Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
Well even Brick seemed to be under the impression that Motoko was a borderline cyberpsycho, Probably not a good sign.
Ghost in the City Cyberpunk Gamer SI
- Thread starter Seras
- Start date
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- Tags
- cyberpunk gamer self-insert
Chapter 117
Seras
Well-known member
Judy Alvarez
I let go of the wire at the exact moment it started flinging me up. Instead of being flung up into the ceiling of the pathway, it launched me across and I just managed to slam my boots into the floor to send me tumbling out the other end of the path, through the open window and into nothing.
Air.
Nothing but air.
Instantly Judy slammed the cancel code into the console and threw herself out of the BD. Rolling off her chair and grabbing for the trash can.
She panted, every inch of her body shivering, and sweating. She had already ripped off most of her clothes just so she could cool down.
“Fuck that kid. Fuck. Fuck fuck.” She moaned into the trash can, but thankfully she didn’t actually pop. Free from the sensation of falling with nothing to catch her she managed to slowly regain her breath.
She had finished editing the BD for the most part, but she couldn’t actually get all the way through it to call it done.
It was…
“Heights! Why did it have to be heights!” She moaned as she stood up on shaky legs grabbing a can of something with more caffeine than healthy and popped it, then chugged it down.
“Damn Judes. You alright?” She didn’t quite freeze, but she did jerk a bit at the voice looking over at the one that got her into this.
“Nox! This is all your fault! You introduced me to that little!” She growled clenching and unclenching her fists at him as if she was going to throttle him, or her.
Well. It would be him. Judy had long realized that Motoko wasn’t in her league. Out of shape, nerd that spends all her days in a BD is not comparable to a teenage cyberpunk super assassin.
She was still secretly putting money on the girl being some corpo experiment.
“Hey hey, don’t blame me!” He whined, shoulders slumped. “I’m not even in charge anymore… Fucking corpo bi-” He cut himself of and looked around as if expecting the girl in question to appear. Before relaxing and continuing. “Bitch.”
“I don’t want to hear you whining, I’ve already offered to speak to Rita about it.”
“No. She’s a turbo rusty lady but I can’t… I’m making more in profits now than I was before, despite her taking her cut.” He grumbled, retracing common ground.
One of Motoko’s friends had muscled in on Nox’s hustle, and had taken over. Nox was pissy about it, but the look on his face whenever the eddies he was making were brought up always shut him up.
“Don’t insult people with Midnight Lady. Rita will fuck you up if she hears you say that.” Judy reminded the boy and he scoffed, but did a mumbled half apology under his breath.
“So! Motoko’s new BD causing you trouble? She texted me, that she had dropped off another one.”
“I’m not good with heights Nox, and that’s all this one is. Fuck.” She hissed as she bounced a bit just to remind her brain what body she was in. BD skewing was something she had long since learned to cope with.
“Preem. Is it done?”
“It should be, but I can’t finish it without feeling like I’m going to pop.” She complained, throwing a hand at the headset. “Jump in, I’ll use you as a test dummy.”
“Uhh… This one is just heights not like, The Only Thing… Right?” He asked, hesitating.
Judy shivered. “I told you not to ever remind me about that. No. It’s like… Parkour stuff. She’s just a psycho.”
“Preem.” He called out jumping onto the chair and pulling up the Wreath.
A moment later he was in, and Judy walked over to her desk to track the program. Watching the information it was sending her, for dangerous highs, or lows.
Unlike her, Nox handled it just fine and in the end he jerked upright, hand grasping for something as the BD ended.
“Whoa!” He muttered eyes wide as he slowly came back to his own body. “That was intense… Jude! We got another preem experience on our hands!”
“Yeah.” She muttered. Motoko hadn’t given her much to work with in a while, Judy had honestly been relieved it wasn’t another massacre BD. “Any issues?”
“Nah, it felt smooth as anything.”
“Alright. I’m not seeing any issues either. Thanks for taking over.” She offered the boy who just smirked.
“Well, it’s my future merch! Gotta experience it to sell, even Hiromi thinks so.”
“Preem. Alright. Go ahead and take a copy, I’m taking a break.” She said, grabbing a cig and gathering up her clothes. She was still half naked after all, she was pretty uncaring, but it’s not like was going to walk around topside without wearing a bit more.
“Where you going?”
Judy stilled as she took a puff of her cig and then glared at nothing.
“I kinda want Ramen.” She explained and Nox’s eyes grew large as it stirred something in him too.
“Yeah.”
Sakura Market it was.
—--
“This is boring.” Malcolm muttered. We were all lying in different places around the room. Eating snacks, or in Hiromi’s case playing that game on her tablet.
Ichi had even found a TV and brought it down, with my help we had access to the building's TV channels, and so he was camped out watching that.
“It’s just a waiting game now Malcolm. Once they respond we will have them.”
“I’m still bored.” He grumbled and I couldn’t help but chuckle at his whining. He had claimed responsibility for getting the message but I guess it was bothering him as he kept checking his agent over and over for a response.
“Yeah I’m bored too.” I offered, standing up from where I had been sprawled over my netrunner chair. “Anyway, want some food or something? I want to stretch my legs.”
“I’ll come with.” Malcolm offered to my surprise as he stood up and I could see Ichi sit up at that wanting to deny him but after a moment he didn’t.
“Be careful.” Ichi called out instead and Malcolm just waved his hand.
We went into the elevator and thankfully Malcolm was walking without pain as we left the apartment and walked down the sidewalk.
“You know we might not hear from them for a few days. Or more. They will likely stay in hiding for a while.”
“I know.” He grumbled and I nodded at that. As I stretched my arms up to the sky.
“You gonna be okay?”
“I’ll live.” He offered with a bit of grump. “Thanks again… Motoko. For saving my ass.” He said suddenly and I couldn’t help but flash back to that day.
“You scared the fuck out of me.” I answered instead. I caught the wince out of the corner of my eye. Obviously it wasn’t the first time he had heard that.
“Yeah. My dad said that too.”
“Why’d you go alone? Something big like that? That’s a lot of eddies to throw around without backup.” I asked the question I had been sitting on since it all happened.
He was quiet for a long while as we walked down the road toward the diner.
“I just wanted to do something myself. I guess. I had my iron… I thought I could handle it.”He finally replied after a while and I frowned.
That was a tough statement to reply to. I reached over and slipped my arm in with his own to his surprise.
“We all make mistakes, and sometimes have to suffer the scars for them.” I offered squeezing his bicep with my chrome fingers.
My mistake led me to losing my arms. Malcolms almost cost him his life.
“So we learn from them. I don’t go anywhere without firepower to handle a borg. And I kept improving. My Netrunning stuff helps a lot.”
“I’m not like a weird super ninja like you are Motoko.” Malcolm offered sounding down.
“You don’t have to be. Motoko is a super ninja cause it’s what Motoko wants.” I said in third person for my own amusement. “So what does Malcolm want?”
“I want… To be something more than just some kid. I wanted to be…” He didn’t say it, but I could understand. He wanted to be what every Night City kid wanted. To be an edgerunner. A Street Samurai. A Gang leader.
He wanted to prove he mattered.
“Well that's easy then.” I offered, pulling free and walking ahead and then walking backwards just because. “You can very easily stop being a kid, Malcolm. Just live.”
Then I turned around and continued walking.
“Heh.” I heard a chuckle from Malcolm that was half exasperation.
Hmm. What do I want? Be a cool merc. Make money. I wanted to stamp out the whole Scav thing. Stupid Stand Alone Complexes.
Then… I had to laugh to myself.
I just wanted to enjoy my life. Whatever that meant. This was my second life, and I had been letting it drag me down.
Letting the dark nasty parts focus too much of my attention.
—--
It was getting late. Even with the dinner I had brought in everyone was crashing, and Malcolm was getting ready to head home to get some sleep and be ready for Vik’s meeting in the morning. I had been trawling through the net a bit. Mostly just checking on some Scav locations I had been sent by some netrunners when I got the message from Ichi.
*Motoko come out. They responded!*
I quickly disconnected coming back to myself in just a few moments before pulling myself free of the netchair.
“What did they say!?”
“That they definitely have a Mizutani Shion that they can sell us.” Malcolm called and I rushed over to check the laptop he had been working on.
The response was exactly what we had expected. A confirmation they had what we wanted, The price, and some pictures that since I had seen their other messages they used, I knew were ones they had used before while ‘selling’ a shion.
Somehow they just kept selling the same car! How lucky!
I scoffed at the request but patted Malcolm on the shoulder. “Set up the meeting. But make sure it’s after your visit with Vik in the morning. Wouldn’t want to miss out on the fun would you?” I asked and Malcolm shook his head with a glare, as he slowly started tapping out a message back.
—--
The next afternoon we were ready. Malcolm was declared completely healed from Vik. And we had set up the time for the car ‘traders’ to show up.
To my amusement they had picked the same spot they had ambushed Malcolm at from before.
I guess they figured they were in the clear.
So I had shown up in the morning while Malcolm was getting checked out, and prepped everything.
Considering I had already searched around the area it hadn’t been hard to find a good place to settle in.
I had picked an empty apartment that had a balcony looking over the inner courtyard on the second floor. Nekomata was resting against the old concrete and I was looking through multiple camera systems in the area waiting.
The ambush was set.
Hiromi was our bait this time. She had to my amusement pulled a bunch of her TC stuff out of the closet and had gone from corpo student with an edge. To full TC fangirl in an hour of prep.
Only the black chrome that all matched hinted at her connections.
The meeting time came and went and we were waiting. I could see Hiromi getting impatient, and through the conference call that all of us were part of I was hearing the anxiety building.
*Do you think they bailed? They wouldn’t right? We didn’t give them any reason to think this is a trap!* Malcolms voice came through, irritated from where he was sitting in the back of Ichi’s van that was parked around the corner in front of a shop as if Ichi was just grabbing a meal.
*Might just be traffic, or they might just be late. They aren’t exactly intending to be reliable you know?* Ichi added.
*Relax guys. Just relax. They’ll show. And even if they don’t it just means we hunt them some more.* I added into the line calmly. Thanks to Cool, I was more than content just waiting for them to show.
*Yeah but what if they don’t!*
*Malcolm relax already! I’m the one out in the open.* Hiromi added and then I saw it.
A camera from down the street.
*Show time.* I called out and the line went quiet as I watched through nearby cameras as the Archer Hella that the fuckers drove pulled up to the same spot they had parked when they attacked Malcolm.
Four gonks climbed out. All of them checking pistols, which were then stuffed into waistbands, just to hit the cliche of being a shit tier gangster all the more.
Temptation to just start shooting them through the walls right away rose, but this was for Malcolm, not my personal satisfaction.
They walked down the alley and then into the courtyard noticing Hiromi as she was casually sitting on a concrete bench already facing where they would come.
Nice work Hiromi! Very Corpo queen!
“You’re late.” She called out loudly enough for me to hear and I could see the brash gangsters' hackles rise up at the tone.
But this time Hiromi wasn’t needing to modulate herself. Or pretend. She knew what was coming.
I stood up still out of sight of these blind morons Nekomata pointed down at them. Of course I had already thrown a Weapon Glitch at them as they were walking through the alleyway. Ichi and Malcolm would be driving the van right into the alley. Just to make sure no one could run.
Not that I would let them. Kinda hard to run blind, and if something did go wrong, a nice Reboot Optics would handle them just fine.
“Just a bit of traffic, I’m sure you understand.” One of the gangsters spoke up.
So that was him. Aiden Michaels. The nephew of some 6th St. Higher up. He was also the leader of this little troop.
The fucker with his slicked back hair and expensive clothes. He looked like every rich kid I had ever met.
Idly my Nekomata’s crosshair inched over the back of his head.
“Sure. Where’s the car?” Hiromi demanded after a moment, sounding so sarcastic even the gangers couldn’t have missed it.
“Ah, see there’s a bit of an issue. I’m sure you can understand. We’ll need a downpayment.” He nodded and his gonks suddenly stepped around Hiromi looming over her.
“Yeah I expected as much. Mr. Michaels. You are far too predictable.” Hiromi added, without showing an inch of fear as she tapped away on her knee as if she was bored. “I’m afraid this meeting is no longer one you have any control of.” Hiromi added and suddenly there must have been that tiny hint in the brains of the gangers that something was wrong.
“The you talking about you little bitch, you think-”
“No Mr. Michaels, it’s you who doesn’t think.” Hiromi cut him off, sounding honestly angry. “You believed Mr. Welles, who we hired, was our only attempt to ferret you out? That we knew you would go to ground the moment he showed up? It was all a setup to make you think you were safe so we can bring you right out into the open. I’m not the type of woman to spend time hunting scum like you down.”
Aiden pulled his gun. A Unity that had some respectable amount of care put into it. But Hiromi didn’t even blink when he pulled, aimed, and fired.
The only sound was a faint clink that I couldn’t make out from here.
“If you would be so kind?” She asked aloud.
I fired.
Aiden's arm disappeared at the forearm. Nekomata roared for a second and the screams started up right after. All four of the gangsters suddenly realized they were in trouble. Two instantly ran, and the third made to grab Aiden to try and pull him away.
Ichi and Malcolm were there already, The Van blocking the path at the end of the alleyway. Having reversed up to it.
And Malcolm standing at the entrance.
Malcolm of course wasn’t unarmed.
His Tactician fired causing the first runner to literally stop cold as he slammed into the floor dying. The second one, had his leg blown off a moment later. Malcolm was obviously pretty angry about the whole nearly killing him thing.
“You cunt! You blew off my fucking arm!” Aiden was whining and screaming as his choom pulled him to his feet, but a second retort echoed out.
I matched Malcolm. The third choom lost a leg at the knee.
His screams intertwined with the others, and suddenly we had three disabled fuckheads to sort out.
Malcolm was still marching towards Aiden with a certain look in his eye, and I wasn’t going to stop him. I leapt off the balcony and landed with a nearly silent thump as I sauntered over to Hiromi who I could tell was feeling a bit jittery with all the blood splattered around her. But she was handling herself really well. I settled beside her, nudging her just a bit with my hip so she knew she was safe.
Malcolm walked up to the cussing gangster and instantly smashed the butt of his shotgun into his face.
Then he kept doing it.
Jesus Malcolm did you watch The Only Thing They Fear is You?
“Wait! Wat!” Aiden cried out after a few hits, his cussing turned into pleading. To my surprise Malcolm did just that. Letting the man talk. “My uncle! He’s powerful! A leader in 6th St. if you kill me-!”
“Aiden Michaels. Do you really think we didn’t know that before we came here?” Hiromi offered with a half amused half disappointed smirk on her face “Do you think we didn’t already delete ourselves from the cameras? Cover our tracks? Aiden your Uncle will never know who flatlined his gonk nephew.”
Hiromi’s cold statement made the fucker seem to realize just how fucked he was.
Malcolm took that as his cue and smashed his shotgun into the guy's face again just to prove his point.
The guy tried to struggle against him, but with one arm missing his struggles pretty quickly slowed down. Too weak to really fight back as Malcolm let out his built up pain by bashing the guys face in.
Yeah I know that feel. I walked around instead. Nekomata just held to my chest as I pulled out my Lexington.
The gunshots were loud as I double tapped the other two moaning bodies.
*500 XP Gained.*
*500 XP Gained.*
*Level up achieved!*
*One Stat Point Gained.*
*One Skill Point Gained.*
I blinked and then smiled happily as the alert came in. How cool! I hadn’t even realized how close to a level up I was!
I was now level 15.
Settling in beside Hiromi who hadn’t moved from her spot I waved to Ichi who had casually walked down the alleyway to join us. As our entire group watched on as Malcolm continued to beat Aiden Michaels to death.
Which had always sort of been the plan. To kill him I mean. Not beat him to death, but sometimes a message needed to be sent.
“Hey you know what this means?” I asked the group suddenly as they all looked at me.
“Congratulations Malcolm! You have a slightly used Archer Hella! Congratulations!” I said, clapping at him.
Hiromi, seeing that I was up to something, joined in and clapped for Malcolm as well.
It took a second for Ichi to join in but his sarcastic clapping made it all the better.
“I fucking hate all of you. Why are we even chooms?” Malcolm asked as he wiped his face a bit of some of the extra blood, although he was barely holding back his laughter.
“Cause you loooove us. Now don’t forget to grab the key shard out of him. Unless you want me to just hotwire your new car.”
“I don’t even want a Hella.” He grumbled, but did as I prompted, pulling the blood covered shard out of Aidens neck after a bit of finagling, then wiped it off on his shirt for a few moments to try and clean it up.
We split up after that. Malcolm went to paint and re-register his new car since he didn’t want someone in 6th St. To be able to track it.
Thankfully Hella were really common, and with just that, it would be just another Hella on the road.
Although we were all going to meet up later.
Rockerboy Neighbors music act was tonight!
It was finally time to scope out the competition so I could destroy her! I mean. So I could see what other Rockerboys got up to in Night City!
I let go of the wire at the exact moment it started flinging me up. Instead of being flung up into the ceiling of the pathway, it launched me across and I just managed to slam my boots into the floor to send me tumbling out the other end of the path, through the open window and into nothing.
Air.
Nothing but air.
Instantly Judy slammed the cancel code into the console and threw herself out of the BD. Rolling off her chair and grabbing for the trash can.
She panted, every inch of her body shivering, and sweating. She had already ripped off most of her clothes just so she could cool down.
“Fuck that kid. Fuck. Fuck fuck.” She moaned into the trash can, but thankfully she didn’t actually pop. Free from the sensation of falling with nothing to catch her she managed to slowly regain her breath.
She had finished editing the BD for the most part, but she couldn’t actually get all the way through it to call it done.
It was…
“Heights! Why did it have to be heights!” She moaned as she stood up on shaky legs grabbing a can of something with more caffeine than healthy and popped it, then chugged it down.
“Damn Judes. You alright?” She didn’t quite freeze, but she did jerk a bit at the voice looking over at the one that got her into this.
“Nox! This is all your fault! You introduced me to that little!” She growled clenching and unclenching her fists at him as if she was going to throttle him, or her.
Well. It would be him. Judy had long realized that Motoko wasn’t in her league. Out of shape, nerd that spends all her days in a BD is not comparable to a teenage cyberpunk super assassin.
She was still secretly putting money on the girl being some corpo experiment.
“Hey hey, don’t blame me!” He whined, shoulders slumped. “I’m not even in charge anymore… Fucking corpo bi-” He cut himself of and looked around as if expecting the girl in question to appear. Before relaxing and continuing. “Bitch.”
“I don’t want to hear you whining, I’ve already offered to speak to Rita about it.”
“No. She’s a turbo rusty lady but I can’t… I’m making more in profits now than I was before, despite her taking her cut.” He grumbled, retracing common ground.
One of Motoko’s friends had muscled in on Nox’s hustle, and had taken over. Nox was pissy about it, but the look on his face whenever the eddies he was making were brought up always shut him up.
“Don’t insult people with Midnight Lady. Rita will fuck you up if she hears you say that.” Judy reminded the boy and he scoffed, but did a mumbled half apology under his breath.
“So! Motoko’s new BD causing you trouble? She texted me, that she had dropped off another one.”
“I’m not good with heights Nox, and that’s all this one is. Fuck.” She hissed as she bounced a bit just to remind her brain what body she was in. BD skewing was something she had long since learned to cope with.
“Preem. Is it done?”
“It should be, but I can’t finish it without feeling like I’m going to pop.” She complained, throwing a hand at the headset. “Jump in, I’ll use you as a test dummy.”
“Uhh… This one is just heights not like, The Only Thing… Right?” He asked, hesitating.
Judy shivered. “I told you not to ever remind me about that. No. It’s like… Parkour stuff. She’s just a psycho.”
“Preem.” He called out jumping onto the chair and pulling up the Wreath.
A moment later he was in, and Judy walked over to her desk to track the program. Watching the information it was sending her, for dangerous highs, or lows.
Unlike her, Nox handled it just fine and in the end he jerked upright, hand grasping for something as the BD ended.
“Whoa!” He muttered eyes wide as he slowly came back to his own body. “That was intense… Jude! We got another preem experience on our hands!”
“Yeah.” She muttered. Motoko hadn’t given her much to work with in a while, Judy had honestly been relieved it wasn’t another massacre BD. “Any issues?”
“Nah, it felt smooth as anything.”
“Alright. I’m not seeing any issues either. Thanks for taking over.” She offered the boy who just smirked.
“Well, it’s my future merch! Gotta experience it to sell, even Hiromi thinks so.”
“Preem. Alright. Go ahead and take a copy, I’m taking a break.” She said, grabbing a cig and gathering up her clothes. She was still half naked after all, she was pretty uncaring, but it’s not like was going to walk around topside without wearing a bit more.
“Where you going?”
Judy stilled as she took a puff of her cig and then glared at nothing.
“I kinda want Ramen.” She explained and Nox’s eyes grew large as it stirred something in him too.
“Yeah.”
Sakura Market it was.
—--
“This is boring.” Malcolm muttered. We were all lying in different places around the room. Eating snacks, or in Hiromi’s case playing that game on her tablet.
Ichi had even found a TV and brought it down, with my help we had access to the building's TV channels, and so he was camped out watching that.
“It’s just a waiting game now Malcolm. Once they respond we will have them.”
“I’m still bored.” He grumbled and I couldn’t help but chuckle at his whining. He had claimed responsibility for getting the message but I guess it was bothering him as he kept checking his agent over and over for a response.
“Yeah I’m bored too.” I offered, standing up from where I had been sprawled over my netrunner chair. “Anyway, want some food or something? I want to stretch my legs.”
“I’ll come with.” Malcolm offered to my surprise as he stood up and I could see Ichi sit up at that wanting to deny him but after a moment he didn’t.
“Be careful.” Ichi called out instead and Malcolm just waved his hand.
We went into the elevator and thankfully Malcolm was walking without pain as we left the apartment and walked down the sidewalk.
“You know we might not hear from them for a few days. Or more. They will likely stay in hiding for a while.”
“I know.” He grumbled and I nodded at that. As I stretched my arms up to the sky.
“You gonna be okay?”
“I’ll live.” He offered with a bit of grump. “Thanks again… Motoko. For saving my ass.” He said suddenly and I couldn’t help but flash back to that day.
“You scared the fuck out of me.” I answered instead. I caught the wince out of the corner of my eye. Obviously it wasn’t the first time he had heard that.
“Yeah. My dad said that too.”
“Why’d you go alone? Something big like that? That’s a lot of eddies to throw around without backup.” I asked the question I had been sitting on since it all happened.
He was quiet for a long while as we walked down the road toward the diner.
“I just wanted to do something myself. I guess. I had my iron… I thought I could handle it.”He finally replied after a while and I frowned.
That was a tough statement to reply to. I reached over and slipped my arm in with his own to his surprise.
“We all make mistakes, and sometimes have to suffer the scars for them.” I offered squeezing his bicep with my chrome fingers.
My mistake led me to losing my arms. Malcolms almost cost him his life.
“So we learn from them. I don’t go anywhere without firepower to handle a borg. And I kept improving. My Netrunning stuff helps a lot.”
“I’m not like a weird super ninja like you are Motoko.” Malcolm offered sounding down.
“You don’t have to be. Motoko is a super ninja cause it’s what Motoko wants.” I said in third person for my own amusement. “So what does Malcolm want?”
“I want… To be something more than just some kid. I wanted to be…” He didn’t say it, but I could understand. He wanted to be what every Night City kid wanted. To be an edgerunner. A Street Samurai. A Gang leader.
He wanted to prove he mattered.
“Well that's easy then.” I offered, pulling free and walking ahead and then walking backwards just because. “You can very easily stop being a kid, Malcolm. Just live.”
Then I turned around and continued walking.
“Heh.” I heard a chuckle from Malcolm that was half exasperation.
Hmm. What do I want? Be a cool merc. Make money. I wanted to stamp out the whole Scav thing. Stupid Stand Alone Complexes.
Then… I had to laugh to myself.
I just wanted to enjoy my life. Whatever that meant. This was my second life, and I had been letting it drag me down.
Letting the dark nasty parts focus too much of my attention.
—--
It was getting late. Even with the dinner I had brought in everyone was crashing, and Malcolm was getting ready to head home to get some sleep and be ready for Vik’s meeting in the morning. I had been trawling through the net a bit. Mostly just checking on some Scav locations I had been sent by some netrunners when I got the message from Ichi.
*Motoko come out. They responded!*
I quickly disconnected coming back to myself in just a few moments before pulling myself free of the netchair.
“What did they say!?”
“That they definitely have a Mizutani Shion that they can sell us.” Malcolm called and I rushed over to check the laptop he had been working on.
The response was exactly what we had expected. A confirmation they had what we wanted, The price, and some pictures that since I had seen their other messages they used, I knew were ones they had used before while ‘selling’ a shion.
Somehow they just kept selling the same car! How lucky!
I scoffed at the request but patted Malcolm on the shoulder. “Set up the meeting. But make sure it’s after your visit with Vik in the morning. Wouldn’t want to miss out on the fun would you?” I asked and Malcolm shook his head with a glare, as he slowly started tapping out a message back.
—--
The next afternoon we were ready. Malcolm was declared completely healed from Vik. And we had set up the time for the car ‘traders’ to show up.
To my amusement they had picked the same spot they had ambushed Malcolm at from before.
I guess they figured they were in the clear.
So I had shown up in the morning while Malcolm was getting checked out, and prepped everything.
Considering I had already searched around the area it hadn’t been hard to find a good place to settle in.
I had picked an empty apartment that had a balcony looking over the inner courtyard on the second floor. Nekomata was resting against the old concrete and I was looking through multiple camera systems in the area waiting.
The ambush was set.
Hiromi was our bait this time. She had to my amusement pulled a bunch of her TC stuff out of the closet and had gone from corpo student with an edge. To full TC fangirl in an hour of prep.
Only the black chrome that all matched hinted at her connections.
The meeting time came and went and we were waiting. I could see Hiromi getting impatient, and through the conference call that all of us were part of I was hearing the anxiety building.
*Do you think they bailed? They wouldn’t right? We didn’t give them any reason to think this is a trap!* Malcolms voice came through, irritated from where he was sitting in the back of Ichi’s van that was parked around the corner in front of a shop as if Ichi was just grabbing a meal.
*Might just be traffic, or they might just be late. They aren’t exactly intending to be reliable you know?* Ichi added.
*Relax guys. Just relax. They’ll show. And even if they don’t it just means we hunt them some more.* I added into the line calmly. Thanks to Cool, I was more than content just waiting for them to show.
*Yeah but what if they don’t!*
*Malcolm relax already! I’m the one out in the open.* Hiromi added and then I saw it.
A camera from down the street.
*Show time.* I called out and the line went quiet as I watched through nearby cameras as the Archer Hella that the fuckers drove pulled up to the same spot they had parked when they attacked Malcolm.
Four gonks climbed out. All of them checking pistols, which were then stuffed into waistbands, just to hit the cliche of being a shit tier gangster all the more.
Temptation to just start shooting them through the walls right away rose, but this was for Malcolm, not my personal satisfaction.
They walked down the alley and then into the courtyard noticing Hiromi as she was casually sitting on a concrete bench already facing where they would come.
Nice work Hiromi! Very Corpo queen!
“You’re late.” She called out loudly enough for me to hear and I could see the brash gangsters' hackles rise up at the tone.
But this time Hiromi wasn’t needing to modulate herself. Or pretend. She knew what was coming.
I stood up still out of sight of these blind morons Nekomata pointed down at them. Of course I had already thrown a Weapon Glitch at them as they were walking through the alleyway. Ichi and Malcolm would be driving the van right into the alley. Just to make sure no one could run.
Not that I would let them. Kinda hard to run blind, and if something did go wrong, a nice Reboot Optics would handle them just fine.
“Just a bit of traffic, I’m sure you understand.” One of the gangsters spoke up.
So that was him. Aiden Michaels. The nephew of some 6th St. Higher up. He was also the leader of this little troop.
The fucker with his slicked back hair and expensive clothes. He looked like every rich kid I had ever met.
Idly my Nekomata’s crosshair inched over the back of his head.
“Sure. Where’s the car?” Hiromi demanded after a moment, sounding so sarcastic even the gangers couldn’t have missed it.
“Ah, see there’s a bit of an issue. I’m sure you can understand. We’ll need a downpayment.” He nodded and his gonks suddenly stepped around Hiromi looming over her.
“Yeah I expected as much. Mr. Michaels. You are far too predictable.” Hiromi added, without showing an inch of fear as she tapped away on her knee as if she was bored. “I’m afraid this meeting is no longer one you have any control of.” Hiromi added and suddenly there must have been that tiny hint in the brains of the gangers that something was wrong.
“The you talking about you little bitch, you think-”
“No Mr. Michaels, it’s you who doesn’t think.” Hiromi cut him off, sounding honestly angry. “You believed Mr. Welles, who we hired, was our only attempt to ferret you out? That we knew you would go to ground the moment he showed up? It was all a setup to make you think you were safe so we can bring you right out into the open. I’m not the type of woman to spend time hunting scum like you down.”
Aiden pulled his gun. A Unity that had some respectable amount of care put into it. But Hiromi didn’t even blink when he pulled, aimed, and fired.
The only sound was a faint clink that I couldn’t make out from here.
“If you would be so kind?” She asked aloud.
I fired.
Aiden's arm disappeared at the forearm. Nekomata roared for a second and the screams started up right after. All four of the gangsters suddenly realized they were in trouble. Two instantly ran, and the third made to grab Aiden to try and pull him away.
Ichi and Malcolm were there already, The Van blocking the path at the end of the alleyway. Having reversed up to it.
And Malcolm standing at the entrance.
Malcolm of course wasn’t unarmed.
His Tactician fired causing the first runner to literally stop cold as he slammed into the floor dying. The second one, had his leg blown off a moment later. Malcolm was obviously pretty angry about the whole nearly killing him thing.
“You cunt! You blew off my fucking arm!” Aiden was whining and screaming as his choom pulled him to his feet, but a second retort echoed out.
I matched Malcolm. The third choom lost a leg at the knee.
His screams intertwined with the others, and suddenly we had three disabled fuckheads to sort out.
Malcolm was still marching towards Aiden with a certain look in his eye, and I wasn’t going to stop him. I leapt off the balcony and landed with a nearly silent thump as I sauntered over to Hiromi who I could tell was feeling a bit jittery with all the blood splattered around her. But she was handling herself really well. I settled beside her, nudging her just a bit with my hip so she knew she was safe.
Malcolm walked up to the cussing gangster and instantly smashed the butt of his shotgun into his face.
Then he kept doing it.
Jesus Malcolm did you watch The Only Thing They Fear is You?
“Wait! Wat!” Aiden cried out after a few hits, his cussing turned into pleading. To my surprise Malcolm did just that. Letting the man talk. “My uncle! He’s powerful! A leader in 6th St. if you kill me-!”
“Aiden Michaels. Do you really think we didn’t know that before we came here?” Hiromi offered with a half amused half disappointed smirk on her face “Do you think we didn’t already delete ourselves from the cameras? Cover our tracks? Aiden your Uncle will never know who flatlined his gonk nephew.”
Hiromi’s cold statement made the fucker seem to realize just how fucked he was.
Malcolm took that as his cue and smashed his shotgun into the guy's face again just to prove his point.
The guy tried to struggle against him, but with one arm missing his struggles pretty quickly slowed down. Too weak to really fight back as Malcolm let out his built up pain by bashing the guys face in.
Yeah I know that feel. I walked around instead. Nekomata just held to my chest as I pulled out my Lexington.
The gunshots were loud as I double tapped the other two moaning bodies.
*500 XP Gained.*
*500 XP Gained.*
*Level up achieved!*
*One Stat Point Gained.*
*One Skill Point Gained.*
I blinked and then smiled happily as the alert came in. How cool! I hadn’t even realized how close to a level up I was!
I was now level 15.
Settling in beside Hiromi who hadn’t moved from her spot I waved to Ichi who had casually walked down the alleyway to join us. As our entire group watched on as Malcolm continued to beat Aiden Michaels to death.
Which had always sort of been the plan. To kill him I mean. Not beat him to death, but sometimes a message needed to be sent.
“Hey you know what this means?” I asked the group suddenly as they all looked at me.
“Congratulations Malcolm! You have a slightly used Archer Hella! Congratulations!” I said, clapping at him.
Hiromi, seeing that I was up to something, joined in and clapped for Malcolm as well.
It took a second for Ichi to join in but his sarcastic clapping made it all the better.
“I fucking hate all of you. Why are we even chooms?” Malcolm asked as he wiped his face a bit of some of the extra blood, although he was barely holding back his laughter.
“Cause you loooove us. Now don’t forget to grab the key shard out of him. Unless you want me to just hotwire your new car.”
“I don’t even want a Hella.” He grumbled, but did as I prompted, pulling the blood covered shard out of Aidens neck after a bit of finagling, then wiped it off on his shirt for a few moments to try and clean it up.
We split up after that. Malcolm went to paint and re-register his new car since he didn’t want someone in 6th St. To be able to track it.
Thankfully Hella were really common, and with just that, it would be just another Hella on the road.
Although we were all going to meet up later.
Rockerboy Neighbors music act was tonight!
It was finally time to scope out the competition so I could destroy her! I mean. So I could see what other Rockerboys got up to in Night City!
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
Please tell me there will be a guitar playing battle!
Seras
Well-known member
Not in the next chapter unfortunately. Motoko is scoping out the competition. I had considered while I was writing this, having Motoko get invovled somehow, like someone didn't show, or got sick and so the band needed a backup, but I figured it was a bit too tropey for me. I do expect there will be a battle of the bands at some point though.
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
I figured she'd just knock on her neighbors door guitar in hand and issue a challenge right then and there.
Vetrom
war
You can't just stroll up out of nowhere, they live in a Yakuza building! There are standards! And Rituals! And probably agents! There's a process!
xachariahxx
Well-known member
Hiromi really shines in this chapter. I hope we get to see more of her in her element. Maybe Motoko showing up at her school to deal with bullying issues for Hiromi's BD salesmen (David).
In actually foreshadowed things though, I hope Motoko shows that rocker who's boss.
In actually foreshadowed things though, I hope Motoko shows that rocker who's boss.
Chapter 118
Seras
Well-known member
“So this is the place? Doesn’t look like much… Why don’t we just go to Lizzies?” Ichi asked and I think all three of us stopped to look at him at that admittedly telling request.
“Ichi-” I started to explain, but the way his eyes widened at all of us looking at him showed that he realized what he had just admitted to.
“Nevermind! Always nice to check out new clubs! C’mon!” He called out as he quickly power walked ahead of us. Hiromi and I both broke into quiet giggles at the tension in Ichi’s gait, while Malcolm just shook his head while smiling and went to catch up.
You couldn’t even tell Malcolm had been shot earlier in the week. He moved without any sign of pain or issue.
Cyberpunk medicine was so crazy!
“The name is kinda bad though. Think they are riffing off the Afterlife?” Hiromi asked and I nodded. As we both looked up to the club's neon sign above the dingy door in an alleyway in the middle of Watson.
“Yomi. That’s kinda lame.” I agreed as I ended up shrugging. It wasn’t like I was here for the club itself. I was here to gather information!
I pulled Hiromi along as we slipped into the entrance and found there was a little lobby, with a woman behind the counter. Ichi and Malcolm were at the front desk apparently paying for their entrance fee.
“Jeeze Motoko. This place is expensive.” Malcolm whined to me as I walked up and looked at the numbers listed out and had to agree.
Most of the clubs we went to were BD bars, where the entrance was free, but they expected you to buy overpriced drinks.
This was more like a concert hall. To get in you had to pay a fee, and then the drinks and stuff would also be outrageously expensive.
I rolled my eyes.
“Entrance for four.” I informed the pretty saleswoman at the desk. The fact she was wearing an old school punk rock style was pretty cool.
“You got it.” And then we were waved through. Down a set of barely lit stairs and into a large room. It was similar to most clubs I had been into, A stage straight across from the entrance, and booths all along the edges, with a dance floor in front of the stage.
Up on the stage there wasn’t a live band, but the large screen showed a previous live show that was pretty good.
We ended up wandering around trying to find a booth but all of them were taken.
Mostly filled with Tyger Claw thugs. I suddenly realized that for all the aesthetics this was definitely a place owned and operated by the TC. For the TC.
I sighed. Of course the girl that lived on the same floor as Jun and I had some TC connections. Of course she played at a TC club.
I shook it off, it wasn’t like Ho-Oh wasn’t just as bad, and we hung there a lot.
In the end we did find a table and not a booth that we were all able to fit around with some difficulties.
“I hope the music is good.” Malcolm eventually grumbled to us and I nodded. The seating was kinda shit, and I had noticed the prices at the bar as we were searching for a seat.
Expensive!
“Don’t worry about it Malcolm! This is a celebration! So get whatever you want I’ll cover it!” I told him and that earned me a happy smile and Malcolm going from being a little grumpy to looking around in a much better mood.
“Ichi what’s up?” Hiromi asked and I looked over to him. He was sort of placing himself behind a pillar. Almost hiding.
“Ah, just. I know some of these guys. Like that guy over there is Katana Hiroshi.” He said pointing to a man sitting at one of the booths with a Katana sitting between his legs ready to be used.
“Okay? Are they gonna attack you or something?”
“Well no… But I made deliveries for some of these guys during the war you know? I mean they might recognize me, and with Shobo-Sama getting flatlined and me leaving… I don’t know it’s nothing I guess I’m just being awkward.”
“You know Ichi. As much as I kinda hate it… If you want to join the TC again, you could always talk to Jun.” I offered despite how gross the words felt on my tongue.
Ichi was part of Section 9! I didn't want to give him up to some wannabe yakuza thugs!
“No.” He answered instantly firmly. “I won’t do that again. I’ll work as transport for myself if I have to before I go back in.” He said and I blinked in surprise at that.
“I didn’t realize you were so…”
“Motoko. After everything I went through during the war I was basically forgotten about afterwards once Jotaro died.” Ichi said and I could feel his frustration. “If it wasn’t for you dragging us into the Scav raids, I would have had to start as a fucking bottom rung shit boy again. Running drinks to people and stuff. No thanks.”
“Hey Ichi go get us some drinks.” Malcolm being the best friend that he was instantly chimed in. Hiromi and I were soon laughing as the two boys faux fought each other.
—--
An hour later it was time. The stage lights had shifted and there were some people up there setting up actual equipment.
Finally I would get to see Rockerboy Neighbors set.
I recognized her instantly, she was basically wearing the same style that she had when I saw her on the elevator. She stepped out with a pretty expensive Orphean. They made some of the highest quality guitars. I only recognized it because I had seen them at the music shop.
They were the ones behind bullet proof glass.
I was instantly jealous.
“This is Violent Hemorrhage!” She called out as her band all started playing and I nodded. It was good.
Her guitar skill was real. I grumped. She attacked the guitar. She opened her mouth and instantly I was kinda disappointed.
Artificial.
Of course. She had throat chrome. The voice that came out wasn’t real. It was a digital controlled autotune.
I could hear where the chrome altered her voice on the fly, pitch correcting.
I don’t think Rockerboy Neighbor was very good at singing. I think she had probably gotten the chrome to try and overcome her issue.
“Burn it all!” Malcolm called out shouting along with the song as she repeated the chorus. The crowd was enjoying it. Although as I looked around I noticed some people obviously noticed the issue and weren’t getting as involved.
I felt bad. She played well. The song was catchy. Her band was good.
Her singing just had some issues.
“What’s wrong?” Hiromi asked, pushing herself against me and speaking into my ear so I could hear her over the music.
I returned the favor leaning in. “The singing is artificial and the front woman is struggling. If it wasn’t for the chrome she would sound… Pretty awful.” I told her and Hiromi frowned, listening but not seemingly catching it.
Made sense. If it wasn’t for Rockerboy telling me so much about music I wouldn’t have noticed it either.
I shook it off. Being picky and not enjoying music just because it wasn’t perfect was something that always annoyed me. So I ignored it just getting into the rhythm and enjoying the lyrics for what they said.
“Hey Motoko! So when are we going on another raid anyways?” Malcolm asked, suddenly startling me. “I could use some extra eddies for the Caliburn when I get one!”
“Wait, you're still trying to get that super car?” Hiromi asked, sounding amused. “Are you sure?”
“Listen just because I got shot doesn’t change that it’s my dream car Hiromi.” He answered with a shrug. “I mean I had to spend some money on the healing that Dr. Vik gave me, so I figure an extra gig will help.”
“I… I don’t think I’m hitting any Scav dens for a while.” I admitted my voice was mostly cut off from the thumping of the next band getting up and starting to sing.
Annoyed, I quickly called my chooms throwing all of us into a conference call.
*I’m not going to raid the Scavs again for a while. I’m hoping that if I stop here, they will just assume it was all the work of the TC and let it go so they won’t retaliate.*
*Wait but what about our eddies!?* Ichi asked *We were using the raids as our income Motoko.*
*Forget that for a second! Why are we worried about Scavs retaliating! We’ll just kill them all! Right?* Malcolm added.
I shook my head. *I let my anger get the better of me after the apartment was attacked guys. It’s one thing to raid a new den every once in a while. The remaining Scavs won’t even care, but what I did was hit them really hard over and over. If they think I’ll come after them next, they will try to remove me… Or you, or our family.*
*Motoko… You don’t have to be afraid! We’ll beat them if they try it!* Hiromi offered and I smiled at her, but I shook my head.
*I can’t just think like a child about this. I do want to destroy the Scavs. Make no mistake. I’ll still raid them when possible, but I’m going to take a break. Give them space, let them think things have gone quiet… And all the while I’m going to plot how to completely destroy them. Utterly.* I said with all the conviction I could muster.
*Alright. We can take it easy from that then… But what about-* Ichi started asking, but I cut him off.
*Right. Eddies. I didn’t forget Ichi. I know how important it is for you to have some income! Just because I’ll avoid Scavs for a bit, doesn’t mean we don’t have other targets we can hit! I can still do some gigs for Wakako that might end up with lots of loot! I promise It’ll be okay. I just… Have to balance what we do so retaliation isn’t smacking us in the face constantly.*
*Yeah… Yeah that’s fair. I don’t want Scavs hitting my home or something either.* Ichi agreed, and I nodded.
“Right! That’s enough of that stuff! Let’s enjoy the show! We are celebrating tonight! To Malcolm!”
—--
“Well that was an interesting night.” I muttered as we walked out of the club. The live bands had all finished up and it was getting late. I was feeling sort of tense, but not tired.
Maybe I should go do some gigs? My week of peace was over… Even if with Malcolm’s shooting it hadn’t lasted the whole week.
“Going home?” Hiromi asked and I shrugged as I turned around. Hiromi was wearing more black recently. It was still Street Kid Chic in a lot of ways, but she had bought a new jacket that was all black with just some of her favorite green in lining around it.
Which now that I thought about it, was probably a custom job.
“Well we should go for a ride then! I’m finally free for the weekend. Motoko! Let’s go on a drive!” She called out thrusting a fist into the air.
“Sure.” I agreed easily as Hiromi smiled bright and happy as she ran over and grabbed my arm. “C’mon my Kusangi is parked over here you can drive since I know how tetchy you get about drunk driving.” Hiromi offered, and Hiromi and the rest of my chooms had a few things to drink tonight.
“It’s okay, we can take mine.” I offered, pulling her in a different direction.
Of course only after I heard Hiromi make a noise that was similar to a tea kettle overflowing did the two brain cells in my head finally connect.
I had bought the Kusanagi right before everything happened. I hadn’t used it much after the attack because I needed my gear and the Quadra was better protected.
I had promised to take Hiromi out when I finally got a Kusanagi.
I hadn’t told her I had bought a Kusanagi yet.
“Oops.” I whispered as I turned to my choom who was practically bouncing.
“Eeeeee! You bought one!” She called out happily, grabbing me tightly and refusing to let go.
“Yeah. It’s not a Mizuchi either so it’s-”
“Let’s go! I demand a ride Motoko! You should have told me you were buying a Kusanagi! After what happened to Malcolm as well! They probably over charged you too! You are so bad with money! I would have helped!” Hiromi rambled as she pulled forwards. Funnily enough we ended up walking past my bike in her rush since she didn’t know where it was.
I adjusted her course and dragged her over and she instantly started looking over the bike. Hands wandering as she checked things.
“Someone messed with the brakes!” She called out and I laughed.
“Yeah me. They were trash when I bought it. I had to replace them.” I told her, and she glared at me. “What?”
“That’s the sort of thing you can demand a discount for when buying something Motoko, did you haggle the price down because of the bad brakes?”
The urge to look away and whistle struck me, but I remained firm.
Hiromi noticed anyway.
“Ugh! You are the worst with money forever!”
“Yeah that is true. What did Motoko do this time?” Ichi said as he and Malcolm walked over
“Oh Ichi look! Motoko bought a Kusanagi! Without telling anyone, and she had to do repairs on it. I bet she paid full price!”
“I don’t want to say how much I paid for it now… Because someone will yell at me.” I answered mechanically.
Malcolm was just laughing a bit as Ichi and Hiromi both teamed up to yell at me for wasting money.
“Banned from spending money forever!” Hiromi yelled at me with a pointed finger.
—--
A bit later after finally calming my best choom down I was driving down the road with Hiromi gripped onto my back tightly as my Kusanagi took a turn.
“It feels so weird compared to my bike!” Hiromi called out. “The lack of a back seat isn’t as comfortable… But it gives me an excu-” Hiromi’s voice lowered at the end until I couldn’t hear her. I would have asked her to repeat it, but I was instantly breaking a moment after to avoid some asshole driver who cut into my lane.
A waved middle finger in his direction settled that matter as I put myself back into traffic.
Hiromi of course wasn’t done.
Practically standing up on the Kusanagi she was flipping off the driver and cussing at the top of her lungs.
I just snorted and took a gentle right on the next street to move away from the other car.
“Why’d we turn! Motoko! Take me back I haven’t finished yet!” She demanded, dropping back down from where she had been practically standing on the seat.
“It’s okay Hiromi. Besides, I'd rather spend the ride with you than dealing with some gonk.” I told her happily and she instantly settled back down and wrapped herself back around my back.
Hiromi and I drove around the city for a long while that night. Just enjoying the roads. Honestly my Kusanagi was a much smoother ride than the Mizuchi that Hiromi had. Without the overturning that came with that variant the much smoother and deeper rumble of the engine was nice instead of ear splitting.
In the end we ended up on the mountain paths in Westbrook. And there I let it out. Letting my bike roar over the roads with Hiromi hollering her enjoyment into my ear.
—--
I woke up the next morning with a grabby Hiromi gripping onto me.
We had a sleepover again at my place cause Hiromi didn’t want to just go home and be alone. I gently tried to escape her grip, but that wasn’t happening. So I was stuck.
With nothing to do but think.
No. I shook that away. I’d been doing that too much. Overthinking. I always had a path forward.
I just needed to improve my stats.
Body and Reflex first. I’d been napping on both of them too long, and both were easy enough to grind out. I just needed to dedicate the time for it. To stop coasting and start grinding out everything again.
So I relaxed and just waited a while. Dozing a bit as I waited for Hiromi to wake up and let me go.
“Toko?” Hiromi mumbled a bit as she finally started waking up a while later.
“Hey Hiromi. Morning.”
“Mornin.” She mumbled back again and then she just buried herself into my shoulder and mumbled something nonsensical.
I laughed a little at how cute she was being. “Hey I’m going to hit the gym, and then… A gun range, Yeah a gun range after. You want to join me? Get some exercise?”
“Hmm?” She made an interested noise before suddenly opening her eyes. “Yeah! I want to see! I mean go. I want to go!”
“Cool. C’mon let’s get up and get some good in us then.”
—--
“Hiromi you okay? You keep stopping your workout.” I called out as I did another squat with the weights on my shoulders. I was sweating like crazy at this point considering how much effort I was putting into the exercise.
I wanted that Body 10. Give me the perfect abs! I demand it!
But my choom kept stopping and staring. Hiromi, I wasn’t squatting all that much weight, you could do this even! Well at least a few times, and you don’t exercise. It wasn’t that surprising.
I grunted as I rose up again. My core burned from the crunches I had finished before, and my thighs felt great considering how long I had been doing this.
Sure I hated the pain, but the XP!
Do it for XP.
“Ah!” She said and that was all that came out of her mouth for a bit before she shook herself. “I think I’m done is all!” She offered standing up from bar bells she had been using for like… A minute.
Hiromi, you can’t get gains that way!
I shook it off though. I had sort of surprised her about all this after all.
“Okay. Let me finish this, and we’ll get a shower before hitting the range?”
Hiromi nodded her head up and down a little too fast. I didn’t know Hiromi was that into shooting. Maybe something we could do when we hang out now? Go to a gun range?
—--
So Hiromi didn’t like gun ranges? We had gone to a nearby gun range I found online. I had spent a lot of money on ammo so we could shoot as much as we wanted, and so I could train my reflexes.
The gun range had electronic targets, and difficulty modes. So I had ramped that sucker up and started training. My Lexington getting a real workout for the first time since I had picked it up. As I shot target after target, as fast as I could.
I had already started getting alerts. Simply from how many fast twitch shots I had been making.
Hiromi wasn’t having as much fun.
“You okay Hiromi?” I asked and she gave me a wilted smile. She wasn’t nearly as accurate as I was, and was struggling with the targets.
Ah. I knew exactly what was happening. Hiromi was comparing herself to me.
I canceled my targets, and walked over to her aisle. Moving up behind her as I pressed myself against her back.
“Like this.” I told her, as I reached up and overlaid my hands on hers. “You’re doing fine, but you are pulling the trigger too hard.” I helped her pull the trigger back and the bullet hit on target. “I think your chrome is giving you trouble.”
“Yeah, my hands feel a little different. I didn’t realize it was messing with my aim this much.” She said, sounding frustrated.
“It’s okay. That just means it’s a good thing we hit the range. So let’s practice those pulls so we don’t have to worry about it. Gentle pulls, there we go.” I told her as she managed to hit the target again with a smooth shot.
I didn’t get much shooting done after that, as I helped Hiromi work on a quick draw using my knowledge, but the way her face was lit up compared to how sour it had been at first was worth it.
Eventually good things had to end, and Hiromi headed home, her parents wanted to see her on the weekend after all.
I ended up turning around and going right back to the range.
I had thousands of rounds to pump through. I ran through the gamut of my skills to get more XP. Quick Drawing. Rapid firing. High speed adjustment using the electronic targets.
I did it all.
And Reflex XP started flowing in. It was actually a relief. I had done a lot of shooting on gigs, but hadn’t really been getting much XP for it, I guess I just needed to keep actually pushing myself instead of just doing a few shots and being done.
I worked through until I had to stop to cool off my Lexington. Then packing up all the ammo I still had and heading home.
“Ichi-” I started to explain, but the way his eyes widened at all of us looking at him showed that he realized what he had just admitted to.
“Nevermind! Always nice to check out new clubs! C’mon!” He called out as he quickly power walked ahead of us. Hiromi and I both broke into quiet giggles at the tension in Ichi’s gait, while Malcolm just shook his head while smiling and went to catch up.
You couldn’t even tell Malcolm had been shot earlier in the week. He moved without any sign of pain or issue.
Cyberpunk medicine was so crazy!
“The name is kinda bad though. Think they are riffing off the Afterlife?” Hiromi asked and I nodded. As we both looked up to the club's neon sign above the dingy door in an alleyway in the middle of Watson.
“Yomi. That’s kinda lame.” I agreed as I ended up shrugging. It wasn’t like I was here for the club itself. I was here to gather information!
I pulled Hiromi along as we slipped into the entrance and found there was a little lobby, with a woman behind the counter. Ichi and Malcolm were at the front desk apparently paying for their entrance fee.
“Jeeze Motoko. This place is expensive.” Malcolm whined to me as I walked up and looked at the numbers listed out and had to agree.
Most of the clubs we went to were BD bars, where the entrance was free, but they expected you to buy overpriced drinks.
This was more like a concert hall. To get in you had to pay a fee, and then the drinks and stuff would also be outrageously expensive.
I rolled my eyes.
“Entrance for four.” I informed the pretty saleswoman at the desk. The fact she was wearing an old school punk rock style was pretty cool.
“You got it.” And then we were waved through. Down a set of barely lit stairs and into a large room. It was similar to most clubs I had been into, A stage straight across from the entrance, and booths all along the edges, with a dance floor in front of the stage.
Up on the stage there wasn’t a live band, but the large screen showed a previous live show that was pretty good.
We ended up wandering around trying to find a booth but all of them were taken.
Mostly filled with Tyger Claw thugs. I suddenly realized that for all the aesthetics this was definitely a place owned and operated by the TC. For the TC.
I sighed. Of course the girl that lived on the same floor as Jun and I had some TC connections. Of course she played at a TC club.
I shook it off, it wasn’t like Ho-Oh wasn’t just as bad, and we hung there a lot.
In the end we did find a table and not a booth that we were all able to fit around with some difficulties.
“I hope the music is good.” Malcolm eventually grumbled to us and I nodded. The seating was kinda shit, and I had noticed the prices at the bar as we were searching for a seat.
Expensive!
“Don’t worry about it Malcolm! This is a celebration! So get whatever you want I’ll cover it!” I told him and that earned me a happy smile and Malcolm going from being a little grumpy to looking around in a much better mood.
“Ichi what’s up?” Hiromi asked and I looked over to him. He was sort of placing himself behind a pillar. Almost hiding.
“Ah, just. I know some of these guys. Like that guy over there is Katana Hiroshi.” He said pointing to a man sitting at one of the booths with a Katana sitting between his legs ready to be used.
“Okay? Are they gonna attack you or something?”
“Well no… But I made deliveries for some of these guys during the war you know? I mean they might recognize me, and with Shobo-Sama getting flatlined and me leaving… I don’t know it’s nothing I guess I’m just being awkward.”
“You know Ichi. As much as I kinda hate it… If you want to join the TC again, you could always talk to Jun.” I offered despite how gross the words felt on my tongue.
Ichi was part of Section 9! I didn't want to give him up to some wannabe yakuza thugs!
“No.” He answered instantly firmly. “I won’t do that again. I’ll work as transport for myself if I have to before I go back in.” He said and I blinked in surprise at that.
“I didn’t realize you were so…”
“Motoko. After everything I went through during the war I was basically forgotten about afterwards once Jotaro died.” Ichi said and I could feel his frustration. “If it wasn’t for you dragging us into the Scav raids, I would have had to start as a fucking bottom rung shit boy again. Running drinks to people and stuff. No thanks.”
“Hey Ichi go get us some drinks.” Malcolm being the best friend that he was instantly chimed in. Hiromi and I were soon laughing as the two boys faux fought each other.
—--
An hour later it was time. The stage lights had shifted and there were some people up there setting up actual equipment.
Finally I would get to see Rockerboy Neighbors set.
I recognized her instantly, she was basically wearing the same style that she had when I saw her on the elevator. She stepped out with a pretty expensive Orphean. They made some of the highest quality guitars. I only recognized it because I had seen them at the music shop.
They were the ones behind bullet proof glass.
I was instantly jealous.
“This is Violent Hemorrhage!” She called out as her band all started playing and I nodded. It was good.
Her guitar skill was real. I grumped. She attacked the guitar. She opened her mouth and instantly I was kinda disappointed.
Artificial.
Of course. She had throat chrome. The voice that came out wasn’t real. It was a digital controlled autotune.
I could hear where the chrome altered her voice on the fly, pitch correcting.
I don’t think Rockerboy Neighbor was very good at singing. I think she had probably gotten the chrome to try and overcome her issue.
“Burn it all!” Malcolm called out shouting along with the song as she repeated the chorus. The crowd was enjoying it. Although as I looked around I noticed some people obviously noticed the issue and weren’t getting as involved.
I felt bad. She played well. The song was catchy. Her band was good.
Her singing just had some issues.
“What’s wrong?” Hiromi asked, pushing herself against me and speaking into my ear so I could hear her over the music.
I returned the favor leaning in. “The singing is artificial and the front woman is struggling. If it wasn’t for the chrome she would sound… Pretty awful.” I told her and Hiromi frowned, listening but not seemingly catching it.
Made sense. If it wasn’t for Rockerboy telling me so much about music I wouldn’t have noticed it either.
I shook it off. Being picky and not enjoying music just because it wasn’t perfect was something that always annoyed me. So I ignored it just getting into the rhythm and enjoying the lyrics for what they said.
“Hey Motoko! So when are we going on another raid anyways?” Malcolm asked, suddenly startling me. “I could use some extra eddies for the Caliburn when I get one!”
“Wait, you're still trying to get that super car?” Hiromi asked, sounding amused. “Are you sure?”
“Listen just because I got shot doesn’t change that it’s my dream car Hiromi.” He answered with a shrug. “I mean I had to spend some money on the healing that Dr. Vik gave me, so I figure an extra gig will help.”
“I… I don’t think I’m hitting any Scav dens for a while.” I admitted my voice was mostly cut off from the thumping of the next band getting up and starting to sing.
Annoyed, I quickly called my chooms throwing all of us into a conference call.
*I’m not going to raid the Scavs again for a while. I’m hoping that if I stop here, they will just assume it was all the work of the TC and let it go so they won’t retaliate.*
*Wait but what about our eddies!?* Ichi asked *We were using the raids as our income Motoko.*
*Forget that for a second! Why are we worried about Scavs retaliating! We’ll just kill them all! Right?* Malcolm added.
I shook my head. *I let my anger get the better of me after the apartment was attacked guys. It’s one thing to raid a new den every once in a while. The remaining Scavs won’t even care, but what I did was hit them really hard over and over. If they think I’ll come after them next, they will try to remove me… Or you, or our family.*
*Motoko… You don’t have to be afraid! We’ll beat them if they try it!* Hiromi offered and I smiled at her, but I shook my head.
*I can’t just think like a child about this. I do want to destroy the Scavs. Make no mistake. I’ll still raid them when possible, but I’m going to take a break. Give them space, let them think things have gone quiet… And all the while I’m going to plot how to completely destroy them. Utterly.* I said with all the conviction I could muster.
*Alright. We can take it easy from that then… But what about-* Ichi started asking, but I cut him off.
*Right. Eddies. I didn’t forget Ichi. I know how important it is for you to have some income! Just because I’ll avoid Scavs for a bit, doesn’t mean we don’t have other targets we can hit! I can still do some gigs for Wakako that might end up with lots of loot! I promise It’ll be okay. I just… Have to balance what we do so retaliation isn’t smacking us in the face constantly.*
*Yeah… Yeah that’s fair. I don’t want Scavs hitting my home or something either.* Ichi agreed, and I nodded.
“Right! That’s enough of that stuff! Let’s enjoy the show! We are celebrating tonight! To Malcolm!”
—--
“Well that was an interesting night.” I muttered as we walked out of the club. The live bands had all finished up and it was getting late. I was feeling sort of tense, but not tired.
Maybe I should go do some gigs? My week of peace was over… Even if with Malcolm’s shooting it hadn’t lasted the whole week.
“Going home?” Hiromi asked and I shrugged as I turned around. Hiromi was wearing more black recently. It was still Street Kid Chic in a lot of ways, but she had bought a new jacket that was all black with just some of her favorite green in lining around it.
Which now that I thought about it, was probably a custom job.
“Well we should go for a ride then! I’m finally free for the weekend. Motoko! Let’s go on a drive!” She called out thrusting a fist into the air.
“Sure.” I agreed easily as Hiromi smiled bright and happy as she ran over and grabbed my arm. “C’mon my Kusangi is parked over here you can drive since I know how tetchy you get about drunk driving.” Hiromi offered, and Hiromi and the rest of my chooms had a few things to drink tonight.
“It’s okay, we can take mine.” I offered, pulling her in a different direction.
Of course only after I heard Hiromi make a noise that was similar to a tea kettle overflowing did the two brain cells in my head finally connect.
I had bought the Kusanagi right before everything happened. I hadn’t used it much after the attack because I needed my gear and the Quadra was better protected.
I had promised to take Hiromi out when I finally got a Kusanagi.
I hadn’t told her I had bought a Kusanagi yet.
“Oops.” I whispered as I turned to my choom who was practically bouncing.
“Eeeeee! You bought one!” She called out happily, grabbing me tightly and refusing to let go.
“Yeah. It’s not a Mizuchi either so it’s-”
“Let’s go! I demand a ride Motoko! You should have told me you were buying a Kusanagi! After what happened to Malcolm as well! They probably over charged you too! You are so bad with money! I would have helped!” Hiromi rambled as she pulled forwards. Funnily enough we ended up walking past my bike in her rush since she didn’t know where it was.
I adjusted her course and dragged her over and she instantly started looking over the bike. Hands wandering as she checked things.
“Someone messed with the brakes!” She called out and I laughed.
“Yeah me. They were trash when I bought it. I had to replace them.” I told her, and she glared at me. “What?”
“That’s the sort of thing you can demand a discount for when buying something Motoko, did you haggle the price down because of the bad brakes?”
The urge to look away and whistle struck me, but I remained firm.
Hiromi noticed anyway.
“Ugh! You are the worst with money forever!”
“Yeah that is true. What did Motoko do this time?” Ichi said as he and Malcolm walked over
“Oh Ichi look! Motoko bought a Kusanagi! Without telling anyone, and she had to do repairs on it. I bet she paid full price!”
“I don’t want to say how much I paid for it now… Because someone will yell at me.” I answered mechanically.
Malcolm was just laughing a bit as Ichi and Hiromi both teamed up to yell at me for wasting money.
“Banned from spending money forever!” Hiromi yelled at me with a pointed finger.
—--
A bit later after finally calming my best choom down I was driving down the road with Hiromi gripped onto my back tightly as my Kusanagi took a turn.
“It feels so weird compared to my bike!” Hiromi called out. “The lack of a back seat isn’t as comfortable… But it gives me an excu-” Hiromi’s voice lowered at the end until I couldn’t hear her. I would have asked her to repeat it, but I was instantly breaking a moment after to avoid some asshole driver who cut into my lane.
A waved middle finger in his direction settled that matter as I put myself back into traffic.
Hiromi of course wasn’t done.
Practically standing up on the Kusanagi she was flipping off the driver and cussing at the top of her lungs.
I just snorted and took a gentle right on the next street to move away from the other car.
“Why’d we turn! Motoko! Take me back I haven’t finished yet!” She demanded, dropping back down from where she had been practically standing on the seat.
“It’s okay Hiromi. Besides, I'd rather spend the ride with you than dealing with some gonk.” I told her happily and she instantly settled back down and wrapped herself back around my back.
Hiromi and I drove around the city for a long while that night. Just enjoying the roads. Honestly my Kusanagi was a much smoother ride than the Mizuchi that Hiromi had. Without the overturning that came with that variant the much smoother and deeper rumble of the engine was nice instead of ear splitting.
In the end we ended up on the mountain paths in Westbrook. And there I let it out. Letting my bike roar over the roads with Hiromi hollering her enjoyment into my ear.
—--
I woke up the next morning with a grabby Hiromi gripping onto me.
We had a sleepover again at my place cause Hiromi didn’t want to just go home and be alone. I gently tried to escape her grip, but that wasn’t happening. So I was stuck.
With nothing to do but think.
No. I shook that away. I’d been doing that too much. Overthinking. I always had a path forward.
I just needed to improve my stats.
Body and Reflex first. I’d been napping on both of them too long, and both were easy enough to grind out. I just needed to dedicate the time for it. To stop coasting and start grinding out everything again.
So I relaxed and just waited a while. Dozing a bit as I waited for Hiromi to wake up and let me go.
“Toko?” Hiromi mumbled a bit as she finally started waking up a while later.
“Hey Hiromi. Morning.”
“Mornin.” She mumbled back again and then she just buried herself into my shoulder and mumbled something nonsensical.
I laughed a little at how cute she was being. “Hey I’m going to hit the gym, and then… A gun range, Yeah a gun range after. You want to join me? Get some exercise?”
“Hmm?” She made an interested noise before suddenly opening her eyes. “Yeah! I want to see! I mean go. I want to go!”
“Cool. C’mon let’s get up and get some good in us then.”
—--
“Hiromi you okay? You keep stopping your workout.” I called out as I did another squat with the weights on my shoulders. I was sweating like crazy at this point considering how much effort I was putting into the exercise.
I wanted that Body 10. Give me the perfect abs! I demand it!
But my choom kept stopping and staring. Hiromi, I wasn’t squatting all that much weight, you could do this even! Well at least a few times, and you don’t exercise. It wasn’t that surprising.
I grunted as I rose up again. My core burned from the crunches I had finished before, and my thighs felt great considering how long I had been doing this.
Sure I hated the pain, but the XP!
Do it for XP.
“Ah!” She said and that was all that came out of her mouth for a bit before she shook herself. “I think I’m done is all!” She offered standing up from bar bells she had been using for like… A minute.
Hiromi, you can’t get gains that way!
I shook it off though. I had sort of surprised her about all this after all.
“Okay. Let me finish this, and we’ll get a shower before hitting the range?”
Hiromi nodded her head up and down a little too fast. I didn’t know Hiromi was that into shooting. Maybe something we could do when we hang out now? Go to a gun range?
—--
So Hiromi didn’t like gun ranges? We had gone to a nearby gun range I found online. I had spent a lot of money on ammo so we could shoot as much as we wanted, and so I could train my reflexes.
The gun range had electronic targets, and difficulty modes. So I had ramped that sucker up and started training. My Lexington getting a real workout for the first time since I had picked it up. As I shot target after target, as fast as I could.
I had already started getting alerts. Simply from how many fast twitch shots I had been making.
Hiromi wasn’t having as much fun.
“You okay Hiromi?” I asked and she gave me a wilted smile. She wasn’t nearly as accurate as I was, and was struggling with the targets.
Ah. I knew exactly what was happening. Hiromi was comparing herself to me.
I canceled my targets, and walked over to her aisle. Moving up behind her as I pressed myself against her back.
“Like this.” I told her, as I reached up and overlaid my hands on hers. “You’re doing fine, but you are pulling the trigger too hard.” I helped her pull the trigger back and the bullet hit on target. “I think your chrome is giving you trouble.”
“Yeah, my hands feel a little different. I didn’t realize it was messing with my aim this much.” She said, sounding frustrated.
“It’s okay. That just means it’s a good thing we hit the range. So let’s practice those pulls so we don’t have to worry about it. Gentle pulls, there we go.” I told her as she managed to hit the target again with a smooth shot.
I didn’t get much shooting done after that, as I helped Hiromi work on a quick draw using my knowledge, but the way her face was lit up compared to how sour it had been at first was worth it.
Eventually good things had to end, and Hiromi headed home, her parents wanted to see her on the weekend after all.
I ended up turning around and going right back to the range.
I had thousands of rounds to pump through. I ran through the gamut of my skills to get more XP. Quick Drawing. Rapid firing. High speed adjustment using the electronic targets.
I did it all.
And Reflex XP started flowing in. It was actually a relief. I had done a lot of shooting on gigs, but hadn’t really been getting much XP for it, I guess I just needed to keep actually pushing myself instead of just doing a few shots and being done.
I worked through until I had to stop to cool off my Lexington. Then packing up all the ammo I still had and heading home.
Blasterbot
Well-known member
poor Hiromi. Motoko is too dense to get it. she practically has an event horizon.
xachariahxx
Well-known member
What are you talking about? It's just two friends going out for dinner and a concert, driving around all night, falling asleep and cuddling together, admiring each other when working out, showering together, and then holding hands at the gun range.
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
Or Motoko is aware and is just ignoring it. Just hits Hiromi with "You're a good friend."
Chapter 119
Seras
Well-known member
“Hey Jun… Hey Akari.” I mumbled the second half as I got home, and was surprised to see we had visitors. Akari and Jun were sitting around the couch but neither were watching TV.
Jun threw up a waving hand for a moment, but Akari didn’t say anything, which was… Odd.
“Okay what’s going on?” I demanded towards the two very distracted people. Oddly distracted.
“It’s nothing Motoko. Why don’t you go to your room for a bit.” Jun said, while he very obviously cut off Akari from speaking.
I frowned but Jun looked firm and I nodded. “Alright. I’ll leave you to your plotting… Don’t get in over your head, if you need help just let me know.” I demanded, only when Jun nodded did I head into my room and flop on my bed.
I kinda wanted to do more Rockerboy stuff, but… If Jun and Akari were that serious I didn’t want to be annoying…
That meant I only had one more inside skill that I could work on.
I stood up and headed for the desk in my room, covered in boxes of my scrap and tools, it had been laying there since I moved in. Time to get to work.
While Jun would yell at me if I did any work on explosives. That wasn’t all I had.
I pulled out my Lexington and grabbed some tools and after digging around I found some gun oil.
Let’s do some maintenance on my poor pistol that was worked so hard today, and then I would see about doing some work on it in general. Maybe a silencer?
Maybe I should upgrade from a Lexington to a Nue, or something? Put a silencer on that?
I ended up shaking my head. My Lexington would do pretty well with a Silencer, but I liked the fact it was full auto.
I ended up pulling the shard that had Mitch's information on how to make his silencer goop for the Overwatch and refreshed myself with it.
“That could be a fun project.” I muttered as I finished putting the Lexington back together after giving it a full cleaning, it had needed that pretty badly. There was a lot of buildup in the barrel, and some of the parts were wearing down, but mostly the barrel. That ammo I bought for practice today was shit. Oh well. It was cheap, and it was good reflex practice.
I hummed to myself as I looked over everything I would need for a silencer, I had some of the stuff, but Mitches Nanite goop that would auto repair the Silencer as it was used was too useful not to want to mess with.
Even if this was going to be a silencer I could fit on and off at will unlike the attached barrel of the Overwatch.
I needed… Well a few additional tools. Making nanomachines wasn’t an easy job, as I started writing down what I needed I realized I really couldn’t do a silencer like Mitch’s. Like… At all.
I tried to figure out how to make the nanite goop, and despite my best efforts I just… Didn’t know how. Sure I had the instructions but what Mitch had written down considered someone already knowing how to work some things that I didn’t.
It had been a while since I had run into something that I just outright didn’t know.
“So I need to level Technical Ability first, I’ll make a more standard silencer to get by until later.” I decided with a mutter to myself, as I pulled out pieces and then had to sigh.
I didn’t have the parts for the electronic baffler.
Sure I could make a bog standard silencer, but it wouldn’t be silent. The fact Cyberpunk tech had nearly perfect silencers was something the modern world wasn’t even close to copying.
Okay I needed to go to an electronics store… And probably a tinker place too, because I could use some extra scrap metals if I wanted to make more than just one Silencer.
I needed more stuff to build if I was going to level tech after all…
Okay I was going to mod some of the rest of my weapons. I mean I couldn’t mod my Burya with anything. At least not with my current knowledge. But the Copperhead I’ve been using could fit a silencer…
Heh that could be pretty fun. Going into a gig all tactical and stuff? I had sort of done it with Jackie that one time we hit Scavs together.
Ah, that was fun. Killing Scavs with the chooms.
I quickly brought up a second CAD design for a silencer to fit a Copperhead. The Copperhead was easy, but the Lexington? I would have to modify the barrel, or make an entirely new barrel for it.
That just meant more work though. More work meant more XP!
After a few designs I had my list of parts I needed. I had even gotten a tech XP alert just for designing the parts!
I left my bedroom noticing that Akari and Jun were still chatting, a tablet in front of both of them that they were looking over.
I shrugged.
They would let me know if I could help, or not. “I’m hitting the store. Be back in a bit.” I called out as I left.
As I walked through the halls I heard Rockerboy Neighbor playing again. I hummed along to the music, actually recognizing the song that she was playing now as one from her set, and headed into the elevator.
—--
Tech stores were actually pretty common in Night City. So I didn’t end up having to go very far from the apartment to find a store that should have what I wanted. After a few minutes of browsing and filling up my arms with everything I would need I was back in the apartment. Ignoring Jun and Akari’s continued meeting in the living room, as I went to work.
First I set up the 3d Printer with steel feed to begin creating the silencers physical frame. Once that was started I rolled over to an empty section of the bench and pulled out the electronics I needed.
The Electronic Baffler was an interesting bit of tech. Using vibrations it basically countered the noise of the bullet leaving the barrel entirely.
Turning what should be a suppressor, into a true Silencer.
It wouldn’t silence the bullets themselves once they left the barrel of course. A piece of metal breaking the sound barrier was still a piece of metal breaking the sound barrier, but there were ways to get around that.
Close shots would keep it from making too much noise, and… Well messing with this noise baffle was giving me ideas for a quick hack.
Or maybe just an upgrade?
Noise Canceller? No, I would probably end up having to do the reverse. Noise Bang? I considered the name. Sure, it wouldn’t be stealthy, that way, but if I blind and deafen someone that would pretty heavily disable them.
I added it to the list of future ideas, and continued putting together the electronics of the small vibration dampener. Powered with a small battery, that was all integrated into the silencer.
I rolled my chair back over to the 3D printer, and pulled out the steel Silencer that was now finished. I replaced it with the barrel of my Lexington. Which was just having the tip of the barrel adjusted to let the silencer be screwed onto it.
With that being prepared I moved the Silencer onto the workbench and started sanding down a bit of the exterior where the steel was sharp. I painted it. Leaving it a matte black.
Then I popped open the small section of the silencer, and started putting in the electronics and battery.
Once that was done I sealed that up. And placed the completed Silencer on the desk.
“Cool.”
Yeah it was cool. Silencers were cool. I rolled back over to the 3D printer the barrel was almost done, and I just tinkered with my Lexington, getting it ready for the barrel as I let it finish.
Then as the noise of the printer ended I grabbed the still warm barrel, and slid it into place. Then grabbed the Silencer and screwed it on.
“That’s fucking cool.” I muttered. I made sure the lexington was empty before drawing it up, and then putting it down, getting a feel for the pistol's new weight.
Then I tried to put it into the holster and realized a problem.
“Silencer doesn’t fit.”
—--
I stepped out of the room deciding to take a break. I had an idea on what to do about the silencer, but that would happen later. I walked out to get a drink out of the fridge and noticed Jun and Akari were both gone.
I hope they were okay, but…
It created some good news, it meant it was Rockerboy time!
I ran back into my room and grabbed my guitar and Music box and dragged them out to the couch. Plugging my personal link into the music box, I was ready to do more music!
I actually had a pretty good idea for a song that I wanted to add to my collection!
This time it would be heavy electronica. I would barely need my guitar this time. A challenge. Like how The Only Thing They Fear made me push beyond just normal instruments.
But it would be worth it.
I went back to my room and grabbed the speakers as well, hooking them up so I could physically hear the sound instead of just relying on my agents Cyber Audio Suite.
Slowly the noise started filling the apartment. Thankfully this apartment was so big, the acoustics were much better than the old one. I wouldn’t disturb every person in the building like our last apartment, so I didn’t feel bad about doing some song writing.
I mean, if Rockerboy Neighbor did it, then I could too!
Yet even with the challenge of going far more electronic than my usual songs, I barely struggled in putting the song together. I already knew it after all.
I had listened to it at least once. So I knew every chord. Every beat.
“Rise… They will remember you. RIIIISE!” I recorded having finished the instrumental part, now I was just recording the vocals. Altering my voice for each different singer so it actually sounded like a team of people in the song.
Ah man. Rise was such a nerdy song! I was so happy no one would ever know I was remaking a fucking video game championship song.
It was so catchy though!
“Push through hell and RISE! RISE!” I belted out. Totally into it, as I listened to the song both aloud and through my agent. Checking for errors that I would need to adjust.
I finished another vocal track and turned only to instantly yelp and lose my balance from the couch.
“Jun! You jerk! If you were here you should have said something!” I demanded throwing an empty can of soda at him.
He just reached out and grabbed it out of the air before it could hit him. Akari standing beside him was looking about half as excited as she normally was.
“That was nova Toko! I like your other song more though.” She offered and I turned to glare at Jun again firmly pointing.
“You wouldn't know about any of the songs if not for this gonk!”
“If you were trying to keep it a real secret, putting it in a BD probably wasn’t a good idea.” He said as he pushed me aside with a gentle bump of his hip that still sent me stumbling. Akari and Jun both took a seat on the couch, a tablet pulled out that they both ducked their head into.
“Okay seriously what is with you two?”
“Nothing.” Jun offered but I wasn’t going to take that.
Both Akari and Jun were worried about something.
“Bullshit. What’s going on?”
“TC business Imouto. Nothing you want to get involved with.” Jun said cutting off the conversation and I hesitated. Because he was right. I didn’t want to get involved in TC business.
“Fine, but whatever it is, even if I don’t want to get involved, if you need help tell me.” I threw my hands up then and took a few steps towards my room, but I didn’t want to do anything in there right now…
I walked out of the apartment instead.
Time to workout a bit.
—---
“If only half the worthless gonks that come to me for a bit of muscle have half your dedication.” John offered as I was once more pushing myself.
“You probably say that… To all the… Kids that show… some effort.” I spoke in between squats and the old man barked a laugh at that.
“Yes, but that only makes what I said even more true. Haven’t seen your brother come back.”
“Jun… Is doing some work… Right now… I’ll remind him… Soon.”
“Excellent. Fujimura wanted me to keep an eye on his little chrome soldiers.”
“Rude.”
“Heh. Been around as long as I have, seen how many of those chromed out morons lose themselves and you stop feeling much sympathy.”
“Well… Jun is… Pretty solid now.”
“Yeah, I saw that. Kids got a good head on his shoulders. That won’t save him if he keeps chroming out. And he will if he doesn’t get some damn exercise. That’s one of the biggest excuses. Not strong enough.”
“Heh.” I couldn’t help but chuckle because I had heard that before. Maine. David. Both of those morons said the same thing.
“Still don’t blow out your knees, this is the second day in a row I’ve seen you belting out those squats.”
I sighed internally and nodded. Finishing my last rep before racking the weights. This is why I didn’t want someone trying to ‘train’ me. They might notice I didn’t respond to shit the same way a normal person would, my legs weren’t tired the day after exercise, because I healed completely with a nap.
“Thanks for the talk.” I offered, and reached over to grab my Burya and shoulder holster that I had removed while training.
“Hey hold up kid. I didn’t come to chat with you to talk about your brother or poor training methods. I have a kid your age that I’m training. But she’s getting a bit out of hand. She doesn’t have anyone her age bracket to challenge her.” John explained and I instantly felt my face flatten.
“You’re kidding right. You want me to what? Become her rival or something?”
“Heh. A rival would be good, but I don’t expect that, you probably won’t win. I just need a challenge. Something to push her. To make her realize she can’t just coast by on her talent.” John offered, and it was with absolute surety that the man pulled out the ‘I know you won’t win’ card, just to get me to agree.
But fuck it. I was bored, and I could use some Street Fighting XP. Not that I was going to make it that easy.
“What’s in it for me?” I asked, and the man smiled.
“Well for one. Access to a better gym than this place.”
“Meh.” I replied instantly as being watched while I worked out was kinda the problem.
“Heh, fine. Do this and I’ll make it worth your while with some eddies. Say three hundred?”
Three hundred eddies was pocket change. But I wasn’t going to try and squeeze blood from a rock. “Fine.”
“Alright. C’mon kid.” He waved me to follow but I didn’t.
“Motoko.” I informed him simply with a frown. Thankfully he picked what I was putting down a moment after.
“Fair enough, C’mon Motoko, let's go meet Hayato.”
This time I followed. Out of the Gym area, then down the red neon steps that led up to the buildings. I thought for a moment we would get in a car, but instead John just took a left and turned into a small section that had a bunch of elevators.
Then we skipped those too!
There was a path on the right that hugged the building and we went a ways down before he turned in and entered into a heavily inset door.
If I wasn’t fully armed and dealing with TC thugs I might have started to get a little concerned at this point, but the door opened into…
Well a little gym. A hole in the wall gym. I didn’t know this place was here, then again. I didn’t know a lot of shops in the area.
Gomorrah. Was the large name painted across the wall.
And as we walked in I noticed there was an area in the middle that had mats and standing on the mats was a girl around my age. At least I think she was my age.
She was about my height. Maybe a little taller, I realized as she was wearing pads for her feet rather than shoes and I was still in my boots.
But it was the tattoos that covered arms and back that made me realize this wasn’t just an average girl. No teenager with more Tyger Claw tattoos than Jun could be normal.
The pure asian features were interesting as well. Straight black hair tied up into a bun and ponytail was an odd sight, because it was natural.
Just normal natural hair was kinda weird in Night City. Especially one with the money this girl obviously had.
The quick scan I did told me she also had a lot of chrome.
Including a Kerenzikov.
She was obviously impatient. Her body language dripped with how annoyed she was. So when John rounded the corner and she saw him she instantly started speaking, almost too fast. Her words came out in a rush that sounded almost sped up.
And she was cussing in Japanese.
So I understood exactly zero of it, other than she was upset.
I think I heard a baka in there as well?
“Hayato.” John responded, cutting her off, and she went silent while glaring. “This is Motoko. She’s going to be the one you fight today.”
“You bring me to this trash heap, leave me for hours and then expect me to fight some…” The girl cut herself off as she took me in fully.
Sure I had been exercising, but I was still fully armed.
I went nowhere without my guns now after all. I looked her over as well, and made my decision.
I pulled off my jacket and threw it over a chair near the entrance letting everyone see how armed I was.
A few moments later I hung my shoulder holster over the chair, and placed my Lexington and holster on the seat as well. My knife was dropped on it as well, and then I took a moment to drop my pouches on the chair as well, ammo, ammo, Maxdocs, ammo. All placed on the chair leaving it rather full of my equipment.
I sat on the chair next to it, and started taking off my boots as well.
“Who is this?”
“Motoko Kusanagi. You may have heard of her brother. The Oni of the Kamikazi.”
“Huh those Cyberpsychos?”
“Jun-Nii is doing really well actually.” I offered as I was finally free of my boots and stepped onto the mats.
“I’ve never heard of her. I don’t care if her brother is famous. That has nothing to do with her.” The girl argued snootily and I couldn’t help but chuckle. So true. I wasn’t an Oni like Jun, always relying on brute force and stuff…
The fact he called me a gorilla was long erased from my brain.
“And I did not bring her here for her brother's accomplishments.” John replied and I got to watch a second of the girl basically going through emotions that would normally take a few seconds before she scoffed.
“I am Hayato Nakagawa.” She said, speaking as if I should recognize the name.
I didn’t of course, nor would I somehow feel dumb for not recognizing some random teenager. So I was just going to deal with this like I deal with everything!
“Nice to meet you Hayato-chan! Let’s beat each others faces in, until we both feel better!” I chirped as I started hopping around a bit to limber up as I brought my hands up in a boxing stance.
My words seemed to do the opposite of creating comradery as the girl’s face shifted into the look of someone stepping in dog shit.
“If I must!” She growled and I could tell she was about to charge before John raised a hand and stopped us both.
“Gloves first Motoko. Over there.” he pointed and I noticed a rack with spare gloves and foot pads. I made a noise of pleasure as I had never gotten to fight someone with pads before! I quickly hopped over and took out a pair for hands and feet.
This was going to be fun!
Jun threw up a waving hand for a moment, but Akari didn’t say anything, which was… Odd.
“Okay what’s going on?” I demanded towards the two very distracted people. Oddly distracted.
“It’s nothing Motoko. Why don’t you go to your room for a bit.” Jun said, while he very obviously cut off Akari from speaking.
I frowned but Jun looked firm and I nodded. “Alright. I’ll leave you to your plotting… Don’t get in over your head, if you need help just let me know.” I demanded, only when Jun nodded did I head into my room and flop on my bed.
I kinda wanted to do more Rockerboy stuff, but… If Jun and Akari were that serious I didn’t want to be annoying…
That meant I only had one more inside skill that I could work on.
I stood up and headed for the desk in my room, covered in boxes of my scrap and tools, it had been laying there since I moved in. Time to get to work.
While Jun would yell at me if I did any work on explosives. That wasn’t all I had.
I pulled out my Lexington and grabbed some tools and after digging around I found some gun oil.
Let’s do some maintenance on my poor pistol that was worked so hard today, and then I would see about doing some work on it in general. Maybe a silencer?
Maybe I should upgrade from a Lexington to a Nue, or something? Put a silencer on that?
I ended up shaking my head. My Lexington would do pretty well with a Silencer, but I liked the fact it was full auto.
I ended up pulling the shard that had Mitch's information on how to make his silencer goop for the Overwatch and refreshed myself with it.
“That could be a fun project.” I muttered as I finished putting the Lexington back together after giving it a full cleaning, it had needed that pretty badly. There was a lot of buildup in the barrel, and some of the parts were wearing down, but mostly the barrel. That ammo I bought for practice today was shit. Oh well. It was cheap, and it was good reflex practice.
I hummed to myself as I looked over everything I would need for a silencer, I had some of the stuff, but Mitches Nanite goop that would auto repair the Silencer as it was used was too useful not to want to mess with.
Even if this was going to be a silencer I could fit on and off at will unlike the attached barrel of the Overwatch.
I needed… Well a few additional tools. Making nanomachines wasn’t an easy job, as I started writing down what I needed I realized I really couldn’t do a silencer like Mitch’s. Like… At all.
I tried to figure out how to make the nanite goop, and despite my best efforts I just… Didn’t know how. Sure I had the instructions but what Mitch had written down considered someone already knowing how to work some things that I didn’t.
It had been a while since I had run into something that I just outright didn’t know.
“So I need to level Technical Ability first, I’ll make a more standard silencer to get by until later.” I decided with a mutter to myself, as I pulled out pieces and then had to sigh.
I didn’t have the parts for the electronic baffler.
Sure I could make a bog standard silencer, but it wouldn’t be silent. The fact Cyberpunk tech had nearly perfect silencers was something the modern world wasn’t even close to copying.
Okay I needed to go to an electronics store… And probably a tinker place too, because I could use some extra scrap metals if I wanted to make more than just one Silencer.
I needed more stuff to build if I was going to level tech after all…
Okay I was going to mod some of the rest of my weapons. I mean I couldn’t mod my Burya with anything. At least not with my current knowledge. But the Copperhead I’ve been using could fit a silencer…
Heh that could be pretty fun. Going into a gig all tactical and stuff? I had sort of done it with Jackie that one time we hit Scavs together.
Ah, that was fun. Killing Scavs with the chooms.
I quickly brought up a second CAD design for a silencer to fit a Copperhead. The Copperhead was easy, but the Lexington? I would have to modify the barrel, or make an entirely new barrel for it.
That just meant more work though. More work meant more XP!
After a few designs I had my list of parts I needed. I had even gotten a tech XP alert just for designing the parts!
I left my bedroom noticing that Akari and Jun were still chatting, a tablet in front of both of them that they were looking over.
I shrugged.
They would let me know if I could help, or not. “I’m hitting the store. Be back in a bit.” I called out as I left.
As I walked through the halls I heard Rockerboy Neighbor playing again. I hummed along to the music, actually recognizing the song that she was playing now as one from her set, and headed into the elevator.
—--
Tech stores were actually pretty common in Night City. So I didn’t end up having to go very far from the apartment to find a store that should have what I wanted. After a few minutes of browsing and filling up my arms with everything I would need I was back in the apartment. Ignoring Jun and Akari’s continued meeting in the living room, as I went to work.
First I set up the 3d Printer with steel feed to begin creating the silencers physical frame. Once that was started I rolled over to an empty section of the bench and pulled out the electronics I needed.
The Electronic Baffler was an interesting bit of tech. Using vibrations it basically countered the noise of the bullet leaving the barrel entirely.
Turning what should be a suppressor, into a true Silencer.
It wouldn’t silence the bullets themselves once they left the barrel of course. A piece of metal breaking the sound barrier was still a piece of metal breaking the sound barrier, but there were ways to get around that.
Close shots would keep it from making too much noise, and… Well messing with this noise baffle was giving me ideas for a quick hack.
Or maybe just an upgrade?
Noise Canceller? No, I would probably end up having to do the reverse. Noise Bang? I considered the name. Sure, it wouldn’t be stealthy, that way, but if I blind and deafen someone that would pretty heavily disable them.
I added it to the list of future ideas, and continued putting together the electronics of the small vibration dampener. Powered with a small battery, that was all integrated into the silencer.
I rolled my chair back over to the 3D printer, and pulled out the steel Silencer that was now finished. I replaced it with the barrel of my Lexington. Which was just having the tip of the barrel adjusted to let the silencer be screwed onto it.
With that being prepared I moved the Silencer onto the workbench and started sanding down a bit of the exterior where the steel was sharp. I painted it. Leaving it a matte black.
Then I popped open the small section of the silencer, and started putting in the electronics and battery.
Once that was done I sealed that up. And placed the completed Silencer on the desk.
“Cool.”
Yeah it was cool. Silencers were cool. I rolled back over to the 3D printer the barrel was almost done, and I just tinkered with my Lexington, getting it ready for the barrel as I let it finish.
Then as the noise of the printer ended I grabbed the still warm barrel, and slid it into place. Then grabbed the Silencer and screwed it on.
“That’s fucking cool.” I muttered. I made sure the lexington was empty before drawing it up, and then putting it down, getting a feel for the pistol's new weight.
Then I tried to put it into the holster and realized a problem.
“Silencer doesn’t fit.”
—--
I stepped out of the room deciding to take a break. I had an idea on what to do about the silencer, but that would happen later. I walked out to get a drink out of the fridge and noticed Jun and Akari were both gone.
I hope they were okay, but…
It created some good news, it meant it was Rockerboy time!
I ran back into my room and grabbed my guitar and Music box and dragged them out to the couch. Plugging my personal link into the music box, I was ready to do more music!
I actually had a pretty good idea for a song that I wanted to add to my collection!
This time it would be heavy electronica. I would barely need my guitar this time. A challenge. Like how The Only Thing They Fear made me push beyond just normal instruments.
But it would be worth it.
I went back to my room and grabbed the speakers as well, hooking them up so I could physically hear the sound instead of just relying on my agents Cyber Audio Suite.
Slowly the noise started filling the apartment. Thankfully this apartment was so big, the acoustics were much better than the old one. I wouldn’t disturb every person in the building like our last apartment, so I didn’t feel bad about doing some song writing.
I mean, if Rockerboy Neighbor did it, then I could too!
Yet even with the challenge of going far more electronic than my usual songs, I barely struggled in putting the song together. I already knew it after all.
I had listened to it at least once. So I knew every chord. Every beat.
“Rise… They will remember you. RIIIISE!” I recorded having finished the instrumental part, now I was just recording the vocals. Altering my voice for each different singer so it actually sounded like a team of people in the song.
Ah man. Rise was such a nerdy song! I was so happy no one would ever know I was remaking a fucking video game championship song.
It was so catchy though!
“Push through hell and RISE! RISE!” I belted out. Totally into it, as I listened to the song both aloud and through my agent. Checking for errors that I would need to adjust.
I finished another vocal track and turned only to instantly yelp and lose my balance from the couch.
“Jun! You jerk! If you were here you should have said something!” I demanded throwing an empty can of soda at him.
He just reached out and grabbed it out of the air before it could hit him. Akari standing beside him was looking about half as excited as she normally was.
“That was nova Toko! I like your other song more though.” She offered and I turned to glare at Jun again firmly pointing.
“You wouldn't know about any of the songs if not for this gonk!”
“If you were trying to keep it a real secret, putting it in a BD probably wasn’t a good idea.” He said as he pushed me aside with a gentle bump of his hip that still sent me stumbling. Akari and Jun both took a seat on the couch, a tablet pulled out that they both ducked their head into.
“Okay seriously what is with you two?”
“Nothing.” Jun offered but I wasn’t going to take that.
Both Akari and Jun were worried about something.
“Bullshit. What’s going on?”
“TC business Imouto. Nothing you want to get involved with.” Jun said cutting off the conversation and I hesitated. Because he was right. I didn’t want to get involved in TC business.
“Fine, but whatever it is, even if I don’t want to get involved, if you need help tell me.” I threw my hands up then and took a few steps towards my room, but I didn’t want to do anything in there right now…
I walked out of the apartment instead.
Time to workout a bit.
—---
“If only half the worthless gonks that come to me for a bit of muscle have half your dedication.” John offered as I was once more pushing myself.
“You probably say that… To all the… Kids that show… some effort.” I spoke in between squats and the old man barked a laugh at that.
“Yes, but that only makes what I said even more true. Haven’t seen your brother come back.”
“Jun… Is doing some work… Right now… I’ll remind him… Soon.”
“Excellent. Fujimura wanted me to keep an eye on his little chrome soldiers.”
“Rude.”
“Heh. Been around as long as I have, seen how many of those chromed out morons lose themselves and you stop feeling much sympathy.”
“Well… Jun is… Pretty solid now.”
“Yeah, I saw that. Kids got a good head on his shoulders. That won’t save him if he keeps chroming out. And he will if he doesn’t get some damn exercise. That’s one of the biggest excuses. Not strong enough.”
“Heh.” I couldn’t help but chuckle because I had heard that before. Maine. David. Both of those morons said the same thing.
“Still don’t blow out your knees, this is the second day in a row I’ve seen you belting out those squats.”
I sighed internally and nodded. Finishing my last rep before racking the weights. This is why I didn’t want someone trying to ‘train’ me. They might notice I didn’t respond to shit the same way a normal person would, my legs weren’t tired the day after exercise, because I healed completely with a nap.
“Thanks for the talk.” I offered, and reached over to grab my Burya and shoulder holster that I had removed while training.
“Hey hold up kid. I didn’t come to chat with you to talk about your brother or poor training methods. I have a kid your age that I’m training. But she’s getting a bit out of hand. She doesn’t have anyone her age bracket to challenge her.” John explained and I instantly felt my face flatten.
“You’re kidding right. You want me to what? Become her rival or something?”
“Heh. A rival would be good, but I don’t expect that, you probably won’t win. I just need a challenge. Something to push her. To make her realize she can’t just coast by on her talent.” John offered, and it was with absolute surety that the man pulled out the ‘I know you won’t win’ card, just to get me to agree.
But fuck it. I was bored, and I could use some Street Fighting XP. Not that I was going to make it that easy.
“What’s in it for me?” I asked, and the man smiled.
“Well for one. Access to a better gym than this place.”
“Meh.” I replied instantly as being watched while I worked out was kinda the problem.
“Heh, fine. Do this and I’ll make it worth your while with some eddies. Say three hundred?”
Three hundred eddies was pocket change. But I wasn’t going to try and squeeze blood from a rock. “Fine.”
“Alright. C’mon kid.” He waved me to follow but I didn’t.
“Motoko.” I informed him simply with a frown. Thankfully he picked what I was putting down a moment after.
“Fair enough, C’mon Motoko, let's go meet Hayato.”
This time I followed. Out of the Gym area, then down the red neon steps that led up to the buildings. I thought for a moment we would get in a car, but instead John just took a left and turned into a small section that had a bunch of elevators.
Then we skipped those too!
There was a path on the right that hugged the building and we went a ways down before he turned in and entered into a heavily inset door.
If I wasn’t fully armed and dealing with TC thugs I might have started to get a little concerned at this point, but the door opened into…
Well a little gym. A hole in the wall gym. I didn’t know this place was here, then again. I didn’t know a lot of shops in the area.
Gomorrah. Was the large name painted across the wall.
And as we walked in I noticed there was an area in the middle that had mats and standing on the mats was a girl around my age. At least I think she was my age.
She was about my height. Maybe a little taller, I realized as she was wearing pads for her feet rather than shoes and I was still in my boots.
But it was the tattoos that covered arms and back that made me realize this wasn’t just an average girl. No teenager with more Tyger Claw tattoos than Jun could be normal.
The pure asian features were interesting as well. Straight black hair tied up into a bun and ponytail was an odd sight, because it was natural.
Just normal natural hair was kinda weird in Night City. Especially one with the money this girl obviously had.
The quick scan I did told me she also had a lot of chrome.
Including a Kerenzikov.
She was obviously impatient. Her body language dripped with how annoyed she was. So when John rounded the corner and she saw him she instantly started speaking, almost too fast. Her words came out in a rush that sounded almost sped up.
And she was cussing in Japanese.
So I understood exactly zero of it, other than she was upset.
I think I heard a baka in there as well?
“Hayato.” John responded, cutting her off, and she went silent while glaring. “This is Motoko. She’s going to be the one you fight today.”
“You bring me to this trash heap, leave me for hours and then expect me to fight some…” The girl cut herself off as she took me in fully.
Sure I had been exercising, but I was still fully armed.
I went nowhere without my guns now after all. I looked her over as well, and made my decision.
I pulled off my jacket and threw it over a chair near the entrance letting everyone see how armed I was.
A few moments later I hung my shoulder holster over the chair, and placed my Lexington and holster on the seat as well. My knife was dropped on it as well, and then I took a moment to drop my pouches on the chair as well, ammo, ammo, Maxdocs, ammo. All placed on the chair leaving it rather full of my equipment.
I sat on the chair next to it, and started taking off my boots as well.
“Who is this?”
“Motoko Kusanagi. You may have heard of her brother. The Oni of the Kamikazi.”
“Huh those Cyberpsychos?”
“Jun-Nii is doing really well actually.” I offered as I was finally free of my boots and stepped onto the mats.
“I’ve never heard of her. I don’t care if her brother is famous. That has nothing to do with her.” The girl argued snootily and I couldn’t help but chuckle. So true. I wasn’t an Oni like Jun, always relying on brute force and stuff…
The fact he called me a gorilla was long erased from my brain.
“And I did not bring her here for her brother's accomplishments.” John replied and I got to watch a second of the girl basically going through emotions that would normally take a few seconds before she scoffed.
“I am Hayato Nakagawa.” She said, speaking as if I should recognize the name.
I didn’t of course, nor would I somehow feel dumb for not recognizing some random teenager. So I was just going to deal with this like I deal with everything!
“Nice to meet you Hayato-chan! Let’s beat each others faces in, until we both feel better!” I chirped as I started hopping around a bit to limber up as I brought my hands up in a boxing stance.
My words seemed to do the opposite of creating comradery as the girl’s face shifted into the look of someone stepping in dog shit.
“If I must!” She growled and I could tell she was about to charge before John raised a hand and stopped us both.
“Gloves first Motoko. Over there.” he pointed and I noticed a rack with spare gloves and foot pads. I made a noise of pleasure as I had never gotten to fight someone with pads before! I quickly hopped over and took out a pair for hands and feet.
This was going to be fun!
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
So Motoko just found her shounen rival
Chapter 120
Seras
Well-known member
The wait for me to finish putting on the pads, seemed to do Hayato absolutely no favors. She was tapping her feet on the mats at a fast speed. Her hands kept twitching up like she was going to start pointing and yelling or something, but she would bring them down as soon as the urge hit, so it meant her hands were jerking around a bit every few seconds.
Yikes.
Once I had gloves and the cool kicky foot pads I stepped back onto the mats.
“Try to keep it to pure martial arts.” John spoke out before backing off the mat, and that was all the signal Hayato needed.
She rushed me. Moving very fast across the mat, but it wasn’t Sandy like. No, instead as she drew close and started punching, I realized the difference between fighting someone with a Sandy and with a Keren.
The Sandy would move so fast you couldn’t react and you would be out.
The Keren though? They were just reacting to you as soon as you did something. Start throwing a punch? They already saw the motion and were prepared.
I went to block her first punch and a moment later was stumbling back as she shifted from a straight punch to an uppercut under my guard.
But Hayato wasn’t done. She charged right back in. Another blow, this time I did barely manage to get a guard up in time but she wasn’t stopping. Punch punch punch punch. A rapid series of attacks that she kept trying to slip in through any openings.
I threw a punch to make room and nearly got a blow across the jaw for it.
It was like fighting someone who was reading your mind.
In other words?
It was fun as fuck!
I had Street Brawler levels to grind here!
I lured her in, letting her focus on trying to punch my face in, when I bounced.
Suddenly she wasn’t punching my face but below my legs. She reacted instantly, trying to duck back, but just because her mind was sped up, didn’t mean her body was the same. I slammed a kick forward and she blocked it, but it still sent her stumbling back.
Then I landed and I had a singular moment where the initiative was mine!
I pounced. My legs launched me forward in a punch that she desperately tried to juke to the right to avoid, but I shifted from a punch into a grab, even as her arm was attempting to pull away from my move, even successfully managing to avoid my grasping hand.
Fucking Keren.
It didn’t matter because as I missed her, I was behind her, and the moment my feet touched the mat I launched myself back.
She couldn’t see me.
I was behind her.
She certainly felt it though when I pounced into a jump kick that sent her flailing onto her face.
I stepped back even as John moved to try and break it up and I got a nod for not pushing now that Hayato was down.
She stood up in a flash, her face in a rage.
We didn’t speak. Instead John stepped back and it was on. She rushed me again, but I had learned my lesson. If I stay on the defense, she beats me, because she could simply react faster than I could do anything. I charged in with a light leap, and then went straight into grabbing at her.
Grapples was my answer to her reaction time.
If I could get my hands on her, I would win. I was confident in my grappling with my skills so high, and with grappling perk boosting that.
Unfortunately. I think I made her angry. She was avoiding my grasping hands, and she timed me perfectly. One second I was bending down a bit to grab a retreating wrist when a fist smashed into my face, and I was off my feet.
I rolled and stood up shakily, completely surprised at what just happened.
She didn’t hit like a teenage girl. She hit me so hard I felt like Jun just took a swipe at me.
John had broken the fight again but was there this time seemingly waiting to see if I could keep fighting.
I twisted my neck and winced a bit at the crackle.
Ow.
Wiping my face I noticed I was bleeding even with the gloves softening the blow.
“Okay what biomods do you have and where can I get me some?” I asked joking, as I took a second for the room to stop spinning.
“Many, and that is unlikely. You do not strike me as someone with the wealth required.” She responded back cattily and I chuckled at that.
Fair enough.
Really wish I could grab a Maxdoc right now but that would be rather telling, instead I simply bounced around a second regaining my motion and nodded to John.
He backed up and my actions seemed to have surprised the little Power Princess here.
I had misjudged her because she had so little direct chrome. But the Keren I realized wasn’t her only upgrade. Biomods to enhance muscles and bones, and probably twitch reflexes. And it turned a normal looking girl, besides the Keren sticking out the back of her neck, fixed into her neural link and what were probably ECM tattoos into a monster martial artist.
But I was better.
Well through pure skill I was better. She was good though. Probably close to where I was through pure skill, she just had better stats.
Well the whole thing fell apart a bit there. What I was trying to say was that she was stronger and faster, but she relied on it.
I moved in again. Fists swinging to alter her pace a bit, make her react to me, even if she was really good at that.
I took a few blows as she weaved around avoiding my grabbing hands and she in turn attempted to slip blows around my arms, but I was pressuring her, and getting her rhythm. I feigned a grab and she struck.
My hand spun around and locking onto her forearm created a half millisecond of shock. I very rarely spun my hands around 180 cause it was kinda… Uncomfy.
Yeah let’s go with that.
But I was a grappler, and being able to grab with effectively the back of your hand was too useful to ignore.
Then she folded around a knee to the stomach and I was instantly on top of her. All of her power and reflexes were useless when she was face first into the mat in an arm bar she had no chance of breaking out of, even with her joints being more flexible than a normal persons.
My chrome hands didn’t get tired, and she simply couldn’t leverage enough force to push my entire weight off of her.
So for the first time in our little matches. She reached out and tapped out.
She was coughing a little as I let go and she rolled onto her back to breath, but she recovered really fast.
Faster than she should have from getting the wind knocked out of her and she rose up.
“You beat me?” She hissed, the question pulling from her with an almost stutter as she talked faster than she could seem to keep up with. I stood back up and prepped for her to strike at me, but she didn't. Instead she started talking in a buzz glaring at John, and it took a second for me to parse out what she said. “Did you hire some pretend teenager to humiliate me? Why do you always do this!? You always try to trick me!”
“I’m fourteen.” I offered after a moment realizing that John was taking a moment to answer. “And John just watched me exercise at the Gym outside my apartment. Asked me if I was willing to fight someone.”
“Shut up! I didn’t ask you!” She once more blabber mouthed at me, and I just rolled my eyes.
Whatever. This was fun I guess. I turned and walked back to my stuff. I pulled the pads off my hands as I flopped into the chair barely paying attention to the spoiled rich girl throwing an absolute temper tantrum.
My face still hurt, and I wanted to just get out of here.
I did get some good Street Brawling XP though. So it wasn’t all bad.
By the time I finished putting all of my gear back on, Hayato was finished her surprisingly quiet argument with John,
“Wait.” She called out as I turned to leave the gym. “It was rude of me not to acknowledge the bout.” I turned and to my surprise she did a cool martial arts pose, fist against flat palm and bowed. “Thank you for the match.”
I quickly took the same pose because that was polite, and not because I thought it was cool. “Thank you for the match.” I repeated and then Hayato stood and sniffed.
“Perhaps I will have John call on you in the future for another. You were… An acceptable challenge.”
Our eyes met for a moment, and I was surprised that the rage I had seen earlier was gone… Was that chrome? Some weird Biomod? Or did she just have good control over herself and knew how to push the anger aside?
I pushed the question away. It didn’t matter, but I could respect the apology for what it was.
“Sure, here.” I threw her my number which seemed to surprise her. “Feel free to reach out if you want to set up another spar. I don’t get enough practice with my fists, and that Keren of yours is something really useful to get some experience against.”
“Wise. Very well Motoko, I look forward to our next bout.”
I nodded at that. Hayato the Rich Girl. That had a fucking nasty right hook. Yeah I think we could be chooms.
—--
I headed home. As I was walking down the hallway to the apartment Rockerboy Neighbor was leaving. We each passed each other without a word, but my narrowed eyes must have signaled something because the woman watched me pass.
Then I pushed into the apartment only to see Jun and Akari still here. Both looked exhausted and sprawled out on the couches. I think Akari was actually sleeping face first into the cushions as Jun continued to work on whatever was going on with the two.
“I’m home. Got to spar with a girl with a Keren. I ended up winning, sorta.” I informed Jun but I only got a thumbs up in return as Jun continued working on the tablet.
Okay, fine then.
I grumbled as I went into my room, and just flopped on my bed. My face hurt, and my muscles ached a bit.
Time for a nap.
—--
I woke up and instantly slipped out of the bed feeling better with a lack of any pain on my face. I walked into the living room to see I was once more free from older brothers, but I wasn’t going to stick around to enjoy it.
I grabbed my equipment, and the big box of ammo I had bought for my Lexington. I hadn’t figured out how to carry the silencer yet, so I just slipped it into the ammo box and I headed out to the gun range I had found before.
Without Hiromi here, I could really do some work.
I had thought ahead and grabbed my copperhead as well. The gun range wasn’t clear this time. The old man behind the armored glass that ran the place gave me a lane, and when I went in two of them were filled with to my complete lack of surprise a couple Tyger Claw grunts.
Thankfully these guys were older than the normal teenagers I ran into, and they didn’t do more than pass an eye over me as I carried my equipment into my lane.
I settled the copperhead down for now, and grabbed my lexington. With a moment's effort I fitted the silencer onto the pistol and did some movement with it just to feel the weight difference. It would definitely change how I fired.
I hit the switch starting the electronic targets up and amped the difficulty.
Then I started firing.
It was silent. Other than the noise the targets made to indicate a hit. I went as fast as I could. Each shot firing into the targets with barely a hint of noise. The bullet smacking into the concrete wall behind the targets honestly was the loudest thing in my lane.
Something I would have to keep in mind. The noise baffler tech didn’t silence the entire shot even if it did cover a lot.
But that was half the benefit of physically taking my gun out and shooting it at a range. Experience.
And not just XP. I mean physical experience, on how my equipment worked.
That and the XP helped keep me focused. Getting a blip of an alert in my system every once in a while as I kept up with the targets made it all worthwhile.
Eventually though I had to stop, having run a few hundred rounds through my Lexington the poor pistol was heating up pretty badly.
I set it aside leaving the silencer attached for now. While the heat of the silencer couldn’t hurt my chrome hands. I wanted to let it cool down, and see how the silencer handled the stress I had just put it under before I messed with it.
Instead I grabbed my Copperhead.
Once again I fell into the rhythm of just firing at the targets. Trying to hit the center without hesitating just instant point and shoot.
The alerts came about as often as they had with the Lexington. The only thing that slowed me down was when I ran out of loaded magazines, and had to reload all of them. The Copperhead though was more resistant to overheating than the Lexington. Despite firing more than twice as many rounds through it, it was handling the heat pretty well…
Mostly because I wasn’t using full auto I supposed.
Then finally I felt it more than anything. I wasn’t checking the alerts, but instantly it felt like my body was moving faster, and my hits happened just that instant faster.
I stopped and pulled up my alert list and wasn’t surprised at what I found the feeling of my body altering, had become a pleasant experience.
*100 Handguns XP Gained.*
*100 Reflex XP Gained*
*100 Handguns XP Gained.*
*100 Handguns XP Gained.*
*Handguns skill level up!*
*100 Reflex XP Gained*
*100 Assault XP Gained.*
*100 Assault XP Gained.*
*100 Reflex XP Gained*
*100 Assault XP Gained.*
*100 Assault XP Gained.*
*100 Reflex XP Gained*
*Reflex Leveled up!*
Handguns 7, was nice.
Reflex 8, though was a massive improvement.
I hadn’t leveled Assault yet but… I paused and reloaded my mags.
Then I lifted up my Copperhead into the firing position and hit the button to activate the targets again.
It had been a while since I just grinded my combat skills. Relying on Cool and the synergy of everything to kill without really needing to push my shooting skills. Or my body.
It felt good to get back into grinding out stats. It felt… Right. Like I had forgotten something, and only now found it again.
“Damn kid. Not bad.” The TC grunts were packing up, although they had stopped shooting constantly a while back. Mostly just hanging out with each other and shooting the shit.
But I was absolutely drilling the targets. Pushing myself to move as fast as I could to get every target hit as soon as they popped up. If my shoulders were still meat they would be sore from handling the recoil and holding the rifle straight.
“Thanks.” I called back in return but didn’t stop my single minded task.
“Hah. You ever thought about joining up with the Tygers kid? You certainly got the ferocity for it.” One of the men asked, having moved behind me to watch, as the other two packed up.
“My brother is The Oni of the Kamikaze. Fujimura has been trying to get me in for a while.” I answered. I wanted to be clear where I stood.
I didn’t really like having an adult standing right behind me like this, and I was in no mood to kill a bunch of grunts if I could just throw Juns name around.
“Hoh! You’re the Onryo!” Another of the men suddenly called out and I nearly jerked my gun. Quickly I lowered my weapon and then looked at the bastards.
“What did you just call me!?”
“Onryo! I heard that rumor. When the Kamikaze were cleaning up the Scavs they kept hitting dens that were already trashed.” The man walked over and nodded to me showing me real respect. “A choom of mine is one of Fujimura-Sama’s gunmen. He worked with your brother that night. Told me they hit a few dens that were already cleared out, charnel houses of Scavs cut to pieces.”
I winced a bit as I remembered just how messy I had gotten that night with my blade. The Thermal Katana does a good job keeping me from getting covered in blood as it cauterized most of the cut as I made it.
But I had still been rough and quick. Half the cuts had been tearing the Scavs in half. My Thermal Katana was meant for fighting borgs and armored enemies after all.
“So that was you huh? Damn. You certainly don’t look like an Onryo, but I just saw that shooting you were doing. Nasty trigger time there. If you are even half as good with a blade I could see you earning that nickname.”
“I already have a nickname. It’s Ghost.” I grumbled, Fucking Onryo is dumb!
“Well there you go. Onryo is a ghost, so it fits just fine. More Claws like anyways. Look at your brother, we aren't calling him the ogre!”
“It would be less cringe if you did.” I muttered but thankfully none of the men heard my whispered grumbles.
“Well. We won’t hold you up Onryo. Good shooting.” they offered and I opened my mouth to argue that wasn’t my nickname, but they weren’t listening.
I turned insta raised my Copperhead and started firing.
The only way to make this better was more XP.
—--
I got home and instantly took my equipment to my room for cleaning and going over. I pulled open my Silencer to check on the electronics and winced.
Yep. That was some melted wires.
I ended up pulling out the entire baffler and after a few minutes of messing around replaced the wiring with a more heat resistant wire.
But that still left the main electronics board that was getting some heat scoring.
So I pushed the entire Silencer into my Printer to be eaten up and went to work on a different design. This one with a slightly longer profile. More of a rectangle, with some actual heat sinks scored into it, so that it can displace the heat a bit more.
I mean, it wasn’t as necessary, it wasn't like I would be firing my silenced pistol hundreds of rounds in a single fight, but… But if I could design the Silencer to have a bit of endurance, I wouldn’t have to worry about replacing it constantly.
Besides, it was kind of fun!
It didn’t take me long to make the changes in CAD and upload it into the printer, and with a bit more metals to feed the build, I set it to construct. Finished cleaning the Lexington and my Copperhead and then decided it was time to get a meal.
I was unpackaging a fried noodle dish I had grabbed from a cart downstairs and was back on the couch when the door opened.
I relaxed from nearly quick drawing seeing it was just Jun and Akari again, both of whom looked tired and worn out, and about half way to crashing.
“Okay what is up with you two? Who died?” I demanded standing up on the couch and pointing.
“About five of my men.” Akari answered instantly and Jun jostled her to get her to stop talking.
“Oh.”
Yikes.
Once I had gloves and the cool kicky foot pads I stepped back onto the mats.
“Try to keep it to pure martial arts.” John spoke out before backing off the mat, and that was all the signal Hayato needed.
She rushed me. Moving very fast across the mat, but it wasn’t Sandy like. No, instead as she drew close and started punching, I realized the difference between fighting someone with a Sandy and with a Keren.
The Sandy would move so fast you couldn’t react and you would be out.
The Keren though? They were just reacting to you as soon as you did something. Start throwing a punch? They already saw the motion and were prepared.
I went to block her first punch and a moment later was stumbling back as she shifted from a straight punch to an uppercut under my guard.
But Hayato wasn’t done. She charged right back in. Another blow, this time I did barely manage to get a guard up in time but she wasn’t stopping. Punch punch punch punch. A rapid series of attacks that she kept trying to slip in through any openings.
I threw a punch to make room and nearly got a blow across the jaw for it.
It was like fighting someone who was reading your mind.
In other words?
It was fun as fuck!
I had Street Brawler levels to grind here!
I lured her in, letting her focus on trying to punch my face in, when I bounced.
Suddenly she wasn’t punching my face but below my legs. She reacted instantly, trying to duck back, but just because her mind was sped up, didn’t mean her body was the same. I slammed a kick forward and she blocked it, but it still sent her stumbling back.
Then I landed and I had a singular moment where the initiative was mine!
I pounced. My legs launched me forward in a punch that she desperately tried to juke to the right to avoid, but I shifted from a punch into a grab, even as her arm was attempting to pull away from my move, even successfully managing to avoid my grasping hand.
Fucking Keren.
It didn’t matter because as I missed her, I was behind her, and the moment my feet touched the mat I launched myself back.
She couldn’t see me.
I was behind her.
She certainly felt it though when I pounced into a jump kick that sent her flailing onto her face.
I stepped back even as John moved to try and break it up and I got a nod for not pushing now that Hayato was down.
She stood up in a flash, her face in a rage.
We didn’t speak. Instead John stepped back and it was on. She rushed me again, but I had learned my lesson. If I stay on the defense, she beats me, because she could simply react faster than I could do anything. I charged in with a light leap, and then went straight into grabbing at her.
Grapples was my answer to her reaction time.
If I could get my hands on her, I would win. I was confident in my grappling with my skills so high, and with grappling perk boosting that.
Unfortunately. I think I made her angry. She was avoiding my grasping hands, and she timed me perfectly. One second I was bending down a bit to grab a retreating wrist when a fist smashed into my face, and I was off my feet.
I rolled and stood up shakily, completely surprised at what just happened.
She didn’t hit like a teenage girl. She hit me so hard I felt like Jun just took a swipe at me.
John had broken the fight again but was there this time seemingly waiting to see if I could keep fighting.
I twisted my neck and winced a bit at the crackle.
Ow.
Wiping my face I noticed I was bleeding even with the gloves softening the blow.
“Okay what biomods do you have and where can I get me some?” I asked joking, as I took a second for the room to stop spinning.
“Many, and that is unlikely. You do not strike me as someone with the wealth required.” She responded back cattily and I chuckled at that.
Fair enough.
Really wish I could grab a Maxdoc right now but that would be rather telling, instead I simply bounced around a second regaining my motion and nodded to John.
He backed up and my actions seemed to have surprised the little Power Princess here.
I had misjudged her because she had so little direct chrome. But the Keren I realized wasn’t her only upgrade. Biomods to enhance muscles and bones, and probably twitch reflexes. And it turned a normal looking girl, besides the Keren sticking out the back of her neck, fixed into her neural link and what were probably ECM tattoos into a monster martial artist.
But I was better.
Well through pure skill I was better. She was good though. Probably close to where I was through pure skill, she just had better stats.
Well the whole thing fell apart a bit there. What I was trying to say was that she was stronger and faster, but she relied on it.
I moved in again. Fists swinging to alter her pace a bit, make her react to me, even if she was really good at that.
I took a few blows as she weaved around avoiding my grabbing hands and she in turn attempted to slip blows around my arms, but I was pressuring her, and getting her rhythm. I feigned a grab and she struck.
My hand spun around and locking onto her forearm created a half millisecond of shock. I very rarely spun my hands around 180 cause it was kinda… Uncomfy.
Yeah let’s go with that.
But I was a grappler, and being able to grab with effectively the back of your hand was too useful to ignore.
Then she folded around a knee to the stomach and I was instantly on top of her. All of her power and reflexes were useless when she was face first into the mat in an arm bar she had no chance of breaking out of, even with her joints being more flexible than a normal persons.
My chrome hands didn’t get tired, and she simply couldn’t leverage enough force to push my entire weight off of her.
So for the first time in our little matches. She reached out and tapped out.
She was coughing a little as I let go and she rolled onto her back to breath, but she recovered really fast.
Faster than she should have from getting the wind knocked out of her and she rose up.
“You beat me?” She hissed, the question pulling from her with an almost stutter as she talked faster than she could seem to keep up with. I stood back up and prepped for her to strike at me, but she didn't. Instead she started talking in a buzz glaring at John, and it took a second for me to parse out what she said. “Did you hire some pretend teenager to humiliate me? Why do you always do this!? You always try to trick me!”
“I’m fourteen.” I offered after a moment realizing that John was taking a moment to answer. “And John just watched me exercise at the Gym outside my apartment. Asked me if I was willing to fight someone.”
“Shut up! I didn’t ask you!” She once more blabber mouthed at me, and I just rolled my eyes.
Whatever. This was fun I guess. I turned and walked back to my stuff. I pulled the pads off my hands as I flopped into the chair barely paying attention to the spoiled rich girl throwing an absolute temper tantrum.
My face still hurt, and I wanted to just get out of here.
I did get some good Street Brawling XP though. So it wasn’t all bad.
By the time I finished putting all of my gear back on, Hayato was finished her surprisingly quiet argument with John,
“Wait.” She called out as I turned to leave the gym. “It was rude of me not to acknowledge the bout.” I turned and to my surprise she did a cool martial arts pose, fist against flat palm and bowed. “Thank you for the match.”
I quickly took the same pose because that was polite, and not because I thought it was cool. “Thank you for the match.” I repeated and then Hayato stood and sniffed.
“Perhaps I will have John call on you in the future for another. You were… An acceptable challenge.”
Our eyes met for a moment, and I was surprised that the rage I had seen earlier was gone… Was that chrome? Some weird Biomod? Or did she just have good control over herself and knew how to push the anger aside?
I pushed the question away. It didn’t matter, but I could respect the apology for what it was.
“Sure, here.” I threw her my number which seemed to surprise her. “Feel free to reach out if you want to set up another spar. I don’t get enough practice with my fists, and that Keren of yours is something really useful to get some experience against.”
“Wise. Very well Motoko, I look forward to our next bout.”
I nodded at that. Hayato the Rich Girl. That had a fucking nasty right hook. Yeah I think we could be chooms.
—--
I headed home. As I was walking down the hallway to the apartment Rockerboy Neighbor was leaving. We each passed each other without a word, but my narrowed eyes must have signaled something because the woman watched me pass.
Then I pushed into the apartment only to see Jun and Akari still here. Both looked exhausted and sprawled out on the couches. I think Akari was actually sleeping face first into the cushions as Jun continued to work on whatever was going on with the two.
“I’m home. Got to spar with a girl with a Keren. I ended up winning, sorta.” I informed Jun but I only got a thumbs up in return as Jun continued working on the tablet.
Okay, fine then.
I grumbled as I went into my room, and just flopped on my bed. My face hurt, and my muscles ached a bit.
Time for a nap.
—--
I woke up and instantly slipped out of the bed feeling better with a lack of any pain on my face. I walked into the living room to see I was once more free from older brothers, but I wasn’t going to stick around to enjoy it.
I grabbed my equipment, and the big box of ammo I had bought for my Lexington. I hadn’t figured out how to carry the silencer yet, so I just slipped it into the ammo box and I headed out to the gun range I had found before.
Without Hiromi here, I could really do some work.
I had thought ahead and grabbed my copperhead as well. The gun range wasn’t clear this time. The old man behind the armored glass that ran the place gave me a lane, and when I went in two of them were filled with to my complete lack of surprise a couple Tyger Claw grunts.
Thankfully these guys were older than the normal teenagers I ran into, and they didn’t do more than pass an eye over me as I carried my equipment into my lane.
I settled the copperhead down for now, and grabbed my lexington. With a moment's effort I fitted the silencer onto the pistol and did some movement with it just to feel the weight difference. It would definitely change how I fired.
I hit the switch starting the electronic targets up and amped the difficulty.
Then I started firing.
It was silent. Other than the noise the targets made to indicate a hit. I went as fast as I could. Each shot firing into the targets with barely a hint of noise. The bullet smacking into the concrete wall behind the targets honestly was the loudest thing in my lane.
Something I would have to keep in mind. The noise baffler tech didn’t silence the entire shot even if it did cover a lot.
But that was half the benefit of physically taking my gun out and shooting it at a range. Experience.
And not just XP. I mean physical experience, on how my equipment worked.
That and the XP helped keep me focused. Getting a blip of an alert in my system every once in a while as I kept up with the targets made it all worthwhile.
Eventually though I had to stop, having run a few hundred rounds through my Lexington the poor pistol was heating up pretty badly.
I set it aside leaving the silencer attached for now. While the heat of the silencer couldn’t hurt my chrome hands. I wanted to let it cool down, and see how the silencer handled the stress I had just put it under before I messed with it.
Instead I grabbed my Copperhead.
Once again I fell into the rhythm of just firing at the targets. Trying to hit the center without hesitating just instant point and shoot.
The alerts came about as often as they had with the Lexington. The only thing that slowed me down was when I ran out of loaded magazines, and had to reload all of them. The Copperhead though was more resistant to overheating than the Lexington. Despite firing more than twice as many rounds through it, it was handling the heat pretty well…
Mostly because I wasn’t using full auto I supposed.
Then finally I felt it more than anything. I wasn’t checking the alerts, but instantly it felt like my body was moving faster, and my hits happened just that instant faster.
I stopped and pulled up my alert list and wasn’t surprised at what I found the feeling of my body altering, had become a pleasant experience.
*100 Handguns XP Gained.*
*100 Reflex XP Gained*
*100 Handguns XP Gained.*
*100 Handguns XP Gained.*
*Handguns skill level up!*
*100 Reflex XP Gained*
*100 Assault XP Gained.*
*100 Assault XP Gained.*
*100 Reflex XP Gained*
*100 Assault XP Gained.*
*100 Assault XP Gained.*
*100 Reflex XP Gained*
*Reflex Leveled up!*
Handguns 7, was nice.
Reflex 8, though was a massive improvement.
I hadn’t leveled Assault yet but… I paused and reloaded my mags.
Then I lifted up my Copperhead into the firing position and hit the button to activate the targets again.
It had been a while since I just grinded my combat skills. Relying on Cool and the synergy of everything to kill without really needing to push my shooting skills. Or my body.
It felt good to get back into grinding out stats. It felt… Right. Like I had forgotten something, and only now found it again.
“Damn kid. Not bad.” The TC grunts were packing up, although they had stopped shooting constantly a while back. Mostly just hanging out with each other and shooting the shit.
But I was absolutely drilling the targets. Pushing myself to move as fast as I could to get every target hit as soon as they popped up. If my shoulders were still meat they would be sore from handling the recoil and holding the rifle straight.
“Thanks.” I called back in return but didn’t stop my single minded task.
“Hah. You ever thought about joining up with the Tygers kid? You certainly got the ferocity for it.” One of the men asked, having moved behind me to watch, as the other two packed up.
“My brother is The Oni of the Kamikaze. Fujimura has been trying to get me in for a while.” I answered. I wanted to be clear where I stood.
I didn’t really like having an adult standing right behind me like this, and I was in no mood to kill a bunch of grunts if I could just throw Juns name around.
“Hoh! You’re the Onryo!” Another of the men suddenly called out and I nearly jerked my gun. Quickly I lowered my weapon and then looked at the bastards.
“What did you just call me!?”
“Onryo! I heard that rumor. When the Kamikaze were cleaning up the Scavs they kept hitting dens that were already trashed.” The man walked over and nodded to me showing me real respect. “A choom of mine is one of Fujimura-Sama’s gunmen. He worked with your brother that night. Told me they hit a few dens that were already cleared out, charnel houses of Scavs cut to pieces.”
I winced a bit as I remembered just how messy I had gotten that night with my blade. The Thermal Katana does a good job keeping me from getting covered in blood as it cauterized most of the cut as I made it.
But I had still been rough and quick. Half the cuts had been tearing the Scavs in half. My Thermal Katana was meant for fighting borgs and armored enemies after all.
“So that was you huh? Damn. You certainly don’t look like an Onryo, but I just saw that shooting you were doing. Nasty trigger time there. If you are even half as good with a blade I could see you earning that nickname.”
“I already have a nickname. It’s Ghost.” I grumbled, Fucking Onryo is dumb!
“Well there you go. Onryo is a ghost, so it fits just fine. More Claws like anyways. Look at your brother, we aren't calling him the ogre!”
“It would be less cringe if you did.” I muttered but thankfully none of the men heard my whispered grumbles.
“Well. We won’t hold you up Onryo. Good shooting.” they offered and I opened my mouth to argue that wasn’t my nickname, but they weren’t listening.
I turned insta raised my Copperhead and started firing.
The only way to make this better was more XP.
—--
I got home and instantly took my equipment to my room for cleaning and going over. I pulled open my Silencer to check on the electronics and winced.
Yep. That was some melted wires.
I ended up pulling out the entire baffler and after a few minutes of messing around replaced the wiring with a more heat resistant wire.
But that still left the main electronics board that was getting some heat scoring.
So I pushed the entire Silencer into my Printer to be eaten up and went to work on a different design. This one with a slightly longer profile. More of a rectangle, with some actual heat sinks scored into it, so that it can displace the heat a bit more.
I mean, it wasn’t as necessary, it wasn't like I would be firing my silenced pistol hundreds of rounds in a single fight, but… But if I could design the Silencer to have a bit of endurance, I wouldn’t have to worry about replacing it constantly.
Besides, it was kind of fun!
It didn’t take me long to make the changes in CAD and upload it into the printer, and with a bit more metals to feed the build, I set it to construct. Finished cleaning the Lexington and my Copperhead and then decided it was time to get a meal.
I was unpackaging a fried noodle dish I had grabbed from a cart downstairs and was back on the couch when the door opened.
I relaxed from nearly quick drawing seeing it was just Jun and Akari again, both of whom looked tired and worn out, and about half way to crashing.
“Okay what is up with you two? Who died?” I demanded standing up on the couch and pointing.
“About five of my men.” Akari answered instantly and Jun jostled her to get her to stop talking.
“Oh.”
Blasterbot
Well-known member
It's NC Motoko. this was actually rather likely.
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
Onryo is just going to have to learn the lesson that you don't get to pick your nickname.
Chapter 121
Seras
Well-known member
“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.
“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.
xachariahxx
Well-known member
This stinks of an inside job to me. It also helps that Akari is on rocky ground and has no political backing to call in the actual TC investigators or hire a runner, making her an easy target. Maybe some TC higher up's son caught wind of the situation and decided to enrich himself.
Hiromi seems to be racking up skills for Arasaka counter-intel. Any chance she ends up landing a work study intership under a certain agent named V?
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
I feel like all her friends all wanted to cringe when she did the hands in the center of the huddle part.
Seras
Well-known member
Yes. Yes they did. As all teenagers do when you try for a hands in huddle.