[Is that... Johnny Silverhand!?] Roqi was stunned.
He never imagined he'd one day hear a voice inside his head that wasn't his own.
It was surreal. More than that—terrifying.
[The fuck...? I'm Johnny Silverhand. Not Ironhand, you corporate-branded idiot.]
That signature rough-edged voice rang out, full of rage and irritation.
[Who the hell are you?! Who the fuck sent you?!]
Roqi: …
Wow. Somebody woke up cranky.
But Roqi wasn't the only one confused. Johnny Silverhand had just awoken in a dark, senseless void—no sight, no sound, no body—and now some random voice was talking at him.
Of course he assumed Arasaka was behind it again, running some twisted new experiment—just like what they'd done to his girlfriend.
[Come out, you cowering Arasaka mutts! Hiding behind your chrome desks and corporate balls!]
Roqi: …
Dude. You've seriously got the wrong idea.
[I'm not with Arasaka, I swear—]
[Cut the shit! Whatever you're gonna do, just get it over with. Let's see what your latest little science project looks like.]
Roqi: …
[Really. I'm not corporate. Actually, I'm kind of at war with Arasaka myself.]
He sighed, rubbing his temples.
[…]
The voice fell silent. Then lingered there in tense stillness.
V, Jackie, and Viktor glanced at Roqi, his face twitching like he was arguing with a ghost.
Takemura gave him the look you reserve for a guy on the edge of a cyberpsychotic break, and sighed as if to say, This is the "resistance" I'm working with? Great.
[…Alright. Then who the hell are you? And get me the fuck out of here.]
Johnny actually sounded… thrown off. Which was new.
In Roqi's extremely limited knowledge (i.e., pre-prologue), Johnny was supposed to be a total badass—the guy who nuked Arasaka Tower.
[I'm… I'm…]
Roqi froze. How the hell do you explain this?
"I'm a guy who got isekai'd into Cyberpunk 2077 and shredded the plot like wet tissue paper"?
Yeah, no. Not exactly a conversation starter with a rebel from the early 2000s.
[Long story short—it's 2077 now.]
[You shitting me?]
Roqi could practically see the raised brow, that "do I look like a moron?" glare.
[I'm not joking.] He replied firmly. [You died in 2023. Adam Smasher killed you. Then Soulkiller uploaded your mind. Now… somehow, you're in a Relic chip.]
[Relic? What the fuck is that?]
[A prototype biochip.] Roqi winced at Johnny's non-stop swearing. [Marketed as "Protect Your Soul."]
He gave Johnny the short version: a bleeding-edge Arasaka experiment meant to digitize a person's consciousness and preserve it in chip form. The goal? Let people talk to dead loved ones.
Sounded like sci-fi trash. Roqi thought so too—until Johnny Silverhand started yelling in his brain.
[So you're saying I'm stuck on some corpo chip now?] Johnny snapped. [Motherfucking Arasaka sons of bitches!]
[Hey, hey—getting pissed won't help you punch Arasaka.]
Roqi tried to keep his tone level. [What are you feeling right now? Can you describe it?]
Maybe it was Roqi's voice. Maybe it was just the honesty. But Johnny paused, then spoke, less violently this time.
[What does it feel like...?]
[Like I'm locked in a black hole. No sound. No sight. No sense of self. Just your voice—nothing else. I thought it was some new Arasaka torture tech. Something that perverted old fossil cooked up for fun.]
Johnny's voice was bitter and cold.
[Honestly? Still might be.]
Roqi rubbed his hair and clicked his tongue in sympathy.
In the original story, the Relic would have been slotted into V's neck and saved his life after Dex shot him. Slowly, it would begin rewriting V's consciousness with Johnny's. Irreversible. Inevitable.
V wouldn't just hear Johnny—he would become Johnny.
"You are my eyes" didn't cut it. "You are me, and I am you" was more accurate.
But now?
Roqi had jammed the Relic into a PDA, and through some mystery system, Johnny got uploaded into his brain.
Even Viktor—Night City's god-tier ripperdoc—wouldn't be able to explain this.
There was only one Relic prototype. And it carried the engram of Johnny Silverhand. A complete digital soul.
Even the people who built it probably had no idea what was happening now.
[Wait!]
Roqi suddenly remembered something.
He opened his PDA and pulled up the photos he'd taken last night—those emails from Yorinobu's computer at Konpeki Plaza.
He hadn't even contacted Moirel yet, let alone sorted these files. If not for Johnny bringing it up, he probably wouldn't have remembered them for days.
First email:
Cloudtop Service
From: Angelica Milioti, Cloudtop
To: Yorinobu Arasaka
Dear Mr. Arasaka,
Thank you as always for choosing our services...
Useless. Just a receipt for Yorinobu's "escort session" with Evelyn Parker. Trash folder.
Second email:
RELIC – URGENT
From: Anders Hellman
To: Yorinobu Arasaka
Please forgive me, but this is urgent. The biochip must be returned to the lab immediately. Otherwise, I cannot guarantee its state or function. I suspect you've been misled, but let me be clear: the Relic is not stable...
"Ah, there it is," Roqi whistled.
[Anders Hellman? Yorinobu Arasaka? Saburo's damn kid?!] Johnny's voice flared up. [What the hell kind of dystopian soap opera is this?!]
But Roqi wasn't listening. He was frozen.
WHAT?
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!
[You can SEE the photos?!]
He stared at his PDA. No sign of Johnny anywhere.
[Yeah… it's weird. I feel like I'm inside something. Like I got melted down and stirred into jam. Can't explain it. Oh—and this PDA? I can access everything in it.]
Roqi's face twisted at light speed into pure dread.
[Hey… about that folder labeled "Study Materials"—don't—]
[Too late.] Johnny's voice oozed smug satisfaction. [I get it, man. We all have our "interests."]
"Lucky, you alright?"
V looked over at Roqi, who was now facepalming into the floor.
"I'm fine. Just… fuck my life."
He lifted his head, face flushed with "happiness."
Look at that smile. So honest. So broken.
[Honestly? Aside from all the Arasaka bullshit, it's not too bad in here.] Johnny muttered. [2077, huh? My bones must be long gone.]
"It's alright, Lucky."
While Roqi had been internally screaming at Johnny, Jackie had finally clawed his way out of guilt-mode—thanks to Misty and the gang. Seeing Roqi looking so downcast, he tried to offer a smile of support.
His eyes sparkled in the dark, but the curve of his brows still held sorrow.
[Wait. Lucky? That's your name? Sounds like a goddamn sissy.]
Roqi: …
He nodded stiffly to Jackie—while mentally strangling Johnny.
[That's me, you asshole. Can you be less of a dick?]
[This is how I talk. Don't like it? Mute me.]
[For fuck's sake. I'm just being polite. I'm famous for it. Ask around—Night City's number-one ambassador of manners.]
[Yeah, and it makes my ears itch. Only corp lapdogs talk like that.]
Roqi rolled his eyes.
Morals were a dying breed in 2077. Night City was a cesspool of greed and filth. Had been for decades.
Johnny had his flaws—plenty of them—but compared to most of the trash out there, he was... honest.
At least you could trust him to be him.
Roqi thought back to that interlude—"Blaze of Glory"—and how Johnny's sheer presence seemed to burn through the screen.
He was narcissistic, reckless, arrogant... but he was also a symbol of rebellion.
He walked away from unjust wars in Central America. Used music to wake people up. Blew up Arasaka Tower because he couldn't stand corporate tyranny.
He made a mess—but he made change.
A charming bastard, through and through.
Roqi smiled.
[Let me get this straight. It's 2077 and Arasaka STILL isn't dead?]
Johnny's voice was bitter, clearly going through the PDA's history logs.
[Nope. They're top dog now.] Roqi explained. [Around '69 or '70, during the Unification War, NUSA tried to take Night City. Mayor Lucius Rhyne begged Arasaka for help. They sent a fucking supercarrier to Coronado Bay. NUSA backed off—no one wanted WW4.]
[And in exchange, Arasaka got their claws into the city again.] Johnny immediately pieced it together. [Last I checked, Arasaka and Militech were at war. What happened there?]
[Arasaka lost. Then fled back to Japan for a while.] Roqi scratched his chin. [When did you blow the tower again?]
Johnny's tone shifted—calm, but proud.
[August 20th, 2023. Never forget it.]
Of course. That was the day you died.
Roqi muttered silently.
[By the end of '23, Arasaka surrendered. Their global branches got seized. Same with Militech. The whole world was at war—Rio got flattened, I think.]
[Massacres. War crimes. Corporate genocide…] Johnny growled. [And nothing's changed.]
[Some people still remember you.]
Roqi thought of the graffiti scattered across the city:
WHERE'S JOHNNY?
Even after half a century, Johnny Silverhand still burned in the hearts of those who hated corporate rule.
[So what do you think?]
A long pause. Then Johnny spoke in a tone Roqi had never heard from him.
[Then maybe I didn't die for nothing.]
Still the same damn Samurai.
.
.
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