“Scream…”
I… I can’t… Yet… Yet I… I…
Move… Come on… Move…
My body feels like it’s not my own… Like it was housed in some sort of binder that crushed me… A pressure so great that it made even the slightest breath excruciatingly painful…
Move…
Scream…
I felt something… Something on top of me…
Jackie…
Scream, V… Louder… Loud enough that he may hear me…
Jackie…
“JACKIE!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, pressing with all my might against the surface compressing me. A metal panel gave way and exposed my face to the sky for the first time… I could feel rain hitting my head… Stinging… painful stinging… A sharp, horrible pain… “Jac… Jackie…” I groaned with every breath, my mind blank… I felt nothing… nothing but pain. Pain and a deep, unquenchable rage…
I can’t… Breathe. But I must keep going… No rest… No, I refuse to rest… until Dex takes my place here… Wherever here is…
I’m gonna kill him… I swear, if it’s the last… last thing I do… he will die… die… for this…
“Nnngh– JACKIIEEE…!” I gnashed my teeth and crawled forward, my hands shaking with seething fury… “Jack… Jackie…” I muttered, “Dex… You… I’m… coming…” My breath escaped me as I found my way to the mud, slamming my head to the ground. I can… I can barely see… My eye… That bastard hit me in the eye…!
My whole face shook violently, shivering and convulsing as I crawled over whatever lay before me. Whatever was between me and my sword… Jackie… I’m coming…
Crawl… Move it… Everything is in double-vision… Yet I have one eye… The world… It’s glitching… No. No, it can’t… I have natural eyes… What’s… happening to me…?
Vik… I need… Vik…
Wait… Who is… DEX… No… Someone’s with him… Freeze. You’re too exposed now… Easy… Take… Take it easy… Sword first… Then I will cut him down… like a fucking… tree…
“Urrgh, heavier’n she looks,” Dex heaved my body to flat ground with the man in-tow. I opened my eye to see him standing there, hand on some sort of weapon… You… Saburo’s bodyguard… Takemura…
“Now listen, dawg,” Dex put me down on what felt like an overturned refrigerator, “I have done… everything you asked,” he spoke out of breath, his voice sickening me to the core, “So le’ss just you and I work this–” Takemura, the bodyguard, would hear none of it. He raised his weapon and pulled the trigger, unceremoniously blowing Dex’s brains out of the back of his head. His body fell to the ground beside me like a lifeless sack of meat…
I… He’s… Dex… The man… Who took my friend from me… He’s dead. Just… Just like that… What do I do… What do I do now… Jackie… I’m sorry…
Takemura walked up to me, totally indifferent about the wretched, horrible man whose life he’d ended moments ago… I didn’t care anymore… Just… Just kill me… Please… Jackie…
“Arasaka-Sama,” he spoke over a holo call, “I’ve found your father’s killer.” He knelt down beside me, looking over what was left of my body. “Yes, I have no doubt it’s her… Okay… En route. Expect me in an hour.”
“Please…” I whimpered, “K… Kill… me…” With Dex gone, there was nothing left… I… I couldn’t bear it… Jackie… Jackie, please…
“Silence,” he growled, smacking me across the cheek and knocking me to the floor.
-
“Scream until you are heard…”
Mom…?
I roused myself awake, resting what was left of my face on a seat… sports car. Convertible… Likely on the way… to an Arasaka black site… He drove us out of what seems like the Night City Landfill… But… Jackie… What happened… What happened to Jackie… Is he still in there?!
“You smell like shit…” Takemura grumbled as he sat me up.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“J… Jackie…” I muttered uselessly to myself before closing my eye and leaning back on the seat rest, my head no longer able to support its own weight… I… I just wanted to die… Please… Please just let me… never wake up…
“Scream…”
“Scream until you are heard…”
“You… You hear me?” Takemura shouted at me, “I need your help!”
“Grrrghh…” I forced myself to look over to my left, seeing him bleeding all over the car seat… Shot… In the stomach?
Jackie…? Is that you…?
Takemura shook my shoulder before reeling over, retrieving an airhypo from his pocket and handing it to me wordlessly. He didn’t need to say more. I took it without hesitation, knowing that this man asking for my help was likely no easy… Easy… Fuck… Come on…
Hit it.
“Mmmmmphh!!” I grunted and shook myself, “Frrrgrr–FUCK!”
I tossed the hypo out the side, nearly hitting a motorcyclist in the face – our pursuers, no doubt. I counted… four of them. He slid me a handgun and instructed me to get to work – I was only too happy to oblige. “The airhypo won’t last long – make it count,” he told me, though I already knew that to be true. I’d done battle with a massive gash across my face before, but never with quite literally one half of it missing. This’ll be a new one. I can figure out how to kill myself later; right now I had to deal with these fuckers. What dignity is there in letting a bunch of assholes on motorcycles take my life, after all the shit I just went through. That, and Jackie still needed a proper burial…
He plowed straight through one of the motorcycles, sending both it and the rider careening over the top of the convertible and ripping the windshield clean off. Credit where it’s due – man knows his defensive driving techniques. “Magazine!” I shouted and he tossed me three onto my lap. I slammed the first one home and took aim at the first motorcycle as we headed onto the 95 Bridge. Six rounds to the back of his motorcycle and it started sputtering before bursting into flames. Fuckers weren’t too bright, it seemed.
It took me but a moment to adjust to the lack of depth perception, even as my vision dimmed further as my face got covered with blood and grime; good news for me. Not so much for the enemy. I doubt they expected someone so mangled to put up such a fight, yet I wasn’t about to disappoint. I hope Jackie can see this… Wherever he is. He’d probably be laughing and teasing me the whole way up this bridge…
You have my left eye now, Jack. It’s all you.
I slammed the second mag home as Takemura swerved into the second motorcyclist, sending him flying into oncoming traffic and turning us around. Just one rider left… Jack- No. Takemura threw the vehicle in reverse and let my pistol do the talking. I missed most of my shots, but all I needed was a couple good hits in to disable the final pursuer. His motorcycle spun out, smashing into an oncoming truck – but this one was stubborn. He leapt out of the fireball, crashing down onto our car with his Mantis Blades out and ready to go. Unless he figured out how to mimic my technique, however, I seriously doubt he’ll stand up to bullets. And, one eye or not, it’s difficult to miss at this range.
Fuck… I could feel my vision starting to go… Getting loopy. Fuckin’ expired… airhypo… Takemura could barely keep this beast on the road, either. Could tell he was getting exhausted as anything… Shit… Shit, shit, fuck! I expended a full magazine directly into his chest before Takemura slammed on the brakes, launching the guy clean over and onto the hood as I inserted the final magazine. Yet the bastard just kept crawling… His face was sheared off… His body missing massive chunks… Yet he didn’t give up… Just… die…! Fuck…!
“Just die already!” Takemura shouted out of sheer frustration as he struggled to shake the guy off. I could barely keep my gun stable as he weaved down the roadway. Still, he remained firmly attached to the hood, swinging at the both of us as I dumped round after round straight into his head.
“Traitor!!” the assassin screamed as Takemura mashed on the throttle, sending us both into a massive billboard at full-speed. I smashed my head into the center console, leaving a bloody imprint behind as I shook… Shook it… off…
Fuck… No… It’s done… My… My body…
Jackie…?
Takemura dragged what was left of me out of the car. The man remained firmly pinned in-place… I couldn’t… couldn’t feel my legs… My head…
“Don’t you dare faint again…” Takemura woke me up with a gentle slap on the cheek. “Keep your eye open.”
He was… still moving… No… I won’t let him… finish the job… I’ve come too far… for this… "NNNGH!" I let out a blood-curdling cry…
I raised my weapon, groaning and screaming, pulling the trigger with all my strength and striking him clean in the side of his head. His body fell limp as Takemura looked over, admiring my handiwork before grabbing the gun from my hand.
“Fuck…” I sighed, letting my arm fall to my side. What was left of my face drooped down… My remaining eyelid felt so heavy… Jackie…? Please… I need rest…
“We both need medical attention,” Takemura stated the obvious, “Do you have a ripperdoc you can trust?”
“M–mmmh… Viktor… Vektor…” I gurgled, blood coming out of my mouth. “I’ve… worked with those guys… before… Troy… the exterminators… He called you 'traitor'… What… What did you do…”
“No… Later… We must get to this ripperdoc… quickly,” Takemura interrupted me, “You have to call someone. Anyone.”
“Please… I… I just want… to fade away… Just let me die…”
“No,” he insisted, “Make… the call. Save us… Save yourself. There is no dignity in a death here…”
“Alright, alright…” I moaned, coughing up enough blood to spit out so I can speak clearly, “Only because… you asked… nicely…” I rang up Delamain, my last true contact apart from Vik himself. I could only hope we’re not outside his service envelope way out here…
“Greetings,” Delamain answered on the first ring, “My scanner indicates you are outside the service area.”
“Just… come… pick me up, dammit…” I lapsed in and out of consciousness, “Need to get… to Misty’s… Esoterica… front of Viktor’s… clinic…”
“Of course, a vehicle is en route. It should arrive in less than twenty minutes…”
Can’t… keep my eye… open… Jackie…
“What are you doing?! Hey!” Takemura called out to me… I didn’t have it in me to answer… not anymore… I wouldn’t… complain… if I never made it…
–
“Scream… Not for me… But for you… scream against the coming of the night…”
Jackie… Do I live… or die… I’ll let you decide…
“...Can’t move her in her condition,” I heard a voice call out to me… No… to… Delamain…
“Please proceed to insert the jack below the ear. But not too deep. There should be auxiliary neurosockets between her lymph nodes, beneath the SCSM muscle.”
“If I hit a vein, she will die.”
“As will she if you do nothing,” Delamain spoke with the utmost courtesy as always… I can’t… feel his hands… I can't… feel anything at all…
“I think I have the socket…”
“Now proceed to connect.” Takemura complied, reaching out to my neck and plugging in a diagnostic scanner of some sort… No… What is this…
“Scream, samurai… Louder…” Dad…? Mom? Jackie? I need… help… Rest… Please…
