Cyberpunk: From Dogville to Legend

Chapter 285 Strange Dream
Having no dreams often indicates a good night's sleep.

V hadn't had such a good rest in a long time. Among the worst employers in Night City was Arasaka. The combined effects of overtime and the biochemical regulator made V's subconscious confusion a constant companion during sleep. Even when he was dizzy, the biochemical regulator would suppress those feelings.

Everyone was crazy yesterday.

Perhaps it was the situation outside Night City, where the odds were against them, that made everyone realize the more dangerous side of this world, and thus they cherished it all the more.

This was also the first time V let her boyfriend "do whatever he wanted".

She only remembered that yesterday she was like a noble red wine with a red ribbon tied around its neck on the dining table, having every drop of its rich aroma and fruitiness stripped of tannins tasted.

Having tasted the sweetness, V found a way to vent his greed.

The woman, who always preferred to use her assertive methods to gain overall control, had her hands tightly gripped and flipped over her head. Her silky hair spread out, allowing her carefully chosen clothes to achieve their intended purpose: beautiful and precious.

No one in this city wants to miss it.

V passively endured everything, and she bit the guy hard, making her lips look even redder.

……

"Um…"

A groggy V touched the empty space beside her. Her beautiful, bewildered eyes, now free of fatigue, turned over and saw the man sitting by the coffee table. The room was filled with the smell of cigarettes. She knew that her lover hadn't been sleeping well.

Even though V wasn't exactly a soft person, seeing the perfect lines of that guy's half-cyborg, half-flesh body and the hint of decline on his back, her eyelids drooped slightly.

"what happened?"

Her eyelids drooped as she put her arm around Rin's shoulder from behind. Even though a night's sleep had faded her makeup, she was still alluring, like a beautiful, venomous snake that had been kept in captivity, clinging to the back of her beloved, trying to get his attention by breathing into his ear.

However, upon catching a glimpse of Rin's expression from the side, V stopped teasing and joking.

She simply didn't speak, but pressed his head down with her cool hand and placed him on her lap, which was positioned to the side.

The sunlight outside the window made V's perfectly placed prosthetic decorations sparkle like jewels, while the person in his arms simply looked at the ceiling.

Lovers are not bound by a relationship where one presents all their perfections to the other; on the contrary, lovers can see each other's vulnerabilities.

"I remembered someone yesterday."

V gently rubbed the slightly rough stubble beside his face, hummed in agreement, and then asked after guessing, "Is it... a former partner? Or your home?"

Lin Yue gently shook his head.

"The person from Arasaka, in order to infiltrate the industrial park before, followed the internal monitoring procedures I had previously established, and then..."

V knows why she was attracted to this guy.

Even as he fought relentlessly for his life, desperately seeking a moment of respite amidst the vortex, he still harbored the primal guilt of a human being.

In Night City, people are good at deceiving themselves. For example, they might think that the city is full of bastards, or that if they don't kill him, they will be killed.

He seemed to catch a glimpse of V's worried look.

Lin Yue smiled and said, "Sorry, I just think about it occasionally, but I won't dwell on it."

Subconsciously, Lin Yue felt that an agent like V, Arasaka, probably wouldn't think about such trivial matters. He only realized how many people he had caused to fall on this "free evil land" after being awakened by the blood of fallen soldiers yesterday.

Everyone on the streets of this city is guilty; no innocent person can survive in Night City, the worst city in North America.

But is it truly just to kill with such a self-righteous reason?
The subconscious mind doesn't lie; these thoughts can take root and grow in your mind, making your mind chaotic.

"Shh...don't apologize for it."

V pressed his palm against Rin's lips. "No one is born an executioner. In my first operation, in order to catch up with that corporate spy, I used my network access pod to hack into the facility's subnet for the first time, but the network wasn't layered... You probably know what I mean."

Lin Yue quietly looked at the girl.

In a daze, he suddenly remembered that V was a girl who had entered the counterintelligence department at the age of twenty-one and become a team leader.

"A room full of people, all the Mewtwo devices were on one line, and that guy chose a Mewtwo Club."

Lin Yue's lips twitched slightly, and V could feel it in his palm.

"The intelligence is about to get out, which will be a major loss for Arasaka, so I..."

V looked into the man's eyes.

"Let me tell you what that feeling is: loathing this world, hating it from the bottom of my heart."

"You're the same, aren't you?"

Lin Yue nodded slightly.

V continued, "Stop judging yourself by moral standards. The company has already distorted the world. All we can do is protect ourselves. But I'm glad you told me, Rin."

"Actually, I've had dreams too."

Lin Yue's eyes darted around, probably because of one of V's strange dreams?
However, what V said next made Lin Yue feel as if his memories had been instantly struck.

“When my parents left, I had a period of freedom, which was painful but without worries.”

Lin Yue has all the memories of the original storyline of this world, except for V's background memories—

Whether V embodies a company employee, a homeless person, or a street kid in this world, there isn't much detailed description.

V the Wanderer comes from a broken-down family of wanderers.

Street V is a free spirit who returned to Night City from Atlanta to pursue a greater life goal.

Company V, born into a company family…

With just a few strokes of the pen, a key figure who almost changed the world is missing a crucial link.

“An inheritance is something a child cannot keep. Fortunately, my parents were prepared, which gave me the resources and the referrer to complete my studies and participate in company training—that is, the company’s standard internal referral process.”

It's conceivable that the family at Charter Hill weren't low-level employees; they were likely middle management or higher. The contingency plan they left for V shows that they have a very clear understanding of human nature and know that a child can only protect a limited amount of wealth.

It seemed like Lin Yue was meeting this perfect person from his memory for the first time.

What she lacked was gradually filled in by her alternating fate, slowly revealing a story beyond heroic deeds.

She is the living Yama of Night City, the strongest individual fighter, and also a figure with a tragic trajectory in the vast cyberpunk society.

so far…

Everything seems to have changed.

"Ever since I entered Arasaka, most of my sleep has been disturbed by inexplicable scenes."

"In my dream, I was wearing a spacesuit... There were stars everywhere, it was beautiful, and I felt very free."

V's gentle gaze changed as she spoke.

She spoke of the allure of freedom, but her gaze gradually turned serious. "I don't have much time to experience freedom. I'm heading towards a strange place surrounded by stars—it's like a space station. I can't tell who the space station belongs to."

Listening to the woman's words, Lin Yue gradually understood what it was.

It's not a dream, but an ending.

He silently uttered the word "sun" in his heart.

In the world she lives in, V is undoubtedly powerful. She seems to have all kinds of choices, but in reality, V is like the brightest morning star in the night sky. She is lonely, unyielding, and uses her last bit of strength to save herself and the world.

Listening quietly is often a good thing.

Aside from not talking about her family, V recounted all her strange dreams to herself.

"I witnessed the day, in my history class, when this city was razed to the ground by a nuclear bomb..."

That was a corporate war.

"I also saw Jack die in front of me, and he kept telling me something..." The Azure Building, the theft of the Relic chip.

"I saw the crimson light of cyberspace..."

This is probably a lark.

Lin Yue silently pondered what Ultraman had said; no wonder the largest entity outside the walls was so interested in V.

"I should be the one apologizing to you."

V acted as if he was afraid of losing the person he was holding, saying, "I approached you with a purpose."

Lin Yue pulled the woman's delicate wrist, which was so soft it didn't look like that of a top agent, away from his lips. "If you're referring to the Dogtown incident, that's not your problem."

Just arrived.

Relying on the company is the safest route, and V may be apologizing for his impure motives.

"No, Rin."

V cupped his face and said slowly and deliberately, "I saw the scene from my dream, that blood-red cyberattack."

Lin Yue instinctively tried to sit up, but V pressed his hand against his chest.

"While you were receiving treatment in this state, I was carrying out several operations in Europe and Mexico under Jenkins' orders. At that time, my mind was filled with the corpses and network traffic left behind by your attacks."

“I am someone who really dislikes listening to stories; fiction is pain and lies to me.”

“But when I heard you say that you know the story of this world, I felt very frustrated and angry because I hate being lied to.”

V's expression had never been so serious.

What followed was Lin Yue's nervousness and V's close proximity to his face, trying to see through his eyes.

"But time and time again, your actions that defy reason have made me start to wonder if you are acting with precognition."

Predicting the future…

Lin Yue thought the translator was quite accurate.

It wasn't that he was afraid V would share his secret, but rather that everything was too complicated, and he had no idea where to begin to convince V that there was another world beyond his own. Lin Yue himself didn't want to say it like that.

Because he now believes this place is real.

I have companions, loved ones, and everything else that is worth cherishing.

If this is a dream accompanied by cruelty and struggle, Lin Yue doesn't want to lose the beauty he has now.

V truly deserves to be called the perfect lover.

He wanted to hold this tarot card firmly in his hand.

Seeing that Lin Yue remained silent, V took it as a tacit agreement. "That day in Santo Domingo, you risked colliding with the Terrorist Mobile Unit and forcibly shot down an intelligence officer escorting Nitta Kazuya at low altitude. Will that also affect everything now?"

Lin Yue nodded, then shook his head.

He didn't want to hide it from V, so he asked, "If I'm not mistaken, you haven't found any information about that guy, have you?"

V nodded.

This is terrifying. It's truly unbelievable that an intelligence agency as powerful as Arasaka couldn't uncover any information about the security personnel at a certain bar in Night City.

"Solomon Reed...A New American intelligence agency, the Joint Logistics Command agent, Miles's scapegoat in Night City during the Unification War."

V's eyes widened, as if he were considering the veracity of this information.

Lin Yue continued, "During the war, a high-ranking military officer took over military command of the Night City branch, right? General Murata...V, Li De and his intelligence agency tried to assassinate him, but Miles and Arasaka reached an agreement. You should know what their fate will be."

However, to V's surprise,

"The Joint Logistics Agency's chief intelligence officer, Song Zhaomei, codenamed Nightingale—she did these things on Miles's orders."

V increasingly felt that even though their relationship was extremely intimate, and they shared each other's lustful desires and bodies, it still felt like she was meeting this person for the first time.

“There’s an abandoned prototype facility in Dogtown, called Little Big Dipper, which is related to the Black Wall. I went crazy searching for that thing to stop the constantly iterating AI in my brain-computer interface from being controlled by the Neural Matrix. Now it’s being used on Sasha.”

"The lark would give anything for that thing."

This intelligence was completely beyond the reach of the Arasaka branch. Putting aside the matter of General Murata in 70, just considering the Joint Logistics Department agents and their detailed names, V almost thought that Lin Yue was someone working in military technology.

As he spoke, Lin Yue sighed. No matter how much he said, he was only afraid that everything would go back to its original course and fall apart.

He was no longer an observer, but someone caught in the most complex game of chess in the world.

The struggles and calculations on the streets are clearly not on the same level as those in a company. If we were to use the terminology from his previous life... Lin Yue chose the hell mode, but this can only be seen as the optimistic view before everything has settled down.

V finally understands now, but that doesn't mean she will completely believe it, even if her subconscious tells her that her lover is trustworthy.

However, failing to verify such confidential information will only lead to more troublesome consequences.

"Perhaps these are things you shouldn't be involved in for the time being, Rin."

V shook his head. "Neither you nor I can handle something this big right now, but we've gotten through it—but I need to look into these things."

Lin Yue immediately stopped him.

But V immediately cut him off, saying, "Rin, look at me."

“People who love each other shouldn’t make each other subservient, but they also shouldn’t let the other person watch them struggle. Dogtown is like that, and so is Konbi… Rin.” The woman’s arms wrapped around Lin Yue. “Don’t let me fall behind you again.”

"Okay?"

The tone remains unequivocally V.

Lin Yue could only nod blankly.

This feeling is incredibly strange. It's something that the world can't understand, yet your partner is paying attention to this possibility, taking action, and even choosing to believe in it when appropriate.

Lovers trust each other in this way.

At this moment, Lin Yue suddenly remembered that V had avoided talking about company matters several times yesterday, so he asked if the company was still carrying out a purge.

However, V did not intend to discuss this topic.

Looking at the woman's almost glued-to-the-face, darting eyes, Lin Yue felt like he'd been tricked...

"Uh...it's too frequent, we are."

V stopped what she was doing. "I can't do this with anyone else, I can only rely on you. I was too gentle with you yesterday, shouldn't it be my turn today?"

Lin Yue was pulled down, his hand reaching towards the sky as if pleading for help.

After a while, it slumped down dejectedly.

"I need to get a new prosthetic body."

While catching his breath, Lin Yue said something.

Unexpectedly, V, who had just gone through all that, said something surprising: "It suits me quite well, don't do anything rash."

This city doesn't have many ways of expressing love and affection, but they are all crude.

Because tomorrow is too expensive.

……

……

(End of this chapter)