun. They looked like they were arguing, and one hit the other. Even from her distance, V could see they were wearing blue face screens—identity scramblers.

They were scavvers.

After the two argued briefly, they moved into the alley, disappearing from V's sight.

"What the hell?" V muttered out loud, anger rising in her chest. The gonks had just shot her car and nearly killed her and were moving on like nothing happened? And just what were scavvers doing all the way out here, in broad daylight? Something was up.

V quickly and quietly got out of her car, brushing her fingers over the bullet hole in the door with a frown, then crouched and sped over toward the alleyway entrance. As she darted across cracked synthcrete and dead grass, she could hear voices.

"Fuckin' gonk, knew I shouldn't have let you bring your piece, especially with how high you are. Why'd ya have to go and shoot that damn car too?"

"It was too orange! I hate orange, it's obnoxious—hope whatever fucker owns that thing bleeds out good in there."

V grit her teeth, and anger surged into her throat. She slipped silently to the edge of the alleyway, glancing over into an adjoining patch of dried grass to a barely drivable heap parked there. The scavvers' ride.

"It was stupid!" the original voice continued. "We're lucky it's a slow day over here, otherwise we'd have the badges on our ass and we'd be takin' nothin'! Next time I'm just gonna leave you at the den."