MORGAN BLACKHAND: THE MAN WHO OUTLIVED THE LEGEND

2077.

Night City remembered Morgan Blackhand badly.

That suited Morgan just fine.

Most famous Solos eventually became drinks at the Afterlife. Their names survived because their bodies didn’t. Stories became bigger than the people inside them. Details changed. Witnesses lied. Drunks improved the endings.

Morgan had spent most of his professional life understanding one simple rule:

Famous Solos were usually dead Solos.

So when two young mercenaries began arguing about him in a quiet bar on the outskirts of Night City, Morgan kept drinking.

Neither recognized the older man sitting a few stools away.

Long, dark salt-and-pepper hair. Weathered face. Heavy coat. One black cybernetic arm resting beside a whiskey.

Above the bar, an old documentary showed grainy footage of Arasaka Tower.

Fire.

Smoke.

2023

One merc nodded toward the screen.

“You know Blackhand died there, right?”

His friend laughed.

“My old man knew a Militech extraction pilot. Blackhand made it to the roof.”

“Here we go.”

“Smasher was waiting for him.”

Morgan stared into his glass.

The first merc leaned closer.

“They fought while the whole Tower was coming apart.”

His friend shook his head.

“You weren’t there.”

“Neither were you.”

Then came the story Morgan had heard dozens of times in dozens of variations.

Blackhand and Smasher fought across the roof.

The Tower exploded.

They went over the edge together.

And Morgan Blackhand supposedly climbed onto Adam Smasher’s armored body and rode the borg down the side of Arasaka Tower.

The second merc nearly spit out his drink.

“Bullshit.”

“I swear.”

“Nobody rides Adam fucking Smasher down a skyscraper.”

“Then where’s Blackhand’s body?”

The bartender noticed the old man smiling.

“Something funny?”

Morgan took a drink.

“Story gets better every year.”

Neither merc heard him.

And neither knew that the truth was considerably less heroic.

It was also much stranger.

2023

Morgan reached the rooftop already hurt.

One shoulder of his coat had burned through. Blood ran beneath the armor along his ribs. His encrypted communications were disintegrating into static as systems throughout Arasaka Tower failed.

Rain hammered the roof.

Below him, Night City flickered through smoke.

Across the rooftop stood Adam Smasher.

Not yet the monstrous weapons platform that would terrorize Night City decades later.

This Smasher still retained the architecture of a human being.

A pale face remained visible above a mechanical jaw. Red cyberoptics burned beneath the rain. Thick Arasaka armor covered most of what was left.

Morgan stopped.

Smasher looked at him.

“Silverhand’s dead.”

Morgan checked the Minami.

“You’re too late.”

Morgan raised the pistol.

“Wasn’t here for him.”

Smasher smiled.

“Then what are you here for?”

Morgan sighted along the weapon.

“You.”

Smasher moved first.

Far too quickly.

Morgan cleared the opening strike by centimeters.

Concrete shattered behind him.

He fired twice into Smasher’s torso.

Sparks.

No meaningful penetration.

Smasher laughed.

Morgan didn’t.

Because Morgan had already learned something.

The armor was exceptional.

The balance wasn’t.

That had always been Morgan Blackhand’s real talent.

Not strength.

Not cyberware.

Not bravado.

Information.

Every opponent told you something.

Where they looked.

Which leg carried weight.

Which weapon they trusted.

What frightened them.

The trick was surviving long enough to listen.

Years earlier, during one of Morgan’s early Militech deployments, another young Solo had spent an entire insertion boasting about his kill count.

Morgan finally asked him:

“What happens when you meet somebody better?”

The Solo grinned.

“I kill him too.”

Morgan shook his head.

Three hours later the kid was dead.

Morgan completed the extraction alone.

When his commanding officer asked what happened, Morgan gave him the truth.

“He thought reputation was armor.”

Morgan never made that mistake.

On the rooftop, Smasher came again.

Morgan dropped his center of gravity, slipped outside the attack and drove the black cybernetic hand beneath the damaged seam of Smasher’s shoulder assembly.

Metal screamed.

Smasher caught Morgan and hurled him across the rooftop.

Morgan hit hard enough for his vision to disappear.

Three seconds.

Maybe four.

When it returned, Smasher was already approaching.

Morgan rolled beneath another strike and fired repeatedly into the same shoulder seam.

Something ruptured.

Smasher staggered.

Only slightly.

Enough.

Then the building moved.

The first internal detonation hit like an earthquake.

Glass erupted outward from the Tower.

The roof fractured.

Morgan saw the edge vanish beneath Smasher.

Then Smasher vanished.

Morgan went with him.

For a fraction of a second, both men fell beside Arasaka Tower.

Morgan caught a structural cable.

It tore through his glove and nearly dislocated his shoulder.

Below him, Smasher crashed onto an exterior maintenance platform.

Morgan’s grip failed.

He landed against Smasher as the platform ripped loose from the building.

Steel.

Glass.

Fire.

Two bodies tumbling through a collapsing skyscraper.

Morgan grabbed whatever he could.

At one point, that happened to be Smasher.

Decades later, witnesses who had never been there would call this:

Morgan Blackhand riding Adam Smasher down Arasaka Tower.

Morgan would have called it:

Trying not to die.

Smasher struck him once during the descent.

Morgan remembered that.

He remembered losing his grip.

He remembered white light.

Then nothing.

Morgan Blackhand woke beneath concrete.

Three kilometers away.

His ears rang so badly that the world seemed underwater.

His coat was shredded.

His cybernetic hand refused to close properly.

His ribs felt wrong.

Morgan lay there for several seconds and checked himself piece by piece.

Legs worked.

One arm worked.

The other mostly worked.

He reached beneath the remains of his coat.

The Minami was still there.

Morgan stared at it.

Then laughed once.

Apparently the universe expected him to continue working.

His encrypted radio chirped.

“Blackhand. Confirm status.”

Militech.

Morgan looked toward the mushroom cloud opening above Night City.

He removed the radio.

Dropped it into a burning vehicle.

And walked away.

By morning, Morgan Blackhand was officially dead.

He had never possessed anything more useful.

Then another transmission reached him.

Weak.

Emergency frequency.

A woman’s voice.

“Blackhand… help me.”

Morgan closed his eyes.

Of course.

There was always one more job.

DEAD MAN’S HAND

The voice belonged to Mara Venn, a Militech intelligence analyst attached to the Arasaka operation.

Morgan remembered her.

Quiet.

Smart.

Never held a pistol correctly.

Somehow she had survived.

And she carried something Militech desperately wanted back.

A hardened memory core containing the operational archive from the assault.

Orders.

Targeting information.

Casualty projections.

Contingency plans.

Morgan opened one classified directory.

Then stopped.

BLACKHAND TERMINATION PROTOCOL

Militech had planned for Morgan to die at Arasaka Tower.

Not because he had failed.

Because he had become too experienced.

Too informed.

Too independent.

Mara watched his face.

“Well?”

Morgan closed the file.

“That’s disappointing.”

“That’s all?”

Morgan handed the core back.

“I’ve been betrayed by better people.”

Now Militech wanted the archive destroyed.

Arasaka wanted everyone connected to the raid erased.

And Morgan Blackhand, freshly deceased, found himself escorting a terrified analyst through a Night City collapsing under martial lockdown.

They moved underground.

Flood channels.

Maintenance tunnels.

Abandoned subway infrastructure.

Places forgotten by corporations because nobody could monetize them.

Mara eventually asked:

“How the fuck did you survive Arasaka Tower?”

Morgan kept walking.

“I wasn’t inside when it went.”

“You were on the roof.”

A pause.

“For a while.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the one you’re getting.”

The tunnels reminded Morgan of another extraction.

Years earlier.

Different country.

Different corporation.

A Militech executive had been trapped behind enemy lines.

When Morgan arrived, the executive looked behind him.

“How many men did you bring?”

“One.”

“Where is he?”

Morgan pointed at himself.

The executive laughed.

He stopped laughing four hours later when Morgan walked him through forty kilometers of hostile territory and delivered him alive.

That had been Morgan at his peak.

First into country.

Last out.

The man Militech sent when all reasonable plans had already failed.

He could shoot.

Drive.

Fly.

Fight.

Track.

Demolish.

Improvise.

But his most important skill was understanding what other people were going to do before they did it.

And eventually Morgan understood something his younger self hadn’t.

Every successful mission taught employers how valuable you were.

Value became dependence.

Dependence became control.

And when control failed?

Control became a termination order.

Morgan got Mara out.

The archive survived.

Militech eventually closed the file.

MORGAN BLACKHAND: CONFIRMED KIA.

Arasaka reached the same conclusion.

Morgan never corrected either corporation.

Johnny Silverhand became mythology.

Adam Smasher became a nightmare.

Morgan Blackhand became a rumor.

Years became decades.

For Morgan, that was close enough to retirement.

2077

Back in the bar, the two young mercenaries were still arguing.

“I’m telling you Blackhand survived.”

“Guy would be ancient.”

“So?”

Morgan left several eddies beside the whiskey.

The bartender watched him stand.

For half a second, something moved behind the man’s eyes.

Recognition trying to happen.

Morgan pulled his coat over the black arm.

Recognition disappeared.

He stepped outside.

Rain swallowed him.

Behind him, one merc laughed.

“You really think Morgan Blackhand could just disappear?”

Morgan kept walking.

He should have left Night City immediately.

Instead, a week earlier in Pacifica had already ensured that somebody else was looking for him.

GHOST CONTRACT

Morgan had not gone to Pacifica looking for trouble.

That was the important part.

At his age, he had finally learned better.

He was there because Rafael Soria, an aging ripperdoc working out of a clinic behind an abandoned hotel, still knew how to service cybernetics old enough that most technicians treated them as historical artifacts.

Morgan’s black arm had developed a delay.

Three hundredths of a second between intent and finger response.

Nobody else would have noticed.

Morgan did.

Soria finished the calibration.

“Good for another decade.”

Morgan looked at him.

“You said that twelve years ago.”

Soria shrugged.

“Then I was right.”

Morgan left through the rear entrance.

He had made it half a block when someone ran past him.

Young man.

Expensive clothes.

Blood spreading beneath one arm.

Terrified.

Not a ganger.

Not military.

Corporate.

The particular species of corporate employee who had recently discovered that his severance package might include several bullets.

Morgan kept walking.

Then three black SUVs entered the street.

Doors opened before the vehicles stopped.

Operators emerged.

Suppressed weapons.

Clean spacing.

No unnecessary shouting.

Morgan recognized the doctrine before the insignia.

Lazarus Group.

The wounded man ran.

He made twenty meters.

A suppressed burst folded him into the pavement.

Morgan stopped.

A Lazarus operative approached the body.

Another covered the street.

Something small slid across the wet asphalt.

A data shard.

It stopped against Morgan’s boot.

Morgan looked down.

The nearest Lazarus operator looked down too.

Then his eyes moved upward.

Gray hair.

Weathered face.

Black cybernetic arm.

A moment of uncertainty.

Then recognition.

Not enough recognition to be certain.

Enough recognition to be dangerous.

The operative raised his weapon.

Morgan sighed.

“Could’ve just asked.”

Fourteen seconds later, two Lazarus agents were down.

A third crawled behind an SUV.

Morgan stood alone in the rain holding a data shard he had not wanted fifteen seconds earlier.

The surviving operative watched him pick it up.

That mattered.

Morgan disappeared before reinforcements arrived.

By evening, WNS carried the story.

SHOOTOUT IN PACIFICA INVOLVING LAZARUS SECURITY PERSONNEL

Witnesses described an older man.

Gray hair.

Black cyberarm.

Morgan watched the report from a bar several districts away.

He had already examined the shard.

Most of the contents were encrypted.

The header wasn’t.

LAZARUS GROUP: PRIVATE CONTRACT LEDGER

Morgan stared at it.

Then said aloud:

“Nope.”

He removed the shard.

Placed it on the counter.

Looked at it.

Picked it back up.

Because Morgan knew exactly what something like that contained.

Clients.

Payments.

Operations.

People who had spent tremendous amounts of money ensuring certain things never became public.

Across Night City, Lazarus investigators were reconstructing the Pacifica incident.

Traffic cameras had captured fragments.

A face.

A gait.

The artificial arm.

Someone ran the footage through military archives.

POSSIBLE MATCH:

MORGAN BLACKHAND

Confidence: 41%.

One analyst laughed.

“Guy’s dead.”

Then another system compared Morgan’s movement patterns with archived combat telemetry.

Confidence increased.

67%.

Nobody laughed anymore.

The report went upstairs.

Recover the shard.

Confirm the identity.

Leave no witnesses.

Morgan remained in the bar because leaving immediately would look like running.

Morgan Blackhand did not run until he understood what he was running from.

He ordered another whiskey.

Twenty minutes later, three people entered.

Civilian clothes.

Military posture.

One watched the exits.

One watched Morgan.

The third approached carrying a tablet.

“Mr. Blackhand?”

Nobody had called him that in years.

Morgan glanced at the reflection in the bottles behind the bar.

The tablet screen was visible for half a second.

TARGET CONFIRMATION

ACTION: TERMINATE

Morgan set down his glass.

“You brought too many people for a conversation.”

The first agent reached beneath his coat.

That was his last mistake.

Morgan took the Lazarus tablet.

It contained enough information to explain the Pacifica operation.

The dead corporate thief had stolen a private Lazarus client ledger.

Corporations.

Politicians.

Fixers.

Executives.

Private security firms.

Deniable assassinations.

Disappearances.

Black operations.

Wars purchased quietly enough that nobody officially remembered ordering them.

Morgan scrolled through the names.

One stopped him.

MILITECH.

He stared.

Fifty years.

Different executives.

Different technology.

Same business.

Morgan smiled.

“Better graphics.”

Lazarus assembled a containment team at the South Docks.

Young operators.

Modern equipment.

Drones.

Thermal surveillance.

Networked optics.

Predictive targeting.

Their field commander studied the old Morgan Blackhand files and came to the obvious conclusion.

Morgan had been extraordinary.

Once.

Now he was old.

That conclusion would become expensive.

Morgan watched the compound from above.

Binoculars held in the black cybernetic hand.

Three patrols.

Two overwatch positions.

One drone rotation.

Emergency power on a separate circuit.

Good architecture.

Professional work.

Morgan approved.

Then he cut the power.

No alarms.

No heroics.

One guard disappeared.

Then another.

A third rounded a corner.

Morgan’s arm locked across his neck.

Movement.

A crack.

Silence.

At twenty-five, Morgan had survived because he could move quickly.

At seventy-plus, Morgan survived because he generally knew what was happening several seconds before everybody else.

A young Solo could draw faster.

Morgan noticed the hand moving toward the pistol before the man had consciously decided to draw.

That difference mattered.

By the time Lazarus realized someone had breached the facility, Morgan was already inside their command structure.

The field commander finally found him.

Young.

Fast.

Expensive implants.

Everything modern.

“You were great once.”

Morgan said nothing.

“You’re an old story people tell.”

Morgan checked his Minami.

“We’re the future, Blackhand.”

Morgan looked at him.

“The future is just a mark I haven’t bled on yet.”

The commander moved first.

He was faster.

Morgan expected that.

He was stronger than Morgan’s biological arm.

Morgan expected that too.

What he lacked was forty additional years of watching plans collapse.

The fight ended quickly.

Youth had speed.

Morgan had context.

Context won.

Morgan recovered the client ledger.

He could have published it.

Night City would have exploded.

Careers destroyed.

Corporations embarrassed.

Governments compromised.

People killed.

Morgan had spent enough time watching people confuse chaos with victory.

He chose something quieter.

He copied the ledger.

Encrypted it.

Then sent proof of possession to several of the most powerful names inside.

Not the entire archive.

Just enough.

The message contained one sentence.

IF I DIE, EVERYTHING GOES PUBLIC.

Within hours, contracts targeting Morgan Blackhand began disappearing.

Bounties evaporated.

Certain executives suddenly developed a profound interest in his continued health.

Morgan considered that considerably more useful than revenge.

Then he disappeared.

Again.

THE BADLANDS

Morgan’s safe house sat beyond Night City.

Dry scrub moved beneath the wind.

Solar collectors slowly tracked the morning sun.

The city shimmered on the horizon, distant enough to look almost beautiful.

Inside, Morgan sat at a battered table.

Coffee this time.

The black hand rested beside the cup.

The Lazarus shard remained locked away.

A television played quietly.

Another impossible Night City story.

Arasaka security compromised.

Gang leadership eliminated.

Corporate operations disrupted.

A mercenary repeatedly appearing where no mercenary should have survived.

The reporter said the name.

V.

Morgan looked toward the screen.

Young.

Short light-brown hair.

Number-one fade along the sides.

Number two across the top.

Different face.

Different generation.

Same city.

Morgan watched reports accumulate.

Impossible firefights.

Fixers whispering.

Corporations denying.

Witnesses exaggerating.

He remembered being young.

The first Militech briefings.

The first Minami.

The first time somebody called him Blackhand.

Back then Morgan believed experience meant learning how to win.

Eventually he learned something harder.

Experience meant knowing which victories were worth surviving.

The television continued.

Authorities declined comment regarding V.

Morgan smiled.

Night City was already doing what Night City always did.

Turning a human being into folklore.

He raised the coffee slightly toward the screen.

“Good luck, kid.”

Outside, the Badlands stretched toward the city.

Johnny Silverhand had become immortal by refusing to disappear.

Morgan Blackhand had survived by mastering the art.

There would probably never be a drink named after him at the Afterlife.

Morgan preferred it that way.

Let the dead have the cocktails.

Let the young have the legends.

Let people argue about Arasaka Tower.

Let them swear Morgan defeated Smasher.

Let them swear Smasher killed Morgan.

Let them tell each other that Morgan Blackhand rode a full borg down the side of a collapsing skyscraper.

Morgan knew what happened.

He remembered the rain.

He remembered falling.

He remembered waking under concrete three kilometers away.

And ultimately, the most important part of the story had never been how Morgan Blackhand survived.

It was what he did afterward.

He got up.

Checked his weapon.

And kept moving.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Until eventually Night City made the greatest mistake it could make with a man like Morgan Blackhand.

It forgot he was still there.

Morgan Blackhand had outlived the corporations that tried to own him, the enemies who tried to kill him, and the legend that tried to replace him.

Now another generation could have the city.

Morgan sat back and drank his coffee.

No mission.

No contract.

No witnesses.

For now.

THE END ♠️