Chapter Text
The door to the apartment slammed shut, locking out the rain, the neon, and the Arasaka drones.
I didn't walk in; I collapsed in. My legs gave out the second we crossed the threshold.
"I got you," Emily gasped, catching me before I hit the concrete.
She dragged me to the mattress on the floor, her hands shaking as she pulled off my wet jacket. She was in full panic mode—techie mode. She grabbed her datapad, jamming the diagnostic cable into my neck port with trembling fingers.
"Your temp is 103," she rattled off, her voice high and tight. "Synaptic firing rate is erratic. You’re shaking, V. Talk to me. Is the partition holding? Is Judy’s file leaking?"
She was frantic. She was terrified. She was reaching for a damp cloth to wipe the sweat and rain from my face, her eyes darting between my dilated pupils and her screen.
"I’m stabilizing the neural load," she muttered, tapping furiously. "I need to give you a sedative. I need to—"
I reached up and grabbed her wrists.
"Stop," I rasped.
"I can't stop!" she cried, pulling against my grip. tears were streaming down her face now, mixing with the rain on her cheeks. "You flatlined, V! For three seconds, you were gone! I watched your heart stop on my monitor! You can't just—"
"Emily," I said, louder this time. "Look at me."
She froze. She looked down at me, her chest heaving, her hazel eyes wide with terror. She looked like she was waiting for me to break, or to disappear, or to turn into someone else.
"I’m here," I whispered. "I’m back. I’m V."
"Are you?" she whispered, her voice cracking. "You saw her. You saw the soulmate. The one you’re supposed to be with. The one the universe wants you with."
She looked away, biting her lip.
"Did you... did you want to stay there? With her?"
The question hung in the air, heavy and suffocating. It broke my heart. She thought she was the consolation prize. She thought she was just the Glitch keeping the seat warm for the real protagonist.
I sat up, ignoring the throbbing pain in my head. I took her face in my hands, forcing her to look at me.
"I saw her," I admitted. "She was amazing. She was brave. She saved me."
Emily flinched, looking down.
"But," I continued, pressing my forehead against hers. "She told me something before I left. She told me the driver has good taste."
Emily blinked, confusion warring with the sadness. "What?"
"I touched the infinite, Em," I whispered. "I saw the raw data of the universe. I saw the timeline where I’m with her. And you know what I felt?"
I moved my hands to her shoulders, gripping her tight, grounding her.
"I felt lonely. Because you weren't there."
Emily’s breath hitched. She stared at me, stunned.
"Misty said we’re impossible," I said, my voice gaining strength. "She said you’re a glitch. A mistake in the math."
I leaned back to look her dead in the eye.
"Well, I love the mistake. I love the glitch. I don't want the perfect timeline, Emily. I don't want the destiny written in the stars. I want the messy, broken, impossible one. I want the one where we freeze in a Vermont attic. I want the one where we steal files to save a ghost. I want this."
I took a deep breath, letting the truth pour out of me, raw and unfiltered.
"I love you. Not because you’re here. Not because you’re my tether. I love you. Every piece of code, every scar, every bad joke. I choose you, Emily. Over Judy. Over Arasaka. Over everything."
Emily stared at me. Her mouth opened slightly, but no sound came out. She looked shocked—like she had braced herself for a breakup and got a proposal instead.
She searched my eyes. She was looking for the lie. She was looking for the data corruption.
But all she found was me.
"You... you choose me?" she whispered, her voice tiny.
"Every single time," I promised. "In every single timeline, if I have a say... it’s you."
The dam broke.
Emily let out a sob—a sound of pure, unadulterated relief—and crashed into me. She kissed me, and it wasn't like the other kisses. It wasn't desperate or fearful. It was a claim. It was an answer.
I felt it in every fiber of my being. I felt her love washing over me, hotter than the neural port, brighter than the subnet. It burned away the ghost of Judy. It burned away the fear of Sato.
We fell back onto the mattress, tangled together, wet clothes and wires and all.
"I love you," she murmured against my skin, over and over, like she was rewriting my code. "I love you, V."
"I know," I whispered, holding her tight. "I know."
The rain hammered against the window. The servers hummed in the corner. We were fugitives. We were in danger. We had a target on our backs.
But lying there, holding the girl who broke reality to find me, I knew one thing for sure.
The Glitch wasn't an error. It was the best thing that ever happened to the system.
The morning sun filtered through the grime of the apartment window, hitting the tangled mess of sheets where Emily and I lay.
I woke up with a headache, but it wasn't the sharp, stabbing pain of the data overload. It was a dull throb—the feeling of a bruise beginning to heal.
I looked at Emily. She was asleep, her arm thrown over her eyes, her breathing deep and steady. The "Glitch" who had rewired reality to find me.
I reached for my comms unit on the bedside table. I popped the back panel off, revealing the small hidden slot where I kept the lucky charm Jackie had given me.
Next to the golden cross was a sliver of old-school cardstock. A business card.
REGINA JONES
Media / Information / Fixer
Night City - Boston - Tokyo
On the back, in Jackie’s scrawled handwriting: “She has a cyber-eye for the truth. Tell her J.W. sent you.”
I nudged Emily awake.
"Em," I whispered. "It’s time to take out the trash."
We packed everything. Not just the tech gear, but the toothbrush, the half-empty shampoo bottle, the coffee mugs. We scrubbed the apartment. Emily ran a magnetic degausser over every surface to kill any digital fingerprints.
"We’re not coming back," Emily stated, zipping up her duffel bag. It wasn't a question.
"No," I said, looking at the empty concrete box. "I’m done with towers. I’m done with Boston."
We carried our bags down to Rita’s hatchback, parked in the alley. The city was waking up—sirens wailing, steam rising from the vents. It felt hostile now. The buildings felt like teeth waiting to snap shut.
I sat in the passenger seat. Emily drove.
"Where’s the meet?" she asked, putting the car in gear.
"The Fens," I said, reading the encrypted coordinates Regina had sent back after I pinged her. "Old flooded district. Under the ruins of Fenway Park."
"Classy," Emily muttered. "Regina likes her drama."
The Fens was a "No-Go Zone." The seawalls had failed decades ago, turning the historic neighborhood into a swamp of brackish water and crumbling brick.
We parked the car on a cracked overpass and walked down a rusting metal staircase into the fog. The air smelled of salt and rot.
"Keep your hand on the taser," Emily whispered, scanning the shadows with her own tech-goggles. "Thermal signatures ahead. Homeless camp to the left. Scavengers to the right."
"We’re not here for them," I said, clutching the Valentino charm.
We reached the rendezvous point: the dug-out of the old stadium. The field was a lake of black water, reflecting the grey sky.
Standing on the pitcher's mound—which was now a small island connected by a plank walkway—was a woman.
She wore a long trench coat and an eye-patch over her left eye. As we got closer, I saw it wasn't a patch—it was a high-end cyber-optic implant, glowing a faint, menacing red.
Regina Jones.
"You’re the artist," Regina said. Her voice was smoke and gravel. She didn't look at me; she was watching the perimeter. "And you brought a tail."
"She’s my tech," I said, stepping onto the mound. "And she’s the reason I’m alive."
Regina turned her cyber-eye on Emily. It whirred softly as it zoomed in.
"Jackie said you were good people," Regina said. "He didn't say you were kids."
"We grew up fast," I said.
I reached behind my ear.
"Emily, extract it."
Emily pulled a blank data shard from her pocket. She jacked a cable into the back of my neck, then into the shard.
"Initializing dump," Emily murmured. "Ghost Drive partition... exporting."
I gasped. It felt like someone was pulling a fishhook out of my brain. The pressure, the heat, the constant buzzing of Judy’s corrupted file—it all rushed out of me, flowing down the wire.
For a second, I felt a phantom touch—a cold hand squeezing mine.
Goodbye, V.
Then, it was gone.
My head felt light. Empty. Silent.
"Done," Emily said, pulling the cable. She handed the shard to me.
I looked at the small piece of plastic. It contained a murder. It contained a cover-up. It contained a soul.
I handed it to Regina.
Regina took it. She slotted it into a reader on her belt. She watched the data scroll across her internal HUD.
Her visible eye widened. Her cyber-eye flickered rapidly.
"Mother of God," she whispered. "Sato. This... this is a smoking crater. Project Soulkiller. Attempted forced engrammatic overlay on a minor."
She looked up at me, and for the first time, she looked scared.
"Do you know what you just handed me? This isn't just a story. This is a declaration of war against the Neural Synthesis Division."
"Can you run it?" I asked.
Regina pocketed the shard. A slow, predatory smile spread across her face.
"Run it? Honey, I’m going to broadcast it on every independent frequency from here to Night City. By tomorrow morning, Sato’s face is going to be plastered on every news feed labeled 'Child Killer'. His stock is going to zero. His career is over."
She reached into her coat and pulled out a burner phone.
"Take this. One-time use. If you need to disappear, call the number stored in it. But my advice? Get out of the blast radius. Go home. Lock the doors."
"We’re way ahead of you," Emily said.
"Good luck, Mox," Regina said, tipping an imaginary hat. "Watch the news at six."
She turned and vanished into the fog, a ghost with a story to tell.
We ran back to the car.
Emily slammed the door shut and keyed the ignition. The engine sputtered, then roared to life.
"Go," I said. "Just drive."
Emily floored it. We peeled out of the Fens, tires screeching on the wet pavement.
We hit the highway—Interstate 93 North.
I watched the skyline of Boston recede in the side mirror. The Arasaka Tower stood tall and black, piercing the clouds. Somewhere inside, Sato was waiting for his intern to show up. He was waiting to peel my brain apart.
He would be waiting a long time.
As we crossed the bridge, leaving the city limits, I rolled down the window. The air changed. The smog thinned. The smell of the ocean gave way to the smell of pine.
I took the burner phone Regina gave me. I took my own phone—the one Arasaka tracked.
"Pull over for a sec," I said.
Emily swerved onto the breakdown lane of the bridge.
I got out. I walked to the railing. Far below, the Mystic River churned.
I looked at my phone. I looked at the contacts. Kael. Brooks. Sato.
"I quit," I whispered.
I threw the phone. It tumbled end over end, flashing once in the sunlight before splashing into the dark water.
I got back in the car.
"It’s done," I said.
Emily looked at me. She reached over and took my hand, interlacing her fingers with mine.
"How do you feel?" she asked.
I touched the port behind my ear. It was cold. Quiet. Mine.
"I feel... light," I said. "I feel like I’m just V again."
Emily squeezed my hand. She put the car in drive.
"Let’s go home, V. I think Rita saved us some pie."
We drove north, chasing the mountains, leaving the Chariot and the Moon behind in the rearview mirror.
We were The Mox. We were the Glitch and the Artist. And we had just set the world on fire.
Now, we just had to watch it burn from the safety of our front porch.