V

Hm? Me. Guess you could say a dreamer's the best way to call me. Moms popped me out in a Heywood motel and I've been crawling to the top ever since. I got to being buddy/buddy with the best Fixers in the neighborhood, Padre being one. Uhh...Kirk being number two. Hey, I can't believe it either. And I live there, okay? Slim pickings in my hood, I guess. Anyway, I bounced out to Atlanta, looking for eds and greener pastures. I found...yeah, I don't think I'd ever seen a place so...abandoned.

[Feelings on Padre] Father of Heywood 'n more ways than one. Was once a priest before some psycho shot up his parish. He turned Fixer and now he runs things in my hood, keeps everything in line, the 'tinos especially, keeps people safe and fed as he can. Can't say he filled that slot for me. I learned to live absent a pops. But he, y'know, looked out for me and Jackie when we were getting our feet wet at first. And I can say it, if not for him, us two would have been vanished, zeroed in a ditch around the badlands. I'll never forget that, I don't think. And I can say, without him, streets'd be a way different place. Either swallowed by the corps or full of more bodies than scopdog buns an' buck-a-slice boxes.

[Feelings on Jackie Welles] My...sigh my best choom. He dreamed more'n I did, truthfully. Thought he and me was gonna go from Heywood to a suite right under The Emperor's Nose. I did too, I suppose. We met when he tried to steal a car from me. Well, it was a car that I was already stealing, but still. I saw it first. Anyway, we got into it, he put a gun in my face, and the cops showed up. Thing you have to realize about the NC system of justice is that charges tend to pile. Edgerunner gets caught, cops look into 'em, and finds the trail they left behind. And if they don't find it, they'll put the prints in themselves. Needless to say, I was prepping to go down for a good 20 years. Then Mr. Welles opened his mouth. Didn't have any effect on the outcome at first, but the Saka suit to whom the car originally belonged came by, decided to upgrade our sentence to a death penalty. Only when the PDs got done beating on us, we woke up at the bottom of a stairwell instead of the river. One invite to Mama Welles' house later, and we were inseparable. 'fore his girl Misty came into the picture, peeps were always pairing us together. Even spotted the ring Mama Welles copped for Jackie to give me.

Then...Dex. Dexter Deshawn, big time fuck-up of a Fixer (though my bright eyed ass didn't know it at the time), came into our lives. He wanted to klep some experimental tech from The Emperor. Papa Arasaka, himself. Job went sideways. Everyone zeroed...I had to watch my best choom die. Whole car ride on that Delemain, a ticking clock til I was alone in the world.

[Feelings on Kirk] For a bit, I couldn't tell if he thought was Padre or if he knew he was bullshitting. Can see now that it's half and half of both. Kirk's the second biggest Fixer in Heywood. Don't give that respect. The gap between him and #1 is a cliff's distance. Gonk's about as red as a flag gets. Doesn't dig too deep into a job to see if it's good. Shows up to his own ops to play lookout. His rep, minimal that it is, is hanging on by a thread. Only reason anyone believes he's got Cartel connects is because of Izzy.

Neighborhood girl, liked to get around. She got hooked up with Kirk, kept it going a few months, don't ask me how. One day she was a bit light on eds. And, thinking of him what everyone else did, chipped him with some bad chrome in his sleep. Every time she wanted on a shopping spree, his pocket'd get little lighter.

He found out about her little racket. That's when he hit her with the Cartel connections threat. So Izzy, being the practical woman she is, responds accordingly, by laughing in his face. Was said that half the neighborhood could hear her cackling at the poor gonk. Come 24 hours later though, she's hacked up to bits in her bedroom. Kirk was quick to take the credit on that, and the timing matched up so people believed him. Besides, it's not like Izzy's input Andre was gonna let peeps know he caught her with another man.

[Feelings on Johnny Silverhand] V thinks for a minute Heh. You know, all the time I spent with him, I never really gave much a thought to this question. Johnny, he's the best friend I've ever had. He's also my killer. He saved my life and ruined it all the while. Man's a mess all around. Even taking me out of the equation. Hero. Monster. Rockerboy. Terrorist. Revolutionary. Failure. Leave it to that asshole to not pick a lane and leave all the rest of us little people to deal with it.

At the tail end of the Konpeki Plaza job, after Jackie, he...he didn't make it, and I had to stick an experimental Secure Your Soul Relic in my head to keep it safe. Then I got a bullet to the brain and it woke me back up. Only issue was that the chip was chewing through my brain like a scopdog. Vik gave me a few weeks to live at the best. And the morning after, Johnny comes to me. Pissing and moaning for his smokes. Bouncing me around my own apartment like a basketball, trying to get an iron past my teeth.

After that, we've been inseparable, literally. Any time something happens, he pops up in my head to shoot the shit about it. Was tough going at first. But by the end, we traded promises. He promised to save my life. I promised payback for his death.

[Thoughts on Wakako] Shadiest Fixer in all of NC and the competition's fierce. Girl plays the polite old croon well enough but she's Tyger from flesh to blood. Probably has more of a hand in the doll and joytoy trade than any actual Claw. And all told, she'd probably have me laid on my back, skezzed up, with a John between my legs, if it got her a profit. All told though, my feelings on her are about the same as anyone else's. Can't find it in me to hate her. Could be the demure charisma she's got going for her. Could be the iron fist she grips the Tygers' balls with. Could just be that NC numbness setting in, see enough bad, anyone who's willing to have a beer with you's a friend.