Chapter 23: Split_Personality.rlf

V wakes up, lying on the ground in total darkness. Slowly he gets up, looking at himself, suddenly realizing he no longer has the robotic arm but he is shining with a bright, blue light. He touches his face without feeling anything.

V: HELLO?!

V's voice echoes in the darkness as he begins to trudge along.

V: IS ANYBODY HERE?! JOHNNY?!

V keeps walking for a while until he sees a wooden door, covered with a bright blue, as if it were made of pure energy. There is a small sign hanging on the door that reads "Sorry, we're closed." V puts his hands on the door knob and slowly opens it.

V finds himself in front of a bar counter and some chairs, slowly sitting on one of them. In front of him is an empty glass, he picks it up, curious.

Stranger: Hey!

V turns to his left and sees a man lit up in blue, with one arm, wearing a worn coat and a tie.

Stranger: Are you going to finish that?

V stares at him puzzled, then hands him the glass. The stranger grabs it and suddenly the glass fills itself as he begins to drink.

Stranger: I spent countless nights looking for the meaning of it all on the bottom of a glass. Never found it, though.

V stares at him for a while longer, then lowers his eyes.

Stranger: Well, don't need to tell you who I am...do you even remember my name?

V: Deckard, I suppose.

Deckard: Good. Thought I was just another nameless face in your collection. 

Deckard turns and begins to stare at V, he notices that he is missing a portion of his skull, jagged, like an incomplete puzzle.

Deckard: You know we…We all meet here. It's closed now, but when it's open it's so full that you can't get through. It takes hours to order anything.

Deckard notices that V is staring at his head, he smiles.

Deckard: Well Vincent, as you can see our little adventure has literally consumed me.

Deckard takes another sip from the glass.

Deckard: Do you want some? I know you liked Tequila... At least once. I choose Whiskey to drown my guilt. Before you tell me, I know for myself that's a crazy cliché.

V watches him motionless, saying nothing.

Deckard: Oh I see, you're trying to quit. It's very easy, you know?! I have tried. About twenty times, at least.

V: Listen... I... I'm sorry for what happened, really. But it's not my fault.

Deckart stares at him, smiling half heartedly.

Deckard: My goodness, Vincent. Of all the things you could say to a police officer, you said just the most trivial. By the way, do you happen to have a cigarette?

V shakes his head, without looking at him, turning his head to the counter.

Deckard: Yeah that's right, the one who smokes is the other one...Or is the other one you? Or is it me?! Fuck this is really too complex.

V: Yeah, it is.

V turns back to Deckard and sees him smoking, V looks at him, surprised as he hands him a packet.

Deckard: Come on Vincent, take a hit.

V stares at him in disgust, then he turns around again.

Deckard: Listen Vincent, there is no metaphor, no test, nothing. It's just a fucking cigarette, I swear.

V grabs the packet angrily, and lights a cigarette, throwing the packet back toward him.

V: Happy?!

Deckard: You seem nervous Vince…Look if you are in a hurry you can always leave, no one is holding you back.

V looks at him suspiciously, smoking nervously while Deckard raises his left arm, pointing to another door behind him.

Deckard: I am neither St. Peter nor Lucifer and you certainly don't have to face me. If you want to leave, just open that door back there…

V: Don't have much time, so I think that's what I'm goin' to do.

Deckard: Time, Vincent…There is no concept of time here. In fact there is almost nothing down here…

V sits comfortably on the stool and looks at Deckard as they both smoke.

V: Look, what the hell do you want from me?! Want me to apologize? Want to torture me? Do you want to give me a lecture about the concept of good or evil? Do whatever the fuck you want, just hurry up.

Deckard bursts out laughing.

Deckard: Torture you…Already done that, Vincent. While you and your friend thought I was sleeping, I was actually at work. Dug into your memories, I sat through the whole series of Johnny and V's adventures…Which wasn't hard, since I haven't had a proper sleep in years.

Deckard stops smoking and then starts drinking again.

Deckard: And so I drew my cheap detective deductions…Johnny and Vincent, bad guys.

V looks at him seriously as he puts out his cigarette on the counter.

V: Ah, now I understand…

Deckard: Well Vince, I was angry. Give me that at least.

Deckard begins looking at the glass half full of whiskey, shaking its content.

Deckard: However, the more I looked at your memories, the more I began to realize…You know, all my life I divided people into good and bad. Then all the sudden you came along and gave me a...Different perspective.

V: Glad to have enlightened you.

Deckard: I devoted my whole fucking life to Netwatch, and you know what I got?! An apartment full of mold in Watson and a retirement I'll never see.

V: Well, it's not like I had it any better.

Deckard: Yeah, but you understood it was all a fucking joke. You flipped the finger to this fucking society. And the thing that really pisses me off…Is that you got there long before I did.

V smiles melancholically, wrinkling his forehead.

V: Buddy, if you think I made the right choices…You really didn't understand shit about my life.

Deckard turns to V, holding the glass in his hand, smiling at him.

Deckard: And you think that if you were, you know, a "good person," you wouldn't have to deal with the bad part of life? The pain and suffering and all that?! Bullshit, Vincent… bullshit.

V: Look, can I ask you a question? Why didn't you fight back? Why didn't you…try to get back control?

Deckard sips the drink one last time and then sets it down on the table.

Deckard: Well V is kind of a long story and I don't know if you feel like listenin' to it.

V: Kinda owe you that, don't you think?!

Deckard stares at the bottom of the glass, smiling.

Deckard: Well, yeah.

Deckard stares at him for a moment and then begins to speak

Deckard: When I joined NetWatch I thought, I don't know, that somehow I would make a difference. Maybe in my own small way I would make the world a better place…

V smiles, as if teasing him.

Deckard: For years I have gone on obsessively chasing cheap criminals. information smugglers, low level netrunners, mnemonic couriers, shit like that…From time to time, though, the outlier would pop up, the one who stepped out of the box.

V: Thought it was police's job to deal with that…

Deckard bursts out laughing, again.

Deckard: V, police can't stop petty thieves, what makes you think they can do anything about these things?!

V smiles and nods, as if he is agreeing with Deckard, then stares at him.

Deckard: Then all of the sudden, the extraordinary has become more and more…Ordinary.

Deckard takes a sip from the glass and then closes his eyes.

Deckard: I have seen things Vincent, things that make you doubt God.

V: I…Understand what you are talking about…

Deckard: Oh yeah, that bastard of Anthony Harris, I had forgotten…

Deckard continues to shake the glass, looking at the bottom of it, disgusted.

Deckard: There was this fuckin' Samoan in Kabuki, two hundred sixty pound monster in an undershirt…He lured them using the Net. We caught him only because the neighbors complained about the smell and the bugs. The fucking stench, Vincent. I've smelled it constantly since that day, even alcohol can't wash it out...He had piled 'em in the wash house. The apartment was small, but fuck, that room was full to the ceiling. Couldn't tell where one began and another ended.

Vincent stares into the void, clenching his fists on the counter, angry.

V: Son of a bitch.

Deckard: Sorry, I forgot...Didn't...Didn't mean to.

V: No it's okay, it's okay…just hope he got what he deserves.

Deckard: He went to jail, but those twenty-five broken lives, Vincent? Who's going to bring them back? Even killing him wouldn't have changed anything…We didn't make any difference and that's it.

V: Deckard, it's not your fault. You couldn't have done anything.

Deckard: I repeated that to myself for a while, but I've never managed to convince myself. 

Deckard looks down and smiles wistfully.

Deckard: I underestimated the most important aspect of this work…When you look at evil, it looks back into you...and it sticks.

V: Yeah…I think it applies to my job too…

Deckard: In the agency you can't show weakness. You're constantly undergoing psychological evaluations, you know? So in the end I chose whiskey to drown my sorrows.

Deckard lifts the empty glass in front of his face and looks through it.

Deckard: I had a wife once…her name was Nora. I had a son...Eventually I drowned 'em in it too. It's funny because I can remember very well the love I had for him...But his face is like...blurry.

V hears a child's laughter in the distance, then he looks down with a face full of guilt, finally he slowly opens his mouth.

V: Thomas…

Deckard: Yes, Thomas! Tell me Vincent…What kind of father doesn't remember his own son's face?!

V looks at Deckard, almost sobbing, then he covers his face in guilt.

V: It's not… It's not… damn.

Deckard: Vincent it... It doesn't matter. I had my chance and I flushed it down the toilet. I started to pick the bottle more and more, as I got home later and drunker. Sometimes I didn't come back at all. Shit, a couple of times I think I even hit her, but I was too drunk to remember.

V looks at him, angry and disgusted.

Deckard: Well Vincent, I finally got what I deserved. Nora went back to Boston with her parents and took Thomas with her.

V: And you never thought of going to get them back? You let her go away…just like that?!

Deckard turns to V, looking at him angry and sad.

Deckard: I freed them Vincent…BOTH OF THEM! Sometimes love means that too.

V stares at him, without saying anything, then he looks away.

Deckard: I holoed him a few times, I even sent him toys. But that's not being a father, Vincent. He's about seventeen now, and to him I'm nothing but a faded memory, lost in his childhood.

V looks back at him, touched.

V: However, this does not answer my question.

Deckard: Yeah that's right...Well while you were getting busy up there I was feeling everything down her…and the other one too.The pain, the suffering, the guilt and regret but most of all… love, Vincent.

V looks at him surprised, opening his mouth slightly.

Deckard: I fed on your love for her, Vincent. But above all, the way she looked at you… That was something I hadn't felt for a long time. It was buried somewhere under a pile of shit.

Deckard continues to stare at the empty glass, with a sad and grim expression, holding it in his hand. Then he closes his eyes.

Deckard: I just wanted to be the hero to somebody, Vincent…Just for one last fucking time…

Deckard opens his eyes again, looking at V and seeing him moved.

Deckard: Would you like to cry, V?! We can't here, none of us can…

Deckard smiles at V.

Deckard: You didn't kill anyone Vincent, you gave me a sweet death, actually. I've already succeeded myself anyway...I've drinked away my liver. Unfortunately, Netwatch has very good health care, so they gave me a synthetic one. And all I've got is that now I need a whole bottle to get drunk. 

Deckard raises the glass again and throws it into the void, angrily.

Deckard: They made my life a living hell…and then they gave me a fuckin' box of sunscreen.

V watches the glass fly into the void, then turns back slowly toward Deckard, who again has a full one in his hand. V watches in bewilderment as he holds the glass firmly and slowly brings it to his mouth, drinking it in disgust, almost by force.

V: So if you've seen everything, you know what a piece of shit I really am…

Deckard: We're all the bad guys in somebody's story, Vincent.

Deckard stares at V again, holding the glass in his hand, smiling at him.

Deckard: And by the way, I haven't really seen it all… I've skipped parts, if that's what you're worried about. I think it's only fair that certain things remain only yours. You know what I'm talkin' about. No, I have more refined tastes than your friend. I really like it when you hug and reassure her, before the assault on 'Saka. You almost seem like a good person there.

V smiles at him, half heartedly.

V: Fuckin' tank. It caused us nothing but troubles. The crazy thing is that I couldn't care less about her family problems…Did it only because it was important for her.

Deckard bursts out laughing, again.

Deckard: AHAHAHAAH... You... You think Militech has been up your ass all this time because of a fucking piece of junk?! Holy shit, Vincent...You know what we used to call them at the agency? The babies in uniform. They always lose something, ALWAYS. You could slip their clothes off them while they were still wearing them, and they wouldn't notice a thing.

Deckard starts drinking again, then sets the glass down and looks at V, straight in the eyes.

Deckard: Myers sent them to you, Vincent. Now, leaving aside what you came down here to do, I think you've figured out the true nature of the Blackwall, haven't you?! I'm gonna tell you, a fucking wooden dam to hold up a Tsunami, that we, from time to time, tape it up.

V: I'm not following you…

Deckard: Vincent, Alt is not the first one to escape from over the wall…Fuck, even you are somehow an out of control AI. One thing is a poor schmuck in an alley that goes crazy or a quiet worker that goes on a killing spree in the office, there's always MaxTac for that...But a whole different story is what you did, in NC.

V: Yeah, that place became hell, because of me.

Deckard lowers his head, almost perplexed.

Deckard: Ugh...Vincent, Myers doesn't give a shit about the people who died in Night City, don't you get it?! He's taken the most crowded city in America and buried all its inhabitants, like rats in a trap. And now he's stroking the nuclear button like it's the tip of a huge dick…No, you've done something much, much worse, Vincent. You have shown the world that the king is naked.

V looks at Deckard, puzzled.

Deckard: Vince, the corporations all use the Net to do their business, do you understand?! If the Net isn't safe, eddies don't flow, investors turn off the taps, stock markets crash and the band stops playing for everybody, including Myers.

V gasps, angry.

V: In the end it always comes down to one thing…Fucking bitch! I should've killed her when I had the chance.

Deckard: And that would have changed, uhm Vincent?! Politicians are all the same, faces change, but not the way they think. What would you like to do?! Show up on the D.C. Mall, rifle in hand, flatlinin' the whole Congress? Come to think of it, that would be a spectacle I would gladly watch…

V puts his hands over his face and then slowly leans on the counter.

V: Those sons of bitches...They will never stop haunting me, will they?!

V slowly stands back up and looks at Deckard, defeated.

V: What… What should I do?!

Deckard: You're asking me, Vincent?! I'm fucking dead! The good news is that you have a few friends left, some of them even care about you. Leaving out Panam, who would die for you. 

Deckard takes one last sip from the glass.

Deckard: No, I think if you play your cards right, you might make it. Maybe you won't get your happy ending that I hoped for...But maybe…You might even get a good compromise. As long as you open your eyes, like I said to you.

V nods, disappointed.

Deckard: Speaking of Panam…Don't you think it's time for you to go? She must be fuckin' dying of fright. Don't worry, I'll close here.

V: … Did it hurt?

Deckard: Nah Vince. All I remember is the figure of a woman and then darkness. But like I said, you don't have to worry. I mean, here I can drink all I want…

Deckard turns one last time toward V, smiling at him.

Deckard: And I'll never have to pay the bill again.

V slowly gets up from the counter, staring at Deckard with a look that is a mixture of gratitude and shame, then slowly approaches the door behind him, grabbing the knob.

Deckard: Ah Vincent, one last thing. You know, I was wondering…You are the nomad…The street kid…The ruthless corporate…The heartless mercenary…The spy, the family man and the loving companion. All these things at once and yet none of 'em. Who are you, really?

V still with his back turned, takes a moment to elaborate a response, then he finally turns around but sees nothing. Just a half full glass on the counter. He slowly turns back again and opens the door, stepping through it.