- 11 years before canon -
The clinic hummed with quiet machinery—sterile white lights hanging overhead, flickering slightly with the fatigue of overuse.
Autodocs chirped and clicked, calibrating without prompting. The scent was a chemical cocktail: antiseptic, polymer tubing, and a faint copper tinge of sterilised blood.
Victor stood behind Viktor's shoulder as the older man worked, his hands swift and precise. His workstation was cluttered but organised—a method to his chaos. Bio-scanners hung from the wall, bins of ocular lenses stacked in colour-coded tiers, and a holodisplay of muscle fibre simulations flickered beside a cup of lukewarm coffee.
Doom said nothing at first, watching. He had watched for three hours already, observing the calibration of a Sandevistan implant, the replacement of a dermal battery pack, and a synth-muscle weave repair along a young woman's spine.
It was a far cry from the elegant integrations of Latverian design, crude by comparison, but not without merit.
The woman herself seemed to have a story, scars of war.
A possible solo or corpo executioner, Doom was left to his imagination.
"Hand me the red injector," Viktor muttered, eyes never leaving his work.
Victor handed it without hesitation. He had memorised the tray's layout thirty minutes ago.
"I take it you're not just a quiet wallflower," Viktor added, voice casual, his gaze flicking briefly toward Victor. "You got a background?"
"Medicine. Engineering. Human anatomy. I've studied each field from a scientific and... metaphysical perspective."
Viktor raised a brow, still working. "Philosopher and surgeon? Can't say I've met many of those lately."
Victor said nothing. He only scribbled notes onto his datapad—digitised pages written in a mix of Latin-rooted shorthand and coded diagram sketches.
One tab was entirely dedicated to the subject titled "Psychosomatic Instability in Chrome-Heavy Subjects."
Another simply read: Cyberpsychosis — Myth or Mask?
"Your first patient didn't flinch with you in the room," Viktor added, finally finishing his latest procedure and reclining. "That's rare. Usually, they tense up when someone's new watching. You have presence."
"Presence," Victor said dryly, "is merely the projection of certainty. Most fear those who walk without doubt."
"Huh," Viktor chuckled, wiping his gloves. "Or they think you're a corpo scout. A Handsome face like yours doesn't come cheap. Either way, you didn't mess anything up. You've got a steady hand. Sharp eye, too. The kinda quiet that makes people nervous."
Victor didn't smile at the compliment, but he inclined his head. "I learn quickly. Observation is merely the first tool."
"Right. That, and not touching anything unless I say so." Viktor gestured toward one of the chairs, now vacant. "Sit down. You've been hovering like a drone."
Victor complied. He didn't fidget or shift like most people when idle. He simply became still, calculating.
"You've been compiling something," Viktor said, gesturing toward his pad. "Cyberpsychosis?"
"I find the subject… contradictory," Victor said. "Some call it a myth. Others have a syndrome. But the variables are erratic—uncontrolled augmentation, neural desensitisation, and emotional degradation. There's a pattern. You've seen it firsthand."
Viktor didn't answer immediately. Instead, he poured himself another cup of stale coffee and leaned against the wall, eyes a little heavier now. Tired. Not physically, but morally.
"Yeah. I've seen it," he said. "Too many times. A patient comes in wanting to 'edge out.' Replace a limb, jack in a reflex booster, load a new operating system into their skull. They leave faster, stronger, deadlier—but something's gone behind the eyes. Happens fast. Or slow. Depends on the person."
Victor's eyes narrowed slightly. "What is your professional hypothesis?"
Viktor looked at him for a long moment. "You want science, or the truth?"
"I want both."
"Then it's this," Viktor said. "Chrome changes the body, but not the soul. Some people are wired for it. Some aren't. You hit a point where the machine overtakes what made you human, and if you don't have something anchoring you. Something real... You break."
Victor's expression hardened, reflective.
"I have encountered... variations of this. The loss of the self to the vessel. In my world, such an imbalance is called possession. Demonic influence. But here, it's merely labelled as a side effect. Brushed off."
"You think it's spiritual?" Viktor tilted his head, mildly curious.
"I think the body is weak," Victor said quietly. "But the will must dominate. Whether that will is tied to the soul or to a data construct is irrelevant. What matters is control."
Viktor grunted. "If everyone thought like that, I'd be outta business."
Victor looked down at the chair, then around at the implants mounted on the walls.
"No," he said softly. "You'd be the most important man in the city. The one who keeps the beast within the cage."
That actually got a real look from Viktor, part surprise, part wariness. "You've got a weird way of saying thank you."
"I didn't say thank you."
"Didn't think you would."
Victor returned to his datapad and typed something new: Thermal desensitisation... increase in combat augmentation leads to behavioural shifts... Gain access to magic soon... adapt magic constructs accordingly.
He did not elaborate. He never did.
But in his mind, the pieces were starting to connect.
Viktor exhaled through his nose, slow and thoughtful.
The silence had lingered for some time since their last conversation, the clinic settling into one of its rare lulls between patients.
The two had come to their last hour.
Outside, the neon buzz of Night City filtered through the security glass, casting fractured lights across the surgery floor.
Tools gleamed in those slivers—tools for breaking men down and building them back up again.
Victor sat, tapping brief notes into his datapad with clean, precise gestures. He didn't fidget. He didn't sigh.
He didn't ask questions. If he had an idle thought, he buried it beneath layers of calculation.
That didn't sit well with Viktor.
"You know," the old ripper finally said, leaning back in his chair and rubbing the back of his neck, "you're a strange one."
Victor didn't glance up. "I hear that often."
"That so?" Viktor scoffed. "I doubt you hear anything often. It doesn't seem like you let people close enough."
Victor didn't respond. Only the datapad beeped as another entry was logged in his growing files on neural degradation and biosynthetic integration.
"I gotta ask," Viktor continued, his tone softening but not dropping the question. "Who are you, really? You don't look like street trash. Don't talk like a Corpo. Sure, you got the attitude, but it ain't clean. Sure as hell don't act like a techie. Those knuckleheads rarely find biomed interesting."
Victor paused mid-sentence, eyes flicking up with an unreadable expression. "And if I told you I was none of those things?"
"I'd say I figured as much." Viktor cracked a grin, leaning forward on his knees. "But I'm gonna be stuck with you for a while, so I'd rather know who I'm sharing air with."
Victor folded his arms, his posture composed yet somehow heavy. "My name is Victor Von Doom. That is all you need to know."
"Right," Viktor said, not skipping a beat. "So what—former Corpo? Merc? Nomad with a philosophy degree?"
"I am...not from here," Victor said simply.
"That explains your accent," Viktor nodded. "But not your eyes."
Victor looked over.
"They're old... Or merely experienced." Viktor continued. "Even when they're watching something new. Like you've already judged it before it got the chance to impress."
Victor remained still. But he didn't look away.
"I didn't mean to pry," Viktor added. "Just figured you're the kind of guy who works better when someone gets where he's coming from."
"I work regardless."
"Right," Viktor said, sighing. "Guess I'll do the talking, then."
He stood up, stretched his shoulder, and turned toward the far wall of the clinic, gesturing loosely with a prosthetic hand. Victor's gaze followed toward a small alcove above the storage cabinets. There, half-hidden beneath an aging LED strip, sat a framed photograph and a tarnished boxing trophy.
"I used to box," Viktor said, voice low now. "A long time ago. Back when fights still happened in smoke-filled gyms. No chrome, no reflex boosters. Just gloves, grit, and timing."
Victor remained silent.
"Was good at it, too. Got some medals. That one," he pointed, "was from the Night City Regionals. Went ten rounds against a guy who had forty pounds on me. Broke my nose and a rib, but I knocked him out cold in the last round."
Victor's eyes narrowed slightly. Not mockery—genuine observation.
"Let me guess," he said. "You lost to someone who chromed out."
"Yup," Viktor muttered, chuckling to himself. "Twice. First time, it was a reflex booster. Didn't even see the punch coming. Second time, the bastard had subdermal plating and didn't feel a thing. My gloves cracked on his ribs. Broke my knuckles."
Victor didn't blink. "And you stopped."
"Not because I lost. I stopped because the game changed." Viktor shrugged. "Wasn't boxing anymore. Just another arms race. Didn't want to lose my humanity chasing a belt."
"A rare choice," Victor said quietly.
"I was stubborn," Viktor admitted. "Still am. You'll learn that working with me."
They stood in silence again, but it wasn't empty now. Viktor had opened a door—not one Victor had walked through, but one he had, at least, acknowledged existed.
Victor looked toward the trophy. "You believe cyberpsychosis is the price of this arms race?"
"I believe the human body isn't meant to be outpaced by its own ambition," Viktor said. "The soul gets left behind, and no one wants to admit they're dragging a corpse around inside a chrome shell."
Victor turned his datapad off and finally spoke, low but clear.
"Then you are a craftsman who refuses to become a machine."
Viktor blinked, surprised at the phrasing. "Yeah... Something like that."
Victor stood, adjusting his coat and gloves. "Then we understand each other."
They did.
The air in the clinic settled—no longer filled with sterile tension, but something sharper. Mutual respect.
And beneath that, a quiet understanding: both men were relics of a different kind of war.
For the two, it appeared time would pass by.
Boom!
The door slammed open.
The bell above didn't chime—it shattered, the fractured tone cut off by the screech of boots on tile and the stench of hot metal. Viktor barely turned before two figures stormed into the clinic, one dragging the other, blood dripping in their wake.
"Yo, Doc!" the healthy one barked—thick accent, gold-plated teeth, Valentino tattoos glowing beneath his mesh shirt. "He's bleedin' the fuck out!"
The one he carried—barely more than a dead weight—had a half-torched arm and a hole in his abdomen wide enough to see the spine. He was gurgling, not speaking. Flesh sizzled with the sharp stink of cauterised chrome.
Victor watched from the side, finishing up with a woman whose ocular lens he had been tuning. She stared at the scene, wide-eyed.
"Off the chair," he told her flatly.
She didn't argue. She knew better.
The Valentino dragged his friend across the floor, blood streaking behind them in arcs, and practically threw him onto the now-empty seat.
"Help him!" the ganger shouted. "Do your damn job!"
Viktor stepped in, already snapping on gloves, voice calm but direct. "What happened?"
"Maelstrom jumped us outside a Joytoy suite," the man hissed. "Punk had an ironclaw implant—ripped through Manny's gut like tissue."
Victor stepped beside him without waiting. His face betrayed nothing. Inside, his mind was already slicing through information like a scalpel.
Entry wound. Partial cauterisation, liver ruptured, one lung failing and heart rate dropping.
No trauma team ID tag.
No platinum package. No backup.
Only him.
He retrieved clamps, gauze, and thermal sealant. The clinic lights sharpened their hue as the auto-surgical sensors clicked on. Viktor looked across the table. "Are you ready to assist?"
Victor didn't answer.
He acted.
He moved to the opposite side of the table and began stabilising the patient's neck with one hand, monitoring the vitals with another. Cold. Unflinching. Exact.
Viktor tossed him a dermal regenerator. Victor caught it without looking.
Blood gushed in pulses now, the man's breath wet and ragged. His skin was too pale. The implants glowed faintly from shock strain.
"Clamp it," Viktor snapped.
Victor was already ahead. "Too deep. The wound's carved through the hepatic artery."
Viktor's eyebrows twitched. "You're sure?"
Victor nodded once. "He's going into cascade failure. If we patch it, he'll bleed out in less than a minute. If we cut off the flow—"
"Brain dies in five," Viktor finished grimly. "Fuck."
The Valentino leaned in. "Don't just stand there! He's still breathing!"
"He's not going to make it," Victor said, voice firm, clinical. "His body is dying. All you've brought us is noise."
"What?" The ganger's voice broke. "You trying to scam me?! That's Manny, choom!"
Victor turned to him, calm and distant. "If you wish to save him, go find God. You came to the wrong place."
The Valentino's hand reached for his pistol.
Viktor's body tensed, but Victor moved first.
He stepped forward, twisting the ganger's wrist just as the gun cleared its holster. In the same movement, he elbowed the man across the face, grabbed his collar, and choked him against the wall. One-handed. No wasted effort.
The pistol clattered to the floor.
The ganger struggled briefly, gasping—but Victor's grip was firm, efficient. He held him until the fight faded into unconsciousness, then let the body slump down with as little care as a broken tool.
Silence returned, broken only by the slowing beep of a flatline.
Viktor sighed, stepping back from the chair as the body on the table finally stilled. Blood pooled beneath it, thick and cooling.
Victor calmly rinsed his gloves in the nearby steriliser.
"I've seen better outcomes," Viktor muttered.
"He was already dead," Victor replied. "He simply hadn't stopped breathing yet."
Viktor offered a dry chuckle and a shake of the head. "Well, damn. You're efficient. Cold, but efficient."
Victor turned, wiping his hands dry. "Would you prefer sentiment or precision?"
"I'll take precision, thanks," Viktor grunted. "But maybe don't choke out my customers next time. Even if they are assholes."
Victor tilted his head. "I didn't kill him."
"I noticed," Viktor said. "You're either gonna make my life hell... or a lot easier. Haven't decided yet."
They finished cleaning the station. The woman with the ocular lens had already left. The unconscious ganger groaned but didn't wake. The corpse was bagged, the scene scrubbed.
Viktor handed Victor a folded pouch.
"Two hundred eddies. Welcome to the bottom rung."
Victor opened the pouch and counted the notes. Small, plastified currency sheets. Worn. Real.
His first legitimate earnings in Night City.
"Where's your next stop?" Viktor asked.
Victor thought for a moment. "An old debt."
"Friend?"
"No. A man who fed me."
"Ah," Viktor nodded. "Well... better go before he thinks you're ghostin' him."
Victor nodded once, sliding the pouch into his coat. "I will return tomorrow. At the appointed hour."
"Damn right you will," Viktor said. "I've got a neural stabilizer I need you to catalog."
As Victor stepped into the smog-stained street, the air hit his face like an old glove—foul, but familiar. He pocketed the pouch and walked.
There were debts to pay.
And projects to begin.