Ghost in the City: Cyberpunk Gamer SI

[Seras]

"Akari, don't. Motoko, it's Tyger Claw business like I said. Sorry if I've been distracted. We're just busy. Give me some time, we can go get dinner or something later." He tried to play it off.

"No, it's okay, sorry for bugging you. Need anything? Want me to bring you guys food, or something?" I offered, I had definitely stepped in it, and Akari's words rung in my head. Five of her subordinates had died. I don't know how, and Jun was right. TC business. Not mine.

Jun shook his head, and he must be feeling okay because a moment later he pulled an XXL package out of his jacket pocket and started tearing into it.

Of course.

I watched as Jun and Akari settled back onto the couch, both teenagers putting their heads together. And I just… I should stay out of it. It wasn't my business. I didn't want to be involved in TC shit, but at the same time. This was eating at Jun, and I had never seen Akari so quiet, so downtrodden.

I liked Akari. Even if she was a literal Cyberpsycho, Jun liked her, and she liked him. I had a decision to make, and damn it. I was a busybody.

"Fuck it. Fill me in. You gonks definitely need help." I said as I flopped on the couch beside Jun to look over the tablet he had been glaring at.

"Motoko, no. This isn't your business."

"It is when my brother is involved, besides, I'm not doing anything but hearing what is going on. I have skills you two don't like netrunning and stuff. So hit me with what's going on. I'm not saying I'll act, but I can give you a new perspective."

To my surprise Akari continued to be oddly quiet. Like kinda of scary quiet as she stared at me.

Jun sighed, rubbed his face. "Akari's been given more and more responsibility by Fujimura-Sama. To expand her skill set."

"He wants me to dechrome. But I'm useless at everything but killing." She suddenly adds in sounding… Oddly mellow for the woman that was usually so frantic.

"So Akari's been working as the boss for a drug business for Fujimura-Sama."

Disgusting, and I want to help a whole lot less. "Go on."

Jun turned towards Akari who finally jerked a bit in a nod and spoke. "It was a big deal. We had a lot of product. I had it stored away in the base, that should have been it. Sell it off the next day. In the middle of the night someone hit us. Stole the product, killed some of the guys. We don't know who it was. Fujimura-Sama is… Not happy."

"Okay." I said mostly to say something at the long pause after she got done. "Any clues? Camera recordings? Were the bodies killed by a unique weapon? Any of your guys suddenly missing as an informant?"

"We have very little." Jun cut in as Akari… Her face was mostly plastic but she was looking pretty listless at every question. "The cameras were hacked. Someone good enough that our netrunners that checked into it couldn't find anything. Our guys were all shot."
"With what?" I prompted and got a blank look from my brother.

Oh god. He's a himbo. They put him in charge of an investigation, but he had nothing but burrito fluff in between his ears.

"The bullets that killed your people. What caliber? Was it accurate shots, or spray? How many shots in total, casings? All of this is stuff that gives us information on who did it."

Jun looked to Akari and she instantly put up her hands. "Don't look at me… Fine. Fuck… It was low caliber rounds. I think… 9mm? There were a lot of casings. I made the boys that were left clean them all up. It took a while." She said speaking slow as she seemed to dredge up the memories.

"Okay. So spraying like that? Probably just off the street thugs. If they were professional you would have a lot less bullets, and a lot more accurate… Probably." I muttered. Did the guys who die shoot back?

I shook it off. "Where did it happen? When?" I asked and Jun shook his head going to deny me, when Akari just flicked the tablet over to me.

"See for yourself little killer."

"Okay, so you lost some drugs, that's not the end of the world or anything. How much did you lose? You can probably steal it back from someone else if we really have to. Or-"

"It was about ten million eddies worth of Glitter." Akari said dully and I jerked up at the same time Jun turned to Akari and glared at her.

"Holy shit. Glitter? That shit is awful!" I instantly denied. Glitter was a newer drug on the streets. The kind of stuff that literally killed people who used it. Not just on overdose or something either. Weak constitutions would lead to your nervous system failing.

Don't even get me started on the incredible addiction.

"Motoko. I said don't get involved in this for a reason. This isn't the sort of stuff… It's not the sort of shit you should be involved with." Jun said, reaching out and pressing his hands on my shoulders.

Well he wasn't wrong.

"Good riddance then. Hopefully whoever stole it kills themselves by using that poison." I said shrugging off his hands, but more than willing to wash my hands of this.

"Only problem is that Jun-Boy put his neck out on the line with me to help." Akari said with a dull monotone and I could practically feel my neck creak as I turned to look at Jun.

"What does she mean by putting your neck on the line?"

"Not like that." He denied instantly. "But we will both be punished for failing." I noted instantly that he was dodging what that punishment would actually be.

"Stop hiding it from me. What punishment!"

"Yubitsume." Jun offered, with a shrug. "Nothing to worry about."

"What the fuck is Yubitsume?" I demanded and Jun refused to answer.

"You cut a part of yourself off and offer it to your boss for fucking up." Akari offered, fluttering her fingers for a second. Some of that manic energy she always had before shining through. "It's an old Yakuza thing originally I think? At least that's how it was explained to me. It used to just be fingers, but well. Chrome makes that less of an issue now yeah? So they tend to make it hurt."

"No one is cutting anything out of my brother!"

"Of course not. You have to do it to yourself."

"Fuck that." I said instantly. I knew I hated gangs for a reason. "I'm going to make some calls and get this solved. Fucking hell. Can't believe I'm gonna be part of a drug deal. I feel gross just thinking about it." I hissed as I rose up to go make some calls.

"Motoko Just drop it. Akari and I will figure it out, or pay the consequences and that'll be that. It's not a big deal. Just some time at a ripper and I'll be fine."

"It's not fine!" I yelled, actually losing my temper as I turned around from where I had been heading into my room to make a private call. "It's fucked up! So I'm not going to let it happen! I care about you! You! You! Stupid himbo! Get a brain! Gonk!"

Then I turned and stomped into my bedroom. Closing the door behind me quietly, because I don't like slamming doors even when angry.

"Fuck." I took a breath and let it out and then made a call.

*Motoko! How are you?*

*I've been better, Hiromi, Jun is in some shit, but I had an idea. I want you to come over. I have something to run past you. I think I have an idea for how to start making some eddies. I'm going to call in Ichi and Malcolm too.*

*If it's for Jun, I'm in! But eddies too? Now you have my attention!*

—--

Section 9 was united in my room. All of us were unfortunately sitting on the floor.

Jun and Akari had been confused when my chooms started appearing but I hadn't explained anything to the two utter morons.

Instead I just hurried them over to my room and told them to wait until everyone was here.

Now we were. Sitting cross legged on the carpeted floor like we were in elementary school again.

"Okay. Now that everyone is here. Let's talk about the situation. Jun agreed to help out Akari. Akari was apparently in charge of protecting a drug shipment. Ten million eddies worth of glitter."

"Fuck."

"Whoa." Malcolm and Ichi's eyes both widened in shock. It was Hiromi who frowned.

"That's a big shipment… Well it's worth a lot, but isn't that big… Ten kilos? Give or take." She muttered and I looked at her in surprise for a moment.

"I'm going to ignore how scary it is that you know that off the top of your head Hiromi. Drugs are bad m'kay? You'll tell me before you ever try any right?"

"It's important information for anyone! Why don't you know this!?" She demanded pointing at me, but Ichi and Malcolm both looked like they didn't know as well, and were doing their best to hide that fact.

"Because I don't deal in drugs Hiromi… Well. I didn't I guess. Listen. If Jun and Akari don't find the shipment that was stolen then they will be punished. Badly." I said seriously as I looked over my chooms.

"Alright. So we track down the thief. We can do that. I mean, your netrunning us backing you up. Should be easy enough."
"The thieves had a netrunner as well, and scrambled the cameras. So that might not be as easy, but I have to try anyway."

"Okay… One question." Ichi asked cutting in, "I'm all for helping your brother Motoko. Don't think this is against that, but you mentioned eddies."

"Okay so here is the plan." I outlined the idea and after a few moments Hiromi was practically buzzing with excitement.

"I'm in! I'm so in! This will look so good on my resume!"

"I'm glad we can help your corpo dreams Hiromi… I'm in too. If it works that would help. A lot. Plus it'll make us useful." Ichi said and nodded.

"Don't look at me. I'm always down for this shit." Malcolm agreed.

With all my chooms on board I threw my hand out into the middle. It took a moment to make me realize none of my chooms had any culture. "Put your hands out on top of mine." I explained, definitely not pouting at their lack of knowledge. But after they did it.

I slammed my hand up, knocking everyone's hands into the air. "Section 9!" I called out happily. It didn't matter that my chooms hadn't joined in. They would learn for next time.

—--

"Motoko?"

"Nope. Sorry Section 9 is too busy, can't hear you!" I called out as the four of us all ran out of the apartment to our cars past Jun. I did poke my head back into the apartment before we disappeared for good. "Keep me apprised if you find anything! My team will be assisting in this investigation." I informed Jun and then ran before he could ask any questions.

Sometimes you had to know when to run away so you couldn't be denied permission.

We all traveled to the Straight Lane Apartments, and then down into my netrunning basement. Which I was glad to notice hadn't had anyone try to sneak in.

We set up once again all of us at different terminals, although Ichi had actually stopped to get food and snacks before showing up. So my team wouldn't be starving while I was in the net.

I finished hooking myself up and then laid back. A moment later I was in the net.

The digital world opened up before me, but despite my continued annoyance at myself for a weak lobby. I quickly rushed into the city traveling across the digital scape towards where the base Akari had been working out of had been.

It was just down the street from where we lived. A bar of all things that Akari had been responsible for managing as well as making sure drugs and other illegal things could be moved through it at will.

Plus there was some money laundering of course.

I shook my head as I came upon the area, and did my usual trick. I looked for other cameras that would have some overwatch of the building.

Even if a netrunner had been involved and scrambled the cameras on the bar, it wasn't like they would have time to go through every business in the area. That took time.

At least the way I did it. As I checked out a pawn shop across the street I accessed their camera records. They of course saved their recordings in case of theft, or just for blackmail or something.

But as I checked the right time. The camera's had shut off.

Dammit. It took time to hack into a camera networks recordings, but just turning them off? A few seconds.

*Okay whoever did this shut off cameras in the area. I want everyone to get me a list of shops and locations in the area that might have been missed. Check up the buildings, or just further down the streets, I'll pull a copy here. So we know exactly when this camera was shut off.*

*We'll handle it Motoko!* Hiromi chirped out an assurance, as I pulled the data and sent it off to my server as I pulled out and started looking for another business on the street.

We just needed a clue.

—--

Four hours later we got one.

Four hours of breaking into every camera in the area. Spreading out further and further, trying to find the smallest viewpoint.

It was pure chance.

*Hey. This car. I think we have our target.* Malcolm asked over the comm as I was breaking into a more secure server.

It wasn't going super well. The security was tighter and I was getting close to giving it up when the message came through.

I quickly looked over and pulled out entirely.

Malcolm had been looking over camera records basically just looking up and down the street and watching the time that the robbery took place.

It was in the middle of Night City. There were cars going down the street constantly, but Malcolm had been checking them all apparently. Looking for a hint that something wasn't right.

An Archer Quartz drove up the street. Away from the area. It just so happened that there was a Tyger Claw sticker on the back window. Recognizable.

*Check the timing. See if that car was just passing through.* I called out.

*Already did. He took about twenty minutes to go across the street. Unless he stopped for a meal…*

*The cameras. Do they shut off as the car gets close?*

*Let me check.*

I pulled away from the server. Probably best to leave it alone with security this tight anyways. I didn't leave the net though. Just hanging around on the dingy digital street. Glowing eyes glaring out from an alleyway in the digital world daring anyone gonk enough to mess with me.

*I think we have our man.* Malcolm confirmed after a few minutes.

*Alright. I'll start trailing it backwards. Maybe we can find out who it is.*

*Give me a second, I have an idea.* Malcolm called once again and I did. Malcolm had been good at this sort of thing.

And I was right.

*Well well look at who we have here.* He said and he forwarded a video clip to me. A clip of the camera that was right across the street. One that had been shut off, but it had recorded for days before and after.

The day before a familiar car was parked out front.

*Everyone find me a picture of who was in that car!*

*On it!* I heard a chorus from my team, as I pulled up that file and started searching as well.

Haruka Itami. We had a picture of him leaving the shop that Akari owned.

Okay… Now I needed to back trace a car through Night City… Again.

I was starting to get a bad feeling that this back tracing trick I had started… It was going to be a horrifically common occurrence in the future wasn't it?

—--

We had lost the car a few blocks away, from both directions. Coming and going the car had taken the same path, but both times it had just disappeared. but we already had solutions for that.

*Okay. I'm going to back trace from the guys home address now.* I told the team as I started zooming across the city to find Haruka's home.

The fact was an amateur like this wouldn't have stayed hidden and secured from a netrunner his entire day. Most people don't think about hiding where they had been before the gig.

I highly doubted a kid that stole from the TC would think to keep his entire day as a blackout. Doubt a netrunner good enough to have helped with this would have done it either.

So Haruka in essence would be an open book.

I stepped across the net. Smiling as I looked up to the massive flood of data that was Megabuilding H8. Thankfully I wouldn't need to go inside.

I used a map of the real world and a bit of IP finagling to find a shop that would be facing the exit for the megabuildings garage.

I pulled the data after slipping into the shop's server and sent the file to my team. Pulling out I started on the next.

Time to broaden my net.

An hour later I was getting frustrated.

*Have we found anything yet?*

*No. Give us some time Motoko. We don't know exactly when he left his home, you know? We have to basically search the whole day. And Ichi is searching after the drop off to see if we can back track him when he gets home after the heist.* Malcolm actually cut me off and I groaned as I was getting irritated at how long it was taking.

I had gone into a dozen shops all around the Megabulding. Going down each way of the street that connected to the megabuildings garage just to already have the camera data prepared when we finally spotted him.

Stupid Haruka. I pulled out of the servers and just stood out on the digital street again to take a break. I ended up staring at the high end traffic that came above me. Most of it was normal computer requests. So it was just light. Streaming through paths above. Basically just people accessing the shallows. But I was on the street below. The main level for netrunners.

Here was the netrunner streets. A place a normal computer couldn't hope to reach. It was sort of peaceful. Not a lot of netrunners just walked around openly.

Plus I was in a pretty quiet part of town. Most runners would take the shallows to their destination and then drop into the street level.

So I wasn't surprised that I hadn't seen anyone. It felt a lot like I was in a private little world.

I was also bored.

No point in leaving the server. I didn't want to pull the camera records and start searching through them. I wasn't exactly in a private space. If I did that someone might notice and wonder why I had all these camera recordings I was going through.

So it was either pull back to the lobby, and work there, or wait.

Okay fine.

I zipped into the upper levels as a streak of light and then a moment later I was back in my empty lobby.

First thing I did was access a bit of programming that I hadn't touched yet. The floor around me gained an actual texture. Lights appeared above my head first just globs of light, but with a bit of an adjustment I then had a roof, and lights attached to the roof with actual fixtures.

I added walls, but with wide massive windows that opened up to the digital city below. I didn't alter the view like I could. I liked the digital city. I wanted it to feel like I was in the net.

The idea came to me and I added streaming neon lights, as part of the aesthetic.

Very Tron Motoko. You fucking nerd. I giggled, feeling myself relax a little as I created a circular couch that looked like fancy leather. A wide table along with a holographic TV in the middle, that I could display data on.

In the end. I had a very futuristic meeting room, despite the bright lights that flowed through the room, it was actually pretty retro. Almost like a mix between an old smoking room, and a neon aesthetic.

I liked it.

I settled myself onto the couch and started pulling from the camera data.

I needed to find Haruka, and here I could do it safely.

 

[Seras]

*I found him!* Hiromi called out sounding delighted as I quickly accessed her data ping and the screens that surrounded me all shifted into one.

*Damn no wonder we didn't see him. He hadn't gone home the day before.* Malcolm muttered, and I nodded. Time stamp was from a whole day before the heist.

That made things complicated.

*Did we find out when he got back from the heist?*

*I don't think he did.* Ichi offered *I've checked from when we lost track of him to practically now, and I never see him there. Is the address something outdated?* Ichi asks something that had been shot around to the group a few times at this point.

*Maybe. Alright. I'll back trace him. Malcolm, you're with me on that path. Ichi keep searching for me. Hiromi, back up Ichi. Let's find this bastard.*

I heard affirmatives and we all got back to it.

Okay he left a full day before all of this had happened. Let's find where he went. It ended up being something obvious.. It was something we probably should have considered. He went to work.

He showed up on the cameras to Akari's little shop about five minutes after leaving and then Malcolm and I both followed the timestamp up until he got back in his car and left.

He went the other way down the street from where he had come.

The same direction he had showed up during the heist.

Malcolm and I followed, and this time it was easy. We already had the camera records since he was going down the same path he had taken coming to the heist.

And where he had gone after.

This time when he reached the points he had disappeared before we got him this time he wasn't being careful.

We had actually had the camera records we needed the whole time. Just not the right time.

See before he had disappeared on a rather long length of street that led into an industrial area. A long area with no cameras to track.

We hadn't known if it was just a drop off, or something else, but now we knew it wasn't just the dropoff.

*He parked on the side of the street.*

*I guess he was hungry.* Malcolm offered and I couldn't help but scoff. The man had parked on the side of the street instead of… In the parking garage for that building? Because he wanted to stop and get some food.

He was on camera and we were able to watch him enter the building.

*Information on that building?*

*I'm looking right now. City records has it-" Hiromi started, but was cut off.

*It's a Sixth St. Base.* Ichi cut in. *The gang tags are kind of a giveaway.* He offered and I looked at the camera still and had to nod. Yeah that was 6th St. Gang tags.

I hadn't noticed them, because I didn't think of the graffiti in the city as anything but an eye sore for the most part.

*Okay. I think we have what we need. Hiromi. Are you ready?*

*You bet! Fujimura won't know what hit him!*

*Then I'll make the call to Jun. Let's get out of here.*

—--

We were back at the apartment. I had called Jun ahead to make sure he was still home, and he was. Akari wasn't though. She had gone home, but at my request would meet us all at the apartment.

But it wasn't just Akari that I had asked Jun to call in.

As the four of us all formed up on the apartment door I looked to Hiromi who was practically bouncing at what she was plotting. She threw me a nod, and I returned it. Opening the door to see the three Tyger Claws all waiting around the couch.

Fujimura looked annoyed, but we would see if he kept that attitude when we got started.

Luckily I wasn't the one responsible for talking this time. Hiromi sauntered in every ounce of Corpo training on full display as she walked right up to the three and took a seat directly opposite of Fujimura.

Just to be a little shit. I took a seat on her right, exactly where Jun was sitting for Fujimura. Ichi and Malcolm both took seats to her left.

"Thank you for coming. I hope I didn't keep you waiting?" Hiromi offered and Fujimura's eyebrow flickered up before stilling.

This wasn't what he expected at all.

"Not long."
"Excellent. We don't like causing any difficulty for our customers after all." Hiromi said, and then she reached out to her jacket pocket and pulled out something that she hadn't told me about.

She stood and with two hands offered a small business card that she had pulled out.

Fujimura gave it a look before taking it.

"Section 9. Asset Retrieval. Intelligence gathering. Wetworks." Fujimura read off the card and I had a moment where everything spun a bit.

Because that was fucking cool!

Hiromi!? You made business cards!? That's so fucking preem!

"We heard about your missing shipment, and decided as a symbol of a potentially profitable relationship we would begin an investigation. We have discovered not only who stole from you, but where they took your shipment. Although we can't confirm that the shipment wasn't moved from that location. That would of course require another investigation if that is the case."

I could see Akari perk up as the knowledge hit that her fuck up had been basically taken care of. Jun was looking at the business card and shooting me looks but I just kept my face calm and collected.

Even if I really wanted to cheer and hug Hiromi! She was so cool! Like a little corpo!

Just you know on my side.

"Interesting. I assume you have the evidence?"

"Of course. Before I hand it over we should of course talk about payment. Section 9, is a premier investigative team. As far as I am aware your own team was unable to complete the investigation despite being given days. We've only begun our investigation this morning and completed it." Hiromi said with a smile that reminded me of a shark.

"Payment…" Fujimura spoke the word calmly and seemed to consider things.

"You will find our fees well worth the reliable and quick service." Hiromi added throwing out probably the most generic corpo line I've ever heard.

Fujimura looked to Jun then Akari. "I assume your investigation has led to a dead end?"

"Yes Fujimura-Sama. We weren't able to narrow anything down." Jun added, but then he looked to us. "But I also didn't realize my sister was going to try and extort us for petty cash." He said looking irritated at me, but I quirked an eyebrow, daring him to keep complaining. But Hiromi beat me to it.

"Oh don't be silly Jun. There is nothing petty about our fee." Hiromi added with a brilliant smile that had me smirking along with her. "The information and location are here." She said, pulling a shard out of her neck.

On the drive over she had been hard at work putting together a report on what we had found. Apparently it was something she had learned how to do in class and had figured being professional about this would increase repeat business.

Or at least that is what she said, and I had agreed with her, because Hiromi had been cackling like a madwoman the whole drive over.

"How much." Fujimura finally answered. Seeming to realize he was going to need the information to find his drugs.

"Oh. We will give you a discount for first time customers. Two-hundred thousand."

Jun's jaw dropped, and Fujimura's eyebrow rose up.

"This fee also doesn't cover a guarantee of the shipment still being at the location. This is where they moved the assets after theft. Unless of course you desire us to take part in the recovery of your goods. That will be additional fees." Hiromi offered with a bright smile.

—--

I was pacing a bit back and forth.

"Motoko relax."

"I'm just… I should have gone with just in case you know?" What if someone shot Jun!?

"Fujimura didn't pay us. So we didn't go." Hiromi said, drawing my attention to how she was now fully reclined on my couch, an energy drink in her hand that she was sipping on all the while a smirk never left her face.

Hiromi had in a short time made more money for Section 9, than anything we had done since the yacht heist.

Two hundred grand split four ways was still a nice chunk of change.

Fifty thousand eddies had already been added to my bank account. Ichi and Malcolm had disappeared soon after Fujimura had taken Jun and Akari to go claim their drugs back.

But the boys had said they would be back. They were grabbing food and drinks for a party.

Hiromi continued to look like the cat that caught the canary, but I was just nervous. I knew Jun would be okay… He was strong and stuff. Had a cool name and everything but like…

There might be a netrunner there! What if they hacked my himbo brother and made his chrome shut down. Or just overheated him to death!?

"Relax Motoko." Hiromi called out again as I had resumed pacing but in the end she was right. I had agreed not to go with them because Fujimura refused to pay us any further.

He had in the end paid for the information of course. Looking like he was annoyed with the whole situation, but in the end money had changed hands. He got his information, reviewed it and agreed it was actionable.

"You were pretty cool Hiromi." I said suddenly causing Hiromi to almost choke on her drink.

"Wha?"
"The way you totally controlled the conversation. I wanted to scream when you pulled out the business card, you know? When did you even make that?"

"Oh that old thing? I made it after we were doing the Yacht Heist. While I was selling the chrome, I realized I needed to stop looking like some weird teenager off the street. I needed to be a young corporate woman on the job and people will take me more seriously. So I had a couple made." Hiromi said lackadaisically, trying to play it off.

"It was pretty cool. I think it worked on Fujimura."

"Yeah his face was great!"

The door opened and Ichi and Malcolm came in bags on their arms. "Time to party!" Malcolm called out whooping as he toddled over and dropped the bags onto the table.

"Oh! Yes! I'm hungry! Gimme!" Hiromi demanded and Malcolm quickly grabbed a white to go box and offered it up to her.

"Yes oh Corpo overlord! Please accept this humble offering!"

"Hahaha! That's right! Worship me!" She laughed as she took her food and quickly dug in.

"Motoko?"

"Huh? Oh yeah. I'm okay Ichi, just nervous for Jun. It's dumb. I know he goes off on his own all the time, but like… This time because I set it up I'm nervous." Ichi nodded as he passed a box to me as well.

"Eat. Enjoy our success Jun has his team with him. They'll be fine."

I nodded as I settled onto the couch to eat. Nothing else to do I guess…

Maybe just one more glance at my message app on my agent to make sure he hasn't called for help?

"So what are you guys doing with your payday this time?" Malcolm asked, his mouth full of noodles. "I mean. I can definitely afford my car now! I'll uh… Make sure to use a more reliable trader and everything this time. Yes Hiromi I will bring you with me when I buy it. Please don't glare at me like that."

"Good! Of course we will back you up on your purchase. That kind of eddies changing hands require a good bit of muscle… And common sense." She added.

"I'm saving it all this time." Ichi added. "I want to make sure I won't run into a problem with rent again for a long time."

"That's really smart." I said to Ichi who smiled while Hiromi scowled.

"No it isn't! Putting money into an account and not using it is the worst thing ever! You have to invest! Get some chrome or something! Maybe upgrade your truck! Money sitting in an account isn't doing anything for you to make more money!"

"Still going to save it." Ichi said, shrugging at Hiromi's rant.

"Ugh! This is why I'm the financial manager." She said pointing at all of us and lingering on me with narrowed eyes.

"Don't look at me like that! I'm going to be spending all of it on working on some tech and stuff. Probably won't get any chrome with it, but that's on the table too." I said slurping up a bit of noodles after.

"Hmm. Acceptable!"

"Glad to satisfy you oh overlord." I mocked, using the boys' joke from before.

"Damn right!"

—--

Long after the food was eaten and our little party had broken up into most of us just hanging out watching terrible TV.

It was really bad and I feared Malcolms taste.

"Why are we watching this again?"

"Because I'm too full to want to get up and it's on." Ichi added.

"It's a good show!" Malcolm argued and Hiromi made a little humming noise in agreement, her eyes never leaving the rather…

"This is awful." I grumbled, but didn't turn it off. I was full of noodles and didn't want to get up either.

Then the door opened.

"Jun!" I called out, sitting up instantly and seeing him enter. Akari right behind him, but no Fujimura in sight.

He walked over and ruffled my hair. Despite the fact he smelled like he had gotten into a fight.

"Well!?" I demanded and he huffed a laugh.

"No worries little killer! Your info was spot on. Found most of the drugs at that site. They had been selling some of it, but we got most of it back. Cleared out the 6th St. punks that thought they could move in on our turf, and Fujimura pulled Haruka off the streets." Akari added the last bit with a sinister happiness at the thought.

Well it was sort of his fault. Who was stupid enough to try and steal that much money from his own gang?

"So Fujimura was happy then?" Hiromi asked, sitting up straight as well, and Jun looked a little hesitant to answer but his shoulders slumped.

"Oh he wasn't happy. The cost of the info wasn't exactly cheap." Jun said, eyeing up both Hiromi and I. In response we both just smiled innocently. Which earned a roll of his eyes. "But we recovered a lot of the shipment. And Fujimura was… Accepting of the costs."

"He was grumbling about your little corpo friend the whole time!" Akari added giggling as she flipped forward to land on the couch. The woman's energy seemed to have returned now that she wasn't on the hook for losing the shipment. "Apparently he wasn't happy that you're going off on your own."

I just shrugged. "At least I'm still willing to work with him and the TC. I could have just left entirely."

"Aww. You wouldn't do that little killer! You fit in with us too well!" Akari offered, even as her leg arced up, and I was forced to roll off the couch to dodge her poking feet.

"Akari. If you poke a hole in my new couch. You are paying for it." Jun called out from the kitchen.

Ah of course Jun was celebrating as well. The burrito disappeared as he started biting into it.

"You ruin all my fun!"

"I literally joined up with this to save your ass." Jun replied instantly and Akari actually stilled and nodded, without her usual manic energy.

"Thanks Jun." She said to my surprise.

And Juns.

"Yeah… yeah sure anytime Akari."

"Good I'll hold you to that!" She chirped out all craziness back on full display.

"I take it all back."

"Too late!"
—--

With Jun back home I was able to better relax. We had done it. Section 9 had done something pretty cool.

We had successfully completed a deal with one of the major gangs in Night City.

Sure we had easy access through Fujimura, but it was still something to be proud of.

Hiromi had even offered our services in the future to Fujimura for work. It was possible Fujimura might take us up on that.

The team eventually left that night. Everyone was tired since we had worked through the whole day tracking down Haruka and the call of their bed was too much to resist.

Yet, I just felt amped up.

I wandered into my room ignoring Jun and Akari still hanging out on the couch watching TV together.

Akari was definitely being flirty, but Jun just looked happy that the stress of finding the thief was off his shoulders.

I walked over to my desk. Looking over all the junk I had.

Okay. Time to do some work. I pulled out my belt, grabbed my Lexington and holster and put it on the desk.

I knew exactly what my next little project was going to be.

I grabbed my 3D printer and fed it a bit of metal.

Just needed a bit of measuring.

I finished that and quickly sketched out the device I needed on the CAD program, and started the printer.

That started, I went over to my toolbox and grabbed some bits and bobs. Screws mostly.

Pulling the Silencer up I checked it again remembering I was going to need some testing to make sure this version of the silencer would hold up.

But I would do that after.

The Printer stopped running pretty soon after, and I pulled out the metal device.

With a few deft movements. I drilled it into my holster. Then I slipped in the silencer. I locked into place, and I practiced pulling it from the little holder that was now attached to the Lexington holster.

I had considered building or buying a new holster so I could keep the silencer attached, but that wasn't really needed. Most of the time if I was going to be worried about stealth, I would have the advantage anyways. So I would just draw my Lexington, attach the silencer and be good to go.

I smiled as I checked my alerts.

*100 Tech XP Gained*

That was my secondary reward for finishing something new.

I grabbed my tools. Okay. I needed another Silencer for my rifle. Maybe put together an optic for it as well? That could be fun to play with.

Regardless it meant I had projects to mess with.

 

[Seras]

The second Silencer took about the same length of time to make as the first, although the Copperhead already had everything ready for the detachable Silencer. The Copperhead's muzzle was already detachable. So I just unscrewed the old one, and made the silencer grooves the right length to screw right on.

When I was done. I pulled it into a shooting stance.. It was heavier than the old muzzle, but nothing excessive. It was getting late, but I didn't feel like sleeping, so I grabbed my gear and headed out of my room.

"Where you going?" Jun called out from the couch as I walked in, and I shrugged.

"Shooting range. I made a silencer for my rifle, and I want to give it a test run."

"Huh." Jun replied as he stood up and walked over looking at the Copperhead that I was carrying in one hand as I held a box of ammo in the other. He moved in to take my rifle and I just sighed as I lifted it up so he could take it and look it over.

"You made this?"

"Just the silencer. I made one for my Lexington as well."

"Not your Burya?"

"Pfft. The Electromagnets interfere with baffling tech. You can't put a silencer on any of them." I said with a shrug.

"Shame. This is cool. Want to make one for your amazing big brother?"

I crinkled my nose as I looked him over. "Why do you even want a silencer? You don't fight sneaky."

"Maybe I want to start." He said with a smirk that told me that was a lie.

"You just want a silencer to show off how cool you are."

"I want a silencer to show off how preem I am." He agreed instantly without even attempting to deny it.

"Fine. Go get whatever you want one for. I'll start making it before I head to the range." Jun grinned at me as he ran into his own room and then to my surprise came out with a weapon I didn't know he even had.

"When did you get this?" I asked, looking at the Malorian Overture that was… Well it was in Tyger Claw colors. Ugly was my first thought, but I wasn't going to be mean to Jun.

"Fujimura-Sama gave it to me a while back. I don't really use it though. So?"

"Nope." I denied instantly. Laughing a bit as Jun's face fell. "It's not that I don't want to make a silencer for you Jun, but look." I pointed out the Overtures barrel. "Can you see the problem?"

"There isn't anything to attach the silencer to?"

"Exactly. I would have to completely remake the barrel. Normally not a huge problem but this is a Malorian revolver. The entire upper receiver is a solid piece of metal, cause Malorian is extra like that. That means I would have to remake the whole thing."

"I'm not seeing the problem here." Jun offered and I waved a fist at him, making him back off.

"That's a lot of work, and while I'm pretty sure I could do it… Give me some time and I'll see what I can do. Until then, keep your revolver."

"Fine. But you better remember!"

"I will. Jeeze. Okay. In that case-" I said, making my way towards the door. But Jun interrupted me with a grin.

"Let's hang out at the range, Imouto."

My shoulders slumped. I had been planning on doing some serious grinding… "Fine."

I couldn't say no to sibling time with Jun.

—--

We hadn't gone to the range I had been visiting. Instead Jun had demanded we go to the TC range he had once dragged me to so long ago.

I had agreed, mostly because the ammo would be cheaper. But when we got there, got settled in, the worst had come to pass. That which I had feared.

Jun was a range hog.

He was happily plinking away with my Copperhead. "This silencer is preem Motoko."

"It would be even more preem if I got a chance to shoot it." I muttered quietly. I had told Jun I was here to stress test the silencer, and that was a mistake because he now had a perfect argument to keep shooting every time I got bored and wanted to shoot.

"Just a few more Imouto. Gotta see how your silencer handles it right?" He replied happily and I just glared. He was acting like a kid at a candy store. Which… Like I'm happy that Jun is able to look like a kid, but I really wanted to kick him in the shins for hogging my gun.

"Kusanagi, and the little Kusanagi. Good to see you back." Grizzled gun range guy greeted us walking up as he looked over Jun's shooting.

"Jun decided to join me." I offered grumbling at my gun hog of a brother.

"Copperhead? Interesting choice. They are reliable, not the best though."

"It works, that's all I really need. The silencer is new. I made it myself. Jun is helping me stress test it."

"Oh? Becoming a bit of a techy huh? Good skills to have. Especially if you know how to do gun work." I nodded. The Grizzled old man's whole job seemed to be maintenance and work here at the range.

"Yeah. It's come in useful. I'm working on modding out some of my weapons. I did a silencer for my Lexington first." I offered, then since the man was staring interested in the silencer at the tip of the Copperhead I pulled the Lexington silencer off my gun belt, and offered it to him.

He accepted it without another word. Quickly finding the latch to open it up and check the electronics, and going over the little device.

"Not bad." He finally offered after a minute of looking through it. "You made it out of a printer right?"

"Yeah."

"I can tell from the construction. Those things aren't bad, Quality can take a hit if you aren't careful though," he said giving me advice.

"Hey, not bad." Jun called out as he checked his score on the electronic targets.

"It could be better." The man cut in before Jun could properly enjoy his score. "You've been jerking the trigger on every shot. It's pure luck your chrome is heavy enough you aren't missing every shot. Back to it, Kusanagi. There is no excuse for such shoddy marksmanship."

I nodded along at the critique, until I realized it would mean Jun would keep shooting my gun.

"Try with a different gun. I would like to shoot my Copperhead at some point today." I grumbled, and Jun chuckled at little as he put the rifle to the side and pulled out a Unity from a holster on his back and then began taking slow ponderous shots.

I wanted to groan as I realized Jun was going to take forever. Looking around the range I sighed. Every other lane was still taken, which means I would just have to wait.

"Bored?" I was asked and I nodded a little before he chuckled. "Come with me then." The old grizzled man offered and walked back into his little office.

I considered it. Jun and I were hanging out…

But Jun was also being a scopmuncher right now so I followed, entering into the little office covered in guns and equipment to maintain said weapons.

I blinked interested as he walked over to a Masamune that was up on a clamp.

"You ever see one of these?"

"Arasaka Masamune, yeah. Never played with one though. Always thought they were a little overengineered."
"Heh. Lot of kids have an opinion on one until they actually get their hands on them. Come over and tell me what's wrong with this one."

I blinked at the sudden challenge and shrugged. The Masamune was Arasaka's pride and joy. An assault rifle that was engineered the shit out of. Incredibly light. Incredibly tough.

Expensive as shit, and as I said it was the sort of weapon that was engineered to hell and back. I wasn't really a fan to be honest, but as I started running my hands over her. Gun Nut filling in a ton of information about the weapon I was holding I had to admit.

Araska did know how to make a good rifle.

It was probably a good ten, or twenty grand more than I would pay for a rifle, but you paid it for a reason.

Thankfully Gun Nut's specialty was knowing whether a gun I picked up would fire in the heat of the moment, so just touching the Masamune told me what the problem was.

"Someone had an accident." I muttered, as I pulled it from the clamp under watchful judging eyes. I pulled out the receiver, looking around I found a tool kit nearby and scooped it up, grabbed a screwdriver, unscrewed literally a dozen little screws.

Fuck you too Arasaka engineer.

And finally managed to pull open the upper to find the problem. Shrapnel had gotten into the firing assembly.

I pulled a piece out and whistled.

"Someone was lucky. Piece of bullet shrapnel right into the firing assembly."

"You spotted it quick. They replaced the part of the upper receiver that was damaged and it wouldn't shoot. They couldn't figure out what happened so brought it to me." He agreed nodding as I then sighed, a few more moments to check the chamber to make sure nothing else was damaged. I started the long task of putting this thing back together.

The best part of course was my reward.

*100 Technical Ability XP Gained*

"You needed me to look over your weapons last time you were here. Saratoga if I remember right."

"That sounds right? Do I even still have the Saratoga?" I muttered to myself. Did I still have the Saratoga? I vaguely remember seeing it during the move. It was probably in my closet with most of the other weapons I had collected and didn't use very often.

"You know how to handle a weapon. You didn't need me to check them."

"Ah.. I've learned a lot since then." I muttered. "And Jun is always overprotective."

"Hmm. If you ever want some work, come by. I could use an assistant."

I opened my mouth to ask if he could even afford me, but honestly Grizzled gun range guy was cool for a TC guy.

"I don't know if I'll take you up on that, but I appreciate it." Then again it could be a good excuse to grind some XP.

He just nodded in acceptance. "It's on the table if you want it." Then without another word he pulled another rifle down off the racks around the room. An Ajax this time and started working on it.

I thought about it.

Jun or guns…

I walked over and after checking it with Gun Nut, I worked with him on fixing the problem on the Ajax.

—--

"I can't believe you left." Jun grumbled at me, as we walked out of the hidden TC range.

"You hogged the entire lane. I didn't even get to shoot!" I snapped at him, and Jun did have the decency to look a little embarrassed but then pointed a finger at me.

"You already shoot better than I do, so I need more practice than you." He said, surprising me, as I felt my jaw drop open.

"You… complimenting me as an excuse for your bad behavior isn't gonna work!" I retorted back, but damn him.

I was feeling better after being complimented.

Jun could tell as well as his smile went smug. "Your silencer was stress tested and I got some practice with a rifle. Don't use them much so it was a nice experience."

"Yeah you're too much of an ogre to shoot straight. Better to stick with a shotgun or something."

"Oni. I have class." Jun's retort earned him a very judgemental look from me, but we were outside and walking through multiple groups of TC gonks that were hanging around. So I did the nice thing and didn't call out my brother in front of his gang.

Burrito boy has class? Pfft.

"Shut up." He grumbled at me.

"I didn't say anything!" I sing-songed at him, almost breaking into giggles as he reached out like he was going to smack me, or grab me, but I just danced out of the way.

"You don't have to say anything to say something!"

"Oh no! The Ogre is after me!" I faux gasped and that set it off. A moment later Jun burst into motion to try and grab me, but once again my ankles proved to be the best thing ever. Because I leapt up and over, a foot daintily smashing into my brother's stupid face and then bouncing off that.

"Ow. Fuck Motoko!" Jun grumbled as I landed a dozen feet away. Laughing all the while as he rubbed at his face.

"Oh please. You have subdermal there, your face is more chrome than anything you baby."

Of course Jun and I now had a crowd looking at us.

Jun just turned to give the grunts a glare that very swiftly had everyone minding their own business. On the other hand I just didn't care.

Jun had wasted my gun range time, and now I was feeling impish.

"Don't even think about it." He told me as I felt my grin spreading across my face.

"Think about what?" I teased him, even as I reached over and handed my Copperhead to a TC gonk that I was now standing next to much to his surprise. "Hold this for a second."

"Wha-?"

"I don't know for sure, but I know you well enough-" Jun started but was cut off.

I charged at that moment as he was distracted, mid sentence, bringing him up short as I leapt up, but only to trick Jun into thinking I was going up high, instead I flipped landing on my hands, rolling into a somersault that had me sliding right between his legs and then behind.

Right as his socket chirped and ejected his bikes key shard.

"Yoink!" I chirped out, snatching it out of the air, and avoiding Juns retaliatory swipe.

"Motoko!"

"Hehehe!" I cackled as I leapt to make some distance, and now it was on.

"Give that back!"

"Oh no the Ogre is after me!" I called out waving the shard and then it really was. I dodged past him, as he made to tackle me, grabbed my copperhead from the staring TC grunt and I was off. On foot Jun was probably a little faster than me, but I had hops.

Every time he got close I would leap away, usually up high then leaping over something that he would have to traverse.

Of course I wasn't just messing with my brother here. This was important training for my out of shape Ogre-Onii…

I mean sure maybe making him almost smash into a wall by hacking a vending machine so I could crush a can of Ni-Cola, making the concrete wet right as he was turning the corner was a bit mean…

Funny as fuck though!
I was still cackling as I finally ran into a dead end in an alleyway and realized I would have to go over Jun to escape. But as he rounded the corner, he just roared and leapt back at me.

Uh-oh. Instead of trying to escape I just leapt up onto a garbage can and then onto a fire escape climbing over just in time to avoid his grasping hands as he had tried to follow me.

We stood there for a second. Jun had no way to get up high enough to get me up here….

"Pfft." I snickered and rolled over putting my hands onto my chin as I lay down on the fire escape and just looked at my brother. My brother, who was gasping for air.

"You need more exercise."

"I don't... Usually run for that long!" He grunted up at me as he leaned against the wall.

"Like I said. Exercise."

"Gonna… Gonna chip in some Synth-Lungs." he grunted instead and I scowled.

"Yeah cause that's what you need. More chrome. Gonk." But I rolled my eyes realizing that my fun time was over. I quickly rolled off the fire escape and landed easily on the ground. I pulled out the key shard and offered it to Jun who quickly snatched it up and put it back in its socket.

"You… You are going to work on my defenses so no one else can picksocket me." He grumbled at me with a pointed finger.

I just rolled my eyes. As if a netrunner with any skill would have any trouble breaking through any defense he put up.

"C'mon you lump. Let's get you home." I informed him as I started walking towards his bike and my Quadra.

His grumbling had me smiling happily as he followed after.

—--

*So this isn't just a trap right?* I asked into our comm line as we were all waiting outside the Gold beach Marina, funnily enough.

*It's not a trap… And if it is, that's what you are here for.* Hiromi responded with a hint of amusement in her tone.. Malcolm had done exactly what he said he was going to do.

He had found someone selling a Caliburn, and he was going to buy it. So now all of Section 9 was here to make sure it wasn't going to end up with a bullet hole in our choom.

Hiromi and Malcolm were out hanging around the front of the Marina waiting, while Ichi and I were in his truck.

The truck that was facing away from the Marina, its back door unlocked but held almost completely closed so I could see out.

There may or may not be an HMG sitting in the back of the truck just in case of any nonsense as well.

I patted my barely used girl as we all waited.

*That's him.* Hiromi added suddenly and I looked back out.

Down the ramp into the Marina parking garage came a Rayfield Caliburn. Its engine rumbling as it went past Ichi and I, down into a parking spot near the entrance of the Marina.

*Look at that beauty.* Malcolm muttered on the line, and I rolled my eyes, probably Ichi and Hiromi doing the same right alongside me.

If I had to hear even a single more Caliburn 'fact' from Malcolm today I was going to stuff his mouth with an XXL burrito and throw him in a trunk.

The call went quiet from Hiromi and Malcolm. I watched them approach the man that stepped out.

No guards?

That guy was brave. Then again he was right next to the Marina and if he was a member the security would try to protect him.

A moment later all three of them went into the Marina to one of the bars near the entrance and started talking.

I could see thanks to my Kiroshi, but they were to far to hear, and I had zero skill in lip reading. The inability to hear reminded me and I pulled open one of my back pouches, pulling the MaxDocs off the top until I came to the bottom.

There was my directional microphone! I hadn't had a chance to use it until now!

I quickly put it on, and pointed my finger in the right direction, it took a bit of wiggling around with the controls to get the right conversation but then I succeeded and was listening in.

It was boring!

Malcolm and the seller were literally gushing about the Caliburn… I instantly felt my brain shutting off. So I was mostly just zone out, sitting cross legged in the back of the truck waiting for something to happen.

And waiting.

And waiting.

Eventually, finally Hiromi and Malcolm stood up, Malcolm shook the man's hand and they both stepped out of the Marina.

Malcolm quickly broke into a run as he charged at the Caliburn, and it opened at his approach.

Hiromi took a few seconds to say something but they had moved enough my mic wasn't catching it. Whatever his response was, it satisfied her and she started walking up towards the truck.

"I guess that means the deal was a success?" Ichi asked, seeing that everything was over I stepped out of the back of the truck to join them.

"Oh yeah. The guy was more than happy to sell, and Malcolm happy to buy." Hiromi offered with a sigh. "They spent like twenty minutes just nerding out about the car."

"Yeah I heard. If he liked his car so much, why sell it?" I couldn't help but wonder. Especially since I remembered first hand what happened when I bought my Kusanagi.

"This was his second one. And it was older I guess… He mentioned something about it being too old for him…" Hiromi said and I rolled my eyes at that.

The rich kid that they had bought from was one of those guys then.

"So everything should be good?"

"It'll be fine. The Rayfield contract was transferred over. As far as Night City, Rayfield, and anyone important is concerned the car is Malcolms now."

"Contract?" Ichi asked, a moment before I did.

"The security contract?" Hiromi offered and seeing both of our blank stares she sighed.

"Rayfield has a proprietary security system. Any intrusion will automatically call NCPD teams to the location to secure it. Part of the deal with buying one of the cars apparently." She said a bit too casually, which I caught.

"Apparently… Wait. You didn't know that either did you!" I accused Hiromi as I caught her slip and she flushed a little.

"Malcolm may have gushed about it a bit."

 

[Seras]

We broke apart not long after that. Ichi had something that he was being evasive about that he wanted to do, and Hiromi had to go back to school.

Apparently her parents were fine with her missing some classes to complete a business deal, but not the whole day.

I decided to head to the range.

I had looked over the silencer on the Copperhead and it seemed fine, so I was going to fire more rounds through it and see what happened!

And of course try to level my reflex stat some more.

I walked in with my Copperhead, and a box of ammo.

Settled into a lane, happy that it was quiet this early in the afternoon, and started shooting.

It was fun!

I was getting Assault XP pretty consistently, and a Reflex notification between every few alerts as well. The whole process was punctuated by the silent retorts of my rifle. I was even doing things like practicing quick reloads by flinging the magazine out of the gun and slamming a new one home as I fired.

It was little things like that, that even with Quick Reload, having a bit of practice for it helped me nail the maneuver.

I was glad we had just gotten the big payday, because when I ran out of ammo, I just went and bought more.

And then again.

I had to stop and switch to the Lexington to let my Copperhead cool off after a while, but then I just did the same thing with my handgun.

I wanted some level ups, and I was going to get them.

My accuracy was good as well. The targets in this range gave a little point for how accurate you shot, and I was shooting quick and accurate, ramming rounds through the digital targets.

The points were meaningless really. But it still only made the whole thing more fun.

I had switched back to the Copperhead after letting it cool, and it didn't take long before I got what I wanted.

*100 Assault XP Gained.*

*Assault skill level up!*

I hummed. As I let the knowledge flow in.

Assault 7. I let the level flow into me, and realized I knew a slightly better way to hold and grip the rifle to keep it stabilized while moving and firing.

Useful!

I took a break not long after. I had pushed my Copperhead a bit too much. Gun Nut was telling me, I should really stop firing before I start causing heat damage.

I gathered everything up and headed home. The apartment was empty when I got there. So I took some time to clean my guns and prep them for the next gig.

Then I flopped on my bed.

It felt good to level up. To improve myself. That crushing weight of the Scav threat and just general Night City fuckery, felt farther away since I had improved. I just had to keep improving. Moving the numbers slowly and steadily upward.

And eventually threats would go away.

Either because I simply surpassed their ability to harm.

Or because I destroyed them.

*Ringing.*

I blinked at the call that popped up.

"Panam?" I sat up as I realized who was calling, what was Panam calling me for? I quickly answered to find out.

*Hello?*

*Hey… Motoko. It's Panam, from the Aldecaldos. Do you have a minute?* Panam asked, sounding almost professional in her courtesy.

*Yeah Panam, of course I do. How's it going? I haven't seen you since I talked to Saul about the heist.*

*Yeah… It's a long story, but I'm not with the Aldecaldos anymore. I'm working as a merc in the city. I know this is a bit sudden, but I'm on a gig that I need some hands to help with. I wouldn't normally reach out, but Scorpion wouldn't shut up about your ability, and well… I could use some of that sort of help. This gig is important, and I can't have it going to scop.*

*Well, Panam, you definitely called up the right girl. I'd love to help out. What's the deets?* I sat up practically buzzing. New gig!

*I'll send you what I can, but it's that sort of gig. I don't know everything, the fixer is being real… secure about it all.*

*Send what you can, but if you need help I'm in. We're chooms after all.* The line was quiet for a minute and Panam let out a chuckle.

*Thanks Motoko. I appreciate that. Night City hasn't exactly been what I expected on my own.*

*Hey. If you need something… Anything, call me in okay? I have lots of chooms all over the city. Even if it's just to hang out at a club so you can vent to someone, I'll be there.* Panam barked out a laugh.

*I'll keep that in mind. Deets are sent out.*

*Alright give me a second.*

I looked over the text. Instantly my eyes narrowed. This was definitely a fixers work. I recognized the style that Wakako used in her information packets, but it wasn't quite the same.

Mostly because the entire thing was very blank on what the actual gig was.

Although what was really interesting was what the gig actually did say.

*Holy shit! That's a hell of a drive.*

*I'm a nomad. It's what we do best… You were solid with Scorpion. So I-*

*I'm not saying no Panam, just surprised. There isn't much here, and I don't like that much, but I'm in.* I confirmed as I stood up. I was already starting to run around my room. I needed a bag of stuff… Clothes and junk. I realized I was going to have to raid Jun's burrito stash as well just to be safe.

And let Jun and my chooms know.

I was actually getting kind of excited!

I had never been to Seattle before!

—--

Half an hour later I was pulling into a storage unit that was on the east side of the city. Just a block or so from the bare desert. Sixth St. tags covered the buildings in the area, but no one seemed to be around. Instead as I pulled in, I saw Panam… Panam's ass anyways.

Look, I could recognize the booty anywhere. The game made sure of that.

She was half way into the engine bay of a Thorton Mackinaw. The same truck which I think was her personal ride a few years from now was a modded out monster. Many of the same upgrades as my Quadra covered it.

I pulled over not far from her and stepped out.

I was wearing my armor and gear.

If Panam made fun of me for being a dough girl I would be a little annoyed, but I wasn't going to go light when the gig involved traveling to another city. One where I wouldn't have any backup to call up in case something went bad.

"Panam!"

"One second!" She called out as she continued to rummage around with the insides of her truck. That was fine, it gave me time to grab my gear. I had a bag for clothes and toiletries, and a bag for food and snacks, cause I didn't want to presume on Panams supply.

But I also had ammo and weapons.

I went around to the trunk that opened and stared at my supply.

My hand twitched towards the Uragan, but that was a bit much, and Panam probably had one of her own. Instead I grabbed my Nekomata and loaded a few of the spare magazines I had picked up for her into my armor's webbing.

Hefting all my gear I headed over.

This wasn't going to be a two vehicle trip. I was riding with Panam. Honestly it was for the best. I had never done a long distance trip like this before. Better to just rely on Panam's skill as a nomad.

"And done!" She called out as she pulled herself free grabbing a rag and wiping her hands as she turned to look me over.

I saw the raised eyebrow which I promptly ignored.

"Let me pack my stuff then." I offered as I headed to the passenger door and she nodded slowly looking amused.

"Should be room in the back seat, try not to squish my stuff."

"I'll be careful!" I called out as I climbed into the seat and checked the single back seat that still remained. Half of her back seat was cut off from all the extra equipment in her truck. Including I'm assuming the Machine gun that I remember could activate on top.

The seat had a few bags of her own already there and I carefully placed all my stuff, keeping only my Nekomata in the seat with me.

"You sure you need all that?"

"You hired me as a shooter, not dead weight." I called back and pulled out from the back seat to see her looking me over from the driver door. Leaning against it casually, with an amused look on her face. "I'm treating this gig just as seriously as I am the one Scorpion brought me on, and remember, that time I brought an HMG."

"I'm surprised you didn't this time as well."

"Last time I took it on a nomad gig, didn't go well, so I'm sticking to more accurate shooting this time." I said, patting my Nekomata.

"Well it's a relief to see you taking this seriously." She said, but her voice was more teasing than anything.

"Not sure what you got yourself into Panam, but between the signs of a good fixer sending you this gig, and how quiet you've been about it? I'm readying up for a war… Oh! I forgot the grenades! I'm such a gonk!" I said laughing as I bonked my head and hurried over to my Quadra.

A few grenades were fitted into my chest rig carefully placed so their triggers couldn't go off.

Didn't want to walk around with a fucking bomb strapped to my chest. That was only cool if I could get out of the armor fast enough.

I jogged back over and this time Panam was in the driver's seat and her amusement was gone.

"You know I can't tell you anything about what I'm transporting?"

"Yep." I said as I climbed in.

"Alright. I'm not too worried about the trip itself, maybe some minor Raffen trouble, but my girl can take care of that." She said patting her truck, "But in Seattle the drop might be difficult. That's the point I'm really worried about."

"Well I'll keep an eye out regardless, and my girl can handle whatever Seattle throws at us." I sat patting my Nekomata mimicking Panams only motions.

"Alright. Let's go then." She said, sounding nervous.

Hearing that I of course put on my seatbelt. Road trip!

—--

"You need anything?" Panam asked hours into our drive but I looked over to her without really taking my eyes off the road, and camera monitors I had access to in the passenger seat.

"No, I'm fine. Fully hydrated." I assured her. Just like last time I had worked with a nomad, I wasn't letting any sense of boredom hinder me. It might be a few day drive from Night City up to Seattle, made longer mostly from poor roads, and being forced to take long detours to avoid Raffen territory, but I was fully embracing my cool, to keep an eye on things.

"Right… Right."

"Sorry, do you want me to chatter about stuff? This is the first time I've gone this far from Night City. It's kinda preem, and I could fill the air about all the cool stuff I'm seeing."

"Ugh please no. Nomads know every driving game, or have heard everything you could ever see described in every way by bored children… I just didn't expect you to be this focused… You've been staring at the horizon and the camera screens for hours."

"I'm on a job. I might be a total gonk most of the time, but being professional on a gig is the best way to make sure everyone gets to go home afterwards." I told her as I do finally take my eyes away from the horizon. "Don't worry. No matter what happens, I'll make sure we both get home."

My words meant to be reassuring made her look a little sour for a moment, she caught that I noticed her expression as it smoothed out.

"It's not you. I appreciate it, Motoko. I just don't really have a home at the moment." She said, her voice seeping with frustration.

"You want to talk about what happened to make you leave?"

"No. No I really don't. I appreciate it, but just…"

"It's fine Panam. I won't push. I'm glad you called me up though. This is nice, getting out of the city I mean."

"Heh, we'll make a nomad out of you yet." She offered and I stuck my tongue out, that wasn't going to happen. As I had once told Scorpion. I needed a big couch and an AC unit at the end of the day.

—---

"You sure?"

"Yeah. I know this group, not the first time I've traveled up this way. Just play it cool, they can be assholes, but they aren't Raffen." Panam said as she turned into the ancient gas station on the side of a broken down road we had been following. It was surrounded by a fleet of nomad vehicles, and we had been waved down by a group up on the roof of the pump roof, a little snipers nest up there made out of old lawn chairs.

The truck's rumbling engine died out and she stepped out.

"Well well look who it is! If it isn't the troublemaker herself!"

"Scott! You're still alive? I thought for sure someone would have put a bullet in you by now!" She called out as she put her hands on her sides and cocked her hip out.

"Heh. nothing out here in the desert can catch me girl! Who you got there with you?" He asked, looking to me as I stepped out. I was being nice and not carrying my Nekomata, but I was still suited up, just with my tech gogs up on the top of my head as I stretched my legs and walked around the front of the truck, scoping out everything around me as I met up with Panam.

"This is Motoko, she's a solo I hired. But the Aldecaldos owe her something fierce. She pulled Scorpion out of a Raffen camp after they ambushed them."

A long whistle escaped the old cowboys lips. He titled his big old twelve gallon hat up to look me over, his one eye, obviously chrome scanning me.

"Well, if she helped the little brat out from those fucks, she's at least welcome as long as she doesn't cause trouble. But I'm sorry to say brat, the path ahead is closed down, has been for a while now. Best turn back."

"What? C'mon 'Ol Scott. I need to get to Seattle! What could be closing down the nomad road!?"

"That's obvious, or you wouldn't be all the way up here, but there isn't a negotiation here. The Jodes have closed the road entirely." He slapped a knife hand into his other palm.

"Why? What's going on here Scott?"

He scowled. "What else?" His question seemed to finally hammer home for Panam as she scowled back, looking pretty fierce as she responded.

"Raffen."

"Something set them off fierce. They've been hitting anything going through the area, and I mean anything. You should have seen Hernando. That big truck of his? They tore it apart. He barely got out."

"Fuck… That thing was more armored than even my girl… But Scott, we gotta get to Seattle, it's for a gig from a fixer." She added at the end, emphasizing fixer heavily.

"Then you'll just be another one of the many that have tried brat. I mean it. They have all sorts of hardware setup, military. Wait for them to calm down, or find a way around. Only option."

"Then I'll find a way around." She snapped, sighing and rubbing her forehead. "What can you tell me about any other routes?"

"Not much brat. Raffen have been all over these hills the last year. Not sure what is up, but they're definitely not making it easy for us." The old man shrugged.

"I know, the Aldecaldos have had trouble recently too." Panam offered and didn't get the reaction she wanted.

"Pfft. You're practically city dwellers, you Aldecaldos." The old man said, but Panam flipped him off, and they both laughed, so I guess it was a common insult between them.

"Come grab a warm meal, stay the night.." The old man demanded then. Panam scoffed, but accepted, and I was happy enough to accept as well.

I wonder if they had barbeque?

—--

"So why don't we just kill the Raffen?" I asked as Panam and I were loading up the next morning. We had done as ordered and stayed the night in the Jodes Nomad camp. There hadn't been barbeque, but they had some faux maple syrup with their faux bacon, and you know what? It was pretty damn good.

"Cause that would be suicide."

"Too many Rafffen? Too much equipment? Or are you just assuming it's a suicide run because they told you it was?" I couldn't help but ask, but Panam threw me a look.

"Both of the first two options. Raffen often have military equipment they pull out of their ass but usually not all the time. If they are just using the shit outright? Probably corp backed. Don't think of the way being closed by the Raffen, think of it being closed by some mega corp that is supplying the Raffen to keep the pass closed for some reason."

I couldn't argue that, nodding along as I slid into the passenger seat. "So what's the plan?"

"I'm going to head east, try to slide around the roadblock. Don't really want to head into Idaho territory to get to Seattle, but if I have to." She offered and I just nodded.

"I'll keep an eye out then. It's annoying the Raffen are this difficult to deal with. They aren't after your mysterious package are they?"
"No. Highly, highly doubt it. If they were after us, they would have targeted us and not just hit everything. Something is going on the Raffen don't want anyone to see. Could be a Mega corp testing some new weapon or something. Or they are just hitting every convoy through this area as an excuse for a megacorp to hide the convoy they were actually after." She waved out the window and a few nomads tipped hats, or waved back as we set off.

"You ever gone the long way around?" I asked and this time I watched her frown.

"Once. A long time ago."

"Great. Alright. Just make sure that turret of yours is working." I grumbled, but returned to my own stakeout, as we set off through the desert broken highways, turning off the long highway we had been taking and heading east.

Neither of us talked much as we traveled. Where before Panam had been almost casual on the drive, now she was actively working. Checking a paper map of all things, looking all around, constantly on the lookout for landmarks and keeping us going.

On the other hand, I was focused on the cameras on her truck, and my own eyes on the horizon.

—--

We were camped that night. Panam had a tent set up and a fire going, which Panam and I were grilling some food on…

Okay mostly Panam, I still had like thirty XXL burritos if I got desperate, but I also wasn't a cook. So I was happy that Panam was willing to share her Nomad road chili.

"We might run into some trouble tomorrow." She finally offered and I felt my eyebrows rise up at the sudden words. "Yeah? Raffen?"

"Maybe. The whispers I got updated from 'Ol Scott said that this territory is sometimes controlled by some Raffen groups. With the main road locked down, likely some smaller groups, or even another big group will move in to try and catch people doing exactly what we are doing."

I nodded at that, as I spooned some beans and synth meat into my mouth. "If that's what happens we kill them and move on. Maybe loot some stuff." I said with a shrug. I had my Nekomata, and Panam had her truck's turret.

"You're pretty blaze about combat." She said and I noticed her hesitation. I had always considered Panam quick to jump into a fight as well, but maybe not so much yet? She couldn't have been out of the Aldecaldos for long.

Hell this might even be her first gig on her own. I hadn't asked since she didn't want to talk about her circumstance.

"Are you worried?" I asked and got a scowl in return, but that wasn't a denial. "Well you aren't alone, and you brought me in to act as a solo to back you up. If you're nervous then just have some faith that you aren't alone."

"I'm not worried." She finally denied, but it sounded weak. "I just worry about how many fucking Raffen Shiv we might face tomorrow."

"You got an Urgan or something right?" I asked and she looked at me like I was crazy.

"Of course I don't!" She denied harshly scoffing like the very idea was absurd.

"Shame. If I had known that I would have brought my Uragan." I replied, looking at her like she was crazy. Who doesn't bring a rocket launcher to a mad max car battle!?

"Who just travels with a rocket launcher!?" She snapped at me, and I had to really hold back on saying that I had gotten the idea from her.

Panam rolled her eyes and finished digging into her meal. I realized that she didn't want to talk anymore so I went and checked my Nekomata.

She could use a little cleaning from the dust, and I wanted to make sure I could use her for tomorrow if I needed.

 

[Seras]

Panam

"Sure could use a rocket launcher right about now, don't you think?" The girl teased with a big smile that did not fit the circumstances.

"Oh shut up." She snapped and grumbled even if Motoko was right… Sorta.

Half way through the morning a group of Raffen Shiv had started trailing them. Panam had hoped with how dangerous her baby looked to the average gonk that it would keep them away, but as the first hour passed being trailed more Raffen had joined up shadowing their route.

Looking at the horizon she grimaced. She recognized the trap that was coming. It wouldn't be long now.

Panam put the pedal down, hoping the terrain and her suspension would get them away.

It hadn't.

"Want me to take the turret?" Motoko asked suddenly, as she took a hard turn around a bend on the mix of desert and hills they were running through.

"No. They aren't in range. It would be a waste of ammunition."

"If we don't have a choice but to fight, then we should find a flat ground. I'll be able to help more then." Motoko offered and Panam rolled her eyes, hitting the gas again to try and get some speed on this old dirt path.

"They are faster than us. Flat means they catch up." She snapped, eyes looking up into the cameras to see how close they were getting.

Closer now.

"Yeah, but I can't shoot them like this. Get us flat. I'll let them know we have some fangs." Panam looked over at the girl and instantly turned back to the road.

That smile was a little too bloodthirsty for a teenager.

"Stupid idea… Fine." She growled. It wasn't like she had a better one. She jerked her wheel, starting to climb up the dirt hill, her truck roaring as she felt the tires spin but eventually she got the traction and she managed to ford sideways up the hill.

Then she hit the top of the hill, and it flattened out as she turned off. She wasn't going in the right direction anymore, but at least this area was flatter. Old roads criss-crossed this region. Most didn't go anywhere anymore, but she landed on top of one, the slightly bumpy road not something her warhorse gave a shit about.

She gunned it. And from behind she watched one two, three. Then another three vehicles all come roaring over the same edge.

Looks like now that she wasn't on the rocky twisting lower road it was time.

"They are coming for us now."

"Yeah, finally." The girl said, suddenly pulling her seatbelt as she started pulling the entire belt out of the system. Then she stilled, grabbing her Nekomata and seemingly taking a moment to figure something out and then she wrapped the seatbelt around her shoulder.

"What are you?" Panam managed before Motoko flashed her a smiled and pushed open the passenger door. The flare of dust and grime was instant, and already making Panam want to kick the girl out the damn truck, but then she disappeared.

Panam's jaw dropped, she looked over, seeing the girls chrome hand had grabbed onto the top door jam and remained latched onto the roof even if her hand was backwards.

"Motoko?" She asked as she heard the thump of the girl moving around on the roof of her baby.

"Scorpion what the fuck." She hissed focusing back on the road now that her passenger could very easily be thrown off.

How was she even staying up there!?

A shot echoed from above and Panam felt her heart beating staccato actually picking up.

This kid…This kid was crazy! No wonder Scorpion liked her so much! Panam realized she had brought in someone truly out of their mind.

But she looked in her rear view. Where a Mizutani Shion with a hole in the Crystal Dome, was veering off, not quite losing control, but seemingly done with their pursuit.

Another shot and Panam watched another Raffen realize they might not have the range to hit us, but we could poke them just fine apparently.

The second car broke off, and then to her relief more and more cars broke, no more shots came. Instead a few moments after all of the Raffen broke off Motoko knocked on the roof and Panam realized that the passenger door being almost entirely closed had locked her out. Rolling her eyes, she let off the gas slowly, so the kid could get back inside without killing herself.

Reaching over once we slowed down to a more safe speed, she reached over and popped the passenger door open and managed to kick it all the way open, and then Motoko came rolling back inside. Face and hair covered in dust and grime from being up top, mouth closed, to hide the tooth filled smile she had before.

But the brat was still smirking.

"That was insane!"

"Eh. I'd give it like a solid eight on the cool shit I've done meter." Was her reply. Panam looked over and then back to the road. She couldn't help it. She snorted out an aborted laugh and just shook her head.

At least the insane kid was on her side.

—--

That night we were once again camping. Panam complaining about me jumping out of the cab had eventually died off and instead been replaced with a quiet sort of melancholy.

I was on the other hand pretty hyped up. The only thing that could have made that cooler was if I had my HMG. Nekomata was cool, but when it came to vehicle combat, stepping out with an HMG was on another level.

Despite the fire. Panam wasn't cooking travel chili tonight. Just pulling out something prepackaged and eating it down once it was warmed on the fire.

Which meant I had to do the same with an XXL.

I sighed as I pulled the burrito off the pan and sniffed at it, nose crinkling at the rather unappetizing smell.

"Why bring so many if you don't like them?" She asked and I just scoffed.

"My brother loves them, and we had a ton of them already. I didn't have a lot of time to get food for the journey. Kinda glad I brought them. I would have brought a lot less food if I had to actually buy stuff, and I might be going hungry by now."

"Nomad rules. Always bring way more food than you expect to eat." She said before digging into the bag of steaming…

Nope. I don't want to know.

That looked like bugs.

"Should get there sometimes tomorrow afternoon, unless we get chased again."

"Think that's going to happen?" I asked in turn, we hadn't seen any sign of the Raffen once we sent them packing, but that didn't mean everything.

"Maybe. They don't like to go after difficult targets just like anyone but sometimes they might have to. Keep their group together, prove they are the strongest. That kind of shit." Panam explained around a big crunchy bite of nope.

"Hmm." I grumbled as I bit into my burrito. "I'll keep watch tonight then. No, don't argue with me. I can stay up for days at a time if I have to without any issue. Sleep well, and I'll make sure we don't get snuck up on."

Panam bit into her… nope. Yeah bag of nope that's all I was going to process from that.

"Fine." She grumbled and I nodded. Not long after as she squirmed into the tent I settled on top of the trucks roof and kept an eye and ear out.

—--

We made much better time the next day. The roads were still more guidelines than anything, but more and more of the spider web of roads were actually semi still together giving us longer and longer stretches where the Warhorse could really let loose.

"We should be there before the sun sets. Unless we make camp early." Panam offered but the way we were both checking the horizon had already confirmed what the plan would be.

Twice we had seen nomad or Raffen vehicles on the horizon.

They could be following us, and we weren't going to let them ambush us if that was the case.

I was doubly glad that my stats let me go without boredom because there wasn't much to look at. Trees sometimes. Dirt sometimes.

Playing Eye Spy while traveling would just start with brown on every question.

It was that bad. It was almost heartbreaking to see the world so devastated. Fucking Cyberpunk. Bio Plagues and shit ruining everything.

I sighed a bit but kept lookout. Nothing I could do about it.

"And there she is." Panam muttered and I looked away from the horizon around us to see the beginnings of Seattle out in the distance.

It wasn't quite as flashy and full of lights as Night City. No massive advertisements in the sky, but it was a city.

"Finally." I muttered a little sullenly. I was so ready for a shower. I had dirt and dust in places I didn't want to think about. Anakin had it right. Fuck sand.

"It's not so bad. You can't be a nomad without enjoying the camping life."

"Well, it's a good thing I don't want to be a nomad then." I grumbled at her, but I shook the irritation away. We weren't out of danger yet. I pushed myself back into focus.

—--

"Yes we are here on business." Panam repeated for the tenth time to the bored customs agent. We had been stopped on the highway into Seattle at a border checkpoint.

The fact the border was just a city border and yet was treated as important as a country border told me a lot about how Seattle saw itself within the 'Free' state.

I was bored. It wasn't like I was the one in charge here. Looking around the dark barely air conditioned room, I noticed the most interesting thing was the flags painted on the wall.

First was the Pacific Northwest free state flag. It had faded over the years, but was still there.

Then in much fresher paint was the NUSA flag. Something they probably added after the Unification war ended.

Not that it had really done as it was stated. The Free States were still basically free just gave lip reading to the NUSA as their federal government.

And because of it Arasaka was back in Night City. Which had seceded from California entirely to become its own little city state.

As if Arasaka didn't rule Night City.

I noted Panam adding some bills to her papers almost in aggravation and a moment later those bills were pocketed and we were sent on our way.

"Fucker." She hissed as she finally climbed back into the Warhorse.

"Let's be honest. A bribe was always going to be our path in."

"Fucking bitch said the papers would get me in without trouble." Panam argued as she slammed a fist into the steering wheel to let out some irritation before hitting the gas as we got the green light to leave the border and be allowed into Seattle.

Ice covered mountains, and large buildings. It was just like NC in a way. The same food, the same malaise.

I shrugged. Glad we were through, now we just had to drop off our delivery and our gig was complete.

"I'm going to find a motel to stay at." Panam offered and I perked up instantly.

"Yes please!"

She laughed at me a bit as we drove in between the first of the big buildings. I could really use that shower.

—--

The motel we found was the same as every motel I had seen in Night City. Really there just wasn't much difference. A bored attendant at the door, overpriced payment for basic things that we didn't need. And thankfully a warm shower, if it wasn't the cleanest place I'd ever been in.

After using up all the hot water I could and finally feeling sand free, I slipped into some fresh clothes, loaded up on my normal outfit, and headed over to Panam's room.

"Hey I'm going to explore for a bit." I called out after I knocked. I heard some thumping and Panam appeared at the door wearing basically the same thing I was, only she still had a towel in her hair.

She opened her mouth probably to argue but after a moment she stopped herself. "Be careful. This isn't Night City. Things aren't done the same way here."

"I'm just going to wander around a bit. Maybe find a club and meet some locals. I've never been to Seattle before."

"Like I said. This isn't Night City. Police, gangs, everything is different." She warned but I just nodded happily.

"I know! Exciting isn't it?" I asked with a smirk that had her scoffing but she nodded.

"Be back tomorrow morning. We will have our drop off around noon."

I just nodded as I walked away and then out of the motel, onto the mean streets of Seattle.

I took a moment as I hit the street level to just look around. First thing first. The entire city was less populated than Night City. Not by a huge degree. I mean there were quiet spots in Night city as well, but having spent so long in one city almost completely overpopulated you got a feel for it.

I turned and walked down the street. Street level wasn't quite as bad as Night City with how many adverts were around, but it was still pretty bad. Very few sections of the street were dark. Leaving the whole place a diorama of neon lights on concrete.

Yet it was less populated. Instead of pushing through a horde of people moving one way or the other depending on the time of day. I only had a few people wandering past me.

My goal really was just to look around. As I wandered I realized that moving around a city without a car was kind of a pain in the ass. The side eye I gave a parked car only lasted a moment before I shook it off.

Casual theft was kinda rude. I preferred looting…

Ah, it would be hard to find some scavs or something here.

I groaned as I continued walking, just going down the street and seeing what was here. The whole city was laid bare. Surely something was happening around here?

—--

Liam Tremblay

"I already told you. We aren't working for the rats. Put it out of your head." He snapped at the continued questioning.

"C'mon Leem, Think of the edd's!" Maria begged as she followed after him out onto the street from Habblock P10.

"Not going to happen Mary. The Rats are scum suckers. We won't see nary a touch of the edd's."

"Uuuugh. They can't betray everyone that wants to work for them Leem, if they do, then none will even want to!"

"I'm pretty sure they do betray everyone that wants to work with them. That's why they are the rats." Liam argued with a sigh running a hand through his barely styled hair. He had been up for hours trying to keep his little gang from going into the Rats.

"Piece of shit!" A voice cursed out as a loud thawk echoed through the alley and they both looked over to see a teen neither had ever seen before kicking the shit out of one of the drink vending machines for a moment. "Never should have given it any eddies!" The girl snapped as she continued to kick the ever living shit out of the machine.

"Who the fuck? Some outsider?" Mary asked and Liam shrugged. Definitely not a local. Her accent was all off, and she wasn't anyone he had seen before.

She was armed though. A pistol on her back, and a knife. Chrome arms, fully on display, which was definitely a choice.

"Hey! Outsider bitch! Stop kicking our shit before I kick the shit out of you!" Mary called out as she stomped over. His red haired friend as always, quick to jump into shit at a moment's notice.

"Huh? Oh… Yeah, probably pointless." She agreed and stepped back from her attack. "Hiya."

"Yeah hiya ya too fucking-"

"Mary, let it go, she stopped." Liam cut in, trying to keep Mary from picking another pointless fight. "Hey. This is Cougar Claw terf. I don't know you, so you better clear off. Stop smacking up our shit."

"Pfft." The girl, despite keeping a flat face that was reddening a little let out the noise of a tire letting out air before faux coughing and shaking herself a little.

Was she fucking laughing at them? Liam felt his own quick temper lighting up. At the thought.

"The fuck you laughing at?"

"Sorry sorry! It's just Cougar is slang where I come from… You know Cougars? Like older women that prey on-Yeah you don't care, I just had that thought and it made me laugh a bit. Sorry. I'm sure your gang is preem. Don't mind me."

"I'll show you just how much I mind!" Mary looked like she was going to start swinging but Liam quickly grabbed her.

"Let it go Mary. Let's go, we have to deal with the Rats, don't have time to deal with some random gonk."

The girl wasn't looking at Mary or Liam, he suddenly realized her high end optics were looking behind him. Kiroshi? He thought pointlessly as he turned and stopped cold. At the end of the street was a Villefort Alvarado. But that wasn't what made Liam realize something was up.

Because the tags on the car were little cartoon rats.

The Rats were here.

"Fuck, Mary!" He demanded and she turned and noticed the same thing. The door opened and Boss Franco stepped out. A moment later one of the gonks stepped out and threw a long coat over his shoulders.

Of course he just had it thrown over and didn't actually put his arms in. It was meant to hide his hands behind his back so he could shoot you without warning.

"Well well! If it isn't Kitty Claw Liam! Come on boy. We got some chatting to do!" The older teenager called out and Liam felt frozen.

The only reason the Rats would be here is if someone from the gang had ratted Liam out. That he was going to refuse to be part of the Rats little gang group.

"Liam!"

"Get out of here Mary." He whispered to her quietly, realizing what was about to go down.

"Fuck dat! I'm not gonna be a fucking Rat!" She snapped and Liam wanted to argue that running to save your life didn't make you a rat. Especially when they were fucked.

He adjusted his jacket, loosening up so the holster of his Unity would be free. Hopefully…

Hopefully he could draw faster than Rat Bastard Franco. Fuck, even if he did that meant the SPD would be on his tail after. He didn't have the eddies to make them stop caring like Franco did.

"I feel like a tumbleweed is about to cross over." A voice behind him muttered and he scowled at the distraction but ignored it. He didn't have time for the gonk outsider. Much less one that was likely about to be silenced after he was killed too.

He took four steps forward and stopped, putting the entrance to his block to his right, as the Rat continued sauntering over.

"I heard you ain't happy with my offer! Now what part about it made you think it was something you could refuse in the first place?" Franco asked as he stopped a few feet away. His goons, all had shooters. All were ready for war, and here Liam was with just a pistol and Mary who didn't even carry Iron.

Just a knife.

"What are you doing here Franco. It's only been a couple hours, your message said we had a few days to discuss your offer."

"That was before I heard you cut off your crew and told them you were refusing. Bad move little cat. See I want all of Ten to listen when I say something. That doesn't mean some cats can tell me no."

"The Cougar Claws are sti-"

"Pfft." The noise of air escaping a tire came again from behind him, and he noticed that Franco wasn't happy about it either. The man's eyes narrowed as he looked behind them.

Then he heard the sound of a can popping open.

He looked back and the girl was popping open a can of Orange Cybershock that she had gotten from the Vending machine.

Wasn't that machine broken?

Once she took a sip she cleared her throat. "Sorry, don't mind me."

"Who the fuck is this?"

"Some rando." He responded back, but he knew Rat wouldn't let it get away. So he didn't say anything. Watching as Franco obviously considered how he was going to murder the girl.

"That's a nasty glare there pal. You might want to put that away." The girl said suddenly her own eyes locked onto the Rats.

This of course only sealed her fate.

"Yeah? You think some jumped up nobody bitch, has the right to tell me where I place my optics? How about I-"

"Bored now." And Liam gasped, as within a single moment she had a gun in her hand. A Lexington, and despite Franco's attempts to dodge she pulled the trigger and gun fire echoed through the alley.

Liam leapt away. The Rats guards would retaliate and they tried. He hit the ground hard and looked up in time to see the two men that had followed Franco into the alley raise their weapons only for them to click without any bang.

Then they were gunned down casually, with almost disinterest, the girl wandered over and put a few more bullets into them. Seemingly to make sure.

"Hey, you know of any Ramen joints around here?" He blinked as she walked over to him and kneeled down. Squating right in front of his face without seemingly a care in the world.

"Uh… huh?"

"Raaamen. Ramen. Noodles in broth. Tasty shit. You know of any places around here?"

"Umm. Yeah?"

"Great send me the deets ya?"

He scrambled to do so. He honestly wasn't sure if she was threatening him with the way she was tapping the pistol on her knee, but he wasn't going to find out.

"Hmm. That's kinda far… Oh hey! New car!" She chirped as she walked over to the men, and pulled the car keys off the guard that drove Franco around.

He watched her go for a while. Bloody foot prints leading out of the alley with every step.

"H-hey!" Mary called out startling Liam as he noticed she had jumped into a bunch of trash to avoid getting shot too.

"Huh?" The girl called out turning.

"Who are you? I've never seen you before!"

"Yeah I'm just visiting, I'm from Night City!" She called out with a guileless smile as she waved a chrome arm over her head and turned back towards Franco's car.

Which she promptly stole. Driving off.

"I've heard rumors about people from Night City." Mary said, looking to Liam, and he just nodded.

If that was the level of Night City teens, he was suddenly feeling even less confident than before.

 

[Seras]

A belly full of good food that wasn't XXL burritos or nomad chili was exactly what I needed. Sure I had killed some gonk for it, but he threatened me first! If he didn't want to get shot, he shouldn't threaten people! Duh!

I would have to ditch the vehicle soon though. I wasn't sure what the rules for this kind of thing were here in Seattle. I mean in Night City I wouldn't even worry about it, but this was a whole new place. People were… Different here.

The sharp suspicious eyes as people kept an eye out all around them was gone. Instead there were more people hanging out on the streets. Fucking around, stopping and chatting. It wasn't the constant get to where you need to be like it was in NC.

Also I had expected that arrogant fuck to be tougher. He had some chrome sure, but not enough protecting his skull. His goons were nearly pure meat. One of them had even tried to run once he realized his gun wasn't working.

Which was kinda weird. Normally they would have dropped their weapons and attacked as one, or at least took cover and pulled a side gun.

Seattle was a really weird place.

*Ringing.*

I blinked at the call.

Huh?

*Hiromi?*

*Motokooooo! Are you in Seattle!? I've been calling for like two days! How was the trip! Panam didn't do anything weird to you right?*

*Whoa slow down. It's nice to hear from you! I'm in Seattle. I'm eating at a ramen joint over here. Food's about the same, which is nice. We had to go around a big Raffen Shiv movement so it took a bit longer to get here, this is our first night.*

*You aren't hurt?*

*Nah. I shot at them a few times and they took off. We were a bit too tough for them to bite into. How's everything going over there?*

*Oh! Well Malcolm crashed his car. He's okay, and the car is fine too. But you should have seen how mad he was. Don't tell him, but it was honestly hilarious.*

*Oh no! That car is his baby. How bad?*

*Not too bad, he took a turn too hard from what I understand, he isn't sharing the whole story of course. Just bashed in the rear end a bit, he hit a light pole. NCPD were not happy.*

*Pfft. I told him he needed to go slow for a while until he got used to her.*

*Yeah well. Everything else is okay. Quiet. I spoke to Jun! He's doing okay, but Fujimura has got him on guard duty so I didn't chat with him for long.*

*I'll have to call him.*

*Yeah… But only after we are done! Tell me about your trip! How is Seattle? Are you taking pictures of everything?*

*The trip was mostly boring and dirty. Don't recommend. Seattle is weird. People are way less worried about getting shot… I shot some punk gangster and his henchmen. It was kinda random.*

*Motoko, how long have you been in Seattle?*

*Umm… Like four hours? Maybe five?*

*Motoko we have to talk about your killing people thing.* Hiromi said with a sigh that came through the call. *You know Seattle isn't Night City! What if SPD comes after you?*

*Wait… Is that even a thing?* I stopped myself because I almost just asked if the police tried to stop murders.

Wow. Is this the feeling you get when you realize your morals are super skewed?

*Hey Hiromi? I think I might be a little weird.*

The line went silent for a while as I slipped on some more noodles waiting for Hiromi to get back on the line. Did her parents bug her or something?

*Motoko. Just… Maybe stick to Panam, and come back… Soon.*

*Yeah, I think I'll head back to the motel and go to sleep. I just wanted to explore a bit and get some chow, but Seattle is kinda wider than Night City, less stuff in walking distance.*

I finished the last of my Ramen slurping it up and headed out to my new car. As I started driving back to the Motel I was still chatting with Hiromi.

*So you have your meeting tomorrow? Are you ready?*

*Yeah, I have weapons and armor, and I'll just be backing up Panam to make sure she gets out. She doesn't think there will be trouble, but you-Oh my god. Is that an arcade!?* I gasped aloud as I did a rather dangerous U turn to find a spot near what I had just spotted.

*Motoko?*

*Hiromi! I just saw an old style arcade! I saw arcade machines!*

*Umm Okay?*

*I'll talk to you later Hiromi!* I hung up as I ran across the street to enter into… Well it looked kinda like a bar, but it had a ton of old arcade machines! I didn't recognize any of the games! Which honestly kind of made it better. Sure I didn't see Street Fighter II, but I bet whatever these games were would be fun!

"Ah… I don't have any quarters." I muttered. None of the machines had updated payment. Just the old Quarter inputs.

"Hey kid! Get away from those! Those are antiques!" The man behind the bar called out pointing a dirty rag at me.

I looked away from where I had kneeled down to check the quarter tray. Desperate for any hope.

"Yeah I know! You got this thing on auto play or something? I need to kick some ass for a few hours!" I called back over the loud ambience of the bar. The stink of smoke and alcohol was heavy, but I could deal with that for some good old gaming.

"A kid like you wants to play the old stuff? Let's see then." The guy behind the bar said as he tossed down a rag and a glass nodding to another worker before coming around. He walked behind the machine and hit a switch and it turned onto free play. "Don't want people to come in and trash my machines. These things are expensive."

"Yeah I bet. This would be almost a hundred years old! Well. If it was original. It's not." The game I was talking about was some fighting game, but it literally looked like an arcade cabinet you would see in the eighties. Cartoonish characters on the side of old wood, with an actual CRT screen fizzing a little from age, but still clear.

"Heh. Interesting you can spot that." He muttered. I looked over the machines, honestly it was mostly the condition. I had seen arcade machines after just a few decades. They tended to be burnt out, and rough.

But these were pristine.

No way you would see pristine machines after nearly a century.

"If you can give me a challenge, I'll let you play on any of them that you want… As long as you don't break anything."

"Deal!"


—--

"Mwahaha!" I laughed evilly just like the character on the screen. Evil Chun-Li basically was my new favorite character.

"Damn kid!" The owner of the shop as it turned out, grumbled as I wrecked him. I hadn't at first, it had taken me a while to remember the controls, but that was like… Two games? Before I was pushing him hard.

I wasn't even really a fighting game lover. I did end up playing a lot, but more as someone to play against than because I was interested.

"Heh. Where did you even play this before? I don't think anyone else in the city even still keeps cabinets."

"Ah. I'm from Night City, so yeah." I answer lying to hide where my knowledge came from.

"That explains it. Wonder if any other games survived over there. Can you tell me where you played? I wouldn't mind finding some new data to make a few new machines."

"Ah… Sorry, they don't exist anymore."

The man sighed, shaking his head. "That's the way of things isn't it. Time erodes it all down."

I frowned. I mean sure, I could see how easy it would be for data to be lost considering how much was lost during the datakrash.

But the data wasn't lost-lost…

"I mean, it's not completely lost."

"Huh?"

"I mean I'm a netrunner. There is tons of data out there on the net, or even on the old nets that would probably be someone's full collection of arcade games and stuff."

"Heh. It's been fifty years, kid. That data is long lost, either gobbled up by AI, or just had the old servers fail. Trust me, I spend a lot of time maintaining this equipment. Imagine a server out in the desert somewhere running 24/7 to keep an AI alive." The man shook his head. "It's why I keep this stuff running. A reminder of all we lost."

Ouch. Old man! Don't hit me with the decay of civilization so hard okay? "Yeah." I muttered, no longer really wanting to play games.

Stupid apocalypse.

I sighed and moved to leave before stopping. Across the street there was an SPD car parked behind the Villefort Alvarado I had stolen.

Wow. That was fast. I popped the key shard out of my neck and tossed it into a trash can. "Well this was fun old man. If I ever get more game data, I'll come see you."

"Heh. Sure kid." He offered as he rubbed down the machine and set it back to pay mode.

I walked out and down the street disappearing out of the cops view and getting the hell out of there. It would be a bit of a long walk back to Panam, but eh.

Better than getting arrested.

—--

"Okay Motoko you ready?"

"Honestly Panam, I've been waiting for hours for this." I offered, we were coming up on the drop off point. The fact it was in an abandoned section of the docks, in an old industrial park that had long been overrun with trash from what little I've seen of it. Made me more suspicious than nervous.

"I'm going to get out early. I'll be watching over you, so don't worry about them doing something stupid. If they try to attack you, just get back to your truck, I'll cover you." I said as I opened the door moving to slip out before she pulled into the park.

"Wait! What do you mean watching over! I hired you to guard me!"

"Panam. Trust me, I'll be way more effective if they don't know I'm here." I offered and only once she sighed and nodded did I jump out of the car as she slowed and then I raced over, Leaping over the barbed wire fencing and then into the industrial park.

I had my suspicions. This is the sort of place I would lure someone for a trap, not for a dropoff.

I quickly found a path up an old dock building. Climbing up a shed, then the window sills to make it up on the roof. Then I crawled forward. Only a little annoyed that it was broad daylight. If this was at night, I would have less difficulty keeping myself hidden..

My approach to the edge of the roof was silent despite the gravel roof. I looked over, and I was in luck. Panam hadn't finished entering the park yet, but there were already two cars parked in a half circle with three men standing around.

Three? With two cars? Obviously there were more. I quickly pinged one of them. Watching as it slipped through. And then a web of connections opened up and I rolled my eyes.

Yep.

Super sus.

There was a sniper up on an old crane. I hefted the Nekomata and aimed it in.

The guy was using an Ashura. A smart sniper…

So the guy was a fucking gonk that didn't know how to snipe.

I considered just one shotting his dumb head, but thanks to my Nekomata's scope, and my Kiroshi, I quickly sent in a Weapon Glitch into his Ashura instead as he was in range.

Smart weapons were even more susceptible to hacks than most weapons.

Actually…

I wonder.

Since I was already glitching the weapon, I bet I could alter the targeting system.

Heh.

Panam pulled in, while I played with it, and only when I was absolutely sure it would work did I pull away.

Okay now to deal with the rest of these gonks. A quick repeat, and that settled it. The hack was in their system. Only one had any ICE defenses, but it wasn't good enough to stop the hack.

Especially not my version.

With that done I sent a message to Panam as she was parking.

*Cleared out the danger. Don't let them fuck with you.*

I didn't want to send something too long as that would distract her, but hopefully that would be enough.

I watched through one eye, the other looking through the scope at the sniper fucker, as the deal went down.

Panam walked out looking a little irritated as she looked over at the men. She started talking, and one of the men responded, the one that didn't have a weapon on him.

Then they argued. Something was going down, something Panam wasn't happy to hear. Slowly my finger strayed closer to the trigger.

If the sniper fired, it would be the last thing he ever did.

Panam would probably need immediate assistance once bullets started flying.

Then to my surprise, it wasn't the fuckers that moved first. Panam, suddenly slammed forward nearly ramming the guy into the car they had brought, and even had a fucking Nova pressed against his chin.

I mean, sure I had seen that she had a DR5 Nova, but I didn't think she had the chrome to actually use the damn thing! Shotgun pistols are no joke.

But to my surprise a moment later the man was laughing, and everything calmed down, he waved his buddies down, and handed over a shard to Panam. She slotted it, nodded, and then stepped back, and to my surprise everything really did calm down.

Panam walked back to her truck and fiddled with something in the back seat, before coming out with a big square package wrapped in bubble wrap and handed it over.

The leader of the group nodded opened it up and I almost wanted to blink as I realized that this whole trip was for a fucking record.

A music record.

He checked it, nodded then turned away. Panam walked back to her truck, and they didn't even shoot her. Sniper dude was packing up his rifle.

"Well I'll be damned."

—--

"That was preem." I called out as I slid into the passenger side of Panam's truck. "I didn't expect you to draw on them." She just shrugged.

"I know these types. They might push on weak transporters if they can, but show them you're dangerous and suddenly they are all smiles and honey. Besides, The fixer wouldn't be happy if the deal went bad. So there was pressure to keep things on the DL."

"Huh. Well, I guess I didn't need to disable that guy's sniper rifle after all." I was barely finished with my comment before she nearly slammed the brake.

"Wait what sniper!?"

"The one up on the old shipping crane. Don't worry, I hacked his Ashura, the first bullet would have gone right into his buddies head." I offered, but that didn't seem to reassure Panam.

"Fuck. That could have gone really bad."

"I thought you said they just needed a push?"

"Yeah, but if they had a sniper on me, then they might have taken the risk if I pushed too far…" She offered nervously bringing up a hand to nibble at her thumb as she seemed to stew in the situation.

"Hey. It's all good. I had your back. You took care of everything, and the deal was done right… You traded that record for the shard?"

"Saw that? Yeah I got what Rogue wanted." She said with a shrug. "Information is already sent so we are all done."

"Wait, Rogue?" I said in surprise although I shouldn't be. Panam had worked with Rogue in 2077, I just hadn't expected her to be so connected this early.

Panam looked a little uncomfortable as she sighed, and started driving again.

"Yeah Rogue has a thing with the Aldecaldos. Old friendships. We all know we can come talk to her for shit. She's like that annoying aunt that makes fun of you and is rude, but will always be there." She offered, and I blinked.

That's right. Rogue had a thing with the OG Aldecaldo leader. Maybe even a son out of the whole thing if the lore was accurate. "That makes sense." I said, earning a weird look from Panam, but then we were on the road.

We had both agreed to just get back to NC after the deal. No reason to stick around and potentially end up in trouble with the one trading stuff.

So we turned, hit a place to grab some food and go to the bathroom, and we were out of Seattle. The large buildings soon disappeared in our rear-view.

—--

It was the third night of traveling back to the city. We were somewhere out in the mountains. I don't actually know if we were back in California or not.

Either way we would get back to Night City in the morning. Considering we were well past the Raffen territory Panam was confident we were in the clear.

I was still on watch, but even I had let slip some of my professionalism.

"So both boys ended up in the river?"

"Completely soaked head to toe, the bike at the very bottom. Saul cussed them out. I swear their ears were burning and they both had to keep diving to attach a harness to get the bike out. Saul made them both work on the bike until it was working again. Took months."

I was chuckling at the thought. Trying to jump a river with a ramp on a 'borrowed' bike? Yeah that could only end in one way.

"They're lucky they didn't break anything."

"Oh yeah, but we have a good doc, so they'd have been alright. Lucky they didn't crack their skulls open."

I looked across the fire at her and caught the look on her face.

We hadn't talked much on the trip once we left Night City. Mostly because despite the long days of driving, Panam was used to the long drives, and I was too busy keeping watch.

But that didn't mean I hadn't caught the stench of regret and homesickness all over Panam.

"We could stop at the camp on the way back." I offered casually only for Panam to snap out a reply.

"No."

I didn't say anything, but I made sure my face told a whole story as she looked at me, and then looked away.

"You still love Saul. You still love the camp, and your family. You aren't exiled, Raffen or anything."

"If I go back I'll be admitting I was wrong." She denied instantly. With all the passion I expected.

"You think so? I don't think seeing your family means you were wrong. Only that you miss your family."

"Saul would see it that way! I would get some sermon about how I was wrong, and I should just shut up and do what he says even when he is being a fucking moron!"

"And when he tries that you tell him you weren't wrong. That you still think that, but he can't keep you from your family just because you both disagree. He loves you too."

She glared over the fire, all the passion and fire flooding her. She didn't say anything, just glared and looked away at her meal.

I didn't say anything after. It was a shame to see someone run from their family. Especially when there was still love and care between them.

Panam was just angry and hurt, and Saul had too much on his shoulders to agree to a ceasefire. He was the leader. It was his way or the highway…

His way or the City I guess was more accurate.

Still, that shouldn't mean she can't go and see her people. But I also couldn't force her. We didn't talk any more that night. It was a shame, but Panam wasn't in a good place. And spending a year or two working for Rogue wasn't really going to help. Especially since she ends up working for that Raffen guy…

That's right. That does happen. I would have to keep an eye on her, if he showed up? Well I had plenty of bullets.

 

[Seras]

"Oh I am so glad to be back. I can't wait to be home." I moaned as we finally hit the road leading into the city. I could practically sense my bed waiting for me. And maybe some choom time. I wanted to hang out with Hiromi, and my crew. Bother Jun, maybe get into a wrestling match with him or something.

Just anything besides travel through dirty desert.

"Not home just yet. We need to hand off everything… If you are up to sticking around." The way she said it! I knew it!

"You do want me around!"

"Can I change my mind?" She asked and I just laughed at her, and shook my head.

No. Once you become my choom, it's forever. No take backsies.

"So Rogue huh? That'll be interesting."

"First time in the Afterlife?" She asked and I almost jerked a bit in surprise at the question.

"Well, yeah actually. That's where we're going?"
"That's where Rogue is, so that's where we're going." She said and I just nodded slowly, I guess I was finally getting my Afterlife debut.

I was quiet for the rest of the drive, the sand and dirt slowly shifted into urban streets.

It's good to be home.

The drive to the Afterlife didn't take too long. The sun was starting to droop as we pulled into the small parking lot. Panam's truck stuck out pretty badly from the vehicles parked around, but she found a spot and then the roar of the engine quieted down.

"Alright let's go." She stepped out taking a moment to stretch from the long drive. I joined her, but mostly I was wiping at my hair watching as dust fell out of it. If only keeping Rogue waiting wasn't that bad an idea I'd go get a shower. That and holding onto the shard Rogue wanted was just asking for trouble.

We walked down the familiar stairs, and I did look behind me at the wall to see if I could see the Tarot that appeared for V.

Nothing.

The bouncer was the same big guy I remembered and he scanned Panam almost casually, then glancing at me, and doing the same.

I could see the moment he scanned me and found me not on whatever list that Afterlife kept. Panam noticed it too. "Relax Em, she's with me."

He lifted an eyebrow but shrugged and stepped aside. "Welcome to the Afterlife kid." The man offered almost sarcastically as he side eyed Panam.

"Thanks." I offered back as I followed in after Panam. I don't really care if he thinks me being here is weird or something. I'm not one of the Night City Crazies that wanted to die in a blaze of glory anyways.

I was just here for the gig. Then I would go home, take a shower and a nap. This week had kinda sucked.

I shook it off and looked around. I had been here before of course, in a game at least. It hadn't changed much. The neon lights, the music playing, the different teams of edgerunners in side rooms, at the bar, or just hanging around. Some of them planning, some of them partying, and some of them dying.

I looked away from the side room that had a choom laid out on a couch as his team huddled around him.

I don't think that one made it.

"Claire! My usual!" Panam called out as she stopped at the bar and the bartender threw Panam a smile before throwing together a drink.

I wasn't paying attention to that though.

Because someone much more interesting was at the bar.

It was the pink jacket that caught my eye first, and then I stilled because I recognized that look.

Of course it wasn't the exact same, translations from game visuals, or anime visuals to real life made things look different but… I had seen that woman's last moments. It was impossible not to recognize her.

It was kinda hard to forget Sasha.

"Feel the rythm, of the streets." I mumbled to myself. The first lines of the song that blasted through my brain.

I guess I knew my next song. Also, I guess I knew my next mission. Sasha was still alive… For now. I couldn't help but stare as Sasha threw up three fingers at Claire who nodded, already preparing her drinks.

Of course that was when I got caught staring. Blue and pink eyes locked onto me. Unique custom colors. It was pretty.

I honestly was surprised as well,, they weren't Kiroshi, but some other brand, still high quality. But she had caught me looking. Eyebrow quirking up, as she gave me a look.

Okay Motoko. This is it. Just… Meet the catgirl. Chat her up! Yeah. Use your skills in cool and brain to just chat with a woman. Easy! Sure…

"Hi." I said blurting it out without being able to stop. "I'm Motoko. I like your optics!"

"Hello Motoko, who likes my optics. I'm Sasha." She said in a teasing tone that made me still for a moment. Wait… That was! She thought I was trying to flirt! Abort! Abort! No wait. Can't abort! I need to save her life!

So instead of saying anything I just kinda fumbled around for a moment before taking the seat next to her. "So edgerunner huh? That's preem! What's your specialty?" I asked after a moment of awkward fidgeting. I mean I already knew she was a netrunner. I was just hoping I could pull her into a netrunner conversation and then force her to become my friend.

"Is this your first time in here? Get brought in as part of a gig or something?" She asked me instead of answering, I blinked before pouting a little.

"I was working protection on a gig. Panam works with Rogue so here I am." I said, making sure to enunciate that I wasn't the protection target. "It was quiet mostly except for the Raffen, but they aren't that bad." I demurred.

"Oh? Maybe you can tell me about it some time." She replied with smile as Claire was suddenly there with three drinks that she picked up and it was obvious Sasha was about to disappear.

Quick think fast!

"Netrunner right?" I said, I had been hoping to fall into a conversation but it would be a bit too strong to follow her back to her group.

She did stop as she held the drinks. "I am."

"So am I. Programmer too, but it's one of my specialties. Uh. If you ever need some programming work done." I said and then sent her my number.

She looked more amused than interested, which was not what I was going for, so I had to do something.

"I do programming work for Yoko. She can vouch that I'm good. Feel free to reach out. I do consultations for free." I offered and there it was.

The look of interest on her face. Sure I had to name drop Yoko, as proof… Should have used the Sexy Motoko Voice! Dumbass! Of course she thinks I was being cute sounding like a teenager.

Dummy! Idiot!

"Maybe I'll give you a call sometime for that… Consult." Then she walked away.

But the whole time I was a little distracted because I had never heard someone say consult and make it sound…

"Motoko!" Panam called out, pulling me away from my staring at the woman.

"Yeah I'm coming." I tore my eyes away from Sasha and followed Panam towards an indented couch space.

One that had a certain fixer.

Panam was stopped at the entrance, a big guy… I can't remember his name. He had a weird haircut and he was Rogues Bodyguard.

He was holding out a hand to Panam, stopping her from entering as I walked up, his optics, a set that I didn't recognize but were completely inhuman, were watching both of us for any trouble.

I just kept my hands away from my guns, and kept it casual. He wasn't going to start anything without trouble coming his way first.

"C'mon Squama, I don't have time for this."

"Da boss is busy."

"We were just waiting at the bar, I know she knows we are here! Tell her to stop playing this corpo shit." Panam snapped at him, but calmed herself a moment after with a deep breath, and a sip of her whiskey.

"Wait." He replied simply and Panam tsked at him but did just that, but never stopped glaring at the booth that we could see a bit of Rogue sticking out. Looks like she was going to wait. I just ignored her impatience and waited calmly.

Either Rogue really was busy and so we had to wait, or she was doing some powerplay on Panam, and… We would have to wait.

No point in getting irritated about it.

Finally a few minutes later, Rogue called out. "Let them in."

Squama I guess? Stepped aside and let the two of us enter the little booth area Rogue kept for herself, although the big guy moved behind her watching over us for any threat.

"Panam." Rogue greeted casually the older woman uncaring about Panam's glare.

"Rogue."

"Alright kid stop glaring, I was on an important call. Shard." She demanded and Panam glared, but pulled the shard out of her neck and handed it over. Rogue pushed it into a data reader and nodded and then her eyes went blue.

A moment later Panam perked up and nodded. "The other part?"

"Like I said, you do this gig, I'll put you to work and take care of the rest." Rogue answered instantly. Then she looked at me. "Interesting choice, bringing a kid along. Motoko Kusanagi."

"Rogue." I greeted back. Her resting bitch face might have had more effect on me, if I didn't already know all about her. And wasn't that worried.

"I don't usually recommend kids on gigs I send out Panam."

Panam gave Rogue a look, and so did I. I did appreciate that the look Panam was sending the older woman screamed stop fucking around.

Mine was just an eyebrow lift. Waiting for her to get on with it.

If she knew my name, no way she didn't know at least a little about what I had been getting up to.

Rogue just scoffed and threw a hand at the two of us. "Yeah yeah, don't get so upset. I've heard your name before." She offered, but then she simply turned to Panam with a more serious look. "Good work. You were a little late, but I heard about the problems with the route. I'll be in touch in a few days with more work. Get settled in." Rogue offered and then she basically just waved her hand at us.

Telling us to get lost.

"I'll be seeing you Rogue." Panam offered as she stood, and I followed shortly after. It was a little sad that Rogue wasn't really interested in working with me, at least not yet, but also not a terrible thing. It wasn't like I wanted to deal with her attitude either.

As I walked out, I looked in the corner. Spotting Sasha sitting in a booth. Maine and Dorio were there, and it was obvious the three of them were plotting.

They were in the wrong spots for it to be 'that' day though. So I felt myself relax. I'll have to hope that my offer caught her interest. I would love a good reason to make more programs, and working with someone at Sasha's level?

Hell maybe even pulling her into gigs, or vice versa?

Sure I wasn't a huge fan of Maine, but the man was a tank. We could probably do some fun gigs.

But that was for another time. I followed Panam as she stalked outside back to her truck before she stopped.

"Motoko… Thanks. For backing me up on the gig and everything. I-I really appreciate it." She said with a relief showing on her shoulders that I was just starting to put together.

"Rogue offered you money and a place to live in Night City for help with the gig didn't she?"

"Yeah. Yeah she did… Here." Her eyes flashed blue for a few moments and I got an update. A good chunk of eddies into my account.

"You sure? I think you're struggling for eddies right now more than I am."
"It's fine. Rogue pays well, and if I'm right I'll have consistent work under her." I nodded at that and we both stood kind of quiet for a moment, neither sure what to say.

"Then if you ever need backup. Don't hesitate to call me up okay?" I demanded from her being firm on this. "We are chooms now after all."

"Hah. I guess we are… Thanks-No I'll stop. I'll stay in touch." She says instead and I smile at that.

I walked away as Panam jumped into her truck. It wasn't long before my Quadra pulled up just a bit down the street and I jumped in ready to go home.

I was totally ready for a shower.

—---

I trudged up into the apartment a mess of old dust coating me as I opened the door to the apartment and flopped my backpack full of stuff I had packed for what should have been just a few days of travel.

It had been a bit longer than that, so I was sweaty and wearing dirty clothes.

"I'm home!" I called out, seeing Juns boots at the entrance as I pulled my own dusty boots off with a bit of effort.

"Motoko!" Jun called out from his room and he came stomping out, wearing sleepwear and looking like he had been in bed for a while, his hair was sticking up in a mess, but he didn't hesitate to charge at me like a bull when he saw me.

Stupid grin on his face the whole time.

"Ughhhh." I groaned at him as he picked me up and pulled me into a big hug. "Jun I'm messy."

"You were only supposed to be gone a few days. You didn't even call!"

I groaned as Juns hug quickly morphed into a grapple as he wasn't letting me go.

"We had to avoid some Raffen Shiv. They apparently took over an entire section of the main path to Seattle so we had to go around both ways. It added so much wasted time to the trip."

"You didn't call." He said his arms tightening around me, which was actually a big in warning.

"I called Hiromi!" My words did the opposite and Jun only squeezed me tighter.

"Hiromi told me she called you." He grumbled looking down at me with a disappointed older brother face. I was a little too focused on breathing though as he was slowly tightening the grip.

Until eventually I had to break.

"Sorry!" I managed to gasp out and then I was released sucking in a deep breath for air as I could finally breathe again.

"Next time you had better call or at least text." He demanded fully in his big brother role. "Also you stink, take a shower." My kick for his shins was deftly dodged away from, as if he knew it was coming and then he was walking away laughing as I glared at his stupid back.

Revenge will be mine.

—--

Washed, cleaned and feeling normal again I stepped out of the bathroom as I continued to rub my hair dry with a towel.

Jun was waiting for me on the couch with a pair of steaming bowls of Ramen, and giving me a dopey smile.

"This doesn't mean you're forgiven." I told him, but I couldn't help but slide onto the couch and cuddle up for Ramen and attention.

"How was your trip?"
"Boring. Super boring. I had to stay focused the whole time and Panam is being super sensitive because she just left the Aldecaldos so she wasn't really in the mood for chatting. So I mostly just watched the horizon for threats." Then I stuck ambrosia into my mouth.

Seattle Ramen had been good, but it was nothing compared to eating food at home.

"Well other than Hiromi calling me a bunch to see if I heard from you yet." He said, throwing me a look. "It's been quiet."

"That's a good thing. Quiet is good." He just shrugged at my words.

"The gig you went on the trip for, did it end well?"

"Oh yeah. It was just boring. They had set up what looked like an ambush on Panam, but I was overwatching the area. They had a sniper too, but I hacked into his Ashura so it would shoot his boss if he fired. The handoff was peaceful. Panam handled it, and then we drove all the way home… We did get chased by Raffen at one point. It was the only fun part of the whole gig. But they ran away when I shot at them."

"You okay?"

"Yeah, like I said Jun, it was super boring."

"Huh. Well you've officially traveled farther than I ever had. What was Seattle like?" Oh. Jun had never left NC.

"Okay so We first saw it on the horizon, lots of big buildings, barely any ads though. It was actually kinda dark." I went through everything I saw in Seattle for him. Describing it as best as I could for my interested brother.

—--

I woke up the next morning around the time the sun was coming up. I had gone to bed early wanting to just relax and reset before getting back into things.

I headed out after getting on some clothes and jogged as much as I could to the gym downstairs.

The sun was just coming up, but I could tell it was going to be a warm one. Not a cloud in the sky today.

Grumbling a bit at this, I headed into the gym area to find it wasn't empty like I had expected, despite it being so early.

A few early birds were already working, but I just shrugged and found something open then making sure I was tucked away I went to work.

Squats were the exercise of the day. Since other than my ankles it was all flesh. I fell into the rhythm, up and down. Pushing my body long after it started being too much.

I was sweating as I continued, glad that I was in a corner tucked away from everybody so no one was watching what I was doing. Because anyone with a head on their shoulders would be wondering why I was destroying myself like this.

But I wasn't because the more I pushed the more I was getting alerts in my head for Body. The more I pushed myself, the more I gained.

I took a short break grabbing some food, and drink from the vending machines outside the gym area when I noticed a familiar face.

"John."

"Hey Kid. Hayato's been bugging me about a rematch with you sometime."

"But I gave her my number if she wants to fight?" I answered instantly a little confused.

"Heh. She's shy despite how she acts. Probably isn't comfortable doing it herself. So, you up for it?"

I looked down at my knees that were basically shaking together considering how badly I had thrashed myself with squats.

"Maybe tomorrow."

He noticed my own look and nodded, although he was looking at me as if trying to figure something out.

"That looks like you overdid it."

"Yeah." I agreed instantly. "Been stuck in a truck for a while, I pushed a bit too hard today."

"Overdoing it doesn't help." He reminds me, before sighing. "Here hold on."

He walked over to one of the gonks and was handed an inhaler which he carried back and offered to me.

"Take a puff of that every hour for a few hours.."

"What is it?" I asked instead of taking it. I wasn't one to just take drugs someone randomly gave me.

"Mostly after-workout. It'll help heal those blown out legs of yours faster. A bit of pain killer as well, light stuff. It's something I teach the guys here to make for themselves."

I hesitated, and took the inhaler, but I didn't puff it.

He snorted at that and just shrugged. "I'll tell Hayato, set something up for her tomorrow. Probably won't be at Gomorrah though. You know the Deravaja?"

I blinked, "Sensei's Dojo? Sure."

"Ah, good. Hayato is one of his students. I'll send you a time, but the spar will be there."

"Suuure?"

He chuckled as he waved me off with that.

I guess I had a spar tomorrow.

 

[Seras]

Instead of huffing the drugs I was handed, I just took a Maxdoc, and then I did the smart thing and drove to Viks. I was already scheduled for a checkup for my chrome. I had been out of the city on the road for over a week after all.

But I stopped to see Misty first. Walking into her shop, and taking a moment to enjoy the soft sounds of her space.

"Motoko!"

"Hey Misty!" I called out in return as the blonde smiled at seeing me. Stepping away from the counter to come throw a hug around my shoulders, of course that was a mistake.

"Motoko it's good to-Oh!" She chirped out pulling away.

"Sorry sorry I just finished exercising. I'm all sweaty." I apologized and she just laughed but didn't go for another hug.

"How are you?"

"I'm good! I just got back into the city. I went up to Seattle on a gig!"

"Oh! I always thought about traveling to Seattle, but with my shop." She waved at her place and I nodded.

"Honestly? It was kinda weird. I actually like Night City more." I admit in a horrified whisper that has Misty chuckling lightly.

"Well welcome home then. Here to see Vik?"

"Yeah. I should get checked out and stuff. I want to make sure I don't have dust anywhere that I can't get to." She nodded at that and sent me off with a wave.

Quickly jumping down the stairs I found Vik wasn't alone.

"Jackie!" I called out smiling at the big man that was being run through a bit of boxing work by Vik.

"Huh?" Which is exactly the time Vik used the opportunity to bop the bigger man right on his nose. "Hey Vik!"

"No distractions." The Ripper said but he was grinning regardless as he lowered his arms and ended their workout. "Hey Kid. You alright?"

"Not injured! But I just got back into the city! I had a gig that took me to Seattle, and I wanted to get checked over." I responded, but then I walked over and settled into Viks rolly chair. "But no rush. Go ahead and finish playing with Jackie, I'll wait."

"We aren't playing-"

"This isn't playing Hermanita." Both men argued before realizing that my smile was broad and amused. They both huffed at me, realizing I was just messing with them, so Vik brought his padded hands back up.

"Alright Jack. Let's keep going."

Jackie just nodded and the two went back at it. Jackie actually had good endurance I noted. Unlike Jun for example who just relied on his chrome, Jackie actually was fully into the training.

Although considering it's Jackie. I wouldn't mind if he relied on some protective chrome a bit more.

Eventually both men tired out and Jackie took a seat and drank some water as Vik gestured for me to head over to the ripper chair. Vik was still wiping his forehead with a towel when he rolled over.

"So no issues you know of?"

"I mostly just want to check for dust and junk. I was out on the road for more than a week." He nodded and pulled up his scanner starting in on the inspection..

"Seattle huh? That's preem Hermanita. I didn't get my first gig out of the city until I was in my twenties." Jackie offered and I smiled at that.

"Thanks Jack. I know a Nomad that needed an extra shooter to watch her back. She's not Raffen, but she sorta left the Aldecaldos for now."

Jackie whistled, "You don't hear them do that much."

"Yeah it's a family thing." I added and Jackie really frowned then.

"Well that I can understand."

"Not too many problems here kid. Although you got some dents and dings." Vik confirmed giving me a look.

"I've done maintenance!"

"Yeah I can see that… It's why there are so many dents." He says and then bursts out into laughter.

I felt my jaw drop before I realized Vik was fucking with me.

"Laugh it up old man." I grumbled at him, but even Jackie was chuckling in that booming belly laugh of his at my reaction.

"You're doing fine, kid. You do have some dust in the joints, that's normal especially for nomads or anyone traveling through the desert. Give me a few minutes and I'll clear you up." He said still laughing as he rolled away grabbing a big canister that was basically an oil washer.

I rolled my eyes and leaned back, as Vik walked over and started opening up my arms. Panels popping open to show the sensitive interiors after a few moments of his deft hands accessing every port.

I shivered a bit the first time he blew the oil into my arms, it felt super ticklish, but after that first few spurts, I got comfortable with it.

"So Jackie. You going to get any more chrome? You still need some subdermal don't you?"

"I got some Hermanita." He said, knocking a finger against his forehead. "Can't get too much of the stuff though. Camilla doesn't like it much." He said something kind of horrifying as he patted his shoulder.

That specifically wasn't armored.

Just like his stomach.

Just like the stomach that he would bleed out from.

"You're kinda a gonk, and Camilla is a double gonk if she doesn't want you to have more protection." I said bluntly, actually holding back from really snapping at the man.

It wouldn't help. Telling someone in love, or dating that they are with someone they shouldn't never works. It just pushes them away. So instead of saying anything more I just looked away from the big oaf. Stupid gonk.

I'll just make sure you never step foot anywhere near Konpeki Plaza.

"Hey that's not…" Jackie went quiet and I noticed Vik had intruded. Yeah snapping at him was stupid. Certainly not going to get anything done that way.

The room was quiet for a while as Vik continued to work before he finally finished. All of my chrome got a going over including my ankles which thankfully hadn't been too bad. Stuck in boots had kept the dust out.

"You know, you'd get less gunk in these with a good covering." Vik finally spoke up, breaking the silence between the three of us.

"But I like it!" I argued instantly, holding my arms against my chest to keep them from Vik who just laughed.

"Well just know a real skinn covering will protect the insides better. But it's your choice. Nothing I'm not used to." He said and I nodded at that.

Jackie I noticed was over by the TV watching the boxing match instead of being his usual friendly self.

Dangit.

I left without a word. I couldn't apologize to him right now. Which might just be necessary. Camilla was a terrible choice. Misty would be better of course. But not wanting Jackie to armor up?

Fucking scop of a woman.

In the end I also asked Vik to tell me what was in the inhaler that I had been given and he assured me it was normal workout stuff. Perfectly safe if I wanted to use it.

I just shrugged.

—--

So I had a whole bunch of different stuff on my plate, but I was mostly waiting for the big one.

Would Sasha call me?

If she didn't in a week, I would have to do something drastic. I didn't want the woman to die. Not after seeing what causes her last stand.

Fucking corps.

Fortunately she had created a secondary distraction for me. After Viks checkup I went home and settled onto the couch with my guitar.

Let you down. It was a very Cyberpunk song, and I wanted a copy of it. It was definitely a favorite of mine, and having seen Sasha I wanted to listen to it.

There were a lot of tones and noises in the song, so it took me a long time to get every sound I would need programmed into the music box.

As I was working Jun came home from work throwing his TC jacket over the back of the couch as he stopped to grab some food and drink and then settled onto the couch near me.

"What are you working on?"

"New song." I muttered, semi distracted as I was setting up the rhythm track for the song. It wasn't exactly a rock song after all.

"Oh?" He prompted, making me shake away the music boxes track creation toolkit. I popped my personal link from the box as well just so I could move away from it.

"It's… A bit different from most of what I've done so far. It's not rock or anything. More of a… Night City sound." I said, yeah I liked the way that sounded.

"Sounds awesome."

"It's not Us Cracks, you won't like it." I told him and he just laughed at my tone.

"I like your stuff. When are you going to start selling your music?"

"Probably never."

"C'mon Motoko, you are really good. I want to see you up on a stage some day." Jun said, smiling all proudly at me.

As if I want to see that! I quickly retaliated and kicked at him, but his Motoko sense must have been working because he jerked away and I missed. Instead he just broke into laughter.

"You're all embarrassed!"

"I'm not!"

"You are!"

"Not!"

"Totally are." He assured me with a big smile on his stupid face as he looked on.

"Shut up!"

He just laughed at me. "So how about you show off for me? I want to hear your new song."

"It's not done!" I hissed and he nodded, resting back and putting up his feet on the table looking perfectly content to just sit there and wait.

Realizing that I snapped at him. "It's a new song! It could take a while!"

"I'll wait."

"I might get stuck on it and take a week!"

"Then I'll go to sleep and work and when it's ready I'll listen." He assured me with that calm cool tone he had started to develop over the months.

Ahhhhh! I was weak!

I grumbled and grabbed my music box. I'll finish the stupid song then! Doubt he'll even like it since it isn't Us Cracks!

I pushed my personal link back in and started to work. Let you Down, didn't have a super fast pace, but it needed to be perfect. This song was… Special? Important? No, that wasn't right, it was just…

It just needed to be perfect.

I hadn't heard back from Sasha. I had no idea when the Biotechnica job was happening. All I knew is it should happen soon. But there was another reason I was making this song right now.

Perfect Musical Memory let me remember the song exactly. Every note, every beat, every lyric… And every scene.

Music was an art, and many artists combined art with their music.

Let you down, basically was a music video. Sasha's story from start to end. As I worked on the song I was remembering. I was reviewing what it had shown me.

Sasha's big problem was the Arasaka Robot R Mk.2. Well they would be Biotechnica Robots now, but Araska were the ones that made them.

They were tough. Armored, and unflinching. She had used some powerful hacks to try and disable them, but it hadn't really worked.

She needed a way to kill them, and a way to defend against their attacks.

One of those was easy. Weapon Glitch would solve the problem outright, but I was going to need to do some work on it, to make sure it would punch through the security around a high end corpo defense unit.

Then it came down to how to kill the bots.

Short Circuit was a good hack against drones…

I would need to get a copy of it from Yoko.

But I shook off the plotting to focus more on the song. Track after track was added in, making sure everything was fit together, I listened to the song I was creating over and over making sure everything was timed correctly, and then it was time for the lyrics.

I glanced at Jun who had been idly watching me for the last while with that stupid proud smile on his face.

And then I was done with all the backing tracks, but still had a few lyric additions I needed.

"Gonna sing a bit. Don't bother me!" I demanded earning a rolled eyes from my brother who at this point was totally vegging out on the couch.

"Let you down!" I sang out messing with the reverb in the music box, and then went silent, as I wasn't actually singing the song just some of the backing vocals. "Loooooove!" I crooned out, and then I went through a few of the additional vocal lines, syncing them up, and I was ready. I could feel my ears heating up as Jun quirked an eyebrow at me.

It wasn't a love song! Idiot!

The only thing left was to stand up and actually sing the damn thing. I stood up surprising Jun as I hefted up the music box and settled it into a place for this to work, I ran over to grab the speakers and set that all up so Jun could actually hear the song.

Then I put my hands on my hips and looked… Well it was still up, because Jun was a big boy even sitting on the couch.

"Okay this is the first time anyone has ever heard this song, so you better appreciate it!" I told him firmly as I then exhaled, letting all the air out, changing how my voice would sound a bit, I needed to be closer to Sexy Motoko voice for this.

The music began. The soft melody echoed through the apartment, and I was ready.

"Feel the rhythm of the streets."

Let You Down, if you just read the lyrics was actually almost a fight song. It was just how slow and almost peaceful it was that changed the whole theme. It was a song about failing, yet… Not. About overcoming failure in a way.

Or it was a song about Night City. Or a song about… Well music was subjective like that.

But I sang, destroying the vocals for this song. Considering how many times I had listened to it, I knew every note, and exactly how to best sing it.

The song was just too good.

And then it was over.

The faint ending snares and sound ending in a quiet finale.

To my surprise Jun didn't react for a while. Just staring at me, and I shifted a little uncomfortably under his gaze as he stood and then pulled me into a tight hug.

"It sounded preem Imouto."

—--

So, song was done. Now time for some programming work.

I headed out, taking my Kusanagi instead of the Quadra so I could enjoy the late evening drive through the city.

As I drove I went through all the things I needed. First off, Sasha's defenses, so she wouldn't have to sacrifice herself outright. Then I needed to figure out the best way to help her from there. She had blown up the office at the last moment, and been blown out the window. There was no way I could figure out exactly where she would land without more information…

Could I talk to Maine and make sure he was in the right place? Could he catch her? I shook off the idea. I just needed to give her the tools to escape without it being her end.

I really hoped Sasha reached out. If she didn't, I might have to do something… Drastic. I shook off the thought as the light I was stuck at turned green.

No. I should do what I can. I should do enough that she should be able to survive, but… Her death was her choice. I didn't know the woman, I wasn't family or friend. Her decisions were her own.

I wanted to help, but the real question I should be asking myself is, would I risk the wrath of Biotechnica on Jun, or Hiromi in order to save Sasha?

No.

No, I wouldn't. I wasn't a hero, or even that good of a person in the long run. I wanted to save the cat girl, because I had felt something at her death, and I hated the pointless tragedy of it all.

But her death was her own fault. I hated to say it like that but it was true. She made a choice to end her life for a cause.

I pulled around a van drifting between lanes, probably drunk off his ass and zipped around him, my Kusanagi easily accelerating me past the block and away from that annoying little traffic problem.

Sasha was a grown woman. I couldn't save her. Not like a knight in shining armor. I could help, I could give her extra tools, and maybe end up with a new friend, but she wasn't Jun. I wouldn't go out of my way to risk my life, or my family's life, for hers.

Decision made, I focused on the road the rest of the way to the roundabout.

If she did die. If I failed to save her? I would make sure her story was told, that might be all I could do for her.

—---

"Yoko." I greeted happily seeing the dark glasses clad woman standing behind the counter like always.

"Motoko. You are still alive. I'm glad." She offered calmly in that weird monotone she had outside the net.

"What? Oh… Yeah the scav thing… I'm taking a break. Been out of the city for a week on a gig as well."

"Taking a break?" She asked, sounding amused despite her tone. "Well I suppose that's all we can ask for sometimes."

"Yeeeeah." I drawled out at her pointed remark. "Hey. I need a copy of a Short Circuit. You got anything good?"

"I have a very good off the shell version." She confirmed and I perked up at that. A higher level starting point meant the final version I make should be even better!

"You will make your own version again? I would be happy to trade it for a copy."

I opened my mouth to agree before stopping. An image of Hiromi glaring at me, a reminder that I should really stop agreeing to every deal that just seemed easiest to me.

"How about we talk trade."

"Ah, you finally learned." Yoko said actually looking sad like I had just kicked her puppy or something. "Very well. Let's talk, what I can add to the deal."

I was glaring at the older woman more because of the teasing than because I was actually angry. It wasn't like I really cared that much, but don't act like I'm stupid! I just value convenience more than profit!

"I want a few other hacks. I'm thinking about adding a few more weapons to my arsenal."

"Oh? Well I know just the thing then." She said and I felt my eyebrow quirk up as she revealed a shard with a familiar name.

Oh.

Yeah, that wasn't something you wanted every script kiddie on the street to have.

"Let's talk price!" She said for once losing her monotone and sounding like the kitsune she truly was.

 

[Seras]

Deal done I fled from Yoko's physical domain and headed home to get to work. Jun was in his room getting ready for bed as I flopped onto the couch which was perfect, giving me time to get started.

I quickly started examining the code for Short Circuit. I noticed its benefits and weaknesses pretty quickly.

The hack overloaded the microcircuits of anyone with chrome. Basically it tricked the safeties on the power supply to push everything into the system, which caused immediate electrocution.

It did have some weaknesses. First off, you couldn't keep doing it to someone over and over. One Short Circuit usually drained the energy out of the chrome. Which meant after a single use, there usually wasn't enough power in the batteries to do it again.

Of course it worked on basically anyone with chrome though. Unless you were equipped with a grounding system. Most people aren't going to have that unless they work with high voltage in their day to day, but it was something to think about.

Another problem was as bad as it was to get electrocuted, it wasn't directly lethal. You could knock someone out with it, and sometimes get their heart to stop, but in the end it was just a powerful electrical shock.

I pulled out the shard case that Yoko gave me and pulled out the shard containing the hack as I plugged it into my laptop that I gathered.

The code bloomed out and I nodded. Whoever made this wasn't Yoko. I recognized her coding by now having done a few debugs for her. This though? It was… corporate. It felt like the sort of rote coding you would see from a group of people all cleaning up a single hack.

It was impressive, but it was irritating, because someone had gone through and tried to black box the hack.

With a bit of checking I found the creator was Militech.

Thankfully I was intending on doing a complete rewrite anyways, but I still wanted to examine how people normally do it. Yoko was good at her job, she had picked a difficult to parse hack, but it felt like it was a little bit of everything. Multiple attack vectors were in the hack, and it had a dense targeting list for how to go about performing its duty.

The problem was size. Like almost every hack I had seen it bloated up with the quality of the hack.

I closed my eyes and hummed as I considered the information in front of me.

What did I actually want from the hack? How could I make it better? I could make it smaller, sure, but better? That needed something else. I had been pretty good at coming up with a gimmick for my hacks that made them exceptional in what way I needed.

This was my first true offensive hack. It was like… Learning lightning bolt for the first time as a wizard, when only having CC spells before.

What did I need a damage spell for? What was the goal?

In the end I wanted two things out of it. AOE, and disabling high end borgs.

Mass groups of enemies were annoying and being able to just take out a bunch of people at once was useful, but it was borgs that were the biggest threat to me, although I guess that meant I was still thinking of it more like a CC spell, than a damage one.

Plus I still remembered Kiwi's use of Short Circuit from the anime. A single hack that disabled an entire room full of Maelstrom? That was powerful.

I want it.

So I dug through the code, finding interesting bits that I knew I could use, and started tearing away parts of the code that were just garbage.

As usual half of the code was seemingly downgraded. Even Militech kept the best hacks they made for themselves, while only selling a weaker version.

I fell into the rhythm quite easily. It wasn't hard to just sit there and slowly build up a quick hack. Not anymore.

It wasn't until Jun came stumbling out of his room the next morning that I looked away from the screen. Once again thankful for my Kiroshi, as my eyes would have been bloodshot after over eight hours of nonstop programming.

"Morning Jun."

"Mornin… Wait, did you sleep?"

"No. I was working. I'll get some sleep soon." I lied to him, it wasn't very often that Jun noticed I had pulled an all nighter, one of the reasons I did try to sleep often enough that he wouldn't notice my lack of sleep.

"Well… Go to sleep." He said blinking sort of blankly at me as he was still half asleep himself.

"Sure Jun." I agreed not wanting to argue, as I turned back to my laptop. I had made good progress, but trying to work on the versatility of the hack was a time sink. I shook off the idea of just making it do one thing instead of both.

This wasn't just for me, but hopefully a hack that Sasha could use to keep herself alive. I couldn't half ass it.

—--

Jun left for work still side-eyeing me and I took a break from programming to do the rest of my attempt at daily exercise.

Downstairs at the gym it was quiet and I found myself doing some stretches with weights in each hand. It wasn't working my arms, but I still had muscles in my shoulders, chest and back.

I was working through the reps counting the number in my head when John walked over.

"Still interested in that spar?"

"It's tomorrow." I agreed and he chuckled. "Deravaja in an hour work for you?"

"Sure. I'll be there." I grit out as I ended the reps and stood up. Might as well head over and give myself time to recover.

"Good. I know the kid is looking forward to it, don't tell her I said that."

"I'll think about it." I teased but figured I might as well head over. Sensei would probably give me that look and demand to see how my training had been again.

So I called for my Kusanagi, and started driving.

The city was as busy as always, traffic beeping and honking and making a mess as everyone tried to get to work.

But I wasn't in a rush, and I did love driving my bike. It didn't take me long to pull up to the dojo where an array of Mizuchi were parked, each of them more ugly than the last.

My march towards the dojo was cut off though as I smelled something pretty good and ended up instead sitting at a little meat skewer stand to the side of the entrance and chowing down on breakfast.

Eventually my belly was full enough and I tipped the older man running the stall, as I headed into the dojo.

It hadn't changed much from the last time I was here. As I walked in, there was a man waiting behind the counter, but I ignored him walking right in towards the dojo proper.

I had a feeling Hayato would have already set up our little spar. She was the princess type like that.

Inside there were the normal sounds of sparring and the clack of shinai as people trained.

I was spotted instantly by Sensei who nodded to me and then jerked his head towards a corner. I looked over expecting to see Hayato or something but it was an empty corner…

Ah.

I looked back at him and he just quirked an eyebrow at me and told me with just his eyes he expected me to get to work.

I sighed as I walked over pulling off my jacket and adjusting my holsters so they wouldn't get in the way as I threw my jacket over the Shinai rack that was the only thing in the corner.

With a sigh I picked one up and started practicing my forms as I waited. Under Sensei's stern eyes.

Dangit! I didn't sign up for this!

—--

"What are you doing?" A haughty voice asked me as I continued to work on my swings. Every time I had made to put the shinai away Sensei had noticed and given me a look.

Judging.

I don't know how he did it, but I just kept going instead of stopping each time. Stupid sensei powers.

"Mostly? Getting judged really hard by an old man. Ready for the spar?" I asked, turning to see Hayato had arrived. The girl was wearing a gi, with pads on her hands and feet, and she was looking at me like I was weird.

"Are you? You look exhausted!"

"Nah. I'm fine." And I was mostly. Finally Sensei's look was more curious and not a demand to get back to work so I put the shinai back on the rack and stretched my shoulders a bit. Enjoying the stretching of the muscles in my back at the action.

Besides, even if I was a little tired, I had gotten a level up alert for blades just a few minutes ago, so that had perked me up more than any tiredness.

*Blades skill level up!*

Blades 7!

"Hmph! Don't think I will go easy on you just because you have worked yourself over!" She demanded in a rush, her voice coming out almost too fast for herself to keep up with.

"Shall we claim a space?"

"I already have one. Come!" She demanded and hurried, literally almost jogging as she headed over to space on the main floor that cleared out at her arrival.

I shrugged, taking a moment to finish pulling off my holsters so I wouldn't have any issues, and as I walked over Sensei handed me a set of pads similar to the ones Hayato was wearing.

The old man didn't say anything else though which was par for the course.

Sensei wasn't the type to say something when he simply expected you to know what to do.

I quickly threw on the pads as Hayato was looking impatient and then bounced a little to make sure everything was tight.

"Ready?"
"Yes! Now stop wasting time!" She called out in return and charged me.

I rushed her back remembering that leaving her time to act was the worst thing to do.

—--

"Ow."

"You are fine! Stop whinging!" She demanded at me, but like she kicked me in the tit! It hurts!

The matches had gone pretty much how they had last time.

She had proven the power of a reflex booster in close combat, while I had managed to surprise her for some wins as well.

"Say that after I kick you right in the tit." I snarked back and she gasped like I had said something absolutely outrageous.

"You! How dare! Do not say such things to me!" She finally seemed to settle on, and I just rolled my eyes. Half the time I said anything she was likely to explode on me.

Good sparring partner though.

I had actually leveled up Street Brawler.

*Street Brawler skill level up!*

Street Brawler 8. It felt good, although it hadn't been enough to overcome her in the last match when she got her last kick in ending our little spar.

"This was fun. We'll have to do it again." I offered, we had a few matches, but both of us were pretty tired, her more than me. I bet if we had a few more rounds I would start winning a lot more. I was objectively a stamina monster despite how ganic I was compared to Hayato who had lots of chrome, but even that wasn't enough to cover everything.

"Fun? Hmph, it was an acceptable match. You should get some boosterware. If you did perhaps I would have a more even opponent."

"Nah. I can't stand Kerens. They freak me out." I admitted and she stilled for a moment at my words. Probably the most still I had ever seen her.

"You fear such simple chrome? How embarrassing." She said, snooty and definitely a little rude but I just shrugged.

"I'll pick up a high end Sandy eventually. I have some things in mind for it, that's my goal, but no way do I want a Keren. I couldn't stand how long everything takes."

She was silent for a half a second which must have seemed like a long time to her. As she just nodded. "It is not for everyone. It is a challenge only some are capable of handling."

I almost snorted at how arrogant that sounded, but on this one, I would give it to her. Yep, not everyone is capable of handling a Keren.

Like me. Fuck that.

"Well, that was fun." I offered, as I made to leave before she scoffed.

"We still need to set up our next spar." She demanded and I blinked at her.

"I gave you my number, just call me when you want?"

"That! Fine! I will not be pleased if you refuse!"

I threw her a thumbs up as I headed out of the dojo. She really needs to stop watching so much anime.

Too much Tsundere was bad for you!

—---

The call came in.

*This is Motoko.*

*Hey there Ghost. I spoke to a certain Kitsune and what do you know? She speaks very highly of a little programmer she knows.* Sasha spoke every word like she was going to giggle at any moment. The amusement in every word was something that came through even the call.

But! But she called! If I still had a handset instead of just a phone in my head, I know I would be clutching it with both hands as I felt actually nervous about this conversation!

*Well I'm glad Yoko is vouching for me. I've done enough debugging of her work, she had better.* I grumbled, but then refocused. *So I got all sorts. Already finished programs, and hacks, but I also do debugging, or commission programming when needed.* I said trying to sound casual at just how important this was.

Just one gig. I just needed her to get through that one gig. Let me help you!

*Well I don't usually outsource. How about this? Let's meet up. I want to get a look at what you have for sale, and I might have a program I could use some help cleaning up.*

*I'm free today. Where and when?* I prompted already standing up from the couch where I had been working on Short Circuit again.

*I'm already hanging around Afterlife.*

*I'll head over now. I hope you have the eddies. I might give you a discount, but I'm not cheap.*

*Pfft. You're hilarious! I'll see you.*

The call disconnected and I let out a long breath. She had called! I had honestly not expected her to call, and Yoko hadn't said shit!

I shook it away and rushed to get my stuff ready, grabbing my laptop to bring with me. I doubt she would need a direct visual for programming work, but you never know.

Everything on the way was a blur, as I couldn't stop thinking about what I would say, or what I should do.

I couldn't tell her, obviously.

'Oh yeah you have a gig coming up to break into Biotechnica don't do it?' She was an edgerunner. If she thought for an instant that someone leaked info on a gig she would…

Well she would never do it…

Okay. Maybe I could use that in the most drastic of moments.

But I needed to make sure she was prepared, and not put in a position where her only option was death.

I wanted her to survive. To bring to light the fact Biotechnica had let her mother die, and be able to live after. For that weight of her past to be off her shoulders and to still live on.

I remember Johnny mentioning in the game once, about happy endings. There I stood at the stairs leading down into Afterlife. The groupies and wannabes that hung around took no notice of me.

Despite everything I had done, I was just another face in a crowd.

"Here, for folks like us? Wrong City, wrong people." I muttered to myself. A reminder about happy endings in Night City.

About how the path would eventually go, but that wasn't set in stone.

Johnny Silverhand was wrong about most of the gonk shit he said.

Taking advice from him wasn't something I planned to do.

Wrong City?

Wrong People?

I would just have to change the city. Change the people. One person at a time if I had to.

I walked down the steps with confidence. It was time to save the catgirl!

"You aren't on the list." The bouncer told me as he stopped me from moving forward.

"Dammit."

—---

"Pfft! You should have said you weren't a regular!" Sasha was laughing at me a while later. I had eventually gotten access after calling Sasha and being let in.

"I forgot how tetchy this place is." I replied with a light blush and a shrug. It was kinda embarrassing to need to call for help to get into the club.

"Well that was fun. C'mon. I've got a booth over here." She said sashaying deeper into the club as we left the bouncer behind us.

I ignored the music, and the bar following after the girl that I needed to save. As I walked in, I couldn't help but notice she grooved to the music as she walked, hips swaying and even twirling a bit as the music pounded.

It was kinda cute, but a little distracting. Custom netrunner suits didn't leave much to the imagination Sasha. You should be more careful with shaking everything like that. Even I wore actual pants over my leotard.

I followed until she came to a booth and to my surprise it wasn't empty.

The catgirl turned as she reached it and smirked at me with a look that said she knew something I didn't, which is weird because I have no idea what she was thinking. No, I was more interested in the fact that Maine was sitting in the booth resting back face covered in those shades of his and sipping something from a glass as he took me in.

I could practically feel his eyes scanning me, both literally and metaphorically.

"Hey Maine, don't mind us, my cute little contact finally showed up!" Sasha called out as she slid into the booth and then turned to me, patting the place next to her.

"This your contact? Shit, is this a kindergarten now?" He grumbled, taking his eyes off me to focus on his drink.

The temptation to move, to act was there, but that was gonk shit. I don't care if he insulted me, my skills would speak for themselves if it ever came down to it.

Besides… Maine talked big, but only his loyalty to his crew was something I could respect. The guy had over-chromed, and lost it in the end. So I wasn't exactly giving much weight to his words.

So I ignored him. Sliding into the space, and then pulling out a few shards and setting the laptop on the table.

"Here's a few examples of my custom work. Feel free to take a look, but no copies unless you want to buy it. If you have something you want me to check over, now's the time."

"Oh! Goodies." She chirped, snatching up the shards like an over enthusiastic cat.

I wasn't sure how much of that was her real personality, or just her persona to be honest.

It was kinda cute though, especially when she flashed me a smile in turn.

"Ah netrunner shit. Why'm I here again?"

"To look big and tough for me!" Sasha replied shooting Maine a big smirk that he just sighed at and to my amusement decided to just stay quiet and drink in peace.

Then Sasah pulled out a shard of her own.

"Tell me what you think of this." She asked and I shrugged, took the shard and slotted it into my laptop.

I checked it over and had to quirk an eyebrow as I read through her code.

It was good. Solid. She was obviously no amateur about what she did…

But I instantly felt my teeth grinding as I read through it.

"Why are there so many cat emojis!?" I demanded in frustration! Using Cat emoji's as part of your code base was just gonk!

"It's my signature work Nya!"

I looked at her. She continued smiling like the cat that… Never mind.

Instead I pointed at a segment of the code. "Your emoji here got inputed wrong. That's why this section won't compile." I told her, and instantly the amusement on her face vanished as she jerked towards the laptop to look at what I was pointing out.

She might have gotten some laughs at me with this, but the look of relief on her face as I pointed out a problem meant I got the last laugh.

"You caught that so fast!"

"Debugging is a skill, and you have to practice it to be any good. That one was free..." I trailed off leadingly and she smiled in return.

"Well let's talk deals then." She offered with a grin. "I like this hack. I heard about it down the grapevine. Would have bought it from Yoko if I could get her to agree to a deal." she said my Reboot Optics shard waved in front of my nose.

"I'll have a Short Circuit done sometime soon as well." I offered, but she didn't seem very interested which was annoying.

"I'll take a look at it when you finish it." She agreed without really getting into it. "So how long would it take you to clean up the code here?" She asked, sounding much more focused on her task.

I ignored the question for a moment instead checking over the code scrolling through it, checking functions and basically just figuring out exactly what it was trying to do.

It was… Fuck I recognized this hack.

"Cyberpsychosis." I muttered and I looked up to see her grinning in delight.

"You are quick!"

"What's that?" Maine asked, but Sasha just waved her hand at him to quiet him down.

"Well?"

"If you got the eddies. I can get this done right now." I told her, and it was true. The hack was basically finished. I mean, it was complicated. Definitely the most dense quickhack I had ever even seen, but it was still just a quickhack.

"Really?" She questioned after a moment like she didn't believe me.

"You pay the eddies, and I'll fix your work right here, right now." I told her, and her usual smiling face was gone as if she was dissecting me before the edge of her lips quirked up and she fell into her normal smirk.

"I want to see that." Instantly her eyes changed colors, and I got an alert for a hefty dump of eddies into my account.

Challenge accepted I guess.

I turned away from her, pulled my personal link and inserted it into the laptop, and then I went to work.

The noise of my chrome fingers on the keyboard was the only noise in the booth besides the bumping bass of the music playing in the club for a long while.

 

[Seras]

"It actually compiled." Sasha muttered in surprise as she watched her quick hack go from just a pile of noodle code to a working, functional hack.

I'll be honest and admit that I was tempted to copy it myself. Cyberpsychosis was a pretty nasty quickhack, but now that I've worked on it, I could just make my own that didn't have fucking kitten emojis throughout.

"So that mean she's legit?" Maine asked, and Sasha shook her head.

"No, she is more than legit." Sasha turned to me, none of the cute kitten persona on display. "Why have I only barely heard about you? If not for the laughing man hack. I wouldn't know who you are."

"I don't really care about rep much." I admit with a shrug. "I don't really do the normal netrunner stuff either. Yoko is like my only contact on the net."

"I've met a lot of fourteen year olds. Most of them are just script kiddies. Were you some secret corpo project or something?" She asked almost in disbelief, but I just snorted.

"My mother was a netrunner." I explained which didn't actually explain anything. The perfect answer. "And I like programming."

"What's so special?" Maine cut in. The big man had to my surprise mostly just hung back in the booth without a word. He had made a few calls from time to time, but had remained silent while I worked.

"Maine. I was planning on spending the next week working on that hack. She finished it in… Two hours?" She looked at me and then just started laughing. "Making me look bad kid!"

"You're fine. You did most of the work. Just needed some fresh eyes." I said with a shrug.

"Pfft. If your eyes were what did it, then please tell me what you chipped in, I want some."

"Kiroshi Mk.1" I said but it was mostly sass and she giggled in delight at my words.

"Huh. The kids got talent then?" Maine asked, and Sasha just rolled her eyes and shot him a look.

"She's a better programmer than I am Maine. As annoying as that is to admit." She added with a sigh, then she pouted at me. "Not fair!"

"Sorry not sorry." I gave her, but she had just opened up a chance for me, that I couldn't help but take.

I wasn't interested in working for Maine. But…

To save Sasha.

"You know. I am a freelancer for other things as well. Infiltration, netrunning, sniping. I do combat as well, but I think the big guy already has that covered for you guys." I explained, but I could instantly tell Maine wasn't interested.

Just giving me a pseudo grunt of acknowledgement. Even Sasha just looked at me like I was something cute.

There were times my age was pretty annoying.

I looked between the two and just shrugged. Stopping it from becoming an issue. "Well just something to keep in mind."

Then I rose up. All the deals had been done. Eddies had been transferred and Sasha now had a copy of my Reboot Optics, and I had done some work on her Cyberpsychosis hack.

Would it be enough to save her life? I don't know.

"I'll call you when I finish the Short Circuit." I told Sasha and before she could respond I had gathered up my stuff and walked off.

I couldn't change the way she saw me as just a kid. Even if she now saw me as a kid with serious programming talent.

If that was the only connection I had, then I would use it.

I just had to create something that would give her the advantages she needed.

—--

I went home and set to work. Hammering the code with all the focus I could to try and finish it. I had no idea when the Biotechnica gig would happen. I just had to be ready before then.

Life didn't let me bury myself into a hole though. An hour later the door to the apartment opened, and I glanced up to see Hiromi.

"Motoko!" She cheered out as she charged over and flopped onto the couch grabbing me in a hug as she snuggled in and whined from deep in her throat. "Uuuuugh. Motoko! I did something totally gonk brained… Don't be mad? I'm sorry. I shouldn't have-"

"Hiromi." I cut her off as she was sort of rambling into my side as she hugged me while laying flat. "What's gotten into you? Tell me what's up. It's okay."

"I accepted a gig… On your behalf?"

I blinked a little. "Well you are sort of my favorite fixer."

"No I mean…" She sighed, "I screwed up. Sorry Motoko. I got a little heated and I said I had someone that could do a gig and I didn't ask if you would before taking it. That's… You don't do that!" She berated herself.

I wanted to sigh. On one hand I had Sasha stuff that I was in the middle of, but on the other. Hiromi needed help. And maybe a rap on the top of her head.

"Okay." I said reaching down and pulling her from the hug until we were both sitting and I could see her face. "Tell me everything."

"I… I may have been bragging a bit… That I have this super cool solo that works with me? I mean I never gave names or anything, but like… Everyone talks about the bodyguards their family has, or the edgerunner they have on retainer to do their backstabbing stuff. So I mean… I got called out today. Everyone said I was making shit up."

"So you defended yourself and accepted a gig?"

"Right. The gig. So, Asuka Kimigari, she's in my class. Her 'rents aren't like managers, but agents. Not a huge deal, not everyone can be a Tanaka, right? But her parents apparently took out someone on a gig. Some nobody, but he was a nobody that had a brother who isn't." She sort of waved her arms a bit before collecting herself, and sending me a text.

Ah. She actually had put together a gig from the information she had.

Asuka Kimigari was a brunette. Almost a disappointment she wasn't a redhead with twintails, but we can't always get everything.

"Thomas Anderson, is dangerous. Like he's got a rep and everything, and he is reportedly going to kill Asuka as the opening act to his revenge against her parents." Hiromi explained and I was frowning.

The dossier on Anderson wasn't exactly thick. The guy was a solo, but his skillset included netrunning. So sort of like my own abilities.

He sounded hella dangerous. Unification War veteran. The guy worked with NUSA, and had a rep even back then. Hiromi didn't have a lot of direct details, what little she had sounded like word of mouth, but that was still not painting a pretty picture.

"Okay so you volunteered me for what exactly?"

"To resolve the issue… Whether that's killing the threat, or bodyguarding?" She said wincing and I frowned at her a little.

"You must have been really worked up, you're usually better at negotiating like that." And I could feel from the tightness on her shoulders that she was not pleased with herself.

"They were making fun of me. Of my parents, just… Of everything. You met my dad, but like… We aren't super high up in the food chain Motoko. The Mitsunashi name isn't really respected, or feared. My Dad and Mom do good work so they aren't really targeted by anyone, but that's all we can really say."

"So they were making fun of you, and you decided to prove you weren't lying when you said you knew a solo. Accepted the gig on my behalf, and that's where we are now?"

"Yeah."

"Well… I'm not angry or anything. I'll help out of course. Just next time let's ask first."

"I will! I'm sorry!" She said, hanging her head and still looking pretty upset.

"Okay so bodyguard or assassination. I don't know if I'm going to be able to find this guy. So probably just bodyguard."

"I, I can try to get more information on him. Contacts, and if he has any normal haunts!"

"That can help, but don't go crazy, this guy sounds like a pro so let's be super careful… Maybe we should call Ichi and Malcolm in too? Make it a full Section 9 gig?" My words seemed to have the right effect, just as I said it I could see the fire in Hiromi's eyes light up.

"I'll call them, we could use transport for Asuka, and Malcolm can help me investigate!"

"Sounds like fun." I tell her even as I itched to return to the laptop, to finish the quickhack. I shook it off. I would do what I could for Sasha but, while I wanted to save her because I felt for her.

She wasn't my choom like Hiromi.

"Alright. Let's get everyone together, we should have a meeting with Asuka as well."

"I'll call her!"

I nodded as I stood up to head into my room. Time to get suited up.

—--

When all of Section 9 gathered together in a high end garage under Asuka's apartment, I was surprised to see changes in my chooms.

Malcolm did pull up in his Caliburn which still made me giggle at how over the top it was, but he stepped out of the car with a Militech Saratoga strapped to his chest.

I quirked an eyebrow at him, which he caught.

"I decided to upgrade my firepower. I got some better armor too." He mentioned to my delight as he showed off the Section 9 jacket that I had originally bought for my chooms had been modified.

It was professionally done too. A few extra inserts into the tough material.

"He isn't the only one to get an upgrade." Ichi said huffing a little at Hiromi and I giving so much attention to Malcolm while ignoring him.

"Unlike Malcolm I didn't spend all my eddies on an overpriced ride." Ichi sniped at Malcolm with a smirk.

"It was a great deal!"

"So I did some extra work on my van." He said with a smirk. He walked over to the back of his van and opened the back door.

I couldn't help but whistle as I saw what he had installed into the rear of the van.

"You bought an HMG turret?"

"Well, bought is a strong word." He admitted and I looked at him in surprise as he flashed me a grin.

"I helped." Malcolm revealed as well both boys grinning.

"I've been doing some work for some guys I know. Transport mostly you know?" Ichi revealed despite his casual attitude he was definitely peacocking a bit.

"So we had this gig. They were saying someone was going to shoot at me, I told them no. They said they need me. I said not without some protection. They gave me a Saratoga…" He trailed off looking at Malcolm's new gun.

"Which was an excellent gift." Malcolm added, but Ichi just waved him off as he continued.

"So I said haha no. Eventually they offered me some real protection. They had this thing tucked away somewhere. No real use for it. They didn't have anything really capable of moving it without having to set it up before the gig. So they offered it to me. Malcolm and I bolted it down into the bed of my Van, and we took it to a shop. So I can open the rear doors from the cab now."

"You turned your moving van into a pop up tank?" Hiromi asked, and while I wanted to argue that it wasn't a tank…

But the MK.31 HMG was sorta a tank cannon. A small one, but it did fire explosive rounds…

"I love it." I admit shamelessly.

"Me too." Ichi said and we both shared a look of shared delight of HMG's.

"So now I can set up the van somewhere and have a surprise set up. I still need to armor up the cab a bit more though."

"That should really be a priority." I added but Ichi shrugged.

"I only have so many eddies… Speaking of, how is the pay for this?" Ichi asked, turning to Hiromi, who didn't look super happy.

"Nooot great." Hiromi revealed. "It'll pay the bills, but Asuka is paying for this out of pocket. Arasaka student or not, she isn't…"

"It'll be fine. We do a cheap gig now, and everyone will know you weren't joking when you tell them you know a solo, and next time you can charge a lot more." I spoke trying to calm the tension, and thankfully everyone shrugged.

I guess considering how well we had all been paid so far, it wasn't a major concern.

"Right! I'll take a pay cut on this one as well, since I sort of messed up." Hiromi added, which I was going to argue against, but Ichi and Malcolm both nodded looking pleased.

"Alright. Let's go see our client then."

"Sure c'mon." Hiromi offered, waving us all to follow as we piled into an elevator and she sent us up to the twentieth floor.

We stepped out of the elevator into a long hallway that was pretty nice. Not quite Hiromi's own apartment level, but probably on par with my own.

Hiromi led us, I could practically see the change come over my choom as she switched from the teenager to the girl corpo.

She walked up to a door and pressed the security pad at the door.

I heard it and shifted. Glaring at the ceiling where an HMG turret had just activated. It wasn't popping out, but it was there.

Not even giving it a chance I blitzed its defenses, skewering the ICE and forcing it to remain shut down.

"Asuka it's Hiromi, and the mercs I told you about."

"Hiromi? You're actually here? Alright hold on. The security is in full lockdown mode." The voice came from the security panel, and after a moment the door opened. The teenager looked fully corpo in a way even Hiromi never quite managed. Sure, she had some understated flash, EMP threading going over one eye that was a different color than the other. Although both were optics, so she was just showing off.

But I was most focused on the shotgun in her hand. Tacticians were good home defense weapons, but she really needed to stop sweeping the barrel over my chooms and I.

"Easy Asuka, it's just me. Can we come in?" Hiromi said smiling as she tried to calm down the girl who was obviously not doing well.

The girl looked over the three of us as she ignored Hiromi, only after she seemed to decide we weren't the man trying to kill her did she lower the gun. "Come in, quickly." She demanded and backed up. Hiromi didn't wait piling in, and the rest of us followed. Entering into an apartment entrance way that had an already active HMG turret.

I quickly shut that one down too. Which startled Asuka as the door had just closed and her HMG had closed up.

"Wha!"

"Easy, calm down. I just closed it down. I don't like that thing pointing at me."

"How did you even do that!?" She demanded coming up into my space.

Yeah the girl was freaking out, her entire body was shaking. So I did the only thing I could think of and gently reached out and left a hand on her arm. "It's okay. We are here to protect you."

My sincere words were instantly rebuffed with a scoff. "What the hell Hiromi. I thought you said you knew some mercs."

"I do. Motoko takes work from Wakako the fixer, and has contacts all over. She can definitely help." Hiromi offered with a shrug, but once again my young body fought against me, and Asuka didn't look relieved.

"Fucking hell Hiromi, what is this shit! You've been talking up so much shit, and you bring a bunch of kids in on this?" She looked like she was about to start yelling, but her movements hadn't kept track of everyone, and she bumped back into Ichi who gently grabbed her to keep her from jerking around.

"Hey, easy. We don't look like much, but we are here." Ichi offered, "Something is better than nothing right? Let us protect you."

I wanted to point out to Ichi that I had literally just said that, when suddenly the girl's back stiffened and she even flushed a little.

She scoffed again, but this time her shotgun was only being held loosely as she stepped slowly out of Ichi's hands. "Well at least I'll give you a shot… Hiromi, this better not be a joke though." She said turning from Ichi to look fully at Hiromi.

"Pfft. I've been telling you gonks, that I have an actual merc team!" Hiromi snarked, but seemed to take control of herself. "But we aren't here for that. Section 9 here for bodyguard duty. Let me introduce everyone. Malcolm, Ichi, and Motoko. Motoko is in charge. She's a solo, and knows what she is doing."

"She doesn't look like much." Asuka muttered under her breath, but I didn't take it personally. The girl was twitchy.

I guess knowing that a cyberpunk was after you for revenge would make any teenager a little jittery.

"Well she is. I'll be taking Malcolm to do some investigating. Hopefully we can find your threat through our contacts. Ichi and Motoko will be staying with you. Ichi is a driver, he has a van ready if you need to run for any reason. Motoko?"

"It'll be fine. I'll check out the security of the place, and maybe boost it a bit while I'm here… Is anyone from Arasaka looking into this? Other than your parents I mean?" I asked Asuka who just sort of sullenly looked at me before shrugging.

"My parents haven't told me much."

"Okay. I have a contact in Counter Intel, I'll see if she has anything. Hiromi?"

"Oh! That's right that V woman you told me about! Good job Motoko. I'll call Wakako and some others, see if anyone has something." She said mostly to Asuka who looked a little surprised at the big names being thrown around.

I moved away from the group, looking around the upscale apartment as I went, and made the call.

Gonna have to do something about those windows. One entire side of the apartment was glass floor to ceiling.

At least the place had some automated defenses, but HMG turrets were just asking to get someone friendly fragged if a netrunner was involved.

*Ringing.*

*Ringing.*

*Ringing.*

I started to glare as V very obviously wasn't answering, but finally after a minute the call went through.

*Kid. What do you want?* V didn't quite snap, but she wasn't sounding friendly either. Again I didn't take it personally. That was just how V was, besides she had picked up. If she didn't want to be my choom she would have just ignored the call, or blocked it.

*I've been hired to protect an Arasaka Academy Student. Asuka Kimigari. Apparently her parents are Arasaka grunts, killed someone's kid brother and now he is after their kid.*

*And I care, why?*

*Even if it didn't fall under your purview, this is a merc gunning for Arasaka personnel. You have any information on this guy? Thomas Anderson?*

The line went quiet for a minute before V just sighed into the line. *You know I can't just give you anything. I shouldn't even be talking to you.* V's tone was pretty firm, and I almost opened my mouth to pull the choom card, but that wasn't right.

V wasn't in a job where something like that would just be ignored. I would be hurting her for my own benefit. Not exactly something I would do.

*You're right. I'm just an outside agent on this. Unless of course a certain agent contracted me out to help handle this. Payment can be a private affair between us.* I trailed off, and the line remained quiet, before a single cut off scoffing laugh came through.

*I'll send you what I have, the Kimigari issue isn't my workload, but if you can stop him it'll make me look good. If you fuck up we never talked and you never got data from me.*

*Of course.*

The line went silent again and when V came back she came back with a beep of a text coming through at the same time.

*Kid. I looked through this shit. Anderson? He isn't some street punk with a gun. The guy is a pro. Don't do anything stupid and get yourself killed. Jack will be pissed with me if you die like that.*

*Thanks V. I'll keep you updated as well. If I get him you'll be the first to know.*

*Good. I'll be able to throw it in Carlsons face then.* Then because V too studied the art of Night City phone calls she just hung up on me.

 

[Seras]

I shook it off, as I turned to look out the window. My eyes hadn't been idle as I waited for V to get back to me. I had been scoping out entrances and weak points in the apartment.

But now I had some data to work on. Araska's Counter Intel file on the guy was a lot more dense than anything Hiromi had. I walked back into the other room, finding everyone still gathered together, Hiromi was on a call, while Ichi and Malcolm both tried to seem calm and confident around the still twitchy client.

I pulled a shard out of my neck and handed it to Hiromi, while pressing a finger to my lips for silence.

She didn't quite get it, but I didn't want to distract her too much as she was still on a call.

I walked around the room, almost pacing as I read the file.

Thomas Anderson's former NUSA career was highly redacted. Of course Arasaka had all that information. The guy was good. The sort of agent that thanks to his dual specialization as a Solo and Netrunner he was excellent at being thrown at a problem and letting him solve it.

He had left Militech after the unification war, but his military equipment, and trained skills put him on a level above the normal street thug.

He was no Morgan Blackhand, but he was certainly more than a Jackie Welles.

A cold blooded killer, and his little brother had been killed during an Arasaka operation. The worst part? Asuka's parents had been identified during the operation and so now the guy knew who to target.

V's information was really good. It even had a few descriptions of previous gigs the guy had done against Arasaka. His 'standard' procedure, as much as a wild merc had such things.

He liked to go for the kill with netrunning, while using guns and other weapons to put people into position to hack them.

But he also had a mix of NUSA chrome and training in close combat.

I sighed. This was going to be a mess.

I pulled away from the file and looked around.

If I was this guy, how would I catch my target?

Well I would probably just get a powered sniper rifle and figure out what floor and window is the right one, maybe hack in and use that too aim and just snipe them from a while other building.

That was thankfully unlikely. The apartment had big windows, but there weren't a lot of sniper posts you could use across the way.

Plus Thomas wasn't a trained sniper.

No more likely he would just rely on his netrunning. When you had a skeleton key it was a temptation to use it for every lock.

Something I had realized about myself as well.

So I put myself into his boots. What would I do? Come in through the window? He probably has access to an AV, it wouldn't be hard to know the exact windows and come busting in…

But no. That was the sort of shit a movie character would do.

Just like coming in through vents, that shit never works in real life.

So instead I looked towards the most obvious entrance. The front door. It wouldn't even slow a netrunner of his level down.

The defenses would probably be subverted if he had any talent. So I would have to do something about the HMG turrets…

I could shut them down completely, but that meant when he did show up he might actually realize there was a netrunner on the defense.

No.

If I was going to take this guy out there was only one skill I had that would do the job.

"Okay I have a plan." I called out to my chooms that were mostly trying to get the client on board.

Asuka still wasn't fully behind us protecting her, even if she was desperate. I of course just ignored that.

I was here to save her life, whether she wanted it or not. If I walked away and she died then people might think I just outright failed at protecting a client, and that was just not going to happen.

My team perked up, even if Asuka looked sullen.

"Hiromi, go ahead and take Malcolm and get on with the investigation. If we can find him first, then that solves a lot of problems. Ichi you are going to stick to Asuka like glue. As far as our assassin knows I want him to think you are just a useless boyfriend or something. If anything happens you grab her and get out, get to the van and go." I informed everyone and of course Asuka asked the question that was on everyone's mind.

"And what are you going to be doing?"

"Preparing." I answered with a smile as I headed out of the living room. I needed to hit all the electronics that had eyes in the apartment, to make sure if Thomas started peeping I would know.

I hadn't left behind a single hint at my existence on the apartment's security system, but just hacking into the system I had left a little Daemon behind.

One that would do one specific thing if it detected anyone else trying to access the system. It wouldn't stop the hack, no. It would just let me know that something was going on.

Then. I disappeared, hiding in a closet near the front door. The one advantage I had on this guy was stealth.

Nin-nin.

—--

Asuka Kimigari

"Do you really think you and your chooms can beat an NUSA solo? He's not just a cyberpunk, he has actual training! My parents are worried about taking this guy on!"

"I'm not really a solo either, but I trust Motoko. She says she can handle it, then she can." The boy Ichi offered seemingly while not relaxed, rather calm over all.

"You have to be kidding me." Asuka moaned into her hands as she bent over. They were currently hanging out in her fathers office. One of the rooms that didn't have an HMG looking over it. Apparently the girl was absolutely sure the assassin would be able to take them over.

What had her parents paid so much money for if the turrets could just be controlled like this!?

She should have known it was a terrible idea. They were Militech turrets after all. The assassin probably has backdoor passwords right into them!

"Hey, I… I was about to say try and relax but that's dumb. I get how crazy this all seems."

"You're right it is dumb." She snapped, but sighed, at least Hiromi was gone, leaving the cute merc behind. Now if only this wasn't a life or death situation, and instead she was hanging out at some high end club or something. The image of the pair of boy mercs serving her hand and foot wasn't a bad thought to idle on for a minute.

Until she remembered the serious purple hair girl was still in the apartment…

Somewhere.

She hadn't seen her in a while, but Ichinose had gotten messages from her from time to time. Checking in, telling them to go somewhere else in the apartment. It's why she was forced to sit here on the couch in her fathers office instead of out in the living room watching TV or something.

"So… Is it a landmine to ask why your parents aren't like… Doing something?" The boy asked, and Asuka glared, his question heavily damaged his cute levels.

"They are! But both of my parents are on a job right now. They aren't even in the city. It's why I'm here hiding in the apartment. They tried to get a location in Arasaka tower to secure me until they got back, but were denied." She said a little pissed. Of course their manager didn't want a kid hanging around even if the situation was this bad.

Fucker.

"Sorry." He spoke after a few moments, sounding contrite.

"It's fine. Arasaka bullshit is something I'm used to."

"At least you have Hiromi, she pulled us in to help."

"Yeah." Asuka muttered not willing to get into it with one of Hiromi's chooms. They weren't close. Hiromi had only jumped at an opportunity and Asuka had been too desperate to refuse.

Now she was stuck with a group of teenage mercs trying to save her against an actual Militech assassin.

Great.

And she wasn't even able to watch the TV Or something because her parents had thought it was a good idea to put an HMG turret next to the entertainment system.

And the worst part? Asuka still wasn't sure that the assassin would go after her. Or go after her today.

Sure the guy wanted revenge. Sure her parents had gotten a message from him this morning. But like…

He could just wait a month and then bomb her on her way to school or something. This was so dumb!

"He probably isn't even coming." She muttered aloud.

"Maybe not, but if he is, we are trying to keep you safe." Ichinose offered with a smile.

Okay fine. He could have a few cute points back.

She just had the thought when it happened. Ichinose jerked in the seat, and instantly moved to grab her.

"Quiet!" He hissed before she could even start snapping at him for grabbing her, but her throat went dry as she realized that it was time.

His golden eyes told her what had happened.

She was pulled from the couch, Ichinose tugging her hurriedly as he drew his pistol and ran her over to the door.

Then they went silent.

"Wha-"

"Shh. Just wait." He whispered as quietly as he could, his eyes still gold.

She shook off his hand for a moment and grabbed her own gun. The shotgun was one her dad had taught her to use in case of any home attack.

Ichinose nodded but continued resting against the door, looking at it, like he was waiting for a que.

The sudden sound of gunshots had him throw open the door. His eyes she had noticed were no longer golden as he grabbed her and they both started running.

There, in front of her, in the living room stood the man that had sworn to murder her, and leave her destroyed body out for her parents to find.

But what was shocking was that he was being pushed back.

The purple haired Solo. The merc was fighting him like a mad woman.

She had a knife in one hand struggling to go for his throat, while her other hand held back his own wrist where a big pistol was inching towards her head. Inches from each of their deaths.

Both of them were struggling on the couch. The girl must have hit him just as he was walking in front of it, and he had fallen over onto it.

Asuka recognized her chance.

"Ichi-" She started, raising up her shotgun. Surely she would just nick the girl a little, for a chance to kill-

She instantly jumped. Ichinose jumped onto her and pushed her to the ground, a moment later shot after shot echoed out and stitched holes across the wall above her.

"Go!" Motoko, the girl yelled, and Ichinose didn't hesitate.Grabbing her and hauling her up running for the front door and safety.

—--

The first time I saw Thomas Anderson I almost wanted to laugh. Long black trench coat, a pair of dark glasses? He looked like someone out of the Matrix.

I crept out of the closet after hearing him enter the apartment, the door not even slowing him, and then walking past the closet.

As I stepped out my plan to shoot him in the back fell apart.

He had somehow noticed as I left the closet after he walked past. I hadn't made a sound. Not a one. The hinges of the door had been oiled and the security system couldn't see me.

Yet he did. A scanner system? Eyes in the back of his head? Audio enhancer? What was it!?

As I raised my Burya he had turned.

We had both fired, both of us ducking out of the way. My Burya Vs. His Liberty. Both big guns, although mine was definitely the bigger. We ducked and rolled, bullets, flying, but the fact was I only had four rounds. The moment I fired my last one, he shifted from cover to leaping at me.

I met him mid air, bouncing off the wall of the apartment to slam into him, the act saved my life as his Liberty was trying to get a shot.

We slammed into the couch in the living room. I was on top of him, but despite my strength, I was still just a teenager, and he was a borg.

My chrome hand gripped his wrist, finding flesh, I dug in, but under his flesh was reinforced bone. I couldn't break his wrist.

I went for my knife quickly, swiping it out of the sheath with my other hand going for his neck, but that was stopped flat as he caught my wrist, only a small cut for his trouble, and then we heard it.

"Ichi-"

I barely managed to jerk his wrist as her bodily stood up with me hanging off him, his pistol aimed at Asuka and pulling the trigger.

His rounds skittered up the walls as I forced his hand up.

"Go!" I yelped out, already feeling outmatched as the borg didn't hesitate in trying to line up another shot.

He had me by one arm, and I had him by the other but it was obvious he was more focused on Asuka than he was me. Cyberpsychosis?

Or just honest hatred?

I raised up my right leg, braced my left against his knee probably to his confusion and kicked his wrist just as I let go. My legs were much stronger than my arms.

His shot went wildly off as Ichi urged Asuka on to get out while they could.

The second I kicked, I used my newly freed hand to quickdraw my Lexington.

I aimed it at his head and fired, but he had noticed and the hand holding my knife surged forward knocking my left arm into my right sending a skittering of bullets across the room and shattering the large windows along the apartment.

It had also knocked my Lexington out of my hand as he bashed my arm into the couch, breaking the back of the furniture, and I felt something in my shoulder decide that was it.

I pushed away the pain.

Asuka was out of the apartment, and his glasses were not fully focused on me.

Okay you matrix cosplaying fuck, lets go.

He charged, not even wasting time finding a weapon and just throwing out a combo of punches, that I was desperately backpedaling to dodge.

He was fast. Did he have a Keren? A Sandy? Or just a fuck ton of reflex tuners?

I blocked a punch, pushed it away, kicked out, only to be blocked by his own leg, each of us blurring into a quick flurry of kicks, but he was stronger, faster, and more skilled. And taller.

He shifted, almost kneeling down, trapping my leg with his own.

Which was bad. He punched and punched, and all I could do was weather the blows as he pummeled me. Instantly I felt my right shoulder start failing. Whatever was broken was making it really hard to hold out against his punches.

So I pulled out my trump card.

The pummeling immediately stopped as he heard the whine of machinery from behind him.

He might have taken over the security system, but I had hours to prepare this place for an angry netrunning solo.

The HMG turret near the security system? I had pulled it completely from the security system. Literally pulled the wires physically and deleted the information in the security system about it.

He probably could have noticed it, if I hadn't been fighting him since he walked in.

The HMG turret had a single target.

My leg was freed and he dodged away, his eyes already focused on the turret, trying to shut it off.

Which is why I instantly attacked with my strongest hack. Reboot Optics slammed into him, and then he was fighting a two front war.

He was good.

He was really really good.

His speed on the net was a blur, so fast I could barely keep up with it, as his ICE fended me off, almost like I was trying to punch him while he just poked me with a rapier from afar.

He managed to flatten my breach, and get the turret to shut off.

I was breathless as we both stood staring at each other.

I spit the blood flowing out of my nose as he reached up and adjusted his trenchcoat.

So this is what it was like fighting a real professional without Jun to back me up.

"Not bad kid."

"Not bad old man." I agreed.

Then we moved, his right arm opening up into a Mantis blade, as he charged, and I pulled out a grenade and tossed it into his face. I leapt, back, aiming for cover. The entertainment system was one of the inset ones like we had. It was the best cover in the apartment I could reach.

He didn't care, his other hand burst out and palm striked the grenade away from it, sending it flying right out the now broken window.

Fuck.

I rolled as I aborted my dive into the inlet and instead faced him.

I was down to just my fists, and he had already proven he was my superior there.

"Can't let you kill her." I spoke, deciding that diplomacy might be my only chance.

He just shook his head.

"The girl is dead, she just doesn't know it yet. So are her parents."

"She's just a kid. She didn't do anything to you." I argued but he didn't even register it.

"It's a shame, you have some real talent for a kid." He stated and then the battle resumed.

He charged me, I jumped, leaping over the couches in the apartment and trying to rush for the door, but as I reached the front entrance I instantly turned around and leapt back.

The deafening sound of the HMG turret opening fire blowing holes in the walls of the apartment, but missing me.

I rolled painfully on my right arm, and got up just in time for Thomas to reach me.

There was no escaping him…

At least not without taking something.

But unlike a normal gonk teenager, I wasn't afraid of a little stabbing between friends.

He was thrusting his Mantis blade. Trying to skewer me down.

Using my right arm I reached out and clamped onto the innards of his Mantis blade. Even with my busted shoulder I pulled him in.

Uncaring that he had pushed his blade into my chest. No, I dug him in even deeper, bringing his entire body right into range.

Then I rabbit punched him in the throat with everything I had in my left arm.

He gagged, flinching back, but I went with him as I was clamped onto the innards of his arm.

I went to punch again, but he deflected the punch with his free arm and spun me.

I screamed.

I couldn't help it. The feel of the blade sliding a bit sideways into me was excruciating.

It weakened my grip, unable to hold the blade down, and he ripped it back out. In a blur he spun and kicked.

I couldn't dodge, couldn't block, taking the size twelve boot straight to the stomach as he launched me away, and then the apartment disappeared.

He had kicked me out of the window. Out into the open sky of Night City.

 

[Seras]

*Ringing.*

*Ringing.*

*Ringing.*

*Ringing.*

I jerked awake, at the noise, confused and in quite a bit of pain. Then I realized what was going on.

I blinked away the blood from my optics and looked around. I remembered…

Falling. I had fallen until I managed to grab at a pipe and break my fall. I remember holding onto it with all my grip sliding downward trying to slow down. A painful feeling and then smashing into something…

I was laying bent over a sign I realized. An electronic sign board. Quite thoroughly smashed as I was wrapped around it. Arms hanging loosely down the side, blood dripping down my chrome fingers falling out into the long drop below. My right arm still had the piece of pipe clutched in my hand. My fingers literally bent into the old pipe.

I coughed and more than a little blood came out.

Not a good sign.

I moved my arm and was able to get to the pouch on my other shoulder with a little fumbling.

The MaxDoc pressed into my mouth and suddenly I went from pretty weak to feeling at least kinda alive.

Considering I was stable and was going to need a few minutes, I decided to go ahead and just answer the damn ringing in my head.

*Yeah?*

*Oh thank God! Motoko! I got Asuka out, did you flatline the guy? I've been calling you for like ten minutes.*

*He kinda kicked my ass. Don't come back, don't know where he is right now. I'm gonna… Well I think I'm gonna drag my ass to Viks."

*Shit… Are you?*

*I got a little stabbed, and he threw me out a window. I'll live.* I slowly inched up my head from where it had been resting against the broken advertisement.

Soulhiker energy drinks huh? Sounded absolutely disgusting, but maybe I'll buy one in thanks.

*What do we do?*

*Call Hiromi. Set up a safe house for our client or something. I'm gonna need a visit to Viks. Ichi, You got this?* I asked him because this was definitely a step up from our normal work situation.

*Well if he kicked your ass, I don't think I'll be able to stop him.*

*Don't need to stop him Ichi, just avoid him. Go to ground, make sure she doesn't make calls and stuff. I trust you… I need to hang up. Gonna need to figure out a way down.*

The line was silent for a moment as I started grunting and shifting myself so I wasn't just sprawled over a metal sign.

Was my head bleeding?

Ah it had been. Looks like the MaxDoc fixed that up, but I was still covered in blood.

*Don't die Motoko, I'll keep Asuka safe.*

*I'll be fine, I just need some time. Drive safe.*

I rose up a bit and felt the advertisement shift under me.

Fuck.

I spotted a good enough spot just below. An apartment had a small Balcony. I surged upwards, pushing myself off full strength and just managed to leap for it as the sign finally broke after the Motoko missile had damaged it.

I landed roughly, coughing and sputtering but I didn't smash my head so it was just pain, and pain would pass. I reached down and found another MaxDoc and huffed that down as well.

I looked over and blinked.

A kid blinked back probably wondering what this bloody teenager was doing landing on his balcony. There was a kid just inside the apartment, one hand had a toy gun in his hand, and a cyber goggles on his head. He must have been playing some game.

I smiled and waved.

He waved back.

Perfect.

—--

I didn't see Thomas that fucker in the elevator as I took it down. Little Johnthan was nice enough to let me in, so I didn't have to jump down the entire apartment block.

Which was good, because I was full of ow.

I flopped into the Quadra and started driving out of the area. I would meet up with the others later, but first, I really did need to get to Vik. My right arm had basically stopped working, which was kinda a bad sign.

It hung limply no matter what I did. Something was definitely broken, and I don't think it was just my bones.

*Ringing.*

*Ringing.*

I sighed, as I got another call. This time I was coherent enough to check the caller ID.

*Hey Hiromi.*

*Motoko! Are you okay!? I talked to Ichi and he said you got hurt!*

*Yeah I've been better. This guy Thomas Anderson? He's good Hiromi. Like really good. I'm glad Ichi managed to get Asuka away cause he took me apart.*

*You're okay though?*

*Beaten, but already on my way to Viks. No idea how long it'll take to put me back on my feet though Hiromi. So if you guys continue this gig? You need to hide. Go to ground completely. Don't call anyone and tell them where you are, and hell just stop calling people entirely. Go hide somewhere. The man is a netrunner.*

I turned into a spot in front of MIsty's with a sigh.

*I just pulled up to Viks. Hiromi. Stay safe, and call if you think he is coming.*

*We'll… I'll make sure everyone stays safe Motoko. I promise.* Hiromi sounded pretty upset, but for once I just wasn't in any state to try and comfort her.

I pulled myself with a grunt out of the Quadra and walked around and then over to Misty's ignoring the looks I was getting as I limped down.

I wasn't bleeding anymore after all. Everything just hurt.

"Welcome to Misty's Eso- Motoko!?"

"Hey Misty… Mind letting Vik know, I need some help?" I called not even feeling up to raising a hand to wave at the woman.

A few moments later I was attacked as she grabbed me and started hauling me out the back to Viks.

Yeah that was good. I could use some help.

—--

"You did some real damage to yourself kid."
"Don't I know it." I reminded Vik as he pulled away from scanning me down.

"Your arms connection port disengaged from the bone. Tore the nerves and muscle right out."

"It was already broken, and I needed to stop my fall." I almost shrugged but didn't because my shoulder was currently…

Vik had taken my entire arm off to check the shoulder port.

"This is gonna take some real work kid. If not for your… Healing." He muttered making sure to whisper the last part. "I would say you are looking at some real recovery time."

"Good thing I have it, and I have you then Vik." I offered with a weak smile. I wasn't really feeling perky at the moment.

"Yeah kid. You got me. I can fix this all up for you, but you have to be more careful. Those arms of yours might be chrome, but there is only muscle and bone between them."

"For now." I muttered darkly. He caught my eye as his eyebrow quirked up and I felt myself going more grim. "But that needs to change. Vik. I need some chrome."

"Never a good idea to chip something while injured kid. Especially something like this."

I scowled, because he was right. But also I didn't mean right this second.

"I know. I'm still on a gig right now! I need to be back on my feet soon. Can you source some stuff for me? Some good stuff."

"Yeah kid. Let's put you back together, and you can tell me what you want. I'll start gathering it up for you."

"Vik… Thanks."

—--

I took an eight hour sleep on Viks chair and woke up feeling much better. As I had said none of my chooms had contacted me, which was good. I headed out after giving Vik a big hug for putting me back together, and then went back to Asuka's apartment.

When I got there, I very carefully let myself in, only after making sure I could hack back into the security network.

Like I expected, the moment I was in, I found a Daemon had been left behind.

Asuka or her parents would have had a nasty surprise when they came home only for their own security system to activate to kill them.

It took me a few minutes to clear it out and reset everything to how it should be and I walked inside.

Instantly I sighed in relief that my stuff was still laying around. Thomas had picked up his own gear, but left my stuff behind. No looting? Kinda disappointed to by honest. But it made my life a lot easier.

Burya and Lexington holstered, I was digging around trying to find my knife. It had been knocked out of my grip along with my Burya, but it had gone flying as it was a lot lighter.

Then I heard it.

An alert from the security system.

I leapt up and found some cover behind the broken couch. Burya drawn and ready. Was Thomas back? If he was, I doubt I was ready, but I would give him another fight!

I instantly lowered my weapon when I saw who it was. A woman in Araska gear stepping in, her Nowaki checking every corner as she entered.

I lowered myself down, so I wouldn't be easy to shoot and called out.

"Friendly! Don-"

I flinched as a half dozen rounds blurred through the air above me.

"Don't shoot! I'm a friendly!" I yelled out then gave it a minute, when no more rounds fired I slowly raised both hands up above the couch so she could see them.

"Identify yourself!"

"Motoko Kusnagi! I'm a merc hired by your daughter Asuka."

"Where is she! Where is Thomas! What did he do?" She demanded and I was rushed as she came around the couch and instantly attacked, slamming me into the ground Rifle in my face.

"We got her out when he attacked the apartment. I don't know where Thomas is. He threw me out the window about nine hours ago." I said pointing at the still broken window.

This close to the woman, I could make out a slight resemblance to Asuka. Funnily enough they both used the same Arasaka optics, but was what kind of cute was the fact they had both chosen the same Pinkish color.

Her face was glaring down at me though, so I ignored the eye color to focus on the woman. Her Arasaka armor showed she was here for a fucking war…

I could use that.

"Where is my daughter!"

"My team is currently with Asuka, I don't know exactly where, we split up when I was hurt, and I didn't want them telling anyone where she is over unsecured comms while running from a netrunner. Ya?"

"If this is some fucking scheme from Thomas. I promise I'll put a bullet in you."

"I don't work for that asshole. He stabbed me and kicked me out the fucking window. I want him dead." I ground out before sighing. "We were waiting for you or your husband to get back. We can meet up with Asuka and my team, and come up with a plan to kill that fuck."

"I don't need some teenager. Tell me where my daughter is, and get lost."

"The only reason your daughter is still alive is because of my team." I pointed out, and then reached up and slowly pushed the rifle out of my face so I could sit up. The woman backed up tactically, never fully removing the barrel from me.

I stood up and wiped myself down a little. "Let me send a text to my team. Let them know you are back. Okay?"
"Get on with it."

I nodded and did just said, sending Hiromi a picture as well.

*Motoko: The mother showed up, she's pissed. Don't tell me where you are, but get ready to move for meetup.*

*Hiromi: Finally. Been fighting with Asuka for the last few hours to get her not to make any calls. I'll move her to a secure location and call you.*

"Alright. My team is moving her from where we stashed her. She'll let us know once she is somewhere we can meet up."

"Just tell me where she is." Asuka's mother growled and I shook my head.

"I don't know. I'll get a call soon with where she is." The answer did not seem to satisfy the woman but she slowly not quite lowered the weapon, but at least stopped looking like she was going to kill me.

Then she started side walking around the apartment, checking locations while keeping an eye on me. Closets, and cabinets and things.

"What are you doing?"

There was no way someone could be hiding in the cabinet she had just checked, so she wasn't just looking for people.

"Thomas sent a message about an hour ago. That he had left a surprise at our apartment."

I blinked, tucking that away. "You expected to see Asuka-"

"Unless this is a trap." She said, looking to me and I just raised my hands and shook my head. "Then something… He did something. I'm sure of it."

"Oh. Probably the trap he left in your security system." I told her bluntly, regaining her full attention.

"What?"

"When I got here, I checked the security system before entering, the guy is a netrunner after all. He had the turrets set to kill any of your family that showed up. I fixed that before entering."

She blinked, for the first time actually showing an emotion besides anger.

—--

When I got the call back from Hiromi about where she was, I couldn't help but laugh at where she had fled to.

Driving across town with a very twitchy Arasaka agent in my car wasn't the most comfortable thing, but walking into Arasaka tower was even more so.

It took just a moment for Asuka's mother to get access, but they stopped me cold as I had weapons on me.

Thankfully it didn't matter as my team was right there with Asuka.

Not even our assassin would walk into Arasaka tower to try and finish his kill.

"Mom!" Asuka called out and ran over ignoring the annoyed looks from the security guards on duty, but mother and daughter didn't care, and I relaxed as well. I had felt like the woman had a gun to my head the whole time we had waited for Hiromi to reach back out.

I stopped trying to get through security, not that they were going to let me in. Hiromi was chatting with Asuka, probably discussing the final payments and stuff. I went ahead and sent an update message to V.

*Motoko: Still alive. Failed to kill Thomas, he was good. Scary good. Nearly got me, I'm okay though. Asuka is alive and fine, and meeting up with her mom in the lobby of the Arasaka building. Sorry I couldn't kill him to hype you up. Chat with you later.*

By the time I was done composing the message, Hiromi and my team came to me instead.

"Motoko! You're okay!" Hiromi called out. As my chooms all surrounded me and checked me out.

"I'm alright. Vik took good care of me." I reminded them, thankfully no one had seen how bad I was beaten up.

Of course that didn't stop Hiromi from poking and prodding to check.

"How's our client?" I asked mostly to distract her, seeing the teenager hugging her mother tightly was nice, not something you see in Night City much.

"Nervous, but probably feeling a lot safer now." Ichi said and I watched his shoulders slump. "You had us worried there boss. Try not to pull something like that again, yeah? Not knowing if you had died, and I just ran off?"

"The gig was to protect the client… But yeah…" I muttered. I couldn't help but try to keep everyone else out of trouble while I fought, but maybe having Ichi bring his gun to bear. Have Asuka help… Maybe we would have won instead of merely keeping the gig going.

I could have died. I took a deep breath and let it out. I had a lot of ways to keep myself alive. A lot of tricks and things with the System, but I really needed to stop taking on risks.

Thomas Anderson was out of my league. Going solo against a borg, like him? I should have known that was dumb.

Sure, if my stealth had worked I could have taken him out, but it hadn't because of course a solo like that would have some ways to keep an eye on the area around him. That was the point. The difference between street thugs and professionals. Talent, skills, equipment.

"I'm glad you got her out of there Ichi, but yeah. I probably could have used your help." I admitted and he looked both unhappy with the admittance, and pleased.

"Next time then." He decided, and I did more than just agree.

"Next time… Next time we will be more ready. If we are going to take gigs like this we need more tools than what we have brought with us so far. It's time to start upgrading." I told my team and everyone looked interested in my words.

"Hey! Hiromi. Ichinose… Umm, Motoko, Right?" Asuka called out as she stood on the other side of the security area as she called out.

"Asuka." Hiromi responded, turning fully to the girl and giving her a look.

"Hiromi… Thanks. That cyberpunk would have definitely flatlined me. So like, thanks. I owe you my life, and stuff." She said awkwardly.

"The and stuff, is what we are more interested in Asuka. The contract was until your parents got back." Hiromi said instantly, strictly professional. Aww Hiromi, Asuka was being all heartfelt. At least smile and give her a hug.

"Right. Yeah, here." She offered and I could see both girls' eyes going blue as Hiromi was transferred credits.

"Asuka. I'm glad you're okay." Hiromi offered, sounding honest. Now you are nice? Hiromi! "Don't forget Section 9 for any future bodyguard, or information gathering requirements." Hiromi literally snuck in a slogan as well.

I snorted, and face palmed, unable to resist. That's our corpo alright.

With that the gig was over. Asuka hurried back to her mother that brought her deeper into the tower, and Section 9 walked out of the front of Araska tower.

"Glad we are out of there." I muttered.

"Yeah, tell me about it. Gives me the creeps." Ichi and Malcolm both comment, earning a huff from Hiromi.

"There is nothing wrong with Arasaka tower."

"Stepping into the front makes me feel like I'm about to charge into the tower to try and blow it up or something." I muttered being honest with my chooms.

"What?"

"That's kinda cool."

"YOU CAN'T!" Hiromi squawked and leapt at me trying to throttle me.

"Okay okay. It's just how it makes me feel. Not something I plan on doing!"

"You better not!"

With Hiromi's little overreaction I stilled and looked to my chooms. "So… After gig party?"

"Yeah!" Malcolm called out instantly, nearly jumping into the air. "This gig sucked, let's party!"

"That's because all you did was follow Hiromi around. Motoko and I are the ones that actually faced the borg."

"No way, I'm glad I didn't face this super borg! He took out Motoko!" Malcolm said pointing to me and I just huffed.

I was still irritated that I had been beaten so easily.

Sure I wasn't like Maine, all seven and a half feet of chrome and death, but I had thought I could at least hold my own, but Thomas Anderson had taken me apart.

I would need to grind some more. I needed better equipment, better stats, and better chrome.

"What was it again?" I muttered as I threw my arms behind my head following my chooms as we all sauntered down the sidewalk to our cars. "High time I chrome the fuck up?"

 

[Seras]

We hadn't actually gone to a bar this time. Instead all of us had crashed into my apartment, and we had just brought home a ton of food, having hit a few different restaurants in the area.

The entertainment system was set to some terrible movies and we all just ate and drank ourselves sick while laughing and sometimes throwing shit at the TV.

Sorry Jun, I'll clean that up after I promise.

We had all gotten comfortable, and I had started working on Short Circuit again while we all vegged out and ragged on the terrible movie. Some action flick about a guy on a train or something?

I wasn't really paying attention because it was really just that bad.

"Hey, bored?" Ichi asked from beside me. He had been sipping at a Broseph of all things.

"Not really, this is actually pretty fun, I just want to get this program done asap. I know this netrunner, and she is going on a crazy gig. I'm worried she is going to end up over her head, so I want to make sure I give her something to help keep her alive."

"Huh. I guess that is a worry isn't it." He muttered, and the way he spoke. I paused the programming to look at him.

"Ichi?"

"It's kinda stupid… But now that I've said that you aren't going to let it go anyways. I thought you died there for a while, fighting that Cyberpunk. I mean… When you didn't pick up."

"Yeah… Sorry for not responding right away I-"
"You don't have to apologize Motoko, you were fighting for your life… He actually beat you." He said with a hint of frustration in his tone.

"I'll kill him next time. Gonna get some more chrome soon from Vik and we won't be able to overpower me as easily." I assured him. Still a little salty at the whole getting kicked out the window thing.

I hadn't and wasn't going to consider how close to dying I had come. If I hadn't managed to grab that pipe, I would have been a Motoko splatter on the ground.

"It just… I wish I could have helped. I mean, yeah I'm not like Jun or anything. Not a front liner, but I should have been able to do something."

"Ichi, that guy was a pro. Like the sort of guy that kills high level people for a living. Don't be stressed at not being at the same level. I'm not at the same level." I reminded him.

"Yeah." He agreed with a small snort, showing that it was a bitter laugh.

"Well if you want to do more Ichi, then… Let's get you set up to do more. You already upgraded your van for better defense. We should all probably get better armor and gear." I said, calling out over the group. Malcolm looked up from his chinese food Lo Mein hanging from his mouth as he perked up.

"Hmm. We can definitely figure out a budget and start doing some upgrades." Hiromi offered.

I looked to Ichi and he slowly just shook his head, as his face shifted into a smile. "Alright. You won. I'll stop moping. Better armor and weapons will help. What else could we do?"

"Honestly? We really need a few other things. I was thinking… Some trackers, and mobile cameras? If we are going to make this Section 9 thing work we need more tools." I offered and I could see Hiromi's eyes get sharp as she considered it.

"It would open up a lot of gigs we could do. Those kinds of tools are expensive though."

"I was actually thinking of trying to make some myself. I've been working on a few things already… Did I show you guys my silencer I made? I know I showed Hiromi." I said, pulling free my Lexingtons silencer to show it off.

"Preem!" Malcolm called out climbing over the table, knocking over a few cartons of food as he reached for it. I just rolled my eyes and let him have it.

"I want a silencer!"

"I'll make you one. But you need to actually get an iron worthy of it. Your Unity is kinda…" I trailed off as I realized.

My chooms really did have shitty gear.

Sure Malcolm and Ichi both had some shotguns and other weapons they would bring along from time to time, but like…

That was baby shit.

We needed real iron especially for my chooms.

"We are going to get some assault rifles, and body armor for all of you." I decided right then.

"Expensive." Hiromi reminded me, but I just scoffed.

"Hiromi. Those are free. We just need to find someone who already has them." I reminded her back and that caused her bright optics to go nice and wide as I reminded her we were loot goblins.

"Heh! Yeah! We need a new gig, clear out some gonks and steal everything!" Malcolm called out cheerfully waving my silencer around in the air.

"Be careful with that!"

"I am!" He said but eventually huffed and handed it back.

"So new gear huh?" Ichi asked, and I nodded.

"We are still young. We should keep working on improving! Skills, gear! We need to keep moving forward so we can be safe doing more and more!" I called out fist raised and a moment later Malcolm joined me arm up in the air while Ichi and Hiromi looked on as if wondering why they were chooms with us.

Of course I reached out and grabbed Ichi's arm to force his arm up as well, and Malcolm catching on quickly did the same for Hiromi.

"Section 9!" I called out happy. The others had diminished levels of engagement, but that's fine!

"Oh!" Hiromi jerked back suddenly as she reached into her jacket and started fumbling around, pulling at an inner pocket until she pulled out what looked like a deck of playing cards at first, but as she flashed them to the rest of us I understood.

"Oh! You made more business cards!"

"I did! I finished the design during business engagement and advertising class!" She said looking happy. As she tore a chunk off the deck and handed them to each of us.

I looked it over and whistled. They weren't made of paper or something, but were thin plastic, indented in them was a silver filigree, but the letters were printed.

Section 9. Investigation. Protection. Bounty Hunting.

And of course a phone number, but also an email, which was obviously one Hiromi made.

"That's so cool!" I whispered, flashing the card in the light letting the silver letters flash in the light.

"Nova Hiromi." Ichi said as he nudged her shoulder and I could see the corpo girl preen under the attention.

—--

"Vik."

"Motoko, hey kid."

"It's time for me to chrome the fuck up." I said, deepening my voice to sound all sinister and then I smiled brightly. "I'm so excited."

Vik just looked at me for a moment before chuckling and shaking his head. "Is that from some show?"

"Yes, but also no." I answered, because explaining what Edgerunners was isn't something I was going to do. "You have it?"

"Yeah. I found what you wanted. You sure about this kid? You wanted to take it slow, but this is a big change."

"I am. Not just because that Edgerunner, Cyberpunk, trenchcoat wearing gonk beat the shit out of me even!" I explained as I settled into the chair. I tapped my shoulders. "I've had my shoulders stretched out, or dislocated a few times now, and it's getting old."

"Yeah, This will definitely fix that." Vik agreed and then he wheeled it up.

It would look pretty sinister if not for where I was. A plastic bag with metal bones. Human bones, rested on the table.

"Titanium Bones, MoorE Tech make. I had these whipped up using your measurements. You sure kid? This kind of stuff will definitely ruin your natural growth."

"I'm already asian Vik, probably only got a couple inches left in me anyways… Besides, I have my special healing. I'm not sure what the combination of the two will be like. And I have the best ripper in Night City watching over me in case I need to be let out a bit."

My absolute buttering up of Vik only partially worked as the older man scoffed but was still smiling at me, as he rolled over.

"Well I'll do what I can to keep you healthy of course, but I'm not a miracle worker."

Which was a lie and the big smile I was shooting at him, was my answer to that.

"Alright kid, lose the leotard, put this on, now lay back. Now I told you this is going to be a while."

"I know. I'm all yours doc." I assured him as I shucked out of my clothes and threw on the little almost paper like gown he handed to me. Vik even did the cute turn around not to look thing. Adorable.

Once I was 'clothed' and settled in he turned back around.

"Alright." He grumbled, as he hooked a few cords into my neuralports, and then hooked a few IV's into my body. "Let's disconnect these arms of yours. I'm going to prompt your cyberware for the disconnect." He said and a moment later I got a notification asking if I wanted to release the connections to my chrome arms.

I accepted, and a sense of coolness went up from my fingers to my shoulders as the nerves disengaged and then there was a quiet noise as the locking system turned off.

Vik pulled away with my arm, and then went and did the same thing for the other.

"Alright kid, that's everything. Sleepy time Motoko. Just relax, I'll take care of the rest."

"Course you will doc." I agreed, as my eyes grew heavy.

—--

I came too groggily. Blinking my eyes slowly as everything kind of blurred. I honestly didn't feel too good. I was face down now, my face in a hole in the ripper chair and I felt just numb.

"Vaaa." I tried to speak but my tongue felt kinda numb. So my attempt at calling out for Vik didn't work.

"Hey Kid. Welcome back. You're okay. Everything is all in order." Viks face leaned over and despite being all wooshy I could still tell it was him. "You're on the good drugs kid, I brought you out so you can heal yourself up. Go ahead and go to sleep for eight hours. You can do that can't you?" He prompted and I could feel my brain sort of slowly shift into understanding.

Gotta sleep so I can heal.

Sleeeeep.

I blinked through my menu and found the right stuff although it wasn't working and I realized I was trying to push the buttons with my fingers which wasn't exactly working.

Then I pressed the right button mentally and instantly everything went dark.

Then I blinked.

"I'm awake." I called out blinking away a bit of gunk, but I couldn't get up as I tried to rise up.

"Easy kid, I have you strapped down. Let me check you over, this is the first time we've done such an invasive surgery. I want to see how your healing handled it."

"Yeah, okay." I mumbled around the plastic fluff that was cradling my face.

I almost shivered as cold hands went over my shoulders. The weirdest part was just how normal it felt.

I just had massive surgery. The sort of stuff that would have likely killed anyone attempting it back in my previous life.

"Alright, well let's get your chrome reattached. Everything looks good, amazing even. Damn kid. That healing of yours is unreal." Vik muttered, then a few moments later I felt something press against my shoulder

Then with a quiet whirr the locks hooked back in, and a tingling ran down my arm.

He rolled around and did the same to the next one. Leaving me with two arms that felt like I had just fallen asleep on them.

"So, it worked?"

"Course it did, c'mon kid this is baby stuff, any back alley ripper could do this… Not well mind you." He said with a joke as he finally popped the straps holding me down and I rose up.

Like usual I felt perfectly fine after eight hours of sleep, as I sat up I noticed that Vik had thrown up a opaque plastic sheet to block me off from view of the entrance.

"Had some customers come in, privacy is important." He told me as he noticed me looking at it.

"Thanks Vik." I accepted. It was nice of him, most rippers wouldn't have even cared.

But I turned my focus back on my body. I was still in the medical gown he had given me, but that just made it easier to reach behind me and start poking and prodding at my back.

Not a stitch, or a scar from what I could see.

"Here kid." Vik brought up a set of mirrors letting me see that my back was as pristine as always.

Despite the fact that he had basically ripped out every bone between my shoulders and replaced them with a titanium replacement.

"I don't feel any different."

"I made sure they would weigh the same." Vik answered, and then he settled the mirrors down and looked into my eyes.

"I'm curious Motoko, so I have some questions. Normally the recovery period would give someone the sense something is wrong, but you bypassed that, so I want you to do some stretches and things. I want to make sure everything is how it should be. Both physically…" And then he poked my forehead. "And mentally."

"Sure Vik. Whatever you think is best." I agreed without any fight.

"Alright, go ahead and do some stretches, tell me if you feel anything different. Anything off. No matter how minor."

I shrugged, and that felt the same so I started stretching. As I ran my arms through different positions I did feel a difference.

"It feels like my arms are more… Attached? Does that make sense?" I muttered as I pressed my palms together and pushed. Normally this would reach a point pretty quickly where my shoulders would hurt, because my arms could put out more force… Or maybe just had less restrictions than my old ones did.

But now? I felt the pressure build up in my shoulder blades but no pain, no sense of tearing or difficulty.

"Well everything in between is a whole lot stronger." Vik agreed, making some notes.

"Yeah." I said a little breathless. I really wanted to do some punches or something to see how they would feel.

"I did some muscle and bone lacing as well just to reinforce everything." He mentioned off hand and I jerked up a bit at that.

"Wait what?" I looked over my shoulders and I didn't see anything off.

"It's normal for doing replacements like that. The Lace helps keep everything together, strengthens things, so you are far less likely to pull a muscle. Did you not know?" Vik asked, looking at me curiously, as I shook my head.

"No. I wasn't really planning on getting any bioware."

"Ah well. Just think of it as some extra glue holding your stuff together. You aren't getting Synth muscles, so I wanted to make sure you wouldn't accidentally pull something."

With that it reminded me about my system.

What did my system have to say about my current upgrades?

I quickly pulled it open and instantly noticed some changes.

MoorE Titanium Bones (Shoulders, back, and ribs.) *Adaptation Titanium Bones 0/1*
Biotechnica Muscle and Bone Lace *Adaptation Muscle and Bone Lace 0/0*

The bioware cost me nothing, and my new bones were only one adaptation?

Why was that? I mean, sure I wasn't looking at it all the time like my arms, and I really couldn't feel much of a difference, but you would think changing out your bones would cause some problems.

Guess not though.

"Kid?"

"Sorry just checking some things. I'm actually feeling pretty good Vik." I said, even as I returned to poking and prodding my shoulders and back.

"Well let's go through a few checks and then I guess I'll send you off. Still amazing to see how quickly you healed up." He muttered, shaking his head as he rolled around.

Yeah. That healing power was pretty amazing for recovering after an upgrade.

I punched my fist into the palm of my other hand, sending out a metallic noise.

Yeah. That felt pretty good. Certainly better than it had before. I hadn't even noticed how much I had to hold back to keep myself from pulling my arms out of my own socket or something.

I don't think I was quite ready for a rematch with Thomas yet, but this was just part one of my plan.

Give it a week or so, gathering up more stat points, and then maybe I would be ready for another upgrade.

With that thought I looked at my character sheet. There were definitely some changes and… Wait! Did I forgot to use my Annihilation perk point this whole time!?

"Fuck!"

"Kid?"

"Oh nothing! Bad news, but nothing serious!" I called over to Vik who was preparing more gadgets to check on me with.

Ugh. Okay that perk needed to be picked. Soon.

Level 15

Body 8(16) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 8.
-Athletics 7
-Street Brawler 8
-Annihilation 5

Reflex 8
-Blades 7
-Handguns 7
-Assault 7
-Driving 7


Intelligence 10 (14) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 4.
-Breach Protocol 9
-Quick Hacks 7
-Programming 10

Cool 9
-Ninjutsu 8
-Cold Blood 8
-Rockerboy 8

Technical Ability 4 (8) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 4.
-Crafting 4
-Engineering 4

1 Stat point.
5 Skill point.

Perks.
Ambidextrous Blades 2
Quickdraw Handguns 2
Gun Nut Assault 2
Parkour Athletics 2
Grappling Street Brawler 2
Drive By Driving 2
Cat-like Athletics 5
Cool Nerves Cold Blood 2
Danger Sense Ninjutsu 2
Wall Breaking Breach Protocol 2
Cyber Security Quick Hack 2
Recoil Reduction. Annihilation 2
Cyber Ninja Ninjutsu 5
Fearless Chill. Cold Blood 5.
Improvised Weapons Street Brawler 5
Parry Blades 5
Robotics wizard Crafting 2
Drifting Driving 5
Rapid Reload Handguns 5
Design Wizard Engineering 2
Rifle Ace Assault 5
Ghost touch Breach 5
Perfect Musical Memory Rockerboy 2.
Debug Programming 2
Siren Song Rockerboy 5
Hacking Wizard Quick Hacks 5
Inspired Programmer Programming 5
A.I. Whisperer: Programming 10
Annihilation 5 *Unused*

Cyberware:
Seacho Electronics Mk.2 *Adaptation Seacho Mk.2 0/0*
Kiroshi Mk1 *Adaptation Kiroshi Mk1 1/2*
Militech Condor *Adaptation Militech Condor 5/7*
Arasaka Smart Link System. *Adaptation Smart Link 0/0*
Arasaka Ex-Disk *Adatapation Ex-Disk 0/0*
Militech-Armalite Ballistic Guard *Adaptation Ballistic Guard 1/2*
Serano Air-Groove Ankles *Adaptation Serano Air 1/1*
MoorE Titanium Bones (Shoulders, back, and ribs.) *Adaptation Titanium Bones 0/1*
Biotechnica Muscle and Bone Lace *Adaptation Muscle and Bone Lace 0/0*

Everything looked pretty good! It was only as I was browsing that I noticed another change.

My Condors! Last time they had been 5/8 adaptation! Now they were 5/7! They had lowered again!

I looked down at my chrome arms and smiled, bringing them up in front of me and waving my fingers.

These were my arms! These were my fingers, and the nicks and dings on my hands were mine as well. Like scars tracing back.

Yeah. I decided. I had definitely mentally recovered from the damage that had been done to me. Which only firmed up my decision to chrome the fuck up even more.

Motoko Kusanagi. Cyborg!

"Hey kid, plug this in, I want to do a sensitivity test."

"Sure Vik!" I answered, grabbing the plug he handed to me, and refocusing on the checkup I was getting.

 

[Seras]

I sighed as I stretched my arms above my head, finally home. I still hadn't really noticed any differences in weight or balance driving home, so I was very satisfied with Vik's work.

That man deserved way more than the stack of eddies I had given him for his time and skill.

He deserved all the eddies!

"Hey, there you are!" Jun called out as I walked in the apartment. Jun was sitting on the couch, stupid ogre arms hanging over the top as he had obviously been staring blankly at whatever tv show he had been watching.

"Hey Jun-Nii!" I called out as I wandered over and flopped onto the couch beside him.

"Oh? What's got you in such a good mood?" Jun asked, poking at me a little which I swiped away at him.

"I got some new chrome. Vik took great care of me." I told him flexing my arms without going into detail.

Jun would know how long it would take to heal up from such an invasive surgery after all.

"Yeah?"

"Just Bone and Muscle Lace stuff." I lied to him, before relaxing back and looking at the TV. "Anything good on?"

"Nothing you'd like." He said laughing.

"Blegh." I answered, sticking out my tongue. "I guess I'll get back to work."

"Work?"

"I'm trying to finish a new program, zappy zap." I muttered, wiggling my fingers.

"I don't even want to know."

"It's a Short Circuit hack!"

"Mhmm." He agreed, but really he was just ignoring me.

"Well I know the first person I'm testing it on." I muttered, and of course in response Jun reached over to grab me, and I kicked out and then we were wrestling, only now things were different!

Jun's stupid ogre arm might be super strong, but now I could bring to bear all of the strength of my own chrome arms!

I reached out and grabbed his arm with both hands, and squeezed, actually forcing his arm to bend away from me.

"I'm strong!" I told him my face splitting into a big grin.

Which is when Jun huffed out a laugh and just jerked his arm forward.

I had about half a second to realize Jun was a fucking asshole before the movement flipped me entirely off of my butt and then off the couch, crashing into the floor with a loud thump.

"You are such a dick."

"Can't let you get too overconfident with those wet noodles you call arms." He mocked, flexing his arms at me, as I just lay there on the floor for a minute stewing.

I was going to chrome up so much that I could throw him around, I decided. Right then and right there.

Was I going to chrome up because I wanted to be a Cyborg? Because I wanted to be strong enough to kill Scavs, or to go toe to toe with cyberpunks like Thomas?

No. I must defeat my brother.

I stood up and brushed myself off ignoring the mocking smile on Jun's face as I stalked away with all the dignity I had left to go find my laptop.

—---

I spent the rest of the night hammering away at Short Circuit.

Although I was making great progress. My version was already much smaller than the version I had originally picked up from Yoko. The problem was, I wasn't really coming up with anything to make it special.

It would just be an efficient version of the hack, which wasn't a bad thing, but if I was going to make something I wanted it to be more than just efficient.

Short Circuit at its most bare bones was a hack that attacked power systems for cyberware, convincing them they needed to do an emergency discharge to keep something from exploding.

That was actually why it was nonlethal. Sure an electronic jolt wasn't exactly a pleasant experience, and it might knock you out, but it wouldn't kill you.

The emergency discharge couldn't release enough power to instantly stop someone's heart or anything.

But I wanted more than just that.

I wanted something that would make a netrunner do a double take when they saw it. Something that Sasha wouldn't just blow off when I handed it to her. Something that might just save her life.

I had already added in the same multi hack functionality that I had developed for Reboot Optics, and Weapon Glitch.

This program would jump to anyone in the network and try to short them all. Of course it wouldn't be as effective as someone with something like a Tetratronic Rippler Cyberdeck, which was designed to allow multi hack.

Anyone with some bare bones ICE would stop the jumping hacks cold, but not everyone had that.

Plus that was just a bonus. A basic design addition that barely added any RAM requirements to the hack.

I wanted this hack to be unique.

It had to do something that no other Short Circuit could do. I pulled away from the keyboard as I grumbled, flopping onto my bed and trying to figure it out.

I had considered trying to make it do more damage to Cyberware, but that was what Cyberware Malfunction was. That was a different hack entirely, meant to do something entirely different.

So what was Short Circuit meant to do?

Disable enemies for a short time.

I couldn't really make it more disabling. The discharge function was surprisingly well protected against intrusion. I would have to make a variant against every cyberware I could come across… Which might explain why Cyberware Malfunction was a much more RAM intensive hack.

So… It was meant to disable someone. I couldn't modify the base function, but what could I modify?

I went through the code of my own implants, searching through information in my own system.

When it struck me.

Each piece of cyberware had its own battery. Small bits of flash cyberware might have tiny batteries, but the bigger pieces?

So if each cyberware had their own battery…

That means each piece of chrome had its own discharge function.

Short Circuit normally caused everything to discharge. Which yeah I could see how that would be useful, but what if instead of one big burst, I made it last longer.

Each battery could be discharged in a sequence, starting with the biggest battery to still have that massive shock.

It would make the discharge last longer for sure.

I started fiddling with the code. I would have to make it larger, to fit in the discharge sequence in the hack, but it wouldn't even need a full Daemon to control it since that information was already stored in everyone's agent. I mean, there was already a function in the agent that kept track of battery power of Cyberware.

That little program would be the first thing attacked and it would discharge each battery in a row.

I cackled evilly as I imagined some gonk with more chrome than brains stuck spazzing out on the ground as every piece of chrome he had electrocuted him one after another.

Heh, defeated by your own Mr. Studd.

Also, and more importantly! It would be exceptionally strong against drone and robots. They had multiple battery systems, and each one discharging would be a massive problem for a full mechanical body.

I hummed pleased as the inspiration hit and I felt my hands blurring across the keyboard as the code came together.

—--

I stayed hiding in my bedroom for the rest of the night, and late into the afternoon the next day before finally I finished bug checking the code, and I finalized it.

I flopped back, letting the laptop finish turning the code into a working hack and just considered what to do next.

First I had to meet Sasha.

Then… Profit?

I blinked at the joke and snorted. Yeah that sounded good. No, I thought as I rose up and stretched deciding to get changed and clean up before heading out.

What I needed was some XP.

I needed to kill a bunch of gonks so I could get more stat points for adaptation.

Decision made I hurried over out of the room to the bathroom to jump into a quick shower.

While I did that I made a few calls. Pretty amused that I could make a business call while shampooing my hair without a struggle.

Of course the very first call I made I got yelled at.

*Ah so you finally come crawling back to me? Do I even know a merc by this name? Certainly not one who has done any work for me recently…*

*Wakakooooooo!* I whined into the line, purposefully being as annoying as possible. Two could play at that game old lady!

"Ah, she hung up… Well played." I muttered as I instantly called back again.

*As I was saying.* She continued without missing a beat.

*Wakako. I've been busy, not just with personal stuff, but with like crazy stuff in general. But I'm back on the merc grind. You need anything done, I'm free to handle it.*

*Perhaps, I will offer another olive branch to a difficult to work with mercenary…* She trailed off and I rolled my eyes.

*No discounts.*

*I don't see any gigs I need for such an expensive merc then.* She shot back instantly.

*Heh! Does that mean I finally have a rep? Is it a good one? Do you fixers say good things about me?*

*I find this call less and less interesting by the moment.* She drawled out and I could tell she was having fun.

Even if she absolutely would hang up on me again if I didn't do something.

*Alright I'll stop. Seriously though, Wakako. What do you need doing? I've got a lot of time on my hands at the moment.*

*Perhaps, I have a few gigs that need skills such as yours. I'll send you the details. You are well enough? I was considering dropping you entirely due to worries about Cyberpsychosis.*

*Ah… Yeah I'm much better, but I wasn't… Okay the whole Scav thing probably looked pretty bad and stuff, but I'm doing much better. I promise.*

*Good. I will send you some work, complete it and stop by when you are finished. I will decide if you are doing better myself.*

The desire to ask if she was that worried about me was on the tip of my tongue, but I know she wouldn't want to hear it.

*You got-*

She hung up again. "Bitch!" I laughed as I finished my wash.

—--

I got the gig details and rolled my eyes as Wakako was definitely fucking with me again.

There was a guy that hadn't paid Wakako after a gig. Which just as a baseline? That was fucking dumb.

So Wakako wanted to remind him that he was well within her reach.

So she sent me out, not to kill him. Not to kidnap him.

No. She wanted me to steal his car. A pretty nice Quadra Turbo-R. She sent me a picture and I sighed because it was covered in TC colors.

Fuck.

But I shrugged, stealing a car wasn't a difficult gig, and if I could do it without anyone noticing, then I wouldn't have to worry about anyone getting pissed at me for stealing from the TC.

So I drove over to where the gonk lived, and checked the parking garage. Driving through slowly confirmed his car wasn't here.

Irritating. I drove out and instead headed to where Wakako's information told me was his day job.

Unsurprisingly the gonk that owed Wakako was muscle for a local drug dealer. I drove past on the road once, and it wasn't hard to see his car. What was irritating was the fact his car was surrounded by gonks.

Apparently the guy was involved in a party at the moment.

I drove past, finding a spot down the street well out of sight that I could park and step out. Adjusting my favorite jacket as I rose out of the car I considered what to do. I could just wait. Let the gonk drive home and then klep it then.

Or I could just klep it right out from under his nose.

I know which one I wanted.

To wait, because why make a gig that was meant to be annoying harder than it had to be?

On the other hand, I had other things I wanted to do today, and waiting around for this gonk to go home while he was in the middle of a TC block party didn't sound super fun.

So I sighed and found an alleyway, giving me enough cover from most eyes that I could quickly take four hops jumping up onto AC units, or apartment balconies to end up on the roof of the block.

Hurrying across I made it to just above the party to scope it out.

It took me a moment to find a good shaded spot that still let me look over the party while keeping me hidden from any casual look, as I started getting an idea of the party.

Sure a couple people were hanging out around the cars, but no one was directly on the Turbo-R I was here to grab.

I tilted my head as I started hacking.

The car's security wasn't bad, but we aren't talking about Malcolms Caliburn. This was just a normal car's security and I broke in within a few moments. Once I was in, I tricked the security system into thinking I had the key and that was a big chunk of the gig done.

Now I just had to find my moment.

So I settled in, watching the movements of all the gonks. I just needed a moment where my target… Joji? Koji? I don't even remember his name, it was in the data Wakako sent, but I had an eye on him now, and his name wasn't important.

Ah.

He was distracted by a girl.

No one was sitting on the Turbo-R.

I found my landing zone, and Parkour guided me on a path.

I started the BD, then I leapt.

Off the building, my feet barely made a noise as I landed first on an AC unit, and then across an alleyway to hit the opposite brick wall and then used that to bounce back, and then again. Down the entire building bouncing across the ten foot alley until I landed in a quiet crouch on the other side of a pile of trash.

No one had seen me.

I moved crouched low and fast, until I passed the trash, then I stood up and sauntered as casually as I could through the crowd.

I might not have the colors, but I was still an asian girl. Just to fit in, I added a shake to my hips.

Sexy Motoko walk engage!

I slipped through the crowd with a little smirk on my face, and looked like I had something planned on my face. I wasn't bothered.

Walking right past a girl making out with a guy on a Shion right next to the Turbo-R, I ignored them. The driver door opened, and I slipped in, the door shut, and after checking to make sure no one was behind me, I started it up and throttled quietly out of the spot onto the street, and then started driving off.

BD over.

Gig complete.

—---

Dropping off the Quadra Turbo-R into the garage Wakako wanted it placed in, I headed out and waited for my own Quadra Type-66 to catch up.

While I waited, it was time.

I called Sasha.

*Ringing*

*Ringing*

*Ringing*

*Heeh! What's going on kiddy cat?* Sasha picked up with all the excitement and energy I was coming to expect from the woman.

*Sasha, I finished that Quick Hack I was telling you about. The Short Circuit one. Want to take a look?*

*Hmm, I don't know Toko, it's not really my style, you know?*

*Trust me, this one is good at disabling someone, especially someone chromed up for a much longer period of time than the off the shelf program. If someone with a bunch of chrome annoys you, you can hack them out, and leave them getting zapped on the floor for a good long while. It's preem.*

The line was quiet for a moment and then all I heard was a burst of giggles.

*Okay, okay that does sound like something I want to try on Maine some day. I'm currently at the Turbo's on Longshore, the one near the riverfront. We're hosting a party right now. You should come!"

I blinked.

Wait. Turbo's… That was where Maines crew always hosted their parties and stuff… But that was in Westbrook!? Are you telling me I lived like a block from where Maine's crew had their parties!?

I was struck speechless for a long moment as the realization hit that I could have met Sasha and the crew so much easier!

*Toko you there?*

*Wha? Oh yeah. I was just surprised I used to live over there. I'll head over. I can't wait for you to see this hack Sasha, you're going to love it."

"Eeeeh! You're making me blush kid! Heh! I've never had a little Kohai before! Eee! It's so cute I totally get it now! C'mon hurry up! I need to show off my little programmer to everyone!"

"Wha… I'm not a Kohai." I mumbled petulantly. But Sasha was ignoring me and all I could do was grumble and agree that I was on my way.

I mean… I guess I wasn't at Sasha's level with the netrunning stuff, I was definitely better at programming, but… I guess I was a Kohai. Fine!

I grumbled as my Quadra finally pulled up.

Sliding in I started driving, finally getting my update from Wakako.

*Wakako: I confirmed the vehicle was secured, and reached out to the target. Turns out he hadn't noticed his car disappearing on him. I received quite the satisfaction in hearing his discomfort at that. Excellent work. I will have another gig for you soon. Payment and bonus has been sent.*

I blinked at the message, and checked the actual update, and whistled a little. She had given me a nice little bonus. Heh, I guess ghosting the car out from under his nose pleased Wakako.

Well. I guess it was a good thing I was going to a party. Time to celebrate another gig completed!

 

[Seras]

Turbo's was definitely having a party. As I pulled in, the rumble of my Quadra earning me a spot as a few of the wandering crowd moved out of the way so I could slip into a parking spot. I took a moment to stop and just breathe.

I was so not ready to run into my favorite character right now.

No Motoko, you fucking gonk, she wasn't a character. She was a person, and wouldn't like me geeking the fuck out over her.

I opened my eyes and stepped out, Cool and Cold Blood working in tandem to keep me calm as I stepped towards where I had seen Sasha.

Where I saw Maine, Dorio, Pilar, and best girl Rebecca.

She was so tiny!

Eeeee!

I shook it off and kept calm, adding a bit of Sexy Motoko walk to my movement, so I would look a little less young as I approached the group.

I took them all in as I approached. Maine noticed me, but was basically ignoring me, focusing on Dorio in his lap, and the beer in his massive hand.

Pilar was currently drinking as well, and trying to flirt with a girl beside him. He was doing okay honestly, from the looks the girl was shooting at him. A mix of interest and exasperation.

Sasha wasn't at the table. No, she was up and dancing to the music of the radio playing nearby. I did struggle to keep my eyes off her, because holy shit that girl was flexible.

Of course as I approached Maines little table of important people I was stopped.

By the smallest of the group.

Rebecca had been fucking around with a group of random gonks to the side, from the way she had been jerking her pistol she was telling them about what had happened on the gig, but as I walked over she caught site of me and stomped over.

"Hey! Who're you!?" She demanded stomping right up to me, and then looking up.

Which I thought was fucking adorable.

She was so smol!

Protect the loli!

"Hi! I'm Motoko! Nice to meet you!" I offered, throwing out a hand towards the girl, and I could feel my face shift into a happy smile.

Aaaaah! She was so cute!

Her strange colored eyes narrowed but she surprisingly reached out and accepted my handshake.

"Rebecca. I don't recognize you."
"I'm Chooms… Friends?... I know Sasha! She invited me, I'm a programmer so I have a new hack to try and sell her." I explained not sure what to call my current relationship with the catgirl.

"Huh. Netrunning stuff huh? That's preem and stuff. Not really my thing." She replied looking up at me for a moment and then sort of snorting out a laugh. "So why do all netrunners wear leotards?"

"Comfy." I explained without missing a beat, and that earned me an actually surprised look before Rebecca burst into cackles.

"You got me! C'mon then, Sasha! Your choom is here!"

The Catgirl perked up from her very… Flexible dance moves as she looked over and saw me, and then she… Well pranced is the best word I could think of over to me.

"My little Kohai!" She called out rushing over and throwing me into an overly affectionate hug. "See Dorio! I have a Kohai now!"

"I see." The large woman replied flatly as she rolled her eyes at Sasha's exuberance. "Nice to meet you." She replied casually and mostly just ignored me, as she turned back to trying to find Maines tonsils.

"So Toko! Show me your new hack!" Sasha demands as she grabs a seat and sort of looks up at me eagerly, and I relaxed a bit.

It was hard to be tense around Sasha she was just so… Out there.

I popped a shard with the copy of my Short Circuit and offered it up.

"Let me know what you think. I promise it'll impress." I said feeling pretty proud.

I had pulled that program together in just a few days, while rushing around doing other things, but it was important.

It might just save this woman's life.

"Hmmm." She drawled out after inserting the shard.

"Don't mind her, she's always like this." Rebecca said on my right as we listened to Sasha just keep making questioning noises long after she should have stopped.

"This is interesting. I see what you based it off, and I can see the additional functionality. Are you sure it's a good idea to spread it out?" Sasha suddenly mentioned cutting into the noises she had been making.

"The battery discharge already has a limiter built in that's part of the hardware, not software. So it's not really hackable. Instead of having everything try to discharge at once, making it last longer actually improves the hack." I said sitting up and feeling eager. "Depending on the target, and how much chrome they have, you could keep someone crippled for a good while."

She nodded her head as her eyes finally lost the glow as she explored the shard.

"I don't think I need it." She answered suddenly and I felt my confidence pop like a soap bubble.

"Wha! You do! Gonk! It's preem code!"

"It's a good Short Circuit sure, but I don't go for nonlethal stuff much."

"It's a cheap control hack! It even auto spreads! That's my personal hack jumping trick there you know!" I squawked, offended at her disinterest.

"It's cute, sure, but I go for stuff a bit bigger you know?" She said actually having the audacity to first put her hands close by, and then spreading them farther apart. Lewd!

"Oh god you're one of those. Probably burn your entire RAM on every hack too, don't you?" I mocked, earning a startled look from the woman at my sudden attack.

Then Dorio started snickering.

Becca cackled, not bothering to hide it like her choom, even Maine was chuckling.

Sasha actually flushed a little red as everyone was cackling at her. Pilar looked up from the girl he had been flirting with only then seeming to notice I was here. But tits and ass distracted him a moment after.

"Wha! That's not what I do!"

"Didn't you say, if the program doesn't overheat your deck it's babyware?" Rebecca cut in, suddenly and Sasha reached out to shut up best girl.

I felt smug as I had been right.

Sasha despite being a skilled Netrunner was one of 'those.'

"Here." I demanded, pushing the shard into her hand that she was trying to shut Rebecca up. "It's a compact, low RAM, high performance hack. I'm sorry you've been stuck with grossly over-coded scop so far."

"I have not! I have normal hacks too!"

"Hey Dorio, have you ever seen Whiskers use anything but her giga hacks?" Rebecca asked, and I made sure to note the cute nickname!

Whiskers! Super cute!

Sasha instantly whipped over to her choom and glared, and Dorio looked like she was considering not answering, but her shoulders were still shifting a little as she restrained her giggles.

"Never."

"You are all traitors." Sasha mumbled glaring at the group, and I felt my smile growing because this was actually really fun!

Maine's crew was cute! Way better than they were in the future.

That reminded me of the tragedy of what was coming. That Sasha would soon sacrifice herself if nothing changed.

Had I done enough? Had I given her some better tools? Would that be enough? Could her fate be changed with just that? It had been a decision she made on the spot, a decision I think she knew would be her end, so was there anything I could actually do to change her mind?

"Hmph! I'll take your hack!" Sasha pulled me back into the conversation as she swiped the shard and plugged it in, obviously installing it into her deck.

"Good. I hope it keeps you safe!" I chirped, smiling bright as I managed to fission mail successfully!

Sasha made a sound of denial as she scoffed a bit, but it was a cute flustered scoff, not a straight denial.

Dorio started laughing at Sasha's flustered face. Which earned her a glare from the cat girl.

I stilled suddenly because I got a call from Wakako.

"Sorry everyone, one sec." I said as my eyes blinked yellow.

*This is Motoko.*

*There is an issue. The vehicle you just collected? It was stolen out of my storage unit. Some fool is attempting to step on my toes, or they are so foolish they didn't realize what they have done. I need the vehicle recollected. Now.*

*That's… Someone really is dumb. What do we have?*

*I am sending you what I have so far. I am aware of your little group. You did an acceptable investigation for Fujimura. Complete a second one for me. Find the vehicle and return it to the storage unit. And send a message to whoever did this.*

I considered it for a moment. I had been wanting a gig with more killing for XP.

*Okay. I'll take it. Send me the deets.*

The line hung up which I couldn't help but smile and shake my head at. That's Wakako alright. I thought with a laugh escaping me.

"Kid something good?" Sasha asked, noticing my amusement.

"Wakako hung up on me again." I replied and laughed. "I have to go, surprise gig, you know how it is. It was nice to meet all of you!" I said as I stood up and hurried away.

I couldn't do much else for Sasha. She was a grown woman and a professional. I had given her extra tools. Hopefully…

Hopefully it was enough to circumvent her tragedy, but if it wasn't, then I would at least know that I had tried.

As I hurried to my Quadra I sent all of my chooms the call.

*Motoko: Section 9 Assemble!*

They would understand.

—--

They did not understand.

Three calls later, I was plugging into my net chair as I was readying for a dive, and waiting for my chooms to show up.

I had watched the surveillance video Wakako had sent, as well as what basic information she had.

Apparently about five minutes after I left, a group of three men, all wearing masks had shown up at the garage, broke in rather bluntly, and stole the Quadra-R.

There was a problem though. They were Tyger Claws.

The tattoos were a dead giveaway.

Some fucking TC gonks had stolen from the queen of Japantown.

They were already dead, they just didn't know it yet. Even if I didn't get involved.

Unfortunately, we didn't have an ID for any of them. They all had spoofers that the cameras couldn't break through.

So I was going to be chasing them through the city through cameras… Again.

I eased back and blinked. A moment later I was in the net. I quickly blurred across the digital city, riding on the back of search engines to end up across the virtual reality. I landed in front of a network that for once I didn't need to break into.

I walked in and Wakako's information gave me full access to the security of the site. I could see the marks showing that Wakako had a skilled netrunner run the security as well, but the password and access key Wakako had sent me with the video meant I walked in without issue.

Then I pulled up the security cameras.

Just as I had seen from what Wakako sent me, five minutes after I dropped off the car a couple of gonks walked in, broke the garage door, and then drove off with the car.

But, and this was something I had noticed when Wakako had first sent me the video.

There were three of them, but the Quadra was a two seater.

Two of them jumped in the Quadra-R, but the third had run off on foot.

So I jumped through all the different cameras of the lot area, but unfortunately the one camera that should have seen where they went, had been damaged.

Its recording was blank and had been for weeks. So either, this was a mastermind level plan, or the gonks just got lucky.

I perked up as I got a call from Ichi, asking to be let down to the basement.

A few moments of thought and I sent the signal to let him come down. Seems my chooms were finally showing up!

I quickly pulled open a connection to pull him into a group call.

*Ichi! Glad you made it! Can you jump on the computer, I'm going to be sending some camera data soon.*

*Yeah, I'm on it.* He assured me and that was that. Ichi was fully in work mode.

I jumped across the way from the storage lot that Wakako either owned, or had set up the security for and into the netscape for a mechanic shop.

Time to track them down.

—--

By the time Hiromi showed up, the last of the group to appear, we had made good progress. We knew they were still in Japantown, and had just narrowed the location down to a specific street. There were a few apartment complexes on the street, and I was assuming the car was somewhere in one of them, but there weren't a lot of cameras aimed at the street in the area.

Confirming the general location I popped out of the net. Blinking my eyes to let the real world take over my vision, stretching and groaning as I pulled out the cords connecting me to the chair.

"Here, something warm." Ichi offered, handing over a carton of chinese food. I didn't even ask what it was, before digging in. The warm food restored some heat to my chest, as the coolant had kept me chilled while I was in the net.

I slurped up my first few bites before talking. "So Ichi, do you know anything about the area?"

"Nothing in particular. I can't think of any specific TC business on the street. I think whoever these gonks are, they planned this themselves."

"Ugh." I groaned as I went back to eating.

We would have to investigate the old fashioned way. Getting out on foot, and checking all the locations trying to find where a car could have been hidden. One street wasn't too bad, honestly. It would just take time.

"Uuuugh." I groaned as I realized how long this was going to take.

—--

We split up while working. Just to make sure nothing slipped past us. Ichi and Hiromi both parked at either end of the street, and were keeping an eye out for our car. Malcolm and I working together were walking down one side of the road, stopping at every apartment complex, business location, and back alley we could find connected to the road that someone might stash a car.

Unfortunately, the amount of nooks and crannies in any city block only seemed to grow exponentially.

"This is another back alley garage area." I grumbled, as we walked through an alley that had old roller doors attached to every building. Any one of them big enough to hide a car.

"Nah it's none of these. Look, no ones opened any of these doors in years." Malcolm pointed out to me walking up to one and showing me just how rusted the entire thing was.

No one was getting that open without a lot of effort, and noticeable markings.

"That still doesn't narrow this down." I hummed, trying to be positive, even if I was doing a job I didn't really want. There was no murder here Wakako!

Maybe I shouldn't have done investigative work with Section 9. Any gonk with a Unity can flatline someone, but it takes a whole other set of skills to be able to track someone down.

Of course Wakako would make use of that skill, and so would others.

"Something up?" Malcolm asked, as he noticed my worsening mood. Although I definitely wasn't just pouting at nothing okay! I don't pout!

"I just wanted a more exciting gig I guess? I want to fight some ninjas, or something. I did that once. That one borg was like a ninja."

"I don't think he counts Motoko, he was just a netrunner."

"Netrunning is like magic, so I'm putting it in the counts column." I informed him with a smile that earned me a scoff from Malcolm.

"Hey!" A voice called out pulling our attention away from the rusted out door we were looking at, towards the big guy that was looking at the two of us, with a hand reaching towards the unity on his hip. "You little, shits better not be thinking of breaking in!"

"Nope!" I called out, hands raised up a bit. "We were just noticing that no one had used this one in a while."

"Bullshit. Clear off before I flatline you brats."

"Sure sure." I agreed, mostly because the guy was obviously just trying to keep a couple of teenagers from breaking into his stuff. "C'mon Malcolm." I called as we moved past the guy.

"Hey old man. You see a couple gonk fucks driving around here in a suped up Quadra-R. Looks like this." Malcolm surprised me by saying, as his eyes shifted blue as he sent what must be a picture of the Quadra. "Or maybe the gonks themselves?"

The man went silent for a minute, glaring, but eventually he answered in the most obvious way possible. "I didn't see anything."

"Listen old man, we aren't here to steal scop, can you tell us where they went?"

"I don't know anything. The Claws know I don't narc."

Malcolm shook his head, actually smiling. "Perfect, because these particular gonks pissed off the Queen of Japantown. Wakako is looking for them. So this is all square."

The older man sort of worked his jaw, considering the question before he nodded real slow. "I never saw them before in my life." He verbally said but a moment later his eyes flashed and Malcolm nodded smiling.

"Of course not. A respectable upstanding man like yourself wouldn't ever bother with scop like this. You have yourself a nice day sir." Malcolm offered, sounding every inch the respectable kid just trying to help out.

Of course I knew Malcolm, and that was not what he was.

A moment later the man walked away and Malcolm huddled closer. "He gave me the deets. C'mon." He whispered to me, and he pulled me along back onto the street.

"Malcolm?"

"Apparently that guy is pissed that these guys have been fucking around, he caught them breaking into shit multiple times, but he doesn't exactly want them to know he ratted on them." He explained to me quickly as we hurried back to the street.

A few seconds later he sent me the message as well, and I looked towards the building just across the street.

Found them.

Now to find the car.

"Let's go." Malcolm hurried me on and rushed across the street. I couldn't help but chuckle at how eager he sounded, but I couldn't deny that this was definitely his win.

I crossed after him dodging a few cars and we walked into the complex. The lobby was covered in trash and stunk like someone pissed in a corner. But Malcolm didn't slow. To my surprise he was like a bloodhound. Hurrying through he found the elevator and turned to me.

I laughed at the begging look as I walked over, and my eyes flashed as I started hacking. I barely needed to do anything. The ICE on the hardware was ancient, and didn't even slow my Breach. The elevator came up and we walked in, and then a moment later Malcolm pushed the pad to send us down to the basement.

"You think it's here?" He asked, and I shrugged.

"I hope so. It would certainly make this a lot easier. Wakako will be happy."

"What about the gonks that stole it?"

"We hunt them down and flatline them?" I questioned back, wasn't it obvious?
"They are Tyger Claws. Sure that's a good idea?"

"They stole from Wakako. If they wanted to survive, that is a quick way to do the opposite." I shrugged. "If there is trouble we deal with it. But this is an official gig."

"Yeah… Right. Official." He muttered as the elevator opened to a truly dark parking garage, most of the lights flickering or out. Malcolm hesitated, but I could see just fine. So I stepped out leading the way. Looking for a particular Quadra-R.

"Gotta get better optics." Malcolm mumbled from behind me, but I shrugged.

"Chip in at your own pace choom." I called out behind me as I walked down the dark path, head darting this way and that.

"C'mon tell me it's here." I mumbled to myself, as I hurried around the garage space. Finally I ended up catching back up with Malcolm and shook my head. "Nothing."

"Hmm." He mumbled though looking around despite the darkness making it hard. "Motoko, scan around a bit? These buildings sometimes have private garages along the walls."

I blinked, I hadn't even considered that. My eyes flashed, into a scan mode, something that was completely natural at this point. I barely had to think about it before my Kiroshi responded to my needs. "There!"

Along one of the walls, was a small rolling door. Just big enough for a car to drive in. And there! Another one.

Looks like there were two to three of them on each wall of the garage.

We didn't even need to speak. Both of us rushed for the first one, and after a few moments, I managed to breach into the door's security and it unlocked, rolling up into the ceiling.

The space inside had a vehicle, but not the one we were looking for.

"Fuck." Malcolm cursed, but I just smiled, and signaled for the door to shut, and ran to the next one. Malcolm following after just a moment his own excitement returning with the reminder there were more doors.

Mystery doors! What is behind door number two? I thought as I poked the door, the same security as the first door gave way instantly and it rolled up.

Just some junk.

We rushed to the next after closing the second and as it rolled up, I couldn't help but whoop and leap onto Malcolm to pull him into a hug.

There it was.

The Quadra-R I had literally already stolen today.

"C'mon!" I hurried over without hesitation. I already had the thing breached from before. I already had a key. The door popped open before I even touched it, and I slipped inside, Malcolm joining me a moment later.

"Let's call Ichi and Hiromi and get this taken care of… Then we can talk to Wakako about what she wants done." I told Malcolm, even if I would happily just kill the gonks, if my choom was worried about it, then there was no harm in asking.

 

[Seras]

"And that's that." I said having parked the Quadra-R right back into the same garage that I had put it in before. "Let me call Wakako." I told my chooms, as everyone was distracted with Malcolms retelling of what happened.

*Ringing.*

*Ringing.*

*I see that you have completed the task successfully.* Wakako answered her phone without a moment's wait.

*Yeah, found it parked in a little garage. So now the real question. What do you want me to do with the gonks that stole from you? They are TC, so do you want me to handle it, or?*

*A show of force is needed. Kusanagi. You have succeeded in every task I have given you. So I give you another. I want them removed.*

*Well that is something I can do.* I assured her, already fingering the knife at my hip. Finally! XP!

*Good. Contact me when you are finished.*

With that Wakako hung up, although I had to admit that last bit almost sounded like a goodbye. Was I melting Wakako's frozen heart?

Yeah. No, probably not.

"Alright guys! We got a second part of the gig!" I told my chooms making everyone perk up. It was time for some real ninja shit!

—--

The apartment complex was old, and rundown, and after checking the registry at the front desk which I didn't even have to hide the fact I was jacking into as no one in the entrance cared what I was doing.

Michael Hideki. Room 303. He was the one that owned the garage in question, and with a bit of searching I confirmed he was the guy from just looking at the records they had.

"Got him." I told my team, the four of us had walked into the lobby. The few bums that hung around quickly disappeared as everyone was armed. "Ichi, Hiromi, cover the entrance from the truck. Malcolm you're with me." I told them and I could feel Malcolms excitement at being pulled along.

We headed up to the floor as I explained what Malcolm should do on the way up. He stepped off, and then I went up to the floor above.

The exterior of these apartments all had balconies.

I walked a few apartments down and just walked into 403. The man hanging out on his couch jerked up at my sudden appearance but I just waved him off.

"Not here for you. Ignore me." I told him very visibly flashing my Burya to make sure the man got the hint. His slow nod told me he would behave as I walked to the balcony. I took a moment to put away the Burya, and ready my Lexington, slipping on the silencer. Then I simply stepped over the edge, as casual as any stroll.

Catching myself on the balcony just below I slowly peaked over the edge.

These were my targets.

The three gonks. This time without masks, but I had already ID'ed them. I hupped up, climbing over the balcony and opening the outer door that had been locked, but only took a moment to pop open, and then I was there, Lexington raised.

"Wha-!"

The sharp sounds of my silenced Lexington opening fire into three men snapped out, the only noise coming from the bullets zinging through the air and then into flesh and upholstery.

They moved. Adrenaline gave them the ability to act. They shouted and screamed. Despite being shot up, they still moved. One made it to the door. Malcolm sent him back inside without a head. Malcolm followed him in, his arms opened up showing the bloody Mantis Blade he had just used to behead the gonk.

So preem!

"Wait… Malcolm! I totally forgot you had Mantis Blades! That's so cool!" I called out as I finished reloading and walked over to the last two. One hadn't made it off the couch, the other had, but only to leap behind it. I reached over and unloaded a few seconds into him, and any threat that he had was gone.

"What? Motoko, you're the one that helped me get these!"

"I know! I just forgot you chipped them! How are they treating you?" I asked, honestly curious. I never had a chance to ask V what having them was like!

"Uh… I guess they're okay… Are we done?"

"Oh yeah. We should loot up a bit and delta." I said, searching all three gonks for their iron, and mostly just throwing it at Malcolm to hold as I scanned with my Kiroshi for anything of value.

"Let's delta." I confirmed, after a quick search and we hurried out of the apartment, back to the elevator, and then down, basically running as the adrenaline was hitting Malcolm making him twitchy and I was mostly just happy with all the XP.

*500 XP Gained.*

*500 XP Gained.*

Once we jumped into the back of the truck. Hiromi closed the doors, and Ichi pulled away.

Gig successful!

I sent the message to Wakako, and then smiled even brighter as we got our payment.

"Drinks are on me!"

—--

I flopped onto the bed tired from a night partying. We had ended up going to Lizzies because of Ichi, and Malcolms machinations, and Hiromi hadn't managed to convince me to go to that one fancy TC bar we had visited so long ago.

So a fun few hours spent drinking and celebrating with my chooms.

I hadn't had any alcohol so had been the designated driver to get everyone home after, now I was home and kinda sleepy.

I considered just closing my eyes and hitting my sleep button, but instead I rolled off my bed and walked over to my workbench.

So much stuff was going on.

Hiromi and I were still talking about who to hit for another massive loot run. She was actually doing fixer stuff to narrow down some locations we could hit and load up on gear.

I was still worried about Sasha, was forcing the perfect hack for the gig enough? Would she survive? I hope so. She deserved to live. Even if revealing the Securicine knowledge wouldn't solve the problem entirely. Biotechnica had ridden out the issue without problem.

That's what happens when you are the one corp that handles most of the food and medicine.

If she lived, maybe we could team up and do some cool netrunning attacks on them?

Then I had the stuff in front of me.

Technical Ability was still the weakest of my stats, and it was one I really needed to level. I knew I would get a lot of work after we loaded up on all the equipment for my chooms. We would all need modifications to armor and weapons.

Yet if my skill was only middling then why do it myself? Hiring someone would be better, since we were talking about my chooms safety!

So it was time to settle in and do some grinding.

First thing first. I needed a project I could just sit down and absolutely grind out on. The idea had been in my head for a while. Since Section 9 started doing investigative work we needed some equipment that would make our gigs easier. Well that and it worked for Batman.

I grabbed the laptop to open up the CAD program, and started designing. I didn't need to make them look like little bats or anything. I just needed them small enough I could fit a few onto a belt for easy use and something to lock them onto things.

Tracking devices were pretty easy all told. Battery, signal repeater, chassis. Even better, I could make them connect through whatever local net they were close to, and then boom. I did consider attaching a camera or something onto them, because honestly micro cameras weren't expensive, but I wanted to hold that off for the next project.

The CAD design came together over a few hours as I slowly adjusted everything until I had a small circular disc that would have a magnetic back and that was that.

I made a list of everything I would need for one, and headed out of the house. Ignoring Jun as he was camped out on the couch zoned out and watching some TV show he liked. I headed out and then into the maze of buildings and shops that made up Japantown.

I found the tech shop that was closest and stepped in barely even paying attention to what was going on, but of course I had plenty of skills stuffed into my brain that started blaring warnings.

I looked up and into the eyes of… Well they weren't TC, at least they weren't wearing TC colors. But they were definitely robbing the place.

"I said get up-"

"Sup gonks." I introduced myself, and then drew my gun as the guy with a Unity that had approached me, didn't actually have it aimed at me.

Total Gonk move.

He exploded away from me as Burya blew a hole the size of my fist in his chest, and I instantly dropped, as his choom across the way reacted with a scream of surprise and started blasting with his Carnage.

I aimed and fired.

Nothing between him and I was bulletproof. Especially not Burya proof. I fired the moment my shoulder had hit the floor and I had stopped bouncing and I instantly heard the gunfire stop.

It took me a few moments to peak out and I could see the second gonk on the ground bleeding out.

Whew!

I rose up, and wiped myself down, holstering my Burya as I checked the shop.

The guy behind the shop counter wasn't there…

Not good. Peeking over the counter I saw brains splattered across the wall and a slumped cashier.

"Fuck. This means I'm not getting my supplies doesn't it?"

Considering the circumstances. I did consider just taking what I wanted. I could easily destroy the camera evidence…

No. I shook it off with a sigh. As I walked over and pulled my Lexington.

Two rounds into the skulls of the gonk fuckers that tried to rob me along with my tech shop.

*500 XP Gained.*

*500 XP Gained.*

I guess I'll call NCPD?

—--

"Like I told you. I got here after. I was coming to buy some supplies to tinker with, and I wasn't even paying attention to notice the store was being robbed. Gonk fucker one, tried to hold me hostage, but he had the trigger discipline of a particularly high Scav, and I blew his ass away from me. And then shot gonk fucker two through the stacks. Cashier was already dead."

The woman officer listened to my story with a look that gave me no context on whether she believed me, but told me she had better things to do than be here. I had of course waited after calling the NCPD to alert them to the murder.

Really the officers had looked more angry at the fact I was here to still give a statement than if I had just disappeared.

"Just sit down and don't move." She demanded after a moment and walked over to her partner. I just wiggled my cuffed hands at myself because I had been sitting on the counter the whole time.

Cops amiright?

Kicking my feet, I did my best to restrain my urge to whistle. NCPD were a bit twitchy. Eventually they both headed back over to me, after having checked out the bodies and talked to eachother quietly.

"We confirmed you didn't kill the shopkeeper, and these two had bounties. Get lost." She said walking behind me and with a bit of roughness unlocking the cuffs.

"Can I get my guns back?"

"Grab them and disappear." The male demanded pointing to the other side of the counter where they had stripped my equipment. I hurried over and loaded up, checking and even if they didn't like it, reloading my pistols before I was suited back up.

"Nice to meet you all! Have a nice night!" I smiled brightly at them, earning irritated looks in turn as I headed out into the night.

Now I needed to find a new tech store.

—--

Arms loaded with bags of goodies I finally made it back home.

The second store I had gone to wasn't as well stocked as the first, but it was thankfully unmurdered so I was able to buy what I needed.

I hobbled into my room and dumped everything besides the workbench, and flopped in.

It was late, but I was actually feeling kinda excited now that I had everything in front of me.

I immediately threw in some of the aluminum into the printer to start processing the casing. While I grabbed the trackers' electronics and started putting it all together. My fingers were quite deft, as this wasn't a complex task.

Batteries, a small chipset to connect to the net to send pings. Mostly it was just setting it all in a row so it would fit in the little disc.

The programming to get it to send me information only took a few minutes, my hands blurred across the laptop as I configured a very simple program that would send location data to me in an interval by text. Something I could easily just ignore if I need to, but would create a nice little history for each device as well.

The first one finished and I pulled it free checking the fit of all the parts, happy it worked. I threw another one into the printer, and attached the final bit to the casing. A magnet. It wouldn't attach to everything, but it would be enough. With a moment to pull a shard out of the laptop and insert it into the chipset in the tracker it got its software updated, and then I was done.

I checked out my first completed tracker. Looking at it this way and that, then I flipped it on.

Instantly a location was sent to me by text.

Nice.

I marked it as Tracker 1. And set it on the table to check its interval, while I focused on the others.

One after another I started putting together trackers.

And quickly since I was making something new, something that needed multiple skills, alerts flooded in.

I had finally gained another Technical Ability point, and then it just flowed over with alerts.

*100 Technical Ability XP Gained*

*100 Technical Ability XP Gained*

*100 Technical Ability XP Gained*

*Technical Ability Leveled up!*

*100 Engineering XP Gained.*

*100 Engineering XP Gained.*

*100 Crafting XP Gained.*

*100 Crafting XP Gained.*

*100 Crafting XP Gained.*

*100 Crafting XP Gained.*

*100 Crafting XP Gained.*

—-

Eventually after I had a good dozen of the things I went to bed falling instantly asleep and waking up long after the afternoon was a distant memory feeling refreshed and happy.

The tracker was the exact kind of cool spy gadget I needed, but it wasn't the only one.

I jumped up and hurried over to the workbench and sat down. What kind of investigator would I be without hidden cameras!

The CAD program was once again pulled up, and this time I pulled a lot deeper from my knowledge. A magnet wouldn't work. I would need a lot more flexibility.

So I was actually going to use knowledge granted to me by one of my perks! Robotics Wizard gave me an incredibly firm baseline for robotics of any sort.

A small camera. Barely an inch across more than small enough to hide in shadows, but It would have three tiny robotic grabbers. At the end of each one, would be a spike, and a magnet.

If I needed to attach it to something metal, like say on top of a camera system already in place? Magnets would secure it just fine and give me some ability to adjust the angle.

If I had nothing metal? Then I could drive the spiked limbs into drywall, or other soft materials. And if nothing like that worked. The limbs could just grab onto something the old fashioned way. It wouldn't be as secure, but it would do.

Unfortunately, despite my skill set, I wasn't really familiar with any material that could dampen scanning to try and make it more sneaky. I would just have to rely on placing it somewhere it wouldn't be seen to get any use out of it.

Hours of work as I finangled the robotic limbs to be tiny enough, yet strong enough that it could handle everything I would need, and then I realized it was just a cube with a camera and limbs and that was gross…

So I tossed out the entire thing and started over. If I was going to make something, I should at least make it cute or cool.

One or the other.

This time though the idea didn't come instantly. Something cute. Something cute. It was fighting me, and I ended up leaving the room grabbing some food and flopped onto the back of the couch letting my leg and arm hand down onto the cushions as I considered what to do.

"Ah." I muttered half dreamily as I lay there staring at the adverts that always seemed to play around the entertainment system.

Gonna have to fix that some day. Fucking things were annoying.

But, I had an idea.

"I'll have to design it eventually. Why not now?" I muttered, and let myself flop fully onto the couch as I bonelessly rose back to my feet and then leapt doing a fun front flip just because towards my room.

If I wanted them to be cute, I already had the cutest coolest thing in the whole world in mind.

"TachiCams?" I considered it before shaking my head. "No TachiCama!" I giggled in delight at the decision! So cute!. I could make them disks just like the trackers, but have a protruding adjustable camera orb inserted in it.

I would need to design it for the Tachikoma that I would make someday, so why not get started now? It would give the camera way more adjustability too. Plus it would still have little legs! Very cute!

I pulled up the CAD program and started to work. Making the camera move like how I wanted would be tough. I didn't want to rely on a wireless approach. Too easy for a scanner to pick up on. So it would have to be hard wired which would limit the cameras range of motion before it needs to reset so it doesn't twist the wire off or something.

The camera orb was designed first, and I could definitely do the three optic 'eye' for the camera. Maybe three pin cameras instead of a single large one?

Coming up with a cool design was fun!

I buried myself into design, slowly forming out a… Okay it looked like a flying saucer, like an old style one, it even had the funny little legs, but hell, it was cute, and it would definitely work.

I started putting the final touches on the design. This was going to be so cute!

 

[Seras]

I got a call from Hiromi.

*Hey Hiromi! What's up?*

*Motoko! I did it! I got us a gig to get supplies! You are going to love this!* Hiromi practically squealed into the phone as I pushed myself away from the workbench to focus on the call.

*Okay, hit me.*

*Okay so, I was talking to my Dad, and he mentioned there had been an AV carrying supplies shot down. I think you can figure it out from there?*

*Oh easily. Arasaka doesn't care so much for the supplies just wants to send a message?*

*Ehhhh. Dad does want some of the supplies returned, there was some data he would like to retrieve if you catch my drift. But trust me, I negotiated really really hard! Papa was so proud! We will walk away with loads of equipment.*

*Alright. What do we know? Do we know where the supplies are now?*

*That's… The problem. No, not exactly. It was definitely some nomads, the attack happened in the badlands but whether it's nomads, or Wraith Arasaka doesn't know. That's for us to find out basically.*

*Hmm… You didn't already confirm our participation right?*

*No way! We have a contract that we negotiated but it's unsigned, I wanted to run it past you first to make sure it's even possible.* Hiromi trailed off. *I'm pretty confident, but you are the one who has to do it.*

*Hiromi, you're perfect. Send me what data you have okay? I'm going to call Saul and make sure it wasn't the Aldecaldos. If it wasn't that narrows it down, and he might even know who took it.*

*Alright, I have the info, sending now.*

I checked over the text. The supplies were taken out of a downed AV all men had been killed, and by the time Arasaka had sent a second AV to check it out everyone on board was dead, and the stuff was taken. This happened last week, and so far Arasaka hadn't dedicated any resources to handle the problem.

*And your dad, he's responsible for finding the shipment? I just want to know in case we refuse, we wouldn't be screwing him over right?*

*Nope. Dad is the one who is in charge of the guy that was responsible for it. That guy is… Well Dad just mentioned he was no longer a problem, he might have been responsible for leaking the flight plan, willingly or not.*

*Okay. Give me a few minutes and I'll call you right back. Can you get Ichi and Malcolm? We should all discuss this.*

*Hehe! You got it, leave it all to your fixer Hiromi-chan!*

I just laughed at how cute Hiromi had tried to sound, but hung up a moment after and made the call to Saul.

*Ringing.*

*Ringing.*

*Ringing.*

*This is Saul.*

*Saul, it's Motoko. Do you have a moment to talk? Business.* I added at the end.

*Hmm. Sure, what's going on?*

*Let's just say I'm looking at a contract to hunt down someone that downed an Arasaka AV last week. Current assumption is some Nomad group. I just want to make sure I'm not going to be hunting people I actually like… If I take this, I won't be hunting down you, or your family… Right?*

The line was quiet for a moment, but Saul spoke up a moment after clearly.

*Normally I wouldn't want to answer that sort of question, but in this case, it wasn't us, so I don't have to beat around the bush and pretend. We don't go after corp AV's unless it's on contract, and we haven't poked any corps in a while. Much less Arasaka. Sounds like a Wraith group. Probably on contract by Militech.*

*I assumed it was a counter corp thing, glad to hear it isn't you guys. Sounds like I'll be running around the badlands in the next few days. Maybe I'll stop by and say hi. Maybe with more Wraith vehicles that might need new owners.* I offered.

*Tell you what Kid. You've been square with us, and I do appreciate the call to make sure you aren't taking a contract on my family. I don't think we have much need for more vehicles, but I'll contact Dakota for you. She'll likely give you a call, might even have some information that might narrow your target down a bit. If I know Dakota, she'll take a chunk off from the vehicles if you can supply them in payment.*

*That would be perfect. Thanks Saul. I really appreciate it!*

*No problem kid. Good hunting.*

*Thanks!*

I quickly ended the call and pushed my chair away from my workbench so I could give myself enough space to quickly spin myself around as I giggled at kicked my feet.

"New gig! New gig!"

—--

"Welcome to the Section 9 pre-mission debrief!" I called out as Malcolm finally arrived and I handed him his favorite Ni-Cola and ushered him inside the apartment.

"Thanks?" He questioned looking around but Hiromi just waved at him lazily from the couch, her face still buried in a laptop she had brought with.

"Don't mind Motoko, she is just excited."

"Hey! I'm not excited… I'm super duper excited!" I called out happily, and I was.

A nomad group wouldn't just be a couple dudes in an apartment. This would take actual work to plan out, I would have to go in full ninja mode, and murder potentially dozens of bad guys!

So much XP! So much loot! I would actually have my team with me to loot the place! Sure the Arasaka Helmet was only mid, but their armor was good, and so we would definitely end up with weapons, and armor for my team!

We would look so fucking cool after!

"Alright settle down." Hiromi demanded pointing mostly at me. "Here is what we know, and it isn't much. Thanks to Motoko knowing the Aldecaldo leader I got in contact with Dakota Smith, she's one of the big fixers in the Badlands. And we got some potential targets for who took the shipment, but nothing concrete."

"The Badlands is pretty big." Malcolm sort of pointed out slowly. "Are we even going to find these gonks? I mean we can't do Motoko's Camera trick out there."

"True, but we have all the data Arasaka has, and more importantly. We know who didn't take it." Hiromi added, and she turned to me, I threw her a thumbs up.

"We got some stuff to go on. Dakota was kind enough to give us some data in exchange, for a lump payment now, which will be returned to us if and when we sell off the suspected Raffen Shiv vehicles we are probably going to come into ownership of soon."

"Oh! I want one!" Malcolm called out and Ichi slapped him on the back of his head.

"You already have two cars, you gonk."

"Nah. The Archer was stolen by my mom. She always wanted her own car, and I can't exactly drive my baby to the grocery store!" He argued, waving his hands as if that would emphasize his point. It honestly only made me laugh all the harder.

"This gonk! He spent all his eddies on a car he can't even use!" I cackled and Malcolm grabbed an empty Ni-Cola can and chucked it at me, but my ninja reflexes were too strong!

I managed to bat it away and smile widely at him.

"I can so use it! I just don't want to drive it around to places it could get targeted, or get me targeted."

"So you can't use it." I mumbled under my breath quietly enough that everyone heard it.

"Let's focus back up you gonks." Hiromi demanded poking me in the side to get me to stop messing with Malcolm

"We will obviously need some actual on the ground scouting this time, but that's gonna be super dangerous. Thankfully Motoko's wheels are already made for the badlands so we got that. Ichi Malcolm and I will drive together in his van to Dakota's garage. She agreed to let us set up there as long as we don't drag any trouble there, so we have a staging ground."

"While I hit the locations we think might have the loot!" I burst out unable to contain myself.

I would probably have to hit multiple Raffen bases!

I shivered and didn't discretely wipe my mouth at the idea of all the XP! Definitely not!

"Right. Motoko will go out scouting, but that's going to take a while. The Raffen will often have security around the camps in case someone is driving up on them, which means getting a mile or so off and walking… Motoko?"

"Easy. I got good boots, and I'll bring lots of water in the car." I waved off the concern. Seriously these city kids! As if walking a mile in a desert was that tough. I had done it before even and I was way more beat up then! And there had been a sandstorm!

"So that's the idea. Motoko hits the locations, clears them out, we find our target, and Ichi moves in to remove it."

"What about the places Motoko scouts that aren't the target?" Malcolm asked, once again proving he was my swiftly shooting up the favorite charts. "Like what about all that loot that will be left behind?"

Hiromi fumbled for a minute and looked to me.

I just shrugged. "We should expect this could take a while, days maybe. So if I clear a place you guys move in, we loot up and leave. Run the idea past Dakota I guess. She'll probably take the loot, or know where we could offload it… Or she'll refuse cause it'll bring a lot of heat. Who knows."

"Okay. I'll run the idea past Dakota after this meeting. For now Malcolm we will loot it up, or if Dakota says it will bring too much heat… We can just sell the info. The Aldecaldos would be happy to loot it in our place." Hiromi muttered I could tell the way she said it that she liked the idea.

"I'm okay with that. It's gonna be hot out there." Ichi offered, but Malcolm was a true loot goblin and glared at both of them. Our eyes met.

Yes, my choom. The loot shall be ours.

We nodded silently. Compact complete.

"Oh! Malcolm, take my HMG too. That way you guys will have a lot of protection between Ichi's turret, and you backing him up."

"Oooh." Malcolm gave me a sinister smile, which I returned.

"Okay you maniacs, we do have another problem. Please turn your eyes to Arasaka's only information on the attackers." Hiromi demanded, and turned her laptop around, where there was a small text log.

It was transcribed from the pilot, and I frowned deeply at what I read.

"That's going to be a problem." Ichi offered, but Malcolm jumped in instantly after.

"I want it! Dibs!"

"Fuck!" I cursed, because the idea of a vehicle with a Rocket Launcher on top was pretty rad. Like… At least as cool as my Black Quadra.

"I really don't think you need a rocket launcher equipped vehicle, Malcolm." Hiromi tried to argue, but I actually considered it and shook my head.

"Actually. If we gathered a few armed vehicles like that, and stored them for emergencies… that's not a bad idea. We might take gigs where we have to hit AV's or need to take out an armored transport. Having something like that in storage isn't a bad idea."

Hiromi looked like she was going to argue but her shoulders slumped. "That's true."

"Yes!" Malcolm fist pumped because that meant we were definitely taking heavily weaponized vehicles for ourselves.

"Okay but back to the point. That thing is super dangerous. What do we do?"

"We infiltrate their camp and kill them before they get a chance to get in their rides." I offered with a shrug. "I'll just have to be super careful if any of the thieves manage to get into their vehicles that could be pretty dangerous." It made me consider whether I needed to bring my Uragan, but that might be overkill.

Nekomata should punch through the armor pretty well, and at close range and not standing on top of a moving vehicle, I should be able to hit the driver.

"Alright! Let's get everything we need sorted out tonight, and we can head out in the morning to Dakota's garage!" Hiromi called out clapping her hands to refocus us all. "We will have a mission budget, so run things through me, and we can get everything sorted out!"

"Don't forget to bring lots of water!" I added looking at my chooms who all rolled their eyes at me.

—--

The next morning we all met up at Hiromi's parking garage, and Hiromi dropped a new issue on our heads.

"Dad wants to talk to everyone about the gig? I think he just wants to meet my chooms." Hiromi added looking nervous as we all arrived.

Ichi, Malcolm, and I looked at eachother and I could tell the boys weren't interested, but Ichi shrugged and Malcolm relented a moment after. "Sure, I guess."

"If our client wants to meet, I'm not against it." I added, and Hiromi looked relieved as we all headed towards the elevators.

The ride up was quiet and I could see Hiromi sort of buzzing with anxiety but we stepped out and over to her door which she opened and led us in.

There, sitting at the big table in the dining area was Hiromi's father. That same sort of sinister look behind his eyes was present just like before.

"Ah Hiromi! I see you brought your little friends! Good. Why don't all of you come over for a minute, this won't take long." He called out waving us over, but I noticed didn't actually ask, or offer us a seat.

Once we walked over he looked the three of us that weren't Hiromi up and down, paying particular attention to me.

"You look like you are doing well, Motoko wasn't it?"

"Yes. Nice to see you again as well. I hope that our completion of your gig will meet your satisfaction." I added, and he simply smiled lightly, like he was looking at a child showing a finger painting, or a small dog.

"I'm not overly concerned, which is why I agreed to let Hiromi take on the contract for this issue. My true concern is that my daughter comes to no harm while working this gig. I hope you understand my meaning."

I nodded to the man, while my mind was buzzing.

That's right. Arasaka was full of people like him. Arrogant men and women, that don't actually care about the bottom line, just as long as their pet projects or comforts were respected.

Who cares if Arasaka lost a shipment, as long as they weren't the ones directly responsible for it? That just meant they could remove some upstart below them, securing their own power. Throw eddies at some mercs to see if they could kill the ones that attacked them problem solved. No longer a problem.

This guy didn't care about the shipment. Didn't care about killing the ones responsible. Very likely if Hiromi hadn't offered to take the contract he would have just filled in a report somewhere about how he had hired some mercs with company eddies and they hadn't found anything. All the while just pocketing the money and never bothering to actually investigate.

This was a sign of the arrogance and corruption within Arasaka at this time.

But I didn't care. As much as Hiromi planned on joining the corp. I didn't, and didn't have any reason or desire to try and fix it.

I would happily take the eddies though.

"Daddy, I already told you what I would be doing, I'll be at a nomad fixers base the whole time." Hiromi did not quite whine, but I noticed her lie right away. She was planning on helping when it comes to cleared camps.

I wasn't going to call her out on it though.

"Alright. Well I mostly just wanted to see my daughter's little friends. Heh, putting together a merc group at fifteen. What a goal getter. You'll go far if you keep that ambition honey." He added, with the fakest fake laugh I had ever heard, and the way he said honey made it sound like a foreign word on his tongue.

Hiromi just smiled at her dad though.

Whatever, it was time.

We were all dismissed after that, and Malcolm and Ichi both hurried for the door, obviously uncomfortable.

Yeah I get that chooms.

We were quiet on the elevator ride back to the garage, where we finally seemed to relax.

"Alright team, mount up. We have a long drive to get to!" I called, and that got everyone moving. Ichi and Malcolm jumped in his van, and Hiromi joined me in the Quadra.

We caravaned out of the city, I kept it slow making sure Ichi had protection on the drive.

Time for the hunt to begin.

—--

Dakota had been true to her word. Giving us a few different camp locations that we could check out.

I had left my chooms behind, and headed out, Parking far away from the first camp, I had hiked for a while under the sun. Thankfully it wasn't too hot, and I had a water bottle, so I was fine.

Unfortunately I hadn't noticed any sensor equipment out in the desert, so I was pretty sure I could have just driven right up.

Oh well, it was worth it just for the ninja aspect. Nin-nin.

Crawling through some old brambles gave me a good covered position as I looked into the camp.

It was an old tunnel, probably a mine. The entrance was only sorta fortified. I noticed a mediocre attempt at putting up trash into a wall around the exterior, but it wasn't even tall enough to block my sight as I scanned over the camp.

I only saw one vehicle, and it wasn't the one I was searching for.

But there were tire tracks leading into the mine. So they likely parked inside.

There were a few electronic defenses. Cameras, and I saw an old dirty HMG turret scanning at the entrance of the camp set up on an old fridge by the looks of it.

*I'm at the camp. Checking it out now. I'm not sure this is our target, but I'll be checking out the mine to make sure. Sending details.* I spoke into the group chat, while sending pictures by text to my chooms.

We were still on coms with each other. We were still close enough to Night City that we had our agents working just fine after all.

*Not seeing a lot of people.* Malcolm noted and I nodded to myself.

*I think they are inside the mine, probably cooler in there.*

*Watch out for traps! There might be… Land mines! Or something!* Hiromi added and I chuckled aloud, but didn't send it through the agent.

*I'll keep my eyes open.* I assured her instead.

*That car, I don't think it has the weapons our target has.* Malcolm added in, but Ichi instantly responded.

*They might not weaponize every vehicle. Don't want your underlings driving something that can take you out after all.*

*Alright chooms. I'm moving in. Going dark.* I felt my smile widen as I said that. So fucking cool. Then I clambered out of the bushes and wiped the brambles out of my hair before moving closer.

There were a few people outside in the camp proper. Time to introduce myself.

I stalked up until I was close enough I could hack the cameras without the lag potentially interfering in my breach. Slipped into the defenses, and uploaded my Ghost Daemon into the network.

Now I would be a lot harder for any of their sensor equipment to catch. I also sent a ping through the network, watching as the lines blurred into vision.

Yep, there were three gonks outside the cave, and at least a dozen more inside.

That could be irritating depending on how they were camped out.

I considered just slipping into the cave, going through it and scouting the place without killing anyone, but honestly. Leaving myself without an exit was a really bad idea.

Fact was, stealth was good, one of my best skills, maybe even a bit OP, but it could fail, as it had against Thomas, and getting caught without an escape could actually lead to my death.

So quiet, consistent, and deadly it was.

The three gonks outside were all doing their own thing. One was working on the car that was parked outside. It looks like the car had something wrong with it, and he couldn't drive it inside.

Another was inside a small shack near the entrance to the mine. With a bit of peaking through the cameras I could faintly hear some commercial playing, so he was just chilling.

The third looked to actually be on guard duty. Which was weird for a Raffen camp.

There was an overhang near the HMG turret they had set up and he was sitting in the shade looking out over the desert with a big old Grad Sniper resting beside him.

Okay. I slipped closer, taking control of the cameras and locking them into an angle that would make sure it couldn't catch sight of what was going to happen.

I slipped over the trash without a sound, as I did so my hands were busy, quickly pulling free my Lexington, and the silencer, and in one move slowly screwing them together.

Then once I had that taken care of I pulled my knife.

I hadn't actually used the silencer in a real life condition yet, didn't want to misjudge a shot and have a ricocheting bullet alert the camp so no long range shooting with it yet.

I actually ignored the guard first. I had no idea what their guard schedule was like, so I wanted to leave him alive until I was ready to move into the mine, instead I scurried under old trash, and busted equipment, until I was at the entrance to the mine.

The gonk inside watching TV was first.

I scoped out the little shed and narrowed my eyes in a little frustration.

I don't know if I could slip in without being seen.

So I raised up my pistol held in my right hand, my knife in my left raised up to help support and I stalked closer, getting up to the hut I peaked through some of the wood slats and got my first look at the woman that was inside. She was actually working on something while she watched TV. Her hands busy with some tools as she stared down at her workbench.

Well that made this easier. I did actually slip in, while she was distracted, and a moment later her throat was missing and I carried her gently to the ground.

*500 XP Gained.*

One down.

I stepped out and stalked towards the gonk working on his car. It's kinda funny how often I've killed someone doing this.

He was at the side of the car actually changing out the wheel.

I considered it. Should I just let him finish before killing him? It would save my team or the nomads some work later…

I shook it off, stalked up and with a vicious move tore out his throat as well. I stayed down with him for a moment making sure no noise had alerted the guard, but it was quiet.

*500 XP Gained.*

With that I went after the last one.

But since there was no one else outside, I figured I might as well get some experience. I got close enough, lined up a shot and pulled.

The sound of the bullet in the air wasn't entirely quiet, but it was a whole lot quieter than a normal shot.

*500 XP Gained.*

The man slumped and I nodded.

Cool. Three down. A dozen more to go.

 

[Seras]

With the outside cleared out, I had some time to prep just in case something bad happened. So I went over to the HMG turret, it hadn't spotted me yet, and with just a moment's work turned it off, reset its targeting to the gonks data, and then started it back up. Then I aimed it at the entrance.

Heh.

If they were in a car and really moving, it likely wouldn't hit them, but if they came out on foot, or came out in a car slowly, that HMG would tear them up.

I spent a few minutes looking around for anything else of use, but it looks like most of the stuff on the surface was trash. I mean there was literally a pit that they threw all of their trash away at. Gross.

With that I was ready. I walked back to the entrance, and once more slipped into the camera system.

There were a few cameras deeper into the cave, and I used them now. Slowly looking through the three additional viewpoints inside. One showed me the hallway just inside the mine.

The other was panning over a larger room that looked like their taken over garage.

I took a moment to scan the vehicles I could see, but didn't find the car that I was here to find. The camera couldn't see everything, but it was a sign that we were at the wrong place.

Which didn't impact me at all, because these fuckers were Wraiths. There were a few non-wraith vehicles in the garage I could see that had very obviously been shot up.

Not even touching on the more civilian vehicles that were definitely people they had chosen for kidnapping.

I knew that because the last camera showed a fucking cage of all things. Thankfully it was empty.

With Ping I had locations of the Wraiths, and I started planning out my route.

Then I rose, my vision returning to my own eyes as I slipped inside. The camera at the end of the stone shaft only picked me up as a small blur as I darted in the darkness.

Three of them were in the garage room.

The three were doing normal things, checking out their rides, and relaxing. They had no reason to think there was any danger here after all. They had defenses, cameras, and even a watch guard.

I slipped in, slipping between the Nomad upgraded vehicles like a wraith myself.

FIrst gonk was out of sight of the others sitting in the driver seat of his car, fiddling with some dash installation. I slammed the knife into his throat and yanked him right down, so they couldn't see him through the windows. I left him gurgling to death bleeding out over the tile with near silent drops onto the concrete.

Number two and three were close together, shooting the shit while they did maintenance. Luckily I had two weapons.

I leapt slamming my knife in and out of a throat in a rush of movement as I lined up the shot and fired. The near silent shot slammed into his skull, and I took a moment to shoot another two rounds into the man just to make sure he couldn't send an alert or something.

Then it was quiet.

*500 XP Gained.*

*500 XP Gained.*

*500 XP Gained.*

*Ninjutsu skill level up!*

Ninjutsu level 9. I hadn't even noticed it leveling while taking out this group, but that was amazing! I took a moment to just feel the minor adjustments it guided me towards, how to move just that much faster while remaining silent.

I moved on. The garage area led into a dense set of hab buildings. Probably the mines original offices, or crew quarters.

I moved up to the front entrance and readied myself. There were no cameras inside.

No way to know what was coming. Lexington was reloaded and ready, and I opened the door. Just a hallway with a few doors leading off. I blinked and the golden lights of Ping showed me where the people were. I smiled as I narrowed down on one that was alone behind the first door. I stalked over and slowly peaked the door open.

Bedroom.

Sleeping gonk. A few moments later he was dead.

*500 XP Gained.*

I crept out and frowned.

The next batch weren't alone. They were all together.

I narrowed my eyes as the idea hit me. Okay, can't go quiet anymore. Time to go loud.

I came up to the door, they were behind and slowly slid the door open just a crack.

It was a lounge room, food and a TV was set up, and everyone inside, all ten of them were relaxing and chatting. The main squad of the Wraiths. I scanned all of them, and held myself back from whistling. Most of them were just minor bits and bobs of chrome, but their leader was a borg. A real tough looking guy. Not Maine's level, but someone that would give Jun a run for his money.

Okay, time to prep. I started breaching into each and every one of them, being extra careful with the leader. While I did that, my hands worked the grenade I kept attached to my belt free.

It wouldn't be enough, on its own, but with a bit of extra netrunning havoc, I think I could do this.

I nodded as I breached into the last gonk. All of them had their defenses punched right through. It was time. I slammed Reboot Optics into their system. Only one of the gonks noticed something was wrong, as I saw a guy looking like a netrunner himself sit up as the hack was uploaded.

I opened the door, popped the pin on my grenade and chucked it right at him.

The tableau of frozen horror that I earned as they realized what was happening was perfect, as their sight was then instantly taken from them. I drew both my Lexington and my Burya, as their sight vanished, as they all started moving to try and grab a weapon.

Then the first round of my Burya roared out, right at the borg leader.

Something went wrong. Between one moment and the next he had disappeared. Sandevistan!

But that wasn't all.

I had gotten a look at him face to face, eye to eye.

Only one of the man's eyes was cyberware…

I instantly backtracked. Knowing what was coming leaping out the other way of the door, suddenly a gun started firing and the doorway I had been in was filled with shrapnel. More than a few fragments struck me, but nothing that got through my armor and subdermal. I started running.

The grenade made an echoing boom behind me, but I just booked it. This hallway was not a good place to stand around in, even with blinded gonks.

The walls were too thin and I really didn't want to get randomly shot. Plus A Sandevistan borg was too much to face head on. Had to get better terrain.

Then I heard it. Boots on the floor running, and focused.

Sandevistan Borg was chasing just as I expected.

I kept running, leaping over cars, or sliding on top of their hoods to get to the other side, then gun fire roared behind me, and I winced as I felt something slam into my back.

I fell into a roll ignoring the burning in my back. I had my Kang Tao armor, my leotard and my subdermal stopping whatever just hit me, but it still hurt.

I let myself roll forward and then once I had my feet there I leapt again. Pushing myself far down the mine shaft giving myself a chance to respond. The distance was everything I needed. I turned around.

He moved fast, but he wasn't David Martinez. He blurred as he zipped down the hallway, the noise of his movement coming in short bursts as he moved like a lot of low level Sandevistan users I've noticed. There was this stop and go to their movement, as if they needed to regain their grip on the ground before being able to push forward again.

It didn't matter though. He was in my sight and his security was already in tatters.

"Get back here you netrunning bitch!" His voice roared, and I just rolled my eyes. Man, did these guys never get any better dialogue? It was always, Fuck you, or bitch this.

I uploaded my newest hack.

Short Circuit activated, there was an instant crackle of electricity as the borg dropped out of his hyper speed, lightning ran over his body as his batteries began an emergency discharge, but at the speed he was moving?

I smiled in enjoyment as the Sandevistan user went from charging at me, a very dangerous prospect to slamming face first into the concrete and sliding along leaving a trail of red in his wake as he became a meatmarker.

"Got you" I told him, as I raised my Burya and fired. His head disappeared in a splatter, and I just sighed and stretched, before refocusing. Reloading the Burya I hurried back to the room.

Some of the wraiths might still be alive. I led with my Lexington as I entered the hub and as I crept closer, I heard moaning mixed with calls for help, and even a few angry yells.

As I peaked in I relaxed. My grenade had done some serious damage. Outright killing the netrunner, and another gonk, while leaving the rest of them in no shape to do much. Especially since they were still blind.

I started lining up shots and firing as I stepped in. None of them were capable of stopping me, as the remaining wraiths freaked out at their own incoming silent demise.

Only once it was done did I truly relax, pinging the network again just to confirm there was no one else connected.

I pulled up a chair that was mostly intact from the table and plopped down, wincing a bit as my back touched the chair.

I sighed.

*Alright chooms. Place is clear. Not our target. Go ahead and get here to start looting, and inform Dakota we got some vehicles for her.*

Then I just relaxed for a bit, looking at my system.

*1000 XP Gained.*

*500 XP Gained.*

*1000 XP Gained.*

*500 XP Gained.*

*500 XP Gained.*

*500 XP Gained.*

*500 XP Gained.*

*500 XP Gained.*

*500 XP Gained.*

*500 XP Gained.*

6000 XP just for that room. Nice. Very nice.

I did get an alert as well, and it was one I hadn't seen in a while.

*Quick Hacks skill level up!*

Quick Hacks 8. The lowest of my netrunning skill. I closed my eyes as I took in the knowledge about how to upload hacks just a bit faster, a bit sneakier.

—--

I eventually got moving again after I gave myself a break. I needed to search every inch of this place for traps so my chooms wouldn't accidentally step into something. Thankfully it looks like their only security had been outside the mine. It wasn't like much could get down here without going through the entrance after all.

But while doing that, I did find something else interesting. Laptops.

Not just the big one in the netrunners cave. No, there were personal computers all over the place. I found the leaders room, and he had a laptop as well.

Now I wasn't expecting a convenient shard laying around telling me this guy's life story and how he was a bad person, but Wraiths were a gang. They were Raffen Shiv joined together, sure I highly doubted they got along group to group, but that doesn't mean there wasn't some communication.

So I pulled up his laptop, didn't even need to unlock it as it was already unlocked. Then I pulled up his emails.

I ran back the list of emails to the day the transport was broken, and started checking.

No. No. No. Gross. No. Hmm. That was interesting, and might be something Dakota had an interest in. No. HELL NO.

"Ugh. Gross!" I whinged quickly closing that particular email. Long distance relationships were still a thing I guess, and for a guy stuck out in the badlands I guess he still wanted to get along with his girlfriend… And I now knew what a Mr. Studd looked like.

Yuck.

More and more I went through them, learning more about Terry 'Terror' Hamilton. The Wraith I had flatlined.

And then there it was. Three days after the hijacking. An email complaining to a guy about how he was pissed that "Issac" had hit the Arasaka AV. That he could have done it just as well, if he had known.

So he couldn't have done it basically, but it was exactly what I needed.

I had a name now. Isaac.

I continued to search through the laptop, checking if there was any more information on Isaac, but didn't find anything, but that was fine. We had the Badlands Fixer working with us. An Isaac of the Wraiths that had enough power to take out an Arasaka AV?

That should narrow it down.

—--

Malcolm let out a low whistle as he looked over the place. "That's a lot of stuff we can grab."

"We have extra vehicles we can commandeer as well, if the van isn't enough." Ichi answered, I was showing the two boys the rooms inside the mining hab, including the Netrunners setup.

"Well we will have to. A lot of this stuff is expensive." Malcolm added, having been checking out the rooms.

"Well find out what the most expensive stuff is, or at least the stuff we can sell, run it past Hiromi and stuff." I added and then mostly just stepped away from it.

Hiromi had been very firm that I should stay away from anything to do with eddies as my sense of money was 'off' in her words.

I grumbled but walked away, to meet Hiromi who was in the garage alongside Dakota's handler for this.

The nomad was going over vehicles while Hiromi watched on with a smirk. I could practically see the eddies in her eyes.

Good, she would make sure we get a big paycheck, but I wanted to know where our next target was.

"Hiromi. Get anything on Isaac?" I asked her quietly as I walked up beside her, and she looked away to send me a confident nod.

"Yeah, Dakota knew exactly who it was." She replied, her eyes flashing, as she sent me a text. The information Dakota had sent reached my eyes and I looked it over.

Dakota hadn't considered Isaac to be a potential target for the raid. Although reading through the information she had on him, I instantly suspected she had purposefully chosen not to share that information with us so we might actually take out some of the troublesome Wraiths in the area.

It would be the exact sort of thing a Fixer like her would pull off. Only revealing the info if we hadn't found it ourselves in the end.

For a price.

It doesn't matter now. We had the name, and she gave us the location.

Issac Webb was a Wraith leader. The sort of crazy fuck that caused people to flock to him out of fear of being his next target.

He wasn't super close to our current location, his outpost was well away from the city. But at least we had a location now.

I moved away from Hiromi so she could focus on her work and met back up with Malcolm and Ichi, helping the boys find the expensive stuff and load it up. We took a few hours clearing out the base to the best of our ability. Ichi proved his skill with power tools to completely disassemble anything of value that was bolted down.

We ended up taking two more vans from the Wraiths garage. Both were clunkers, but as long as they could get us out of the Badlands that was all we needed.

—--

Packing the two vans into a garage that Dakota was renting us, we all met up to take care of the next part of the gig.

"This is going to be difficult." I said looking over the data that Dakota had on Isaac's wraith group.

For the last eight months Isaac had grown very large, pulling in small Wraith groups from all over. Not even Dakota knew why, after all, the larger the group the more costly it was to keep them. More food, more CHOOH2 to fuel their vehicles which only drained more and more as more nomads grouped up. It's why most Wraith groups were small. A dozen people or so max, to keep everything moving quickly. They were nomads after all, staying put was against their usual MO.

But Isaac had stayed put, and grown large. According to Dakota's information, it wasn't the first time someone had done that, sometimes men wanted to be kings of their little groups, and would grow too large, usually bloating up until the food and eddies ran out, and then they would shatter apart.

Isaac hadn't hit that part, and with the Arasaka raid likely wouldn't for a while, especially if he was selling off the equipment, or got paid by someone to do the raid in the first place.

So he was trouble.

Worse? The place he was hanging out in was just an old electrical substation. An old building probably put up in the 1980's from how old it looked.

Yet, they were gathering around it. Flocking to it.

Luckily Dakota had been interested in what was going on, and we had some footage of the place from miles away. It was a month old, but at least it would give us an idea of what we were looking at.

We were all hunched over the display that we had set up in the back of Ichi's van. We had emptied it out after arriving at the garage Dakota was renting us and we had spent the evening preparing for the next raid. The other two vans still packed full of goodies to sell. Hiromi had even sold some of it to Dakota directly earlier.

Now we were settled in and studying. All four of us were camped out. Planning on sleeping in the van, for the night and maybe hit the place in the morning once we had a plan.

Unfortunately it wasn't going super well.

Isaac had a netrunner, a good one, which of course he did. He also had a lot of weapons, and a lot of people to use them. He was becoming a growing terror in the Badlands, and having so many wraiths was a daunting prospect.

If I had a workable tactical advantage, maybe, but with a netrunner working with him, I wouldn't be able to do much without killing the runner first.

"Maybe a distraction, the Nomads?" Malcolm offered and I shook my head.

"Dakota, and the Aldecaldos are not going to get involved any further. Period." Dakota had been completely firm. As far as the nomads were concerned, this was my problem.

None of them wanted the heat of getting involved.

"And using you guys as a distraction defeats the purpose of a stealth mission." I did consider calling in help. I had an array of contacts by now outside of this. Panam, Jun, Jackie, V, Maines crew even.

Yet I hesitated. I wasn't really the kind of person to be blinded by pride, but… This was my gig. My chance for XP, one that would really help boost me up.

There would be at least fifty people to flatline. If I could get them all? That was a lot of XP.

I took a deep breath. I didn't need help on this, I just needed to put enough advantages in my corner.

"I'll need to sneak in. The place isn't exactly securely set up. Plenty of places to slip in through the desert. It'll be a long walk, and I'll need to watch for mines, but I can get there. The problem is inside. The substation is ancient. No idea where anything will be… But once the netrunner is down, I'll have access to their system. I can upload some hacks to the entire network from there." Short Circuit was going to get a lot of work on the assault I knew.

"But, can you even reach the netrunner? Obviously he is going to be somewhere secure." Hiromi added looking over the digital map, and all I could do was nod.

If there was a netrunner controlling the system, I wouldn't even be able to risk turning off the cameras. I would have to do a complete stealth OP.

I shook it off. "We only really have one choice. I need to do an actual scouting mission on the place." I said, Dakota's data was good, but it wasn't entirely current, and I needed to get my eyes on the substation. I might see something that Dakota's data missed. An entrance, or a weak point. Even a window left open to keep cool could be the difference between success and failure. More importantly. I needed to find the netrunner without even touching the net.

Sure, I might be able to get in, but I might also alert the runner if he was good enough, and I just didn't know. So I was treating him as monstrously skilled. I needed to find and kill him before anything else.

In the end nothing concrete was hammered out. We discussed entry points, and numbers but I would need to scout the place to learn more.

We all went to bed in the back of Ichi's truck that night mentally preparing for tomorrow.

 

[Seras]

*That's a lot of bad guys.* I spoke into the group call as I overlooked the camp. It was mid afternoon and I had walked for miles, climbed up onto a mountain to overlook the Wraith camp and was now hidden in some brush with my Nekomata pointed down.

*Dakota wasn't kidding about the numbers." Hiromi cut in, and all I could do was nod. I was basically sending snapshots of what I was seeing to my chooms as I took note of things. My Kiroshi highlighting things for my chooms in the pictures.

The whole place was just surrounded by vehicles and tents. Obviously the wraiths couldn't all fit inside, yet, it was obvious like the nomads they were, they were plenty comfortable.

Walking through that wasn't going to be easy. Just the amount of people would make approaching difficult.

*I'm more interested in that.* Ichi called out, sending back an image into the chat. One of the massive trucks that were holding basically a cargo container on the back.

The truck and container was ancient, but, well.

*Think they stored the loot there?* I asked as I looked back at it. The massive truck reminded me of the ones that Nomads used as their main bases. So I wasn't surprised to see one, but the container made me want to look inside.

*At least some of it. Or at least they normally would. They don't usually stick to one place this long, so."

"Yeah, the fact they are sticking around… Look.* I sent another image, and listened to the chatter about it.

The Wraiths were building a trash wall. Although calling it building wasn't quite right, they were definitely piling up broken vehicles, used tires, and other things all around the exterior towards the road.

*They are planning on staying.* Malcolm added, saying the obvious. Which only made the whole situation more confusing.

What the fuck were the Wraiths doing? There had to be something here that they didn't want to move away from, but it was just an old electric substation.

*And at least we have confirmation. The Arasaka image is blurry, but look. That's probably the vehicle that took out the AV.* Ichi pointed out, a Wraith vehicle had a fucking rocket launcher system on the top.

*Yeah, that's it alright.* I muttered already thinking of how I could disable that. I really didn't want to end up on the other end of a vehicle modified into a light tank.

I shook it off. *Okay guys. I'm going to move positions, get some other angles.* I told my team as I backed out of the bushes, and then out of sight of the camp. Continuing my scouting mission.

—--

I was eating an XXL burrito in the Quadra, filling my stomach and rehydrating as my team and I continued to chat about what we should do, but I was already pretty confident in what I would have to do.

Sneak in. Kill the Netrunner. Access the network. Start murdering Wraiths until I was revealed and then dump hacks on them as I continued to murder all of them.

That was really the only option.

"You sure we don't want to do more preparation?" Malcolm asked as he walked over to the Quadra.

We had met up a few miles away from the camp out in the badlands using a side road that should keep us hidden.

My team couldn't stay out of this entirely, there were too many Wraiths for that.

"I think unless we want to go buy a fuck ton of mines or something, we are as prepared as we are going to get." I told him, chewing another bite of slop. "I think we can do this."

"Heh. You mean, you think you can do this." Malcolm said, but it was only teasing. "We'll back you up Motoko. Do what you think you need to, and kill them all."

I glanced up into his eyes and nodded. I would do it, because I had to, and because I wanted to.

"Good. I'll make sure we make it out in case something goes wrong." He pointed back towards Ichi's van, that also had a Wraith Thorton Colby, parked next to it. The pickup at least fit the terrain.

Malcolm had made off from the last gig with his own Wraith vehicle.

I was still surprised he hadn't grabbed a Quadra, but I guess he liked the Colby more. It certainly gave us more loot hauling room.

And if shit hit the fan, all three of my chooms could get in it and run. Ichi might be the better driver, but his van certainly wouldn't outrun an angry Wraith attack. The Colby might.

I wasn't preparing for me failing, I was preparing in case something went out of control.

"Alright choom. Let me finish this, and I'll head out." I told him finishing my dinner.

The sun was coming down. Sure most optics could see okay in the night, but it still would give me some advantage.

"Good luck." Malcolm offered before moving back.

I finished my meal, and stepped out stretching. I was so dusty and dirty, but it was fine. I would take a nice long shower after this was all done.

I headed to the back of the Quadra and popped the trunk. As tempting as it was, I left the Uragan and grabbed my Copperhead. The silencer was already attached, and I double checked to make sure it was secure.

Good.

I was already in my dark armor, so I started grabbing magazines out of the ammo section of the trunk, putting them into the webbing on my armor.

A few grenades tucked in as well, and I was armed and ready.

I took a breath and let it out, letting the cold clarity of Cool and Cold Blood flow over me.

I had an objective, and a path to do it. That was all that mattered.

But first I had a long run in the desert to get close to the Wraith encampment. For some reason they never expected someone to just come out on foot.

*I'm off. I'll be out of comms until I clear out the netrunner. Good luck.* I told the group and then headed out into the night. Everyone knew what they needed to do. I just needed to do it now.

The run through the desert was easy, I barely broke into a sweat as the desert was starting to cool, and my athletics stat was pretty high. I kept it to a light jog and then into a fast march, just to keep myself from getting too much adrenaline.

Slowly I arced over a hill and saw all the dotted lights of the camp. A quick scan told me not much had changed. The group was too large to really be worried about guards. Who would be stupid enough to attack a Wraith group this large?

I slid down the hill using a path I had picked out while scouting, and then I simply scurried from brush to brush, from ravine to gully. As I crept closer. Copperhead held tight so it wouldn't jostle.

I reached the first tent and parked against the shadow it cast for a moment to let myself catch my breath. I needed to be ready for the next part.

I slowed my breathing until I was ready and then I moved. Sliding from tent to parked car, slipping through the shadows, my mind already knowing the path. Having scouted out all the security cameras that could see me along the route, I made sure I was always out of sight of their vigilante gaze.

I just needed…

I stopped nearly sliding under a car as a nomad walked just on the other side. The man smoking a cigarette and just sort of chilling. I started from the dirt as his boots wandered around, and rested against the car I was hiding under. He leaned against it as he smoked, and I wanted to growl, because I needed to move right past him to avoid the camera.

So I waited, hiding in the shadows, I did my best to keep from making a single noise against the dirt I was planted against.

Slowly the man finished his smoke. Chuckling a little at nothing as he did, probably reading a shard, or something.

Then finally he moved off, and I slowly rose up and then moved. Slipping past a few final tents and up to the old fence that surrounded the power plant. I was at the perfect spot that none of the cameras could notice as I leapt right up and over, landing without a sound and then running the last feet to hide among some trash along the wall.

I rested again. Watching the camp from my hidden location to make sure no one was watching, before I leapt again. Landing on the roof in two leaps and then crouching down to hide among the shadows there.

My entrance was easy to spot. A door for roof access, as the building kept some of the electrical connections up here. I hurried over and to my irritation the door was locked, but it wasn't a modern lock.

Old lock and key of all things.

Luckily I did have the know-how. Not sure whether it came from Ninjutsu, or Tech, but I pulled out a few pieces of wire and within thirty seconds had the door opening. Even with the rusty hinges I kept it as silently as I could and slipped inside.

There were only two places a netrunner could be working from. Either the large heavy duty truck the wraiths had, inside the storage container, or from inside the substation connected into an old grid port.

I was assuming the netrunner was in here.

It's where I would be no one wanted dust and sand in their gear. So I slipped inside, ancient concrete steps didn't creak, but I could feel them shift at my weight.

Old. This place was really old.

The stairs thankfully didn't lead to the main room, but were actually sealed off with a door. So I could get down and slowly turn the knob of the door open letting me peek in.

Dusty. Quiet.

There was no one here.

What was going on? Why pick this place, if there was nothing here? I slipped out, checking every corner thoroughly for cameras but not finding anything. There was an ancient camera in a corner, but it was hanging from a wire, and wasn't powered.

I scanned around, trying to spot something out of the ordinary, but there was nothing. Just old concrete, a small office to the side, and old electric transformers.

The transformers weren't even active. They had long been turned off, or shut down. I was just starting to wonder if someone was fucking with me, when I noticed it.

The front door had dirt trailing in, and the dust was disturbed. In the dark it was hard to see, but Kiroshi were top tier for a reason. I trailed the many boot prints in the dust to one little office…

Well now.

I followed them in, I hadn't seen anything when I peaked in, but now that I was following the boot prints I followed them to the corner where the dust ended at a wall. But the footprints didn't.

Huh. Hidden wall huh? I scanned the area, but didn't get anything.

Whatever had made this, it wasn't 1980's tech.

I couldn't find any sort of keypad, so I crouched down and looked at the bootprints.

Most of the dust had been disturbed in a direct path between the door and the wall, but there were a few dusty boot prints that led around the room.

Thanks to my Kiroshi I was able to pick them out and highlight them, leading me into following in their footsteps literally as I walked along with them.

It looked like they were searching for something. I followed along until finally the footprints led straight towards the wall.

Then I just reversed my steps until I found the last place the bootprints would have stopped at.

It was a set of cupboards connected to the office desk. The faux wood was covered in dust, but again a bit of scanning found fingerprints in the dust.

I opened the cupboards that had fingerprints until I came to the second one, and stilled.

There in the back of the cupboard was a fake backing. It had been left open, revealing a much more modern number pad.

"Well well." I muttered as I looked it over. It wasn't dusty. I couldn't scan for fingerprints. How did a Wraith know about this?

I shook it off, it didn't matter. He did, and he had opened it. So I would as well. I pulled my personal link out of my neck and squeezed it into the slot along the bottom of the keypad.

Instantly I winced as the defenses started reacting. ICE. Good stuff fought me off, but I instantly went as stealthy as I could. Throwing up some cloudy data to keep the ICE busy, before it realized someone had connected to it.

Then I tried to breach in. Using all the skills I had.

It fought me. Hard. The walls of ICE were not standard off the shelf shovelware. No, this was definitely a high level military ICE. There was only one reason it hadn't been able to lock me out, or fry me in turn.

It was old. At least a decade. Possibly Unity War era.

I fought it tooth and nail and finally. Managed to slip inside, the barrier giving way as my rapid fire breach finally pushed through a hole. I shut down any alerts I could. Calmed the system and the keypad chirped as it accepted my fake credentials that I quickly uploaded.

The wall hissed, air escaping and popped out an inch and then slid sideways.

An elevator.

Well now.

I instantly shook my head at that. No way was I taking an elevator down to wherever it led. Too loud. Too obvious.

Instead I walked over and found the maintenance hatch at the top. A few moments of work and I opened it up, and climbed right out of the elevator into the shaft.

Dark.

Even my Kiroshi was struggling with how dark it was. Only a few red hazard lights gave me even the smallest of light to work on.

And here, me without a flashlight.

Walking slowly on top of the elevator, I managed to find the maintenance ladder and slowly climbed my way into the depths.

Deep. At least three or four floors? What the hell? How had whoever built this even done this? The electrical station certainly didn't look like it had been modified in the last century.

I hit the bottom and with a bit of work managed to find the actual elevator doors.

Thankfully with my chrome fingersI was able to wedge in, and slowly open them up and it didn't make much noise. Slowly the doors spread and I saw what was beyond.

A room, covered in tech. Computers, and servers and things…

The massive NUSA symbol on the wall right next to the Militech logo confirmed at least some of my suspicions. Was this a NUSA outpost? The many computers that I could spot even from the elevator well were all showing information about Night City. A watch post? To keep an eye on Night City?

I didn't see anyone through the small gap I had made and so slowly hefted the elevator doors open a bit more. The noise was pretty slight thankfully, as the doors bowed to my will and then I was in. Crouching on the other side, Copperhead raised and ready.

I took a step, and stilled. HMG turrets. I instantly went to breach them to try and shut them down, but stilled.

They were quiet. I didn't exhale, no instead I nodded. Obviously the Wraith wouldn't want the defenses to be on. They weren't Militech either.

I continued. Second step, and then into the room.

There. In the center. Were four people. Three men, and a woman.

One was a netrunner. Plugged into a chair and in the system. The other three were just Wraiths.

Except one of them was Isaac Webb himself. Well that made this easier.

I raised my rifle and took aim.

None of them suspected conflict here. None of them were prepared, even if all of them were armed.

I aimed at my first target, took a breath, and then moved even as I started firing.

Four rounds ripped into the chest and head of the netrunner. The sound startled the rest, but none reacted fast enough as in the air I shifted my aim, went full auto and simply started spraying the group.

Cries of pain echoed out as bullets slammed into the three. I landed and my rifle ran dry, I dropped the mag as I rolled behind the cover of an old metal desk, grabbed a new magazine and rammed it home, pulled the charging handle and then leapt up, far above the desk I was using, giving me vision of where everyone that was still alive had run to hide.

I started firing, and only two shots rang out loudly in the room in return, before I landed atop an old desk and waited. Checking the four with a full scan each just to make sure.

All dead.

*1000 XP Gained.*

*750 XP Gained.*

*750 XP Gained.*

*500 XP Gained.*

I blinked at the numbers. I guess… This would have been the bosses of the Wraiths? Huh. Nice.

"Heh! Heh… Hehehehehe!" I broke into giggles at the fact I had just ripped the leadership of a Wraith warband into puddles. I settled back to calm down as I took in what I had just done.

What even was this place? I quickly rose up and started looking around, and it didn't take me long after poking at one of the computers to confirm my suspicion

Yep. Night City Listening post for Militech and the NUSA.

With a bit of exploration I even got some dates. This place was put together a year before the unification war, and had been keeping an eye on activity in Night City. Likely in preparation for the war.

And I now knew how they had found the Arasaka AV. This thing was tracking Arasaka. Like a lot.

They had hacked in, and just watched, no need to mess with the system. Just keep quiet, and feed on the free information.

Instantly I realized how bad this was. For one, Arasaka would flip the fuck out if they knew about this. Militech would flatline anyone to keep it quiet too.

Fuck.

Should I tell Arasaka? Should I tell Militech?

Should I shut my fucking mouth and pretend this never happened?

Kinda leaning towards that option. I don't know anyone at Militech besides that first Militech corpo you meet trying to track their stolen shipment, and while she was certainly a surprise in her more personal meeting later in the game. I didn't really like her.

Besides, I was way too young for that.

Did I know anyone else? I thought back to the game and came up empty. I knew the Phantom Liberty DLC was supposed to be about Militech or something… Right?

Fuck, no idea. I shrugged. Then I guess I could talk to Hiromi? Oh. I bet her dad will like the information. Might even be able to make use of it…

If I wanted to support Arasaka… Which I don't.

Well at the least I know Yorinobu was going to try and destroy the company soon. Including killing his father. I could just ignore that whole thing and it would happen…

No, I didn't need to rush this. I should talk to my chooms and get a plan together when I wasn't rushing around pre and post battle.

I pulled away from the computer, and moved towards the netrunner.

He would be the central hive for all the security of the Wraiths above. Sure maybe not all of them would connect into the network they had set up, but most of them would.

I pulled out my link and plugged in, wincing again at the nasty ICE that the guy was plugged into. Luckily with him flatlined I had plenty of time to slowly pick it apart, and breach into the network.

Once that was complete, a single ping filled my vision with dozens of lines connecting me to all the Wraiths above.

I grinned as I took them all in. They wouldn't just track my targets for me, but make excellent shooting lines to hit my targets regardless of being able to see them.

—---

Standing on top of the electrical substation, I looked over the camp. No one had noticed the fight below. No one had any idea their system had been infiltrated. No one had any idea what was coming.

*Alright guys. I'm about to kick things off. Get ready for any runners.* I spoke quietly into the group chat, making sure my chooms had heard me and responded as I raised my Copperhead along the first golden line.

As I aimed I pushed Reboot Optics into the system. My vision filled with dozens of red icons showing it uploading into the Wraiths optics. A little ticking box of death over all of their heads.

I felt my grin go feral as I watched the first person to lose his sight and jerk at the sudden loss. The one I was tracing along the golden light.

I fired.

The light winked out.

Then I moved on. Even as the cries of surprise, the horror, the rage echoed up around me. I fired silenced rounds reaching out into the darkness and cutting out winking golden lights one by one.

It didn't work on everyone. Some could still see, either because they had no optics and just ganic eyes, or for some other trick. Cars started taking off. Just a few, on the outer edges, most racing towards the road, Hiromi, and the chooms would take care of that.

Others did drive out into the desert.

I shrugged. A shame, but nothing I could do. I kept firing. Rapid fire. The whistling of my rounds in an even tempo, as I just used the lights to guide my shots, ignoring tents, or cover in the way. Sure I didn't get them all. Some were inside their cars, but once Reboot was fully installed into the camp, I activated Short Circuit, and almost giggled at the squeals as people were suddenly tazed over and over.

The Wraiths knew they were under attack now.

They were trying to respond to mount a defense or an offense.

They were failing.

One got in a vehicle that had weapons, but couldn't find me, and was just firing randomly as he spun his Shion around. Some were gathering up driving their cars together for defense.

I just kept killing anyone that I could. Fire fire fire fire. Reload. Fire fire.

Suddenly I heard it, the massive noise of HMG's opening up.

Ichi had stolen the second HMG turret from yesterday's camp. I had reprogrammed it for him during the night, and so now his Van's rear doors opened up with two HMG turrets.

The sound definitely pushed the Wraiths into action, but a moment later a noise echoed out over the dunes.

A rocket launcher.

God dammit Malcolm! I know that's you! The distant fire over the ridge was grabbing everyone's attention, and that was finally enough.

The campstampeded. The few people in vehicles picking a direction not towards the rocket launcher and booked it.

It was less and less as time went on. Short Circuit sending a few drivers spinning in circles to crash into whatever was around.

The numbers diminished for them, but the numbers only went up for me!

A crashing noise pulled me away from sending a barrage of rounds into the windshield of a Quadra that was crashed trying to finish the gonk inside. I turned and instantly dropped down.

"COME ON THEN! I'LL TAKE YOU ALL ON!" The voice roared out of the speaker of the Arasaka branded Minotaur that just stomped out of the massive truck in the middle of camp.

 

[Seras]

The bipedal remote controlled robot smashed into the dirt as it stepped off the large container truck and started spooling it's HMG's up looking for whoever was attacking.

Yeah no.

Fuck that.

I instinctively tried to slip a weapon glitch in, but the Minotaur had amazingly good ICE that fought me off.

Worse it alerted the driver to my location. He turned towards me, and I ran. Leaping off the other edge of the building as dual HMG's roared into the night, absolutely shattering the old concrete as it sprayed the roof.

"YOU CAN'T HIDE! THIS IS TOP OF THE LINE!" The man who was driving the damn thing roared out and I just scoffed.

I couldn't attack the Minotaur, but the pilot was literally right there.

I considered drawing my Burya and just punching a few rounds into the container where his light was pointing, but…

I kinda wanted it.

The Minotaur. I wanted it. Stompy bot! I must have it!

I slipped into the building and slid through the shadows reaching the other side and peaking through an old window to see what was going on.

Ah. The Driver wasn't a total gonk. He was wandering around in front of the container. Probably not caring if he gave away his own location as getting past a Minotaur wasn't going to be easy.

I checked my webbing but I only had frag grenades. An EMP grenade would be a nice addition for the future.

I moved my hand away from the explodey bits though. I didn't want to destroy the thing. It wasn't on the short list of what needed to be returned to Arasaka after all.

I jerked as it started firing. But to my amusement, he was shooting at one of the Wraiths trying to drive away. The Smart HMG round pelted the fleeing vehicle until it gave in and just rolled off into the brush.

Kill steal!

I looked towards the light leading to the pilot and shrugged. His Minotaur might be protected, but was he? So I assaulted him again with a Short Circuit, wondering if it would work. Then I started running.

Instantly the building was filled with buzzing bee-like rockets that went wild as they entered the building without a direct lock, and I slipped back out the other side again. Putting a whole building between us.

I glared as I watched my upload be blocked.

Yeah the driving system of the Minotaur must have some good Arasaka ICE as well.

I ignored the continued yells from the pilot as I looked around for something.

Then I spotted it.

Isaac's Mizutani Shion was parked right there. The one with the Rocket Launcher on top.

I definitely heard the pounding of my heart in my ears, and felt some drool slipping down, but shook it off. No! I wanted my stompy bot!

But… It could be a good distraction.

I had klepped the guys' shards downstairs. I searched my pockets until I found his key and slotted it. Annoyed that my Neural Link was getting a bit full. Gonna need an upgrade soon.

Then I ran over to the car and slipped into the driver's seat.

I still didn't want to blow shit up… But a distraction… Could I do that? I considered it, and then shrugged. It should be possible. I slipped into the car's navigation computer, and quickly set out a few GPS coordinates that it should drive to going max speed, removing the limiter that kept the autopilot from refusing to go too fast. Then I jumped out, and booked it.

The Shion's wheels ripped up dirt as it took off into the night. I raced to the building, jumping from ground to trash pile to the roof and then raced across. I was trying to outrun a car, and I made it just in time. The Shion raced pretty close to the Minotaur, causing the bot to jerk over and spool up its weapons before it simply didn't fire.

Yeah shooting at your boss? Quick way to get flatlined. I leapt. Arcing into the night while the bot was distracted and landing on top of it, then leaping again. Sending me careening right into the storage unit on the truck. I grunted as I hit crates of junk, but I didn't let the pain slow me.

I could hear the roar of the bot as the driver realized what had happened, and I jumped again, sending me over the crates, and into a small cubby section that a gangly fuck was fully distracted by the headset he was wearing.

I didn't shoot, instead reaching out and ripping the headset off, causing him to scream and as he lost his control.

The knife sunk deep into his neck as he desperately tried to fend me off.

"Nice try choom. You gave me the most trouble out of all your people." I offered him. A weak platitude as he slumped bleeding out from his torn apart neck.

"Robo getto!" I proclaimed grabbing the headset and then sighing as I put it back down.

I didn't have time to figure this out. I walked back out. To hunt down the last few gonks that were still alive in the camp.

—--

I was sitting up on top of the building waiting for my chooms to arrive as I looked over my system alerts.

So many alerts!

I felt my smile spread across my face, stretching from ear to ear.

I hadn't just gained one level.

I had actually gained two.

*Level up achieved!*

*One Stat Point Gained.*

*One Skill Point Gained.*

*Level up achieved!*

*One Stat Point Gained.*

*One Skill Point Gained.*

That gave me three stat points to play around with, and seven skill points.

Although a large part of me wanted to keep them either for future chrome, or to put them into Adaptation now. I think…

I think it was time to go beyond.

Intelligence 10 (14) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 4.

That was what my stats currently looked like with Intelligence.

Three stat points…

I shook it off, seeing the van and my Quadra driving down the road. I would do it. Soon, but not right now. Who knows what going beyond 10 would do to me.

I stood up and waved at my chooms as they turned and drove through the destroyed camp to park not far from the building.

I leapt as soon as they were parked, landing with a quiet puff of dirt as I rushed forward grabbing Ichi in a big hug.

"We did it!" I cried out delighted, spinning him around like he was a doll, before attacking Hiromi who was next closest.

Her eep of surprise was very cute as I twirled her around a whole bunch before setting her back on her unsteady feet and then leapt over the van to assault Malcolm, who tried to fend me off, but his reflex was far too low to stop me!

I laughed in delight as he groaned at my affection.

"Motoko! Look at this!" Ichi finally responded, looking around the camp at the massacre.

"Yeah it's great! We got almost all of them! Fuck Wraiths!" I called out happily, arms shooting up in the air, and Hiromi as always was right there with me, thrusting her arm into the sky as well.

Of course that is when I turned and grabbed Malcolm in a bear hug.

"What's with you shooting my Uragan huh!?" I demanded squeezing tightly far tighter than he could have expected, as his breath left him in a rush.

"Oh… That was me." Hiromi called in from behind me and I eased up on Malcolm to look at Hiromi who was looking a little bashful. "I just thought it would be a good addition. It certainly stopped them from wanting to eeeee!" She squealed as I scooped her up and squeezed, pushing the air right out of her with my bear hug.

"Punishment hug!" I proclaimed as Hiromi's legs kicked and her face went red from lack of air.

"Alright Motoko, leave Hiromi alone. She'll die if you keep that up." Ichi called out as he was looking over a dead Wraith kicking the corpse a little to make sure it was dead.

I let go of Hiromi listening to her whoop for more air as I walked over.

"Don't worry. I double checked, everyone that didn't run is dead."

"Preem." He said a little blankly, so I nudged his shoulder.

"These are bad guys, and think of all the eddies. We need to start gathering everything. Car shards. Eddies. Weapons. We can bring it all back to Night City and sell it off.

"That's… A good… Idea!" Hiromi called out still gasping for breath.

"Oh! And we got the big truck we can use!" I called out pointing at the massive semi that was pulling the cargo container.

"Oh nova. A Militech Behemoth." Ichi said, looking at it for a minute. "Only one problem. I don't know how to drive that thing."

I blinked looking at my chooms. Hiromi and Malcolm both gave me negative looks at my questioning glance.

"I… Might be able to?" I whispered, thinking about it. I was pretty sure I knew how. My Driving skill was pretty comprehensive after all.

"Really?"

"Yeah." I nodded, confidence growing. "I can do it. Well we should start looting. Everyone take a section!" I called out as I walked towards the first corpse. A few moments of rummaging I found the Unity the guy had, as well as his car's key shard. Then I moved onto the next body, and the next. When my arms were full of loot I ran over to the storage container and dumped the guns into a pile.

Of course then I noticed the Minotaur that had slumped over, standing still… I was gonna have to get that thing back in the container too…

I sighed. I would mess with it later, just like I was still ignoring the listening post below us. So much work to do.

—--

The dust cloud of approaching vehicles had caused all of us to prepare for the worst, but thankfully as the vehicles topped the little rise and then came down into the area we all relaxed.

Nomad Markings, not Wraith.

Well I only half relaxed. Wearing nomad colors as a Wraith would be perfect camouflage to get close.

But at the first big truck pulled to a stop, Dakota stepped out and I did finally relax.

The older woman was looking around the camp with a sharp eye taking in the sights of slaughtered Raffen.

The guards she had with her, were looking a bit nervous, each of them holding rifles ready to shoot.

I ignored that though. My amazingness did make some people nervous after all!

I giggled to myself at the joke as I approached Hiromi joining me, as Malcolm and Ichi both got back to work looting.

"Dakota, we weren't expecting you." I called out, and the woman took a moment to grab her oxygen mask, taking a deep breath of it, before speaking.

"I wouldn't have come. Not my usual, but I had an usual guest show up at my door, begging for help. An old friend who fell into working with the Wraiths. Told me the camp he was at was attacked by an army if you can believe it." He said, looking around at the devastation.

I just laughed at the idea. "Well I've never been called an army before!"

"Hmm." The woman replied without saying anything further. "Tell me. Did you kill Isaac?"

"Yep. He got a bit explody with a Rocket though. Saw him die myself." I said lying outright. While he was dead, it hadn't been a rocket, but I wasn't telling Dakota about the listening post.

She nodded at accepting that. "Well girl, you did more than I expected. Maybe too much. The Wraith will be stirred up after this."

"Maybe, unless you let the truth leak out. That after Isaac hit an Arasaka AV, Arasaka decided to take him out to retrieve some of their stuff." I offered and the woman looked at me for a while before nodding.

"Might work. I'll leak the information."

"Preem. We are still looting the place, but since you are here. Interested in some new vehicles? Most of them don't even have bullet holes in them… At least they don't have fresh bullet holes."

"Now that is something we can discuss." She nodded her head at her men, and they broke off to look at the cars. Of course I quickly fled the ensuing haggling between Hiromi and Dakota.


—--

We were all exhausted by the time we got everything loaded up. I discovered piloting the Minotaur wasn't as easy as I expected, but with some effort I got it on board the truck.

Then we piled into separate vehicles, me driving the big truck and Malcolm proving his car obsession was getting out of hand, as he had found a Mizutani Shion that he decided to drive back.

It was slow going at first. Even with my Driving skill, the truck was a bit of a lumbering thing, especially with how loaded down it was, with an entire Arasaka AV full of stuff and everything we could stuff inside.

But as rough as the roads were, the roads were still roads, and the Behemoth was practically made for this sort of thing. I eventually got to a good pace and just cruised through the desert, my chooms all driving around me.

Like a badlands convoy.

I was actually surprised that we made it all the way to Dakota's garage without any issue. I had totally expected a Wraith attack on the way or something.

Regardless once the Behemoth was parked up. Hiromi had the package we needed to deliver to her dad, an Arasaka computer that had important files I guess?

I didn't know, nor was I going to poke my nose into it.

But first we had something even more important to do.

There was a reason I hadn't made a certain very important call while we were by the electrical substation.

The listening post wasn't just monitoring traffic, but some communication logs as well. NUSA listening to phone calls? That doesn't sound like any American government I ever heard of…

Anyway I couldn't make a call near it, as I simply wasn't sure if the data was being sent somewhere, and if Militech might roll in while we were loading up.

Now that we had some distance, I sent a text to V.

*Motoko: Hey V, I need you to meet up with me. Super important, not a personal matter. something Big A is going to want to know about. Can't discuss it over a line. Just answer y/n if you can meet. Cords attached, come in casual wear. Please. Trust me.*

I sent the text off as we were settling in, and didn't get a prompt response. I just shook it off. I would show V now, or later, even if I had to drag her out here.

Regardless, while we had done some prep for this gig ahead of time, we were certainly loaded up with more equipment than we ever could have expected. Which is why Hiromi was on the phone calling storage places, and potential buyers for some of the loot. While Ichi and Malcolm fucked around with all the stuff that had been left behind after the first raid.

Ichi's van had been emptied out to fit the HMG's after all. And so now we had an extra load of junk we needed to pack up again.

Since I wasn't getting a response from V, I mostly just hung out with Ichi and Malcolm helping them move and arrange stuff.

"Did you see the armor we picked up?" Malcolm asked as he hefted a box full of something back into the van adjusting it to Ichi's whims.

"Not yet! I was too focused on the Minotaur pilot the first time I went into the container, and I've mostly just been dropping stuff off in there. Are they cool?

"Well it's the good stuff! Full sets. I think they were used though. That AV that got taken down… You think it was like a black op group? Coming back from some secret mission."

"Well it's Arasaka so I think all of their missions tend to be secret, but probably something like that." I answered as I hefted a stack of guns in my arms as I waited for Ichi who was glaring at his van as he tried to figure out the best way to order things.

Ichi was very particular about his van.

"Yeah but like… Arasaka black ops! We could be using their equipment! How huge is that!?"

Considering what I knew about Arasaka Black Ops. They didn't tend to wear armor. More suits and massive amounts of cyberware. But I wasn't going to mess with Malcolm by saying that.

Besides, I was excited for the new equipment as well!

Ten minutes later, I finally got a late response.

*V: y*

I smiled.

—--

Considering I was waiting for V to show up, and that could take hours as we were pretty far out of the city. We had a lot of time on our hands, and of course after we sorted everything into the van and then ended up idling…

Well it was sorta inevitable wasn't it?

"WOOoo!" The voice came out of the Minotaur as it stumbled around drunkenly. Hiromi, Ichi, and I were watching as Malcolm took his turn trying to drive the Minotaur and it was going as well as Hiromi's had.

Badly!

"That still looks super fun." Ichi offered and I nodded. Even if I hadn't gotten a chance to play with it, I had still gotten to try it.

"I'm so happy I killed the operator and not the Minotaur. I've always wanted a kill bot." I told him, and he scoffed out a laugh.

"You would say that!"

"I'm going to be the only Arasaka Academy Student with a Minotaur." Hiromi sighed, not paying attention to the two of us, fully in her dreamworld, she had fallen into after her turn.

Apparently it would look good on her resume.

Haha, that's silly though Hiromi, because that baby is MINE.

"So, Motoko… You want to explain what's going on? I mean, you refuse to let us head back to the city despite the fact we are all packed up." Ichi asked suddenly and I stilled before nodding my head.

"Yeah… Yeah I guess we are good now. Malcolm! Pull out choom, we need to chat." I called over.

"Awww, C'mon Hiromi had like so much longer with it!"

"It's not going anywhere, and you need to be part of this conversation too." I responded rolling my eyes.

I mean, I get it. I too dreamed of being a one ton kill bot of steel and chrome. I mean, who didn't?

Man the only issue with the Minotaur was no hands. Who designed a kill bot without grippy hands?

How were you supposed to pet kitties? Pick up your chooms and carry them around? Rip a full borgs head off his over reinforced frame and use his biopod as a cudgel?

The important stuff!

Maybe I would do an upgrade on the minotaur? I mean. I now had a lot of equipment I could tinker with. Truckloads of it.

Yeah! It was time to grind some tech once we got home! I settled back as Malcolm disengaged from the Minotaur. A dangerous conversation was going to happen, but honestly? Today… Today had been a good day.

 

[Seras]

"Yeah, alright, fine." Malcolm grumbled as he took off the control band and huffed at all of us. It had taken a bit of urging to get him to actually stop stomping around in the Minotaur.

"So, The reason we are still here, and not heading straight back to the city. I found something. The reason the Wraiths were able to down the Arasaka AV? The specific one loaded up with high end equipment?"

I noticed Hiromi perk up at that, although information wasn't part of the gig her dad had sent us on, she was always looking for a bonus.

"Well the reason we are waiting here is because I called in V, she works for Arasaka Counter Intel. Because under the substation we were at, there was a Militech listening post." I dropped the bombshell, and I could tell Malcolm and Ichi were just kinda taking in the information without much response, but Hiromi went still.

"Wait… A listening post!?"

"Yeah. Full tracking, conversations, AV's, hell. They were even tracking space lift offs. I think it was made just before the Unification War. To track Night City. But then Arasaka came back, and they either forgot about it… Or just left it running in secret."

"Fuck." Hiromi cursed as she took that in. "Wait you said… Counter Intel? She isn't going to like, flatline us right?"

"No, I trust V. She's good people… Mostly. Just let me do the talking and pretend you don't know anything. But you deserve to know what's going on. You're my team after all."

"Arasaka Counter Intel… Good people?" Malcolm faux whispered to Ichi who just elbowed him to shut up. Ichi obviously realized that with Hiromi's reaction it must be a big deal.

"Okay so what does that mean for us?" Ichi asked and I shrugged.

"Honestly? Depends on V, and her boss I guess. But something like this? Tracking Arasaka air traffic to even keep an eye on their secret AV stuff? Yeah this is super big. Either huge payday… Or they try to quiet all of us." I answered with a shrug.

I didn't think V would go along with that, but it was something I had to consider. Fucking Night City.

"I should call my dad then. He can-"

"No! Hiromi. We don't know what the listening post can pick up. No calls about this. I waited until we were here before I even sent a text to V and it was super vague." I cut Hiromi off urgently.

She looked grumbly for a moment before nodded. "Yeah that's smart, but I'll call him in an instant if some CI bitch starts making trouble!" She says and I just laugh, because Corpo V was such a bitch!

But she was a likable bitch.

"Okay. Motoko this is your… Choom. I'll leave it to you." Hiromi decided with a nod and I smiled in relief.

"Thanks Hiromi. I promise she won't disappoint. I think we should tell your dad once we head back into the city. Bringing Counter Intel is just smart, so getting your dad up to speed, we could spread the rep for the find a bit I think?"

"Hmph! Of course! Dad is the one that created this gig, so anything we find should go to him first!"

"So… That's it right?" Malcolm cut in. After Hiromi's exclamation. I looked to him curiously but shrugged my shoulders.

"Yeah that was the whole thing."

"Great! Dibs on finishing my turn with the kill bot!"

"It's not a kill bot, it's an Arasaka Brand Minotaur!" Hiromi snapped, but everyone ignored her.

"Aww. I wanted my turn next." I whined.

Oh well. It was going to be mine soon regardless. Someone had to go into the programming, clear up all the Arasaka back doors, and Wraith trash, and then repaint it so it didn't have Arasaka all over it.

I was thinking… Blue, and white?

Heh.

—---

I did finally get another turn to play with the Minotaur, and then had been kicked off by Ichi when my time was up without preamble.

It had switched between all of us until we had nearly drained the CHOOH2 tank. In the end we put it away and switched, at Hiromi's demand to start categorizing our loot.

I was just finishing packing up a crate that was now actually ordered instead of just stuffed with junk when I heard the revving of a large engine pulling up to our side of Dakota's garage.

For some reason things around here had been quiet since we brought out the Minotaur and had it stomping around.

The Chevillon Emperor pulled up and I relaxed, noticing not only the familiar redhead at the wheel, but that there were no Arasaka markings on it.

"Hey guys! V's here!" I called out deeper into the truck as I jumped down and hurried over noticing V didn't look pleased, her sunglasses dipping down her nose showing me a glaring set of glowing optics.

"Kid. Not sure what the fuck this is all about, but I want answers, and fast."

"Let me get in, and let's talk." I told her. Waving at my chooms who were wondering what to do as I ran to the other side of her big ass truck.

Never been in one of these. I slipped into the truck noticing the interior was expensive. Like super expensive. I shook it off and only when the door was closed did I start. Pulling out the shard from my socket and handing it over.

"Found something while on this Arasaka gig. Finding the loot from an Arasaka AV that was taken down in the badlands. Everything went smooth, found the guy who did it, started clearing him out… Only he was acting weird. Holding up in a place that he had no reason to settle. Turns out. He found a Militech NUSA listening post, Unification war era, that's been watching NC ever since. Including Arasaka flights in and out of the city." As I spoke V had slipped in the shard and was looking at the pictures of what I had taken that I had saved just for her.

"Jesus Christ."

"Yeah. I have no idea if anyone is actually still listening, or it's just all automated, so I couldn't make any direct calls about it. I gathered some data, and brought you out."

V's eyes blinked after a few more moments and she looked at me. "You called me. Why? You could have just turned this into Mitsunashi, and been done with it."

"Because last I checked V, finding a NUSA listening post is a Counter Intelligence thing, and it would be a huge win for you… Right?"

She looked at me for a while, an intense look, her optics practically whirling as they seemed to try and find something.

"Yeah. It'll help a lot. At least it'll keep Jenkins from flatlining me for running out of the city suddenly. He probably thinks I'm going off reservation or something. I'm going to need to see this listening post."

"Yeah. That's why I called you before we went back to the city. My ride or yours?"

"As much as I would prefer it. Let's take yours. Too easy for this thing to be traced back to Arasaka." V muttered as she stepped out, and I followed. Hiromi walked up and I waved her up.

"Taking V back to the substation. Sit tight for a bit?"

"It's fine Motoko. Go with the scary Counter Intel lady. We'll keep our loot safe." Malcolm interrupted before Hiromi could, throwing an arm over her shoulder and giving me a thumbs up.

Hiromi elbowed him but nodded to me as she stalked off.

"Is… Everything okay?" I asked confused.

"Don't worry about it!" Malcolm called out his thumb still up so I quickly returned it awkwardly as I closed my Quadra's car door.

"You little chooms up to something?"

"No? At least I don't think so. I think they're just messing with me. Don't worry about it. They're cool V. I promise. I trust them."

The older woman just scoffed, but then we were off. Driving out of Dakota's garage rest stop.

—--

The drive was quiet, small talk wasn't something V wanted to do, like at all.

I had eventually run out of anything to actually talk about so I just turned on the radio to Morro Rock, and was thankful that a Samurai song was playing. As that seemed to ease tensions. Both of us quietly rocked out to the radio as I drove the long way out to the electrical substation.

Finally though we pulled over the hill that blocked it from view, and I could see V sit up as the place was a ghost town.

Dakota had really only taken the vehicles, and hadn't wanted anything else like tents or anything. So the place was abandoned, dead left to rot in the sun.

As I pulled up to the station. I could see V looking around it, eyes narrowed.

"The top of the station. That's where all of the Wraiths were killed from. Assault Rifle?"

"A Copperhead, and you're right! I was up there. Good catch. Or was it some crime scene program or something?"

"You did this-No. That makes sense. Sneaky fuck." She mumbled the last bit and I laughed at her smiling happily at her remembering. Finally parking we stepped out and I waved at her to follow as I led her inside, past the dusty room into the little office. I didn't need to as I already had access, but I opened the desk cupboard that had the hidden keypad, and then called up the elevator.

"I'll need access."

"Sure. I'll give you the code." I agreed as I followed her into the elevator, she hadn't even hesitated before entering.

"How did the Wraiths find this place?" She asked me, and I just had to shrug.

"I don't know. None of them had a shard with all their history laid out with dates or something for me." I said almost laughing at the fact the game did that all the time. She nodded without a word, and when the door opened she was first out. Walking straight in, looking over the dead bodies with a grimace, but heading around, checking it out.

I just settled onto the table in the center and watched as she first accessed the system. She stared at the display of the entirety of Night City with AV's marked. It did have a few other things as well. But I didn't know what they were, and didn't really care.

V either did, or just thought the info was valuable regardless. She tried to pull a shard out of her neck but stopped.

"Can I download this data without an alert going out?" She asked me suddenly and I jerked up and hurried over.

"Let's find out." I muttered, quickly snatching a chair and rolling into spot as I began accessing it, and checking what this system was taking in, and putting out.

"Maybe. Hold up, I might need to partition a drive though." I mutter, there was definitely some sort of NUSA spyware installed on these, but I was pretty sure I could put all the data it had saved into one of the laptops already accessed by the system and then just get the system to report it as a hardware failure and forget it ever existed. Letting us take it out without a problem.

"Okay that one." I pointed across the room. "Unplug that laptop before anything, but start it up. I gave you credentials to get in. User: V Pass: Hacked. Capital H." I informed her, as I continued working on making sure the system wouldn't try to connect to it again, if I could get it to accept the laptop was damaged and so destroyed even if NUSA decided to look into this place they would never know it was missing.

"Motoko. Can you get this data sent to another location, without Militech noticing?" V asked, and I grimaced.

"That… I don't know V. Honestly. I'm good, my net stealth is pretty good, but I would definitely be worried I could fuck it up. Better I think for you guys to maybe send a team over later to make your own hidden connection. I know you have good netrunners. Better than I am."

V hesitated, like she wanted to argue before she sighed and nodded. "Yeah, better not to push our luck. I got this at least." She said, patting the laptop. "This is big Motoko. You… I owe you one for calling me in. This was definitely worth the trouble… Thanks." She finally added at the end and I could feel my smile spreading.

"You V. My choom. Are very welcome." I said, continuing to grin directly at her, until she stopped looking thankful and just started looking irritated.

"Alright. C'mon I need to get back."

"Yep!"

—---

V wasn't much more talkative on the way back, and as soon as I dropped her off, she was off, power striding straight to her truck, and then away.

It was okay though, because to my shock as we pulled up she had sent a big dump of eddies into my account without a word about it.

I guess that was her way of paying for the info?

Well I was going to forgive her, because I was honestly pretty tired. I wanted to go home.

"Alright chooms. I'm back!" I called out after I watched V race away. "Tell me nothing big happened?"

"Nothing big happened. It was boring. Hiromi did buy some more CHOOH2 to power up the Minotaur though. That was cool." Ichi told me from the back of his van, which was so packed to the brim the poor boy had to sit on the roof.

"They didn't break it did they?" I questioned a little haunted, please don't let my new toy get broken already!

"No, it's fine. C'mon I want to get out of here. Unload the loot, somewhere, and head home for a shower, a meal, and a nap in that order." Ichi called out looking as done with the desert as I was.

"Ichi, I literally couldn't have put it better myself."

We quickly found Malcolm and Hiromi still playing with the Minotaur, although from the looks of the targets of old oil cans they had set up, I had a feeling those guns would be a whole lot emptier than they had been before. Sighing without any heat I forced them to pack up and we all got back on the road.

The drive to Night City was long but quiet. The big old Behemoth rumbled along, completely uncaring at the slightly rough roads, despite the heavy load we were hauling. It definitely wasn't the heaviest load ever carried by this beast. So it was no problem.

It was a little lonely though. All of us were in different vehicles to help out. Ichi and I hauled the big stuff. While Hiromi and Malcolm both raced around us, Hiromi in my Quadra, while Malcolm used his newly looted Wraith Shion.

And then hours later we were pulling into a storage yard, one Hiromi had set up in advance, and one that was familiar.

I guess Hiromi still had no issue calling up Fujimura, because it was that same TC storage lot.

With a sigh, I pulled in, parked, and all four of us got to work hauling out loot from the vehicles. Once everything was stored away and all four of us collapsed sweaty into chairs gathered from around the lot.

"Maybe… Maybe there is such a thing as too much loot?" I whispered to myself before just shaking it away.

No, not that was obviously some sort of heresy. More loot was always better.

"I just want, like… the biggest cheeseburger." Malcolm aired with a sigh.

"I wouldn't mind a burger." I agreed and looked to Hiromi and Ichi who either shrugged or nodded.

"Preem."

"We just have one last thing to do, I'm afraid." I mentioned earning a new round of moans as I pointed. "What are we doing with this thing? Hiromi?"

"Uuuugh." She moaned at me. "As the leader of Section 9- Hey!" She flinched at my kick, but she was smiling at me teasingly regardless. "As the manager of personnel, of Section 9. Vehicles obviously fall under our vehicle and driver specialist. So Ichi what do we do with this thing?"

"Nope, that's not my gig. I'm the Light vehicle, and transport specialist. Heavy vehicles are out of my wheelhouse. Malcolm! This i-Ow!"

"Don't even." Malcolm grumbled having punched Ichi in the shoulder. "I have no idea what to do with a truck that big. That thing is huge. Sell it?"

"Maybe we should keep it? If we do more badlands gigs like this… I mean. We needed the transport lift." I offered, but Hiromi just groaned at me.

"We don't have any place to put it! Look at that thing!"

"Park it out in the badlands somewhere?"

"That'll just get it klepped Malcolm." Ichi answered instantly. "Maybe… Maybe we just buy a space for it? I mean there are industrial spaces… Hiromi couldn't we like… Rent it to a transport company?"

The girl's eyes squinted. "Yeeees?" She answered eventually very unconvincingly. "Just find a place for it for a few days. If it gets klepped then it's just one less problem for us."

"Oh! I can fix that actually." I muttered reaching into the back of my belt. Before the gig had started I had bought two new pouches, one for my TachiCama, and one for my Trackers.

I popped a tracker out and flashed it to my chooms before walking up to the Behemoth and finding a good hidden spot, basically climbing on top of the truck and finding a place it would secure in nicely, before returning.

"What was that?"

"I made a tracker! And a little camera! I call these TachiCama!" I proclaimed revealing my cute little spy cameras! "See they got cute little grabby hands! And the color scheme is sooo cute!" I gushed as I offered it to my chooms, definitely not stuffing it into their faces with a bit too much force.

"That's… Preem? Motoko." Ichi replied first looking to Hiromi and Malcolm for backup, but Hiromi was just smiling, and so Malcolm was the next to comment.

"Sooo… Spy Cameras huh? That's useful. Can I get one?"

"I made enough for everyone! I got a set of tracker and TachiCama for everyone! I was on a bit of a binge with stuff just before the gig. Oh! I have them in my trunk!" I ran to the Quadra and found the box of stuff I had brought along. I had meant to give it to everyone, but the long drive had had it slip my mind.

After passing out the new equipment, I sat back down and smiled as my chooms looked over the new gadgets.

"Alright, I see how these would be useful… Why not just buy some though?' Hiromi asked, and I just rolled my eyes. Of course Hiromi would want to just buy some off the shelf stuff.

"Cause, since I bought, crafted, and programmed them. I know they are safe. I'll make some improvements eventually. I want to make a Daemon to run the Tachikoma so they can actively look around and maybe even crawl along walls… Yeah. That would be pretty useful." I remembered Star Wars had little spy droids that were incredibly effective every time they appeared, but almost never did because they were too good.

I wanted that sort of thing!

But then again eventually I would have Tachikoma!

"Okay so… We have a tracker on the truck. We leave it somewhere mostly secure for now and call it good?"

"I'm literally just going to park it out on the street. Fuck driving that thing around any more than I have to. Ichi you need to learn how to drive a Behemoth! This is a command!" I pointed at him, and he did a snort laugh, but he nodded.

"Alright. I'll get some practice or something… Honestly. Motoko since you know how. You can teach me."

"Ehhhh. I hate teaching thoooough." I whined, but I did eventually deflate and nod. "Alright. I'll give you a run down. Let's go."

"Wait now?"

"Ichi. We gotta move it, and Fujimura will kill us for leaving that thing in his lot. Now or never. C'mon! Faster we finish, the faster we can go for burgers!"

—--

Ichi only stalled out, twice, and rammed into a fence three times! Not bad! It wasn't Fujimura's fence, so no one really cared.

Burgers were a delight and we all left a massive mess in the booth of sand and dirt, but I dropped a big tip as well as paying, and the waitress seemed to forgive us.

After that, we all finally split up. Hiromi with the loot for her dad, headed home. Malcolm, to go get his new car properly repainted, and Ichi just went home, with a to go order for his Grandma. I even paid for it, cause that's just sweet.

I went home. Immediately walked into the shower and just. Sat there. I had taken off my belts and holsters, and my boots but everything else was already so dirty, that a little water wasn't going to hurt it.

Slowly I stripped out of the muddy jeans. My uncomfortably sand filled Leotard, and everything else leaving me to finally feel free of the desert for the first time in two days.

Another reason I couldn't be a nomad. I didn't know how Panam did it.

"Motoko?"

"Jun! I'm back! Taking a shower!"

"Alright! Take your time!" Jun sounded happy through the stupid beads as he walked back to the living room and I finally got around to washing myself clean. Soaps and shampoo lathered up to clean me all over.

Once I was fully done. I grabbed my stuff and chucked it into the washer, my holsters would need some attention later, but for now I was pulling the brat card and just leaving them on the floor. A towel and a hurried trip across the apartment later to my room. I got some new clothes and finally felt like a human again.

Stepping out of my room to see Jun still on the couch, as I dried my hair was nice and I plopped down next to him, and before he could say anything I burst into chatter. Telling him everything about the gig, even about the listening post.

The whole time he was a good listener. Not talking, but made interested noises as I explained the fights and the interesting bits, until the very end.

"That sounds like a crazy couple days Imouto." He finally decided on, then he reached out and patted me on the head, and I wasn't going to refuse any attention right now. I slumped over and settled my head on his thigh, using the towel as a pillow and demanded more attention.

I would sit through one of Jun's stupid tv shows right now. For him of course. He sometimes needed some physical affection.

 

[Seras]

After giving Jun some affection, making sure he was okay and happy, and comfy and back to feeling like he was home and everything was okay. I finished cleaning up. Grabbing my gear I ran it all through a thorough cleaning. Holsters, belts, guns, and equipment. Just everything needed a cleaning.

So much dust.

Bleh! I hate the Badlands!

After that everything was settled I took a nice sleep, something I hadn't really enjoyed during the gig and woke up feeling refreshed and ready to get to work!

First thing first.

My stat page.

Level 17

Body 8(16) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 8.
-Athletics 7
-Street Brawler 8
-Annihilation 5

Reflex 8
-Blades 7
-Handguns 7
-Assault 7
-Driving 7

Intelligence 10 (14) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 4.
-Breach Protocol 9
-Quick Hacks 8
-Programming 10

Cool 9
-Ninjutsu 9
-Cold Blood 8
-Rockerboy 8

Technical Ability 5 (9) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 4.
-Crafting 4
-Engineering 4

3 Stat point.
7 Skill point.


Perks.
Ambidextrous Blades 2
Quickdraw Handguns 2
Gun Nut Assault 2
Parkour Athletics 2
Grappling Street Brawler 2
Drive By Driving 2
Cat-like Athletics 5
Cool Nerves Cold Blood 2
Danger Sense Ninjutsu 2
Wall Breaking Breach Protocol 2
Cyber Security Quick Hack 2
Recoil Reduction. Annihilation 2
Cyber Ninja Ninjutsu 5
Fearless Chill Cold Blood 5
Improvised Weapons Street Brawler 5
Parry Blades 5
Robotics wizard Crafting 2
Drifting Driving 5
Rapid Reload Handguns 5
Design Wizard Engineering 2
Rifle Ace Assault 5
Ghost touch Breach 5
Perfect Musical Memory Rockerboy 2
Debug Programming 2
Siren Song Rockerboy 5
Hacking Wizard Quick Hacks 5
Inspired Programmer Programming 5
A.I. Whisperer: Programming 10
Annihilation 5 *Unused*

Cyberware:
Seacho Electronics Mk.2 *Adaptation Seacho Mk.2 0/0*
Kiroshi Mk1 *Adaptation Kiroshi Mk1 1/2*
Militech Condor *Adaptation Militech Condor 5/6*
Arasaka Smart Link System. *Adaptation Smart Link 0/0*
Arasaka Ex-Disk *Adatapation Ex-Disk 0/0*
Militech-Armalite Ballistic Guard *Adaptation Ballistic Guard 1/2*
Serano Air-Groove Ankles *Adaptation Serano Air 1/1*
MoorE Titanium Bones (Shoulders, back, and ribs.) *Adaptation Titanium Bones 0/1*
Biotechnica Muscle and Bone Lace *Adaptation Muscle and Bone Lace 0/0*

Looking through it I took in all the little changes. Reading everything carefully so I would know exactly where I was at. And there were a few minor changes indeed.

My adaptation max had dropped again for my Condors! It was now only 6! I wiggled my shoulders and smiled. I guess I had gotten pretty used to the things. Maybe it also had to do with the Titanium bones? One of the problems I had was the chrome was a bit heavier than a normal limb, and so it was pulling on normal muscle and bone…

By improving my body more, had I eased one of the problems the Condors were causing? It was kinda annoying how complicated Adaptation was!

Either way, whatever caused it! It was awesome! One less point I would have to spend!

In fact…

I pushed the button without even thinking about it. It had to be done. A finale to the whole thing. A completion of a task.

Militech Condor *Adaptation Militech Condor 6/6*

It was over. I exhaled not even in relief because the Condor had been something I hadn't been really bothered by in a long time. But in a way this was me finally, completely recovering from the Maelstrom attack.

Complete. I felt complete, I stretched my arms and nothing felt weird, or uncomfortable. Just muscles stretched around titanium bones in my back and my arms just felt like my arms.

I slammed a fist into my palm.

Fuck yeah!

I grinned goofily as I felt the happiness just surge up through me. I did it!

I shook it off patting my cheeks to refocus. I still had other things! I had a perk point!

Well, I'll be honest and admit I've had it forever. Annihilation was just… I didn't know what to pick!

But today was a clean slate kind of day. Time to clean up my stuff!

So I popped open the perk selection and hummed as I looked it over. There was… Well a lot of stuff for sure, but I needed something… It was a split of perks for the most part. Shotgun stuff, and Machine gun stuff.

I mean, I used both weapons, but when it really came down to it. Neither were ever going to be my primary weapons. Most of the time I would need more penetration for serious missions than a shotgun offers, and machine guns were good, but… I'm kinda small, and those things are chunky.

My first Annihilation perk had been Recoil Reduction, probably one of the best perks I picked, considering how versatile it was, but now I needed something… I read through the list and there wasn't just a perfect option I could find. No perk that would just affect everything, or would blow things away.

In the end I just shrugged. I grabbed a Shotgun perk. I'd grab a Machine gun one next time.

Slam Fire. You know how to hold, cock and fire a pump shotgun.

It seemed simple, but firing a shotgun faster was a neat trick.

I selected it and shivered in delight as the knowledge flowed through. Once it was done, I rolled backwards off my bed sliding from my arms up onto my feet and into a brisk walk without slowing down as I found my Tactician, and unloaded it.

I brought it to bear and noticed how my hands shifted automatically. My grip changed, and I brought it down, and then up down and up, and then I faux fired, pumped and fired again. Both of my arms worked in tandem, pushing and pulling the gun at different intervals. I knew I was also adjusting for recoil that wasn't there, and then I blurred through firing, and I slammed out eight rounds in just a few moments.

Quick! Really quick!

I nodded pleased. I wouldn't be as quick with the Carnage because that thing was brute and cocking it was like bashing two pieces of metal together until something gave, but it would probably still be a lot faster than it had before.

I reloaded the Tactician and put it back by my bedroom door before heading back to my bed.

Okay I was satisfied with that! Now onto the really interesting bit.

Intelligence 10 (14) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 4.

I took a breath and clicked on Intelligence. Putting in a stat point and then.

Well nothing. I didn't… Feel different? Well I shrugged it off, I was used to Intelligence being kind of a zany stat.

No, instead I moved on to see what was beyond 10.

I only had one Intelligence skill at 10 already. Programming, which was definitely a powerful tool. So it was perfect to test out.

I put in a skill point, which the system reminded me I needed to use a skill point to gain anything in skills over 10, and then…

I yelped, blinking stars that were definitely not in my vision, at the surge of new information.

It was… Oh.

Oooooh.

I get it now. I understood. The difference between under 10 in a skill, and over. Why I needed Cyberization! It all made sense!

The information I gained was a lot of repeated information in a way. Things I already knew, but now? Now I knew how to do them solely with my cyberware. To integrate being a cyborg into the task so there was no need for something more. No need for a laptop, for typing.

Just me, and the code. Me and my ghost accessing the digital space.

While I had always been a cyborg, I hadn't been using the connection of machine and man to its full extent I now realized.

This was more than just a repeat of old information. If before I was learning how to code as a human, now I was learning how to code as a cyborg. I had only touched on the barest of programming without a laptop before in emergencies, when I needed to rewrite some code on the fly, and it hadn't been easy.

But now? I had all the beginner tools to do it without getting distracted or losing sight of what I was trying for.

"BrrRrrrrRrrrRrrr!" I exhaled and shook my head back and forth for a few moments. Then I once again slapped my cheeks a few times.

That was a lot.

"Okay. Note to self. Don't double skill upgrade with post 10." I felt like my brain was overheating. But I felt normal, just sort of swamped.

I was really glad I was on my bed so I just flopped back and waited for a bit to get used to it.

Programming 11… It wasn't a direct increase in power exactly. I couldn't just make hacks at a new tier or something, but it felt like… I could code faster.

Maybe even cut off half the time in any project with just that one point.

The ability to split my focus through my cyberdeck. To code without touching a keyboard, but I could still synergize that. Code with both? Potentially.

It was a lot. I could tell I was pushing beyond human, beyond what just my flesh brain could handle without support.

And honestly?

It felt amazing.

—--

A few hours later I headed over to the storage lot. Thankfully nothing looked stolen, even without me performing overwatch for the night again.

I wasn't saying I trusted Fujimura to be enough of protection on its own, but this time I didn't have a gang of gonk kids that would happily klep everything from me knowing we just had a payday.

Plus if anyone did steal something I would just track them down and teach them it was a bad idea.

I had opened up the unit and was pulling out the tactical gear for the team. I had left it here yesterday because after unloading everything from the big truck, I was a bit too tired to want to haul it around again to home.

Now I felt much better and was gathering up the Arasaka tactical armor and piling it into the Quadra. Along with a bunch of the extra guns and equipment we had found.

I wanted to clean up a bit of everything for my chooms to use. The Arasaka equipment was certainly better quality than some of the stuff we used up until now.

I might not be a fan of the Masamune for example, but it was a very accurate and dangerous rifle, although I was thinking something specific for my chooms.

Piling on another stack of equipment into the Quadra's passenger seat I once more spotted the TC grunts watching me out of the corner of my eye.

They were keeping an eye on me, but hadn't tried to talk to me, or bother me. So I was mostly ignoring them, but the attention still made me aware, made me consider ways to defend myself.

Thankfully it wasn't needed. I was done with what I needed today. Hiromi would be handling the rest over the next while.

I took one last look at the Minotaur the desire to play with it almost irresistible, but I had work to do before I could take it out and play with it.

I closed up the garage, and climbed back into the Quadra and drove home.

Time for some real tech work.

I had so many supplies, literally piles of guns. I was going to rip anything we didn't sell apart, and start working on the grind.

A few trips between apartment and car later, I was all set up.

First I pulled out the helmet of the armor. I did a scan, and started basically tearing it apart.

Frankly I was planning on redesigning most of it, but I first wanted to look it over for something I suspected to find.

Trackers. Listening devices. Anything for Arasaka to just keep one more finger on the pulse of their troopers.

It couldn't be anywhere not easy to find, I really tore this one apart. Every piece of tech was taken apart, examined, and explored.

I was even getting Crafting and Tech alerts for it!

The helmets were pretty simple. Actual armored hard case. Internal electronics, and external electronics.

That was it.

The internal electronics were simple enough. A sound baffling to keep their ears from being blown out by gunfire, or flashbangs, and an internal booster, and squad radio.

I really wanted both pieces, and so carefully examined the whole thing. Even going through the chips that ran everything to check what everything did.

It was all… Normal.

Maybe it wasn't in the helmets?

Well, I had a fully taken apart the helmet with all its electronics, scans of the whole thing which I was already storing in my laptop in case I ever needed to repair or replace the parts…

But what do I do with the Helmet? Couldn't just leave them as is. Getting thought of as being Arasaka forces would not be a good idea. I had to alter the form of the helmet. Plus, I had to decide on paint as well. Did we pick a solid color, a camo?

Oh… Wait… I could probably get some of the ECM emitters that the TC used in their tats. ECM equipped armor could be pretty neat. It would probably be super expensive, but like…

I had a lot of eddies right now.

I shook that off. Stop feature creeping. I haven't even gotten the helmet figured out yet. Staring at the disassembled helmet I wondered what I could do other than just change up the paint. How could I give Section 9 a look…

I did consider going Sentai Rangers, but no. That was just silly.

Hmm… Well I did have my directional mic, something these helmets didn't have integrated…

I pulled up the CAD program, and tossed the helmets dimension into it, thank you Kiroshi scan tech!

Then I went to work, adding and adjusting, it wouldn't be expensive, at least not for the directional mic. I already had the design done and it was cheap to begin with.

The housing for it would be cheap as well, a bit of extra armor, I could even potentially use some of the spare armor from the extra sets to make it, but I would probably just go buy something feasible. It didn't need to be perfectly bullet proof since it was just a directional mic.

The program came together and I nodded at the look, the triangle horns sticking out of the top. Yeah that could work. Of course the problem would be hooking it up to the squad radio already integrated into the helmet.

Luckily I was a programmer!

I pulled it apart, and started hooking it up to check the programming when Jun knocked.

"Motoko?"

"I'm here! What's up Jun?" I called out barely tearing my eyes away from the code I was dissecting, before realizing I didn't need to do that. I slipped my personal link into the laptop and was suddenly accessing the code on a visual spectrum in my agent, and then I could just… Start modifying.

Programming 11! Stronk!

"Hey, want to get lunch?" I blinked as I whirled to Jun who was in more casual clothing than his usual TC gang outfit.

"Yeah!" I agreed instantly. Putting my coding to the side, but not shutting it down as I hurried after. Slipping my boots on I followed after casual clothes wearing Jun as he grabbed his big Cyberpunk jacket and slipped it on. I quickly reached out as we left the apartment to grab his hand, swinging it back and forth happily.

—--

Jun and I spent a nice lunch together and then split up. He was heading out to hang out with some of his chooms, while I went home to continue my work.

I had done a little more programming work on the walk to the Ramen place we ended up using, which meant by the time I walked back into the apartment and settled at my workbench, I was ready.

The in built helmet radio was actually wired to the antennae in the back to increase its ability to punch through any ECM interference. But it meant I could splice a new wire in with the new coding and now instead of having multiple private channels on different frequencies. It had one, that I made sure wasn't the normal Arasaka frequencies anyways, and the radio could now toggle to connect to the directional mic.

It was a neat bit of coding and I was super proud of how it came out! All the work on the helmet was already paying dividends as I was getting Crafting, Engineering and Tech alerts as I solved each of the problems.

I rolled around the workbench grabbing supplies to start work on the actual directional mic housing. I would need them for each of us, but I figured a prototype first to show off what I was working with would be the best.

As I let my 3D printer form the metal I had into the right shape, I sent a text to my chooms in our group chat.

*Motoko: Fixing up the armor now, doing some prototype work still, but I need suggestions for color, or camo? Anyone have a preference? Also might want to integrate an ECM unit into the chest rig, like the ECM tats the TC use. Sound cool?*

*Malcolm: Oooh! I want mine in yellow!*

*Motoko: I'm not designing your armor in the same color as a Caliburn Malcolm. This is our combat equipment. Be serious.*

*Ichi: Yeah Malcolm be serious. Camo would be good. City colors? Greys and concrete colored?*

*Malcolm: I am serious! Fine both of you pick on me. I don't know. Camo sounds so corp. I'd rather we do something Kitsch!*

*Ichi: Motoko, can you give us any visuals of what different versions would look like before we decide?*

*Motoko: Oh yeah. I can do that. I don't have a complete set yet, but once I do, I'll give us a 3D rendering, and we can mess around with the colors. That sound good?*

*Malcolm: Sounds perfect to me!*

*Hiromi: Can't talk in class. Sounds preem Motoko! Thanks!*

*Motoko: That's fine Hiromi no rush. Talk to me when you are done. I might need help sourcing the ECM stuff. Have fun in class Badass corpo bitch!*

*Malcolm: Yeah! Bad corpo bitch Hiromi! Kick all those arrogant shits ass!*

*Ichi: I don't think you should beat up the other corpos you go to class with, but I'm not saying don't do it.*

I giggled at the messages we all sent at Hiromi which she undoubtedly couldn't read right now. I shook it off and went back to work. I could finish most of the stuff and do color schemes and other things later.

Back to work.

 

[Seras]

The housing for the directional mic was done. So I took the prototype helmet, and integrated my old mic into it. Setting both pieces of the mic into the housing and sealing it together, then running the wire through the helmet to connect with the radio, flipping the thing around I just popped the radio casing, and hard wired them into unused ports. A few quick checks making sure it all still worked, I sealed it back up and flipped it around.

Yep. Looked a little weird, but hey. Additional functionality!

I plopped it on my head and ran some tests switching radio to directional mic, and it worked like a charm!

I laughed in delight as I spun around on my chair letting the mic struggling to handle the quickly changing environment, but that was fine!

Because I was pulling in more and more alerts!

*100 Crafting XP Gained.*

Satisfied I set the helmet aside and decided to change things up. I still needed to figure out what an ECM system would look like before I messed with the chest rig, so I decided to do some work on weapons instead.

This particular weapon was something I had a plan for. So I quickly checked it out, pulling it out of the case that it had been in. Took it apart, made sure everything was working, and put it back together.

The Shingen was a really good Smart SMG. Probably one of the best Smart weapons out on the market, even if it was a tiny thing.

And Malcolm had a smart link. The gonk had barely used it, but it was perfect. He could be my backup with the Shingen letting him stay in cover and be safe while still helping!

I set it aside, and picked up the next weapon case. I had considered for a while what to get Ichi. His vehicle focus was great, but that still left him in danger, but since we had just lifted a high end Arasaka shipment?

Well the choice was fairly obvious.

Yukimura were solid smart pistols. I had actually slipped two of them out of the shipment. One for Ichi, and one for Hiromi.

I think Hiromi already had a smart link, or if she didn't I would talk her into getting one, but Ichi didn't, but again I was going to bully him into it.

Sure, if we dealt with enemies with ECM their smart rounds would be way less effective, but I wasn't worried about my chooms running into ECM backed borgs. I was worried about Scavs, or street gangs. Giving them each a smart weapon?

It was the greatest advantage, accuracy and rate of fire with the lowest negative. Sure I could have pulled a Malorian for Ichi, I even considered it, but Ichi and Hiromi both weren't combat focused. So better to specialize them towards smart weapons, giving them a big damage boost, while training them to delta the fuck out of any combat they wind up in.

I looked at the three weapons and nodded. I would add them to each of the armored suits as I prepped them. I could even paint them to match if my chooms wanted.

With that sorted it was back to the grind.

I would need to make sure the holsters would be specialized for my chooms weapons of choice. Malcolm of course would get his Shingen clipped into the front of his chest rig since it was a bit big to holster normally.

I did have some fabric around, but I wanted something a bit tougher. So it was time for another shopping visit to the old lady that made my leotards.

—---

The old lady waved me in the back door after I knocked and I entered the sweat-shop like back room.

"You need more Leotards? Get bullet holes in even more of them?"

"Not this time! I'm doing some work altering some combat armor, and need some supplies." I answered as I followed the woman over to her little desk which I joined across from her.

"Hooh? Combat armor is good. Keeps your insides on the inside. What are you thinking?"

"Well I want to make some holsters that will match the armor, as well as some adjustments. The armor is currently built for much bigger people than my chooms." Well other than maybe Malcolm? He was pretty tall. Gangly teenager and everything.

"Hmm. Well then I can be of help. I have a roll of Armadillo weave that might suit you." The old asian woman lit a cigarette and blew out a mass of smoke from her lungs. "It's over there, take a look girl."

I nodded hurrying over to where she was waving, finding the roll of… Well I wouldn't call it fabric, it was almost like textured plastic, but it was flexible like fabric, and it was studded with some sort of hexagon armoring throughout.

"It's bulletproof. Decent stuff. Expensive."

"I have eddies. That's not a problem."

"Good! Then we will trade! Now come tell me how that leotard has been holding up. Issues? Chafing?"

"No, it's still very comfortable, thank you. I might need an adjustment soon. I'm planning on getting some more chrome."

"Hmph. You children and your chrome. Very well. Come with your new measurements and all of your old ones, and I will fix them, or make new. Good?"

"Yes. Thank you. Oba-san."

"Pfft. Your Japanese is terrible girl. Stick to english." I pouted at her as she just cackled before we haggled a bit for the roll of Armadillo, but I got it cheap in my eyes and headed back out.

I still had so much work to do!

—--


The sun was coming down when I got a knock on the door, before I could even go to check it opened.

"Motokooooo!" A wild Hiromi cry echoed through the apartment, and I shifted back from the workbench before she burst in.

"Hi Hiromi!" I greeted and had to quickly stand up to deflect the Motoko seeking missile from pushing me into the workbench.

"Schools done! Show me the armor!"
"I haven't done most of it, but alright c'mere I'll show you the prototype stuff." I walked beside my workbench where a disassembled set of Arasaka troop armor was laying.

"This is the basic stuff right? So I've been going through each piece and seeing what I can upgrade. Since as powerful as Arasaka is, some stuff is expensive to outfit their grunts with."

"Arasaka has the best equipped troops in the world, Motoko." Hiromi replied, and I gave her a teasing look.

"Corpooooooo."

"Stahp!" She whined at me, and I just laughed but didn't tease her more.

"It's good, don't get me wrong, but not perfect. I already added some additional functionality to the helmet, and I'm thinking of an ECM system for the chest rig."

"Yeah you sent me the request. I haven't had tim-"

"Hey it's okay. I'm just going over it. No rush. We have time." I interrupted her. She had started to sound like she had messed up and she certainly hadn't.

"Anyway. That's what I came up with so far. Painting and stuff is obvious, but also, we will need adjustment, so I just got back from picking up this!" I showed the roll of Armadillo weave armored fabric. "This still will give me some material to work with. I'm thinking… Either we get rid of the old jumpsuits we bought, or maybe just alter them?"

Hiromi looked at the fabric before humming as she thought.

"We should definitely do something to increase our style. We need to be… Well not flashy, but we need some flash. Something to make us stand out. It'll help our marketing."

I just giggled at the idea of Section 9 having marketing. "Sure. I was thinking a tight undersuit, maybe even in the netrunner styles… Oh that's an idea."

Our casual stuff can be netrunner chic. But I can do like a cape, or poncho type thing to wear while we aren't in armor. Gunslingers of the web? That could be a cool aesthetic!

I sat back down and rolled over to my laptop. I already had netrunner suits scanned of course, so I pulled up a 3d model. And then started basically throwing a slick black poncho over the top.

"That looks weird. What are you thinking?"

"Netrunner Gunslinger. Like the wild west cowboys. Clint Eastwood style. Oh! I could even get everyone some netgogs for tactical displays! Or just the aesthetic."

A group of four walking up in armored netrunner suits, and netgogs. We would seem like a cool netrunner gang!

And then of course we show up in the full armor!

"Can mine be green?" Hiromi asked, and I shrugged, shifting the color on the poncho to more green. No, that wasn't right. Maybe green around the edges? I could do some of that with the netrunner suit as well. When I was done I looked to Hiromi and she was nodding.

"Not sure the boys will want to go skintight netrunner suits though."

"They are comfy, and have protection! Plus, you can wear them under normal clothes. Besides, it's just for when we are on the job!"

"Hey, I'm just saying Ichi and Malcolm will probably complain." Hiromi said and I had to nod at that.

It's fine. This was a cool little project. I already had their measurements. I would need to see the old lady again for more netrunner suits.

—--

Hiromi and I were hanging out in the living room just watching TV as I took a break when the boys finally showed up.

"Let's get the party started!" Malcolm called out from the door as I opened it and he and Ichi came sauntering in arms full of snacks and drinks.

"This was supposed to be a meeting about our stuff." I grumbled, but Hiromi was happily cheering along with the boys so I couldn't do much but just shrug and turn this into a party.

We had done a big gig after all, and we had all had some time to have a sleep and clean up.

"Aw man! That was the beeeest!" Malcolm called out arms up in the air with a Broseph in his hand. "I mean! We did it!"

"My upgrades to the van worked out great." Ichi added in sounding proud.

"Double HMG turrets are very scary." I agreed, "Were there any issues with them hitting each other? I know you don't have a lot of space with both of them."

"A little. I ended up taking over one of them manually to keep firing."

"I'll kludge together some firing programs for you. Make sure they fire together and don't interfere with each other." I said and instantly Ichi looked pleased.

"Blegh! No more work talk! Party!" Malcolm demanded throwing a Broseph into Ichi's hands, and attempting to put one on me but flipped it back on him and picked up my soda.

"Motoko showed me her idea for our new stuff. Including the netrunner undersuit." Hiromi added, and I looked at her in confusion, because the way she was speaking was almost teasing.

"Absolutely not."

"Nope." Both boys instantly denied. "I'm never getting in one of those skin tight things." Malcolm added, and I looked between the two of them.

"No, but! It'll look cool! There will be an armored poncho on top for casual wear, we'll be cyber gunslingers! It'll look preem!"

"No." Ichi denied shaking his head. I looked to Hiromi who was holding in her laughter and at the sight of my face she failed.

"I'm sorry!" She gasped out around giggles. "I just knew it wouldn't work and wanted you to know before you set your heart on it."

"You guys suck." I grumbled. Fine. I'll keep the cool cyber gunslinger outfit for myself! "What do we do for our less armored setup then? I was planning on it being something we could easily throw our gear on top of."

"I'll just wear my normal clothes. Just take off my jacket or something." Malcolm offered and Ichi just shrugged along with it.

"Fine, you absolutely tasteless fools! I'll make you armored clothing or something. Ugh." I grumbled my idea of a team of matching cyber ninjas all disappearing.

Maybe another time.

It didn't matter. Whatever my chooms wanted as long as they would wear it and keep their butts safe I was happy.

"Oh! I have stuff for everyone!" I stood up and rushed to the room grabbing the cases with the weapons and cheerfully bringing them back to the living room.

"So since we just got a bunch of high end Arasaka equipment, I think it's time we do some weapon upgrades. Hiromi, Ichi, these are for you." I pushed both of the smaller cases to them and Hiromi looked pleased as she pulled out her Yukimura, quickly gripping it, and checking it out.

Good she did have a Smart link.

Ichi on the other hand just looked neutral about it.

"I don't have the equipment for this."

"I know." I said assuringly. "Smart link and optics are something I figured would be a good idea to start with anyways… Is that okay? You aren't like… Against Cyberware or something right?"

"No, of course not. It's just expensive. And I didn't really think I would use smart weapons much."

"They are perfect for you though! Easy to use, highly accurate. Perfect for spraying into a crowd of gonks causing you trouble, and then you have your HMG's for bigger stuff. Hiromi gets a Yukimura too, it's a really really solid self defense pistol."

"Yeah… I guess. Probably about time I spend some eddies on some chrome anyways." He offered, scratching at his head.
"Well just make sure to take it slow. Smart link and optics, just get some good stuff, you have the eddies now yeah?"

"Yeah." He said, finally sounding confident. A reminder that we had made a lot of eddies on that last gig helped.

"What about me?"

"Something a bit bigger." I said, sliding open the bigger case and there it was. The Shingen.

"Huh. Shingen?"

"Firepower and accuracy. You already got the smart link, so it can help make sure every bullet counts, and you get a bit more firepower than Hiromi and Ichi… Since you'll be my backup more often than not." My words caused a reaction.

Malcolm looked up and our eyes locked and then he smiled, looking pleased.

"Yeah. I've got your back."

I smiled at his confidence. "Oh I finished the prototype for the helmet as well, I want your feedback!" I called out as I rushed back to my room grabbing the helmet and bringing it back out held in front of me with a big smile.

"Tell me what you think!"

"Motoko, why does your helmet have kitty ears?"

"What? No it doesn't!" I denied, that was a bold-faced lie!

"Those are definitely kitty ears." Hiromi confirmed looking at the housing for the directional mic.

"That's not what that is!"

"It's kitty ears." Everyone kind of just nodded along together as they looked over the helmet.

"It's really not! That's where the direction mic is located! I just had to make a housing structure for it to make sure-"

"Mokoko, it's fine." Hiromi said, patting my shoulder and all I could do was pout as my chooms talked about my kitty eared helmet.

I hate them all!

"Sure we aren't going to piss off Danger Gal with this?" Malcolm asked Hiromi and she shook her head.

"Kitty ears aren't trademarked, besides Danger Gal hasn't been really active as a company in years. They only pop out to do special gigs now."

"Preem. So when do we get the complete ones."

"I don't know, maybe when I stop making them look like cat ears apparently." I grumbled, but my pouting didn't help, and only made my chooms laugh all the louder.

Soon enough everyone was nudging me and smiling and I finally sighed and just decided to let it go.

I guess I accidentally'ed cat ears onto my helmet.

"Forget it then! Now let's all party!" I cheered, raising my Ni-Cola into the air and everyone clacked their drinks to mine.

—--

We partied hard and while everyone was relaxed I took fresh measurements for my adjustments. The next day after rolling my chooms off my couch and out into the day I headed out as well. As much as I wanted to keep slamming my head into the tech work. There was something I had been preparing.

I headed to Vik's. Stopping to see Misty and chattered at her for a while about my recent adventures before heading back down into Viks shop.

"I hope you're ready!" I called out as I stomped into the bottom only to stop and smile as Vik wasn't alone.

"Jackie! I haven't seen you in forever, choom!"

"Hah. It hasn't been that long Hermanita. How ya been?"

"Good! We just got back from a huge gig! Worked with an Arasaka corpo to recover some stolen goods."

My answer seemed to shock Jackie. "What? Really?"

"Oh yeah. Hiromi's dad works in the corp, and he hired us through her to get the stuff back. Turned into a big thing, but we made some serious eddies! I saw V too. I needed to call her in because of a thing."

"Well… It's good she's doing well. Haven't seen her in a month or so. She's been busy." Jackie offered, seemingly shaking himself a bit to focus, but I did catch it.

He was upset.

"Jackie?"

"Ah. It's nothing Hermanita. Nothing." He assured me, patting my shoulder a lilttle awkwardly.

Jackie was so funny.

"You know… If my team ends up picking up another big gig. We could always use more bodies. People we can trust to watch out back. The eddies are good." I offered and he seemed to wince more than seem happy at the offer.

"I'll think about it Hermanita, but let's switch topics. You're here for the old man eh?" Jackie looked to Vik who had been gathering things up for me.

"That's right Jack. I told you I had an appointment. You ready kid?"
"For chrome? Always." I said, but then took back my words as I didn't want Vik to think I was being blase about it. "I'm mentally prepared, and I do need this. It's important."

"Alright kid. Well it'll be a while. So go ahead and get comfortable. Jack-"

"Say no more Vik, I'll come chat with you about that move I can't get another time."

"Just practice it, I think you'll surprise me, if you keep at it. Alright kid. Let's get you changed."

I nodded, and slipped into the medical gown.

 

[Seras]

I woke up instantly blinking and feeling just fine, I sat up nearly instantly and noticed I was covered in a scratchy blanket.

"Well looks like we got the time right." Vik said noticing me wake up.

"You got everything done in time?"

"Yeah, no problem on my side. How do you feel kid?" Vik rolled over and started examining me.

"Fine. Actually… Hmm, I feel like my weight is off a bit."

"Yeah well, that's what happens when you change out most of your bones for Titanium." I nodded, I looked at my limbs at my body only for there to be nothing there. No scars or anything but I knew there where Vik had cut into me to replace my boney bits.

It wasn't a complete conversion of course, but last time I had only really updated my chest and back to better integrate my Condor.

But it had gone so well. With just what I had done, it was only one adaptation point, although I hadn't put it in, but what if I finished what I started.

Legs, pelvis, ribs, toes and things like that too.

All titanium now.

I would be a lot harder to break from now on, and more importantly. I would have a stronger platform to place more chrome into.

"Well the wounds certainly healed up." Vik grabbed my attention though as his face was serious. "I wouldn't normally let someone walk out after a surgery like that. I want you to know the only reason I'm not holding you in an actual hospital bed for a week, is because of your healing. But really kid. Take it real easy for a little bit. This… This sort of thing is stressful on the body. Healing or not."

"I'll be super careful Vik, promise. We just finished a massive gig, so I'm mostly on tech duty right now anyways. It's why I thought it was a good time to finish this."

"Alright. Let's do some tests. Wiggle your toes."

I laughed at the sudden random question and did as ordered my toes moved without any issue. As I ran through the tests I checked my system to see what it had to say about it.

MoorE Titanium Bones *Adaptation Titanium Bones 0/2*

Well the Adaptation went up, but otherwise I was looking good.

"Well, everything looks good, your little secret nanomachines do good work. Still got nothing about where they came from." Vik muttered, rubbing his face a bit. "Alright. Easy does it for a few days, and let me know if anything starts feeling weird."

"Will do Vik. Thanks!" I chirped happily as I got up, and after getting dressed walked right out. Stretching as the evening air hit me, I decided to do as ordered and head home.

I still had a lot of stuff to build.

—--

I spent the entire night building new directional mics, then installing them into the housing I made for the other three helmets.

It was a lot of work, and despite making something I had already completed. I was improving a lot!

*100 Crafting XP Gained.*

*Crafting skill level up!*

*1 Perk Point Gained.*

Crafting 5! I had once again maxed out the skill, giving me a surge of new tricks up my sleeve. Which was good, because my next batch of work was all going to be design work. Hopefully I would get my Engineering level up from it.

Of course first, I had to select my perks! I ran through the list of options, with an eye to what I would want long term. Sure something like Salvager would give me more resources, but I made enough eddies now, that wasn't really a concern.

No, the option I decided on was a much better idea for the current me.

Enduring builds. You can make it stronger. Tougher. You know the tricks of the trade to make your product rough and tumble.

Accepting the perk flooded me with all sorts of things that I could do to make sure my crafting didn't fall apart. Ways to make my stuff stay working even if you beat the shit out of it first.

I shook it off, and refocused on what I was doing.

Helmets done. Most of the extra work would be on the chest rig. I would need to modify them a bit to shrink them down, but luckily they were designed for a one size fits all, so that wouldn't be too hard. No it would be integrating an ECM system into them that would make them a pain in the ass.

Hiromi had done as I had asked, and reached out through her growing list of contacts and got specs for some ECM systems that weren't just cyberware.

The Militech personal ECM unit was a neat little pre-unification war military surplus. Honestly it was probably about the same age as my arms.

Either way I had the scans for it, that Hiromi sent over, and she was in talks about getting enough for all of us.

I just had to figure out how to integrate it.

The biggest issue was how the ECM systems worked.

See there actually was a reason that the Tyger Claws integrated the ECM into tattoos. The ECM was a visual deterrent. The smart round would be scanning its target, hit the visual ECM and when scanning it, would either be infested with a virus, or simply get so much junk data the targeting would fail.

A literal memetic hazard.

So this version actually needed a visual component.

Unfortunately the main way to use it was a holographic light that the smart weapon would glitch out when scanning.

I didn't really want a holographic light on my chest. That sort of defeated the whole stealth thing. So my first thought was to hide the light.

Could I set the ECM's light to infrared? Or use a non visual light band?

Probably not. I realized that Kiroshi and other optics kind of took that option away. So I couldn't just alter the light to be non visual, how else could I hide it?

I was spinning in my chair round and round as I considered it.

I would need some sort of hardware, or programming solution… As I spun the neon lights outside my window flowing into my optics over and over.

On and off. On and off.

On and off?

I continued spinning as I considered it. Sure, turning it on and off would solve part of the problem, but the system would have to be smart enough to turn itself on when smart rounds were targeting it…

I could program that.

A few extra sensors integrated into the armor, and you could easily have it turn itself on and off, and a simple switch to turn it on yourself as well…

Because I know my chooms were extra and would probably want to leave it on.

Okay that was doable. I had most of that… I would need an actual ECM unit to do the programming to turn it on and off though. So for now, hardware. How to integrate it.

I pulled up the CAD and went to work. The easiest place to integrate the ECM system was just on the back of course, it wasn't very large, and I could easily just place it in the armor. Powering it would just be an extra battery system. Easy peasy, and then the lights.

I would need to integrate holo emitters into the armor.

Those weren't super cheap, and it made me realize why Arasaka didn't have them integrated as standard.

But for the safety of myself and my chooms, a few eddies were fine.

Placing a few emitters around, I could even have my chooms make their own holo images if they wanted something unique.

I would figure out my own once I had it all put together.

Either way. The CAD process was going well, earning a few alerts in engineering and even another Technical Ability alert just through figuring out all of these different systems.

I pushed away from the desk. That was the chest rig done, apart from the programming, but that would need time.

I walked out to the living room to see Jun was gone. I sighed as I instead flopped onto the couch and reached for my guitar.

—--

The call that came in as I was lazily strumming a few chords to Chippin 'In surprised me. Especially since the caller ID was someone that should not have my number.

*Ringing.*

*Ringing.*

I considered just not answering, but that was probably a bad idea.

I answered.

"This is Motoko."

"Good. Come by the Afterlife. We should talk." Then the call hung up.

Okay seriously old ladies hanging up on me must be some weird generational thing, because now I had Rogue of all people doing it.

I tapped a finger on my guitar as I considered what the hell was going on.

The Arasaka gig? Something about it must have caught Rogues attention. Did she know about the listening post? Was she working with Militech to get info? I sighed as I rose up and got dressed, holstered and armed I left the apartment.

Headed to the Afterlife. It wasn't a long trip, it never was in Night City.

—--

Sauntering down the steps to the club, I moved past the flunkies that hung around that couldn't actually get in. The sort that would hang around and wait for the rich mercs would leave to flirt with them.

No one paid any attention to me. Despite having been inside a few times, I wasn't known. The door guard saw me coming and moved to stand in front of me, but to my surprise he visibly stepped aside as I walked past, giving me a nod. He was actually moving to stop someone behind me who had been walking down after.

They were stopped and soon thrown out from the sounds I was hearing.

The music soon muffled that as I entered Rogues domain.

It was just like how it was the last few times I entered, teams of mercs discussing gigs or hanging around and this time I walked over to Rogues little area.

Her huscle Crispin Weyland was there as always, the big guy acting as her bodyguard, and he did stop me, a single raised hand, which I stopped at.

We both could hear Rogue on a call, and I realized I was to wait.

Nodding to the man which he returned, I moved across the way and rested against the wall. My vision instantly shifted to my programming. I was fiddling with some of my work on the ECM system when I got the signal to speak to Rogue.

Walking into her little area she waved me at a seat.

"Motoko Kusanagi. When you first walked in here with Panam, I didn't expect to ever have this conversation. At least not while you are still just a kid." Rogue started, but I didn't speak, because the way she was looking at me?

She was assessing me.

"But kids don't go out into the badlands and massacre A growing Wraith Clan like they were a bunch of Yo-gangers on their first street beat." She flipped a shard at me, sending it rolling across the table, and I picked it up without any issue casually slotting it.

Pictures. Very familiar pictures of a certain electrical substation, or at least the crowd of tends and dead bodies that surrounded it.

There were a few dozen images, a few of them noting a few of the corpses if they were important, or well known.

"I hope Dakota made some good eddies for this." I told Rogue, instantly knowing who it was that sent this information to her. Rogue just smirked and continued on like I hadn't spoken.

"I looked into your gig. Arasaka, hunting the thieves. The loot you pulled out. Dakota confirmed it was just the four of you pulling all of this off. That's a clean operation. Swift, concise, and professional. You're wasted as some street thug."

Was that a compliment? I could tell Rogue noticed my confusion because she was smirking a bit. "Don't let it go to your head kid, but I can recognize an operation that was professionally done. You've been in the bar before, but now you are here because of your own merits. I'm formally welcoming you to the Afterlife."

I blinked in surprise. On the list of things I expected today, this wasn't even on the list.

"Oh. Cool." I muttered thinking it over. This was… Well it was a positive. The Afterlife was a massive hub of some of the best runners in the city. I could definitely get some contacts for preem equipment here.

The negatives? Reputation spreads. If I'm seen walking in and out of the Afterlife, people will start wondering why. Otherwise there wasn't much.

I didn't have to do gigs for Rogue, or anything. It was just an invitation.

"Not the most emotional response I've ever gotten." Rogue said casually as she took a drink.

"I'm just surprised and processing. My chooms, my team I mean, can they get in too?"

"As long as you vouch for them, you can bring them in. But keep in mind what is expected of everyone here. Quality."

"Got it. Right… Preem. You think my gig was that good?"

"It's not the sort of thing a kid off the street can do." She said, and I caught the hidden context.

This wasn't just an attempt to bring me into the fold for my performance. It was also an attempt to keep an eye on me.

"Alright kid. Enough playing around. Go on, enjoy the Afterlife. I don't have any work for you right now."

"Alright. Thanks Rogue. I look forward to working with you." I said, the first thing that came to my mind as I rose out of the seat and headed into the bar proper.

Huh. "Major Leagues, Huh Jack?" I whispered to myself before frowning. Jackie wouldn't take this well, but… It might just give me a chance to pull Jackie into the Major Leagues and fulfill his dream.

But for now. I wandered around the place. I hadn't really explored the Afterlife the last times I had been here, but if I was officially in, officially welcome, then no one could say anything about me walking around.

Mercs. Lots of high end mercs. Most of them carrying enough chrome to fight off a small army.

I'm glad I had just chipped in more, because I was going to need some upgrades to keep up if this is my peers.

No, I shook my head. I should chip in when, and what I wanted, not to keep up with some gonks that I had no reason to keep up with.

In the end I circled the whole club before coming back to the bar, and then I caught sight of a familiar group.

I was planning on just walking out, but well…

I turned and headed over to the section that had Maines crew hanging out around a table.

"Hey. How goes?" I greeted as I walked over, although I didn't sit down, just hanging out at the edge of their table so I could leave if I was intruding.

"Heeey! Motoko, you're here? I didn't get a call from Emmy to let you in." Sasha greeted her face instantly morphing into a cat like smirk at the sight of me.

"Ah, well I just got finished with a big gig in the badlands, and Rogue invited me to the Afterlife. So I got my own access now I guess." I explained, and the noise I earned in return surprised me.

Maine, Dorio, Sasha, Pilar, and Rebecca were all here, all looking like they were waiting on something, probably a client?

But the noise the small group made was pretty loud.

Okay mostly it was Rebecca.

"Eeeeeh!? The hell!? You!? Rogue. The Queen Bitch of the Afterlife gave you an invite?" Rebecca had stood up and was palms on the table, standing on the seat, and I was still pretty much on height with her.

Rebecca smole. It was literally all my brain could process.

"That's impressive." Maine offered in that rumble of his as he jerked his head sliding his glasses down just a tad on his nose to look me over. "You impressed Rogue?"

"Wow! Toko! That's nova! Come sit! Tell us everything you can about your gig yeah?" Sasha offered, but I was mostly keeping an eye on Becca who looked like an angry honey badger ready to tear my throat out.

"Seriously!? I haven't gotten my own invite yet!" Rebecca growled but it was Maine that reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder… Well more all around her shoulder considering the size difference.

"You'll get there Becca." He calmed her, his voice rumbling, but a moment later he turned to me. "If you can or want to, wouldn't mind hearing how you got in."

"Ah well…" I shrugged, nothing about our gig was that sensitive other than the listening post which I obviously wasn't going to mention. I slid in next to Sasha who had made room for me and was urging me on as I shrugged and started explaining.

"So we got this gig from an Arasaka manager. An AV was downed in the badlands and he wanted some of the supplies inside recovered. We were told we could have whatever we found as long as we brought back what he wanted."

"Damn. A direct gig from an Arasaka corp? I don't know if I would have taken that." Sasha offered and that is when I had to blush a little.

"Well… The manager is actually my chooms father, she's part of my crew so sort of got the gig straight, and we could be fairly confident it was safe."

There was a round of surprised expressions on the faces of Maines crew, but it was Rebecca that broke first.

"Pfft! That's so fitting! So that's how you got into the Afterlife? A baby gig handed out by the corpo father of your choom?" Rebecca scoffed downing a hit of her Ni-Cola without really looking at me.

"Becca." Dorio started but I waved her off.

"Honestly it was a really tough gig. We had to track down who did the attack. We hit a normal Rafffen camp first and managed to figure it out from some information on a computer there, and then we hit their main camp, this group was fifty plus strong. I snuck in flatlined their leaders, then dropped some hacks on their camp and shot them up. We got most of them."

My explanation earned a nodded head from Maine, but Rebecca was still seemingly irritating, and I just shrugged it off. I guess I'd be annoyed if a kid got into the afterlife when I didn't have access.

"Taking on a Raffen camp isn't a joke. I see why Rogue let you in." Maine replied earning another scoff from Rebecca, but he ignored her. "To the newest merc in the Afterlife." He said raising his glass and his team, even Rebecca did the same which had me blushing a bit.

"It's not that big a deal… Anyway we found the supplies and managed to loot practically an entire Arasaka AV worth of equipment. So I've mostly been setting up equipment for the last few days." I offered trying to change the topic.

"Yeah? You tinker and program?" Sasha asked with a laugh, "You sure spread yourself around don't you?"

"They are pretty closely connected. I've had to do programming for some gadgets I've made. I just want my team to be ready in case something bad happens."

"Heh. A good Techie is worth their weight in gold. Too bad all we have is Pilar." Dorio offered, the last bit teasing, and dragging the techie into the conversation.

"Fuck off!" He offered both middle fingers to Dorio. "I'd like to see you gonks do half the work I do!" He snapped, but everyone was just laughing, and soon enough he was smirking too.

I guess despite everything, Maines crew got along well.

It was cute.

"So you tinker with stuff too? What have you been working on?" Sasha prompted me, even as Dorio and Pilar got into an arm wrestling match that was obvious to everyone who was going to win.

"Oh I picked up these sets of Arasaka troop rigging. The armor is good, but its… Cheap isn't the right word, but they keep things pretty cheap. I updated the helmet with a direction mic, so we can listen in on conversations, and I'm updating the chest rigging with an ECM system. So we'll have some protection against smart weapons."

"Wait, what?" Rebecca asked suddenly, having been focusing on Pilar's suffering at being thrown around by Dorio.

"I'm adding an ECM system into my chest rigging, for me and my chooms."

"What system? Please don't tell me, it's some Tyger Claw thing."

"No. Militech, the Light Aegis. Three-seven." I said, recalling the name from memory.

"Huh." Rebecca suddenly was focused on me. "You got the deets on that?"

"Yeah." I shrugged and flashed a shard with what I had for the ECM system and the chest armor so far and handed it over. After a few moments she nodded.

"Three-seven is solid, I like your integration. Customizing the emitters is preem. You could use a KangTao Battery bank. The new ones they've been putting out? It's flexible, used in armor and stuff you could probably attach it to the bottom of the chest rig. Probably won't hurt as much if you fall on it." She offered and I was instantly there, hands grabbing her own.

"That's so smart! I've been working on some other stuff too! We should talk shop!"

"Ah?" Rebecca squirmed as I practically bounced in my chair.

Becca was tech talking with me! So preem!

"Uh, sure I guess."

I gave her a big smile.

 

[Seras]

"Stealth is still the superior tactic." I argued and once again Rebecca scoffed.

"Some gigs you need to be sneaky, but nothing beats overwhelming firepower!" She argued. It turns out that Rebecca didn't have a lot of chrome. Besides the obvious Chem skin and stuff, but she had all of her chrome plotted out. Like how people would plan out every part of their perfect car, or all the pieces to make up their perfect gun.

Funnily enough I already knew most of her desires, having seen her future self.

"Firepower is great, I carry my Burya around in case I run into some borg fuck. But there is nothing better than sneaking up on somebody and just flatlining them without them noticing." I argued. And she scoffed.

"Optical Camo is mid."
"You take that back!" I demanded and she just cackled as she was going to nothing of the sort.

We had moved away from Maines crew after a client had shown up, so Becca and I were hanging out at the bar, and to my delight we were getting along much better than we had at the start.

"Hey. Listen, I'm pissed that Rogue hasn't given me an invite yet, it has nothing to do with you specifically. The fact you were able to get an invite is preem." She admitted suddenly, swirling around her drink and I realized she must have been a bit embarrassed at how she had acted.

"It's fine Becca. I have another choom Jackie that gets the same way. I don't take it personally. It's gotta be frustrating."

"It is! I go on some of the gigs with Maine, but… Fucking Pilar makes sure I can't get involved. Maine brings me in as a distraction or some shit sometimes, but I'm never a shooter."

"Did you talk to Maine about it? Did he say why?"

"Apparently I'm too fucking short and shit." She grumbled. Yeah that was true. Rebecca was very smole.

"You could fix that with chrome or bio."

"Tch. I don't… I don't hate that I'm short. It's fun sometimes. I just want to blow gonks fucking heads off. I'm not a kid anymore. I'm eighteen!"

"Ever think about… Branching out?" I asked and instantly got a look from her

"You asking me to join your crew?"

"Not specifically like that. See I got my core crew, but we don't have every skillset. We got a driver. A Fixer, and a secondary Solo. While I cover the net, and solo duties. But I have my choom Jackie that's a big fuck he's a solo I brought him in once, and I want to do it more, and I want to increase the size of my team, even if it's just temp mercs… How about it? Want to go on a gig with a different team sometime?"

"I… I don't know. Maine is being a shit, and Pilar is a fucking scumfuck gonkfucker… But I owe Maine."

"Hey, I'm not saying to betray your chooms. Just a job offer. Make some eddies, get more chrome, get some experience."

"Let me… I'll think about it. Can't say I really want to work with kids though."

"Hey! We made hundreds of thousands of eddies on our last gig. Mostly from selling off loot, vehicles and weapons."

"Wait. How much!?" My Answer shocked Becca and I couldn't help but laugh as I went into some detail on how Section 9 functioned.

"Fuck. Maine never loots the place like that… I'll have to do that next time." She muttered to herself, hand covering her lips.

"It takes time, and you have to have people to haul stuff out. You can't exactly wait around."

She scoffed and nodded downing her drink.

"You're not bad Kitten."

"Wha Kitten!?"

"Hehe! You told me about your helmet." She pointed out with a wicked grin and a pointed finger.
"It's completely accidental that it looks like cat ears! I already told my chooms that it's not cat ears!"

"Well too late. Just like with Whiskers, you're Kitten now."

"Ugh." I denied crossing my arms in an X. "I refuse."

"Too late!"

She cackled as I pouted at her. Rebecca was fun.

We continued to shoot the shit for a while until Maines crew finally got up to leave and Rebecca followed. All of us waving a goodbye.

It was time to get back to work.

—--

"Are you serious? No!" I demanded arms crossed into an X in absolute denial. Hiromi just rolled her eyes at me.

"I already talked to the dealer. We got a trader pass to get through the checkpoint."

"Hiromi. I am not taking you anywhere near the combat zone! That place is full of Cyberpsychos!"

"Dogtown is the best place in Night City to get gear Motoko, and you were the one that wanted the ECM system. I found someone selling them, but they are in Dogtown and they aren't coming out."

"Then we do without, or find a different seller." I argued.

I didn't know much about the Combat zone. At least not the modern version of it. What I did know was that NCPD didn't go in there. That death was everywhere, and it was rumored that's where all the Cyberpsychos were 'put' but the corps. Either as a test, or some sick experiment.

But Hiromi wasn't going anywhere near it.

"Motoko, you are being a total rust case here."

"Hey!"

Hiromi raised her hands to silence me and took a deep breath. "Right. Sorry. That was mean, but you are way more dangerous than some gonks in the Dogtown. Plus we are going to the arena. Lots of trade goes on there. It's got the biggest blackmarket in NC."

"It's a fucking combat zone Hiromi!" I snapped at her pacing around the front of the Quadra. She had asked me to come pick her up, but there was no way I was driving into the Combat Zone!

I wasn't crazy!

"Ugh." Hiromi groaned as she followed me around as I paced around the car. Hiromi's parking garage was thankfully empty so no one was able to hear our fight.

I ran a chrome palm over my face, the cool metal soothing my temper. Seriously! Going out and fighting Raffen was one thing, but going into a damn combat zone was another!

"We need the ECM systems." Hiromi argued, and I instantly knew what was happening. She was trying to attack the conversation from the side.

Luckily I gave zero fucks!

"Not enough to go into a combat zone. This isn't a life risk level thing Hiromi."

"It's not dangerous! Well not that dangerous. Going into Dogtown is perfectly normal Motoko!"

"For Cyberpsychos!"

"Motoko, that is just a weird rumor, and not at all the truth. I even got information on Dogtown at the academy. As long as we stick to the main areas we will be fine. Barghest want people to come in and out. Dogtown is a wonderful spot for some black market trading."

I grit my teeth and wanted to yell at her some more. Didn't she understand!? I'm normally all for jumping into danger, but I knew nothing about the Combat zone. Which was called Dogtown apparently. All I knew is that it was super mega dangerous and you don't fucking go there, so why was Hiromi so eager to run right towards it?

"Fine." She offered and I felt my breath come out in relief. Finally! I had gotten through to her! "We'll just hire some additional protection. Problem solved!"

"That doesn't… Dammit." I grumbled because it was sort of the answer. "Fine!"

"Good!" She offered in return smiling as if she had won.

I grumbled under my breath as her eyes went yellow as she made some phone calls.

—--

"Hey Jackie."

"Hermanita! I hear you are heading into Dogtown and want some guards huh?" The big man offered with a hearty chuckle. We were all meeting up at Hiromi's place, including the extra guards.

"More for Hiromi than anything. The combat zone is dangerous, and I know very little about it."

"Eh, it's not so bad. The Barghest pendejos are annoying, but as long as you aren't causing trouble they leave ya alone."

"What's Barghest? A gang?" I asked curious never having heard the name before.

"Eh? Yes and no." Jackie offered waving his hand. "Barghest are ex-Militech. They came to attack Night City during the war, ended up being ordered to leave because of Arasaka, but they never did. Just settled into Dogtown. Took it over. They live like the kings of Dogtown." Jackie offered with a shrug of his broad shoulders. "They mostly just keep the peace, and earn eddies from the blackmarket."

I scoffed and wanted to growl and snarl. Hiromi was still coming, and I still had very little knowledge of what we were heading into.

I shook it off. Hiromi was driving in with Malcolm in the Caliburn. I was leading in the Quadra, and Jacke and Ichi would be our tail.

A three car cavalcade to ensure that anyone that noticed us would think twice before trying anything.

I still wasn't comfortable bringing my chooms into a Combat Zone, but they all had smart weapons, besides Ichi who hadn't gotten a Smart Link yet, but he had his truck.

"Relax Hermanita, you are too tense. It's just Dogtown yeah?"

"Never been before, and I've only heard horror stories."

"Eh. It's not like that. Lot's of folks head in for the Black Market, Hell maybe you'll find something you want as well. They have some real preem black market chrome there."

I just grunted as finally Malcolm arrived with his Caliburn, and we all synced up. I slid into the Quadra, and soon after we were all driving through the city towards Pacifica.

There was a low level chatter as my chooms talked amongst themselves, but I kept quiet, Too anxious to really want to talk to anyone. Especially since I didn't want to do this.

But I pushed it away and focused on protecting my chooms.

We drove through the city reaching Pacifica and I made sure to double my watch. The roads were quiet though. No NCPD around to cause trouble, and no Voodoo boys jumping out to rob us. Instead we drove through the streets as we came to the checkpoint to the Combat Zone.

Dogtown. I only vaguely remembered the name being used, so I really knew nothing about this place. It hadn't existed in the game that I played.

We pulled through a guard checkpoint, men in armor standing around. All of it painted and non standard. Skulls were common as were images of snarling dogs.

Barghest was it?

Eventually we pulled into an entrance way and slowly we were allowed through. The entrance was covered in defenses, HMG turrets, and weapons of all sorts. Since I went in first, I got to see it all. They stopped my Quadra did a scan and after checking the access token that Hiromi had set up, they waved me through.

Into the Combat zone which… It was run down, but not really more than Pacifica itself. And there were people just hanging around. Normal people. A scan showed they weren't the super chromed out borgs I was expecting…

Was this it? Where was the dark hellscape full of the screams of people being torn into pieces by cyberpsychos? Gangs constantly fighting and dying for eddies or something? That was the image I had in my head of a Combat Zone. Not… This.

I pulled to the side until Malcolm's Caliburn, and then Ichi's truck all pulled through the checkpoint, and I followed the guide path Hiromi had set up leading us through the streets towards the massive stadium the place that dominated the skyline, apart from the massive pair of skyscrapers.

The Stadium was apparently where the black market was run out of. The entire place was one big blackmarket according to Hiromi.

It was quiet. The streets weren't full of gunshots, and nothing really happened. I pulled into a parking garage just off the arena, and we all parked in a corner off to the side, Ichi's truck parked in just the right way to have his turrets be usable in case of any trouble.

"See! I told you there was nothing to worry about!" Hiromi called out as she ran over and nudged me with her shoulder. I just glowered a bit at her, but that only made her smile wider.

"Alright, Hermanita, little boss. You ready to go?" Jackie asked and Hiromi smiled brightly at being called boss.

"Yes. Ichi and Malcolm will guard the vehicles. Motoko and Mr. Welles please follow me." Hiromi said with a big smirk on her face as she sauntered forward.

I didn't grumble, instead quickly taking up position on her right. Armed and armored although just in my Kang Tao equipment, and not the Arasaka stuff. It wasn't ready yet, even if it would be better armor.

Jackie easily took her left, and the big man did a lot to make sure our path was clear as we crossed the street, and then walked up the many steps into the old stadium.

Barghest checkpoints dotted around, but they ignored us. Simply standing around in armor to keep the peace I guess.

Hiromi guided us in. Her face casual as she walked through the small crowds that littered the entrance of the arena. We walked past a few food stalls that surprised me. Then into a lobby, and Hiromi took only a moment to pick a direction leading us to the left and then into a long hallway that was full of more than just food stalls.

Weapons, equipment… Everything. I was thankful for my tech gogs as it hid my rapidly scanning eyes as I took in all the equipment laying around. We walked into a space that was absolutely loaded with weapons. HIgh end stuff too. HMG's and rifles. Militech surplus, and more.

Hiromi walked right up to the woman that was behind a counter.

"Here for a pick up, under Mitsunashi." She offered and the woman scanned her, before nodding. A nodded head to one of the toughs that seemed to be her guards and he went into the back area, coming out with a crate that he dropped on the ground in front of us.

"Motoko check it."

I nodded without a word, and popped the latches. Inside was exactly what we expected.

Multiple Militech ECM systems. I quickly checked them all, and while not in perfect condition, they were all functional, and repairable.

I gave Hiromi a nod, and that was that. Her eyes went blue, and some eddies were passed over, and then Jackie did the gentlemanly thing and picked up the crate.

We headed back out the way we came.

Honestly my surprise only grew when we met back up with Ichi and Malcolm.

"Things are quiet. Not even some of the druggies over there came to bother us." Ichi told me as we were loading the crate up into his truck.

"That's so weird. I expected… Something."

"Barghest doesn't want people messing with the black market. That's where they make a lot of their eddies." Hiromi cut in, once more reminding me, that my understanding of this entire section of the city was off. "C'mon let's get out of here. Unless you want to go back in to look around."

I instantly shook my head. I can't say I wasn't interested in looking around, but not with Hiromi and my chooms hanging around.

"No, let's get out of here… And you were right. Sorry." I told Hiromi who blew into a massive smile at my admittance.

"Of course! You should know by now that I'm always right!" She cheered herself bursting into full on ojou laughter after which it took me a moment to realize she was doing specifically to fuck with us.

I just rolled my eyes and nudged her, sending her almost sprawling. "Alright get loaded up then Ms. always right. I want to get out of here."

"Hehe!" She offered as she ran to jump into Malcolms Caliburn.

"Thanks Jack. For backing us up."

"Eh, not a bad gig. You're little choomba boss pays good." The large man admitted rubbing a thumb over his nose.

"Good. I trust you. So I hope you come join us for gigs in the future too."

"Heh! I just might Hermanita. Just gotta get used to working with kids."

I shrugged. I get it. Jackie was almost thirty. Still stuck doing shit gigs. He never made it to the Major Leagues in his own words until the end.

Hopefully I could drag him along, because he actually was a solid solo.

"C'mon let's get out of here before my nightmares of wild Cyberpsychos come true."

—--

Jackie was paid, the chooms split off and I had a crate of Militech ECM units to adapt to our armor.

I spent an hour going over the first ECM unit. Checking first the hardware making sure everything would work, while performing some minor maintenance mostly just cleaning out the things, as it was obvious they had been in storage for a while.

Then I pulled open the program that ran the ECM and narrowed my eyes as I looked through it. I had my suspicions that Militech would have some way to get around this. Either an outright backdoor. Or more likely, a master code that would make the ECM useless against their own smart rounds.

It wouldn't be easy to find though. It would be hidden deep into the code.

Which…

Well fortunately for me, I was just getting an idea on how the program worked, and then I grabbed my laptop, plugged my personal link into it, and started writing a new program from scratch.

If I couldn't trust the program, then I would just make my own.

 

[Seras]

I was back outside the next morning, after spending all night working on the program I was out at the gym. Pushing myself as hard as I could to try and get more Body XP.

There was no John bothering me today thankfully. Just me and the weights that I was pushing myself against.

And the new chrome was making a massive difference.

I was pushing weight I never would have managed before. My arms were connected to my body far more intrinsically now. No more tingling feeling around my shoulders telling me I was pulling at my bones a bit too much.

No, I felt strong. My chrome secured into the whole making Motoko stronk.

I finally put down the weights, wiping my forehead on a towel, as I then wiped down the weights.

That was a good physical workout, but I had more to grind.

I cleaned up a bit and double checked my boots were secure before I started jogging.

Down the neon lit stairs and to the street and then I turned right and started moving. Pushing myself to keep going despite already being tired. I jogged all the way to where the road ended, Jig Jig street just below, I took the elevator keeping myself moving as it went down by shadowboxing and keeping my heart rate up.

When it opened I was out and moving, jogging quickly through the dark street of Jig Jig, ignoring the looks I was getting as I ran through and then ended up at Sakura Market. Though this time I didn't stop for Ramen.

Instead I ran up the concrete stairs, ending back up on the upper levels, I ran towards home. Sprinting and jogging in bursts to try and push myself even more.

By the time I made it back, I had earned some alerts for Athletics, and Body, but no level ups.

I sighed, heading upstairs ignoring the noise of Rockerboy Neighbor playing her music again and headed in for a shower.

As I finished that, head half covered in a towel, Jun was up. Jun was making himself breakfast, and looking at me tiredly.

"Mornin."

"Morning Jun-Nii. Sleep well?"

He blinked at me, both eyelids closing at slightly different paces.

"Slept okay. Not enough." He grumbled, and I nodded, walking over and patting his back.

"Can't go back to sleep for a while?"

"Got a gig from Fujimura-Sama. Just bodyguard stuff like usual, but he wants me."

"Hmm. Well if you start feeling too tired, you tell him that you need a break to get some sleep." I ordered as I wandered away. I knew Jun wouldn't and couldn't do that, but I cared more for Jun's health than I did Fujimura's wants.

"Sure Imouto."

I laughed at his obviously insincere reply, but that was fine. I buzzed around Jun, making sure his XXL burrito was warmed enough but not too hot before plopping it in his hand, which he stared at in surprise for a moment before looking happy as he took a bite.

My own breakfast was a mix of a few other things I liked that I could find in vending machines in the area.

I choked it all down as fast as I could, ignoring the taste as most food in Night City I could only just stomach, and certainly didn't enjoy.

But food was food, and while it didn't taste good, one thing NC did have was a dietary fulfilling foodstuffs.

Jun seemed to finally wake up a bit after his breakfast, looked at me as I was sitting at the living room table tinkering with the ECM program. "What about you? Doing anything today?"

"Mostly programming this Militech ECM unit. It's gonna take a while, but everything is quiet at the moment. I told you about the eddies we made in the badlands, so we aren't exactly hurting right now."

Jun just snorted.

That gig made more than Jun made in a year and then some.

"Don't rub it in." He told me with a huff, and I laughed shaking my head.

"I wasn't! Although if you ever want to leave the gangoon biz Section 9 would consider your resume… Consider it." I offered, eyes narrowed like I was judging him and he instantly grabbed a pillow off the couch and launched it at me.

But I was too fast!

I saw it coming, and leapt leaping backwards from where I was sitting to land crouched on the back of the couch having dodged his attack!

"Nin-nin!"

"Fuck off!" He snapped half serious and half laughing at me as he wandered to the bathroom for his own shower.

I was actually a little disappointed that Jun didn't want to rough house, but he was pretty tired.

I'd make sure he got a good nights sleep tonight and wake him up with a pillow to the face tomorrow for daring to attack me!

I was grinning evilly as I settled back onto the couch to continue the programming.

—--

I ran the program through the ECM unit, seeing it turn on, I cobbled together a holo emitter to get it to actually display showing just a circle of light that activated.

Everything looked good.

But I would need to actually test it.

Gathering up a unit, as well as grabbing a spare Yukimura from the Arasaka equipment, I loaded it up and left the apartment.

Couldn't exactly do any shooting in here. In fact I couldn't do it in most places.

I loaded up and drove north. Taking the long circuitous road out to Westbrook. It didn't take too long to find a side of the road that was full of trash and empty enough I could do some practice.

I plopped the ECM unit on an old crate, and then walked away, hooking the Yukimura up into my Smart link and then placing a target to the side of the ECM.

I didn't exactly want to shoot it after all.

Then I remotely activated the ECM unit and opened fire.

Pretty much instantly the rounds shot forward and then simply went wild as their targeting systems fed them nothing but false data.

Bullets instead of shooting straight went wild thunking and slamming into the ground, one even got so turned around it spun towards me, and I had to duck out of the way as it zipped past.

"Well that was… A thing." I muttered. Quickly checking the ECM System and checking the programming. Finding out how it handled actually being targeted.

Most of that was stripped wholesale from the original programming. So it handled it just fine. A few quick tests, and a few more rounds shot towards the ECM, and I was convinced.

It works.

Not it was time to install.

—--

"What are you doing?" Jun asked as he got home that night. I looked up from the chest rig I was rigging the holo emitters through to shake it at him.

"Armor!"

"Yes I see that. But what are you doing?"

"The little boxes right there? ECM modules. I'm outfitting the chest rigging with the holo emitters it needs to spoof Smart weapon tracking right now. The dang things are fiddly."

He nodded as he picked one up that I already finished and settled in its place, looking it over as I continued to work.

I was almost done!

The hardest part had been peeling apart the cloth sections, to slip wires through to power the emitters. I had to do actual sewing, but sewing with Kevlar wasn't easy.

"The work looks good. Why do you need holo emitters?"

"Same reason your tattoos glow. The smart weapons tracking gets spoofed by the data in the hologram."

"Why not just get a ECM tattoo then? They aren't expensive."

"While having an ECM on me at all times could be useful… I don't like tattoos." I said and Jun actually looked shocked at what I just said.

"What's wrong with tattoos!?"

"I just don't like them." I finally got the wire to go through! Quickly soldering it into the power system, I started sewing kevlar closed again.

"Well… You should! Mine are preem!"

I looked over to Jun. His stupid vest-like jacket that didn't cover his chest or arms to show off his chrome muscles, and the dragon tattoos across his chest…

"If you say so." I answered, earning an honest squawk of outrage from Jun.

"My Tattoos are awesome Motoko!"

"I'm glad you like them." I answered and he grumbled deep in his chest and my continued disinterest.

"You just aren't preem enough to have tats."

"Reverse psychology? I wouldn't want them even if they were offered." I replied, continuing to sew up the armor. C'mon so close to being done!

Jun's big hand suddenly reached over and fell over my head patting me lightly and I scoffed a bit, but leaned in and nudged him to show that I appreciated the attention.

"Done!" I proclaimed holding up the complete chest rig and then just as I expected. I got the alert I needed.

*100 Technical Ability XP Gained*

*Technical Ability Leveled up!*

Tech 6!

I giggled and clutched the rig tight as I luxuriated in a job well done!

"What's with you?"

"I finished it! Well okay no I still have a lot of work to do, but I finished the ECM units! These were such a pain in the ass Jun!"

"Well that's good. I'm proud of you." He offered awkwardly, not sure what else to say, but honestly?

That was perfect.

I threw him a bright smile as I rose up holding the rig. "I still need to color, adjust, and do some tinkering on these so I'm not done done, but this was a big step!" I informed him proudly as I sauntered back to my room.

Now I just needed to fix the helmets so they didn't look like kitty ears. Which they don't. My chooms are just dumb!

—--

Sleeping in past noon was my duty as a teenager, and I really needed eight hours after all the work I had done.

Painting, and doing adjustments to the armor to fit my chooms. I had even spent a little time in CAD adjusting the directional mic housing so I would stop getting teased.

But honestly. It was mostly done.

It was time to bring the chooms in.

*Motoko: Section 9! Assemble at my place for final adjustments to our new armor!*

This time there could be no confusion! They had totally failed my original assembly call, but this time!

*Hiromi: Okay. I'll be on my way after class.*

*Ichi: Okay. I'm just hanging out today. I'll come over.*

*Malcolm: Yeeees! I'm in! Gonna suit up! You got rid of the cat ears right?*

*Motoko: IT WASN'T CAT EARS!*

I promptly ignored all the messages in return because my chooms were definitely going to mess with me!

Instead I ran around prepping some snacks and things for everyone. It might take a bit of time to adjust everything to each person after all.

Ichi arrived first knocking on the door and I smiled as it opened to him.

"Ichi! Come in! I wanted to get one of you suited up first anyways. The others can be surprised at how nova you look when they get here."

"Ah… I'm the guinea pig." He said flatly, nodding along as I ignored his words and dragged him into my room.

"Okay everything should be straight forward. You know how to wear armor right? Go ahead and suit up and-"

"Nope." He interrupted me instantly completely monotone.

"And I'll show you! Easy! Nothing to worry about choom, not everyone knows how to wear good armor after all." I redirected instantly without worry.

Ichi then laughed at me, but nodded and I grabbed the first set of armor and showed it to him.

"The color is…"

"Listen. I had to think about what color scheme to use and since all of you wanted bright colors, I used my rights as the one who is updating these things to pick a nice gray and black camouflage."

"At least it matches our old suits?"

"That's the spirit!" I chirped as I started throwing the base layer at him. Even though it didn't have a Netrunner suit to properly armor him, I threw the pair of pants and the upper jacket. And then turned around and whistled so he could get changed.

"Can't I do this in the bathroom?"

"Ugh. Fine I'll walk out of the room, just call me when you are decent!" I rushed outside my bedroom and tapped my foot impatiently. C'mon Ichi!

"Alright."

"Great! Now this." I threw the boots at him which he juggled for a second but slipped off his old shoes and into the combat boots. As he was struggling to get them secured, as they used a weird not-Velcro system. I ran around and prepped the outer layers. The chest rig wasn't just a chest rig, and actually connected to the pants with some kinda neat future faulds. Although I had slimmed down the chest rig by removing most of the pouches.

Pouches were good, but if they stuck out too much it made it harder to comfortably hold a gun! Silly Arasaka. This was the sort of design issue mandated by a boardroom and not by soldiers.

"Done?" Ichi finally called more questioning than sure.

"Great. Chest rig next. Slide into it, and then I'll show you how it secures on the sides.

"Right." He muttered as he slipped in, the armored future-gorget taking a second for him to get used to. I had to adjust it down so he could actually look down without just getting stuck on it.

Yep Ichi was definitely shorter than the last person to wear this stuff.

"Here are the straps. Just tighten these, and it will keep your faulds in place."

He did so with a bit of trouble and then I had him walk around a bit getting used to the armor.

It was thick. That was the first thing I noticed he struggled with. He kept brushing his arms against the chest rig as he moved around.

"You'll get used to it." I assured him as he was looking a little annoyed.

"Is this necessary?"

"If I pulled out my Lexington and shot you right now, you would be fine." I explained in very blunt terms and for some reason Ichi looked nervous like I was going to actually shoot him.

Silly! I wouldn't do that.

"Okay here are the gloves. They are nice and bulky, good for punching, and protecting your hands."

I helped him slip those on, as he adjusted to the fit, I brought out the last item.

"It still looks like cat ears."

"I am going to give you the benefit of pretending I didn't hear that." I told him as I handed off the helmet. He slipped it on, struggling a bit with the face mask part of it. The helmet had a built in menpo, an armored face guard.

As always Arasaka made all their stuff look like future samurai, which was pretty cool. But it was always kinda hard to get situated right.

"Okay. You are all set. How does it feel?"

"Uh… Not too uncomfortable?" He said, sounding a little confused as he turned this way and that, feeling the range of movement he now had.

"You'll get used to it. Now, take your personal link and slide it into the helmet right here. That will download the command codes for the radio."

I helped him plug in, and then he had access to the radio.

"I've messed with the settings. Channel 1 is our personal radio contact. You won't need to change from it very often. Channel 2 isn't the radio at all, but the Directional mic built into the helmet… No, it's still not cat ears."

I could see him smirking behind the helmet, and so since he was properly armored I punched him in the shoulder. Hard.

"Ow! Motoko!" He yelped, rubbing his shoulder but giving up on it pretty quickly.

"You barely felt it. Now switch to the mic, and I'll show you how it works."

I quickly ran Ichi through the process walking all the way across the apartment and then whispering. The fact he could still hear me throwing me a thumbs up when I asked for it was all I needed.

"Perfect! Now we just need to make some minor adjustments. Make sure everything is fitting exactly how it should.

"So what do I do then?"

"You? Stand very still." Then just to fuck with him I pulled out my knife, and moved behind him. Of course I instantly put the knife away, but he didn't know that.

"Motoko? What's with the knife? Motoko? Help?"

There is no help for you Ichi!

—--

"Whoa. That actually looks pretty scary." Malcolm commented as he finally arrived over an hour later.

I had even finished adjusting Ichi's armor!

"Malcolm! You are late!" I proclaimed finger pointed as I stood up.

"Sorry choom. My dad needed help with something." He offered actually sounding a little contrite, and I instantly lost my irritation.

"No no! That's fine. Parent stuff is important. Anyway we are still waiting on Hiromi. C'mon let me show you how to suit up."

"Good luck." Ichi said from the couch where he was splayed out acting as if he was exhausted.

"Ignore him. C'mon!" I urged, pushing Malcolm into my room to get ready.

Half way through, Hiromi finally appeared cheerfully bouncing into the apartment and calling out her arrival.

"Give me a sec Hiromi! Malcolm is almost done!" I called out, as I was helping Malcolm secure the armored faulds.

A little later Malcolm finished suiting up and I pushed him out into the living room to show off.

"See? It looks great!"

"It makes me feel like I have a corporate hit squad… I love it!" Hiromi chirped, smiling brightly as she looked at the two boys. Ichi just slumped deeper into the couch, still not getting up while Malcolm stood tall and puffed himself out.

"Just remember to pay your henchmen well or else!" Malcolm proclaimed and Hiromi immediately faux gasped.

"No! My henchmen are betraying me! Quick! Help! Motoko! My right hand and ever loyal minion! Discipline this unruly henchman!"

"Pfft. Motoko should join us and get paid bett-H-hey!" I walked behind Malcolm and just lifted him off his feet. Malcolm might be a little taller than me, and a bit more with the boots and rig on, but I was fucking fit! My arms went around his waist and I just picked him right off the floor.

"As you wish my Corporate overlord." I stated in an utterly flat voice earning a delighted giggle from Hiromi as Malcolm struggled in my grip.

"Hey! Let me go! Motoko!"

"Hehehe." I eventually couldn't hold it in and started laughing at Malcolms attempts to get back on his feet. He was new to the armor and was like a turtle stuck on its back. Eventually I dropped him. "Okay. Enough playing around, Hiromi come on. Time to suit up."

"I'm the fixer Motoko, I can't go around wearing armor like that, everyone will think I'm some-Eep!" I ignored Hiromi picking her up like a sack of potatoes throwing her over my shoulder and walking into my room.

Any argument about not wearing armor would immediately be ignored!

Protection was god!

"M-Motokoooo!"

 

[Seras]

Once my chooms were all suited up I disappeared into my room after pushing Hiromi out to get changed myself. Of course I had the actual Netrunner undersuit!

So instead of pants and armored jacket, I slipped on a suit, leaving me in skintight flexible armor! Then I threw on the boots, and chest rig. I had to make some quick adjustments for the faulds since I wasn't wearing the silly pants that came with it, and instead wrapped the straps around my legs with some velcro-like material I had.

Then I adjusted the chest rig, threw on the armored gloves, and then the helmet.

I stalked out of my room and stood before my mostly still armored chooms. Malcolm had taken off his helmet to eat, and Hiromi was half slid out of her chest rig.

"And this is what it will look like when you guys stop being weird and put on the skin tight armored netrunner suit!" I proclaimed showing off the much tighter fit of the armor and my improved maneuverability!
"Pass."

"Hard pass."

"I don't mind you using it, but I like pants." Hiromi added and I huffed at all of them.

"Fine! Wear your subpar armor!" I then promptly walked over and flopped onto the couch and wiggled to get my helmet off too.

"Pass me the chips?"

"Yeah alright." Ichi muttered lazily, reaching over and throwing me a back of some sort of pseudo potato chips I pulled from a vending machine.

"What are we watching?" The TV was on, and Ichi and Malcolm were sort of zoned out watching it.

"Some comedy show thing? Not sure. Apparently Ichi wants to watch Watson Whore after."

"I didn't say that!" He snapped at Hiromi looking a little red.

"Well I don't think I really want to watch that… Sorry Ichi."

"It's fine! I didn't say I wanted to. Only that it was coming on next!"

"And then he refused to let us change the channel." Hiromi whispered into my ear, and I giggled.

I quickly changed the channel through the expedited power of I had hacked all of the entertainment system forever ago.

Then we just sort of vegged out in full kit.

—--

"I don't want to know."

"I do! This looks like the weirdest start to some XBD I've ever seen!" Akari called out right behind Jun as they both walked in and stopped looking at the pile of armored teens spread across the couch.

"Don't say that!" I shrieked blushing red at Akari who instantly broke into her cackling laugh at my outrage. My chooms were all flushing at the idea too!

"Is that your new armor? The one you klept from the Arasaka shipment?" Jun asked but Hiromi jumped in.

"We gathered all of this completely legally as per our contract with Arasaka management in recovery of the critical data that was stolen from their klepped shipment."

Jun just blinked and nodded slowly as if he understood.

"Wow she is a little corpo aint she?" Akari asked, and Jun just nodded. Ignoring how Hiromi was pouting, I decided to show off. Standing up and resettling the helmet back on my head.

"So what do you think? Preem right? High end armor. ECM integrated, with a directional mic embedded into the helmet! We haven't messed with the ECM emitters yet, but we will be able to personalize that as well!"

"You look like a doughgirl." Akari offered instantly, with zero hesitation or empathy.

So I of course attacked her. "I'll show you dough girl!" I roared as I jumped at her, earning an honest squeak from Akari as she wasn't expecting my lack of chill and then I slammed into her.

Akari of course fought dirty and instantly tried to stab me in the eyes, but I had a helmet!

Her probing attacks were deflected and I started grappling, which wasn't easy since she was all chrome as well, but then something lifted us bodily apart.

Jun was holding me up by the back of my rig, and Akari back by her arm, Akari was smiling teeth fully exposed, like she was ready to tear my throat out.

I would have done the same back, but I had my helmet blocking my mouth.

"Alright cut it out. Akari, calm down please, Motoko is playing."

"Call me a doughgirl again! You-" And then Jun just shook me up and down a few times.

"See, just playing."

"Pfft! You look like a strangled cat like that!" Akari offered cackling and I just pouted at Jun which was blocked by my helmet…

Okay the helmet was a problem. But I took a deep breath and decided to be the bigger person.

"I'm done. Let me go Jun." I said calmly, and he looked at me with narrowed eyes as if he suspected I was lying, but eventually he let me go, although funnily enough he didn't let go of Akari who had noticed and was giving him a petulant look.

Then I stepped back and brushed myself off.

"I win." I told her simply and that set her off.

"What!? How! Jun interfered!"

"Exactly. Jun as my older brother is obviously my secret weapon. Any time he interferes it means I win."

"That's! That's cheating!"

I shrugged and strutted back to my chooms who had been watching with interest.

"You okay?" Hiromi asked and I just laughed as I tugged off the helmet.

"I'm fine. Although I really need to wear my tech gogs under this helmet or something. Akari going for my eyes was a bit of a scare."

—--

"Okay so you want… This?" I asked Malcolm as his holo emitters activated.

Yellow lights flowed around him, with some silver here and there as well.

"You look like your car." Ichi called out teasing and Malcolm just flipped him off.

"The Caliburn yellow and silver is an excellent color combination! They tested it!"

"Boo!" Hiromi called out, earning a glare from Malcolm, but I just moved on. If this is what he wanted, it was good enough for me.

"Alright Hiromi-"

"Green! Maybe flames? Can you do flames?"

"I can do flames. It's a slightly upjumped holo emitter after all. Green flames it is." I offered as I started designing the hologram that would flow over her, to activate the ECM system.

Within a few minutes Hiromi looked like she had green fire flowing out of her hands and around her hips up her back. More than enough coverage to make sure the ECM protection would kick in.

"Mwahahahaha!" She cackled evilly, suddenly startling everyone before she looked at all of us. "How was that? Did I get it right?"

"Boo." Malcolm called in turn and tossed some of his chips at her.

Ignoring Malcolm and Hiromi getting into a fight, neither could really hurt each other with all the armor.

I moved on to Ichi.

His was simpler.

"Just make it not look stupid like their choices." He called out, just loud enough that Hiromi and Malcolm could hear him.

Which of course changed the target as Malcolm attacked Ichi from behind and Hiromi joined in.

I ignored the wrestling match happening right next to me, and focused on the hologram design.

Well Ichi could get a copy of what I was doing then.

Lines of light flowing up through the body. Of course I wasn't just going to keep it as a stable source.

The activation would have the light flow upwards from the feet and hands until it reached the head in just a moment increasing the light and keeping it stable.

Okay so I was basically just pulling a Tron, but Tron was pretty Cyberpunk! And it looked so cool!

Ichi would get an orangish red color.

While I went pure white.

Then I activated both of our colors. Malcolm and Hiromi jerking back as Ichi's holograms started, the light flowing up his arms and into his chest,

My own white lines arcing up my legs and forming a cool outline.

"There. All done!" I chirped happily rocking back and forth a little to see the holo emitters do an okay job keeping up with the movement.

I bet this would look awesome on a motorcycle.

"It's nova." Ichi said, playing with moving around and seeing the light arc off him as well.

"I like my fire more. But it does look preem… Although Ichi you need to change, you can't just match with Motoko!' Hiromi argued, but Ichi and I both just ignored her.

—--

We all had a good time after everything was done playing around and ignoring Jun and Akari, as Akari kept interfering, but eventually everyone had gone home with their armor and equipment, and my room was suddenly much emptier.

That and I finally had time for other grinding again!

That morning I was back at the gun range.

Thanks to the Raffen gig, I was actually pretty close to leveling reflex. Shooting all the Raffen running around blindly in their camp had taken some effort, and had given me a lot of alerts.

Now I just needed to grind out the last bit.

Settling into the gun range I had been going to, I quickly loaded up the magazines I had for my Copperhead. But that wasn't all that I had brought.

The Arasaka Masamune was a gun I had wanted to play with for a while.

Sure it was overly engineered, but I wasn't really planning on using it in the field. I liked guns that could get half blown up and still fire for that. But for a gun range?

It was a nice treat.

I pulled it out of the case and grabbed a few of the stupid Arasaka logo marked magazines, and started loading those up as well. I set the Copperhead to the side for a minute. Instead I slipped the mag into the Masamune and took aim. The holo sight was already perfectly on point. No need for any zeroing.

I fired. And in a three round burst that I barely felt it punched holes through the hologram targets.

Then I fired again, and again.

I don't really like three round bursts. I switched it to single shot and started plinking away as well. It was irritating. It actually was possible to mod the rifle to be full auto, but I hadn't done it with this one yet.

Probably a project I would do once I went home, cause three round burst was blegh!

Either way I burned through the expensive Arasaka branded ammo I had brought with me and then put the Masamune away.

Pulling out the Copperhead I was actually smiling, as I flipped off the safety took aim and held the trigger down.

Full auto silenced fire burst from the gun and I easily held her in control, putting rounds right through the holograms without any effort as my arms kept the recoil completely controlled.

Then as soon as I was about to run out of ammo, I dropped the magazine, quick-loading in another and just started firing again.

I had made sure there was a round still in the chamber, so it only took half a second to put in a new mag and I was off again.

I almost felt like cackling as I kept firing full auto.

This is what a rifle should be! Firepower!

Then finally I got it.

*100 Assault XP Gained.*

*Assault skill level up!*

Yay! I nearly cheered at the level up! Assault 8!

Wait… I wasn't here to grind assault! I was trying to grind Reflex!

I took a second for that thought to flow through my head before I did actually break out into giggles.

I shifted my grip on the rifle a little, slightly more secure, a tiny synergy with Rifle Ace to be able to line up a shot that tiny millisecond faster.

My poor Copperhead was a bit overheated, so since I had just maxed out what I could do with it. I unloaded it, and set it back to the side.

I still had Handguns to level!

Smiling, I pulled out my Lexington and whistled as I fitted the silencer.

—--

I didn't quite manage the Reflex level, or the Handgun one, before I decided to take a break. Heading home I took the scenic route. Driving through the heavy city traffic and just enjoying the feel of my Quadra rumbling along.

Honestly everything was kind of quiet right now.

Section 9 was flush with cash. We had lots of new equipment. My armor build for the team was done, and Hiromi was the only one still doing any real work as she was setting up deals to sell off some of the stuff we didn't need.

So it was just kind of quiet.

I had considered picking up a new gig from Wakako or another fixer, but I was kind of enjoying the grind time. A bit of me time, just for myself between gigs. It felt nice.

In fact…

I didn't want to go home. Bit weird, as I was a bit of a homebody. I wanted to go out and do something. Hiromi was in class. Ichi and Malcolm could be fun, but you know what? I was a cool Afterlife merc!

I shifted heading towards Watson.

Traffic got pretty bad on the way, enough that I was tempted to just park and maybe call my Kusanagi so I could just swerve around, but I was feeling pretty chill after all that reflex training so I just relaxed into the comfy Quadra seating and inched my way to the club.

When I finally arrived, there was plenty of open parking and I grabbed a spot and sauntered down the steps into the Afterlife.

Heh.

As if this place was going to be my afterlife. No, mine would probably be a digital landscape, full of daemons to fight or something.

Hell. I'm saying I'm probably going to hell, but eh.

That just means more demons to fight.

The bouncer gave me a nod not even needing to scan me, as he stepped aside letting me in.

He must have a good memory, it's not like I had been around much. Either way I walked into the heavy music of the club, and felt the atmosphere. Like always there were mercs all over the place, although this time there was no one dying on a table so that was nice.

No, I guess being midday the place was more quiet and preparing for the night raids than anything else.

I walked up to the bar.

It wasn't Claire behind the bar, but another guy that I didn't recognize but I just ordered a soda and settled in.

I was honestly just planning on staring into the bottom of my drink for a while. Not because I was in a depressed mood, but just to enjoy the ambience.

There was nothing quite like a Cyberpunk bar after all.

I was just chilling out enjoying the music and vibes when the queen herself walked in. Rogue sauntered in, and I could feel the ripple of attention she brought with her. Mercs all over the club glanced up as she walked in and towards her little booth area.

It was interesting, but more than that. I noticed a few of the mercs around the bar stand up, they sort of… Got in line?

Well they talked to Rogues guard to set up a meeting I guess.

"Huh."

"You need anything else, honey?" I blinked at the question from the bartender before shaking my head.

"Not really, just noticed everyone got up to go talk to Rogue as soon as she came in. You'd think they would just like, send her a text if they needed something from her."

"Hah! Send the boss a text, that's a good one. Nah honey, if you are looking for an Afterlife gig, you come to Rogue in person. Same if you need something from her. She doesn't do biz over the line, never know who's watching, and with someone like Rogue?"

"A lot of people are probably watching. Yeah, makes sense." I muttered. Before looking at the bartender again. "So Rogue hands out gigs if you come talk to her?"

"Yeah, sometimes. Not always, and not to every crew. You have to have the skills she needs yeah? But if you talk to her, you can find out if you got what she needs for a gig."

"Weird." I uttered before shrugging. Not interested anyways, and honestly if I want a gig that bad, I'll just go make one. Sure there could be more blowback without a fixer, but the pay was real preem.

"Hey! Anyone in here a Techie? We need one!" A voice called out and I was doubly surprised as heads popped up all over.

"Now what's going on?"

"Heh, that honey is someone told by Rogue they need a skillset they don't got. They might be able to tap in a free merc, or steal someone from another team. It's all part of the game." She offered and I nodded. That made sense.

I watched as an obvious techie with a set of body armor that was covered in tools wandered over to the guy that had called out and a few moments later they shook hands and wandered back to Rogue who was rolling her eyes and tossed the man a shard.

Gig acquired I guess.

Neat.

 

[Seras]

I left the club after hanging out for a while. Afterlife was neat, but I had spent my social batteries. Instead I decided to focus on what I wanted to do next, having used the time at the bar to figure it out. Getting home, I wandered over to my workbench inside my room and plopped down into the chair.

I wanted to level my Tech ability more.

Between my work on the armor for Section 9, and the tools I had made I made a big advancement, but I still wanted more.

So I plopped down the bag of supplies I had bought on my way home, and went to work.

CAD first.

Connecting my personal link into the laptop, I was able to do a lot of work without even touching the keyboard or mouse now, just letting my mental netrunning work on what I needed, as my hands parted out parts for what I was going to do.

I had a lot of money so I was going to basically burn a lot of it for experience.

The parts I had bought were everything I would need to make rudimentary drones.

Design Wizard, A.I. Whisperer and Robotics Wizard all synergized extremely well with what I was doing.

On the laptops screen a very simple drone was coming together. I still wanted Tachikoma. I couldn't really cosplay the major without them!

So I was going to start. Even if a lot of the work would be wasted when I leveled up my tech, I could still start iterating on the design, start working on the AI. Of course at first it wouldn't be an AI. I couldn't possibly make something with AGI levels of awareness on what little processing power I had.

No, first it would all just be algorithms. A few learning scripts, to develop walking patterns, and things that my good little boys and girls would need.

But like all children, they would use the first steps of these algorithms to iterate from themselves.

But first, I needed a drone to start the process.

I basically was going to make something as similar to a full size Tachikoma that I could, just much smaller. Two feet or so across, maybe a foot tall at the head bulb. I likely wouldn't add the back compartment in yet. That would simplify it for the first iteration.

I just needed to make the drone, and then start filling in the details with programming.

The CAD program took up my attention, once I parsed out the parts I needed I focused fully on that.

My 3d printer would be getting a lot of work tonight.

I kept tinkering away at it, the legs were a lot of work on their own, they had to be capable of the range of motion needed, plus needed enough power to actually actuate. Power sources thankfully weren't too bad, although with the battery systems I could buy off the shelf, I would have some battery life concerns especially once I started running smarter and smarter systems to control the drone.

But for now it was a night of slowly building the internals of the drone, through the CAD program one piece at a time.

—--

*100 Engineering XP Gained.*

*Engineering skill level up!*

*1 Perk Point Gained.*

I blinked at the alert that came as I was working on the internal musculature of the drone. Multiple limbs meant, I either needed the electric motors to spread their strength, or have one for each limb.

I stepped back from the design to stretch, even and let my brain cool down. Working for hours on this design was definitely a lot of work, and I was only getting through because of my Perks.

My actual engineering skill was only just capable of keeping up with the exacting details of what I was working on.

Sure most people could kludge together a drone out of parts with a bit of effort, but I needed something capable of some pretty extreme performance.

It had four articulating legs, which had wheels, so I had to draw power for the drones to drive. They had to be able to jump. I wanted to work on a wall climbing function for their legs. Something to let them stick, or grab onto walls and climb vertically. I still wanted to do a stealth function, but I was leaving that out for a later design. I simply didn't know enough about Optical Camo to get it to work.

Anyways, it was hard!

So to get another perk? Well that was something truly useful.

I once again skipped the grenade focused perks, because I still had no idea why Engineering was so focused on explosives, instead I scrolled through the perk list to where I went into the design focused perks.

Last time I had picked Design Wizard, vastly improving the quality of my designs.

I ran down the list skipping more than a few before I found the one that caught my eye.

Robotics Engineering: The robotic form is as familiar to you as your own.

Since my main desire was to make Tachikoma it seemed to be the best choice.

The moment I picked it I knew I had made the right choice.

I already had Robotics Wizard from Crafting, which was all about putting a robot together. Now I had the opposite, a synergy immediately began and I gasped as I realized how many tiny things could be done to enhance a robotic form.

I went from someone that could put a robot together, to someone who could design something that was more than just a robot.

It honestly made me think of Battle Bots. That show on TV that was so popular in my last life. Before I would have been one of the gen 1 bots. The ones that half the time caused their own downfall or something.

Now I was fully aware I could make a bot that would have crushed the entire competition. It was that much of a difference. Understanding the nuances of physics on the robotic form.

How easy it would be for their body to exert the forces I would need.

I looked at my own chrome arm for a moment and realized how… inadequate it was. How badly they had restrained the power the arm could exert, to make it easier to quickly replace in a desperate situation.

I shook it off, although it did create that burning desire to make myself better again. The desire for more chrome. To grow stronger.

I shook it off. Tachikoma first.

I went back to the CAD design I had made so far, and started reworking large sections of it. I didn't need for each limb to have their own motor, I could use a muscle structure instead to make a single much more powerful motor supply the power.

Instead of each limb being fully robotic, I would just add synthetic muscles instead! It took up less room, which meant I could make the battery bigger! Fixing one of the supply issues!

Mwahahaha!

—---

As much as I wanted to really focus down and get the Tachikoma done, I still had other things distractions in my life, but that was okay. It was a good thing. Staying cooped up all day wasn't good for you!

That is why I was waiting on the corner around Arasaka tower for Hiromi to meet me for lunch.

She had called and wanted to vent about her classes.

So I was hanging out besides a 25/7 with food already waiting in the passenger seat for Hiromi to get out of class.

I was only pecking at my own meal while I waited so we could eat together.

Which is of course when I jerked up at the sight of someone I had only seen from afar.

"David Martinez."

The boy was walking over to the grassy section across the street and looked like he was both eating his lunch, and to my amusement set up a backpack next to him and started selling XBD's.

The first boy that walked up to him to buy was handed a compact tablet and after a few moments the boy poked away and then handed it back. David nodded, seemed to confirm payment, and handed out one of the condom wrappers to the kid.

I grabbed the food, and stepped out of the Quadra, heading across the street when I got a chance.

I really really wanted to see this for myself.

"Selling BD's?" I asked as I sauntered over, catching David's attention. The poor kid was half a second into biting into an XXL burrito and he gave it a look of yearning before turning to me.

"That's right. Best BD's in the city. None of that Scav scop. Mox work, and some really preem work that you can't get anywhere else." He offered as he once more reached into the bag and pulled out the tablet and handed it to me.

I was practically snickering at the situation, and there was no way I could end it here. I set the food down on the bench beside him and grabbed the tablet.

"First tab is all normal BD's good stuff still. Inner Universe is one of our top sellers, It'll make you think you can fly." He said and I nearly ruptured something as I kept myself from laughing at such a corpo sounding sales pitch.

David was a riot!

"I've seen it. The Parkour is a little kludged at times, but the music is amazing."

"What? No way! Inner Universe was perfect! The parkour, the death defying jumps!" He nearly jumped off the bench as he spoke. "The Ghost is preem stuff. Nothing else compares really." He offered and I felt myself smile happily.

See! They got my name right!

"Well it's preem that you like them. How's working with Hiromi? She isn't too bad is she?" I asked, changing the subject as I handed the tablet back.

"You know Hiromi?" He shot back surprised, and maybe a little suspicious.

"Yeah, she's one of my best chooms. I'm actually here waiting for her. Saw you selling BD's and wanted to come see."

"Ah well, she's great. Sure." He said in a way that left me with the opposite feeling.

"Ah, she's a bit too much?"

He just gave me a look and didn't say anything.

"That's fair. I hope she wasn't too mean to you. She can get a little hyper focused. I'll talk to her, make sure she is nicer to you and Nox."

"You know Nox too?"

"Yeah? We are… Sorta chooms? I'm Motoko."

David's eyes instantly widened and I realized if he knew Nox, it was likely that he knew who I was.

"You're the Ghost!" He said breathlessly.

"That's my Netrunner name, and I guess Hiromi used it for the marketing of the BD's too."

"Holy shit! You're nova! I've watched The Only Thing They Fear like a million times." He blurted out, and I just winced.

"Ah, probably shouldn't watch that one too much. I was totally agro in it. I just wanted to test out the song and stuff."

"No way! It was the best. Especially the end, with the Cut-o-Matic!"

"Heh. Chainswords do hold a special place in my heart."

"Yeah! You were like. Raaagh! And the Scavs were like Eeeee!"

I burst into laughter at the noises David was making. They had kinda sounded like that when I had the Chainsword.

Of course my laughter was interrupted a moment later by a Hiromi missile as I was slammed into.

"Motoko!" Hiromi called out suddenly as she instantly wrapped her arm around mine. "Did you wait for 'me' long?" She asked, emphasizing her sentence weirdly as she looked at David.

"Not super long, and I got distracted by David here. He did a good job trying to sell me the BD's."

"Which he doesn't need to do, because Motoko gets any of the BD's she wants for free. Obviously." Hiromi said, continuing to look at David who was looking more and more nervous.

Don't worry David! I'll talk you up to Hiromi! Make you look good to your boss!

"It's okay Hiromi, he didn't know at first, but he did a great job. I was actually tempted to buy some of the BD's even if they aren't my thing! He's a good salesman." I offered throwing a wink to David over Hiromi's head although for some reason he just kept looking even more nervous.

Ah, Hiromi, you are holding on pretty tight there. I reached over and patted her head, distracting her, enough to get free and then settling onto the bench.

"Don't forget your lunch Hiromi." I said lifting the bag and shaking it. "Why don't we hang out with David while we eat? I interrupted his lunch as well." I said as I settled onto the bench next to him and then pulled open the bag of food on my other side, so Hiromi could get access to it as well, although she didn't seem to want to sit down for a moment before eventually settling in.

"We should go eat somewhere else, let David get back to work." She almost hissed out the last bit, but I just laughed at her.

"It's lunch time Hiromi, let him eat. Besides I want to hear about how he's found working under you. I mean, since he is working for you, he is basically part of Section 9. Obliquely."

"No. No he isn't." Hiromi said, but she was finally starting to eat.

Poor Hiromi must be Hangry.

"So David. Have you been making good eddies? Any problems? Anyone bothering you or anything?" I asked, and the boy once more stopped burrito halfway to his mouth.

Which… On one hand, I'm sorry for interrupting his meal, but it was an XXL.

Realizing this I reached over and grabbed one of the cartons of noodles I had planned on eating myself and handed it over.

"Here, have this instead." I offered smiling, and he looked surprised for a moment before flashing me a boyish smile and taking the food.

"Hey, thanks."

"No problem." I offered, and he quickly started eating, which gave me time to look to Hiromi.

"So classes have been rough today?"

"Ugh! It's those brats in class! No one believes that I've managed a major Op for my father! They just scoffed at me!"

"Well you did, and it's probably on your record right? So no need to worry about what they think. They are your peers, not your bosses right?"

Hiromi just grumbled a bit but nodded accepting my words as she stuffed some Lo Mein in her mouth.

"Wait, you did an Op?" David asked, and Hiromi actually smirked looking oh so superior for a moment as she sat up straight.

"That's right! My father hired our group Section 9, and we not only recovered the data that he wanted, but we brought home so much loot."

"I'm still super excited to play with the Minotaur." I whispered with a sigh. It was so fun! You just put on the head set, click in the control shard, and suddenly you were a massive walker ready to stomp on anyone in your way!

It was like all my dreams come true!

Of course it wasn't my real body, so it was only a fun diversion. Someday I'd end up in a Dai-Oni, or something and then I would be the stompy bot!

"Really Motoko, what are we even going to do with that thing? It's almost too heavy to move even in Ichi's truck."

"I don't know, but I'm sure it will come in handy someday!"

"Ugh. I'll have to figure out something." She mumbled something after that I didn't catch as David interrupted.

"Whoa. That's so preem. You guys are like total edgerunners!"

"Nah." I instantly denied, scrunching my nose at the thought. "Edgerunners are idiots who just want to die. Trust me David, you might some day decide to do Merc work, but remember something super important okay? Going home to the ones you love after a gig, is the only way to plan things out. If your end goal ends with you dead, then you failed step one."

He didn't look like he quite understood, but I shrugged. I would do my best to guide the gonk away from leaping off the edge, but some people were just dedicated to killing themselves.

"Did you make a BD of this gig? The one that you did for Arasaka."

"No." I shook my head. "I thought about it, but some gigs you are dealing with things that are too dangerous. The less people that know about that gig the better. So no BD."

"Aw. I wanted to see it from your perspective." Hiromi muttered and I just laughed at her.

"I didn't say I didn't scroll the BD. Just that I don't plan on handing it to Judy. But maybe we can get it properly adjusted some time."

Hiromi flashed me a smile and I went back to eating. In the end, I hung out with Hiromi and David until they had to go back to class, but I think my task to raise Hiromi's estimation of David had worked, at least she had gotten real close to him on the way back to Arasaka tower. So they must have talked about something.

—--

I had a complete blueprint of the first draft of the Tachikoma.

It definitely wasn't perfect, but after realizing the supply and price of some parts would be… Difficult. I downgraded a lot.

This was a testbed.

But the CAD design was done.

Tachikoma Mk.0.1.

My system liked it when I completed a design, and I had gotten a nice Engineering, and Technical Ability alert as I finished.

Now it was time to put one together.

The 3d printer went to work. Piece by piece, but that takes time so I didn't want to just sit in front of the desk staring at it. Instead I switched to another grind.

"What are you doing?"

"Practice!" I chirped to Jun. He was sitting on the couch watching some TV show he liked, while I was practicing my Athletics.

Mostly I was just tumbling, Back Handsprings across the living room until I stopped at a wall, and then turning and doing it again.

Grinding!

"Alright… Just don't break anything." He rumbled but went back to his show after a bit.

"I won't!" I said, as I completed a circuit. It was kinda intense flipping around so much, but since it was a newish exercise. I had done something like this before after all, but I hadn't really grinded it like this much, but the alerts were coming in.

Mostly Athletics, although I did get a body alert on my tenth circuit, so that was nice!

I finally took a break, flopping down onto the ground to catch my breath as I felt my chest heave.

"Finally done?"

"For now!" I offered waving my wrist at Jun weakly.

"What are you practicing anyways?"

"Acrobatics! It's useful!"

"I suppose with those ankles of yours it would be."

"It's just useful in general! Never know when you might need to leap into cover or something. Plus it's good exercise in general!" I said, looking over to Jun and boring my eyes into him as I finished.

He of course swiftly turned away and continued snacking as he watched TV.

"You really need to exercise more Jun."

"I'm already strong."
"Only some of you! Chrome doesn't count! You will get all flabby if you keep relying on it."

"I'll just chrome out the flab. We got plenty of eddies, between Fujimura-Sama giving me more for gigs, the cheaper apartment, you no longer needing an allowance."

I grumbled at the last one. I had only needed a little money from Jun! Then I made my own! He was probably talking about old Motoko for the most part.

"You really shouldn't joke about that Jun. You need a lot more time before you can chrome up any more." I said quietly, more seriously.

This time he just grumbled at me. I snorted at him, finally standing up and walking over to sit on the couch beside him. Without hesitation I reached into the bag of snacks he was munching.

"So what are we watching any-ACK!" I choked as I threw the food into my mouth, instantly the taste registered and I spit it right back out.

"Motoko!" Jun yelped but I was too busy rushing to the bathroom.

Jun was snacking on Shwabshwab! It was ants! I had put ants in my mouth!

Hacking and spitting to remove as much as possible.

"W-why!? Why do they taste like ketchup!" I moaned as I rushed back out to get something to drink to wash the taste out with.

"I like the Ketchup flavored ones! Motoko! You are cleaning this up!" Jun yelled, pointing at the spray of spit and red colored ketchup flavored ants sprayed across the living room table.

"I'm dying!" I moaned desperately, popping one of Jun's Ni-Cola just to wash the taste out, which didn't really help as I was just replacing it with the horrid taste of cough medicine.

"Die after you clean it up!" He demanded grumbling at me.

 

[Seras]

Hiromi Mitsunashi

"So treat Motoko as if she was me." Hiromi added with a glare. To find her Motoko sitting on a bench besides Martinez of all people! Martinez who even Hiromi could admit was good looking and had a tendency to attract attention even from the other corpo girls! Not that any of them allowed themselves time with a boy with no future.

Martinez was smart. Too smart. Martinez was also poor. Too poor.

"Yeah, I got it. She's the Ghost! I can't believe I actually met the Ghost, and she's a teenager too?" Martinez still looked a little bewildered, and awed at the sudden meeting, something Hiromi could only accept.

Motoko had that effect on her-People. Motoko had that effect on people. Especially when she was being all cuddly and leaned in close with a smile, and she was sure that Motoko was going to press her lip-"Buee!" she nearly squealed, shaking her head and pressing her cool fingers against her cheeks to try and cool off.

Motoko was too strong!

"Hiromi?"

"It's still Boss, Martinez." She didn't quite snap, but reminded him. It was important to make sure underlings understood their positions in any company.

"Sure. Boss." He responded full of sarcasm.

Martinez was… a difficult underling. Some days he was completely out of sync, almost depressed, some days he was snarky, and those were the days that got him in trouble with the rest of the class.

Hiromi didn't care though, because Martinez was a good salesman once she had gotten him to stop trying to sell BD's out of dark corners, and constantly looking around like the NCPD were coming to collect his stock.

Fucking gonk. This was Arasaka Academy. There were no teachers or staff here that would disrupt a small business! We were the future of Arasaka NC! Of course we had to understand how businesses functioned, including success and failure.

Everyone had thought he was doing something creepy while selling his BD's so despite having pretty good stock through his old source he had barely managed any sales.

Cause Martinez was the dumbest smart person Hiromi had ever met.

He had zero street smarts. Which was really shocking for a kid that was so poor.

Hiromi had only had to see Mrs. Martinez once, to understand though.

David was fucking spoiled.

If Hiromi's mother acted even half as affectionate as Gloria Martinez, Hiromi was sure she would have died in embarrassment.

"Remember the eddies Martinez. Now. I have work to do. Excuse me." She added and the mention of money jerked the boy's spine right up. Sure Martinez was a moody kid, but well…

Eddies got him nice and compliant.

It was chump change honestly. Even without Section 9's cash flow the money for the BD's and XBD's was literally pocket change, but for Martinez?

It meant he had pocket change for a change, and Hiromi was very free with employee percentages.

Right now her goal wasn't to pull every eddy to profit, but to expand.

Martinez was a part of it. Covering Arasaka Academy from the inside.

Nox was another, as both supplier of the Mox collection, as well as a pseudo partner, although she had long ago taken over the leadership position.

He still griped about it, but only until the weekly profits came in. That always shut him up.

Straight Lane Shooters acting as a third connection to her burgeoning XBD empire. The gang was still working on their income streams, but Hiromi had cut them in. Letting them sell her stock for a majority of the profit in exchange for another benefit.

Hustle. Hired Muscle.

Nox often had two of the bigger SLS boys guarding his ass, and it had worked extremely well.

The SLS were expanding in their area, not through hostile acts, but through being a supplier of easy entertainment.

Hiromi had even set up a local net site, where customers could order over the Citinet, and a SLS boy would drop off their desired BD's right to their door!

Considering how many BD Junkies there were in NC? Oh yeah. Every new customer was a nice bundle of eddies on the weekly.

And all of the revenue streams zipped up the tree right into her hands.

"Heh… Hehehehehehe!" She burst in laughter at how well everything was going. Hiromi had used to think corpo shit like this had been boring, but that was before she had created a company underneath her!

Well her and Motoko, and even Malcolm and Ichi. In her mind the two boys were sub leaders more than anything.

Motoko of course was co-leader. Hiromi might be proud of her work building income streams, but Motoko is the one that made it all happen. That and the real income was from Section 9 duty, and Motoko was undoubtedly in charge there.

Ah! The sight of Motoko being all serious, and deadly serious, and utterly utterly lethal…

Hiromi cooled her cheeks once again. Hiromi had once been interested in Jun a little. Enough at least to use him to tease Motoko. Enjoying how the girl had always become outraged that Hiromi flirted with her older brother. Well before the coma anyways. Afterwards she hadn't cared at all that Hiromi tried to flirt with Jun.

But Hiromi hadn't needed to feign interest in the dangerous gangster boy. Not when Motoko had turned herself into such a deadly woman.

Hiromi still checked every Motoko BD, and was still thrilled every time at the casual lethal grace Motoko now moved with.

You wouldn't notice it at first, or at least she hadn't, but feeling every muscle shift and move as Motoko scaled a wall, or battered scavs to death was an intimate experience.

"Mistunashi." A voice interrupted her daydream and she scowled.

"Hmm? Oh, it's you Tanaka." She confirmed. The boy wasn't someone Hiromi usually would have needed to interact with. Being a year ahead of her, same as Martinez, but she had to for her employee.

That was how Hiromi had first interacted with Katsuo Tanaka. She almost wished she hadn't had to.

"You've done an acceptable job handling Martinez. He hasn't caused nearly as many issues since you took him under your wing. My congratulations." The boy offered snootily, that ugly smirk on his face only making Hiromi want to punch him.

"What do you want Tanaka?" She demanded, not at all interested in dealing with this. Idly she reached up and adjusted her tie. The Arasaka academy uniform wasn't the most comfortable thing. She almost envied Martinez and his casual disdain for dress code.
"Simply to request a meeting. Tonight? Dinner, my treat of course. Dark Matter? My father has an open pass of course. I figured we can discuss… Business."

Hiromi was flabbergasted, caught completely flat footed.

"What?" She asked and then instantly shook her head, stupid question. "What are you talking about Tanaka, we don't have any business together."

"Not so. Not so. Father mentioned how impressed he was with your handling of the downed AV cargo. The fact you are already leading a mercenary strike team? When he heard that it was one of my peers. Well Father wanted us to have a closer relationship."

You mean, your father realized how much of a disappointment you are for not being on my level. Was what Hiromi really wanted to say. To watch Tanaka crumble into the petulant child he really was.

The funny thing was, despite all the problems he gave David, Katsuo was one of the least respected members of the Academy.

He just couldn't do anything without his father holding his hand.

"Listen. Tanaka. I'm busy with work, and I don't have any interest in cutting you in, or joining up with you. You just don't bring any value in my eyes for a merger." Hiromi said, eyes looking down on the taller boy with every ounce of apathy she could bring.

Tanaka took it as well as he did any critique.

"You wannabe street rat bitch! You think I actually want to be around you? You stink like Martinez. My father was wrong. You have no value, and I'll make sure you remember that!"

"Sure Tanaka. We done? Yes. We are." She decided to not even give him the power to argue the point. She walked away.

She was surrounded by kids playing at being corpos. The thought made her scoff as she was practically one of them.

No way could Hiromi have done this without Motoko handling the difficult bits. But having valued personnel was a skill all on its own, something she had learned that had changed her world.

She might never rise as high as Tanaka in the company, because he would be pulled up by his father, but that was fine. Because Tanaka would never be more than just a company boy.

Hiromi? Hiromi would have her own assets, her own company, and her own projects. She would stay with Arasaka, but she wouldn't be just another drone like Tanaka.

—--

We were hanging out on the couch together watching some TV, but it wasn't a relaxing experience.

Jun wass purposefully ruffling the bag of ants! They were ants! Ants are ants! Not food! He was doing it just to watch me jerk away from them.

I didn't even want to look at the damned things! They had been in my mouth! I now knew the texture of ants!

"Heh." Jun chuckled as he grabbed a handful and tossed them into his mouth. He was doing it on purpose!

"I hate you."

"Heh!"

I considered punching him, but Jun still had a nuclear weapon in his lap. What if… What if he chucked them at me or something!? I could get them in my hair! I don't think I could mentally handle that!

So I just casually moved away from him, yep super casual. Not squirming and flinching at all. Nope!

"I'm gonna go do something! In my room!" I decided that a tactical retreat was in order and Jun just kept smirking at me as I flipped over the back of the couch, sliding into a tumble to let me land on my feet at my door.

Yep. Just going to avoid that whole thing.

Inside my room the Tachikoma piece was nearly finished, but I didn't want to sit there and just look at it, so I grabbed my guitar and hooked it into my amp.

To get back at Jun just a little I belted into the opening strings to Chippin in.

Singing it at the top of my lungs just utterly belting it out made me feel better and probably annoyed Jun so there you go.

Then on my third repeat of the song my 3d printer finally finished, and I hurried over, quickly pulling out the piece of casing and putting in the feeder material for the next section, loading it up and then starting it up again.

Then because I wanted to be a little shit, I walked back to where I was grabbed my guitar and started the song back exactly where I had left off.

That finally got me a reaction.

"MOTOKO! CUT IT OUT!" Jun yelled from the living room, loud enough I could actually hear it over the song. That finally earned him some relief as I stopped playing and toned down the volume before jumping back into it, at a much more reasonable level.

I was trolling Jun, not trying to be an asshole.

But then as I was starting up, there was a knock on the door. None of my chooms were supposed to be coming over. I put the guitar down and grabbed my Lexington from the holster and met Jun who just rolled his eyes as he saw me come out of my room armed as he walked to the door.

At least grab the door gun Jun! The Tactician was for this exact thing!

But he ignored it and opened the door.

"Uh, hey." Jun offered looking surprised and I concealed my lexington in the back of my pants as I wandered over to see.

"Hey neighbor. I was uh… Oh." She remarked upon seeing me.

It was Rockerboy Neighbor. She was standing at the door, hand idly twirling a bit of her techhair that was flashing slowly to her heartbeat…

FLIRTING! RED ALERT!

I glared as I hurried over grabbing Jun's arm and narrowing my eyes a bit at her.

"Can we help you?" I asked, making my point clear. She just looked a little awkward for a second before seeming to cool down and then flashed a smile.

"Hey I just heard you playing and stuff. Samurai? That's nova, oldschool, but nova, we should jam sometime-" She started speaking and the moment I realized what she was going for, I instantly started laughing. Practically busting a gut because she hadn't been looking at me while saying that.

Worse? Jun looked like someone had fed him something sour.

The look of confusion on the girls was great, and I just laughed and laughed in delight at the natural 1 she just rolled.

"I don't play guitar." Jun offered after a moment saving the girl a bit of confusion. "Motoko is nova though. She can play anything."

I could see the flush go up the girl's pale cheeks at Jun's statement, and even worse her cool confidence was a bit broken.

She had definitely come here for a chance to flirt with Jun about music.

"Motoko, it's rude to laugh at people." Jun pointed out to me, because I was absolutely busting a gut.

I brought myself under control, as much as I wanted to just point at Jun and tell him the look on his face was forever my favorite thing. But instead I calmed down to just softer chuckles. "Sorry. Sorry. Yeah Jun." I said getting myself under control.

I looked at the girl who looked a little lost and felt a bit bad.

She had been rude on our first meeting, but I could be the better person.

Besides that look of disgust on Jun's face was never going to be forgotten. Mostly because I took a picture.

"That was you?" She finally asked and I nodded.

"Yeah Jun hates Samurai, so I was messing with him by playing it. Wanna jam together?" I asked, surprising the girl with my sudden offer.

"Oh? That would be nice, Motoko's never played with anyone else before." Jun said, dropping one of his stupid big hands over the top of my head.

It took only half a second for the girl to realize that Jun was a good big brother, and that would be her way in.

"Preem. Sure, I have some time to jam a bit. Let me get my guitar." She said walking away quickly, and I was pretty sure she needed a moment to reset her plan.

She had definitely come for Jun. I had no doubt she was going to want to play in front of Jun.

I rolled my eyes, silly Rockerboys.

Heading back to my room I grabbed my amp and equipment and hauled it out to the living room.

No way was I letting some random Rockerboy gonk in my room.

A minute later there was another knock at the door, and Jun answered it as I was setting up my stuff.

Rockerboy neighbor was there with a flirty smile for Jun.

"Huh. That's not the Orphean you had at your gig." I mentioned cutting in a bit. She was carrying an old beat up Washburn guitar.

She looked to me, and shook her head. "Course not. That's not a guitar you use while playing around."

"Gotcha! Well come on in, feel free to plug into the amp. Jun come sit!"

"Yeah yeah." He muttered laughing as he walked over and flopped onto the couch, although since it was a big circle he had to sit sideways to see. Rockerboy neighbor instantly hurried over and plugged in, and the moment she did I could see she was actually plugged into the guitar as well. Her hair instantly shifted, and as she strummed a few chords to check the sound her hair shifted with her.

That was kinda nova. Should I get Tech Hair like that? Lucy had something like that too and I always thought it was cool.

I shook it off as she strummed a few chords and from the sound I knew she was all set.

So I instantly started into the intro to her own song. The one Violent Hemorrhage had opened their gig with although I didn't know the name of it.

The look on her face as she jerked up at the sound as I played it perfectly made me smirk. I had to repeat the refrain twice before she shook herself loose and finally joined in.

Then we just jammed. I played the songs Violent Hemorrhage had played the night of their gig. Playing along from memory, and every time I kept up, Rockerboy neighbor looked more and more surprised.

Jun looked sort of meh about the song choices, but I could tell that she didn't really notice that. Only that his attention was on her, and she strutted under my brother's eyes.

We took a break after a few songs and Jun was a good boy bringing both of us drinks.

"Thanks Jun." I said as I drank my soda, while Rockerboy neighbor flirted, leaning in a bit as she took the drink.

"Yeah. Thanks." She offered, and I think even Jun wasn't dense enough not to notice that level of flirtation.

"Uh. Sure, anytime." He offered back, and that only made the girl smirk even more wicked.

"So what's… Okay seriously how do you know every song my band plays? You a super fan or something?"

"No? I saw you play a gig once. The songs were alright, not really my thing." I admitted with a shrug. "I tend to like older rock more. Or more electronic stuff. I guess."

"That's…" She trailed off, glancing at Jun. Probably wondering how to call me a liar or something. It was pretty crazy.

"Motoko is a genius." Jun said with a smile reaching out and ruffling my hair.

The girl looked like she wanted to argue. Which… Yeah I could feel that. I mean, I had just perfectly played her own songs having only heard them once?

Well I had heard them a few times vaguely, I supposed. She did practice in her apartment, but that was rarely clear enough to do more than vaguely recall the song she was playing.

But that brought me up to another issue.

"So what's your name anyways?" I asked, and the girl nearly spewed her drink out as she was taking a drink as I asked.

"What you don't know?"
"You never introduced yourself, and I only know you from the one time I heard you play."

"Yeah but…" She shook her head. "Alice. Fujimura Alice."

My eyes narrowed but Jun made an 'ah' noise as if it just dawned on him. "Fujimura-Sama's niece. I remember now. He mentioned you lived on this floor too."

"Yeah. Oji-san let me stay here while I get my band together. Since it's closer to all the clubs." she offered with a shrug.

My narrow eyed look eventually relented and I shrugged. The fact she was related to that jerk face Fujimura didn't matter much. She was more like me than anything. TC connections but not actually a member.

Couldn't really get annoyed with it considering that was very similar to me and Jun.

"Alice then, nova. I'm Motoko, since I didn't actually say that, but you already heard Jun call me that."

"Yeah. The Kusanagi siblings. I remember Oji-san told me about you when you first moved in. Said the Oni was a good underling, but his sister was difficult."

"That sounds about right." I agreed without hesitation. Earning an actual amused look from the girl.

"So know anything besides your own songs?"

"I know a couple songs." She offered and started up something I had never heard before.

Thankfully with Perfect Musical Memory I caught on and on the second play through I was matching her tempo.

To my surprise, she seemed actually pretty happy to jam out with me.

 

[Seras]

After a few songs Alice called for a break, and then casually flopped onto the couch next to Jun.

Flirting.

I rolled my eyes, but she had been surprisingly nice this time, so I decided to give her a bit of space.

I wasn't exactly thrilled that Fujimura's niece was into Jun, but I would just rely on my brother's denseness to romance.

Instead I headed into my room.

The Tachikoma part was completed, so I prepped the next piece, messing with the printer making sure it was good to go, and started it up.

Considering I was giving Alice some space with Jun I decided to be semi productive and look at my stat sheet.

Level 17

Body 8(16) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 8.
-Athletics 7
-Street Brawler 8
-Annihilation 5

Reflex 8
-Blades 7
-Handguns 7
-Assault 8
-Driving 7

Intelligence 11 (14) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 4.
-Breach Protocol 9
-Quick Hacks 8
-Programming 11

Cool 9
-Ninjutsu 9
-Cold Blood 8
-Rockerboy 8

Technical Ability 6 (10) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 4.
-Crafting 5
-Engineering 5

1 Stat point.
6 Skill point.


Perks.
Ambidextrous Blades 2
Quickdraw Handguns 2
Gun Nut Assault 2
Parkour Athletics 2
Grappling Street Brawler 2
Drive By Driving 2
Cat-like Athletics 5
Cool Nerves Cold Blood 2
Danger Sense Ninjutsu 2
Wall Breaking Breach Protocol 2
Cyber Security Quick Hack 2
Recoil Reduction. Annihilation 2
Cyber Ninja Ninjutsu 5
Fearless Chill. Cold Blood 5.
Improvised Weapons Street Brawler 5
Parry Blades 5
Robotics wizard Crafting 2
Drifting Driving 5
Rapid Reload Handguns 5
Design Wizard Engineering 2
Rifle Ace Assault 5
Ghost touch Breach 5
Perfect Musical Memory Rockerboy 2.
Debug Programming 2
Siren Song Rockerboy 5
Hacking Wizard Quick Hacks 5
Inspired Programmer Programming 5
A.I. Whisperer Programming 10
Slam Fire Annihilation 5
Enduring Builds Crafting 5

That was where I currently was. I looked through my stat block to try and figure out what I wanted to grind next.

Weapons popped to mind. I was a bit behind on gun skills still. But I wasn't sure I wanted to go to the range again.

Actually I did have Annihilation. I could grab a shotgun, or a machine gun… Actually no, no machine guns. Shotguns were good though.

Also Engineering and Crafting still stood out… Okay. Grenade time.

I gathered some parts I had. I would stop at a shop and head to the Straight Lane Apartments, to make some grenades since Jun still refused to let me make them in the apartment.

I was low on grenades after that one kid stole them from my Quadra.

I walked out to see Jun looking pretty uncomfortable, as Alice flirted with him, her hair was throbbing pretty quickly to the beat of her heart.

Oooh. Jun was in trouble.

Be strong Jun-nii. It's only a rockstar going for your innocence! I'm sure no rockstar has ever defiled an innocent maiden before…

"Heh." I snickered as I walked through the apartment. "I'm heading out. Gonna go build some grenades. You want any?"

"What, you're leaving? Are you sur- Wait!? What was that about grenades!?" Jun called trying to rise up but I was already out the door.

I guess that means he doesn't want any.

Slipping into the garage from the elevator I walked over to my Quadra and slipped in. Uncaring about the TC toughs that still hung out down here. I guess it was safe? Being down here kept the kids from being targeted by other gangs I guess.

I roared out of the garage, enjoying the way the Quadra got a little air at the exit every time, I whooped as I slid into the street and then slowed down to the speed limit and drove to the gun store.

Buying a metric ton of supplies I carried the heavy box out of the shop and into the passenger seat of the Quadra before heading to the Straight Lane Apartments.

Time to get to work.

—--

Tinkering with grenades was a surprisingly soothing experience. Future tech meant they were actually pretty safe, like handling C4. You pretty much knew exactly what it would take to cause an explosion and as long as you didn't do that one thing you were good.

I made a dozen of them using old parts before I ran into the problem of lack of supplies for the casings. Sure I had all the internals, and the triggers, but I had run out of the casings to hold everything.

I frowned. Normally I would head back to the apartment to run the 3D printer, but that was already in use…

Did I want to buy a new one? I was making a lot more stuff. I could probably get a way higher quality printer as well…

I considered it as I spun around in the chair and took in the sight of the netrunning basement.

I shrugged. It wasn't like I could get any more work done here without either going out and buying casings wholesale, or making them myself. I packed up the grenades, noted that I had earned a Crafting and Tech alert from the dozen completed grenades, and grabbed the box of completed explosives to take with me.

My Quadra was running low on big boom after all.

Heading up, I was stopped as the elevator opened by a pair of girls that I recognized.

"Ah it's you two."

"And it's you." The smaller one hissed glaring, but the taller girl rested a hand on her shoulder to calm her. "We were waiting for you, hoping you might be willing to discuss something." She asked, and I felt my eyes narrow.

Last time I had met these two, they had threatened Hiromi, and hadn't been happy to have us around. It had been a while since then though. So I guess something had changed.

"I don't really have a lot of time." I lied, "But if you make it quick I'll hear you out."

"Perfect. We are having an issue with a rival gang causing some problems. While we can certainly defend our territory… We are a bit outgunned this time, and wanted to hire you."

"Call Hiromi then, and run the gig through her. She's my fixer." I replied and made to move but the girl moved in.

"Wait! We… We told Hiromi we had everything under control! If she realizes we are struggling with our end of the deal we might lose the deal entirely. Please. It's just one group. We don't even need them flatlined or anything! They have higher end weapons is all. They made some deal with 6th St. So they have rifles and things. We just need them to lose the weapons. If they do, everything goes back to normal."

I sighed. This was dumb. Like literally dumb.

"Okay listen. Hiromi is my best choom, so let's be real, hiring me is still going to alert her. So let's cut all the shit. You guys are street kids. You aren't meant to handle something like 6th St. Hiromi knows that. Just call her, tell her what's up. I'll send her a text right now. To look into it, and that we'll help out."

The taller girl looked nervous before sighing. "Please."

"Great. Call her! If she is being a bitch I'll talk to her, but I doubt she's gonna drop you guys like that." Hiromi had mentioned from time to time that the SLS was acting as her low level muscle. No way Hiromi would drop them just because…

Wait, did these kids think Hiromi was some super fixer like Wakako or something… Heh.

I turned and walked away to hide my smirk and my desire to giggle. I was gonna tease Hiromi so bad about how everyone thought she was some elite fixer!

—--

"Best model you can find on the market! The Militech marketplace also offers a wide variety of printable options for the discerning customer!" The man said, patting a 3D printer with one hand.

This was now the third Militech branded printer he had shown me.

"That's great, but I don't need a Militech marketplace. I'm looking for something I can run on my own. Which this one won't. As I have to upload my blueprints to be able to print them." I argued for the third time. It was actually a good marketing ploy.

The printer was cheaper, and pretty good quality. So by tying it into a local net marketplace Militech got free product to sell, and a constant income.

And I'm pretty sure I could jailbreak it, but I didn't want to deal with this! I just wanted it to work!

"The Militech marketplace is the greatest concentration of-"

"Choom. I'm not interested."

The man shut his mouth and then breathed out.

"Yeah alright kid. You want something a bit more flexible, we got that too. C'mon." His tone had completely changed from the corpo tag line he had been hawking at me.

He led me over to the side of the shop that was sort of tucked away, and there I finally found what I wanted.

"These don't have any corp support for production, but you know that."

"I do." I said checking out the varieties he had. These printers would only work if I could input the model myself without any of the libraries that some of the other printers offered.

"This one." I said pointing at a Vance T-Form. I had never heard of Vance before, but just checking out the printing details this is the one I wanted.

"Figured you'd grab that. The T are good, but be careful about buildup. They have a really shit cleaning system, so you'll want to do it yourself. But if you do. They are solid." He offered hefting up the box that was pretty large, definitely some do it yourself building involved, but I paid and hauled it out to the Quadra to take… Home.

I would flip the printers around. This one could keep working on the Tachikoma, I would need tighter tolerances there anyways, while the old printer could be sent over to the Netrunner lair for grenade parts.

—---

Jun wasn't home when I got back, which made me wonder if Alice had actually gotten her claws into him. But I ignored it heading into my room, taking out the Tachikoma part that was done. And unplugging and moving the old printer, to make room for the much much larger new one.

I started cackling as I put it together. So much power! So much building! Tachikoma!

Once I had it all settled and ran a quick test part to see.

It came out smooth and within my actual tolerances. Usually the printer made things a bit wonky, but not this time. It was nearly exactly what I wanted.

Perfect.

Satisfied I started on another part, and the timer for completion was certainly better than before.

Well, I still had my old one.

I popped the second printer onto the floor and started printing out grenade casings. Slowly working through the process as the new printer buzzed quietly working much much faster than this old one.

An hour later I swapped out the part being constructed for another build and took all the Tachikoma parts so far and started fitting them together.

I had enough of the outer casing done now that I could start putting together the brain and start fitting it together. I had the parts already, especially since it wasn't like I was building an AI here.

A SCSM would have about the same level of intelligence as my Tachikoma, at least to start.

Then again Brendan was a S.C.S.M. Yet he was smart enough to make people think he was alive.

It would all come down to the iterative design, and my skill as a programmer.

The brain came together, just some hardware capable of running an OS. It was honestly basic, but it didn't need to be complex. I just needed the start.

With the brain put together, even with the body still only half completed. I grabbed my laptop and started programming.

—--

I dumped the box of grenade casings onto the table down in the netrunner cave. I had a few hours before the piece of Tachikoma was done. So I had some time to grind more crafting points.

I had made a lot of casings, enough that I wouldn't need more for a long time. But really it was just a grinding method. I probably wouldn't even keep all the grenades live.

My hands grabbed the basic tools I need and I went to work. Explosive fitted into the casing, electronic trigger connected to the mechanical one, and then a final twist of a screwdriver sealing it all together.

I gave it a little scan with my Kiroshi, confirming it was live, and then put it to the side.

Then moved on to the next one.

And the next. All the while XP came in small bursts.

*100 Technical Ability XP Gained*

*100 Crafting XP Gained.*

—--

*100 Crafting XP Gained.*

*Crafting skill level up!*

Crafting six? Nice!

I had stilled as the alert came in, slowly putting down the grenade I had been working on. I had dozens of the things now. Each one lined up to the side ready to be used.

I stretched raising my arms high above my head and groaned as I felt my muscles in my back stretch.

That had been a good grinding session!

Now what was I going to do with all of these grenades?

The idea struck me and I laughed, instantly pulling up my agent to make a call.

*Ringing.* I hummed a bit as the call went through, already gathering up the grenades into a box for transport.

*Ringing.*

*Hello? Motoko?*

*Ichi! Glad you picked up. You doing anything right now?*

*Nothing I can't put down, what's up?*

*I have a ton of grenades and I figured having some stored in your truck would be a good idea. Just in case you need something with a bit more boom, than the HMG.*

*Grenades? Motoko I don't really… I don't think I'm comfortable with that.*

*What? Why? They're just grenades Ichi.*

*I've never handled grenades before Motoko. I don't exactly want to blow my hand off or something.*

I looked at my box of grenades, ones I had just been planning on storing and using sparingly…

Then I started grabbing all of them and throwing them into the box.

*Ichi meet me at the Straight Lane Apartments. I'm calling Hiromi and Malcolm as well! We are running a grenade course.*

*Fuck… Uh can I opt out?*

*Nope! This is an important skill! Plus it gives me an excuse to actually have so many grenades! So Jun can't yell at me anymore.*

*Where did you even get all these grenades from? Did you do a gig without telling us?*

*What? No. I just made them.*

*You… Made them? Motoko-*

*Yep! It's easy. Like super easy. Don't worry they are safe! Hell they are safer than the ones you can buy bulk from gun stores and stuff. Don't worry! I made the whole thing myself!*

*Oh god.* He whispered quietly, but this was happening Ichi. Your boss at Section 9 demanded it!

*Okay! Hurry up. I'm calling everyone in.*

—--

"I don't like this idea." Hiromi muttered but I ignored her whining as well. Only Malcolm had been all for the idea of practicing with grenades.

But I had gotten them all here now so it was too late!

"Welcome to the Section 9 grenade testing range!" I called out waving behind me at the bare desert."

"This is just the Badlands."

"Section 9 grenade testing range!" I repeated, ignoring Ichi's remarks.

"Yeah!" Malcolm called out, the only one of my chooms that was actually here to have fun.

I kicked the box I was standing over knocking off the lid, and all of my chooms even Malcolm jerked back.

Scaredy cats! Just because it was a crate of grenades!

"Alright! So everyone come up and grab a grenade, just don't twist the top and we won't have any issues. If you do accidently twist it just throw it far away, but let's not do that! First off. Get a feel for the heft of the grenades! They aren't that heavy!"

Malcolm instantly walked up to grab a grenade, while Hiromi and Malcolm both stayed far back.

"C'mon! Both of you! They aren't going to hurt you unless you don't know what you're doing and that's why we are here!"

"As a fixer, I don't think grenade usage falls under my job description." Hiromi tried to argue.

"I just drive. I don't do combat much. So I don't think I need to know this." Ichi added a moment later.

"Don't be silly! Hiromi! Combat skills are very important even to a fixer. What are you going to do against some corporate hatchetman squad coming to kill you if you don't know how to toss high explosives at the bad guys until they are just chunky burrito mix?" I said while pointing at Hiromi, then I switched to Ichi making him flinch.

"And you! Throwing grenades out of your car's window at gonks chasing you is a very useful skill! You both are learning this." I demanded stomping my foot causing the crate to shift and Ichi and Hiromi both flinched back.

"Wow this is pretty nova Motoko. You made this?" Malcolm asked, looking over the grenade he had picked up.

"Yep! The cap on the top is a timer. The more you twist it the shorter the fuse, while the large pin is the safety. As long as you are holding that no explosion. The timer can't go under one and a half second. So you should be able to throw it far enough to be safe as well. At the max it has a ten second timer!"

"Why so long?"

"Traps! Pop two or three set the timer and run. Ten seconds is a long time, more than enough for most gonks to think wherever you were is safe to run to now."

Malcolm nodded, taking in my wisdom.

Hiromi and Ichi were still too far away.

"Get over here and grab a grenade or I'm throwing them at you!" I called out, and that finally got my chooms moving. Hiromi first, with Ichi following behind as both of them walked up to the crate and gently pulled a grenade out.

"Okay so like I said, get a feel for it. First thing we are doing is some test throws! Without popping the timer we are going to see how far you can throw it!"

"Preem." Malcolm said walking over to where I was on a little hill, and then chucked it over to the other side. Malcolm had a good arm!

"Nice distance! You'll be able to really freak people out with surprise grenades!" I said while throwing him a thumbs up.

Malcolm smiled happily at my words.

"Hiromi and Ichi's turn!"

They both tossed the grenade and I winced as Hiromi's didn't quite go right, instead throwing almost too far up, as it landed on the hill and then rolled back towards her.

"A-ah!?"

"It's okay." I called out walking over and grabbed the rolling grenade, I checked just to be safe, but the primer wasn't started. "We'll work on your throw first." I mentioned without saying that Hiromi would have blown herself up with that throw.