[River: Your judgment was right. Brainiac used a tangled underground network to plant micro-transmitters all over the city.]
[River: A jammer array can erase crimes that happen in a given zone from NCPD's surveillance systems completely. As long as they kill every witness, we won't find out for a long time.]
[River: A lot of gangs have come back from the dead, and they've been getting more and more active lately. Looks like everyone wants to be the first to take the lead in this race. Your plan is more addictive than narcotics.]
[River: The streets have been even worse these past two days. Aside from the mandated curfew, there are shootouts basically every minute.]
[River: Wanna know what I heard people saying when I went out yesterday? They actually started thanking the old gangs.]
[River: Hell of a world.]
"Wooo!"
A pickup truck pushing ten tons tore across the Badlands dunes at high speed. In any other vehicle, at this pace, the suspension would've blown out in under a minute.
V stood in the bed, letting the flying dust slam into her face—
Yeah. Driving something like this, even getting pelted with grit was enough to get your blood pumping.
Jackie was hammering out text in the back seat like his life depended on it:
[Solo's Handbook — Vehicles:]
[Rookies, listen up. There's only one kind of ride you'll ever need: big space, big horsepower, and something that can do 80 in the crater-filled Badlands…]
Jackie looked up at the speedometer.
[90]
Looked again.
It was already at 100!
"Mano!" Jackie yelled at Leo, hyped out of his mind. "Can it go faster?!"
"If we go higher, it's not safe!"
The vehicle's violent body roll, the engine's roar, the constant crunch and slam as it chewed rocks and uneven ground—if they wanted to talk, they had to shout.
Any normal ride would've shaken itself apart at this speed on terrain this rough—full of ridges and potholes that could swallow a wheel.
Bang!
As if to prove the point, the truck thundered straight over a massive crater.
The thick tires struck the rim almost head-on. The suspension surged and bucked—any other vehicle would've been instant wreck, instant funeral.
Jackie turned back and kept typing.
[…a super pickup that can rip at 100 while hauling 10 tons, with a trunk stuffed full of ammo and gear, and armor that can shrug off explosives and sniper rounds!]
[What? You're asking where to get something like that? Dream on, choom! Hahaha!]
"So damn sick!"
Under the moonlight, the truck ripped through the Badlands, Jackie and V's cheers echoing into the night.
They drove like that for a long, long time—until the fuel gauge dropped to the middle—
Meaning they'd burned eighty liters of compressed Hydrogen-Alcohol-2 fuel: a special aerospace-grade mix where hydrogen was dissolved into a specific concentration of Alc-2 solvent using a proprietary process, with an energy density around 90 MJ/kg—absurdly high-energy stuff.
Fuel alone cost them 3,000 eddies, basically two months of living expenses for a typical Night City resident.
The truck rolled to a stop on a dune. V hopped in through the passenger-side window.
And right in front of them—
Night City.
Holo-ad ribbons stabbing into the sky. A forest of skyscrapers. Hover-haulers drifting past the moon.
"Haa…" V let out a long breath, then sprawled out with her legs on the passenger-side console. The seat automatically slid back, giving her the perfect space to recline.
Premium.
"…Damn. Night City's beautiful."
"Yeah. Never looked at it from out here before. First time I've ever thought this shit-hole actually looks kinda good."
Jackie set down his unfinished masterpiece and stared at the city's glare.
The neon light pollution was like the city's dreams—every color, all at once. Hard to call it pretty or ugly. Just… complex.
After confirming the systems were stable, Leo lifted his head too—just in time to see a rocket streak into the sky.
Leo glanced at the expressions on the two of them and laughed. "If you didn't have money, you'd be out here crying and cussing instead."
"Watch your mouth." V shot Leo a look. "Between the three of us, you're the one two million in debt."
Jackie chuckled, then slapped his big hand on Leo's shoulder. "This life's been worth it, mano. Only one thing left. How do I confess to Misty?"
"Don't!" Leo blurted. "This isn't over yet. You don't do that kind of thing at a time like this—bad luck. You know that."
The classic: one last job and then I'll go propose and settle down. That flag was so high it could scrape satellites.
"Uh…" Jackie scratched his head. "How's it bad luck? And it's literally the only thing I'm thinking about right now."
He'd made it. Bossed up. Installed insane chrome. Drove a monster truck. Had 500k sitting in his account.
If you told past-Jackie—years ago—that he'd ever get here, he probably would've retired on the spot, washed his hands clean, and vanished into a quiet life.
But fate was a funny thing. He still couldn't do that yet.
Leo's health problem still wasn't solved.
So Jackie nudged V. "What about you, V?"
Leo gave Jackie a helpless look. What—planting flags isn't enough for you, you gotta drag other people into it too?
"I…"
V had even less of an answer. If you dropped this kind of money on her a few years ago, she wouldn't have even understood what it meant.
Super rich, without realizing it.
But she and Jackie shared the same thought. She turned those eyes—dangerous now—on Leo.
"Why don't you talk, then? 'Cause I'm getting this vibe you're not even in a hurry to stay alive."
"Stay alive…"
Leo paused, a little struck by the question.
Back in Atlanta, he'd been bending over backward just to make connections, make money, trade organs—buy time.
Now… somehow, without noticing, he really had stopped treating it like the only thing that mattered.
"…Yeah, I want to live. But living well is more tempting."
V curled her lip. "God, that's so cringe. Sounds like some scummy boss selling a dream: live beautifully, buy a big house, buy a nice car, install pretty implants—"
"And the sucker works their ass off. Can you say something real?"
That was Night City's whole pitch every year to lure people in: infinite possibilities, free choice.
Sure, it was dangerous. But you couldn't expect to lie in bed and wake up on top of the world, right?
Leo… wasn't sure how to answer that.
In the other world, it was easier—he wanted his mom to live in a better place, and without realizing it, he'd ended up carrying a lot of people's hopes.
In the Marvel world, if he'd taken any "commission," it was this: erase fear from people's hearts, stop a war from tearing the world apart, stop a demon from being born in terror.
Thinking about it, Leo reclined in his seat too, staring at Night City's kaleidoscope glow.
As for the people who lived there—psycho street kids, timid office drones—if you came here, you already knew stepping outside for a walk could get you flatlined. Big money was always on the far side of big risk.
They arrived with dreams in a city that "accepted everyone," then got crushed and warped by other people's dreams—like the city's own light pollution, practically every color in the spectrum, and every color had its own blinding streak.
Struggling, clawing, trying to stand out from this technicolor hell.
It was harsh. It was ugly. It was unique, and you couldn't look away.
This city was too real.
His own streak of color… was it really just "survive"?
But someone truly on the edge of death probably wouldn't be able to feel—
This kind of happiness, this kind of memory.
"Maybe it's just… fun?"
V leaned in all at once, her face blocking Leo's view of the city. She stared at him like a doctor delivering a diagnosis. "So you're a cyberpsycho already?"
"Get lost."
Jackie chuckled again and patted Leo's shoulder. "Mano, you're smart, but in this? You're not as clear as we are."
V gave Leo a look that was hard to read, then leaned back into her seat.
"Whatever. Just don't die too soon. You still owe me a lot of money."
"Relax. I'm not dying."
"You better not."
(End of chapter)