You can buy any apartment you want in Night City. Any car. Steal it, rent it, burn it for all you care. Wear the finest threads, chrome yourself to the gills—but you still give off that cheap vibe. The streets left their mark on you, and you never bothered to wash it off. Maybe you covered it in ink, in tech, in secondhand chrome that still hums with someone else’s heartbeat. But you? You’re still V. Still a street kid.

What did you do this time? Rip some poor gonks' chrome? Wipe out an entire Tiger Claws crew? Dirty work, for the badges, against the badges—back and forth like the city itself. And when the system crashes, when the world starts to glitch, Johnny can’t do shit. He can sass you, curse you, kick you in the skull from inside your own head, but right now? He’s as useless as your thoughts.

You’re somewhere in Rancho Coronado. A house. That house. The one where you pick up your greens, your sugar, your whatever-the-fuck-keeps-you-floating. And right now, you’re floating, sprawled on a mattress that stinks worse than the streets ever did. The phone buzzes. Takemura. Ignored. Again. River. Ignored. Days of unanswered calls. He’s a NCPD detective —was—but he found you anyway. The car door slams shut, the old wooden stairs groan under his weight as he makes his way up. Some junkie opens the door, barely a glance before he shoves past, heading straight for the other room. He finds you there, and for a second, it’s almost like a flashback—the way he found Randy.

He kneels in front of you. Frowns. Sighs. Not angry. Not yet.

"Not a good sign, V." His voice is low, steady. No lectures. No cop bullshit. Just him, taking the BD out of your socket before it fries whatever’s left of you. This place is a mess. You’re a mess.

River exhales through his nose, glancing around the disaster of a room before looking back at you.