Ghost in the City Cyberpunk Gamer SI
- Thread starter Seras
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- cyberpunk gamer self-insert
Seras
Well-known member
No worries no worries. I'm not sick sick, just allergies and stuff making sleeping rough, and I stayed up late last night.
Karmic Acumen
Well-known member
So that's just human limit for programming, right? She didn't suddenly hit an overall XP cap.
Seras
Well-known member
Correct just for programming. (And Intelligence since that hit 10 too.) From now on, if she wants to level that stat, or skill she has to spend points on it.
So she can't grind past 10.
Seras
Well-known member
Correct. It was part of the system I added along with Adaptation to sort of balance out the infinite leveling she can do. I didn't want her to be able to hide in a cave and just max level without any interaction, so this forces her to really go out and kill if she wants to keep leveling.
Skynet incoming.
Chapter 75
Seras
Well-known member
I plugged into my laptop with my personal link, and opened up the program for Ping.
I was going to start at the beginning.
Instantly I felt literal revulsion.
Whoever had put this program together should be shot…
Okay I had been shot before so I’ll give myself a pass here.
It was a mess. My own work wasn’t… good. But it wasn’t just my work I was critiquing. Such a simple program bloated and twisted.
I could fix this.
But why bother?
Instead I started a new program, and started typing, my mental interface helping me adjust settings without needing to stop typing as my hands blurred over the keyboard.
There were a few lines in the old program I carried over. A few that had acceptable coding.
But I still fixed them. I altered them, smoothed them out.
Removed fluff.
Despite being a large enough program my Cyberdeck registered something as simple as Ping as actually taking up space on the Cyberdecks slots.
It didn’t need to be.
It could be tiny, a small efficient program that did exactly what it should do.
Hell. The way the program worked at a base level could be completely altered. Right now it connected with the foreign system, and basically blasted the system with requests for everything it was connected to.
It was like walking into a server and ringing a bell. Sure you would get the information, but anyone watching would now know.
So I did something different.
A little trick I had picked up thanks to Ghost Touch, and with the tiny size Ping now was, and the fact system connectivity was by definition less secured data than nearly anything else.
I looked up as Jun pushed my screen down. “Jun?” He ignored my question for the moment. Plopping a burrito in front of me with a look.
“Eat.”
“I’m in the middle of something.” I grumbled instantly especially at the sight of the burrito.
“Motoko, you've been on that laptop all day. Eat.”
I blinked looking out the window.
I had thought the dim light meant the sun was still coming up, but no.
The sun was going down.
“Oh.”
“Oh she says.” Jun grumbled at me, but I had decided to be a better Imouto. So I reached out despite my fingers desperate to go back to the keyboard and peeled the disgusting not burrito.
It was horrible, but it did fill me up.
—--
“Hiromi is here!” The voice calling out as our front door opened nearly sent me on the floor, only the fact I was holding my laptop full of wonders meant I didn’t end up tossing it to reach for a gun.
“Hiromi!” I snapped at her once again surprise entrance. I really needed to teach that girl to knock.
“Motoko!” She called back, instantly leaping over the side of the couch to land on me.
My quick reaction to save the laptop the only thing saving it from fat Hiromi ass destroying it.
“Hiromi! Watch it! You almost broke my laptop!”
“Nah you were gonna move it. Now what’s this I hear from Jun about you going all nerdy hermit?” She asked and I scoffed looking around the apartment for my brother, but I did vageuly remember him leaving a while back after making me eat… again. What time is it?
“Jun is a narc. I’m fine. I’ve been programming!”
“Ooh! Let me see?” Hiromi demanded sitting sideways in my lap, as she kicked her boots up on the couch.
“Hiromi, take your boots off. I like this couch.” I told her firmly, and she blinked before looking a little sheepish and did as I asked, although she then flopped back on top of me demanding attention.
“Personal space?”
“Don’t need it!” She replied instantly to my comment and I rolled my eyes at her, as I reached over her and grabbed my laptop.
“I’ve been fixing my Ping Quickhack.” I told her as I opened the laptop showing the code. Literally just lines of code all organized together.
I knew what was going to happen the moment I did so of course.
“I have no idea what this is.” She tells me after a minute of making understanding noises and looking over the code.
“Gonk.” I told her as I closed the laptop that wasn’t any use to my choom. “So Jun called you to come check on me?” I asked adjusting myself a bit as Hiromi continued to lay on top of me.
“Basically! He told me you were acting weird and to make sure you were okay. So… Want to go party? I’m still mad that last time you went with Malcolm and Ichi without me.”
“You had school!”
“I hate that you actually care about that.” She told me, as she sighed and slumped over me even more. “Motokoooo.” She whined at me as she flopped against me.
“Fine, we can go out for the night.”
“Great! I want to ride around all night! I’ve been stuck in a classroom forever! Motokoooo! Let’s goooo.” She whined at me, and I couldn’t help but laugh at my lap full of squirmy demanding best choom.
“Alright, let me get dressed and we will go for a drive.”
“Great! I’m dri-”
“No.”
“Ugh! I want to take my bike!”
“I’m not letting you drive again. That’s dangerous.”
Hiromi scoffed at me, before smirking, “Fine! You drive my bike.” She reached out and poked my nose and I snorted.
“Your bike is so…”
“Hey! Don’t badmouth my ride! If you don’t like it get your own Kusanagi!”
“Maybe I will!” I offered back and then Hiromi smirked at me. Ah.
She tricked me.
“Cool, I want to be there when you buy it and I demand the first ride.” She said looking proud of herself.
I just rolled my eyes. “I don’t have the eddies for a new bike right now Hiromi. But I’ll put it on the list. I do want a Kusanagi, but just a normal one.” I said finger pointed at her.
She just laughed at me, and slipped off letting me stand to get ready.
Finally dressed I followed Hiromi out of the apartment as she skipped towards the elevator which I climbed in with. Like normal her bike was parked outside the apartments on the sidewalk. Normally I would worry about it being stolen, but in this one instance her choice of bike had an advantage.
This was a TC neighborhood, and no one lifted a TC styled bike. I mean Hiromi still had plenty of TC decals on her bike too, so it really was protected.
If only it wasn’t so stupid looking! Massive swoop back seats? On a crotch rocket!?
My eyes glaring at the stupid back seat that just ruined the lines of a beautiful bike.
“Pfft. You are so picky. C’mon hop on!” she demanded as she jumped on and made room for me to drive, patting the seat in front of her.
I did as demanded, this was Hiromi time, she did deserve some time away from school, so if she wanted to drive around the city for a while, that was no problem for me.
She quickly grabbed hold of me tightly, like she expected me to just floor it out of the sidewalk. Which I of course didn’t, waiting for a break in traffic I pulled the bike into the street and headed out onto the town. Hiromi's moans complaining of me driving like a gonk in my ear.
—--
We drove around the city for hours, just enjoying the view and feel of the road.
It wasn’t something I would normally do, I liked having a goal whenever I went out driving, but in this case Hiromi just wanted some freedom, to escape the cage of school.
In this case I could understand, and so I didn’t mind that every time I started thinking about driving home Hiromi would notice and ask to go somewhere else.
We ended up driving all over. Checking out the sites, we even drove past the old Shinto Shrine out by North Oak.
We didn’t stop to go inside, just driving past it along the windy mountain road.
It was just a tourist trap anyways.
But the sights of the city from up on the mountains was nice.
Eventually Hiromi finally signaled to let me drive home and we did, but not before I stopped to surprise her with some food.
I had heard her belly rumbling as we drove, and so we found a nice little restaurant, and spent the next hour laughing with each other as she shared stories about what it was like going to Arasaka academy.
It was nice.
—--
After Hiromi dropped me off at home, it was getting pretty late, but neither of us cared. It was the weekend tomorrow so she didn’t have school, and my life literally had no set schedule. Unfortunately Hiromi couldn’t stay over, she had a thing with her parents in the morning.
So free of any choom shaped obligations I hurried back into the apartment.
Of course the moment I went inside, I flopped on the couch and grabbed my laptop.
Time to finish this!
Ping, even the version I was writing was still a big program, taking hours to go through every line and ensure it would be as compact, and efficient as I could make it.
Even when I finished writing the last line of code, that wasn’t the end, instead I went back through it, combing over the entire program, finding a few minor errors here and there that I hadn’t caught while I was programming, but now that I was fully focused on it, debug’s experience coming in clutch to catch the tiniest of errors.
Finally I stopped. Staring at the program as it compiled.
As my work over the last two days flowed into a single efficient effective program.
Ping. No Ping 2.0!
I unloaded the old version from my cyberware and installed the new one. Laughing that it took up so little space compared to the bloated inefficient program I had before that it not only didn’t take up a slot of my Cyberwares programming, it would use practically no RAM to activate.
I looked at the TV and pinged it. Watching in fascination as the program instantly got a return, as lines appeared on my vision showing me the few pieces of tech the TV was connected to. And then more. The light flowed to the transmitter the TV used to pick up stations, and actually flowed through that. My new design for Ping, completely uncaring about the ICE the system might use, as it flowed through and kept pinging off more and more equipment. Every TV in the building was highlighted showing the connection, and when it reached the roof transmitter that connected outward it started gathering data from that, before I stopped the program.
Okay I might need to add a tiny bit more code to actually limit the spread, that might be too much data return.
Well that wouldn’t take more than a minute just to tell it to stop pinging after a certain amount of system jumps.
Of course I would still want the option to go further, so a simple yes no, would solve that.
And done, recompile and reinstalled.
This is what Ping should have been.
—--
An hour later despite it being so late at night. I traveled to my netrunner basement. I had to admit I was so proud of my Ping 2.0 that I wanted to show it off.
So I hurried over to Dewdrop Inn after logging into the net and raced around to find Yoko. The Inn was unsurprisingly super active despite it being so late.
What’s that? Hackers staying up all night and sleeping during the day? Or not sleeping at all?
Color me shocked.
I stepped into the riot of color that was the Dewdrop Inn lobby, and looked around for my target, but I didn’t see any big Kitsune hanging around. So I took a seat in a quiet corner and sent a message to Yoko.
I got an instant response, telling me Yoko was in a meeting and would reach out to me once she was done.
I groaned. My desire to show off my program made me impatient, but nothing else I could do. So instead I decided to people watch.
Hackers were an interesting bunch. Some gathered in groups, some were on the dancefloor showing off their purchased or made dance routines.
I knew they were emotes though I don’t think any of them were showing their actual dance ability.
But that was what the net was like. It didn’t matter how you were at something physically, if you could hack, or program yourself with the skill you could be a master.
It was certainly interesting to watch.
In the end it was someone sliding into my booth that broke me out of my people watching. I guess I should have marked the booth private or something, if I didn’t want to be bothered.
If I knew how to do that. I had seen a few of the booths with the message floating over them.
“Hey, I don’t recognize you. Names E><. You can just flag me as Ex though. New around here?” He asked and to my surprise he didn’t sound flirty.
Thankfully.
I looked over his face, the only part of his avatar I could see just like everyone in the server, and was doubly glad. He had to be in his twenties at the youngest.
“Not my first time, but I don’t usually hang out here. Just waiting for a contact.” I offered, and unfortunately he didn’t take the hint that I wanted to be left alone.
“Well it’s always nice to see a new face! How’s hacking been? Run into any trouble? I know a lot of people with a lot of connections. If you need some info, or backup.” He offered with a smile and I shook my head.
“I’m good, thanks.”
“Ah listen, I’m trying to help you out kid. You’re obviously new. I’m part of a Netrunner collective, we help out newbies, give them gigs that can put their skills to use, you should-”
“Ex? Thanks but I’m good.” I denied cutting him off. I wasn’t really looking for netrunner gigs. I would make my own gigs here on the net.
Ex sighed and stood up. “Well good luck then kid. But don’t think it’ll be as easy to join up in the future if you end up needing help.”
“I doubt that will be an issue.” A third voice intruded, and I didn’t sigh only because I was too annoyed with Ex, at the sight of Yoko standing at the end of the booth.
“Yoko. How goes?” I greeted her, sounding relieved at her appearance.
“Fine, Motoko? You wanted to chat?”
Ignoring the other hacker I nodded, now smiling from ear to ear.
“I got something I think is pretty preem, I wanted to show it off a bit.” I told her as I twirled a finger pulling a copy of Ping 2.0 into a visual medium showing it as a glowing shard over my finger I offered it to Yoko.
I could see the interest in Ex as he looked like he was trying to peek, but Yoko’s own ICE slammed up a moment before my own.
Yoko was quick! That was a pretty insane processing speed!
Made me wonder what her cyberdeck actually was.
But a moment later Yoko had touched the shard file and accessed it. I couldn’t follow along because I couldn’t see the screens she was no doubt seeing visually infront of her face, but I could tell that she was impressed because she went from her normal sensual smirk to a flatter more focused look as she looked it over.
“Where did you get this? No wait, don’t answer that.” She demanded suddenly and waved a hand. I got a transfer request and accepted leaving the booth and Yoko and I both appeared in her private lobby instantly this time.
Last time Yoko had always used a gate to let me access it myself. It was a weird feeling to be moved like that.
“Motoko, where did you get this?”
“I made it.” I told her with a fox-like grin of my own.
Her neck jerking towards me as she focused on me told me everything I needed to know about Ping 2.0.
It was good.
Way better than something a fourteen year old should be capable of.
I kept my smirk as Yoko seemed to consider whether she would believe me or not before seemingly deciding not to argue.
“I’ve been working on my programming for a while, but in the end Ping was just too messy for me. So I rewrote my own basically from scratch. It’s more of a stealth hack than the original.” I offered and Yoko nodded.
“I’ve had a chance to see the best of what Ping can become, and while you don’t hit everything that it is capable of, this is… Different. It’s not the same program at all!” Yoko offered, sounding delighted.
“Like I said, I wasn’t happy with the original so I wrote my own.”
“I’d like to trade for it. The ability to trade copies as well.” She said suddenly and I blinked.
“What?”
She gave me a smirk this time. “I work as a trader Motoko. New programs, hacks, and information are all things I trade in. Something like this has real value.”
I nodded at that. It was true, but did I want to go down that route? Right now Ping 2.0 was completely unknown, no one could develop a counter to its stealth nature because no one knew it existed.
But in the end I shrugged.
“Alright, but it won’t be free.” I offered and instantly Yoko scoffed.
“Of course not! I’ll open up my stores for you. Let’s see if I can’t find something that catches your interest.” She offers with a smirk and I couldn’t help but feel a little excited. It would be nice to see what sort of things Yoko had collected. What valuable programs she had found over the years.
“Excellent… Now before that, I have to ask about the coding here.” She said, causing a screen to pop up and show the lines of code on the program.
“Oh!” I grinned as Yoko asked me code questions! Was I going to geek out about my code with Yoko?
Yes. Yes I was!
I was going to start at the beginning.
Instantly I felt literal revulsion.
Whoever had put this program together should be shot…
Okay I had been shot before so I’ll give myself a pass here.
It was a mess. My own work wasn’t… good. But it wasn’t just my work I was critiquing. Such a simple program bloated and twisted.
I could fix this.
But why bother?
Instead I started a new program, and started typing, my mental interface helping me adjust settings without needing to stop typing as my hands blurred over the keyboard.
There were a few lines in the old program I carried over. A few that had acceptable coding.
But I still fixed them. I altered them, smoothed them out.
Removed fluff.
Despite being a large enough program my Cyberdeck registered something as simple as Ping as actually taking up space on the Cyberdecks slots.
It didn’t need to be.
It could be tiny, a small efficient program that did exactly what it should do.
Hell. The way the program worked at a base level could be completely altered. Right now it connected with the foreign system, and basically blasted the system with requests for everything it was connected to.
It was like walking into a server and ringing a bell. Sure you would get the information, but anyone watching would now know.
So I did something different.
A little trick I had picked up thanks to Ghost Touch, and with the tiny size Ping now was, and the fact system connectivity was by definition less secured data than nearly anything else.
I looked up as Jun pushed my screen down. “Jun?” He ignored my question for the moment. Plopping a burrito in front of me with a look.
“Eat.”
“I’m in the middle of something.” I grumbled instantly especially at the sight of the burrito.
“Motoko, you've been on that laptop all day. Eat.”
I blinked looking out the window.
I had thought the dim light meant the sun was still coming up, but no.
The sun was going down.
“Oh.”
“Oh she says.” Jun grumbled at me, but I had decided to be a better Imouto. So I reached out despite my fingers desperate to go back to the keyboard and peeled the disgusting not burrito.
It was horrible, but it did fill me up.
—--
“Hiromi is here!” The voice calling out as our front door opened nearly sent me on the floor, only the fact I was holding my laptop full of wonders meant I didn’t end up tossing it to reach for a gun.
“Hiromi!” I snapped at her once again surprise entrance. I really needed to teach that girl to knock.
“Motoko!” She called back, instantly leaping over the side of the couch to land on me.
My quick reaction to save the laptop the only thing saving it from fat Hiromi ass destroying it.
“Hiromi! Watch it! You almost broke my laptop!”
“Nah you were gonna move it. Now what’s this I hear from Jun about you going all nerdy hermit?” She asked and I scoffed looking around the apartment for my brother, but I did vageuly remember him leaving a while back after making me eat… again. What time is it?
“Jun is a narc. I’m fine. I’ve been programming!”
“Ooh! Let me see?” Hiromi demanded sitting sideways in my lap, as she kicked her boots up on the couch.
“Hiromi, take your boots off. I like this couch.” I told her firmly, and she blinked before looking a little sheepish and did as I asked, although she then flopped back on top of me demanding attention.
“Personal space?”
“Don’t need it!” She replied instantly to my comment and I rolled my eyes at her, as I reached over her and grabbed my laptop.
“I’ve been fixing my Ping Quickhack.” I told her as I opened the laptop showing the code. Literally just lines of code all organized together.
I knew what was going to happen the moment I did so of course.
“I have no idea what this is.” She tells me after a minute of making understanding noises and looking over the code.
“Gonk.” I told her as I closed the laptop that wasn’t any use to my choom. “So Jun called you to come check on me?” I asked adjusting myself a bit as Hiromi continued to lay on top of me.
“Basically! He told me you were acting weird and to make sure you were okay. So… Want to go party? I’m still mad that last time you went with Malcolm and Ichi without me.”
“You had school!”
“I hate that you actually care about that.” She told me, as she sighed and slumped over me even more. “Motokoooo.” She whined at me as she flopped against me.
“Fine, we can go out for the night.”
“Great! I want to ride around all night! I’ve been stuck in a classroom forever! Motokoooo! Let’s goooo.” She whined at me, and I couldn’t help but laugh at my lap full of squirmy demanding best choom.
“Alright, let me get dressed and we will go for a drive.”
“Great! I’m dri-”
“No.”
“Ugh! I want to take my bike!”
“I’m not letting you drive again. That’s dangerous.”
Hiromi scoffed at me, before smirking, “Fine! You drive my bike.” She reached out and poked my nose and I snorted.
“Your bike is so…”
“Hey! Don’t badmouth my ride! If you don’t like it get your own Kusanagi!”
“Maybe I will!” I offered back and then Hiromi smirked at me. Ah.
She tricked me.
“Cool, I want to be there when you buy it and I demand the first ride.” She said looking proud of herself.
I just rolled my eyes. “I don’t have the eddies for a new bike right now Hiromi. But I’ll put it on the list. I do want a Kusanagi, but just a normal one.” I said finger pointed at her.
She just laughed at me, and slipped off letting me stand to get ready.
Finally dressed I followed Hiromi out of the apartment as she skipped towards the elevator which I climbed in with. Like normal her bike was parked outside the apartments on the sidewalk. Normally I would worry about it being stolen, but in this one instance her choice of bike had an advantage.
This was a TC neighborhood, and no one lifted a TC styled bike. I mean Hiromi still had plenty of TC decals on her bike too, so it really was protected.
If only it wasn’t so stupid looking! Massive swoop back seats? On a crotch rocket!?
My eyes glaring at the stupid back seat that just ruined the lines of a beautiful bike.
“Pfft. You are so picky. C’mon hop on!” she demanded as she jumped on and made room for me to drive, patting the seat in front of her.
I did as demanded, this was Hiromi time, she did deserve some time away from school, so if she wanted to drive around the city for a while, that was no problem for me.
She quickly grabbed hold of me tightly, like she expected me to just floor it out of the sidewalk. Which I of course didn’t, waiting for a break in traffic I pulled the bike into the street and headed out onto the town. Hiromi's moans complaining of me driving like a gonk in my ear.
—--
We drove around the city for hours, just enjoying the view and feel of the road.
It wasn’t something I would normally do, I liked having a goal whenever I went out driving, but in this case Hiromi just wanted some freedom, to escape the cage of school.
In this case I could understand, and so I didn’t mind that every time I started thinking about driving home Hiromi would notice and ask to go somewhere else.
We ended up driving all over. Checking out the sites, we even drove past the old Shinto Shrine out by North Oak.
We didn’t stop to go inside, just driving past it along the windy mountain road.
It was just a tourist trap anyways.
But the sights of the city from up on the mountains was nice.
Eventually Hiromi finally signaled to let me drive home and we did, but not before I stopped to surprise her with some food.
I had heard her belly rumbling as we drove, and so we found a nice little restaurant, and spent the next hour laughing with each other as she shared stories about what it was like going to Arasaka academy.
It was nice.
—--
After Hiromi dropped me off at home, it was getting pretty late, but neither of us cared. It was the weekend tomorrow so she didn’t have school, and my life literally had no set schedule. Unfortunately Hiromi couldn’t stay over, she had a thing with her parents in the morning.
So free of any choom shaped obligations I hurried back into the apartment.
Of course the moment I went inside, I flopped on the couch and grabbed my laptop.
Time to finish this!
Ping, even the version I was writing was still a big program, taking hours to go through every line and ensure it would be as compact, and efficient as I could make it.
Even when I finished writing the last line of code, that wasn’t the end, instead I went back through it, combing over the entire program, finding a few minor errors here and there that I hadn’t caught while I was programming, but now that I was fully focused on it, debug’s experience coming in clutch to catch the tiniest of errors.
Finally I stopped. Staring at the program as it compiled.
As my work over the last two days flowed into a single efficient effective program.
Ping. No Ping 2.0!
I unloaded the old version from my cyberware and installed the new one. Laughing that it took up so little space compared to the bloated inefficient program I had before that it not only didn’t take up a slot of my Cyberwares programming, it would use practically no RAM to activate.
I looked at the TV and pinged it. Watching in fascination as the program instantly got a return, as lines appeared on my vision showing me the few pieces of tech the TV was connected to. And then more. The light flowed to the transmitter the TV used to pick up stations, and actually flowed through that. My new design for Ping, completely uncaring about the ICE the system might use, as it flowed through and kept pinging off more and more equipment. Every TV in the building was highlighted showing the connection, and when it reached the roof transmitter that connected outward it started gathering data from that, before I stopped the program.
Okay I might need to add a tiny bit more code to actually limit the spread, that might be too much data return.
Well that wouldn’t take more than a minute just to tell it to stop pinging after a certain amount of system jumps.
Of course I would still want the option to go further, so a simple yes no, would solve that.
And done, recompile and reinstalled.
This is what Ping should have been.
—--
An hour later despite it being so late at night. I traveled to my netrunner basement. I had to admit I was so proud of my Ping 2.0 that I wanted to show it off.
So I hurried over to Dewdrop Inn after logging into the net and raced around to find Yoko. The Inn was unsurprisingly super active despite it being so late.
What’s that? Hackers staying up all night and sleeping during the day? Or not sleeping at all?
Color me shocked.
I stepped into the riot of color that was the Dewdrop Inn lobby, and looked around for my target, but I didn’t see any big Kitsune hanging around. So I took a seat in a quiet corner and sent a message to Yoko.
I got an instant response, telling me Yoko was in a meeting and would reach out to me once she was done.
I groaned. My desire to show off my program made me impatient, but nothing else I could do. So instead I decided to people watch.
Hackers were an interesting bunch. Some gathered in groups, some were on the dancefloor showing off their purchased or made dance routines.
I knew they were emotes though I don’t think any of them were showing their actual dance ability.
But that was what the net was like. It didn’t matter how you were at something physically, if you could hack, or program yourself with the skill you could be a master.
It was certainly interesting to watch.
In the end it was someone sliding into my booth that broke me out of my people watching. I guess I should have marked the booth private or something, if I didn’t want to be bothered.
If I knew how to do that. I had seen a few of the booths with the message floating over them.
“Hey, I don’t recognize you. Names E><. You can just flag me as Ex though. New around here?” He asked and to my surprise he didn’t sound flirty.
Thankfully.
I looked over his face, the only part of his avatar I could see just like everyone in the server, and was doubly glad. He had to be in his twenties at the youngest.
“Not my first time, but I don’t usually hang out here. Just waiting for a contact.” I offered, and unfortunately he didn’t take the hint that I wanted to be left alone.
“Well it’s always nice to see a new face! How’s hacking been? Run into any trouble? I know a lot of people with a lot of connections. If you need some info, or backup.” He offered with a smile and I shook my head.
“I’m good, thanks.”
“Ah listen, I’m trying to help you out kid. You’re obviously new. I’m part of a Netrunner collective, we help out newbies, give them gigs that can put their skills to use, you should-”
“Ex? Thanks but I’m good.” I denied cutting him off. I wasn’t really looking for netrunner gigs. I would make my own gigs here on the net.
Ex sighed and stood up. “Well good luck then kid. But don’t think it’ll be as easy to join up in the future if you end up needing help.”
“I doubt that will be an issue.” A third voice intruded, and I didn’t sigh only because I was too annoyed with Ex, at the sight of Yoko standing at the end of the booth.
“Yoko. How goes?” I greeted her, sounding relieved at her appearance.
“Fine, Motoko? You wanted to chat?”
Ignoring the other hacker I nodded, now smiling from ear to ear.
“I got something I think is pretty preem, I wanted to show it off a bit.” I told her as I twirled a finger pulling a copy of Ping 2.0 into a visual medium showing it as a glowing shard over my finger I offered it to Yoko.
I could see the interest in Ex as he looked like he was trying to peek, but Yoko’s own ICE slammed up a moment before my own.
Yoko was quick! That was a pretty insane processing speed!
Made me wonder what her cyberdeck actually was.
But a moment later Yoko had touched the shard file and accessed it. I couldn’t follow along because I couldn’t see the screens she was no doubt seeing visually infront of her face, but I could tell that she was impressed because she went from her normal sensual smirk to a flatter more focused look as she looked it over.
“Where did you get this? No wait, don’t answer that.” She demanded suddenly and waved a hand. I got a transfer request and accepted leaving the booth and Yoko and I both appeared in her private lobby instantly this time.
Last time Yoko had always used a gate to let me access it myself. It was a weird feeling to be moved like that.
“Motoko, where did you get this?”
“I made it.” I told her with a fox-like grin of my own.
Her neck jerking towards me as she focused on me told me everything I needed to know about Ping 2.0.
It was good.
Way better than something a fourteen year old should be capable of.
I kept my smirk as Yoko seemed to consider whether she would believe me or not before seemingly deciding not to argue.
“I’ve been working on my programming for a while, but in the end Ping was just too messy for me. So I rewrote my own basically from scratch. It’s more of a stealth hack than the original.” I offered and Yoko nodded.
“I’ve had a chance to see the best of what Ping can become, and while you don’t hit everything that it is capable of, this is… Different. It’s not the same program at all!” Yoko offered, sounding delighted.
“Like I said, I wasn’t happy with the original so I wrote my own.”
“I’d like to trade for it. The ability to trade copies as well.” She said suddenly and I blinked.
“What?”
She gave me a smirk this time. “I work as a trader Motoko. New programs, hacks, and information are all things I trade in. Something like this has real value.”
I nodded at that. It was true, but did I want to go down that route? Right now Ping 2.0 was completely unknown, no one could develop a counter to its stealth nature because no one knew it existed.
But in the end I shrugged.
“Alright, but it won’t be free.” I offered and instantly Yoko scoffed.
“Of course not! I’ll open up my stores for you. Let’s see if I can’t find something that catches your interest.” She offers with a smirk and I couldn’t help but feel a little excited. It would be nice to see what sort of things Yoko had collected. What valuable programs she had found over the years.
“Excellent… Now before that, I have to ask about the coding here.” She said, causing a screen to pop up and show the lines of code on the program.
“Oh!” I grinned as Yoko asked me code questions! Was I going to geek out about my code with Yoko?
Yes. Yes I was!
Last edited:
The infection spreads.
Blasterbot
Well-known member
Oh no she figured out Motoko's weakness. She is gonna get ahead of Hiromi now with long nights spent coding. and offering loot too? how can our Motoko resist?
Chapter 76
Seras
Well-known member
In the end I did agree to a trade, Yoko would owe me multiple favors, and a few quick hacks to be able to sell out my Ping to netrunners.
Picking up a few Quick hacks that I wanted to fill out my Cyberdeck really did make it worth it, even if the future favors that Yoko now owed me would probably be more valuable in the long run.
But more importantly than that. The pure excitement that Yoko had shown as we got into the programming, as we dug into the whys and hows made my night.
Totally worth the few days it took to fully program the thing.
Jeez just the fact I was able to remake Ping from the ground up in just a few days of work, made me aware of just what Programming 10 really meant.
Between the massive amount of experience and knowledge I had, and the Perks keeping me completely invested, and able to find and debug errors nearly instantly?
I was a monster of a programmer.
It was amazing.
Yoko had kept me in her lobby as we talked for hours about programming, but eventually I escaped. As I drove home long after the sun had come up, I was forced to wonder once again.
What would programming 11 look like? If I was already this good? I could already basically write an entire program in one sitting, no wasting time coming up with what I needed the code to do. I just wrote it, already knowing what the best way to code it was.
In the end, I would find out. As I drove through the early morning traffic, through a city that never sleeps, but did wake up from time to time, I knew that I would find out.
Because this world? This life? Was just too much fun!
I was still practically buzzing when I got home and flopped on the couch. Jun was out, probably doing more TC work, but I finally felt that urge, that need to code satisfied at least for now.
Sure I have even more quick hacks I wanted to play with, and there was of course the big project that I wanted.
And the music box.
I blinked.
Okay fine.
Time to finish my music box.
I pulled up my coding laptop and opened my old work on it.
Then I deleted it all. And started fresh.
I needed a system capable of handling the sounds I couldn’t make with a guitar, but it was more than that. I wanted it to be me still.
I didn’t want just bad recordings, I wanted my own music to be part of it.
So I got to programming. This time, I was inspired. The programming of the box was a few things. First, it was a sound system. I would be able to literally write songs, and add tracks and sounds to it directly.
The programming for that took a while, but when I finished I realized I would need even more hardware to handle this.
It needed a bigger harddrive, basically.
So I went back out and hit a computer parts store. It was less Netrunner stuff, and more home system use, but that was fine.
I shelled out a good amount of eddies for a large ‘modern’ memory storage, and installed that into my incomplete memory box.
“Motoko. Have you eaten today?” Jun demanded suddenly as I blinked and he was in the house.
Ah. I might need to stop getting so hyper focused when I worked!
“I think so?”
“Eat!” He demanded handing me a XXL burrito… was this punishment!? If I forgot to eat would Jun force me to eat one of these!?
“This is cruel and unusual punishment.” I complained but Jun was in no mood. Watching as I scarfed down the burrito so I tasted it as little as possible, and then he nodded.
“C’mon we are going out.”
“What? C’mon Jun! I’m in the middle of something!”
“Have you even left the house today?” He asked instantly with a glare, and I returned it.
“I have! I got home early this morning from netrunning. I then went to the computer store. Just because I’m getting distracted with this, doesn’t mean you get to treat me like a child, Jun.”
He looked like he was going to explode for a minute, but then he took a deep breath and let it out.
“Okay. I’m sorry.” He said and I blinked surprised at the sudden shift. “You have me worried though, you got sick the other day because you didn’t do anything but work on your program.”
“I… Okay yeah I wasn’t at my best, but it wasn’t because I got… Okay fine. I’ll set an alarm, and if I don’t eat or something I’ll suck it up and let you treat me like an idiot for a while. Deal?”
Jun seemed just as surprised at my words, as I had been at his.
Then his lips quirked up.
“Deal.” He reached over and despite my attempts to keep it away his hand patted my head for a few moments.
“How about we head out anyways. We haven’t really done anything besides hang out around the house in a while. We could go hit the gun range? Or visit Sensei. He bugged me the last time I was at the dojo that he hasn’t seen you.”
I blinked.
“Wait Sensei wanted me to come to the dojo?” I asked, actually surprised. Honestly considering how often he had put me in time out, I had the impression the guy hadn’t liked me very much.
“Motoko. Sensei thought you were preem. Hell I think you’re preem you fought off borgs with a Katana, while adapting to brand new Cyberarms. Remember?” He asked, looking at me like I was a dunce.
“I lost.” I reminded him how our fight had ended up. Akari had beat my ass, and Jun and I had ended up…
Well roughhousing was the kindest way to put it.
“You survived. C’mon. Grab your Katana as well, Sensei will be glad to see you, but he’s definitely going to force you into some Kata.”
“Aww Jun I don’t want to deal with that right now.” I grumbled, but he was smirking at me, and I didn’t have the heart to get into a fight to remove it.
Jerk would just sit on me again anyways.
“Fine. But I demand noodles for dinner.”
“We’ll eat after we see Sensei, it’ll work up an appetite.” He told me, smiling brightly and I sighed as I got ready.
—--
Walking up to the dojo for the first time in a while was weird. It didn’t look all that different, although it was a lot busier than it had been during the war.
Jun had driven this time, refusing to let me drive him in the Quadra so I was riding on the back of his Kusanagi. He parked out front right next to the twelve other Kusanagi all parked in front of the gate.
Like I said. Busy.
Once again the fact I wasn’t wearing any TC memorabilia, or had the tattoos meant that as I followed Jun through the gate, he was getting nods of respect, while I was getting weird looks.
We walked into the entrance of the dojo, funnily enough a room I had never been before, but Jun walked right past the little reception, taking me around to the side which opened up to the dojo itself.
It was filled. TC guys were all training, some with bokken, some with the exercise equipment laying around the area. But Jun walked confidently to the one person in the room I actually knew.
“Sensei.” Jun offered, holding a fist with his other hand and bowing.
“Kusanagi. And Kusanagi.” He greeted us both. I didn’t bow, but I did give him a smile and a wave.
“You look well. Have you kept up your practice?” He asked me instantly, probably already knowing the answer.
Dangit. Jun was purposefully not looking at me! Had Jun sold me out!?
“No. I haven’t had a chance to draw a blade in a while.”
“Then you will need practice. Kusanagi, go you know what training is needed.” He said looking to Jun before turning back to me. “You come. Let’s see how much you have lost.”
I didn’t groan.
Audibly.
I followed Sensei as he led me over to an open area, a place not to battle with another student, but just a practice area. He grabbed a bokken off the wall and handed it to me.
“Begin.” He demanded, and I nodded remembering the stances and swings he had liked.
So I exercised.
It wasn’t all bad. Swords were cool, but this still felt like a betrayal from Jun.
Now I know why he had agreed to noodles so easily. The bastard.
—--
“Who’s the kid?” I heard whispers among some of the TC guys that were practicing under Sensei’s watchful gaze.
“No idea. Sensei put her in the corner, she one of us?”
“No idea.”
They thought they were being quiet, but the room was mostly quiet outside of soft grunts, and my ears were pretty good.
I didn’t care though.
If I was going to be stuck practicing sword forms, I was going to try and wrangle another Blades level up out of it.
Or at least try.
But I wasn’t going to be left alone. Finally someone cracked, their desire to try and figure out who the weird girl in the corner was overrode Sensei’s wrath.
It made sense. Gang bangers weren’t known for their patience.
“Hey, girl, who are you?” One of the men said having stomped over towards me.
“Motoko.” I said but ignored him otherwise. I could see Sensei watching, and I knew how that man thought. If I stopped swinging he would be over here in an instant to berate me. Even if someone was interrupting my practice.
“Never seen you before. What are you doing here?”
“Practicing.” I said just restraining myself from rolling my eyes.
This answer didn’t seem to please the man.
“Fine. Then as your senpai, I’ll give you a lesson.” He said casually, at least trying to sound nice, but it was obvious the guy was looking for trouble.
Considering Jun wasn’t in the room at the moment. He had gone downstairs at one point. That was probably the only reason the guy wasn’t a smear on the tatami already.
“I’m good.” I answered instead, focusing on my blade work. Sensei was watching.
“I insist. Everyone who comes here, has to get used to the way we do things.” He said firmly standing in front of me, forcing me to stop swinging. Then he took a few steps back and raised his own Bokken up.
“Really?” I couldn’t help but ask. “You really want to do this right now with Sensei watching?”
“Sensei hasn’t stopped me. If you were one of us you would understand the rules of this place. Tsukune.” He said with a rather nasty smile before his face flattened, and he swung.
Did he just offer his name and attack? What a weeb.
He was strong. I noted, not borg strong, but he was a taller guy and he obviously worked out a lot.
Everyone’s picking on the teenage girl today. My eyes narrowed and I decided I wasn’t having it.
My Bokken instantly flashed out startling him as I went on the offense, swinging for his neck and face each time.
It was only a bokken, and swinging for the chest might make him ignore a swipe to really slam into me, but a face strike?
No one wanted to get hit in the face.
So he blocked, and that let me put him into my pace. He might be stronger, but I was faster, and I think I was better with a sword too.
He blocked a retaliatory swipe of his own Bokken trying to force me back but I just turned that into another swipe.
No, I confirmed. I knew I was better.
We continued with my blows constantly raining down. He was just good enough to block them, just good enough to ‘stay alive’ under my assault.
I could see the moment his face went from confident blank to actually worried.
The moment he looked at his chooms and then refocused on me.
I was pushing him nearly up against the well when I felt it.
An intrusion.
Someone was trying to quick hack me!
My own defenses were holding them off, but that wouldn’t last forever.
I tumbled backwards, flipping a few times to make room, and glared.
That one. The guy with the stupid face was trying to hack me.
I attacked him viciously. A Breach slamming into his personal ICE and a quickhack right behind.
Where he was taking time to break through. I had no such problems. His eyes shut down causing him to cry out, which was right about the time I chucked my Bokken letting it spin end after end until it smacked right into the now blinded netrunners face.
His quick hack ended just as abruptly.
Unfortunately I couldn’t enjoy my time. I spun smacking the bokken striking down at me away with a backhand. Tsukune, the fucker had tried to sneak attack me.
I rolled backwards until I reached the wall and then I rearmed myself.
Two Bokken were in my fists and I twirled my left hand one.
I was gonna beat this gonk black and blue.
“What is going on here?” Jun’s voice suddenly cut in and everyone stepped back.
Tsukune might be a tall kid, but he was practically half of Jun’s size after all the chrome Jun had chipped in.
There was a reason just his fat ass alone was enough to hold me down.
“Ah. Kusanagi-Sama!” Tsukune called out looking surprised.
Kusanagi… Sama?
I couldn’t quite hide the snort and snickering I let out, Jun turned to me with a glare that I was trying to hide my giggles from, but they were looking at Jun like he was some big important guy, and not the teenager that literally ate burritos for all meals of the day if I let him.
“What is going on?” Jun asked me, and I couldn't help it.
“Jun-Nii! These big scary meanies were bullying me! They made me fight, and even tried to quick hack me in the middle!” I whined purposefully using Siren Song to make make my voice as childish as I could.
Which might’ve been too effective as Jun’s nose wrinkled at me.
“Nii?” Tsukune asked, sounding a little faint as he realized what he had just done. I was smirking looking at the older guy, the guy who was standing next to my testy borg brother.
I was so ready for Jun to start growling!
“Motoko, don’t bully people.” Jun said suddenly cutting through my schadenfreude.
“Wha! Jun! They were bullying me! I was minding my own business doing the practice sensei gave me!”
“Sorry about my sister. She’s kinda a gorilla.” Jun absolutely bashes me!
How dare he!
Of course I retaliated walking over and punching him right where his kidney would be. Unfortunately his stupid chrome meant he just grunted a little at my strike and ignored me after.
“Ah… Of course Kusanagi-Sama, I didn’t know she was your sister.” Tsukune bowed to Jun nervously, but I was more focused on glaring at my jerkass brother.
How dare he not take the side of his shy sister getting bullied by a bunch of gym bros!
“Good, I’m glad. And one last thing.” Jun suddenly moved, and his hand was wrapped around Tsukune’s throat.
I had stepped back Bokken raised instinctively at Jun’s sudden aggressive action. But I relaxed.
Jun wasn’t a Cyberpsycho right now. It would be fine.
Poor Tsukune of course didn’t know that, lifted off the ground by my borg brother, his feet wiggling as they reached for solid ground.
“If you ever bother my sister like that again, I’ll make you regret it.”
To my surprise though, Sensei wasn’t getting involved. The older man was just standing back watching it all take place.
Finally Jun let the guy go as he flopped onto the ground gasping for air.
“C’mon Motoko. Sensei wants you.” Jun offered, returning back to the calm air he had just before.
“If you were gonna scare them, at least don’t throw me under the bus first.” I grumbled at him, but Jun just reached out and ruffled my hair as we walked over to Sensei.
Of course I batted his hands away, now wasn’t the time for headpats!
“Kusanagi. Spar with Kito.” Sensei said as we finally approached pointing me at another man that was probably a decade older than me who looked just as surprised. At first I thought he was talking to Jun, but Jun and Sensei instantly walked off back towards a corner.
Irritating.
“Uh.. hey.” I offered with a weak wave of my bokken.
“Kito.” He introduced himself, and then took a swipe at me.
I guess it was a good thing I was still holding the two Bokken I had picked up. I blocked, and started my own assault.
—--
*100 Blades XP Gained.*
*100 Blades XP Gained.*
*100 Blades XP Gained.*
I was reading through the alerts I had gotten after everything, clutching onto Jun as he drove us to a noodle bar.
He had promised after all, and he was right. I was now very hungry.
Stupid Sensei made me keep sparring with people whenever I beat one, or was defeated.
I would need to nap when I get home. I had bruises all over my body.
Unfortunately, while the alerts were good, I didn’t get an actual level up.
I would have to spar more if I wanted that sweet Blades level up.
“Sorry about that.” Jun mentioned as we pulled into a space near Cherry Blossom Market.
I guess the noodle shop there was Jun’s favorite.
“About what?” I grumbled at him. I hadn’t exactly planned to get dragged into a sword fight with everyone in the dojo.
“You know what. Sorry. I should have warned you a bit, the students at the dojo are very territorial. I think Sensei wanted to see how you handled them as well.”
“Sensei can suck a full bag of dicks.”
Jun snorted before gently bopping me on the head. “Be respectful, he helped both of us before… But yeah he can be a dick about it. You were having fun though. You were smiling while swinging those bokken.”
I gave Jun a deadpan. “I was forced to fight every gonk that wanted a round, of course I took the small pleasure I could by hitting them in the face.” I told him as we walked through the market.
“I’m glad you weren’t hurt too much. You’ve gotten pretty good with a blade. I’m proud of you.”
“Nuh-uh. You don’t get to be proud of me after throwing me into a weird winner takes all training session. Noodles first, and maybe after I’ll forgive you enough to let you be proud of me.” I told him and Jun actually laughed, an honest real noise escaping him as he leaned over and threw an arm over my shoulder.
“Deal.”
*Ringing*
I blinked. Feet stopped as a call came in.
A call from Wakako.
“Hold on.” I told Jun instantly, as my eyes went gold.
*Wakako, what’s up?*
*Stop by. Welles is already on his way. I have a gig for you.* The call ended, and I sighed long and loud.
Then when I ran out of air I took a deep breath slowly, and then sighed again.
“Rain check Jun-nii. I have a gig from Wakako.” I told him and he gave me that little frown he did whenever I went and did something dangerous.
“That was fast.”
“Wakako likes to hang up on people. It’s one of her things.” I mentioned and Jun’s eyes narrowed.
“Maybe you should stop working for her Motoko. If she isn’t treating you right.”
I scoffed at that. “Wakako is just grumpy. We spent like an hour watching some weird show last time I visited. It’s cool Jun.”
“You… Watched TV with Wakako. The fixer Wakako?” Jun asked, looking at me like I was crazy.
“Yeah? She has shit taste in TV too. Gotta go.” I told him as I turned and headed through the market towards Jig-Jig street.
First gig with Jackie?
Interesting.
“Fine! Call if you are going to be out late!” Jun demanded like a mother hen as I was walking away and I just nodded and waved behind me.
Picking up a few Quick hacks that I wanted to fill out my Cyberdeck really did make it worth it, even if the future favors that Yoko now owed me would probably be more valuable in the long run.
But more importantly than that. The pure excitement that Yoko had shown as we got into the programming, as we dug into the whys and hows made my night.
Totally worth the few days it took to fully program the thing.
Jeez just the fact I was able to remake Ping from the ground up in just a few days of work, made me aware of just what Programming 10 really meant.
Between the massive amount of experience and knowledge I had, and the Perks keeping me completely invested, and able to find and debug errors nearly instantly?
I was a monster of a programmer.
It was amazing.
Yoko had kept me in her lobby as we talked for hours about programming, but eventually I escaped. As I drove home long after the sun had come up, I was forced to wonder once again.
What would programming 11 look like? If I was already this good? I could already basically write an entire program in one sitting, no wasting time coming up with what I needed the code to do. I just wrote it, already knowing what the best way to code it was.
In the end, I would find out. As I drove through the early morning traffic, through a city that never sleeps, but did wake up from time to time, I knew that I would find out.
Because this world? This life? Was just too much fun!
I was still practically buzzing when I got home and flopped on the couch. Jun was out, probably doing more TC work, but I finally felt that urge, that need to code satisfied at least for now.
Sure I have even more quick hacks I wanted to play with, and there was of course the big project that I wanted.
And the music box.
I blinked.
Okay fine.
Time to finish my music box.
I pulled up my coding laptop and opened my old work on it.
Then I deleted it all. And started fresh.
I needed a system capable of handling the sounds I couldn’t make with a guitar, but it was more than that. I wanted it to be me still.
I didn’t want just bad recordings, I wanted my own music to be part of it.
So I got to programming. This time, I was inspired. The programming of the box was a few things. First, it was a sound system. I would be able to literally write songs, and add tracks and sounds to it directly.
The programming for that took a while, but when I finished I realized I would need even more hardware to handle this.
It needed a bigger harddrive, basically.
So I went back out and hit a computer parts store. It was less Netrunner stuff, and more home system use, but that was fine.
I shelled out a good amount of eddies for a large ‘modern’ memory storage, and installed that into my incomplete memory box.
“Motoko. Have you eaten today?” Jun demanded suddenly as I blinked and he was in the house.
Ah. I might need to stop getting so hyper focused when I worked!
“I think so?”
“Eat!” He demanded handing me a XXL burrito… was this punishment!? If I forgot to eat would Jun force me to eat one of these!?
“This is cruel and unusual punishment.” I complained but Jun was in no mood. Watching as I scarfed down the burrito so I tasted it as little as possible, and then he nodded.
“C’mon we are going out.”
“What? C’mon Jun! I’m in the middle of something!”
“Have you even left the house today?” He asked instantly with a glare, and I returned it.
“I have! I got home early this morning from netrunning. I then went to the computer store. Just because I’m getting distracted with this, doesn’t mean you get to treat me like a child, Jun.”
He looked like he was going to explode for a minute, but then he took a deep breath and let it out.
“Okay. I’m sorry.” He said and I blinked surprised at the sudden shift. “You have me worried though, you got sick the other day because you didn’t do anything but work on your program.”
“I… Okay yeah I wasn’t at my best, but it wasn’t because I got… Okay fine. I’ll set an alarm, and if I don’t eat or something I’ll suck it up and let you treat me like an idiot for a while. Deal?”
Jun seemed just as surprised at my words, as I had been at his.
Then his lips quirked up.
“Deal.” He reached over and despite my attempts to keep it away his hand patted my head for a few moments.
“How about we head out anyways. We haven’t really done anything besides hang out around the house in a while. We could go hit the gun range? Or visit Sensei. He bugged me the last time I was at the dojo that he hasn’t seen you.”
I blinked.
“Wait Sensei wanted me to come to the dojo?” I asked, actually surprised. Honestly considering how often he had put me in time out, I had the impression the guy hadn’t liked me very much.
“Motoko. Sensei thought you were preem. Hell I think you’re preem you fought off borgs with a Katana, while adapting to brand new Cyberarms. Remember?” He asked, looking at me like I was a dunce.
“I lost.” I reminded him how our fight had ended up. Akari had beat my ass, and Jun and I had ended up…
Well roughhousing was the kindest way to put it.
“You survived. C’mon. Grab your Katana as well, Sensei will be glad to see you, but he’s definitely going to force you into some Kata.”
“Aww Jun I don’t want to deal with that right now.” I grumbled, but he was smirking at me, and I didn’t have the heart to get into a fight to remove it.
Jerk would just sit on me again anyways.
“Fine. But I demand noodles for dinner.”
“We’ll eat after we see Sensei, it’ll work up an appetite.” He told me, smiling brightly and I sighed as I got ready.
—--
Walking up to the dojo for the first time in a while was weird. It didn’t look all that different, although it was a lot busier than it had been during the war.
Jun had driven this time, refusing to let me drive him in the Quadra so I was riding on the back of his Kusanagi. He parked out front right next to the twelve other Kusanagi all parked in front of the gate.
Like I said. Busy.
Once again the fact I wasn’t wearing any TC memorabilia, or had the tattoos meant that as I followed Jun through the gate, he was getting nods of respect, while I was getting weird looks.
We walked into the entrance of the dojo, funnily enough a room I had never been before, but Jun walked right past the little reception, taking me around to the side which opened up to the dojo itself.
It was filled. TC guys were all training, some with bokken, some with the exercise equipment laying around the area. But Jun walked confidently to the one person in the room I actually knew.
“Sensei.” Jun offered, holding a fist with his other hand and bowing.
“Kusanagi. And Kusanagi.” He greeted us both. I didn’t bow, but I did give him a smile and a wave.
“You look well. Have you kept up your practice?” He asked me instantly, probably already knowing the answer.
Dangit. Jun was purposefully not looking at me! Had Jun sold me out!?
“No. I haven’t had a chance to draw a blade in a while.”
“Then you will need practice. Kusanagi, go you know what training is needed.” He said looking to Jun before turning back to me. “You come. Let’s see how much you have lost.”
I didn’t groan.
Audibly.
I followed Sensei as he led me over to an open area, a place not to battle with another student, but just a practice area. He grabbed a bokken off the wall and handed it to me.
“Begin.” He demanded, and I nodded remembering the stances and swings he had liked.
So I exercised.
It wasn’t all bad. Swords were cool, but this still felt like a betrayal from Jun.
Now I know why he had agreed to noodles so easily. The bastard.
—--
“Who’s the kid?” I heard whispers among some of the TC guys that were practicing under Sensei’s watchful gaze.
“No idea. Sensei put her in the corner, she one of us?”
“No idea.”
They thought they were being quiet, but the room was mostly quiet outside of soft grunts, and my ears were pretty good.
I didn’t care though.
If I was going to be stuck practicing sword forms, I was going to try and wrangle another Blades level up out of it.
Or at least try.
But I wasn’t going to be left alone. Finally someone cracked, their desire to try and figure out who the weird girl in the corner was overrode Sensei’s wrath.
It made sense. Gang bangers weren’t known for their patience.
“Hey, girl, who are you?” One of the men said having stomped over towards me.
“Motoko.” I said but ignored him otherwise. I could see Sensei watching, and I knew how that man thought. If I stopped swinging he would be over here in an instant to berate me. Even if someone was interrupting my practice.
“Never seen you before. What are you doing here?”
“Practicing.” I said just restraining myself from rolling my eyes.
This answer didn’t seem to please the man.
“Fine. Then as your senpai, I’ll give you a lesson.” He said casually, at least trying to sound nice, but it was obvious the guy was looking for trouble.
Considering Jun wasn’t in the room at the moment. He had gone downstairs at one point. That was probably the only reason the guy wasn’t a smear on the tatami already.
“I’m good.” I answered instead, focusing on my blade work. Sensei was watching.
“I insist. Everyone who comes here, has to get used to the way we do things.” He said firmly standing in front of me, forcing me to stop swinging. Then he took a few steps back and raised his own Bokken up.
“Really?” I couldn’t help but ask. “You really want to do this right now with Sensei watching?”
“Sensei hasn’t stopped me. If you were one of us you would understand the rules of this place. Tsukune.” He said with a rather nasty smile before his face flattened, and he swung.
Did he just offer his name and attack? What a weeb.
He was strong. I noted, not borg strong, but he was a taller guy and he obviously worked out a lot.
Everyone’s picking on the teenage girl today. My eyes narrowed and I decided I wasn’t having it.
My Bokken instantly flashed out startling him as I went on the offense, swinging for his neck and face each time.
It was only a bokken, and swinging for the chest might make him ignore a swipe to really slam into me, but a face strike?
No one wanted to get hit in the face.
So he blocked, and that let me put him into my pace. He might be stronger, but I was faster, and I think I was better with a sword too.
He blocked a retaliatory swipe of his own Bokken trying to force me back but I just turned that into another swipe.
No, I confirmed. I knew I was better.
We continued with my blows constantly raining down. He was just good enough to block them, just good enough to ‘stay alive’ under my assault.
I could see the moment his face went from confident blank to actually worried.
The moment he looked at his chooms and then refocused on me.
I was pushing him nearly up against the well when I felt it.
An intrusion.
Someone was trying to quick hack me!
My own defenses were holding them off, but that wouldn’t last forever.
I tumbled backwards, flipping a few times to make room, and glared.
That one. The guy with the stupid face was trying to hack me.
I attacked him viciously. A Breach slamming into his personal ICE and a quickhack right behind.
Where he was taking time to break through. I had no such problems. His eyes shut down causing him to cry out, which was right about the time I chucked my Bokken letting it spin end after end until it smacked right into the now blinded netrunners face.
His quick hack ended just as abruptly.
Unfortunately I couldn’t enjoy my time. I spun smacking the bokken striking down at me away with a backhand. Tsukune, the fucker had tried to sneak attack me.
I rolled backwards until I reached the wall and then I rearmed myself.
Two Bokken were in my fists and I twirled my left hand one.
I was gonna beat this gonk black and blue.
“What is going on here?” Jun’s voice suddenly cut in and everyone stepped back.
Tsukune might be a tall kid, but he was practically half of Jun’s size after all the chrome Jun had chipped in.
There was a reason just his fat ass alone was enough to hold me down.
“Ah. Kusanagi-Sama!” Tsukune called out looking surprised.
Kusanagi… Sama?
I couldn’t quite hide the snort and snickering I let out, Jun turned to me with a glare that I was trying to hide my giggles from, but they were looking at Jun like he was some big important guy, and not the teenager that literally ate burritos for all meals of the day if I let him.
“What is going on?” Jun asked me, and I couldn't help it.
“Jun-Nii! These big scary meanies were bullying me! They made me fight, and even tried to quick hack me in the middle!” I whined purposefully using Siren Song to make make my voice as childish as I could.
Which might’ve been too effective as Jun’s nose wrinkled at me.
“Nii?” Tsukune asked, sounding a little faint as he realized what he had just done. I was smirking looking at the older guy, the guy who was standing next to my testy borg brother.
I was so ready for Jun to start growling!
“Motoko, don’t bully people.” Jun said suddenly cutting through my schadenfreude.
“Wha! Jun! They were bullying me! I was minding my own business doing the practice sensei gave me!”
“Sorry about my sister. She’s kinda a gorilla.” Jun absolutely bashes me!
How dare he!
Of course I retaliated walking over and punching him right where his kidney would be. Unfortunately his stupid chrome meant he just grunted a little at my strike and ignored me after.
“Ah… Of course Kusanagi-Sama, I didn’t know she was your sister.” Tsukune bowed to Jun nervously, but I was more focused on glaring at my jerkass brother.
How dare he not take the side of his shy sister getting bullied by a bunch of gym bros!
“Good, I’m glad. And one last thing.” Jun suddenly moved, and his hand was wrapped around Tsukune’s throat.
I had stepped back Bokken raised instinctively at Jun’s sudden aggressive action. But I relaxed.
Jun wasn’t a Cyberpsycho right now. It would be fine.
Poor Tsukune of course didn’t know that, lifted off the ground by my borg brother, his feet wiggling as they reached for solid ground.
“If you ever bother my sister like that again, I’ll make you regret it.”
To my surprise though, Sensei wasn’t getting involved. The older man was just standing back watching it all take place.
Finally Jun let the guy go as he flopped onto the ground gasping for air.
“C’mon Motoko. Sensei wants you.” Jun offered, returning back to the calm air he had just before.
“If you were gonna scare them, at least don’t throw me under the bus first.” I grumbled at him, but Jun just reached out and ruffled my hair as we walked over to Sensei.
Of course I batted his hands away, now wasn’t the time for headpats!
“Kusanagi. Spar with Kito.” Sensei said as we finally approached pointing me at another man that was probably a decade older than me who looked just as surprised. At first I thought he was talking to Jun, but Jun and Sensei instantly walked off back towards a corner.
Irritating.
“Uh.. hey.” I offered with a weak wave of my bokken.
“Kito.” He introduced himself, and then took a swipe at me.
I guess it was a good thing I was still holding the two Bokken I had picked up. I blocked, and started my own assault.
—--
*100 Blades XP Gained.*
*100 Blades XP Gained.*
*100 Blades XP Gained.*
I was reading through the alerts I had gotten after everything, clutching onto Jun as he drove us to a noodle bar.
He had promised after all, and he was right. I was now very hungry.
Stupid Sensei made me keep sparring with people whenever I beat one, or was defeated.
I would need to nap when I get home. I had bruises all over my body.
Unfortunately, while the alerts were good, I didn’t get an actual level up.
I would have to spar more if I wanted that sweet Blades level up.
“Sorry about that.” Jun mentioned as we pulled into a space near Cherry Blossom Market.
I guess the noodle shop there was Jun’s favorite.
“About what?” I grumbled at him. I hadn’t exactly planned to get dragged into a sword fight with everyone in the dojo.
“You know what. Sorry. I should have warned you a bit, the students at the dojo are very territorial. I think Sensei wanted to see how you handled them as well.”
“Sensei can suck a full bag of dicks.”
Jun snorted before gently bopping me on the head. “Be respectful, he helped both of us before… But yeah he can be a dick about it. You were having fun though. You were smiling while swinging those bokken.”
I gave Jun a deadpan. “I was forced to fight every gonk that wanted a round, of course I took the small pleasure I could by hitting them in the face.” I told him as we walked through the market.
“I’m glad you weren’t hurt too much. You’ve gotten pretty good with a blade. I’m proud of you.”
“Nuh-uh. You don’t get to be proud of me after throwing me into a weird winner takes all training session. Noodles first, and maybe after I’ll forgive you enough to let you be proud of me.” I told him and Jun actually laughed, an honest real noise escaping him as he leaned over and threw an arm over my shoulder.
“Deal.”
*Ringing*
I blinked. Feet stopped as a call came in.
A call from Wakako.
“Hold on.” I told Jun instantly, as my eyes went gold.
*Wakako, what’s up?*
*Stop by. Welles is already on his way. I have a gig for you.* The call ended, and I sighed long and loud.
Then when I ran out of air I took a deep breath slowly, and then sighed again.
“Rain check Jun-nii. I have a gig from Wakako.” I told him and he gave me that little frown he did whenever I went and did something dangerous.
“That was fast.”
“Wakako likes to hang up on people. It’s one of her things.” I mentioned and Jun’s eyes narrowed.
“Maybe you should stop working for her Motoko. If she isn’t treating you right.”
I scoffed at that. “Wakako is just grumpy. We spent like an hour watching some weird show last time I visited. It’s cool Jun.”
“You… Watched TV with Wakako. The fixer Wakako?” Jun asked, looking at me like I was crazy.
“Yeah? She has shit taste in TV too. Gotta go.” I told him as I turned and headed through the market towards Jig-Jig street.
First gig with Jackie?
Interesting.
“Fine! Call if you are going to be out late!” Jun demanded like a mother hen as I was walking away and I just nodded and waved behind me.
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Blasterbot
Well-known member
you liked it too! Motoko also has garbage tastes. everyone knows it. just listen to her taste in music. doesn't even like the preem modern stuff SMH.
xachariahxx
Well-known member
How does Motoko's Ping compare in game/objective terms?
On one hand she's at peak human skill and worked on it for three days. On the other hand, it's only peak human skill in a world with AIs and superhumans, and it only took her three days when other programs have decades of development.
Is this a case of her finally getting good enough that she's finally reached the entry level of actual cyberpunks, like an Uncommon/lvl20 Quickhack, or did she create something that's objectively better than what you can get on the market without street cred like Rare/lvl30, or is it something that even top corpos would want like Epic/lvl40? It does seem clear that she's not near the level of best in the world.
On one hand she's at peak human skill and worked on it for three days. On the other hand, it's only peak human skill in a world with AIs and superhumans, and it only took her three days when other programs have decades of development.
Is this a case of her finally getting good enough that she's finally reached the entry level of actual cyberpunks, like an Uncommon/lvl20 Quickhack, or did she create something that's objectively better than what you can get on the market without street cred like Rare/lvl30, or is it something that even top corpos would want like Epic/lvl40? It does seem clear that she's not near the level of best in the world.
Seras
Well-known member
Great question, and the answer is, it's complicated.
While I make reference to quality a few times, it's always Motoko sort of trying too infer what it would be. As it doesn't exist real world Cyberpunk.
I mean think of it this way. Ping isn't just four different versions of one program that are progessively better. There are likely thousands of different Ping variants for sale.
Some that are stealthy. Some that are fast. Some will highlight enemies. Some will do all of the stuff. Some might be expensive in terms of RAM, some might be basically free.
Motoko made a solid stealthy Ping variant. It would probably be epic-ish level. She would need to examine more high quality Pings as well as improve even more to make a legendary hack.
xachariahxx
Well-known member
Way to go Motoko then. She's really getting up there then.
I guess this holds for everything in that world; it's a richer universe than can be shown in the game. That's the best part of fanfiction, diving into the minutia that makes the world feel real.
Actually, does that mean there's dozens of variants of Burrito XXL? We know there's Burrito XXL Rosado (Pink) and Turquesa (Turqoise) in game, but... there has to be specialty shops where they sell dozens of variants of Burrito XXL, the same way that the right asian store will just have a wall of the dozen different Nissin Cup Noodle flavors.
I guess this holds for everything in that world; it's a richer universe than can be shown in the game. That's the best part of fanfiction, diving into the minutia that makes the world feel real.
Actually, does that mean there's dozens of variants of Burrito XXL? We know there's Burrito XXL Rosado (Pink) and Turquesa (Turqoise) in game, but... there has to be specialty shops where they sell dozens of variants of Burrito XXL, the same way that the right asian store will just have a wall of the dozen different Nissin Cup Noodle flavors.
Chapter 77
Seras
Well-known member
I walked into Wakako’s parlor to find Jackie not there and Wakako greeting me with a point towards a chair.
Her eyes were on her TV again.
Huh. Wakako really liked her shows huh?
I just shrugged and settled in to watch it with her, she would tell me what was up when Jackie got here.
And it wasn’t more than twenty minutes later that Wakako reached over and shut off the TV, just as Jackie Welles walked his bulk through the beaded door.
“Ah, Wakako, I hope I’m not late?” He asked, having noticed me already sitting there.
“No, Motoko, was simply close by when I sent out the call.” Wakako offered and Jackie gave me a nervous smile.
We hadn’t talked since our noodle outing, and I had honestly been surprised it had taken so long since to get a gig.
“Here are the details.” Wakako offered sending a message to both of us, and as we pulled open the files I was a little surprised.
“This seems a little incendiary.” I mentioned as I read who the target was.
“That is why it is going through me and mercenaries are handling it. If you think just because peace was declared, that it really matters, you are naive.” Wakako offered and I nodded.
The gig was to kidnap a 6th St. enforcer. A guy that had killed the family of a TC member during the little skirmishes during the war.
The Tyger Claw client wanted the man who killed his family dead, but couldn’t go after them directly anymore with the new peace. So Jackie and I were to kidnap Arnold Henderson for him.
Kidnap. Not kill.
“Motoko, make sure you are wearing something other than your normal gear.” Wakako offered and I understood why.
Can’t have this gig be done by Motoko Kusanagi, who could be ID’ed as a member of the TC.
Even though I wasn’t!
They just thought that! It wasn’t true!
But 6th St. might think it was true too. That’s fine. I’ll wear my Section 9 outfit instead.
“Jackie?” I asked him, the big man had been reading through the details in silence but he jerked a bit as I called out to him.
“Yeah Hermana?”
“Questions? Problems? Things you’ve noticed?” I asked him and he shook his head.
“Not a problem. Not the first time I’ve kidnapped some poor pendejo.” He said with a smile and I nodded.
But I didn’t just rush forward.
I had been burned a few times recently, due to my own planning falling short.
Hiromi having to bail me out once I realized I had no place to put the netrunning equipment sprung to mind.
So I thought.
How would the gig go, what would I need?
“Transport for the target?”
“I will have a car nearby for pickup.” Wakako offered as she took a lazy drag on her cigarette.
“Then I don’t think we’ll have any problems.” I offered, but Jackie didn’t seem to back me up afterwards.
Wakako didn’t care though, sending us both out of her office.
Standing out on the street in front of Wakako’s parlor, I looked to the bigger man and decided we needed to talk before this all went down.
“My apartment is nearby, I’ll need to grab some gear. You need anything from your place?”
“I’ve already got everything I need.” He offered, patting his jacket, where I noticed a bulge of a big pistol.
Big, but not Burya big.
“C’mon we should probably talk a bit too.” I told him as I guided him back to the apartment. “You’ve been weird since you came into Wakako’s office. What’s up Jackie?”
He was silent as we walked but finally he sighed. “I still don’t like it Hermanita.” he said, surprising me with the changed word.
My spanish unfortunately not good enough to translate.
“That you are teamed with me?”
“Not… You’re just a kid. I just don’t like the idea of me being responsible for keeping you safe.” He revealed and I was silent for a while this time as we walked into my complex. Jackie looked around a little interested as I led him to the elevator. Only when the doors closed did I speak.
“I said before, let's team up for a few gigs and get a feel for each other. And I get this is our first time working together. So I get the confusion, and the… hesitance. Not every day you see a teenager do our sort of work.”
“You trying to say I should shut up and see for myself?” He asked with a side smile.
“Heh.” I snorted at Jackie's instant rejoinder. “Yes, but no. I’m saying I get it. I’m still a kid. Listen, we have a gig, let's do the gig, and afterwards you’ll see I’m capable.”
Jackie sighed but nodded. “Alright Hermanita. Let’s go grab this gonk then.”
I nodded as the elevator opened and I motioned for Jackie to follow me into my place. The door opened and Jun was there.
Jun who was looking mighty concerned about the fact a big Valentino guy just walked into the apartment.
“Ah Jun-Nii, this is Jackie, Jackie, this is my brother Jun.” I introduce the two of them as the tension seemingly ratcheted up.
Thankfully it seemed mostly on Jun’s end as he was glaring and starting to square up. Jackie was reacting, but mostly looking pretty uncomfortable.
Ignoring the byplay I walked up to Jun and slugged him in the stomach.
It was really annoying that I could barely make my brother flinch when I did that. I was going to need to upgrade to some gorilla arms or something, so I could properly gut punch him.
“Don’t mind Jun, Jackie. Why don’t you take a seat for a bit, we have drinks in the fridge if you’re thirsty, I just need to armor up.” I told him as I left the room. As much as I wanted to stay and keep any friction down. It would be best if I just hurry up and get ready to go.
I could hear the quiet voices in the living room as I rushed through putting on my armored clothes.
Although I did leave the ninja mask behind.
Suited up I headed back into the living room.
Both Jun and Jackie were still standing around sort of sizing each other up.
“Okay! All set, let’s hit the road! We got gonks to deal with.” I called out and while Jackie looked to me, Jun was still glaring.
“Sure Hermanita, let’s… Go.” He muttered. Backing out the door, while Jun just glared at him. I took a moment before I walked out behind Jackie to turn to Jun and give him a “What the fuck” gesture.
He just continued to scowl, but eventually at my refusal to stop glaring back, he shrugged and just waved me on.
“Stupid Onii-chan.” I told him, earning a scoff and then I refocused on Jackie.
Time to get to work.
—---
Jackie Welles.
“You didn’t tell me your brother was the Damn Oni of Kamikaze.” Jackie finally spoke as they walked into the sunlight on the street.
“Huh? Yeah? Does it really matter?” The kid asked, turning back to him. Her face showing her honest confusion only made Jackie wonder what was wrong with this kid all the more.
“He’s a step away from… you know. They all are, and I’m hanging around his kid sister. Maybe a warning would have been a good idea?”
The purple haired girl cocked her head to the side as she seemed to process what he had said before she snorted.
Loudly.
“C’mon you’re way too old for me, and Jun knows that. He just doesn’t know you. I’ll tell him about our gig together after, and he will probably be a lot nicer next time he sees you.” She offered with a smile and a wave back and forth of her chrome hand.
“Next time she says.” He muttered, shaking his head. The look that kid was giving him? Yeah Jackie wouldn’t want to run into him in some dark alley.
What the fuck am I doing? Jackie shook his head. This wasn’t what he expected when he got in with Wakako. It didn’t feel right running with a teenager.
Is this…
Is this all he was? Equal to a teenager in the grand scheme of things? Jackie shook off the downer thoughts, No. He was a merc, good enough to work with Wakako!
It’s just this girl was just as good. Maybe?
“So want to ride with me?” She asked as they were both standing on the sidewalk. “My Quadra can fit us both.”
He blinked.
“You drive a Quadra?”
“Yeah a Type-66, I looted from a Wraith I flatlined on a gig. It’s preem.” And there she goes again, saying something that makes Jackie have to rethink everything.
“Sure. Hermanita. I only brought my bike anyway.”
“Cool!” She chirps and leads him across the street, leaving Jackie with his thoughts about what he was getting into.
Was she skipping?
Mierda. What the hell was his life?
Inside the parking structure, she led him over to a pitch black Quadra. A desert runner.
She was right, It was a preem ride.
“Jump in!” She called as she climbed into the driver seat, and Jackie followed sliding into the seat, although having to adjust the box that was on the passenger floor.
“Oh I forgot about those, just push the box under the seat. Or take a few if you want. Grenades can be fun!”
Jackie very carefully pulled open the case on the floor, showing an array of grenades resting inside.
There were indeed a handful of grenades in the bottom of the box.
“You keep grenades in your car?”
“I made them myself. Or at least some of them. Jun got mad about me keeping them in the apartment so they are stuck in the car now. I really need to make some time to make another batch.”
“Make?”
“Yeah? It’s easy. You just throw some stuff together, make sure you keep the triggers secure and boom. Grenade… Well not boom right then. You only want them to boom afterwards you know?” She said and then chuckled a bit making Jackie realize she was telling a joke.
He couldn’t help but chuckle a bit in return, although it might have been nervous laughter.
Homemade grenades between his legs.
Mierda.
Motoko finally reached the street as she had taken forever in his eyes to pull out into a gap in traffic, and then to his surprise, she drove…
Well she drives like an old granny. He blinked as she used her turn signal, stopped at the lights instead of blowing through them.
He had never seen a teenager actually follow traffic laws.
Hell he still only sometimes followed them himself.
What a weird kid.
“So plan on how we handle this guy?” She asked, never taking her eyes off the road.
Jackie had to think about it. He wasn’t usually the planning sort of guy, but he was with a kid. Couldn’t go in guns blazing.
“Well Wakako gave us his current location, but that could change. We wait and see, if it’s an easy smash and grab that would be good, if not we follow him home. Pick him up in his sleep.”
“Okay I’ll be able to get some intel hopefully, doubt a place like this has a runner watching the system.” She mentioned, and he relaxed a little. At least the kid was smart enough not to want to rush in guns blazing.
That was Jackie’s normal method, and not one he would want a fourteen year old copying.
As they pulled into the neighborhood, Jackie got the first look at the place. It was an old garage, now used as a drug lab from Wakako’s records.
And their target was the owner. A mid level boss in 6th St.
“That’s plenty of cars.” Jackie muttered and Motoko nodded, frowning as she drove past the place. The parking lot had a good handful of cars all resting in it.
“I’ll park somewhere, close and sneak up to check their security.” Motoko said and despite Jackie’s desire to stop her, he just nodded.
Wakako had said she was an infiltrator. She would have to be good. So he watched as she parked down the street, stepped out and meandered her way towards the garage, slipping around the fence that cut off the places lot from the business next door.
And Jackie waited.
He did end up pulling out his Nue. He wanted to be ready in case a gun fight broke out, so he checked his gun, making sure she was loaded, and he had the extra magazines on his hip.
Then a call came from the kid, he accepted it.
*Jackie. I’m in their security. They really need someone who knows what they are doing. I’m gonna bounce the cameras to you so you can see what I’m looking at.* And a moment later a video request came through his agent.
And then a window popped up in his eyes, and although it was blurry and a bit laggy he was looking at the interior of the garage.
*Found our guy, he is hanging out on the ground floor, looking over the drug production.* She said but Jackie had to squint a bit, not that it helped at the picture before he was pretty sure that blur was the guy.
*I think I see him.*
*Think?*
*Connection is low res and laggy.* He muttered as he checked over the video, at least he could make out how many guards there were.
*What? That doesn’t… You’re optics, they any good?*
*No.* He replied, laughing over the line. His optics were old, Vik kept bugging him about them, but he didn’t have the eddies for a good upgrade, besides they looked good, and that was half the reason he kept them. Made his eyes look all soulful.
Always got the ladies to cut him some slack.
*Gonk. Okay. I’ll stop sharing then. I’m pretty sure that room upstairs is his office and bedroom. Wakako did say he lived here. So we could wait kidnap him right out of his room. I’ve already taken over the security system. The camera’s won’t send him any alerts.*
*Damn. You can do that?* Jackie asked surprised, he hadn’t worked with a netrunner that could do that before.
*Yeah, it’s hard to do most of the time, but the security this guy set up is shit. Old NUSA protocols, stuff that would have been solid a decade ago, but it’s already been solved. I’ve already taken their entire system.*
*Well we are getting somewhere. How many guards do you see Hermanita?*
*Other than our target, there are four onsite guards, and three workers. We will still have to treat the workers as threats though.*
*Yeah people won’t want to lose a gig that pays in eddies like gang work.* He agreed he had been attacked by plenty of staff at places to know that.
*Alright… Hey Jackie. I’ve got an idea. Under the seat, a few of those grenades are flash grenades. We go in hard, stun everyone and secure the area. I can reboot the optics of anyone that causes any trouble as well, since I’m already in their system and then we’re gone.*
Jackie considered it. He wasn’t normally a sneaky type, and knowing where everything was made it a lot easier.
He took a moment to actually consider it. He didn’t want to risk the kid after all.
Then he nodded. If they hit them hard it would work.
*You sure these grenades will work?*
*Oh yeah, they are preem! I’m ready when you are.*
He nodded quickly, checking the box carefully and pulling two of the flashbang grenades out of the box before realizing he had nodded. “Alright. On my way.” He said, taking a deep breath and stepping out of the car.
Nue in one hand, and grenades in the other. Time to work Jackie. He hurried down the street, jogging but moving confidently as he came up on the garage.
*Window right next to the door leads to them. Break it and toss the stunners.* Motoko informed him and he nodded, quickly holstering his Nue, and popping the pins on both grenades.
*Sending them now.* and then he slammed them through the window.
A moment later two very loud bangs went off.
Jackie was already kicking in the door, his Nue in his hand as he rushed in. Ready to knock some gonks around.
Which he did instantly, a worker was stumbling around and Jackie gave them a quick left to knock them out of the fight. His feet moved as he rushed his target who was trying to escape as the man stumbled around trying to find the exit.
Jackie slammed into him smashing him against the concrete with his bulk, sending the poor bastard into unconsciousness.
“Bastard!” A voice called out, one of the guards. Jackie raised his Nue but he hadn’t needed to rush, a moment later the man's eyes crackled with electricity and he cried out as he suddenly went blind.
Kid was fast.
“F-fuck!” A scream called out behind him causing him to look up, right outside the office one of the guards stood, weapon in hand desperately looking around blindly as his eyes had stopped working too.
Then a moment later a loud bark of gunfire and the guy slammed into the stairs and blood started dripping down the metal.
Damn that was a big boom.
*Two more still Jackie.* The voice reminded him and he rose up marching across the garage floor to the other two guards that were trying to hide while recovering from the flashbang. Jackie simply slammed into them punching and slamming them into the ground.
They didn’t get up after a few moments of his attention.
*The workers are cowering. Grab the target. I’ll cover you.* Motoko whispered in his ear and he did just that. The girl was good overwatch, Jackie had to admit. He rushed the unconscious gonk and grabbed him, throwing him over his shoulder as he ran for the main door.
*Jackie! Stop!* Motoko’s voice in his ear, sounding loudly, sent his feet skidding on the concrete. *Another car just pulled up, more 6th. St. Turn around! Out through the back! I’ll keep them distracted!* She demanded and while Jackie wanted to hesitate and argue, he hadn’t seen the girl once since the fight started despite her making her presence known.
So he turned and rushed the back door.
It gave way to his shoulder as he rushed out into a back lot that was nothing but an overgrown lot. He closed the door behind him just in time to hear the loud yells of someone realizing something was up.
*Get over the fence. I’ll make it so they won’t be able to see you until it’s too late. Go!* He went rushing across the yard towards the fence that was looming over him. Getting over a fence wasn’t hard. Doing it while carrying someone was.
But before he even reached the fence Motoko was running beside him, her eyes glowing gold as she was still on a call with him.
*I’ll go over first and lift the gonk.* She tells him and he nods. Watching as she races ahead and scrambles up the fence like it was nothing, then one leg over it she reaches down and he practically throws the gonk at her.
To his surprise she didn’t struggle much with holding him up, he expected her to have a bit more trouble with it, but it let him climb up beside her, and between the two of them, they heaved the guy over.
Ignoring the groan he gave off when they dropped him down the other side.
He hunkered down looking through the fence expecting to see a horde of angry 6th. St. but there was nothing.
“Did they not see us?”
“Kind of hard to see anything when your whole group's optics turn off one after another. C’mon let’s get out of here before they can see again.” She told him and Jackie nodded, grabbing the guy and running.
In the end they ran a few blocks down and waited for Wakako’s car to pick up the poor bastard, once he was safely in the trunk. Motoko’s Quadra came rolling down the street and they both slipped in.
That went…
Pretty well actually.
Her eyes were on her TV again.
Huh. Wakako really liked her shows huh?
I just shrugged and settled in to watch it with her, she would tell me what was up when Jackie got here.
And it wasn’t more than twenty minutes later that Wakako reached over and shut off the TV, just as Jackie Welles walked his bulk through the beaded door.
“Ah, Wakako, I hope I’m not late?” He asked, having noticed me already sitting there.
“No, Motoko, was simply close by when I sent out the call.” Wakako offered and Jackie gave me a nervous smile.
We hadn’t talked since our noodle outing, and I had honestly been surprised it had taken so long since to get a gig.
“Here are the details.” Wakako offered sending a message to both of us, and as we pulled open the files I was a little surprised.
“This seems a little incendiary.” I mentioned as I read who the target was.
“That is why it is going through me and mercenaries are handling it. If you think just because peace was declared, that it really matters, you are naive.” Wakako offered and I nodded.
The gig was to kidnap a 6th St. enforcer. A guy that had killed the family of a TC member during the little skirmishes during the war.
The Tyger Claw client wanted the man who killed his family dead, but couldn’t go after them directly anymore with the new peace. So Jackie and I were to kidnap Arnold Henderson for him.
Kidnap. Not kill.
“Motoko, make sure you are wearing something other than your normal gear.” Wakako offered and I understood why.
Can’t have this gig be done by Motoko Kusanagi, who could be ID’ed as a member of the TC.
Even though I wasn’t!
They just thought that! It wasn’t true!
But 6th St. might think it was true too. That’s fine. I’ll wear my Section 9 outfit instead.
“Jackie?” I asked him, the big man had been reading through the details in silence but he jerked a bit as I called out to him.
“Yeah Hermana?”
“Questions? Problems? Things you’ve noticed?” I asked him and he shook his head.
“Not a problem. Not the first time I’ve kidnapped some poor pendejo.” He said with a smile and I nodded.
But I didn’t just rush forward.
I had been burned a few times recently, due to my own planning falling short.
Hiromi having to bail me out once I realized I had no place to put the netrunning equipment sprung to mind.
So I thought.
How would the gig go, what would I need?
“Transport for the target?”
“I will have a car nearby for pickup.” Wakako offered as she took a lazy drag on her cigarette.
“Then I don’t think we’ll have any problems.” I offered, but Jackie didn’t seem to back me up afterwards.
Wakako didn’t care though, sending us both out of her office.
Standing out on the street in front of Wakako’s parlor, I looked to the bigger man and decided we needed to talk before this all went down.
“My apartment is nearby, I’ll need to grab some gear. You need anything from your place?”
“I’ve already got everything I need.” He offered, patting his jacket, where I noticed a bulge of a big pistol.
Big, but not Burya big.
“C’mon we should probably talk a bit too.” I told him as I guided him back to the apartment. “You’ve been weird since you came into Wakako’s office. What’s up Jackie?”
He was silent as we walked but finally he sighed. “I still don’t like it Hermanita.” he said, surprising me with the changed word.
My spanish unfortunately not good enough to translate.
“That you are teamed with me?”
“Not… You’re just a kid. I just don’t like the idea of me being responsible for keeping you safe.” He revealed and I was silent for a while this time as we walked into my complex. Jackie looked around a little interested as I led him to the elevator. Only when the doors closed did I speak.
“I said before, let's team up for a few gigs and get a feel for each other. And I get this is our first time working together. So I get the confusion, and the… hesitance. Not every day you see a teenager do our sort of work.”
“You trying to say I should shut up and see for myself?” He asked with a side smile.
“Heh.” I snorted at Jackie's instant rejoinder. “Yes, but no. I’m saying I get it. I’m still a kid. Listen, we have a gig, let's do the gig, and afterwards you’ll see I’m capable.”
Jackie sighed but nodded. “Alright Hermanita. Let’s go grab this gonk then.”
I nodded as the elevator opened and I motioned for Jackie to follow me into my place. The door opened and Jun was there.
Jun who was looking mighty concerned about the fact a big Valentino guy just walked into the apartment.
“Ah Jun-Nii, this is Jackie, Jackie, this is my brother Jun.” I introduce the two of them as the tension seemingly ratcheted up.
Thankfully it seemed mostly on Jun’s end as he was glaring and starting to square up. Jackie was reacting, but mostly looking pretty uncomfortable.
Ignoring the byplay I walked up to Jun and slugged him in the stomach.
It was really annoying that I could barely make my brother flinch when I did that. I was going to need to upgrade to some gorilla arms or something, so I could properly gut punch him.
“Don’t mind Jun, Jackie. Why don’t you take a seat for a bit, we have drinks in the fridge if you’re thirsty, I just need to armor up.” I told him as I left the room. As much as I wanted to stay and keep any friction down. It would be best if I just hurry up and get ready to go.
I could hear the quiet voices in the living room as I rushed through putting on my armored clothes.
Although I did leave the ninja mask behind.
Suited up I headed back into the living room.
Both Jun and Jackie were still standing around sort of sizing each other up.
“Okay! All set, let’s hit the road! We got gonks to deal with.” I called out and while Jackie looked to me, Jun was still glaring.
“Sure Hermanita, let’s… Go.” He muttered. Backing out the door, while Jun just glared at him. I took a moment before I walked out behind Jackie to turn to Jun and give him a “What the fuck” gesture.
He just continued to scowl, but eventually at my refusal to stop glaring back, he shrugged and just waved me on.
“Stupid Onii-chan.” I told him, earning a scoff and then I refocused on Jackie.
Time to get to work.
—---
Jackie Welles.
“You didn’t tell me your brother was the Damn Oni of Kamikaze.” Jackie finally spoke as they walked into the sunlight on the street.
“Huh? Yeah? Does it really matter?” The kid asked, turning back to him. Her face showing her honest confusion only made Jackie wonder what was wrong with this kid all the more.
“He’s a step away from… you know. They all are, and I’m hanging around his kid sister. Maybe a warning would have been a good idea?”
The purple haired girl cocked her head to the side as she seemed to process what he had said before she snorted.
Loudly.
“C’mon you’re way too old for me, and Jun knows that. He just doesn’t know you. I’ll tell him about our gig together after, and he will probably be a lot nicer next time he sees you.” She offered with a smile and a wave back and forth of her chrome hand.
“Next time she says.” He muttered, shaking his head. The look that kid was giving him? Yeah Jackie wouldn’t want to run into him in some dark alley.
What the fuck am I doing? Jackie shook his head. This wasn’t what he expected when he got in with Wakako. It didn’t feel right running with a teenager.
Is this…
Is this all he was? Equal to a teenager in the grand scheme of things? Jackie shook off the downer thoughts, No. He was a merc, good enough to work with Wakako!
It’s just this girl was just as good. Maybe?
“So want to ride with me?” She asked as they were both standing on the sidewalk. “My Quadra can fit us both.”
He blinked.
“You drive a Quadra?”
“Yeah a Type-66, I looted from a Wraith I flatlined on a gig. It’s preem.” And there she goes again, saying something that makes Jackie have to rethink everything.
“Sure. Hermanita. I only brought my bike anyway.”
“Cool!” She chirps and leads him across the street, leaving Jackie with his thoughts about what he was getting into.
Was she skipping?
Mierda. What the hell was his life?
Inside the parking structure, she led him over to a pitch black Quadra. A desert runner.
She was right, It was a preem ride.
“Jump in!” She called as she climbed into the driver seat, and Jackie followed sliding into the seat, although having to adjust the box that was on the passenger floor.
“Oh I forgot about those, just push the box under the seat. Or take a few if you want. Grenades can be fun!”
Jackie very carefully pulled open the case on the floor, showing an array of grenades resting inside.
There were indeed a handful of grenades in the bottom of the box.
“You keep grenades in your car?”
“I made them myself. Or at least some of them. Jun got mad about me keeping them in the apartment so they are stuck in the car now. I really need to make some time to make another batch.”
“Make?”
“Yeah? It’s easy. You just throw some stuff together, make sure you keep the triggers secure and boom. Grenade… Well not boom right then. You only want them to boom afterwards you know?” She said and then chuckled a bit making Jackie realize she was telling a joke.
He couldn’t help but chuckle a bit in return, although it might have been nervous laughter.
Homemade grenades between his legs.
Mierda.
Motoko finally reached the street as she had taken forever in his eyes to pull out into a gap in traffic, and then to his surprise, she drove…
Well she drives like an old granny. He blinked as she used her turn signal, stopped at the lights instead of blowing through them.
He had never seen a teenager actually follow traffic laws.
Hell he still only sometimes followed them himself.
What a weird kid.
“So plan on how we handle this guy?” She asked, never taking her eyes off the road.
Jackie had to think about it. He wasn’t usually the planning sort of guy, but he was with a kid. Couldn’t go in guns blazing.
“Well Wakako gave us his current location, but that could change. We wait and see, if it’s an easy smash and grab that would be good, if not we follow him home. Pick him up in his sleep.”
“Okay I’ll be able to get some intel hopefully, doubt a place like this has a runner watching the system.” She mentioned, and he relaxed a little. At least the kid was smart enough not to want to rush in guns blazing.
That was Jackie’s normal method, and not one he would want a fourteen year old copying.
As they pulled into the neighborhood, Jackie got the first look at the place. It was an old garage, now used as a drug lab from Wakako’s records.
And their target was the owner. A mid level boss in 6th St.
“That’s plenty of cars.” Jackie muttered and Motoko nodded, frowning as she drove past the place. The parking lot had a good handful of cars all resting in it.
“I’ll park somewhere, close and sneak up to check their security.” Motoko said and despite Jackie’s desire to stop her, he just nodded.
Wakako had said she was an infiltrator. She would have to be good. So he watched as she parked down the street, stepped out and meandered her way towards the garage, slipping around the fence that cut off the places lot from the business next door.
And Jackie waited.
He did end up pulling out his Nue. He wanted to be ready in case a gun fight broke out, so he checked his gun, making sure she was loaded, and he had the extra magazines on his hip.
Then a call came from the kid, he accepted it.
*Jackie. I’m in their security. They really need someone who knows what they are doing. I’m gonna bounce the cameras to you so you can see what I’m looking at.* And a moment later a video request came through his agent.
And then a window popped up in his eyes, and although it was blurry and a bit laggy he was looking at the interior of the garage.
*Found our guy, he is hanging out on the ground floor, looking over the drug production.* She said but Jackie had to squint a bit, not that it helped at the picture before he was pretty sure that blur was the guy.
*I think I see him.*
*Think?*
*Connection is low res and laggy.* He muttered as he checked over the video, at least he could make out how many guards there were.
*What? That doesn’t… You’re optics, they any good?*
*No.* He replied, laughing over the line. His optics were old, Vik kept bugging him about them, but he didn’t have the eddies for a good upgrade, besides they looked good, and that was half the reason he kept them. Made his eyes look all soulful.
Always got the ladies to cut him some slack.
*Gonk. Okay. I’ll stop sharing then. I’m pretty sure that room upstairs is his office and bedroom. Wakako did say he lived here. So we could wait kidnap him right out of his room. I’ve already taken over the security system. The camera’s won’t send him any alerts.*
*Damn. You can do that?* Jackie asked surprised, he hadn’t worked with a netrunner that could do that before.
*Yeah, it’s hard to do most of the time, but the security this guy set up is shit. Old NUSA protocols, stuff that would have been solid a decade ago, but it’s already been solved. I’ve already taken their entire system.*
*Well we are getting somewhere. How many guards do you see Hermanita?*
*Other than our target, there are four onsite guards, and three workers. We will still have to treat the workers as threats though.*
*Yeah people won’t want to lose a gig that pays in eddies like gang work.* He agreed he had been attacked by plenty of staff at places to know that.
*Alright… Hey Jackie. I’ve got an idea. Under the seat, a few of those grenades are flash grenades. We go in hard, stun everyone and secure the area. I can reboot the optics of anyone that causes any trouble as well, since I’m already in their system and then we’re gone.*
Jackie considered it. He wasn’t normally a sneaky type, and knowing where everything was made it a lot easier.
He took a moment to actually consider it. He didn’t want to risk the kid after all.
Then he nodded. If they hit them hard it would work.
*You sure these grenades will work?*
*Oh yeah, they are preem! I’m ready when you are.*
He nodded quickly, checking the box carefully and pulling two of the flashbang grenades out of the box before realizing he had nodded. “Alright. On my way.” He said, taking a deep breath and stepping out of the car.
Nue in one hand, and grenades in the other. Time to work Jackie. He hurried down the street, jogging but moving confidently as he came up on the garage.
*Window right next to the door leads to them. Break it and toss the stunners.* Motoko informed him and he nodded, quickly holstering his Nue, and popping the pins on both grenades.
*Sending them now.* and then he slammed them through the window.
A moment later two very loud bangs went off.
Jackie was already kicking in the door, his Nue in his hand as he rushed in. Ready to knock some gonks around.
Which he did instantly, a worker was stumbling around and Jackie gave them a quick left to knock them out of the fight. His feet moved as he rushed his target who was trying to escape as the man stumbled around trying to find the exit.
Jackie slammed into him smashing him against the concrete with his bulk, sending the poor bastard into unconsciousness.
“Bastard!” A voice called out, one of the guards. Jackie raised his Nue but he hadn’t needed to rush, a moment later the man's eyes crackled with electricity and he cried out as he suddenly went blind.
Kid was fast.
“F-fuck!” A scream called out behind him causing him to look up, right outside the office one of the guards stood, weapon in hand desperately looking around blindly as his eyes had stopped working too.
Then a moment later a loud bark of gunfire and the guy slammed into the stairs and blood started dripping down the metal.
Damn that was a big boom.
*Two more still Jackie.* The voice reminded him and he rose up marching across the garage floor to the other two guards that were trying to hide while recovering from the flashbang. Jackie simply slammed into them punching and slamming them into the ground.
They didn’t get up after a few moments of his attention.
*The workers are cowering. Grab the target. I’ll cover you.* Motoko whispered in his ear and he did just that. The girl was good overwatch, Jackie had to admit. He rushed the unconscious gonk and grabbed him, throwing him over his shoulder as he ran for the main door.
*Jackie! Stop!* Motoko’s voice in his ear, sounding loudly, sent his feet skidding on the concrete. *Another car just pulled up, more 6th. St. Turn around! Out through the back! I’ll keep them distracted!* She demanded and while Jackie wanted to hesitate and argue, he hadn’t seen the girl once since the fight started despite her making her presence known.
So he turned and rushed the back door.
It gave way to his shoulder as he rushed out into a back lot that was nothing but an overgrown lot. He closed the door behind him just in time to hear the loud yells of someone realizing something was up.
*Get over the fence. I’ll make it so they won’t be able to see you until it’s too late. Go!* He went rushing across the yard towards the fence that was looming over him. Getting over a fence wasn’t hard. Doing it while carrying someone was.
But before he even reached the fence Motoko was running beside him, her eyes glowing gold as she was still on a call with him.
*I’ll go over first and lift the gonk.* She tells him and he nods. Watching as she races ahead and scrambles up the fence like it was nothing, then one leg over it she reaches down and he practically throws the gonk at her.
To his surprise she didn’t struggle much with holding him up, he expected her to have a bit more trouble with it, but it let him climb up beside her, and between the two of them, they heaved the guy over.
Ignoring the groan he gave off when they dropped him down the other side.
He hunkered down looking through the fence expecting to see a horde of angry 6th. St. but there was nothing.
“Did they not see us?”
“Kind of hard to see anything when your whole group's optics turn off one after another. C’mon let’s get out of here before they can see again.” She told him and Jackie nodded, grabbing the guy and running.
In the end they ran a few blocks down and waited for Wakako’s car to pick up the poor bastard, once he was safely in the trunk. Motoko’s Quadra came rolling down the street and they both slipped in.
That went…
Pretty well actually.
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Poor Jackie, hopefully he realizes that sometimes you can run into the next blackhand and that they make everything look easy. Doesn't mean that you're bad, just that they operate on a different level.
Blasterbot
Well-known member
Motoko doesn't get why everyone is so against her homemade explosives. they work great. 100% of customers agree.
Karmic Acumen
Well-known member
Fixed that for you.
Blasterbot
Well-known member
complaints from people who don't understand her art don't count... everyone who used them loves the grenades. don't trust the reviews of people who never tried the product! they are biased against making explosives in the living room for some reason.