The Sun Reborn Ch. 11 (Cyberpunk 2077) (Patreon)

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A/N: Judy and V go save Evelyn. Judy gets to see V in action~

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It takes every ounce of self-control to not go so fast that she brings the NCPD down on her head as Judy races over to Clouds. She still breaks plenty of laws of course, but they’re the kind of laws that nobody bothers to enforce. Like jaywalking or going over a hundred miles an hour in a school zone.

So long as you don’t hit anyone, the NCPD isn’t going to stop you. They have too much on their plates anyways. Regardless, avoiding the countless pedestrians that populate Night City’s sidewalks, but also hauling ass to Clouds as fast as her fucking van will let her, Judy arrives outside of the expensive, ritzy dollhouse in about ten minutes. Looking around for a moment, she grits her teeth before calling up the merc who brought her here.

“V, I’m at Clouds. Where are you?”

“Around back. Come on over.”

Judy blinks as she’s sent a map ping. Cursing under her breath, the braindance techie pulls back onto the road, driving around the block to the street on the backside of Clouds. There, she finds V leaned back against the wall, waiting beside an elevator. Judy huffs as she parks and gets out, gesturing to the elevator.

“We’re not going to be able to get in this way, V. Much as I hate to admit it, our best shot is entering from the front and playing nice. The back elevator is locked down tighter than-!”

DING!

Judy blinks, cut off as the glowing red lights marking the elevator as inaccessible from this side suddenly turn green and the doors cycle open. She gapes for a second as V pushes off the wall and saunters on over.

“You were saying, Judy?”

Judy’s mouth opens and closes a couple times, causing V to shake his head.

“Evelyn is waiting for us. Come on.”

Jolting out of her momentary stupor, Judy hurries to follow as V steps into the elevator, slightly worried he might leave her behind. Still, how had he done that? Clouds was one of Night City’s priciest, most technologically advanced nightclubs and dollhouses. It was also owned by the Tyger Claws, and some called it one of the true jewels upon their crown.

Needless to say, the security in Clouds was no joke… had to be, it was part of what made it so pricy and made the dolls who worked there feel so safe. Great atmosphere, great service, great security. That was what Clouds prided itself in, and as much as Judy hated the Tyger Claws as well as how Clouds was run, she couldn’t exactly dispute how high-end the place was. She should know, given she’d been the place’s braindance technician once upon a time.

So seeing V just… take control of the elevator like that boggled the mind. But then maybe he hadn’t taken control? Judy suddenly tenses up, lips firming into a thin line.

“… Are we expected, V? How did you know that something had happened to Evelyn?”

Did V have ties to the Tyger Claws? Had he made a contact in Clouds that had gotten in touch with him when Evelyn came back. Judy didn’t like the sound of that, but it made the most sense. More sense than-

“Expected? Heh, no. As for how I know something happened to Evelyn, that’s simple. I tagged her doll chip back at Lizzie’s when I told you both to keep her put and keep her safe. Knew Evelyn wouldn’t listen. Knew it was only a matter of time before she came back to Clouds, even though it hasn’t been nearly long enough for her to come even close to running low on funds. And I knew it was only a matter of time before her employers tried to fry her.”

… What? Judy takes a moment to process all of that, and by the time she opens her mouth to respond, the elevator dings as they arrive at their destination, forcing her to click her teeth shut. The doors open and Judy tenses up, half-expecting a bunch of Tyger Claw Security to be all over them.

… But there’s no one there. Nobody and nothing except for a security camera. Oh shi- but just as Judy is beginning to panic, she realizes the thing is shut off, already disabled.

Without missing a beat, V pulls out a pistol and begins walking forward wordlessly, forcing Judy to follow him. It’s not like she’s unfamiliar with the layout of Clouds’ backrooms. She’d literally worked here, once upon a time. Hell, for a second she wonders if that’s why V had her come with.

But no. He never once asks her for directions. Instead, he leads the way and Judy is forced to follow along, wondering what the hell is going on. This was the same guy she’d literally had to teach braindances to a few weeks back, wasn’t it? V had seemed like a good kid then, if a bit in over his head and wet behind the ears.

Now? Now he seemed like a seasoned professional. Every time they turn the corner, there’s another security camera already disabled. And the way V moves is in a straight line to his destination… Woodman’s office.

Judy stiffens as they approach the door to Oswald Forrest’s office in the back of Clouds. The talent manager for Clouds, the ‘caretaker’ of its dolls, was an odious, blowhard of a man in Judy’s humble, totally unbiased opinion. The bald fucker was scum, plain and simple, but he was scum backed by the Tyger Claws and who ran Clouds as a tight, well-oiled machine with very few leaks.

He didn’t accept failure, or shoddy work, and his bosses in the Tyger Claws loved him for it, because it kept Clouds as the pristine jewel in their collection that everyone saw it as. No matter that Woodman was responsible for tossing quite a few dolls out onto the streets for ‘underperforming’. No matter that he was responsible for who knew how many deaths when those vulnerable people found themselves taken advantage of or taken apart by the bottom feeders of Night City.

V's earlier words come back to Judy, even as the mercenary palms the door’s control panel and it opens without complaint. He’d said that ‘it was only a matter of time before Evelyn’s employers tried to fry her’.

“-uck it. Might as well get some use out of the bitch.”

The scene that they walk in on… does nothing to help Judy’s already significantly frayed nerves. There, laid out with her limbs all akimbo and splayed across Woodman’s desk, is Evelyn Parker’s twitching, barely breathing body. Her head is lolled back off the front of the desk, with her eyes rolled backwards in her skull and her jaw slack.

Meanwhile, Oswald Forrest, talent manager for Clouds, is stood on the other side of his desk between Evelyn’s splayed legs, in the middle of pulling down his zipper. Of course, when he sees them entering his office, he immediately yanks it back up. From the look of things, they arrived just in time to stop something truly despicable from happening.

“What the fuck?! Who the fuck are you?”

His eyes land on V first, and then finally pass to Judy as she steps into the room behind the quiet mercenary. The bald fuck’s face twists into a sneer of recognition as he glares daggers at her.

“You-!”

Judy watches in disbelief as Woodman’s eyes suddenly roll back in his head and he drops to the floor convulsing as all of his cyberware seems to go haywire all at once. Her growing anger is stifled for a moment by this unbelievable sight, until she realizes V must have hacked him… though she’s never seen a combat netrunner do so that fast before.

After a moment of just staring in stupefaction, Judy realizes how unimportant all of that is and rushes over to Evelyn’s side instead.

“Ev! Oh Ev, what did they do to you?!”

Checking her over, it’s easy to see that Evelyn’s doll chip has been fried through. If only she’d listened to V and gotten the damn thing removed. Still, V’s earlier words about Ev’s employers once again run through Judy’s head and with a snarl she pulls out her own gun and points it at Oswald’s head, pulling the trigger without a second thought.

Click!

Blinking, Judy tries again, only to be answered by the same click. She knows her gun has ammo. And she services it regularly to make sure it’s not going to fail her. So then how…

Just as she’s realizing that V must have used Weapon Glitch on her, he arrives at her side and holds out his own piece with a shake of his head.

“Here, use this one. Yours isn’t silenced.”

Judy just stares for a moment as she processes the WHY of the Weapon Glitch, before finally just wordlessly taking V’s gun, pointing it at Woodman’s head, and pulling the trigger. With barely a whisper, Woodman’s blood and brains paint the floor, Cloud’s talent manager dead.

Then, somewhat stiffly, Judy hands the gun back to V and holsters her own weapon before moving back to Evelyn.

“We need… we need to get her some help.”

“I know someone.”

Judy doesn’t even question it. Nor does she stop V from moving forward and hoisting Evelyn’s still-twitching body over his shoulder in a Fireman’s Carry. While she would have preferred to carry Ev herself, she knew she wasn’t physically strong enough.

They exit Clouds the same way they came in, with nobody the wiser. The cameras are still down, the elevator is still under their control, and absolutely nobody shows up to stop them. Judy bites her lower lip, recognizing that things would have gotten a lot messier if V hadn’t stopped her from discharging her firearm into Woodman’s head. The sound would have been impossible to miss, and someone definitely would have investigated.

Now… well, she didn’t know what would happen next now that Woodman was dead. Though one thing was still bothering her, even as they load Evelyn into her van and Judy gets behind the wheel, accepting the latest map ping from V with a nod. As she begins to drive in the direction of the person V knows who can help Ev…

“Why? Why would Clouds fry Ev like that? It just doesn’t make sense.”

V gives her a curious look for a moment before shaking his head.

“They didn’t, Judy. When I said Evelyn’s employers were waiting for a chance to fry her, I was talking about the people who hired her for the Konpeki Plaza Job.”

What? No seriously… what? V gives her a long, silent look for a moment before explaining.

“Evelyn didn’t come up with the heist of her own volition, Judy. She was hired and paid to do a job. Then, she decided to turn that job into another job. Not that DeShawn or any of us knew that at the time. The people who hired her only wanted her to case Yorinobu’s suite and provide them with a braindance recording so they could plan their own heist. Seeing big eddies in double crossing them, Evelyn turned around and tried to pull off the heist with my crew before they could do it. She had a deal with NetWatch lined up, one where she could expect money, protection, and a brand new identity in exchange for the chip.”

Oh… fuck. Judy is barely cognizant of the fact that she’s not actually driving anymore. Instead, the wheel under her hands is moving on its own, keeping them from driving off the road or running into anyone. Blood pounding in her ears, Judy looks to the back of the van, where Evelyn is laid out, still twitching.

Fucking Ev… she always had to bite off more than she could chew. Every damn time. But then…

“If Woodman wasn’t the one who fried Ev, why’d you let me shoot him?”

V just raises an eyebrow at that.

“Because he’s scum and I figured you have plenty of good reasons for why he deserved to die. Personally, it’s what he would have done to Evelyn next that sealed his fate for me.”

What he would have done… Judy shivers as she realizes what they’d barely arrived in time to prevent. Except, as it turns out, that’s not nearly the worst of it.

“Once he’d had his way with her, he would have sent her to Fingers, the same ripperdoc he sends all of Clouds’ dolls to. When that third-rate doc failed to fix Evelyn, he would have likely sold her onto the Scavs he’s in contact with. And from there…”

Oh god. Judy was going to be sick. V doesn’t have to finish his sentence. Scavs were the worst of the worst. The thought of what they would have done to Evelyn doesn’t just send shivers down her spine, it gives Judy the shakes. Thankfully, she’s definitely not driving the van at this point.

Taking her hands off of the wheel as it moves on its own entirely, Judy puts her head in them instead.

“Fuck… shit, V. I’m not sure I even want to know how you know all of this. Who the hell… no, you would have said if it was something I needed to know. I just… are they going to keep coming after Ev?”

V tilts his head to the side.

“… No. I won’t let them. I’ll deal with them before it comes to that.”

And you know what? Judy believes him. It leaves her mouth so dry she instinctively darts her tongue out to wet her lips, but she believes him.

A moment later the van comes to a stop in a back alley. Judy blinks as she finally realizes she hasn’t been driving all this time. But she doesn’t have much time to question it before V is getting out and pulling open the doors, picking up Evelyn once more. This time, he carries the blue-haired doll in a bridal carry down some stairs to a gate that opens on its own accord.

“Vik! Need your help here!”

Judy follows V just in time to see a Ripperdoc leaping to his feet when he sees the state of Evelyn.

“Shit, V… get her in the chair. What happened? Who is this?”

“Evelyn Parker, Doll. A rather nasty virus was uploaded to her doll chip and it thoroughly fried her cyberware. The virus isn’t a problem anymore, but the cyberware is still fucked up and she’s fucked up too because of it. What do you recommend, Vik?”

“… Won’t know until I get a little bit more time to check her over, V.”

“Right, of course.”

Well, on the one hand, at least this ‘Vik’ isn’t somehow as hyper-competent as V has become in too short of a time period. But on the other hand, Judy almost wishes he was because now they have to wait. Wait to see what sort of quality of life Evelyn can hope to have after all of this is done…