Chapter Text
Judy arrives at her grandparents’ place in the dead of night, feeling restless and alone.
She drives toward the collection of lights in the distance, rapidly approaching, and wonders where she should go next. Her destination was less than two days’ drive from Night City—a town appropriately named Gearhart after her grandfather’s own heart—but she takes a week. She stops along the coast to visit sights, wary of the coughing sounds her motor makes as she pushes the van past 40 mph. The old friends she hits up make her smile, but it never fully reaches her eyes, which they tell her plainly, concerned.
Judy waves them off, not looking at them as she leaves, telling them that she’s just thinking about a girl that it didn’t work out with. She fails to inform that she hasn’t stopped thinking about her since she left Night City. That even when she closes her eyes at night, there is no respite, no rest from the churning of her thoughts, her stomach at what she’s done.
Sighing and closing her eyes, Judy pushes the thoughts away as far as she could as she approaches what looks like a gate to the town. The fences crackle with electricity in areas where they don’t have barb wiring on top, a solid concrete barrier lining the boundaries of the settlement in a definite way. Judy stops before a booth with a single guard, a middle-aged woman with dark skin, who nods at her and ticks something off of her computer screen as if expecting her. “No guns, no shooting, no looting, and no killing while you’re here, understand? The only exception to the rule is if any raiders attack. Then, you are free to kill as many of them as needed.”
Judy pauses. “Do you get a lot of raids?”
The guard jerks her head towards the direction of the farms. “Some people will do crazy things for real food. Your grandfather’s got a deal with some…security, but I’ve been telling him not to trust them for the last few weeks. Never know when they might change their minds.” She narrows her eyes at Judy before holding out her hand. “Name’s Jenny. Better get to knowing people ‘round here if you’re staying like your grandparents say.”
Judy shakes her hand. “Haven’t decided on that yet.”
Jenny laughs—a short, disbelieving sound. She waves Judy’s van through. “Not many other places to go, sweetie.”
Leaving the guard’s post behind her, Judy drives along a road winding towards the town in the distance, long strands of grass waving in her wake as she passes. Glancing to her left, she spots the dark glitter of the ocean along a narrow strip of beach—a silent black mirror stretching into the horizon, full of abandoned mines and other dangers beneath its calm surface.
The drive is silent, no gunfire in the distance, no screeches of car horns. Judy is almost unnerved by the quiet in the town—no traffic lights, wide roads that peacefully allow the small flow of cars down both sides without a collision. As she nears the centre of town, she hears something sweet and unexpected—the chirping of the cicadas in the grass singing her home.
Beyond a large fenced area that she assumes are the farms, Judy spots the blue electrical crackle of something in the distance, perhaps the other side of the fence to keep out the bandits the guard spoke of. She passes by a small green sign with white lettering welcoming her to Gearhart, and after ten minutes, she pulls up to a two story-building with a red door, the grey-blue paint fading from the wood, but the house looks solidly built. A piece of property that her grandparents could have never afforded back in Night City.
They wait for her on their front porch, her abuelita stomping up and down with flaring nostrils while her abuelito adjusts his hat and rises from the wooden bench he had been sitting on. They trek out towards her van as Judy pulls up in the driveway, killing the engine and climbing out.
Judy studies both of them. Her grandfather has adopted a straw hat with a wide brim, and knowing his tendencies, he would probably wear it until the day he died. Her grandmother’s hair is cut short, worn up and practical as she used to have it when Judy was little. There’s a sharpness to her eyes as always, but something about her expression softens and there’s a kind of peace in it that Judy has never seen before.
Her abuelito steps towards her, holding out his arms. “Welcome home, mi corazon.”
Judy meets him halfway, folding into him like the last time she saw him, turning her face into his shoulder and smelling sandalwood—his favourite scent. A heartbeat later, Judy feels grandmother joining in, wrapping them both in her embrace as she rests her head against Judy’s. “About time you left that place.”
“I know, abuelita.” Judy keeps her eyes closed. “I know.”
Her grandfather squeezes her slightly. “Welcome home,” he repeats, slightly dazed as if he didn't expect this moment to actually come.
They usher her into their house, the tables and chairs solid pine—a rarity in Night City. “Where did you get this furniture?”
Her grandfather nods. “Before the Fourth Corpo Wars, this used to be a town before people fled the massacre that occurred along the coastal areas. Some came back later and made a settlement out of the abandoned houses and farms. When we arrived, this place had cobwebs, and your grandmother complained for weeks about the cleaning we needed to do.” His eyes crinkle. “But we have a home of our own now.” He watches her carefully. “And in time, we hope you will too.”
They turn into the kitchen where the smell of roasted squash and carrots reach her. Something snaps inside of her, and Judy buries her face in her hands, shoulders shaking.
Her grandparents exchange glances before her grandfather reaches out to squeeze her shoulder. “It is late. How about you get some rest, and we can talk in the morning?”
Judy nods, unwilling to show them her expression. Her grandmother grabs her arm, leading her up the stairs while scolding softly, an old habit to soothe herself that has grown gentler with time. Pushing open a door on the far end of the hall, her grandmother shows her to a large room with a desk and a queen-sized bed and not much else. “We know how you like to make things your own.” Her grandmother shrugs. “So, we left it bare for you to add as you wish.”
Sinking down on the bed, Judy’s head hangs against her chest, a weight around her shoulders like exhaustion settling down like a yoke. Her grandmother eyes her before scoffing and reaching out to push on her granddaughter’s chest. “Go to sleep. We’ll be here in the morning.”
Judy collapses into the bed, dead to the world the moment she lands on the covers.
When she opens her eyes next, she sees sunlight streaming through the room, the sun already climbing up in the sky. She doesn’t remember the last time she slept that long. Rising, she finds a pair of slippers beside her bed that were probably laid there by her grandparents during her sleep.
She shuffles her way to the washroom, washing up at the ceramic sink and noting how clean and spotless the counters are, how reflective the mirror is. Her grandmother always was meticulous with the state of her household. Judy can’t help but smile at the thought that nothing’s really changed, and, yet, everything has.
Making her way downstairs, she slides herself into a seat around the circular kitchen table, her grandmother at the oven tipping diced potatoes, onions, and chunks of ham scop out of the pan onto a plate. She slips a warm tortilla on it as well as scoops of refried beans, salsa, and soy queso fresco. “You still eat huevo rancheros with hot sauce?”
Judy wrinkles her nose as her grandmother brings the food over. “Of course, abuelita. I’m not a barbarian.” She thanks her as she digs into her meal, flavours exploding along her tongue along with a wave of nostalgia washing over her, memories of happily eating at her grandparents’ table at the age of eight when they were able to buy anything other than Kibble. To her grandmother’s credit, it tastes better than she remembers. “Did you do something different to the potatoes?”
Her grandmother wipes at the cooling stove with a cloth, having turned it off. “They’re ‘ganic.” She jerks her head towards the window, not looking at Judy. “We grow all the vegetables here ourselves.”
Judy nods. “Abuelito mentioned that when we last spoke on the phone.” She shakes her head. “Crops like these would be stolen at first sight in—”
Her grandmother whirls around. Her voice comes out sharply. “You’re running away again, aren’t you? You always did that as a child.”
Judy jerks up at the accusation, accidentally spilling some of her food across the table. “What? I don’t—“
“Don’t lie to me, Judy Alvarez. Your whole life has been running away from what you feel. But—“ Her grandmother squints at her. “—it feels like something’s changed.”
“I’m happy here, abuelita.” Judy ducks her head. “Can’t we accept that and move on?”
“You mentioned a new girl you met. What happened to her?”
Judy’s voice grows tight. “Didn’t work out.” She pushes herself to stand. “‘’Xcuse me. Gonna see the doctor now.”
Her grandmother shakes her head. “Love isn’t a fairy tale. If you don’t fight for it, you will lose it every time, and I didn’t raise you to be a coward.”
Judy heads out.
Her grandparents send her to the town’s doctor—a short, chubby woman with an infectiously bright smile and a bustle that could shame V for how intent she is in getting things done. “Used to be in Night City myself, having moved from Texas,” she drawls, checking Judy’s vitals, looking into her eyes and ears. “Been there for ten years as a ripperdoc before I said enough. City’s not for everyone, and I finally took off north. Best decision I ever made.”
She pauses, holding out her hand. “Name’s Sadie, by the way. Sorry, got excited seeing a new face that I forgot to introduce myself.”
Judy nods as they shake hands before Sadie examines her respiratory system.
“Reckon your lungs are fine, but with the acid dust clouds down south, don’t wanna be too reckless with them.” She slaps Judy’s back, nearly knocking her off the examination bench. “Now, scoot. I got the Hendersons coming in with a sick young’un.”
And off the doctor goes, chattering with a female couple who carries in their sick son, a toddler with a concerning rattle to his breath. Judy rubs her arms and heads out of the office—an extension of Sadie’s house that’s built into the side with solar panelling all along the top like the rest of the homes here. The silver squares paper the roof like thin sheets of armour, and Judy takes a moment to admire how beautifully arranged they are. It was not all that long ago that Morocco became the number 1 exporter of solar power globally, ending up powering most of southern Europe. In NUSA, however, most of the desert states turned to solar power for the naturally occurring and free resource to turn into capital gain. Such is capitalism in North America.
Heading back to her grandparents’ house, Judy unloads some of her belongings from the van to her room, her grandparents having vanished from their place. She sets up her computer and her monitor, plugging in her BD equipment reflexively before she wonders when she is going to use it. Once she sets up her workstation, Judy goes downstairs. When she notes that no one is there still, she steps out from the house and looks around, noting the massive amount of greenery around her. The rows of freshly planted trees take getting used to, since the only ones that exist in Night City are in the parks. In the distance, there sounds like the faint twittering of something that might possibly even be birds. Judy has only seen them in BDs from decades ago, and she steps forward towards a fence around a plot of land. She wonders what kind survives out here so close to the coast.
The fence is newly built, posts of oak hammered into the earth and held together by beams. Judy finds herself admiring the simplicity of it all, wondering how long has she been in Night City that gold and metal embedded into flesh seems normal.
Her grandfather’s voice startles her out of her thoughts as he comes up behind her, footsteps growing louder. “Looks like you were thinking hard.”
Coughing to cover her distraction, Judy leans in the nearby fence and looks out over the farms, the rows of budding vegetables she’s never seen in Night City. “I thought the acid rain would wipe these guys out like it did the fish at Laguna Bend.”
Her grandfather tips up his broad-brimmed hat, pointing at a round, squat building in the distance. “We got our own water treatment centre over there run by Sadie—doctor and all-purpose scientist,” he chuckles, scratching his chin. “It’s hard work maintaining it since we gotta change the filters every couple of months, but it’s worth it to have safer drinking water for us and the farms.”
He takes a nearby stick leaning against the fence and pokes at the dirt underneath a messy cluster of growing green peas—whole and real, a luxury costing a month’s worth of rent back in Night City. “We also add lime to the fertilizer to help protect the crops from any excess acidity. S’not as bad here as the East Coast but don’t wanna take any chances.”
Judy eyes him. “Thought you were more into tech than farming.”
“Learning is learning. Once you stop, you’re on the road to dying inside.” He straightens up, furrowing his brows. “Now, what’s eating you? Don’t act like I can’t see you moping out here from the house.”
She turns away from his gaze, sighing, “I feel restless, like I gotta keep going, like if I stay too long, I’ll drown.”
Her grandfather makes a thoughtful sound. “Drown in what?”
“Just—“ The tide inside Judy’s chest that threatens to overwhelm her, like a wave of built-up promised destruction that she has been avoiding for years. “—everything. Everything in my whole fucking life.”
He stares out into the distance. “You consider yourself an artist, do you not?” When she nods, he continues, “Artists feel when no one else dares to. And then, they turn that pain into beauty. If you want to tap into what you can really create—“ He taps her forehead gently. “—you need to stand your ground, even when it feels like you’ll die, even when it feels like you want to.”
Stepping back, he shakes his head. “Take it from an old man, mi vida. Life is too short to spend all of it avoiding yourself.”
He pauses, pointing at an insect happily hovering its way around one of the buds of the zucchini flowers—a fat, yellow and black ball of fuzz that shows clear disregard for the laws of aerodynamics. “See that? That’s a bumblebee. Haven’t seen one before, have you?” He clicks his tongue when Judy shakes her head. “Wouldn’t blame you. Went near extinct at the start of the century. Only starting to show up again now.” Clapping her on the shoulder, he turns to head back inside the house. “Nature heals itself if we only give it a chance. People aren’t so different.”
Judy glances out into the fields of vegetables, the sprouting of leafy plants, and the young saplings beyond them—all fighting for a chance to bloom and reach their peak.
She thinks of V and turns away.
Exploring the town takes the rest of her day with Judy drawn to the flat strip of beach at the edge of the grasslands. She exits the town on foot, waving to a yawning Jenny as the guard lets her through the gate to go see a particular part of the beach. To the south, a mountainous peninsula juts out into the ocean, covered in flourishing green trees while to the north, the beach stretches onwards to the horizon. Judy stands on the edge of the grasslands, toes touching the warm sands. The ocean is still technically toxic, but it doesn’t stop her from admiring the rhythmic flow of the tide, of its gentle and easy ebb and flow. She wonders why her life isn’t like that.
Shaking her head, she walks along the edge, closing her eyes and inhaling the salty tang in the air. She has seen memories of sand dollars lying along the beach in old BDs, white palm-sized creatures with a pattern like a flower on its outside. With the mass extinction of most aquatic animals over the last century, she wonders if they are among the many wiped from existence or if she can find evidence that they, in their own way, survived the catastrophe when others couldn’t. And if they did, what made them so much luckier and hardier when tragedy came? Why did some survive while others died?
Stopping, Judy runs a hand through her hair, recognizing the familiar pattern of her thoughts that haunts her since deciding to leave Night City. To leave V. Evelyn. Maiko. Tyger Claws. Clouds. Tom.
She scrubs at her face as if she can wipe the emotions away, to cast them into the water and watch them be swept away. Turning her back on the beach, she cuts across the grasslands to head back to the town, sighing when she has to be checked in through the main gate, this time by a young man with sandy-blonde hair who blushes when she nears.
“Just have to be careful, Miss. You never know when raiders might try to come about.” He opens the gate, the metal fence sliding clear of her way as she steps through. He glances at her before blushing again. “Are you here with your fella?”
Judy doesn’t look back as she walks away. “Barking up the wrong tree.”
“Oh.” He clears his throat. “Wait, I have mail for your grandparents.”
Frowning, Judy turns as the young man jogs up to her, holding a small rectangular box the length of her hand, wrapped in brown packaging paper. There isn’t a return address visible. “Not taking that.”
The young man’s eyebrows furrow. “Why?”
“Dunno where it came from.” Judy shrugs. “Could be a bomb.”
“I scanned it. It’s just a chip in a box.”
“Could be a virus.”
Rolling his eyes, he jams it in her hands. “Then, smash it. Either way, it’s not a bomb, and it’s addressed to your grandparents.” He tucks his hands into his pockets. “I’m Nate, by the way.”
“Oh.” Judy blinks, looking up from examining the box. “Sorry. I’m Judy.”
They shake hands before standing awkwardly at a distance. Nate coughs gently. “You know, I have a sister who’s single...”
Judy’s ears burn. “Yeah, I’m good.” She whirls around and walks away quickly. “Nice to meet you.”
She hops into her van and heads to the house, stomping inside and shoving the package into her startled grandfather’s hands before announcing that she’ll be out on the porch. Snorting, she settles herself on the front steps, glaring out into the sky and feeling the flush fade from her face, the tightness in her chest loosening. A feeling like she’s drowning opens up inside her until Judy pushes it down deep enough that she can pretend it’s not there.
Twilight sweeps over the town, casting everything in shades of purple, pink, and gold—a moment as fleeting as love in Judy’s life—before sinking into a dark sky filled with a scattershot of silver and gold specks. She recalls never seeing the stars while in Night City, the light from the ads and the holograms making it nearly feel like it was perpetually day in the most illuminated districts. The view of actual night with darkness and stars is almost eerie in its silence, and with the quiet come the thoughts creeping to the forefront of her mind.
Everything she did in Night City, short of editing BDs, came to ruin or failure.
Clouds only wanted to use her modified doll chip for profit. Moxes were no good. Wanted to coast under the city’s trash rather than change it. Evelyn fell from the height of her own ambition, incinerating the lives of everyone she knew. Maiko promised a hand in Judy’s desires but only used her instead. And V…
V was supposed to be different. She wasn’t supposed to make Judy feel so alone, like she’s waiting on the couch for her partner to come home. Like a lonely speck upon the water. Like she’s not important. But V changed since she returned from Mikoshi—an experience she tersely explains when Judy asks what the call late at night was about.
Judy’s thoughts drift...the warmth of V’s body beside her in bed, her scent. When she sleeps, V appears in her dreams, smiling at her like she used until Judy opens her eyes, and she disappears every time. And Judy hates that she can’t stop thinking about her. About a future with her that’s longer-term than six months.
A family maybe...would be expensive, but with DNA splicing, they could have a kid of their own. Judy would carry it, because who knows how much of V’s body is still organic and what those implants would do to the fetus. She doesn’t know if V is the type to settle down, but based on how she spoke about Jackie and Vic and Misty and Mama Welles, she was the type to value family. Maybe she would have grown to love one of her own.
Or at least the V she met in the basement of Lizzie’s Bar would have. The one with the slightly crooked smile, the warmth to her eyes surfacing from her cold expression as suddenly as a diver in the water. The one who tore through the scav’s hideout with the fury of an avenging angel, the one who stayed with Judy when she found Evelyn’s body. An irrepressible attraction to her that draws Judy like a satellite around the Earth.
But it seems like the only place she can find that V anymore is in her heart.
Judy becomes aware of something bitter on her tongue. “Just the taste of disappointment yet again.”
Shaking her head, she tries to steer her thoughts to more familiar waters. She reflects on the young mercs she’s seen, attached to the braindance wreath and dying mid-vid, hormones spiked, brain function non-existent. Suzie always had their bodies quietly dragged away, the deaths an unspoken possibility of braindance death, but Judy tried to reduce the lethality in her own vids, keeping the hormones on the edge while heightening the experience and emotion as much as she could. She’s wanted to move away from those kinds of BDs for a while, which is why she created that experimental one with—
Everything comes back to her.
“Judy?”
She jerks upright at the sound of her grandfather’s voice, whipping around as he studies her. “You look sad, my darling. Is there someone you left behind?”
“No,” she says roughly, clearing her throat.
Staying quiet for a few moments more, her grandfather nods before sitting beside her on the porch, the faint lights of the farms in the distance lighting up the horizon like a distilled reflection of the stars above. “You are a lot like your abuelita. You put up a tough exterior but, underneath, your heart is breaking. Whatever happened, it breaks still, doesn’t it?”
Judy hangs her head. “I thought it would all be over when I left Night City. That I could move on and not look back. Not keep turning over what might have been.”
He reaches out and circles an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his warmth, his strength. “It sounds like she left a mark on you—deeper than you gave it credit for. Is there a chance to make amends? To start anew?”
She shakes her head. “Our relationship was like dead water. Couldn’t move through it no matter how hard we tried.”
“Then, I’m sorry, corazón.” He sighs, pulling her close. “Those relationships—the one-in-a-million—those hurt the most to lose.”
Her grandfather takes out his acoustic guitar, a worn down version made of extinct spruce that had been passed down through the family since the beginning of the century. The song is slow, nostalgic—her grandfather sings with a low, gravelly voice, but it does not take away the emotion, the wistful longing for the imaginary audience.
Judy listens to the gentle melody, the lyrics like that of someone saying goodbye to someone they loved, afraid of stumbling away, and a stinging heat comes to her eyes. She wipes at them, and her grandfather respectfully averts his gaze, continuing on with the slow, rocking notes of the song.
“I just want a happy ending,” Judy says quietly when the music fades away. “Is that impossible to ask for in this world?”
“They must be earned. How else would you know what you really have in your hands? The real value of it?” The grandfather sighs, tilting his head up towards the stars. “Your abuelita and I struggled for years to have a child before we had your mother. She was the joy in our lives until she met that pendejo and thought she was in love. Then, she had you before she was gone, so we had you instead.” He goes quiet for a moment. “Life is a cycle of good and bad, life and death. You cannot stop moving into the next stage as much as you can stop the sun from rising each day. You cannot stop time marching on. It is like trying to halt the tides with your own hands.”
Her grandfather pulls her close—smelling of that familiar scent of tobacco, sandalwood, and something else she doesn’t recognize. Maybe cedar. “There are people coming here more over the year. You could stay. Contribute to the community with your skills. Always lots of stuff that needs repairing.” He lets go, gazing at her expression. “Maybe even find a young lady to replace the one in your heart.”
Judy jerks away, inhaling sharply. “I—“ She bites her tongue before she chokes. She shakes her head, and her grandfather understands.
He presses a kiss to her forehead, his whiskers scratching her skin like they used to when she was little. “This too shall pass.”
They lapse into silence, Judy churning her own thoughts over and over, trying to look at her situation from a different angle as if there is something she missed that would solve everything. “Do you ever wish you could have another chance at a relationship? That things could have been different if not for…”
“For fate? For misfortune?” he murmurs, “Let me ask you a question of my own. What would you give to bring a loved one back?” He looks up at the stars, contemplative. “If you are like your mother, your answer is everything.”
Judy glances at him. “What does she have to do with anything?”
“That’s too long a story to tell right now,” he sighs. “Go to sleep, and I will tell you in the morning. Even broken hearts need rest to heal.”
Ushering her upstairs like he used to when she was younger, smaller, Judy dutifully follows her abuelito’s advice, yawning as she trudges to her room. The rooms are already darkened and clean, signalling that her abuelita has slipped into her own bed, Judy’s own bedroom located in the hallway next to the stairs to the attic.
She pushes her door open, and on her desk is a small, palm-sized box with brown packaging paper laid underneath it. A message blinks on her computer screen, but Judy is too drained to deal with the mysterious message and package. She collapses backwards on her bed, the springs groaning but holding. The screen flickers, and, for a moment, something like a red shadow forms on the glass before it disappears into the peaceful blue and black interface that she knows.
Judy stares at the computer before concluding she’s simply exhausted and needs sleep before she starts hallucinating. Settling into her bed, she looks up into the ceiling and inhales deeply, smelling the sweet scent of the fields nearby, the faint linger of cedar in the air.
It’s nothing like Night City, like what she used to know. Even still, she can’t help but wonder if V would have liked it out here if she gave it a chance.
Judy turns to face the direction of Night City, of where she last saw V. “So long and goodnight.”
She closes her eyes and dreams of golden days.