Chapter Text
For all its renown back in the day, Club Atlantis was a bitch to find. Nestled in between run down buildings and with the sign barely clinging to life, V walked passed it three times before she finally spotted it. The entire thing was boarded up, corrugated metal sheets blocking up every conceivable entrance.
“What the fuck?” Johnny whispered as he materialised beside her. She glanced at him and saw perhaps the most complicated array of emotions across his face as he looked up at the filth clinging to the building. “V…”
“I knew you missed it,” she said. “We’re still waiting on Regina for news on that Cyberpsycho so I thought…” She shrugged. There was a rare genuine smile on his face as he tilted his head back to look at her. “Don’t read too much into it,” she said.
He raised both hands. “Alright, whatever. We gonna just stand here admirin’ the mould or are we headin’ in?”
As the life of various city fungi had never been one of her interestes, even as a strange child, V opted to instead break open the front door. Wasn’t particularly difficult, from her research she’d found that no one technically owned the club and it had been swept up into miscellaneous Night City assets. There was no fancy security systems or even that good of a lock. Within moments the door was opened.
Clearly someone had been in here before her as the entire place was trashed. Graffiti covered half the walls and broken glass carpeted the floor, crunching beneath her boots. Beneath the ruin there was still hints of what had once been there. Tables with abandoned playing cards, back rooms with their doors hanging open, a long bar like the one at the Afterlife, still with a few intact bottles of ages old alcohol cloistered away in a few of the cupboards.
In almost complete silence, she and Johnny explored the place. His memories fluttered just beneath her thoughts, visualised as ghost like flickers in the corner of her eye. There was him with his legs sprawled across Rogue’s lap, boasting to faceless figures. Him and Spider Murphy doing shots at the bar. Andrew Weyland bursting in through the doors, pursued by hapless corpo goons who soon found and entire bar’s worth of patrons with iron in their faces.
“You were happy,” she whispered and he laughed dully.
“Dunno if that word applies to someone like me,” he said. “But sure.” He was at the bar, perched on one of the few unbroken stools and there was a ghost sitting next to him. It was the only way that V could think to describe it. Unlike the other memories which were fuzzy but distinct, this was just a sillhouette, the face scratchy lines of static. Johnny stared at the place where it sat, a look of concentration on his face. Needles of pain stabbed through V’s head and she hissed. When she looked back up, the ghost was gone.
“What was-” she began.
Johnny cut her off, pointing at the intact bottles. “Get some tequila,” he said. “Then some cherry vodka and gin.” After a moment’s hesitation, she hopped over the bar and grabbed them. The gin was barely more than dregs but the tequila and vodka still had a surprising amount left. At his instruction, she poured the required amounts into a shot glass then waited as he scowled at the ruined bar.
“What? Surprised they ain’t got cherries?” she teased.
“Probably got some rotting somewhere,” he grumbled then huffed a sigh. “This’ll have to do. Drink it for me will ya?”
Rolling her eyes, she knocked it back then immediately pulled a face. “Don’t drink random booze that’s been sitting around for fifty years. New rule. New very important rule.”
Johnny didn’t appear to be listening. “You know we joked about having drinks for all of us,” he said. “Before Afterlife. I didn’t know whether to be shocked or happy when I realised Rogue actually went ahead with it.”
“I don’t think this one’s on the menu,” V said, peering into the now empty glass. “Who was it?”
For whatever reason, Johnny seemed to be having difficulty answering. He looked back at the space where the ghost had been then hung his head in an uncharacteristic display of… defeat?
“Morgan’s,” he said at last. “Morgan Blackhand.”
“You knew him.”
“Once.” His voice was so quiet but in this lonely place it was magnified. “I know I knew him but whenever I try and get any specifics just… poof.” He spread his fingers through the air. “Fucking confetti.”
Leaning against the bar, V chewed on her lip for a moment, her fingers tap-tapping a familiar beat onto the bar. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. When I- when you saved me. I saw your memories of putting that bomb in ‘Saka tower.” There was something in his eyes as he watched her, like he knew. “Johnny, I grew up in this city, grew up on its stories, its legends. I don’t know for certain what happened that night but I sure as fuck know that it weren’t your gig.” He looked away. “It was Morgan Blackhand’s. That was the last job he ever did and no one knows if he came out of it alive or dead. Everyone tells stories about the fight he had with Adam Smasher on the roof. You know, right after you got knocked out the air? The part of your memory that’s just gone?”
Their fingers were mimicking eachother, the same beat playing out. Was it him playing it out or her? The line was blurring more and more but she could feel something just below the surface of her mind. It was impossible to grasp.
“The more I talk to your old friends,” V continued, “the more shit stops lining up. Either everyone except you is lying or…”
“My memories are fucked,” he whispered. Their fingers stopped and silence reclaimed the space between them. “You think I haven’t figured that out? I know. I also know that Alt thinks I did this to myself, changed things, tried to make myself a hero.”
“And did you?”
“Got no clue. Don’t remember changing anything.” His form glitched and shuddered, then he was standing with the movement between the two positions missing. “I know Arasaka fucked with my head. Dunno why. Maybe they thought if they changed enough I’d be more agreeable, help ‘em with their little Alt problem. Maybe I was jealous and deleted him from my brain cos then I could live with myself.” Closing his eyes, he stretched a hand out, the silver one, lines of static and distortion spreading off it like glitter.
Pain shot through the space between V’s eyes and for just a moment she was back on the roof with Johnny as he lay dying. The helicopter was above, leaving, Adam Smasher loomed over them. There was something else. A ghost. A shape that was there, moving to intercept, the echo of Johnny’s name hanging in the air.
Then V was back in Club Atlanta and she was alone. Johnny was gone but she could feel him still, as she always could. Which one of them was it that hungered for answers? Or was it both of them? Was there any point in trying to dissect them?
Pushing the worries from her head, V called Brigitte.
*
Johnny hated cyberspace. Everything about it was way too fucking close to Mikoshi for him to tolerate let alone stand. Felt like any moment, he’d turn and V would be gone and he’d be plunged back into the almost dream of that prison. Against his better judgement, he found himself repeatedly glancing back at V to make sure that her avatar, her mind, was still there beside him. Of course she was. She wasn’t going anywhere. Was that his conviction or hers? He didn’t know. Neither did she.
The two of them were standing in the Voodoo Boys little fortress, Brigitte and a couple of her Runners visualised as shimmering red forms in front of them. Negotiations had taken a while, especially considering how tense things had been left after their last visit, but at last V had agreed to do an extremely high risk job for them. For him. This had to be for him right? What did she gain from his memories being restored? Was that his own arrogance getting in the way or was he just so unused to people wanting to do things for him without him needing to manipulate them first?
Oh, V. The fondness he felt for her was almost alien, too gentle an emotion for the hate that had always simmered in his gut since he’d returned from war. Was that him or was that her?
“Are you ready?” Brigitte asked and Johnny’s attention locked back onto her.
“It’s too late to back out isn’t it?” he said and all the digital eyes, including V’s, narrowed at him. “Fuck, it’s a joke. Yes, I’m ready, whatever.”
V stayed watching him as the Netrunners began the recovery process. They’d promised little and had said that even if they did find anything, it would likely be corrupted or damaged. V didn’t ask him if he wanted to back out because she knew he didn’t.
Maybe that’s another reason why he hated cyberspace; it reminded him how much the space between them was shrinking. Soon there would come a day when them became him. Us became an I.
V had told them about a pair of twin’s she’d boxed with a few days before the heist. How they’d gotten neural oscillators to sync their thoughts so that two became one. He wondered if there was enough left of the individuals for either to miss his brother.
“It’ll be okay,” V said and he found that he believed her.
Before he could respond, Brigitte turned back to them. “Recovery process beginning in 5, 4, 3, 2-”
Blinding white light. Then the sound of helicopter blades beating in the air. He was falling. Concrete smashed into him and he lay their stunned for a moment, seeing only the sky and the retreating helicopter.
He knew this.
Trembling fingers reached out towards the gun.
He knew this.
And then he didn’t.
There was a voice yelling his name. The building was shaking, crumbling, coming apart at the seams and there was Morgan Blackhand. Because all it would take for Adam Smasher to stop the legendary merc escaping was the promise that staying was the only way for his team to survive.
“Johnny!” Morgan was at his side. In the glitchy, hazy mess that was his vision, Johnny couldn’t see his face but had just enough strength to lightly bat at his hand.
“Get- the fuck- outta here,” he rasped.
A deep booming laugh echoed across the roof and Johnny knew he remembered this bit. Adam Smasher’s hulking form came into view. Patting Johnny on the shoulder, Morgan rose to his feet and cocked his rifle. “Alright, pipsqueak,” Morgan spat as the rumbles of engines and explosions tore through the air. “Time to see if metal really is better than meat.”
Another laugh from Smasher.
“Let’s dance.”
The rooftop dissolved into static and Johnny called out. No. No! He needed to know what happened, he had to.
Because Morgan Blackhand was his friend. Because no one knew if he was alive or dead. Because Johnny remembered him.
All the static ghosts in his head were gone replaced and there he was like he’d never left. When they’d first met after Kerry’s rescue, sharing war stories over drinks, working on jobs and building trust. His friend.
Why would he ever want to forget his-
Oh.
As V rose out of the ice bath, he planted both hands in front of her. “Morgan’s alive,” he said and she blinked at him. “Arasaka know where he is.”