Post by Admin on Oct 5, 2023 19:22:01 GMT
Somewhere
Someplace
Sometime
Veronica Strader.
The Chosen One.
Ronnie Cain.
Future Strader Matriarch.
The Scorpion.
The Baba Jaga.
Our heroine has many names, but each one came with the same tone and sentiment of God Forgives.
She doesn’t.
But we all know that about her. What some may not know is where the hell she came from and how was it even possible? Excellent questions, but those answers just aren’t as easy to come by without an open mind.
Veronica lay trapped inside the psyche of Victoria Strader for twenty years before the familial affliction, Valerie, took control of her, using her to take over Victoria’s body, and it worked for a period. Whilst in full control, Veronica got herself “unpurged” and dominated OCW for 176 days as the TransAtlantic Champion.
March 2022. Luck of the Violent. Her and The Lost Stranger in a weird cage match with leprechauns, former wrestler’s tupperware of spaghetti and cattle-prods. Veronica retained, but falls victim to the infamous PORTAL POTTY brought on by former owner and Owl Goddess worshipper Gregory Poblano. Discovers an alternate dimension that gives Veronica her very own body.
Her next goal? To find the Strength TRIAD piece for Marcus Welsh, if he even drafts her. But before all of that, she has to travel back to that other dimension to find her sister. Both will take an inordinate amount of inner strength and guile, and if no one believed in her, it doesn’t matter.
Why?
She believes in herself.
This dimension was cyber based dystopia, with apocalyptic wastelands outside of the cities of the New United States of America aka NUSA, but Night City on the coast of California was its own entity. Veronica had made a name as a top-notch mercenary that can do any job and make it look like child’s play. She was speeding through the neon lights of the metropolis. Wind from riding her ARCH Motorcycle at a speed of 130 MPH blew her hair back.
The thunderheads of the bike drown out the white noise of the city that was all too alive with threats on any corner. In Night City there is an 87.2% chance of your life ending from a stray bullet out of gangers or badges guns. The badges, the Night City Police Department, Veronica found, were worse than dealing with the gangs. At least the gangs didn’t take the dick measuring quite as far as the badges did.
“River said he would be at the Chubby Chicken… I hope he got that intel I needed.”
River was a contact she made when he was still a badge but was now a PI and with many informants on his payroll.
“I’m gonna get you back home safely, Vee. I promise you that, sis.”
Veronica meticulously walks the back wheel to the curb, kicking down the kickstand as she steps off her bike. She sees River’s Thornton brand pickup truck.
“Ok, wonder what info he has dug up for me.”
The chatter filled her ears as she walked into the Chubby Chicken and fired up her Kiroshi Optical cybernetic implant to scan the diner. Her vision turns red and River appears highlighted in her view. Veronica disengages the optics and, with a strut, makes her way over to the booth.
“River, choom. Thanks for doing this for me.”
“No problem, Ronnie. I know how worried you are about Vee. The word has hit the street that Militech has her.”
“Yeah, I am to blame. I should’ve stopped her from swapping places with our mo- ahem, Liz.”
River looks at her curiously but doesn’t broach the subject. Veronica will when she is ready. Before their mother, the original Cowgirl From Hell, Meghan Strader, passed away, Victoria brought her here to this dimension to have a digital copy of her psyche and personality known as an Engram. It’s for people to communicate with loved ones after passing, but the clone of Meghan Strader, going by her mother’s maiden name, Elizabeth “Liz” Vitale, found a body and was walking around.
Veronica brought her back to our dimension and has her working as her wrestling manager to keep an eye on her. She doesn’t see Liz like her mom, not like Victoria does, and wasn’t going to let the knockoff botch the job. Again.
“Word on the street is that Vee is under the watchful eye of the NUSA President and Militech CEO Rosalind Myers, somewhere underground outside the city. All pointing somewhere near the ghost town of Rocky Ridge.”
“What is it that they want from her? There’s gotta be play here, River."
“There is….”
Veronica saw it in his eyes.
“Fuck… the Blackwall. You know what? The acoustics are loud here. Let’s go outside.”
The Blackwall was a wall in cyberspace that kept rogue AIs from crossing over. Simply put, it was a large unknown number of SkyNet and LEGIONs running wild. Vee had breached the Blackwall to defeat their Affliction Valerie and save Veronica’s life before Veronica defeated Supreme Machine on Milftown Island back in 2022 at Technical Difficulties.
Once outside, Veronica leans back against the concrete barrier and turns her head to overlook Rancho Coronado suburb of Night City. River leans forward, arms crossed on the top of the barrier. He lets his friend gather her thoughts.
“They want her because she knows how to pass between this side of cyberspace and the unknown regions in past the Blackwall. That’s not good, River. No corporation, especially one that runs a full ass country, should have access to that kind of Artificial Intelligence.”
“Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Whatever they are up to, it needs to be stopped. But you shouldn’t do this alone.”
Veronica looks over at River and shrugs.
“I’m not risking anyone. I just need an in. I think Rogue might be my way in.”
She sees the look on his face and puts her hand on his to reassure the handsome black man.
“River, I appreciate the concern, but I am a big girl and I got this. I will bring my sister home to her wife and to my family.”
“I know… here.”
River extends a data shard to Veronica, who slots it in behind her ear, the details showing up in front of her eyes with Kiroshi Optics she used earlier. It’s the schematic of the town of Rocky Ridge.
“Shimra! Thank you, River. This will come in handy.”
“If you change your mind, you know how to reach me.”
The friend’s embrace with a hug before Veronica walks over to her motorcycle. River leaves before she does. Turning over the ignition, she torques the throttle. Her back tire spins out before taking off with a wheelie onto the city streets when a set of headlights come to life on an old Quadra sedan and starts to follow her to next destination on her quest.
The Afterlife Mercenary Bar
Night City, California
Same Evening
Ratatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatata!!!!
Bullets and casings fly everywhere as Veronica and her fixer, Rogue, use the booth seatings as a cover as they load up their weapons in the former morgue turned mercenary bar.
“Damnit, Ron. What did you bring on us?!”
“Me?! You have more enemies than I do!”
“Not ones in Militech uniforms, I don’t!”
“Ok, fair. I got this!”
“You fucking better have! You are paying for this damage.”
Veronica ignores the woman who has made her one of the top mercenaries in all of Night City. Pulling up her Kiroshi Optics, she scans the room like she’s the T-800 selecting “Fuck you, asshole!” from a selection of prompts. Sending off a ping hack, her cybernetics tell her there are seven Militech officers holding them at bay. In quick succession she lets out a succession of hacks on her enemies.
Overheat. One falls.
Electric shock. Three fall as the hack spreads out.
Brain Synapses. Another.
Grenade Detonation.
1… 2… BANG!
An arm and torso fly through the air from the grenade she set off on one of the remaining officers. Veronica dives out of cover, rolling forward, sending two shotgun blasts into the chest of two attackers, sending their lifeless bodies backwards, toppling another officer.
“Come get me, bitch!”
Veronica ducks to the side as a throwing knife grazes the back of her ear, blood coming from the wound. The copper smell ignites her rage as bum rushes the last two still standing, clocking their heads together knocking them out. Rogue stands and makes her way to Veronica’s side.
“Cold blooded, Ron.”
“Not yet.”
She slings the shotgun over her shoulder and pulls out her Seraph Slide action handgun with a silencer, putting a bullet in the head of all the fallen seven.
“Now it is.”
“Apparently. You need to get out of here so I can get my people to clean up this mess. I’m sending you the bill.”
Veronica shrugs.
“Do what you gotta do. You get me that safe house with the Netrunning set up at the Sunset Hotel, yeah?”
Rogue groans.
“Deal is a deal. It’ll be ready before you arrive there.”
“Thanks, Rogue.”
“You can thank me by keeping this shit off my front step next time, yeah?”
Veronica just nods as she makes her way out of the Afterlife, spitting on a couple of the dead operatives that came at her.
Sunset Hotel
Badlands
“What a dump, but everything is here.”
She looks at the Netrunning chair and the setup to step into cyberspace when she hears the voice that very well could snap her sanity into two.
“You think you can infiltrate their setup?”
“Just when I thought I wouldn’t hear your voice today.”
“Now you know how our enemies feel, haha.”
Veronica begrudgingly looks over to the mirror that is visible through the bathroom door. There he stands in the pane of glass like he is, a pain in the ass.
“What do you want today?”
“It is my granddaughter you are trying to save. I have every right to be here.”
Veronica scoffs.
“You lost the right when you had an affair with her ex-girlfriend while they were together. Even more so when you married her.”
Scott glances downwards before meeting the sneer he’d given to countless people over the years.
“So that’s what that feels like. You know about that? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You are your mother’s daughter.”
“And as much as she hated it, she was her father’s daughter. Don’t try to pull fast ones on me.”
“Yep, definitely Meghan. Speaking of which, where is Liz?”
Veronica pulls out her pistol and shoots the mirror into pieces.
“Back where she can’t ‘cause any damage, now just leave me the hell alone for a while, old man.”
The spidered image of Scott Nash Strader in the mirror fades away, and she lets out a sigh of relief. She lays back onto the netrunning chair, jacking into the chair through the auxiliary port in her wrists. Veronica lays ice packs on her head to keep from overheating.
“Alright… the Blackwall.”
The world around her pixelates and falls all around her until she is engrossed in a digital fortress. Lines of code running in every which direction one could comprehend, she slowly materializes into the Net. TRON come to life. The Blackwall isn’t far. The humming sound that comes from it would give her goosebumps, as much as goosebumps could be in a world of 1s and 0s.
“Hello, Veronica Strader.”
Veronica turns her head and is greeted by what appears to be a Buddhist Monk, but enhanced by cyberware, something that is against their belief system in this world. He can see her weariness.
“Veronica-San, I come to you in an attempt at guidance.”
“A Cyber-enhanced Monk?”
“Ahh, yes, these unfortunate foreign items. Not long ago, I was taken by Scavvers and they thought it would be funny to replace parts of my body with cybernetic pieces. But everything in life happens for a reason, and the reason it happened to me was so I could help you.”
Veronica tilts her head, watching the Monk before her. She doesn’t detect any hostility, but can feel a “warmth” radiating off the Blackwall since he appeared.
“What do you want from me?”
“To guide you. Not just to your sister, but to the Triad as well. Only then will you be free of what ails you.”
The Scorpion shakes her head and lets out a chuckle. Of course, a cybernetically enhanced Monk knows of the Triad in a whole separate dimension.
“I couldn’t have fallen in with a normal family and life, could I?”
To Be Continued….
