Week 3 Story: Tiny Tales in Night City

1. V Petitions Viktor

Working as a mercenary in Night City, V's line of work threatened his life and general well-being every day. He wanted to increase his chances of survival by getting the latest military-grade skin implants, able to stop small-caliber rounds without impairing mobility. He worked and saved up thousands of eddies, never spending a dime from any job in order to pay off the operation in one go.

Finally, he had enough, and went to Viktor, his personal ripperdoc, to ask him to proceed with the operation. "I need to be the best Vik, and to do that I need to stay alive." Vik warned him while he would be strong against physical assailants, he still needed to be wary of netrunners, who could hack him without seeing him.

Viktor put V on the table, and installed the new implants, leaving V ready for more dangerous jobs than before.

2. V Sings for Johnny Silverhand

Johnny Silverhand was a legend in Night City, not just for his abilities but also his musical prowess, forming one of the greatest underground bands that fought against corruption. Decades later, living as a sentient construct in V's head, he taught V about his legacy and had him hunt down old fans and search for lost tapes. To give respect to Johnny, V found a superfan of Johnny's band, and sang for him an old song to prove he too knew of Johnny. The fan was impressed, and gave V a bootleg of one of Johnny's songs thought to be lost to time.

3. V Battles Arasaka

Having been done wrong by his former corporation, V chose to seek revenge against them and took down one of their bases. Sneaking into the compound, V then triggered the alarm and slaughtered every soldier and mech that came for him. Suddenly, one netrunner was about to fry V's brain when Johnny stopped them, and V was able to short circuit the netrunner and take him down first. Having taken down an entire Arasaka compound on his own, V marked his name in the underground of Night City as a God of Death.

Johnny Silverhand, played by Keanu Reeves

Author's Note: Each one of these stories are a tale from the Ramayana retold in the world of Night City.

For the first story, originally Ravana is fasting and praying for ten thousand years to achieve invincibility, but to make it more realistic in the cyberpunk setting, I had V working as a mercenary saving up as much money as he could to afford an operation to toughen his skin. Ravana's weakness was not taking humans into account, and V's weakness was not toughing up his cybersecurity. In V Sings for Johnny Silverhand, Ravana originally became a follower of Shiva, and sang a song for him to obtain a weapon. In my version, V is a fan of Johnny Silverhand, but instead of singing to obtain a weapon, he sang a song for a superfan to give up an ancient bootleg of Johnny's music. In V Battles Arasaka, Ravana conquered Yama, the God of Death, but in my version, V is fighting against a corrupt corporation, and rather than being narrowly saved by a god, he is saved by the construct in his head instead, and earns the nickname the God of Death.

Bibliography: Tiny Tales from the Ramayana, by Laura Gibbs. Web source.