Flashback 11: Over_the_WatchTower.bd

V is standing near Panam, around them is a group of Aldecaldo near their cars. Mitch, Cassidy and Carol all stare at Panam who is looking at a huge yellow train, waiting for her to say something.

Panam: Are we ready?! Ok. The Militech convoy will be traveling from Night City to the base where they're due to meet the buyer…We will stop at the railroad crossing and snatch the Basilisk right under their noses.

Mitch points at the train.

Mitch: All we have to do it's to shove this beauty in its way.

Panam turns her head to V.

Panam: V… Any questions?

V: Seems to be a lot of abandoned stations around.

A man in a cap and a half-sleeved jacket smiles, looking at the train.

Teddy: This one belongs to a corporation that ran a cement factory. They used it as a reloading point.

V: Didn't they take the engine as they left?!

Another Aldecaldo, wearing a hat and a set of cables clinging to his left arm rises from his car, looking at V.

Bob: The engine has been going on for over fifty years, since the Blackwall days.

Mitch: For a time, everybody had to get back to the old ways. The engine runs on nuclear. Like submarines do.

V: All the weird they left it behind.

Cassidy: Corps. They probably listed in a spreadsheet as "cost optimization".

Panam: It's old tech. Carol will have to hack it… Can you do that?

Carol sighs as she looks at an old control tower near the train switch.

Carol: Then I'll somehow have to finagle an authorization from the control tower to move it.

Mitch: Well, V and Panam will take care of the authorization, how about that?

Panam turns to V, smiling at him.

V: C'mon let's get to work.

Teddy and Bob approach an old generator near the tower.

Teddy: Shit. It's completely rusted.

Bob: Hand me the wire cutters.... The ones in the leather tool holder.

Suddenly a spark burns Bob's hand, he quickly pulls it away from the panel.

Bob: Shit.

Teddy: I bet you miss Garry at times like this, don't you?

Bob: Fuck you…My brother ran off to Arizona to sunbathe among the coyotes and took all the best tricks with him.

Panam and V walk up to the large control tower. There is an old panel near the back door, she walks up to it, beginning to fiddle with some wires dangling from the circuit board inside the panel.

V lays his hand on her shoulder, smiling. Panam turns to stare at him.

V: May I?

V's optics light up for a few seconds, after a short while the old back door opens, sliding into the wall.

Panam: Well that was quick.

Both enter the old and decaying building. The floor is covered with a brown sludge as the room, the smell of mold slowly begins to attack the suckers of the two, who quickly climb the stairs of the old tower.

Panam: The stairs it is, then.

Suddenly the staircase lights come on as sparks fall in a shower on V. He dusts them off, annoyed.

Bob: Do you need a light?

Panam: Well done! Thanks boys.

Finally Panam and V manage to get to the top of the tower, where the old half-broken windows offer a view of the desert and the city in the distance, illuminated by the last lights of sunset.

Panam: I've always been fond of trains. And the stations where so many tracks converge.

V: You mean…Junctions?!

Panam: Yeah, those. When you see them from above, you feel…

V: Free? Like you could set off on a thousand journeys all at once?

Panam turns to V.

Panam: Perhaps more simply… Hopeful. 

Panam leans on an old broken window from which the Aldecaldos and their cars can be seen.

Panam: CAROL! WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?!

Carol: PUNCH CARDS!

Panam turns to V, raising her hand, puzzled.

Panam: WHAT CARDS?!

Carol: OBLONGS CARDS, WITH ROWS AND COLUMNS!

Panam walks away from the window, looking at V lost, waving back and forth.

Panam: Uhm… Would you help me look?

V: Sure.

Panam and V part ways, searching through dusty shelves and old archives. Suddenly V finds an old plastic card with a red stripe on it.

V: Well, well, well.

V comes back to Panam and finds her turning over an old cardboard box.

Panam: It must be here, somewhere.

V: Got something.

Panam drops the cardboard box on the ground.

Panam: Good job!

Panam walks back to the window.

Panam: CAROL! WE HAVE A CARD! WHAT NOW?!

Carol: YOU HAVE TO PUT IT IN THE READER!

Panam turns again to V.

Panam: V… Would you find me this damn reader, please? I'll wait here.

V starts looking around the room full of windows until he finds a dusty old control panel with an old green phosphor monitor and a lever on the right. After sticking the card into the small slot under the monitor, V firmly pulls the lever and finally the train under the tower slowly begins to move.

Panam: V, it worked! LOOK!

V walks back to Panam, leaning next to her on the old window as the train below them slowly moves over the tracks. Panam looks at it for a moment, then lowers her eyes, embarrassed.

Panam: V… I wanted to speak with you.

V turns around, resting his back on the window ledge.

V: Missed you. Pretty bad.

Panam shakes her head.

Panam: V this is not how we usually talk…I mean…I know It sound foolish because I asked you to help me, but…

Panam also turns around, resting her arms on the ledge.

Panam: Why are you doing this?

V smiles, as if to reassure her.

V: 'Cause it's important to you.

Panam closes her eyes, almost hurt. As if she had received the one answer she did not want.

Panam: Listen V, I'm sorry. I'm not so good at this… Talking about my feelings and all. 

Panam opens back her eyes, embarrassed, looking him in the eyes.

Panam: And I don't want to cock this up.

V: Well, that's a start.

Panam: The thing is… I usually act before I think.

V smiles.

V: Uh-uhm. Noticed.

Panam: I know. But I also need impulses to act upon. When I do something spontaneously, I feel like I'm being honest… Yet with you…

Panam looks away from V.

Panam: I prefer to play it safe.

V gets closer, curious.

V: Why is any different with me?!

Panam turns back to him, without looking him in the eyes, and after a moment of silence finally speaks to him.

Panam: Because I truly care this time. Yet I fear I'll do or say something foolish… and be left alone in the desert.

Panam suddenly became sad.

Panam: I would rather keep you close. If only as a friend.

V stretches his hand toward Panam's shoulder, caressing it. She blinks, surprised, then looks at him.

V: Try followin' the impulse next time.

Panam gently places her hand on V's chest.

Panam: Ok… In any case you have been warned. C'mon let's rejoin the others.

Panam and V descend the stairs of the old tower, below them the other Aldecaldos are sitting in front of a fire, it has become night and Cassidy is playing an old country song with his guitar.

Panam: We could still check…

Cassidy: Sit your ass down a minute honey, and breathe.

Bob: Everything is under control. The convoy is already heading our way.

Panam sits on an old metal bar in front of the fire. V seizes the moment and sits next to her.

V: Worried about Saul?

Panam lowers her gaze, worried.

Carol: Your acting spooked. As you were the first person to ever stand up to Saul.

Panam: Ah save your breath, I don't need to be consoled.

Carol and Panam stare at each other for a while until Panam blurts out.

Panam: Damn, was it someone I know?

Cassidy: Knew. Scorpion.

Bob: He came home from the war, head full of new ideas and a host of new contacts…

Mitch: He tried to get Saul to lead us joining the Snake Nation. He would make us stronger, he said.

Teddy: Saul dressed the guy down head to toe for messing with the family. Hell. He didn't send him on any jobs for a year.

Panam: Gee. Really consoling, thanks.

Carol grabs the beer bottle next to her and smiles.

Carol: You said yourself you didn't need any.

V: Oughta raise a glass. To Scorpion.

V grabs a bottle of beer and raises it to the sky. Bob nods, the others do the same.

Panam: And to Jackie.

V stops and turns to Panam, she smiles at him.

V: I'm gonna try to get some sleep.

Panam: Ok. It will be quite some time before the convoy comes through.

V gets closer to Panam, hugging her. She gasps, looking for a moment at the others, who seem to be distracted.

V: Grown kinda cold out here.

Panam: Not true. But it's nice.

The two stare intensely into each other's eyes.

V: Catch some shut-eye with me?

Panam looks at the others, then turns back to V.

Panam: I'll just lie here a while, by your side, gazing at the stars.

V smiles.

V: That's another area of your expertise? Got a map of the heaven in your library, too?

Panam turns toward the sky lit by the vast firmament shining away from the blinding city lights.

Panam: Of course. That's the Big Dipper. And you see the small flickering star to the right? 

V begins to stare at the sky.

V: Uhmmm… yeah?!

Panam: You do?! Oh dear, that means a Ursa Major leak!

Panam turns around smiling, looking V in the eyes.

Panam: Goodnight, V.

V lays down on Panam's shoulders, closing his eyes as the sound of the guitar fades.

The next morning V wakes up on a small canvas mattress, Panam's radiant, sunlit face greets him.

Panam: C'mon V, time to work.