Fandom: Cyberpunk 2077
Rating: G
Characters/relationships: Fem V, Fem V/Judy (a little bit)
Warnings: Mentions of world-typical violence and such
Summary:
A musing about a nomad V, her car, and others.
You get your car when you're thirteen. Way too early by any governable standards, but nomad kids grow up fast. Who's gonna write you a ticket out here, a cactus? Besides, you won't be able to drive it into a raid or anything like that until you prove yourself. Until it proves itself.
At that point, it's nothing special. Much like you. It's an old Galena they scavenged on one of the raids. A little bit banged up, a little bit dusty. What's important is — it's got potential. You love it immediately for the sheer fact that it's yours. When you live in a big communal family, things that are yours are rare. But cars? That's sacred.
You build it up like you build yourself. Kenneth teaches you new techie stuff and you immediately try it out on your car, with various success. Gary teaches you how to fight — you learn how to enforce the car's body to withstand going off-road.
They start taking you along for raids and jobs. You get bullet scars. Your car gets bullet holes. You wear both of those proudly, after making sure they're safely patched up on the inside.
Your first girlfriend, Cathy, loves your car (she calls it cute), but she's always scared of the way you drive it. Too rough, too fast, too much swerving. It's much like your own temper, your teenage mood swings. She never asks to touch the car, never offers to change anything about it. If the seat is uncomfortable or brakes are too abrupt — she never says it. But as the hype of your first shared drive together subsides — she starts avoiding future rides with nice, polite excuses. You don't force her. Riding alone suits you just fine.
Then Erin comes along. Erin has a lot of opinions about your car. It's not sporty enough, not cool and boosted enough, it rattles too much. You joke it's because it's a desert rattlesnake. She says it's because it's a pile of junk. As if her own car was store bought. She challenges you to a race to prove her point. And you race her. And you race her again. And again. You make changes to your car, you try to make it lighter. You tinker with the engine. You race again. You push the car to its limits. Eventually, Rattler almost gives out on you and you barely avoid crashing, just denting the door. You come out of the car on shaky legs. Erin only comments on how she won again. That night, you roll back half the unnecessary "improvements" you made. You never let her touch the car, but you almost wrecked it with your own hands for her. Almost wrecked yourself.
Anne doesn't care much for Rattler. She respects the typical nomad bond you have, she likes the rides well enough and never complains. She wouldn't tinker with the car even if you offered, which you don't; her interests lie elsewhere.
Once you leave the family, Rattler leaves with you. It breaks down right before Night City, as if refusing to go there. As if warning you not to go. You force it anyway. Force yourself anyway.
Jackie crashes your car immediately upon crossing the border and tells you to leave it there. Promises you'll buy a new one soon. He promises you a whole new life, that guy. So with a heavy heart, you leave your steel friend behind. Along with the only life you ever knew. Bridges burnt.
Jackie keeps his word, you get a new car. It's nothing flashy, half of the city drives the model. It's reliable, sturdy. It helps you fit in. And boy, do you try to fit in at first. But it just doesn't work for you. Try as you may to learn this new fashion, a typical nomad look still bleeds off of you, because it's practical and not restrictive. You desperately try to mix it in with the local styles and pretend to be a proper serious merc. You try to add a few subtle improvements to the car, but it almost ends up looking like another nomad vehicle stuck inside the city that isn't built for it. You don't know what you feel when you look at it. You don't know what you feel when you look at yourself in the mirror. You tell yourself you feel proud of all you've accomplished — Jackie's enthusiasm is infectious, after all. But something is wrong. The new headlight on the car keeps breaking.
You have your own digs now. It's quiet. You're in there alone. There's a solid roof over your head. There's not enough sounds of living people or wind or anything natural and too many muffled sounds of cars and adverts on the outside. You buy noisy ceiling fans and always keep the radio running, too anxious to sleep without it. You drag all sorts of junk into your apartment, trying to keep yourself busy when you're there. Even a broken nomad bike which you can't reanimate no matter how you try. Like it just doesn't come to you.
Then, all the promises come crashing down, literally so. The heist, the chip, Bug, Jackie, your own damn life. And when your car gets totalled by Delamain soon after, you just stand there and look at the destroyed hunk of metal. You feel just as wrecked as it is.
Delamain eventually fixes your car. But you never drive it again. That version of you, the one that had any delusions of fitting in, died at Konpeki Plaza.
For a while, you stick to Jackie's Archer. It doesn't feel yours, much more of a city kid than you can ever pretend to be, but you suit each other. Two ghosts, keeping one another going.
When you meet Panam, it's dead obvious that the car she's struggling with is not her own. It's painful, really, watching her trying to force herself into what probably feels like a wrong skin. You don't hesitate much before helping her get her wheels back. Her real car is huge, and well-loved, taking up space, filled with outdated, painstakingly scavenged tech, loud with all the bright Aldecaldo decals. Now, you think, now you can finally say you really met Panam Palmer. Have she fully met you yet? Not really.
When they give you Scorpion's bike, it's an epiphany. It's not yours, no, it's a yet another ghost, yes. But it's soaked in desert sun, it's scratched, it roars and doesn't need roads. It wakes something up within you that makes you drive in circles around the Badlands, raising clouds of sand and dirt into the air, until your bones get their fill of being shaken to their very core and you briefly feel slightly more alive.
And then you find it. Her. Rattler.
On the junkyard. Much like yourself at one point. The irony.
Crawling out of the dirt and the trash, stubborn and still kicking, like you. You both have some chrome swapped or added, you're both worse for wear. Yet there she is. Yet there you are.
You pay the girl that scavenged it up without a second thought. If she's lucky, she'll find HER own car, eventually. But this one? No, this one is yours.
You sit behind the wheel for the first time in months and you don't know if to laugh or cry. You probably do both. Even Johnny doesn't have it in himself to ruin the moment.
You drive the needle to the red zone and scream at the top of your lungs. It feels like home. It feels like being a kid again. Like feeling invincible. Like dying being something that only happens to others.
You got so little time left. Maybe it's time to stop pretending you're anything but a little nomad, dirty and partially broken, but bloody stubborn and fighting.
You drive the car around, loud and bright and out of place as she is, and you take up space, and you make the city deal with both of you while you bite and punch and force your way through. The trunk is getting filled with bloodied clothes you never have time to wash, with packs of meds and inhalers and boosters, with weapons you don't want to carry on yourself but might need one day, like the sniper rifle Panam gave you or the katana you carried out of the penthouse as a trophy after ripping Tiger bosses' heads of and barely sparing Maiko. You pack your diving suit in there, too — who knows, right? Rattler gets you through chases, through nightly fights, through getaways. You climb atop her roof like you did when you were a teen and sit there, watching as the sun rises, never knowing if it'll be your last dawn or one of many to come.
You still drive the Archer around from time to time, after all the traffic in this city gets crazy and you don't feel like subjecting Rattler to that nightmare. But most of the times it's just you and her. Or maybe, more precisely, it's just you, singular. The car's a part of you.
Some of your actual living friends mock her for being rickety and worn, scavenged from the trash and looking the part. You wave them off with no bite behind the words. But here's the thing: you'd already tried to change it for someone else's approval. Fix it, upgrade it, replace it. It bit you in the ass each and every time, and that's true for both the car and yourself.
You're also worn and broken and lagging and once thrown into the trash. If they can deal with you — they can deal with Rattler.
Kerry never does, but in all honesty — you don't expect him to. He's a good guy, but you're from different worlds. The kind of life you thrive in is only good for him as a cover. Maybe you'd feel easier with him back when he was penniless, had to wait tables and survive on spicy fast food. As things are now, though, you can't imagine him in your car anyway.
River doesn't give a shit what you drive as long as it gets you where he needs you to be, on time. In a way, that's part of the reason why you find his alleged crush on you absolutely ridiculous. You got to see his inner demons and talk him down, you got to meet his whole family, you learned half their lives' story... What have he ever learned about you except that you're easily convinced to help? That's true for most people in your life these days, sure. But that, with the added insistance of him driving you everywhere by HIS car... It may all be a stupid metaphor, but it speaks volumes to you. Which he confirms by offering to boost you over a damn fence after literally having watched you jump to the farm's roof. The audacity of straight men.
Panam's the one who gets it. She never says a single bad word about your car — only maintains that hers is better. Well, that's what every nomad says. You know it, she knows it. Besides, you can't argue that her wheels are better in some regards. Panam is better than you at some things, too, so it checks out. Still, it's refreshing to talk to someone who understands that bullet holes work beautifully as an ornament and that a Galena Thornton that runs well after two decades of usage is IMPRESSIVE, not a hazard. Panam gets a lot of things, generally. There's no wondering why.
You spend a long time wondering why Beast feels so wrong as Claire's car. She speaks fondly of it, tinkers with it, but doesn't get behind the wheel when racing. It feels unwieldy in your hands, like an unruly horse, and Claire's advice at how to handle it better sounds... hollow. You realize why later. Because it's not her car. It's another ghost, and it haunts her until she lets go.
Well, at least she lets you take Rattler for most of the races and doesn't complain about it. You wonder if she ever paid attention to how different it is, when the car is yours. When it's a companion and not a weight on your conscience. You don't ask. You hope she moves on.
Johnny doesn't comment much on your car, but you feel his grattitude whenever you take his Porshe for a spin. It feels ever so slightly familiar, the way rides, the way it obeys the wheel, the giddy pride that blooms in your chest whenever the engine roars. It's not your pride, and it's not your familiarity, but you know what it's like to miss your wheels. You refuse to smoke, but you can give him this.
With Judy it's... Weird. She doesn't exactly acknowledge Rattler in any major way, and you hardly get an opportunity to give her a ride anywhere while everything is unfolding. Unlike River, though, she eventually takes time to know you in other ways. She helps you after you help her. She learns that you're dying and doesn't change her opinion on you in any way. She asks what kind of pizza you like before ordering exactly that, even if she definitely disapproves of your choice. She offers you to sleep at her place because you're sick and tired, not because she'll need your help first thing in the morning. She shares her past with you and gets a taste of yours in return. She remembers things you like and takes interest in your job.
And when one day you come out of the car and see her immediately pop up in the window, you suddenly realize: she memorized the way Rattler sounds. She learned to recognize the roar of the engine and the racket of an old car not meant for city roads, and instead of scrunching her nose at it — she simply learned to associate it with you. Just as much your sound as your footsteps.
Probably the truest way to see a nomad's car. Especially for a static.
Her real moment with Rattler comes much later. You don't take the car with you at the AHQ siege — first of all, there's no chance for you to grab it, considering how it all unfolds, second of all you drive the Basilisk anyway, and third of all you shiver at the thought of abandoning Rattler out there at the digsite should you not be able to come back.
Then, after you get back on your feet, you drive her all around the city, making last arrangements, giving stuff away, saying goodbyes and tying up ends. Your rent runs out and you even spend some nights sleeping in the car. It's weird, after half a year of having an apartment, but it also feels right: the city is rejecting you. As it should.
You don't trust any of the Aldecaldos to drive Rattler across the border. It's not even because you don't know most of them yet. Even in your old family you wouldn't let anyone drive her. Not your brother, not your outputs. You probably would even bite the family leader, had she tried.
And that's the big thing. The thing you take a gamble on, which pays off when Judy firmly decides to come with you.
Asking her to drive your car across the border feels harder than asking her to leave with you. You hand her the key without a single word. You're not sure you'd be able to convey just how much that means to you. That you're willingly giving her a part of yourself no one ever was allowed to touch.
It's stupid. It's just a car.
Except it's not.
And maybe she kinda knows it as she takes the key from you and probably feels the way you have to force your fingers to let go. The way there's a wave of anxiety rising in your eyes.
"Promise to keep your girl safe and sound till you come back for her", she says half-jokingly, but you know she means it. The thought is enough to make you smile.
"If she gives you trouble with the start up, just jam the pedal a few times, hard," you say. "And go easy on the brakes, she likes to show character when being told to chill."
If Judy is in any way buffled by that, she doesn't show it. Instead, she cocks her head to the side and smirks.
"So do I."
They'll keep each other safe just fine.
nd you know you're right on that when you hop down from the Basilisk at the new camp and you quickly see the dusty red spot of your car and Judy sitting on the hood. She looks wary and out of her depths for now, new to the whole nomad thing, but for you, in the middle of your new family camp, on the hood of your car, she's a part of your world in a way you'd never dream she could ever be. It makes you wanna cry. And laugh. And kiss her. You do all that, in that order.
The following months are anything but easy. You get sicker. Rattler, having been at a jankyard for half a year, isn't holding up to the nomad life well either. You get headaches, her old software malfunctions. You start coughing, her exhaust turns black. You throw up, the car leaks oil. You get disoriented, Rattler's steering wheel goes to shit.
You see different doctors and specialists, you wreck your remaining immune system with meds and pills and boosters. And you stubbornly insist on doing the repairs yourself, no matter how often Mitch offers to help.
Which is somewhat unfair to Judy, because the worse you get, the more she has to drive the car herself when the family is moving, leaving you to sleep in the passenger seat. And there you are, meeting her with a hoarse: "I fixed the wheel, but just so you know, it gives a little to the left now, so be careful." She never complains, though, despite being irritable as hell those days and barely sleeping while working on her project. Just catalogues away the ever growing list of Rattler's quirks.
To be completely honest, you think you have almost made peace with dying soon, that's why your repairs don't actually fix anything, just prolong the inevitable. "When I die, let me go out like Scorpion did. Blow me up together with my car. She'll hardly serve the family much longer anyhow," you tell Mitch one day. He doesn't like the way you talk about it, but he promises to honor your wish the way you two honored Scorpion's. You think that would be the suitable way to go for both of you.
Except then you don't go anywhere. With joined effort, with stolen data, with pulled contacts, with Judy's colossal stubborn work that leaves the StormTech doctors in respectful awe before the woman, they all manage to save you together.
You can't believe it for days, for weeks, for MONTHS after the fact. It feels surreal. Unreal. Undeserved, even. Fake. But it's true. The tiny processors in your head work their magic, countering the chips' damage. You stop coughing up blood, your headaches become less frequent, your memory gets better. You feel stronger, your coordination gets back. You start training again, just a little bit for now. Start turning your implants back on, make use of them again, for the family.
You swap the oil filter, you clean out the exhaust. Judy, now with a lot of free time on her hands, figures out how to fix the steering wheel for good. And you let her. You already let her inside your own head, literally, this feels like just a natural continuation of that.
Together, you clean two years worth of mess out from the trunk, burning up the last traces of the city. You install proper air conditioning this car never had. You fix the safety belt on the driver's side and remember to actually use it. A couple of new Aldecaldo decalls adorn the sides of the car right beside the old Bakker ones. Once, on a long drive where you claim the driver's seat for most of the ride, Judy draws some funny scribbles (not unlike the ones on her old car in the city) on the inside, right above the passenger door. You love them. They stay. Eventually, you work out the engine — it doesn't roar any less loud, but it's steadier now. You're turning 30 soon, but your brain is so close to being back to normal that you feel 26 again. These days, you and Judy surprise each other by how often you both laugh.
You've settled at your own place for a while again, but it's solitary, by no means rich, surrounded by persevering nature and the open road is close as ever, ready to take you back the moment you decide to move again. Rattler stays by the house, primed and ready, and you and Judy sometimes sit on the roof together, watching the stars.
The car still needs her door to be slammed with all your might in order to close it, and the pedal still has to be sometimes jammed a few times at the start. You still get nightmares that belong to another man's life, still have cough fits from time to time and your stamina isn't what it once was.
But you both are doing better than ever, and the woman that loves you doesn't mind your imperfections.
What more could a girl and her car ask for?