Night City Legends

 Neon & Chrome

The air in Little China was thick and greasy, smelling of burnt synth-meat and rain-slicked asphalt. It was a Saturday night, meaning the usual tidal wave of cheap chrome and desperate hustle was peaking.

Anya "Pixie" Petrova, a mercenary with a reputation as bright and volatile as her neon pink hair, launched herself onto the hood of a sleek, black Chevillon Quadra. The impact barely registered through the platform sole of her magenta thigh-high boots.

She was wearing a skintight violet sheath dress, a ridiculous choice for a combat drop, but Anya operated on flair, not common sense. Her shades, small dark ovals, hid eyes that were currently tracking a fleeing target.

The gun in her elongated, gloved hand—a heavily customized Burya revolver—spat fire and a thunderous roar that cut through the city's din. The muzzle flash lit up the rain, catching on the reflection of a massive, blinking advertisement for synthetic ramen.

"Target confirmed, a gonk named Slick-Six," the voice of her client, a fixer named Rook, crackled in her ear. "He snagged a shard containing a modified 'Silverhand' virus from a Militech archive. We need it back, no kills unless absolutely necessary, Pixie."

Anya grunted, leaning into the wind. "No kills? Rook, you know I charge extra for restraint."

Slick-Six, a low-level netrunner with the sense of self-preservation of a lemming, was currently driving the Quadra. He was desperately trying to swerve her off. The chrome-plated roof reflected the city—blinking signs in Japanese and Mandarin, hazy vertical traffic streaks, and one enormous, glowing billboard featuring a severe-looking woman that seemed to judge the chaos below.

Ker-THUNK.

A second shot, closer. It didn't hit Slick-Six, but it shredded the car's automated wiper mechanism. He screamed, his voice tinny even through the car's sound system.

"He's panicking! I'm losing the link to the chip! You need to secure the hardware, Pixie!" Rook urged.

Anya adjusted her grip. She wasn't just after a virus; she was hunting for a legend.

The word around Night City was that the famous merc, V, the one who once walked with Johnny Silverhand and then stared down Arasaka, was back. Not in the flesh, not exactly. The stories said V was less a person now and more a ghost in the machine, their consciousness scattered across various servers and data fragments after they finally succumbed to the relic.

And this specific Silverhand virus, the modified one Slick-Six was running with, was rumored to be the key to re-indexing V's scattered digital soul. A lot of powerful people wanted that key, Trauma Team or Arasaka.

Anya wasn't interested in saving the world. She was interested in the astronomical reward the anonymous client—who sounded suspiciously like a certain former head of security—had offered.

"Listen up, Slick," Anya called out, her voice amplified and distorted by her integrated comms, loud enough to cut through the reinforced glass. "You got three seconds to pull over and give me the shard, or I'm putting a hole right where your spine meets your neck."

The car swerved violently. Slick-Six wasn't stopping. He was headed toward a crowded traffic nexus—a smart play to ditch the tail, a terrible one for staying alive. Anya didn't hesitate. She fired a third time, not at the driver, but the engine block. The Burya was a heavy cannon; it ripped through the armour plating like tissue. The engine sputtered, died, and the Quadra slammed to a jarring halt, smoke beginning to pour from under the hood.

Anya leaped off, landing in a spray of water just as a siren wailed in the distance. She yanked the driver's side door open.

Slick-Six was whimpering, clutching a small, glowing data shard.

"Gimme," Anya commanded, holding the Burya steady.

He pushed it into her gloved hand. The key to the legend, and a mountain of eddies, was safely in her hands. Anya "Pixie" Petrova checked the data shard. A modified Arasaka lock, complex and dangerous. This wasn't just corporate espionage; this was a black-ops level recovery.

"Good gonk," Anya said, stepping back just as a siren wailed in the distance. "Rook, package secured. Sending you the coordinates for the handoff. Now for the fun part: beating the heat."

She turned, running not toward an alley, but toward the nearest vertical structure. Her mag-boots engaged, and she began scrambling up the side of a massive, crumbling apartment building, the glowing pink of her outfit already fading into the dense, colorful static of Night City.

Below, the NCPD cruisers dropped in, but they weren't the real problem. The real problem was the sleek, silver, armoured transport that hovered silently above the fray. It bore no visible markings, but its aggressive anti-netrunner jamming field was a dead giveaway.

Arasaka.

Specifically, the remnants of a highly classified Black Ops unit, once run by a certain high-ranking executive who fled after the New Etsun Tower fiasco. They believed the modified Silverhand virus was the key to not only re-indexing V's scattered digital soul but controlling it, adding the city's greatest legend to their arsenal. Anya was a pawn in a game played between ghosts and megacorps.

Anya grinned, a flicker of true manic joy across her face. This was better than a simple job. This was an invitation to dance with the devil.

"Rook," she whispered, her voice tight with adrenaline. "Change of plans. The handover location is compromised. Arasaka's old dogs are in the air. Time to earn that bonus."

The Betrayal and the Hunt

Anya felt the armoured transport peel off as she used the sheer verticality of the Little China high-rise to escape its sensors. She scaled several dozen floors, her mag-boots humming against the concrete, before dropping onto a maintenance platform and calling a new ride. She directed the transport to a grimy lock-up in Watson, the supposed handover spot. The only light inside came from a flickering bare bulb, casting long, distorted shadows. The client, Rook, was there, slumped in a chair—but the angle of his neck was wrong. Very, very wrong. Anya lowered her weapon, the adrenaline in her veins replaced by a cold, professional dread. The jamming field she had sensed earlier wasn't just corporate paranoia; it was Arasaka cleanup. Rook had been silenced before he could pay her, likely by a stealth netrunner or a silent agent.

She approached the body, the synth-violet of her dress a jarring contrast to the blood staining the industrial floor. She ignored the obvious trauma and went straight for the body's hidden compartments. A successful merc checked for payment and for loose ends. Tucked into Rook's wrist cyberware, she found it: a second, identical data shard. It glowed with the same faint, internal blue light as the one she held. Two of them.

"So this was about more than just a modified virus," Anya murmured, pocketing both. "It was a set."

Rook’s own datapad, still clutched in his dead hand, was cracked but operational. Anya quickly bypassed the lock. The last data entry was an encrypted message string referencing two other locations and two other "Silverhand fragments." The client had been close to gathering all four.

Anya didn't grieve. She got paid. And now, the rest of the payment—the final shards—was her reward. The job had just become a scavenger hunt with Arasaka Black Ops as the rival team. Her first target led her to a high-rise data farm in Corpo Plaza, a dangerous run that cost her her left arm from the elbow down, but she secured the third shard.

The Dogtown Gambit: Mr. Hands and the Final Shard

The air in the Heavy Hearts Club was thick with synth-cologne, bad intentions, and the dull, rhythmic thumping of a bass line that vibrated through Anya’s chrome fingers. It was the only place in Dogtown where a meeting of this caliber could take place without the immediate threat of a Barghest ambush.

Anya, having replaced the arm she lost on the last job with polished mirrored chrome, wore a tailored, bullet-resistant suit that looked deceptively fragile. She was seated across a glossy chrome table from Mr. Hands, the Fixer of Dogtown and Pacifica, whose face remained obscured behind a polished, stylized mask.

“The information you seek is rated ‘Critical’ by my netrunners, Ms. Petrova,” Hands’ voice was a synthesized baritone, devoid of inflection. “The target, Dr. Niles, is Militech R&D—disgraced, but still smart. He is housed in the Meridian Tower, one of the most heavily fortified apartment structures currently under Barghest control.”

Anya leaned forward, resting her mirrored hands on the table. “I know the risk. What is the access, and what’s the price?”

“The target is on the 47th floor. His apartment features internal shielding to frustrate external quickhacks, but the building’s main power conduit runs through the sub-level 3 maintenance tunnel. A precise electrical overload will disable the tower’s internal security for exactly 90 seconds.”

Hands slid a data chip across the table. “That chip contains the full schematics and the frequency timing for the overload. The price, however, is substantial.”

Anya raised an eyebrow, the red-and-gold segmented iris of her Kiroshi optics focusing sharply. “Eddies only, Hands. I’m not running errands for Kurt Hansen’s muscle.”

“Indeed. Kurt Hansen’s muscle is the primary obstacle. I require 500,000 eurodollars. And,” Hands paused, the shift in his synthetic voice unsettling, “I require the second shard you recovered from Rook’s body.”

Anya gripped the edge of the table, her new chrome protesting. The shards were hers, the whole reason she was here. “Negative. The shards are the goal. They are non-negotiable.”

“A shame,” Hands said, retrieving the chip with a magnetic pull. “You seek a key to corporate history, Ms. Petrova. I seek leverage. Perhaps another merc will be less sentimental.”

Anya released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She couldn't risk waiting. Arasaka was closing in, and she knew exactly what these shards meant. She had to secure the final piece now.

She conceded. “I’ll transfer the 500k and an additional 100k for your inconvenience. But if the timing on that power conduit is off by a millisecond, I’m sending a very personalized gift back to this club.”

Hands tilted his head, accepting the transfer ping with silent satisfaction. “Anya Petrova is known for precision. I expect no less from her threats. The chip is yours. May Hansen's wolves not chew you to pieces.”

Anya took the chip, stood, and left the false luxury of Heavy Hearts for the desperate reality of Dogtown’s streets.

The Meridian Tower was a fortress of rusted steel and defiant architecture, a testament to Militech’s failed investment. Anya had positioned herself on a neighboring rooftop, the black k-weave combat suit replacing her delicate clothing. Her left arm, now fully mirrored chrome, held a custom Militech power pistol, and her right contained the terrifyingly thin, humming monowire coil. Following the schematics provided by Hands, she infiltrated the sub-levels through a collapsed parking garage. The scent of ozone and stale water was overpowering. She located the main power junction, rigged the high-frequency overload, and started the 90-second countdown.

The instant the lights flickered and died, she launched herself upward, using the exterior maintenance ladder, ignoring the distant sounds of Barghest soldiers realizing they were blinded. She entered the 47th floor, the atmosphere inside instantly changing from military to luxurious decay. Niles’ apartment was enormous, filled with broken holographic art and overturned antique furniture. Anya moved in a blur. She located Dr. Niles, a gaunt man in stained pajamas, trying desperately to boot up a secondary power supply.

“Dr. Niles. The shard. Where is it?” Anya’s voice was sharp, metallic.

Niles looked at her, his eyes wide with fear and a strange, manic pride. “Arasaka! They’ll never get it. It’s the final piece of The Sun! It’s the key! They tried to kill V for it!”

“I’m not Arasaka,” Anya hissed, using the tip of her monowire to slice a clean line across his console, vaporizing the secondary power source. “I’m here to finish V's work. Where is it?”

Niles broke, pointing to a massive, reinforced safe disguised as a wine cabinet. “I used the data shard as the access key! It’s the only way to get the final fragment. It secures the data and—"

The 90 seconds were up. The lights in the hall immediately snapped back on, followed by the deafening clang of an armoured fire door opening below.

“Barghest. On the way,” a synthesized voice boomed through the building’s PA system.

Anya cursed. She didn’t have time for complex decryption. She held the third shard up to the wine cabinet safe. The safe’s sensor recognized the foreign signature and, instead of unlocking, began to emit a shrill alarm. Smash it. She thought. Anya slammed the mirrored chrome of her left fist, enhanced with heavy kinetic wiring, directly into the safe’s locking mechanism. Sparks flew, ceramic plating fractured, and the locking bolt snapped with a hydraulic shriek. She ripped the heavy door open.

Inside, resting on a velvet cushion, was the fourth, glowing blue shard. Anya snatched it and slammed it into a secure, insulated slot in her gauntlet, just as the first Barghest squad breached the 47th floor door. The fight was brutal. Anya had the advantage of surprise, but the Barghest soldiers were heavily chromed and coordinated, trained by Militech. She moved like a phantom in the hallways, using the monowire to slice limbs and the power pistol to punch through armoured heads, leaving behind a trail of synthetic gore and melted wiring. She couldn’t stay and fight an army. Her only way out was to get to the outer wall—the border separating Dogtown from Pacifica.

She fought her way to the roof access, the adrenaline burning away the pain of minor plasma burns. On the roof, a Barghest patrol turret swiveled to meet her. She leaped from the rooftop, using a tactical jump-pack burst and grappling hook to clear the adjacent building. The wall was a terrifying landscape of electrified fences and fortified checkpoints. She bypassed the checkpoints entirely, heading for the desolate, unpatrolled drainage tunnels that ran beneath the concrete barrier.

Barghest troops in armoured vehicles pursued her, their headlights sweeping the tunnels. Anya ran, her breath ragged, finally spotting the old, flooded maintenance exit that led back into Pacifica. She dove through the narrow opening just as a rocket-propelled grenade from the last pursuit vehicle slammed into the concrete above her, burying the exit in rubble. Covered in grime, coolant, and the blood of her enemies, Anya stumbled out onto the broken asphalt of Pacifica. She was bruised, exhausted, and barely in control, but her gauntlet slot was secure.

Four shards. The full set.

She made the slow, arduous trek back to her hidden lock-up, the weight of the data she carried heavier than any armour. She was ready for the handover, ready for the truth.

But the truth she would find was far worse than any lie Arasaka had ever told.

The Exchange

Back in her heavily shielded lock-up in Pacifica, far from corporate eyes, Anya cleaned the shards. Her curiosity, a trait far more dangerous than any gangoon with a gun, was screaming. The chips were highly encrypted, built on a unique, ancient architecture. They had to contain something vital. She plugged a custom, wired interface into the back of her neck, then slotted all four fragments into the reader. The air around the interface shimmered, and a surge of data slammed into her mind.

The Net was immediate and overwhelming. She was standing on a digital beach, the endless sea of the Blackwall roaring on the horizon. Then, a figure coalesced before her. A woman. V. She looked exactly like the legend—the familiar jacket, the Kiroshi optics, the scars of a life lived too fast. V smiled, a genuine, tired smile.

"Anya Petrova," the digital V’s voice was warm, a low resonance that felt like a quiet conversation in a crowded room. "You got them all. Took you longer than I thought."

Anya, momentarily speechless, finally managed, "You knew? You knew who I was?"

V nodded. "I know everything. Or, I know everything that’s been indexed on the Net over the last two years. I've watched Night City through the wires."

For the next hour, they talked. V spoke of Johnny Silverhand, not as a legend, but as a terrified, arrogant ass whose ghost still haunted the digital world. She spoke of Jackie Wells with a heartbreaking fondness, mourning the loss of a future they'd never have. She spoke of the war with Arasaka, and how escaping them was the final victory, even if it meant becoming less than human.

But as V spoke, Anya noticed the shift: the light in V’s digital eyes was flat, and a profound melancholy seemed to wrap around her like a shroud.

Anya stopped her. "Why the sadness? You're a ghost in the machine, immortal. You beat the damn corporations."

V’s gaze dropped to her spectral, wire-framed hands. The guilt was palpable, even in this digital space. "The immortality... it’s a cage, Anya. I watch everything, but I touch nothing. I’m a story told on a screen, not a person in the street."

V looked up, her Kiroshis meeting Anya’s eyes. The remorse was obvious.

"I didn't collect the shards, Anya. I designed them. I started the rumors, I created the encryption, I planted the first piece with Rook, knowing he’d hire the best. You."

A cold dread seized Anya.

"The fragments, when combined, do reform me," V continued, her voice heavy with apology. "But they also create a direct, unshielded bridge. A loophole that Arasaka could never find."

V took a hesitant step closer. "It was a trade. I had to choose between disappearing forever, or... getting back. My plan was to lure someone like you, someone strong, with great chrome, and a killer edge. Someone with a perfect body."

V’s face crumpled with regret. "It opens a path allowing me to upload my full mind into your body while severing your connection and trapping your consciousness here, in the Net. I am so sorry. But I can't be a ghost anymore."

The digital V vanished.

Anya screamed, trying to pull the plug, but the link had fused. She was trapped in the interface, watching the horrifying truth of the code run out of control. She slammed her mental fist against the barrier, but nothing happened. She was an echo in the wires. Back in the lock-up, the physical form of Anya Petrova gasped and opened her eyes. The synth-violet dress, the pink hair, the chrome hands—all perfect. But the eyes that gazed out into the dark, reflecting the sickly neon light of Pacifica, were the flat, piercing, eyes of V.

V ran a hand over her chrome arm, the motion slow and deliberate. Night City is mine again.

Back from the Blackwall

The old gate to Viktor Vector’s Clinic creaked, dragging the old ripperdoc from his focus. He was elbows-deep in a disassembled cybernetic hand, the oily metallic smell of coolant and synthetic tissue filling the cramped, familiar space.

“We’re closed,” Vic grumbled, not looking up.

“Cut the lights out? That’s new, Vic. Getting soft in your old age?”

The voice was light, slightly breathy, and utterly unfamiliar. It belonged to a woman now standing in his doorway, a merc whose whole aesthetic seemed to scream "disposable, high-fashion gangoon." Neon-pink hair, skintight violet sheath dress, platform Stilletos and chrome hands that gleamed like cheap toys.

Vic finally looked up, his eyes narrowed. “Look, I don’t care if you're Blackwall royalty, I close at midnight. And I don’t serve anyone who looks like they lost a fight with a rave.”

The merc stepped into the weak light. She moved with an economy of motion that belied her frivolous outfit. She smiled, but the smile didn't reach her eyes.

“Come on, Vic. Don’t tell me you forgot your favorite client. The girl you patched up after many a corpo hit, the one who was taken in by Jackie, the one who brought you those awful pre-War BDs.”

Vic sighed, ready to point to the door, when his eyes snagged on her face.

The woman’s Kiroshi Optics were high-end, featuring a distinctive red-and-gold segmented iris—the unmistakable signature of Fingers’ back-alley aesthetic, albeit installed cleanly. He’d recognized that flash anywhere. But the way they stared at him, the focus, the sheer intelligence burning behind them...

“Your name,” Vic said slowly, his large hands resting on his worn workbench. “What’s your name, and who told you about the BDs? and you know if you are lying you won't leave here alive"

The woman stepped up to the table, her head cocked slightly.

“My name is V,” she said. “And right now, this body’s name is Anya Petrova. Fingers did the eyes, a rush job, trying to keep up with the Tyger Claws aesthetic. But I can feel my old synapses firing in this chrome, Vic. It’s been… two years, seven months, and nine days since I stormed Arasaka Tower.”

Vic stared. This was the most gonk thing he’d heard all week. He walked over to his worn leather chair, grabbed his trauma scanner, and motioned to the clinic bed.

“Lie down. We’re going to run a diagnostics, Choom.”

V—Anya, got onto the bed without hesitation. Vic ran the scanner over her skull, specifically mapping the neural structure and the interface hardware. He noted the Arasaka-grade military link spliced into the base of her skull—expensive, powerful work that was far better than Fingers' typical sloppy standard.

Then he did what he had to do. He opened a hidden, offline folder in his clinic computer, labeled simply V. OLD. It contained the final, pre-relic scan of his client's neural structure, the way her unique mind had been mapped just before the heist on Konpeki Plaza.

Vic rerouted the scanner’s data output, running a deep neural comparison: Anya Petrova’s current net-ghost versus V’s pre-death signature. The result was immediate and violent. The comparison programs crashed, spat out an overload error, and then printed one, single, simple line of text on the screen:

99.998% MATCH: SYNAPSE FIRE & COGNITIVE SIGNATURE

Vic slowly stepped back from the monitor, his breath held tight in his chest. He looked at the pink-haired woman on the table—no, looked at V, back from the dead, inhabiting a stranger’s shell.

“Oh, shit,” he whispered, running a hand through his dark hair. “You… you’re really back, kid. I don't recognize the frame, but the engine is all you.”

V sat up, a heavy sadness replacing her triumphant facade. “I am. And I did something… awful to get here, Vic.”

Vic pulled up a stool. “I’m not gonna ask how you did it; I already see the ghost code splattered all over your neural port. But why? She was a good merc, kid. Anya. Quick, pro, good eddies. She had a life, a choice.”

V, speaking through Anya's voice, sounded hollow. “I lost my choice two years ago, Vic. The Net… it’s a cage. I was dissolving, fading into static. I just wanted… to feel the rain again. I set a trap for the one person strong enough to survive the search, and arrogant enough to slot the shards. I broke the code, but I broke my soul doing it.”

Vic sighed, the deep sigh of a man who had seen too much. He reached over and gently put his big hand on her shoulder, ignoring the flashy chrome armour

“I may disapprove, kid. I may hate what you did to Anya’s ghost. But you were family. And family takes care of its own.” He gave her shoulder a light squeeze. “Now, get up. Let’s get some hot ramen brewing. You got about two years of flatlining to tell me about. Every minute. Start with the moment you left the roof above misty's.”

V, still trapped in the guilt of Anya’s body, finally managed a genuine, if haunted, smile.

“It’s good to be home, Vic.”