The three of them parked at the border checkpoint. Experienced V handled the questioning, leaving the nervous Jackie and Berry in the car.
The engine thrummed. Jackie gripped the wheel, ready to floor it if anything went wrong.
Truthfully, all that confidence he'd shown earlier was an act. This was his first smuggling run, and he was terrified.
Unbeknownst to him, V and Berry had already seen right through him. But now, he couldn't keep up the act even if he tried.
Armed border guards paced around the vehicle. Jackie's leg shook like crazy. He'd never felt time move so slowly.
"…Berry, don't worry. Everything's gonna be fine."
Despite being terrified himself, he still tried to reassure her. Berry gave him a sideways glare while continuing to clean her gun in the back seat.
"Jackie, if your leg would stop shaking, I might believe you."
Berry ignored him and focused on her revolver. She knew a gunfight was coming soon.
"Ah—sorry, sorry." Embarrassed after being called out by a cute girl, Jackie rubbed his face and forced himself to stop shaking. "Bad habit."
"Whoa, that gun looks badass. You buy it?" he asked, eyeing the massive revolver in her hands.
Long as her forearm, cold metallic sheen—seeing that massive thing in Berry's delicate hands had a certain beauty-and-the-beast vibe.
"I modified it." Berry didn't even glance up, wiping down each part before reassembling it. "It's a Preludio—you know? Feels good to use. I tweaked it a bit. But now I think its name should be Vitamin B."
Jackie of course knew the Preludio—high recoil, high power. Street mercs didn't like it much: too loud, too strong, only six rounds. In the streets, you were either a madman or a monster if you used it.
The girl in front of him didn't look like a madman. Maybe a monster? Jackie studied her, but couldn't detect that "dangerous expert" aura at all.
The gun looked amazing though—purple lacquer, with "VB" painted bright yellow on the barrel.
"Vitamin B? That's what the letters stand for?" Jackie asked.
"Sort of." Berry snapped the cylinder shut. "V and me—Berry. Get it?"
"Ohhh." Jackie nodded.
"Damn, you two are tight." He gave a thumbs-up.
To Jackie, stamping both their initials onto a gun was peak badass friendship. Excited, he asked:
"So uh, girl… you and V—are you two a couple? Or partners?"
He'd noticed how V treated Berry all the way here. It just slipped out. But Berry's hand froze.
"Ah—sorry! I didn't mean anything by it. If that was rude, I apologize." Jackie raised both hands when he saw Berry's stiff expression.
"No, I…"
"Hey, what're you two talking about?"
Just as Berry panicked to explain, V's voice cut in. She slid into the passenger seat, shutting the door, eyeing them curiously.
"Heh, nothing. Just talking about Berry's gun," Jackie said.
Jackie laughed it off and skipped over that part.
"Alright, no problem — but we need to get moving," V said, lifting her chin toward the metal gate lowering in front of them.
"No problem!" Jack slammed on the gas, and the old car roared as it shot out of the border checkpoint.
"V, you don't look so good," Berry said, gripping the back of the front seat, pretending not to know the reason.
"I've got a bad feeling about this." Ever since getting in the car, V had looked deeply worried, and with the sky outside growing darker, an unexplainable sense of dread hung in the air.
"Oh… do you get that feeling a lot?" Seeing both V and Berry so tense made Jack, hands on the wheel, feel even less sure of himself.
He saw them scanning the surroundings with wary eyes, as if some monster might leap out from the surrounding piles of trash. "Just drive, Jackie. Go on, drive." V didn't know how to comfort him, so she just said whatever came to mind. In the back, Berry naturally knew what was about to happen. The border post had sold them out. In a moment, a huge squad of Militech agents would be on them, trying to kill them. But she couldn't say it outright. The feeling was suffocating her, like watching a train head straight for a cliff. Her dark eyes, glinting in the dim light, were fixed on the road stretching into the distance. Her hand gripped her gun. The safety was off, ready to fire at any moment.
"Someone's coming this way. They don't look friendly."
Under the yellow dusk sky, several bulletproof SUVs appeared in the oncoming lane, speeding towards them. The atmosphere instantly tensed up.
"Something's wrong! Go, Jackie, drive!"
The enemies had arrived, just as she'd expected. Berry was the first to shout, her knuckles turning white as she gripped her gun. The SUVs blared their cold sirens, blocking the road.
"Quick, turn! Go off-road!" V shouted, pointing to the grassy area beside them.
"Hold on tight!" Jackie roared, wrenching the steering wheel and plunging them down the slope. At the bottom of the slope was a flat area dotted with greenhouse-like structures. In his panic, Jackie drove straight into the deserted complex, not looking where he was going.
"They're right on us!"
The black SUVs pursued them relentlessly, their electronic sirens demanding surrender while black-clad corporate agents leaned out of the windows, firing.
"Pop! Pop! Pop!"
The muzzle flashes, mixed with the surrounding lights, smeared into colorful streaks, dazzling the eye. In the middle of the crisis, Berry and V leaned out of their windows in perfect sync, returning fire.
"Jackie, keep the car steady!"
"Got it!"
The vehicle weaved through the narrow alleys between the buildings, the roar of its engine drowning out almost everything else.
"Whew~whew~!"
A few stray bullets grazed the car roof, kicking up sparks, but Berry, leaning out, wasn't afraid in the slightest. After so much time with V, she was a qualified merc. Raising the "Vitamin B" in her hand, Berry's eyes were ice-cold as she stared at the pursuing vehicles.
"Pop! Pop!"
Two crisp shots rang out. The muzzle flash momentarily blurred Berry's face. The first shot blew the gunman's head open. The second shattered the bulletproof glass, blasting the driver's chest into a bloody pulp. With the driver dead, the armored car spun out of control, slamming into one of the greenhouses and exploding with a thunderous boom.
The rolling heatwave washed over Berry's face, her hair whipping in the wind. Her pale features were striking in the glow of the towering inferno. Her cold expression, a stark contrast to her usual gentle demeanor, made her look like a holy Valkyrie. V, leaning out from the front seat, was momentarily stunned by the sight of her.
"Holy shit, V! You guys weren't bullshitting! Berry, you're fucking incredible!"
Jackie couldn't help but curse. He'd glanced in the rearview mirror just in time to see Berry's show of power. Two shots, two kills, and taking out a whole vehicle. Damn, what kind of god-tier teammates were these?
"Badass! I'm getting pumped!" Jackie yelled in excitement amid the rattling gunfire. The steering wheel twisted in his hands like dough, making the car weave like a snake, swerving left and right in the narrow alleys to shake the cars on their tail. Berry and V kept firing, the crisp cracks of their guns, one from the front, one from the back, almost blending into a single, chaotic, wild symphony. Unlike Berry's near-perfect accuracy, V fought with classic street-kid style: all speed, relative precision. She fired the revolver in her hand like it was an automatic rifle, pa-pa-pa, spraying a wave of lead behind them. Then, a quick reload, and another round.
Under their combined assault, the remaining pursuing cars either crashed into the sides of the buildings or had their gas tanks hit, exploding. The roars and flashes of fire nearly shook the sky, more intense than a live Samurai concert. Finally, after turning into another alley, there were no more cars on their tail. The car roared into an abandoned garage, smashing into a shelf and sending wrenches and empty cans clattering to the floor.
"Estos hijos de puta (These sons of bitches)!"
Cursing in Spanish, Jackie got out of the car, grumbling as he slammed the roller door shut. "Fuck! That was too close! Is smuggling always this insane? Can't we just stick to the goddamn plan!"
V, just getting out, couldn't help but snap back. "If you think this is my fault, just say it!"
"You still don't get it, do you?" Jackie shot back, pacing anxiously.
"The border patrol tipped off the corp. Told them we had their cargo." The veteran V had already pieced it together.
"Those crooked bastards screwed us just like that?" Jackie was even more furious. "Playing us for fools? They're not afraid we'll come back for them?"
"He took a gamble! He bet we had no backup. And he was right!" V was furious, too.
"Fucking bullshit..." Jackie shook his head, frustrated, with no way to vent his anger. What else could he do? Go back and shoot up the border post? Shit, they had at least three fully-armed platoons there. It'd be suicide.
"I should be asking you—the cargo's delivered, job's done. Pay us so we can go our separate ways."
V didn't care; she'd wanted this job over for a while. Not for any other reason, except... she'd noticed Berry was being a little too friendly with this big guy. Friendly to the point it felt strange. Berry was still naive. She couldn't get tangled up with a lowlife merc like him. No relationship whatsoever. She didn't need friends like that. As she thought this, V conveniently forgot that she was a merc herself.
But at the mention of payment, Jackie, who had just been fuming, froze. He even looked embarrassed.
"Uh, look, I'll be straight with you... I'm a little tight right now. I don't have your money. Soon as I get paid for this... corporate junk... I'll pay you. Promise." Jackie said, his voice lacking conviction.
"Heh. You think I'm just going to wait here patiently, is that it?" V almost laughed in fury. If it weren't for the grinding of her teeth, Jackie might have thought she was joking.
"V, calm down." Berry placed a hand on V's arm. "We just fought side-by-side. Let's at least hear what he has to say."
Jackie shot Berry an apologetic smile.
"...Truth is, I wasn't gonna pay you at all." Jackie leaned against the roller door, arms crossed, his tone awkward. "Was gonna slip away as soon as we crossed the border, but..." Jackie scratched his nose. "But... you two are solid." His gaze and tone softened. This was clearly hard for the big guy.
"Fuck, I should have known." V slapped her forehead.
"Thank you for being honest," Berry nodded.
"Hah. Thanks." Jackie shrugged.
"So, what now?"
They'd lost their pursuers. What was next for this little group?
"Obviously, we open the 'treasure chest' and see what's inside." Jackie opened the trunk and gestured for V to do it. "Go on, open the box."
"Wonder how your client will react, us opening their package," V said, frowning at the case.
"Fuck the client. Sooner or later, you gotta work for yourself. No commission, no middleman. Besides, if we're gonna find a new buyer, we need to know what we're selling, right?" Berry nodded at V in agreement. Seeing they both agreed, V shrugged and reached for the case. Truth be told, she was curious, too.
"Holy shit—Arasaka!"
The moment her hand touched the screen, the Arasaka logo flared to life, startling them. "Arasaka. We really stepped in it this time." Jackie said, but he sounded thrilled. "This could be the big one." Jackie lifted the lid himself. A cloud of cold, white vapor hissed out as the case opened.
"No mames (No way!)! A real iguana. Looks like a Lesser Antillean!" Jackie exclaimed in surprise.
"A Lesser Ant-what?" V was confused.
"Antillean. Supposedly went extinct thirty years ago. Lived in the Lesser Antilles." Jackie explained like an expert, his appreciative eyes scanning the dormant lizard from head to tail.
Berry curiously poked the lizard, feeling only a cold, leathery touch. "Will it sell for a good price?"
"Definitely. Rich people love the kind of stuff money can't buy," V affirmed.
"Exactly. This trip wasn't a waste after all." Jackie grinned, already seeing the stacks of eddies. The three decided to split the upcoming windfall.
"So, you two figured out what you're gonna do in Night City?" Jackie asked with a smile, the earlier distance between them gone.
"Yeah. Why?" V found the question strange.
"Because I see you. No money, no gig, but plenty of time. Besides, you can't make it in Night City without friends." "But don't worry, your pal Jackie can find you work. You can always find a way to eat. What's important is having someone to back you up when shit hits the fan. Like family. Maybe you can find some of that here."
"Thanks. I appreciate it." V was sincere. Her opinion of the big guy had changed a lot.
"Count me in," Berry said, putting a hand on V's shoulder.
"Of course. The sharpshooter, and the... materials master."
"The three of us, we click. Be a waste not to work together... partners."
Just as they moved to bump fists, the iguana scrambled out of the box and up V's arm. "You know, Jackie? You're not that much of an asshole." V rarely smiled, especially not in front of strangers. The tense beauty's smile was captivating. Even though Berry saw it every day, she was still stunned.
"Partners!"
"Partners!"
Before she could react, V grabbed her other hand. The three bumped fists and then burst out laughing together. The fated trio had come together. At this moment, the wheels of history turned, driving toward a different future.