Rosalind Myers was not in the business of being blindsided like this. Almost a decade spent as CEO of Militech, over a decade now as the third President of the New United States of America. She was a woman who was used to taking charge and having things go her way. She was a woman who was used to being in control.
She had to be, because frankly the vast majority of the time, it felt like nobody else was. In control of the unwashed masses, in control of the flow of violence, in control of themselves. The world was a goddamn mess and Rosalind was the only one who could fucking fix it.
But she couldn't do it alone. She was still just one woman, in the end. That was okay though because Rosalind had learned to surround herself with nothing but the most competent people. If they couldn't hack it, if they weren't the best of the best, then they had no place in her inner circle.
With her power, wealth, and influence, Rosalind had managed to truly assemble some truly brilliant individuals… or so she'd thought.
Because now here she was, locked in the safe room aboard Space Force One, having just had the roughest landing of her damned life behind enemy lines. And all Rosalind can think is that something stinks to fucking high heaven. Someone in her cabinet is a goddamn rat.
It started with the spaceplane being hacked while they were making their way back home. That in and of itself shouldn't have been possible, especially when Rosalind had So Mi, one of the best Netrunners alive, onboard with her. The only way it even made sense is if someone with insider knowledge had blabbed.
So Mi was a miracle worker, don't get her wrong, but there wasn't much even Rosalind's Songbird could do in a situation where all of their codes and security had been completely bypassed.
Cut off from everyone else, So Mi had been forced to go with a rather unorthodox option, finding a mercenary down in Night City who she assured Rosalind would be both skilled enough and desperate enough to help them out. It wasn't like they had any other options given they were already on their way down to Dogtown as is and had no way of stopping it.
But while her Songbird was able to get into contact with this mercenary and even get him to Dogtown before they had fully arrived, that was where the good news ended. Because as soon as Space Force One entered Dogtown's airspace, things went from shit to way fucking shittier.
Rosalind knew Kurt Hansen, of course. Not personally, they'd never even so much as met face to face, but it was impossible not to be extremely aware of one of the largest remaining thorns in her side from the Unification War.
It's funny, because she knows that there are plenty of conspiracies out there on the Net postulating that Hansen and Barghest are deniable assets of NUSA even now. They like to theorize that when the orders came calling off the assault on Night City back in 2070, there'd been other, more secret orders as well. They claimed it was another example of Rosalind's 'two-faced' nature, how she'd ordered Hansen to retreat out one side of her mouth while ordering him to publicly refuse and cut ties out of the other.
… She wished that were true, honestly. But no, the truth was, Kurt fucking Hansen and his entire Barghest unit had completely disobeyed direct orders, sticking around in the part of Pacifica that they'd managed to take over and ignoring the Arvin Accord completely.
Hansen wasn't some deniable asset that Rosalind had been cultivating all this time. He was a stain on an otherwise fairly spotless record, a problem that had clearly been growing like a fucking infection ever since 2070.
And apparently he had little to no love lost for her either, because rather than trying to take her hostage as So Mi had initially theorized, Hansen had tried to kill them the moment that they entered Dogtown's airspace. Space Force One was already being forced down to land in his territory, but that wasn't good enough for the bastard. Missile after missile had barraged the spaceplane until her Songbird had forced her into the safe room and then made her way to the escape pod in turn.
And now here Rosalind was, blood pounding in her ears, burning plane all around her, the 'safe room' only safe for as long as it took Barghest to rip it open and finish the job. She couldn't stay here, couldn't rely on the walls of the spaceplane's safe room for protection. And she couldn't afford to wait to be rescued either. She had to move.
The only upside at the moment was that the fuel tanks for Space Force One were extremely insulated, so the likelihood of the whole thing detonating with the force of a small nuclear warhead was pretty low at least.
Opening up the safe room, Rosalind checks her corners, eyes narrowing as she looks around the burning cabin for a moment. Besides her and So Mi, there had been nine other passengers aboard Space Force One. A quick count tells her they're all dead. Typical.
Grabbing herself a rifle, she continues on her way… only to duck down when she hears fighting going on outside of the wrecked plane. The gunfire continues for a time before it stops, at which point she hears the crunch of boots heading in her direction. Her jaw clenches and she looks around for a defensible position. Fortunately, she finds one.
There's a malfunctioning door near the middle of the plane, one with just enough of an opening for her to slip her body through, but that won't allow anyone wearing proper armor to just squeeze into without ripping it open.
She hides behind it, controlling her breathing and keeping herself as still as possible. Soon enough, she hears the sound of approaching steps coming through the cabin. Just one pair of boots, much to her surprise. Still, that could be good for her. One enemy to take down, interrogate, and eliminate before she got the fuck out of here.
Hopefully her Songbird was still alive. Hopefully So Mi would be able to get into contact with her sooner rather than later…
Finally, the owner of the boots arrives at the malfunctioning door. Just as expected, they can't just squeeze in. They grab the edge of the door and in a show of augmented strength, rip it open. That's when Rosalind strikes, pointing the rifle right in their face.
She doesn't even manage to get out any kind of threat before they're reacting though. A hand snaps up, pushing the rifle away from them and suddenly Rosalind is fighting for control of the weapon. She snarls and goes to elbow them in the face and knock them back, but just before she can… they quickhack her.
Her. The President of NUSA. Now, Rosalind herself has never been much of a Netrunner, let alone one that specializes in combat netrunning like quickhacks. But she's still the most valuable woman in one of the strongest countries left on this godforsaken planet. Her ICE was handmade by her Songbird herself and quickhacking her SHOULD have been impossible.
Not for this bastard. Her sight goes and then her cyberware short circuits, causing her to scream in pain and drop the rifle. Or more accurately, it's ripped from her suddenly spasming fingers as she collapses to her knees. It's been a long, long time since Rosalind has experienced this kind of physical pain. She thought she was tougher than this.
By the time she recovers however, there's a muzzle pressed to her forehead and while she normally has a few moves she can use to try and get out of such a situation, none of them are going to work while she's blinded and twitching uncontrollably.
"Rosalind Myers. I'm here to help."
… What. Rosalind blinks as her optics come back online, her vision returning to her. Then, there's something like soothing ice that runs down her spine and the twitchiness goes away an instant later, leaving her able to finally wrestle her body back under control. That wasn't… what the fuck WAS that?
Staring up at the man holding her at gunpoint, she finally realizes that he's not Barghest. When he lifts the gun up and points it at the ceiling, she swallows thickly, finally connecting the dots.
"… V, I presume?"
He tilts his head to the side and smiles cockily.
"That's right."
Gritting her teeth, Rosalind forces herself up to her feet as she glares at the mercenary.
"Do you tend to attack every client you're 'here to help'?"
He has the audacity to look not even remotely abashed.
"Only the ones who point a gun at me. Now pick up that rifle and lets go. We're not out of the woods yet."
Shit. She hates that he's right. More than that, she hates that she has to follow his lead here. This is enemy territory and while she might be able to make it out alone, there's a reason So Mi grabbed this mercenary. He'll be useful… and hopefully competent enough to see them through this without Rosalind having to strike out on her own.
"Fine. Lead the way."
He just gives her one last amused look before doing exactly that.
-x-X-x-
An hour later when they've finally reached relative safety, Rosalind finds herself feeling something else she isn't used to and decidedly does not like. Overwhelmed.
She'd really thought things couldn't get worse than they already were. Separated from So Mi, trapped behind enemy lines, hunted by a former subordinate who seemed to REALLY want her dead. And stuck with nothing but a single mercenary with an alphabet name for support.
At first, things had honestly seemed like they could be getting better. She'd found out that while her Songbird couldn't connect to Rosalind directly, she WAS piggybacking off of V's cyberware, meaning that she was not only alive but also in contact with them. With So Mi helping them, escape should have been easy.
For a time, it had been… until they reached the abandoned Founding Our Future Expo Hall. Normally, Rosalind loved seeing Militech Technology at work. Not so much when it was controlled by a rogue AI and trying to kill them though.
So Mi must have dug too deep, pushed too far, and relied too much on her connection to the Blackwall in order to try and get them to safety, because while at first Rosalind's Songbird had been able to control the Chimera 0005-C M without issue to utterly annihilate their Barghest foes, she'd eventually lost that control to a rogue AI from beyond the Blackwall that had then turned around and tried it's best to kill Rosalind and V.
If it wasn't for V, it would have killed her, Rosalind knows this. His competence had been… surprising, especially for a mercenary from Night City that she'd never heard of. The way he'd calmly taken control of the situation even as So Mi's garbled screams echoed in Rosalind's ears had been… impressive.
A Chimera was not a piece of technology most would think one man could defeat, but V had done it… and not just done it, he'd done it easily.
Still, they'd lost contact with So Mi after that. And though V had gotten Rosalind to this run dump shit heap without them being caught, they were still in Dogtown, still behind enemy lines, still… trapped.
The one good thing was that V could be praised for his efficiency as well as his competence. He had electricity and running water in this place working within minutes of arrival, allowing Rosalind to take control of the bathroom and actually get herself cleaned up and into a fresh change of clothes.
Technically she was already done in here, in fact. But Rosalind hasn't left yet because instead she's staring at herself in the dirty mirror, trying to figure out her next steps.
… She needs to get So Mi back. Surviving and getting back to friendly territory herself is of course top priority, but coming in at a very close second is securing her Songbird. Rosalind won't leave So Mi out here all alone to fend for herself, and she certainly won't allow anyone like the likes of Hansen to get his filthy fucking hands on her Songbird.
However… her resources are admittedly very limited. And V is… not what Rosalind was expecting when So Mi described him to her. The way her Songbird had spoken about the mercenary, he was supposed to be desperate. He was supposed to be… pliant.
But Rosalind didn't get the sense that V was desperate at all. If anything he seemed determined, but not… not malleable like she'd been hoping. Rosalind was used to taking charge and being listened to, but she could tell V might be a challenge on that front.
Unfortunately, all of her usual threats and intimidation tactics weren't exactly going to work here. She had no armies, no black ops teams, nobody. It was just her and V and he'd already more than proven he could take her in a fight. Hell, the solo could take an entire army in a fight from what she'd seen.
That just left Rosalind with one option. It wasn't one she liked, obviously. In fact, it was rather distasteful. But stuck behind enemy lines, it was also the only thing she had left to her. Looking down at herself in the mirror, Rosalind's eyes slide along the only asset she currently had to work with, her lips pressing into a thin line as she takes stock.
Her body.