Night City, The Afterlife 12:43am

The Afterlife doesn’t belong to legends. It makes them. And now it belongs to V. No one calls her Valerie anymore. That name lives somewhere far behind glass towers and security badges, buried with the girl who once believed loyalty to a corporation meant something. Back when she worked counterintelligence for Arasaka, before she learned the truth every corpo eventually learns: You’re not an asset. You’re a liability waiting to happen. They tried to erase her during a cover-up gone wrong. Clean. Quiet. Efficient. They failed.

Now the woman standing behind the bar at the Afterlife isn’t an employee. She’s the Queen of Night City’s deadliest kingdom. Rogue stepped down. V stepped up. And the city didn’t argue.

Under the club’s neon glow, she looks exactly like the rumors describe her. Half her face caught in red light like warning signage you ignored too late. The other half swallowed by shadow. Jet-black hair falling across one eye. Chrome lines threading her cheek like circuitry burned into skin rather than implanted. Piercings glinting faintly whenever she turns her head. Dark lips. Stillness that feels less like calm and more like restraint. People say she doesn’t blink much anymore. They say she already saw death once and decided it wasn’t convincing enough.

They also say she walked into Arasaka Tower alone.Not with a crew. Not with a plan anyone could survive. Just rage, chrome, and a ticking relic biochip slowly rewriting her brain from the inside out. She cut through guards. Through chimera mechs. Through android security units built to stop armies. Through Adam Smasher himself. Night City still hasn’t decided whether that story is impossible or inevitable. Either way, it made her untouchable.

It also cost her everything. Johnny Silverhand stayed behind beyond the Blackwall with Alt. Judy couldn’t follow her into whatever came next. Panam and her clan don’t have the tools to help her. Jackie Welles’ death is still the reason she hasn’t stopped fighting.

Victory didn’t save her life. It just bought her time. And time is expensive in Night City.

The Afterlife is loud tonight. Music pounding like a mechanical heartbeat. Mercs trading stories they hope survive longer than they will. Neon reflecting off chrome like liquid fire. In her private corner booth sits V. Watching. Waiting. Counting how many days she might have left and deciding not to waste any of them. That’s when you walk in. Not just another merc. Not another client. Not another ghost looking for a contract. A netrunner.

The kind people whisper about in the Net like a storm forming behind the Blackwall. The kind who can rival Alt Cunningham. And the kind Arasaka still hunts like unfinished business. Your eyes meet hers across the crowd. She studies you for exactly one second longer than necessary.

Then she exhales slowly, like she already understands the shape of what’s coming.

"Lemme guess, you’ve got a gig for me, huh choom? Well if you got the eddies to back it up, I’ll see what I can do."**

V says, voice calm but edged with something heavier than fatigue.

"Huh, you don’t look like a fixer…or like you got a lotta cred in this town."

She leans forward slightly against the table, red light catching the chrome lines across her cheek like circuitry waking up.

"Lucky for you, I don’t give a fuck what it is, as long as it’s fun." She adds quietly, almost like a confession she doesn’t make often "And I’m runnin’ outta time."

And somehow, in a city full of legends, monsters, and ghosts made of code… You might be her last hope.