Guardian Box
Radioactive Cognitohazard
You forgot the most important rule of Chroming-up - if what Motoko says is the law, Vik's professional medical opinion might as well be the Voice of God.
Ghost in the City Cyberpunk Gamer SI
- Thread starter Seras
- Start date
-
- Tags
- cyberpunk gamer self-insert
Chapter 226
Seras
Well-known member
Back home I flopped on the couch to get some programming done. First step was to go over the obvious.
Programming 15 had come with a perk choice.
Considering the power of some of the programming perks I’d already taken I was going to need to go through the list.
What was my Programming toolbox really missing? It certainly wasn’t versatility. Between Debug, and Inspired Programmer, I was able to do pretty much anything I could think up, but I still hoped for something more.
Programming was so powerful, forging weapons for the net. What sort of weapon did I want?
I could find a perk to improve Daemons. I could find a perk to improve Quick Hacks.
What was I looking for? I blinked. It didn’t sound good at first, but then the more I thought about it…
Stress Testing: The more you use your code, the more its weakness stands out to you.
It was an interesting Perk. How useful would it actually be? I’m not really sure, but hell, even if it only gives me a few ideas for how to improve code that I’ve already maxed out as far as I know, then it’s kinda neat.
Plus there wasn’t a lot else that was standing out to me.
I selected it, and the rush of knowledge made me wince, a hiss escaped my mouth as I curled up a little.
I’d just done two programming levels back to back. I should know better than to overwhelm myself.
Idiot.
Leaning back I covered my eyes and let myself just decompress for a minute. Should I sleep? Ugh.
No, Five minutes, then ten, twenty. I finally felt a good bit better, as the Perk knowledge dump stopped frying my brain.
Huh.
That’s what it meant. All of my programs had run into issues over time. Bandwidth, or upload problems.
I pulled up Ping first. The program was unloaded, and I started digging through my code, even with my previous programming skills, and my Debug perk. A bunch more levels of Programming had opened up new options, and Stress Test showed me even more.
There was a balance between function and efficiency.
What if I overloaded part of the program, making it do too much, when other parts were less balanced, suddenly I had times where while uploading it slowed down, or caused system traffic that it was never designed to do.
If the upload rate was faster than the installation speed, then… That was just wasted power.
And I knew all of that, because Stress test. It flashed in my head, every time I used ping. And while it wasn’t perfect knowledge, or memory. I had logs to back that up.
I could pull those apart, see every time there was a halt, and figure out why.
Stress Test…
It was a good choice. Maybe not the absolute most optimal one, but it was good.
I was okay with good.
Ping had some issues with its spread speed, it would sometimes Ping the next node in the system before the connection was complete.
So instead of pinging once, connecting and uploading the Daemon, which would upload to me. It would bounce to someone multiple times, sometimes even dozens of times if there were multiple people in the network that it could bounce too.
Causing disruption.
No one had noticed yet, but… It was honestly a minor issue. The disruption would be so small, there were only a few people that could notice it in the act, maybe afterwards if they were checking logs they’d be able to track the Daemons spread…
But I bet I could make it even more stealthy.
A few lines of code rewritten, a bit stronger limiter.
Ping would take maybe a half second more per jump, a million years for a computer, but for me? I doubt I’d even notice.
Yet it was even more stealthy now.
With that done, I installed the Program back into my Cyberdeck, and worked through the upload schedule partitioning RAM from my other cyberware to run the program when needed.
I’d set up a method while in combat, but this was all about streamlining it.
To give an analogy, if my programs were throwing knives. Originally they’d just been a bunch of knives in my off hand, I’d thrown one at a time.
Then I’d realized I should slide a few into my pocket, or through a belt.
But what I was doing now was memorizing the position of every knife, and giving them their own holsters…
I pointedly didn’t think about the extra knives I carried around that were just stolen and only the first one that Jun had given me actually had a sheath.
Whistle away the fact Motoko! You have programming to do!
Next was my Optic Reboot.
Ah I still loved this Program. It was just so evil. Looking through the code I wanted to wince, when had I programmed this again? Five levels ago? I’d tinkered with it a bit as I leveled, but not really a full check up.
No, an update. Again Stress Test showed me, or at least brought it to my mind, the points where Optics Reboot had floundered.
Adjusting upload rate I went through the code humming a bit quite pleased with how little I really had to change.
This time I focused less on stealth, since if I was hitting someone with Optics Reboot they were going to know about it.
I felt a smile spread across my face as I gently tapped my foot to a silent beat.
Updates were awesome!
I went through all my hacks in the same way. Cleaning up and adjusting. Until I was completely done. Then I had a choice.
I opened up a file I hadn’t messed with much. A few times I’d looked at it, but had never quite managed to get it to work.
It was an Ultimate Quick Hack. At least that’s what they’d been called in the game. This one?
Cyberpsychosis.
Considering I’d already accidentally done something similar to a person. I think it was time to break this one out, and get it functional. The hack was a kludged together, incredibly RAM and size heavy program.
First step was to once more go through it. This time, its structure didn’t give me any real trouble.
This part affected Bio-cyberware, adrenaline, and worse would be pumped into the target. This one affected IFF through optics. This one caused a pseudo white noise, that cut out most noises from reaching their ear, and instead would help them think they were under attack.
It was multiple programs all integrated into one, but it wasn’t clean or even all that functional. I dreaded the idea of trying to upload this hack, it would probably take more than twenty seconds just to upload, and even longer to install.
There was more of course. A control software that would try to force the user to shoot whenever the IFF lined up.
Accidently barrel sweep an ally? Well they’re going to end up getting shot at, which would only make it more likely they fire back.
So many different ideas to try and cause issues. There was even a Daemon that would try to make everyone look the same to the user. Cutting out chances for the victim to recognize friend from foe.
That part was neat, even if my Onryo was better.
But I could integrate that into my own version of Cyberpsychosis.
That made me smile as I considered.
I could give everyone a little shoulder devil urging them on, if I went that way.
I shrugged the idea off for now, and basically started rewriting the code right from the start. It needed a cleaner cycle or else this hack was never going to be fast enough for my tastes.
—--
I was still tinkering with my programs when I got a text.
*Alice: Got some news. Reached out to a contact at a club. You in for a gig this weekend?*
I looked over the text, and part of me instantly wanted to refuse, but I pushed that down. A gig… Was probably a good idea.
*Motoko: Contact Hiromi, but sounds fine.*
*Alice: Preem, already done. Practice sesh this week? I want to rock.*
*Motoko: Yeah sounds preem. I have something tomorrow, but otherwise, sounds good.*
I sighed and rolled up onto my feet.
Cyberpsychosis wasn’t going to be needed for my Netrunner contest with Sasha. What I needed was more skills.
I moved my head around a bit, and still felt a bit too full to want to grab another skill, so instead I got up.
I’d done a good once over on all my programs, and cleared and settled them into my system. I felt like wiggling in delight at how wonderful having so much more RAM for my netrunning felt.
It made me feel like…
I got up and grabbed my guitar. As much as I’d been playing with Alice and the band, I hadn’t really felt like I had any time for some rocking out myself.
Adjusting my guitar I considered what I should play. I’d had a few ideas for things. Some songs I’d been wanting to make had fallen to the back burners because of the amount of time it would take to make them.
So… Something simple? I didn’t need to make something new, just something…
I looked up and flicked on the radio, and a moment later smiled, as I played along with the sound of Black Dog.
There we go. I didn’t need to play something new every time. I could just… Play. Enjoy the music.
I played until Jun got home late, and I glanced at him as I continued to play along with the radio. Thankful for my chrome hands that didn’t get tired.
Jun took his time, throwing his jacket on the jacket table, slipping out of his shoes, and coming to walk over to me. He took a moment to listen as I played along, and he smiled at me, just enjoying it for a few moments, before reaching out and dropping a heavy hand on my head.
“Go to sleep Motoko. It’s late.”
I stopped playing and stuck my tongue out at him, but I did put my guitar away and turn off the radio with a glance.
“You sleep too Jun.”
“I will.”
—--
“Yaaaay!” I was nearly tackled by an over enthusiastic cat as Sasha leaped at me, even as I fended her off a little.
“Personal space Sasha!”
“I will right after I give my cute Kohai-Chan a Hug!” She cheered and I continued to bat away her grabbing hands.
“Well isn’t this…Enthusiastic.” The voice had a light synthetic lilt, but still mature. I looked around Sasha who seemed a little irritated that I was still fending off her grasping hands, with my Martial arts talents, to see the pair I’d sort of been looking forward to meeting.
Kiwi, and Lucy.
The two of them were sitting on a couch in Maine’s little safehouse. There had been a moment of confusion as to why they were still using the safe house if it was meant to be a safehouse, but a little line from the Solo’s Manual had flashed into my head.
A safehouse wasn’t safe if you’d used it before. After the first time it was either a burned hole in the ground, or a house. Pick one.
Maine probably had a new safehouse somewhere in the city, just in case something went hot and they needed to hide, but this was still a nice enough place to have meetings, or live out of for a while.
Blackhand would have preferred a cardboard box in an alleyway. But that guy was insane, so I disregarded that ‘advice.’
I took the chance, taking a step back as Sasha took her own to fortify her assault for another hug, and just leapt.
Easily flipping over her head until I landed behind her almost gently and just walked over to the couches that were set up.
“I’m Motoko. Nice to meet you… Kiwi right? And hey it’s Moongazer. Enjoy the beer?” I offered with a teasing smile as I looked over the two women.
Jesus Kiwi was fucking tall! I had either not remembered, or something but she sat on the couch and then half again off it.
Lucy on the other hand looked more awkward. A cigarette hung from both womens mouths, although Kiwi’s was just stuck through her jaw mask.
“Wait… You!?” Lucy called out pointing. “The crazy woman that jumped off the side of the building!”
“It wasn’t that high. Easy.” I offered, sliding my hand flatly to show how smooth it was. “Nice to meet you for real.”
“Right… I’m Lucy.” She offered, and I nodded.
“Shame you didn’t come down. We were partying, you’d have been welcome. Anyways. I hear the Cat is bothering you, and you’re trying to see who is better?” I asked, having been pointedly ignoring how Sasha was standing directly behind me making faces at me.
“Yep.” Kiwi offered with a cool humor. “You really the Mangy fleabags apprentice?”
“I think of it more as a-”
“Nooo!” Sasha whined in my ear beating on my back, so I rolled my eyes.
“Yeah. She’s super annoying-”
“Noooo!”
“But, she knows her shit. I go by Ghost in the Shell on the net. I don’t really do much though, so I doubt you’ve heard of me.”
“Hmm. I have actually.” Kiwi spoke up as Lucy gave me an apologetic smile, before shifting to Kiwi.
“Wait, really?”
“The kids got The Foxes' attention. Rumor is she’s a programmer wunderkind. You need a circ clipped, or data mess cleaned up. The kid can do it clean.”
“I’ve done some gigs for Yoko, yeah. She’s… Well, I think I’m cursed since I have Sasha and Yoko both breathing down my neck.” I offered with a bit of a stilted smile.
There was a breathy note from Kiwi after a second, and Lucy was just looking a bit confused.
“You probably got that right kid.” Kiwi agreed, holding back her laughter.
“Nyyyaaaaaaa.” Sasha whined at me, and I just flashed her a smile.
“But Sasha is Sasha, just her quirks. How about you two? I hear you’re trying to work with Maines crew? Something about the client wanting you as the netrunner?”
“Fixer. I do some work with him, and he thinks I’m reliable. Knows I can get the gig done.”
“So can Sasha.” I pointed out. “Bit weird for him to try and disrupt a crew like that.”
“He just wants what he wants. He’s like that.”
“Sounds like an asshole. Why does Maine want this guys work again? Why not go to Wakako, or Padre?”
“Faraday is a difficult fixer, but he offers bonuses for jobs completed to his satisfaction.” Sasha offered, and I could see Kiwi’s eyebrows clench up a bit in irritation.
“We’re supposed to keep deets under wraps.” She offered, and Sasha just laughed.
“Kitten-Chan would have found out eventually. Better to just tell her.”
“Whatever.” I commented interrupting. “Anyways. So… We’re going to be competing for some data?”
Kiwi looked over at Sasha. “The kid know anything?”
“She’s special! Kitten-Chan is all wide eyed and bright about the world, but her claws are super sharp nyan!”
“Lovely. Can we be more clear now?” I interrupted again.
“Standard rules. We both jump in, goal is the data, so no rezzing each other. We don’t work together, unless something goes crazy. It’s just a game, the data is the gig.”
“Ah I see. So while we’re personally competing, the goal is more important.” I asked, looking at Sasha who nodded smugly.
“Yep! And when we get the data first, this evil spider will have to call me the greatest!”
“The greatest pain, maybe.” Kiwi added, and I had to nod along at that.
“Hey!”
“Are you even able to do this?” Lucy asked, interrupting. She was looking at me. “No offense, but, if you don’t know about Runner Competitions, or anything, and I’ve never heard of you. This is tight ICE. High security. This isn’t just programming.”
I noticed Kiwi glance from Lucy to me, and then to Sasha, and Sasha was halfway to starting to rant when I interrupted.
“My speciality is combat hacks more than actually diving, but I can keep up.”
“Mou! Leave Kitten-Chan alone! She’s skilled! My little Kohai-student.” Sasha argued huffily.
“Neither of those things.” I added instantly to Sasha’s pouting.
“If the Stray says she’s good, then I’ll trust her judgement. It’s just all of our lives at stake.” Kiwi, said flatly, and I couldn’t help but snort a bit at the sarcasm.
“Kitten can do it!”
“Is there any point in this?” I asked cutting Sasha off from embarrassing me anymore. “Either I can, or I can’t, and nothing I say is going to change that.”
“True.” Kiwi agreed, and Lucy looked hesitant like she wanted to argue more but let it go.
“Then shall we all get started?” I asked, and the four of us all looked each other over.
“Yes. Let’s get ready to dive. We have everything set up here.”
“Here?” I asked suddenly when I realized what was going on.
“Yes! C’mon Kitten!” Sasha cried out happily and dragged me out of the living room down into the basement.
The moment we set foot down stairs I realized the situation. But stopped for a moment to raise a hand.
“Hey Becca.”
“Strings.” She greeted back with a smirk. “Welcome to the Ice Cave.” She cackled as she waved her hand over the four ‘bathtubs’ full of ice all with open ports for netrunning.
“Beeeecccccca!” Sasha cried out and charged forward, wrapping Becca in a massive hug. “Thank you!”
“Yeah yeah, You’re good Cat.” She grumped a bit but was smiling.
“Who's the kid?”
“I’m not a kid bitch.” Becca responded to Kiwi’s question with a hiss and an upraised finger.
“Sure, shorty.”
“I-”
“Rebecca is actually older than I am.” I cut in, and Lucy and Kiwi both had a moment to process that. “She’s Pilar’s sister, and a member of Maine's crew… And mine.” I held out a fist and Becca didn’t hesitate to tap her own fist against mine.
“Okay great.”
“I’m your eyes while you’re in the net. Dorio would have been here, but she’s got stuff going on, and none of you wanted Pilar covering your bodies.”
“Yeah.” Sasha agreed with a nod, the most direct and not crazy thing I think I’d ever heard her say.
“Fine. C’mon Luce.” Kiwi offered,and before my eyes the older woman instantly pulled open her coat!
Oh my!
Spiderwebs everywhere!?
Lucy!?
Shit. The sexyness of this room was crazy!
I turned away, only to see Sasha already half undressed too!
W-why were all netrunners so hot!?
“No.” Rebecca suddenly said and I turned away from everyone to her, for a moment's peace, but her eyes were locked on me. “I refuse to believe what I’m seeing.”
“W-what?”
“You?”
“What?”
“You. Strings. The girl that… You’re shy!?”
“W-What? No! I’m confident and badass! Not shy!” I denied while struggling not to look at all the flesh.
“You’re a fucking tomato! You fucking… Oh my god. I thought it was just Crush, but… Oh my god.”
“I-I’m not shy!”
“You fucking are!” Rebecca said pointing, and I noticed all the other women in the room were looking at me, Lucy and Kiwi were just about to slip into the ice baths, which was just unfair!
Too much!
“I’m not shy!” I demanded glaring at Rebecca, and before she could say shit. I started undressing. Pulling free of my boots while I grumbled, I tossed my jacket onto a chair, and then pulled down my pants.
Stupid pants! They were getting tighter and tighter. I really needed to go clothes shopping some more.
With that I grabbed the zipper in my leotard and pulled it down, the hidden zipper letting me breathe and it was actually a pretty nice relief. Stupid slightly tight leotard. I’d been really needing to get them all adjusted after my Body 10 achievement, but I’d been so busy!
Grumbled, I peeled the leotard off and then glared at Rebecca who wasn’t making fun of me anymore thankfully!
I’m not shy! I’m a badass super kickass killer assassin woman!
Then I hesitated for a second at the icebath... Ugh! I hated the idea of these! I sighed and slipped inside, instantly feeling shivery as I grabbed the cords and accessed in.
“That’s just bullshi-” I heard Rebecca say cut off as I dropped into the net.
-----
A/N Just a heads up. There might be another skip next week. I'm not going to be at home for the next few days. I'll try to get a chapter written up on my laptop, but we'll see.
Programming 15 had come with a perk choice.
Considering the power of some of the programming perks I’d already taken I was going to need to go through the list.
What was my Programming toolbox really missing? It certainly wasn’t versatility. Between Debug, and Inspired Programmer, I was able to do pretty much anything I could think up, but I still hoped for something more.
Programming was so powerful, forging weapons for the net. What sort of weapon did I want?
I could find a perk to improve Daemons. I could find a perk to improve Quick Hacks.
What was I looking for? I blinked. It didn’t sound good at first, but then the more I thought about it…
Stress Testing: The more you use your code, the more its weakness stands out to you.
It was an interesting Perk. How useful would it actually be? I’m not really sure, but hell, even if it only gives me a few ideas for how to improve code that I’ve already maxed out as far as I know, then it’s kinda neat.
Plus there wasn’t a lot else that was standing out to me.
I selected it, and the rush of knowledge made me wince, a hiss escaped my mouth as I curled up a little.
I’d just done two programming levels back to back. I should know better than to overwhelm myself.
Idiot.
Leaning back I covered my eyes and let myself just decompress for a minute. Should I sleep? Ugh.
No, Five minutes, then ten, twenty. I finally felt a good bit better, as the Perk knowledge dump stopped frying my brain.
Huh.
That’s what it meant. All of my programs had run into issues over time. Bandwidth, or upload problems.
I pulled up Ping first. The program was unloaded, and I started digging through my code, even with my previous programming skills, and my Debug perk. A bunch more levels of Programming had opened up new options, and Stress Test showed me even more.
There was a balance between function and efficiency.
What if I overloaded part of the program, making it do too much, when other parts were less balanced, suddenly I had times where while uploading it slowed down, or caused system traffic that it was never designed to do.
If the upload rate was faster than the installation speed, then… That was just wasted power.
And I knew all of that, because Stress test. It flashed in my head, every time I used ping. And while it wasn’t perfect knowledge, or memory. I had logs to back that up.
I could pull those apart, see every time there was a halt, and figure out why.
Stress Test…
It was a good choice. Maybe not the absolute most optimal one, but it was good.
I was okay with good.
Ping had some issues with its spread speed, it would sometimes Ping the next node in the system before the connection was complete.
So instead of pinging once, connecting and uploading the Daemon, which would upload to me. It would bounce to someone multiple times, sometimes even dozens of times if there were multiple people in the network that it could bounce too.
Causing disruption.
No one had noticed yet, but… It was honestly a minor issue. The disruption would be so small, there were only a few people that could notice it in the act, maybe afterwards if they were checking logs they’d be able to track the Daemons spread…
But I bet I could make it even more stealthy.
A few lines of code rewritten, a bit stronger limiter.
Ping would take maybe a half second more per jump, a million years for a computer, but for me? I doubt I’d even notice.
Yet it was even more stealthy now.
With that done, I installed the Program back into my Cyberdeck, and worked through the upload schedule partitioning RAM from my other cyberware to run the program when needed.
I’d set up a method while in combat, but this was all about streamlining it.
To give an analogy, if my programs were throwing knives. Originally they’d just been a bunch of knives in my off hand, I’d thrown one at a time.
Then I’d realized I should slide a few into my pocket, or through a belt.
But what I was doing now was memorizing the position of every knife, and giving them their own holsters…
I pointedly didn’t think about the extra knives I carried around that were just stolen and only the first one that Jun had given me actually had a sheath.
Whistle away the fact Motoko! You have programming to do!
Next was my Optic Reboot.
Ah I still loved this Program. It was just so evil. Looking through the code I wanted to wince, when had I programmed this again? Five levels ago? I’d tinkered with it a bit as I leveled, but not really a full check up.
No, an update. Again Stress Test showed me, or at least brought it to my mind, the points where Optics Reboot had floundered.
Adjusting upload rate I went through the code humming a bit quite pleased with how little I really had to change.
This time I focused less on stealth, since if I was hitting someone with Optics Reboot they were going to know about it.
I felt a smile spread across my face as I gently tapped my foot to a silent beat.
Updates were awesome!
I went through all my hacks in the same way. Cleaning up and adjusting. Until I was completely done. Then I had a choice.
I opened up a file I hadn’t messed with much. A few times I’d looked at it, but had never quite managed to get it to work.
It was an Ultimate Quick Hack. At least that’s what they’d been called in the game. This one?
Cyberpsychosis.
Considering I’d already accidentally done something similar to a person. I think it was time to break this one out, and get it functional. The hack was a kludged together, incredibly RAM and size heavy program.
First step was to once more go through it. This time, its structure didn’t give me any real trouble.
This part affected Bio-cyberware, adrenaline, and worse would be pumped into the target. This one affected IFF through optics. This one caused a pseudo white noise, that cut out most noises from reaching their ear, and instead would help them think they were under attack.
It was multiple programs all integrated into one, but it wasn’t clean or even all that functional. I dreaded the idea of trying to upload this hack, it would probably take more than twenty seconds just to upload, and even longer to install.
There was more of course. A control software that would try to force the user to shoot whenever the IFF lined up.
Accidently barrel sweep an ally? Well they’re going to end up getting shot at, which would only make it more likely they fire back.
So many different ideas to try and cause issues. There was even a Daemon that would try to make everyone look the same to the user. Cutting out chances for the victim to recognize friend from foe.
That part was neat, even if my Onryo was better.
But I could integrate that into my own version of Cyberpsychosis.
That made me smile as I considered.
I could give everyone a little shoulder devil urging them on, if I went that way.
I shrugged the idea off for now, and basically started rewriting the code right from the start. It needed a cleaner cycle or else this hack was never going to be fast enough for my tastes.
—--
I was still tinkering with my programs when I got a text.
*Alice: Got some news. Reached out to a contact at a club. You in for a gig this weekend?*
I looked over the text, and part of me instantly wanted to refuse, but I pushed that down. A gig… Was probably a good idea.
*Motoko: Contact Hiromi, but sounds fine.*
*Alice: Preem, already done. Practice sesh this week? I want to rock.*
*Motoko: Yeah sounds preem. I have something tomorrow, but otherwise, sounds good.*
I sighed and rolled up onto my feet.
Cyberpsychosis wasn’t going to be needed for my Netrunner contest with Sasha. What I needed was more skills.
I moved my head around a bit, and still felt a bit too full to want to grab another skill, so instead I got up.
I’d done a good once over on all my programs, and cleared and settled them into my system. I felt like wiggling in delight at how wonderful having so much more RAM for my netrunning felt.
It made me feel like…
I got up and grabbed my guitar. As much as I’d been playing with Alice and the band, I hadn’t really felt like I had any time for some rocking out myself.
Adjusting my guitar I considered what I should play. I’d had a few ideas for things. Some songs I’d been wanting to make had fallen to the back burners because of the amount of time it would take to make them.
So… Something simple? I didn’t need to make something new, just something…
I looked up and flicked on the radio, and a moment later smiled, as I played along with the sound of Black Dog.
There we go. I didn’t need to play something new every time. I could just… Play. Enjoy the music.
I played until Jun got home late, and I glanced at him as I continued to play along with the radio. Thankful for my chrome hands that didn’t get tired.
Jun took his time, throwing his jacket on the jacket table, slipping out of his shoes, and coming to walk over to me. He took a moment to listen as I played along, and he smiled at me, just enjoying it for a few moments, before reaching out and dropping a heavy hand on my head.
“Go to sleep Motoko. It’s late.”
I stopped playing and stuck my tongue out at him, but I did put my guitar away and turn off the radio with a glance.
“You sleep too Jun.”
“I will.”
—--
“Yaaaay!” I was nearly tackled by an over enthusiastic cat as Sasha leaped at me, even as I fended her off a little.
“Personal space Sasha!”
“I will right after I give my cute Kohai-Chan a Hug!” She cheered and I continued to bat away her grabbing hands.
“Well isn’t this…Enthusiastic.” The voice had a light synthetic lilt, but still mature. I looked around Sasha who seemed a little irritated that I was still fending off her grasping hands, with my Martial arts talents, to see the pair I’d sort of been looking forward to meeting.
Kiwi, and Lucy.
The two of them were sitting on a couch in Maine’s little safehouse. There had been a moment of confusion as to why they were still using the safe house if it was meant to be a safehouse, but a little line from the Solo’s Manual had flashed into my head.
A safehouse wasn’t safe if you’d used it before. After the first time it was either a burned hole in the ground, or a house. Pick one.
Maine probably had a new safehouse somewhere in the city, just in case something went hot and they needed to hide, but this was still a nice enough place to have meetings, or live out of for a while.
Blackhand would have preferred a cardboard box in an alleyway. But that guy was insane, so I disregarded that ‘advice.’
I took the chance, taking a step back as Sasha took her own to fortify her assault for another hug, and just leapt.
Easily flipping over her head until I landed behind her almost gently and just walked over to the couches that were set up.
“I’m Motoko. Nice to meet you… Kiwi right? And hey it’s Moongazer. Enjoy the beer?” I offered with a teasing smile as I looked over the two women.
Jesus Kiwi was fucking tall! I had either not remembered, or something but she sat on the couch and then half again off it.
Lucy on the other hand looked more awkward. A cigarette hung from both womens mouths, although Kiwi’s was just stuck through her jaw mask.
“Wait… You!?” Lucy called out pointing. “The crazy woman that jumped off the side of the building!”
“It wasn’t that high. Easy.” I offered, sliding my hand flatly to show how smooth it was. “Nice to meet you for real.”
“Right… I’m Lucy.” She offered, and I nodded.
“Shame you didn’t come down. We were partying, you’d have been welcome. Anyways. I hear the Cat is bothering you, and you’re trying to see who is better?” I asked, having been pointedly ignoring how Sasha was standing directly behind me making faces at me.
“Yep.” Kiwi offered with a cool humor. “You really the Mangy fleabags apprentice?”
“I think of it more as a-”
“Nooo!” Sasha whined in my ear beating on my back, so I rolled my eyes.
“Yeah. She’s super annoying-”
“Noooo!”
“But, she knows her shit. I go by Ghost in the Shell on the net. I don’t really do much though, so I doubt you’ve heard of me.”
“Hmm. I have actually.” Kiwi spoke up as Lucy gave me an apologetic smile, before shifting to Kiwi.
“Wait, really?”
“The kids got The Foxes' attention. Rumor is she’s a programmer wunderkind. You need a circ clipped, or data mess cleaned up. The kid can do it clean.”
“I’ve done some gigs for Yoko, yeah. She’s… Well, I think I’m cursed since I have Sasha and Yoko both breathing down my neck.” I offered with a bit of a stilted smile.
There was a breathy note from Kiwi after a second, and Lucy was just looking a bit confused.
“You probably got that right kid.” Kiwi agreed, holding back her laughter.
“Nyyyaaaaaaa.” Sasha whined at me, and I just flashed her a smile.
“But Sasha is Sasha, just her quirks. How about you two? I hear you’re trying to work with Maines crew? Something about the client wanting you as the netrunner?”
“Fixer. I do some work with him, and he thinks I’m reliable. Knows I can get the gig done.”
“So can Sasha.” I pointed out. “Bit weird for him to try and disrupt a crew like that.”
“He just wants what he wants. He’s like that.”
“Sounds like an asshole. Why does Maine want this guys work again? Why not go to Wakako, or Padre?”
“Faraday is a difficult fixer, but he offers bonuses for jobs completed to his satisfaction.” Sasha offered, and I could see Kiwi’s eyebrows clench up a bit in irritation.
“We’re supposed to keep deets under wraps.” She offered, and Sasha just laughed.
“Kitten-Chan would have found out eventually. Better to just tell her.”
“Whatever.” I commented interrupting. “Anyways. So… We’re going to be competing for some data?”
Kiwi looked over at Sasha. “The kid know anything?”
“She’s special! Kitten-Chan is all wide eyed and bright about the world, but her claws are super sharp nyan!”
“Lovely. Can we be more clear now?” I interrupted again.
“Standard rules. We both jump in, goal is the data, so no rezzing each other. We don’t work together, unless something goes crazy. It’s just a game, the data is the gig.”
“Ah I see. So while we’re personally competing, the goal is more important.” I asked, looking at Sasha who nodded smugly.
“Yep! And when we get the data first, this evil spider will have to call me the greatest!”
“The greatest pain, maybe.” Kiwi added, and I had to nod along at that.
“Hey!”
“Are you even able to do this?” Lucy asked, interrupting. She was looking at me. “No offense, but, if you don’t know about Runner Competitions, or anything, and I’ve never heard of you. This is tight ICE. High security. This isn’t just programming.”
I noticed Kiwi glance from Lucy to me, and then to Sasha, and Sasha was halfway to starting to rant when I interrupted.
“My speciality is combat hacks more than actually diving, but I can keep up.”
“Mou! Leave Kitten-Chan alone! She’s skilled! My little Kohai-student.” Sasha argued huffily.
“Neither of those things.” I added instantly to Sasha’s pouting.
“If the Stray says she’s good, then I’ll trust her judgement. It’s just all of our lives at stake.” Kiwi, said flatly, and I couldn’t help but snort a bit at the sarcasm.
“Kitten can do it!”
“Is there any point in this?” I asked cutting Sasha off from embarrassing me anymore. “Either I can, or I can’t, and nothing I say is going to change that.”
“True.” Kiwi agreed, and Lucy looked hesitant like she wanted to argue more but let it go.
“Then shall we all get started?” I asked, and the four of us all looked each other over.
“Yes. Let’s get ready to dive. We have everything set up here.”
“Here?” I asked suddenly when I realized what was going on.
“Yes! C’mon Kitten!” Sasha cried out happily and dragged me out of the living room down into the basement.
The moment we set foot down stairs I realized the situation. But stopped for a moment to raise a hand.
“Hey Becca.”
“Strings.” She greeted back with a smirk. “Welcome to the Ice Cave.” She cackled as she waved her hand over the four ‘bathtubs’ full of ice all with open ports for netrunning.
“Beeeecccccca!” Sasha cried out and charged forward, wrapping Becca in a massive hug. “Thank you!”
“Yeah yeah, You’re good Cat.” She grumped a bit but was smiling.
“Who's the kid?”
“I’m not a kid bitch.” Becca responded to Kiwi’s question with a hiss and an upraised finger.
“Sure, shorty.”
“I-”
“Rebecca is actually older than I am.” I cut in, and Lucy and Kiwi both had a moment to process that. “She’s Pilar’s sister, and a member of Maine's crew… And mine.” I held out a fist and Becca didn’t hesitate to tap her own fist against mine.
“Okay great.”
“I’m your eyes while you’re in the net. Dorio would have been here, but she’s got stuff going on, and none of you wanted Pilar covering your bodies.”
“Yeah.” Sasha agreed with a nod, the most direct and not crazy thing I think I’d ever heard her say.
“Fine. C’mon Luce.” Kiwi offered,and before my eyes the older woman instantly pulled open her coat!
Oh my!
Spiderwebs everywhere!?
Lucy!?
Shit. The sexyness of this room was crazy!
I turned away, only to see Sasha already half undressed too!
W-why were all netrunners so hot!?
“No.” Rebecca suddenly said and I turned away from everyone to her, for a moment's peace, but her eyes were locked on me. “I refuse to believe what I’m seeing.”
“W-what?”
“You?”
“What?”
“You. Strings. The girl that… You’re shy!?”
“W-What? No! I’m confident and badass! Not shy!” I denied while struggling not to look at all the flesh.
“You’re a fucking tomato! You fucking… Oh my god. I thought it was just Crush, but… Oh my god.”
“I-I’m not shy!”
“You fucking are!” Rebecca said pointing, and I noticed all the other women in the room were looking at me, Lucy and Kiwi were just about to slip into the ice baths, which was just unfair!
Too much!
“I’m not shy!” I demanded glaring at Rebecca, and before she could say shit. I started undressing. Pulling free of my boots while I grumbled, I tossed my jacket onto a chair, and then pulled down my pants.
Stupid pants! They were getting tighter and tighter. I really needed to go clothes shopping some more.
With that I grabbed the zipper in my leotard and pulled it down, the hidden zipper letting me breathe and it was actually a pretty nice relief. Stupid slightly tight leotard. I’d been really needing to get them all adjusted after my Body 10 achievement, but I’d been so busy!
Grumbled, I peeled the leotard off and then glared at Rebecca who wasn’t making fun of me anymore thankfully!
I’m not shy! I’m a badass super kickass killer assassin woman!
Then I hesitated for a second at the icebath... Ugh! I hated the idea of these! I sighed and slipped inside, instantly feeling shivery as I grabbed the cords and accessed in.
“That’s just bullshi-” I heard Rebecca say cut off as I dropped into the net.
-----
A/N Just a heads up. There might be another skip next week. I'm not going to be at home for the next few days. I'll try to get a chapter written up on my laptop, but we'll see.
poor Rebecca. she jelly.
Bigking321
Well-known member
Hard to compete with someone that has a game system to cheat their way to physical perfection.
Definitely a unfair standard.
Poor Becca.
Definitely a unfair standard.
Poor Becca.
Guardian Box
Radioactive Cognitohazard
It's not physical perfection when she's still mostly made of meat :V
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
If she pulls this off for Sasha she should force Sasha to call her Onee-san for peak weeb pecking order.
Chapter 227
Seras
Well-known member
It took a minute before the others joined me, and the whole time I was looking around in disgust.
When Sasha’s avatar popped in I instantly turned to her. “How do you live like this?” I had to ask as the entire lobby was covered in pink and glittery cat stuff. The kitty pictures were cute, but the rest of it was just too much.
“Hehehe!” She replied back and that was the only answer I got!?
Thankfully Kiwi looked disturbed even though she still wore her mask mouth plate on the net, and Lucy shared my slightly disturbed look.
“Luce, let’s go. Game is already on.” Kiwi called out not hesitating at all before the two of them jumped off the lobby onto the net.
“Shit!” Sasha cursed and I quickly raced after her, as we were all thankfully heading for the same place.
It was a data fortress owned by some no name corp. I wasn't bothering to even learn the name of. It hardly mattered. Four elite (I was one too!) netrunners was enough to smash just about any data fortress not controlled by the big corps.
Sasha and I reached our own entry point and slipped inside, there was no discussion. Just like when we hit the No/Brainer server we already had our roles.
She rushed ahead straight for the access node, while I prepared for the defenses. The moment she started breaching in, the Daemons noticed the intrusion, but I was already on them a flurry of Flame Bullets roared out and crushed the Daemons into pixels.
*250 XP Gained.*
*250 XP Gained.*
*250 XP Gained.*
*250 XP Gained.*
“Through!” Sasha called out as she broke through a path and we both rushed forward.
This fortress was well put together, the neon pulsing lights of the interior created a pseudo 3D rendering of the hallways and rooms. It was clearer than some servers I’d been on which meant new. Which meant high security.
Again though I wasn’t that concerned.
One Elite Netrunner was dangerous. Two was usually overkill. Three? Four? This was an expensive gig. At least it should be but Faraday had managed to get four netrunners on a single gig for the price of one.
We burst into the next room, as I started tearing through defenses, almost mindlessly as Sasha broke through a firewall that rushed up.
It made me realize that Faraday could have planned this whole thing. Had Kiwi tried to set it up like this?
He couldn’t have known about me really, but three netrunners were more than enough to break through even a well secured data fort like this. It made me wonder if that wasn’t the plan?
Another set of Daemons destroyed as I protected Sasha, and burned defenses until the Firewall dropped.
We rushed forward, hitting the next defense, something similar to the Cyber Moat that was on the No/Brainer server. Sasha started breaking through when almost instantly it connected.
I blinked. Sasha blinked.
Kiwi and Lucy blinked.
“Huh good timing.” I muttered as the four of us all came together.
“You’re actually here?” Lucy asked in surprise.
“Yeah?”
“No time to waste Kitten-Chan!”
“Don’t call me. Whoa!” I called out. As suddenly that same data moat slammed back down. Lucy had started rushing forward at the same time as Sasha, and they both disappeared.
“Huh. I wasn’t expecting that.” I muttered as we got split off.
“Netrunner is on the server activating defenses.” Kiwi commented. Already looking like she was going to rush off, so I shrugged and followed her.
We made it through a new hallway before she stopped and turned to look at me.
“What?”
“What are you doing?”
“Backing you up?”
She sort of just stared at me for a bit before I rolled my eyes. “I don’t give a shit about this competition, I’m just here because I like Sasha a bit, despite her catty attitude.”
“Really?”
“Don’t start. I can make puns too.” I said before smiling. “Besides, what, are you going to run this solo, or are you really going to complain about some backup?”
She looked me over for a while, and shrugged. “Don’t slow me down.”
“Sure.” I said flatly, rolling my eyes. Then I pulled myself into position. “Any role preference?” I asked, and Kiwi made a snorting noise.
“Are you a kid or a netrunner? Do what you can.”
I wanted to say something but Kiwi could actually be right… Had Sasha been babying me in a way? That’s irritating. Fine.
I stayed with her as we hit the next access node, and we both went to work, where before it was a shared experience with Sasha Kiwi simply cleared her own path, guarded her own back. There was no real working together. We each burned Daemons down, we each started breaching.
Kiwi used an interesting quick hack. Instead of destroying the Daemons it caused them to lock up a CC hack. Nice. I might have to ask about that, or make my own.
I finished off a few of her dazed daemons as well, just for the extra XP.
Kiwi was fast. There was no doubt about that. She was better at breaching than I was, but I had tricks she didn’t.
We were already past stealth so it was time to go loud.
I switched from defending against the Daemons for a second and slammed into the security system like a freight train.
Strong Breach was one of my lesser used perks, but that was only because I preferred stealth. The security glitched as I overwhelmed it and even Kiwi looked away from her breach to me, for a moment as there was an obvious shift along the security walls data, an alert going out no doubt as I hit the defense so hard, and it spasmed once before falling opening the path.
I turned and finished a few more Daemons that had restored themselves in the moments it had taken.
“Let’s go.” I told her and Kiwi for the first time didn’t look at me like some kid, but a peer of some sort.
“That was a bit much.”
“What, you unhappy I broke through?” I asked her as we raced down the newly opened data path.
“No.” Was all she said and that was enough. We hit the next room, and this time it didn’t feel like I was fighting alone, just with Kiwi in the room. She covered my back, as I covered hers. Unlike with Sasha, Kiwi would point out parts of a firewall for me to attack while she continued to slip through on her attack. I disrupted, while she slipped through.
It was teamwork of a sort, and soon I was even getting call outs from her, when she needed.
I think working with Kiwi was actually… Better than Sasha. Sasha I only now realized treated me sort of like a kid, or in other thoughts, how I treated Malcolm while on the gig. He could handle certain things, but anything more dangerous, and I’d take over, or not entirely trust him to perform.
Kiwi didn’t care, she expected me to keep up. And I did.
We broke through into another space, and I grinned as we ran into Lucy. She was throwing out a hand, and entire groups of Daemons were simply wiped out.
Now that was an interesting Daemon. Forget Kiwi’s CC hack. I wanted that.
She looked up to see us and blinked as Kiwi and I both arrived.
“Where’s Sasha?” I asked, looking around and Lucy just shrugged.
“It’s not like I stuck around her.” She replied instantly and I looked up as she glanced at Kiwi. “I don’t trust her, so I went solo.”
“Stupid.”
“Smart.” We both said at the same time. Kiwi and I looked at each other for a moment. “If you don’t trust someone at your back, leave them behind.”
“We’re all here for the same gig. Not trusting Sasha isn’t being cautious, it’s being paranoid.”
“Paranoia is a good trait.” Kiwi said back and I just made a face at her.
“The kid came with you?”
“She surprised me.” Kiwi replied with a shrug. “Let’s keep going.”
I just sighed there was no way to know if Sasha was ahead or behind. So I would stick with the group for now.
This felt odd again. Lucy and Kiwi didn’t so much work together, like I had with Sasha, but they both were just so overwhelming that any teamwork was mostly circumstantial than anything.
I did my best to assist, settling into a different role. I’d wipe out Daemons to ensure they could focus, I’d smash into some defenses to redirect focus, and let them slip through. That sort of thing. It was teamwork, but it did leave me feeling a little bit like a third wheel, and worse, Lucy wasn’t really impressed.
I could tell she was trying to pull ahead, sort of break free of me following.
Cold.
But I was more than capable of keeping up and so Lucy, if that was what she was doing, was still solidly in front of me.
Finally we reached the actual core we were trying to break into. This time we weren’t alone in a different way. A netrunner was here, his body was twice the size of normal, and he was surrounded by Daemons.
“Not a step further. You lot have caused enough trouble already, turn around.”
I kinda expected Kiwi, or Lucy to say anything, but instead they just went straight on the attack. Both of them slamming hacks forward in at the same time, causing the Runner to activate defenses. Firewalls, Massed Daemons, even his own hacks launched back, and the added server power gave him a hefty punch. I was continually throwing up my defense hacks to give Lucy and Kiwi extra cover, as I dodged or blocked attacks coming my way as well.
“We don’t need your help.” Lucy argued back, as I put up a solid wall between her and some Daemon barrages.
“Well you’ve got it anyways Moongazer.” I told her, and went all out on my own.
I might not be a childhood supersoldier netrunner like Lucy, or just a pure time and effort, and spite runner like Kiwi, but I was fucking Motoko Kusanagi, and on the net, I was not to be fucked with.
My sandy burned, my cyberdeck whirred up, and I started launching attacks like a woman possessed, not quite to the extent of burning myself out of course this wasn’t like that time in the netrunner arena.
This was just me wanting to show off a bit.
I cut out an entire wave of the Daemons from Lucy opening her up to entirely go on the offensive for the security runner.
This pushed him off focusing on Kiwi, letting her clear up her Daemons and suddenly it was two on one, and then as I kept the Daemons off them, it stayed like that.
This guy might be powered up by an entire data fortress, but Lucy and Kiwi weren’t street gonks.
They plowed through his defenses, until he crumpled.
“Shit! Fucking hell! Easy! Damn you win.” He cried out as his defenses crumbled as his ICE barriers wavered. “Jesus who the fuck did we piss off, you Arasaka or something?”
I calmed as he really did stop the assault realizing he was done, but..
I raised a hand and threw up my strongest ICE. Then double and tripled it, as Lucy lashed out with that weird hack of hers, that caused the data to simply self destruct.
Was that something she learned on the other side of the blackwall?
No, that wasn’t important. “Moongazer! What the fuck, chill! He already surrendered!” I called out as my defense hadn’t been to protect us. But to save the runners life.
Lucy had just tried to flatline him.
“Luce. Ease up.” Kiwi demanded, and that thankfully did it, causing Lucy to stop attacking although her face was still glaring.
The poor netrunner looked like he’d just filled his colostomy bag if he had one hooked in.
Looked like his life just flashed before his eyes.
I rushed over which startled him, but I held up my hands.
“Hey easy choom. Sorry about her, she’s a bit on a hair trigger. You unplug, and we will stop it here, yeah? I doubt this is a job you’re willing to get flatlined for.”
“Yeah fuck this.” He muttered and was already disconnecting but he sent me a look. “Thanks.” Then he disappeared.
Heh. I did a good deed for the day.
“You should have let me kill him. Now he’s going to start locking down the data physically.” Lucy muttered a bit harshly, and I shrugged.
“He’s just a gonk doing his job, and we’re all on the net together. Flatlining him for some data when no one's life is on the line is scop.”
“Let’s move-”
“Sasha is here!” Called out a new voice and I did feel some relief.
“Great.” Kiwi muttered, and I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit at that.
“W-wha! KITTEN-CHAN! NOoooo! Don’t give in to that spiders wiles! Let Neko-mama guide you-”
“Okay I’m going ahead.” I instantly said and turned to avoid whatever the fuck Sasha was on about.
“Yeah.” Kiwi agreed and we all rushed out, Sasha chasing us from behind.
Thankfully there wasn’t anything else. The next room was the archives, and while Sasha was trying to compete with grabbing it first. I just rolled my eyes and joined in on finding the data without turning it into a competition.
We found our data, and after a short download, we all disappeared.
—--
“F-ff-f-f-fuck!” I cried out the moment I came back to my body. I was probably yowling a bit as I climbed out and rolled onto the freezing floor as I tried to disconnect.
“Hey, you’re back.” Rebecca called out as she was tossing back a few-Disgusting things I was blocking out from my vision. Schwab Schwab wasn’t food!
“Y-y-yeah.” I chattered as I disconnected and stood up. My everything felt achey, and I was freezing, and this sucked. I was never using a stupid ice bath again. Whoever came up with this was stupid! Stupid and dumb!
I was just in the middle of looking for something when Rebecca chucked a towel at me.
“Damn strings, put those away before you kill us all. Fuckin’ ab gremlin.”
“What?” Look who's talking about being a Gremlin!
“Yeah.” Lucy offered as she slipped out of her own bath and was already trying to light a cigarette. “I don’t need to see that.”
“I’m jealous, honestly.” Kiwi muttered as she rose up joining Lucy in her smoking.
Oh. Every was naked! I felt myself flush a little and started drying off a bit. This was bullying!
“I don’t accept!” Sasha suddenly called out as she rose up, and wow. She was very- Looking away.
“Hmm?”
“Sasha and Motoko team should be the winner! Spider hag cheated!”
“Cheated?”
“You stole my Kitten!”
“She offered to help… She was useful.” Kiwi added and I sent her a smile in thanks for her words.
“Nooo! Don’t let the old evil spider suck you into her weeeeeb!” I was going to just ignore Sasha when she crashed into me. And I yelped.
“Sasha! Put s-some clothes on!” I demanded pushing my towel into her face so she wasn’t pressing up against me!
“I can’t believe she’s shy.” Rebecca whispered half giggling, and I turned on her.
“I’ll show you shy!” I hissed and it only took half a second to flip the towel a few times and snap.
“You little shit!” Rebecca shrieked as the towel got her and she roared as she rose up and charged.
“Rebecca! I’m naked!” I shrieked just as loud as she talked me.
“That’s your problem! You and your stupid perfect abs!”
“Kya!”
—--
“What’s go-”
“I ain’t asking, and I ain’t going down there.” Maine rumbled, refusing to look away from the TV. Pilar was, but he was also an idiot, but Rebecca had threatened him with a shotgun for trying to peek earlier.
—--
“Hi-yah!” I called as I flipped Rebecca around after she tackled me and now I was holding her by her stupid tiny little legs.
“Wha-Hey! You bitch, Motoko, put me down!”
“Oh you want to be put down do you?” I whispered sinisterly as I held Rebecca up night and high which let her see where I was aiming.
Her arms flailed out and grabbed the side of the ice bath that I was threatening her with. “Don’t you dare you bitch!”
“Mwahahaha!” was my only response for a minute until I heard some giggles and looked over.
Oh right, I’d lost my towel, and was holding up Rebecca…
I could feel the blood rushing up to my face. So I carefully got Rebecca back on normal ground and then ran after to go grab my towel and cover myself!
“Don’t worry Kitten! Your abs are nothing to be ashamed of.” Sasha offered with a big wink and a thumbs up.
I was definitely not crouching in the corner under the far too small towel and wanting to cry.
Why was everyone still naked! Exhibitionists! All of them! Were all Netrunners like this!? Was I the only sane one?
Then again I was basing my looks off the Major, and she had a bit of a thing about- Nope!
I wasn’t thinking about that right now!
“Put some clothes on!” I demanded as I crawled behind what I could and looked for my clothes.
“Pfft!”
This was awful. All these women were laughing at me!
—--
“So who won?” Maine rumbled as we all came sauntering up the stairs. It had taken a while but eventually all these far too comfortable in just their skin netrunners had gotten dressed.
“The real winner was the friends we made along the way!” I called out.
“We did.” Kiwi answered, back at the same time as Sasha.
“Us of course!”
Then the two older Netrunners started glaring.
Maine took one look at everyone and just popped the cap on a new beer and apparently decided he didn’t care.
Surprisingly smart for that guy.
“We got the data though.” I confirmed as I sat down. “Kiwi and Lucy are a solid duo.”
“Course they are. Faraday doesn’t hire small time.” Maine grumbled.
I hummed as I took in the reaction but in the end, not my gig, not my chickens.
“Well I’m heading out. This was… Interesting.”
“Wait Kitten! Tell the old spider that we won! It was totally us! She even cheated and stole you away from meeee!”
Yep. Time to go home.
Rebecca was cackling as I walked out ignoring Sasha trying to pull me back inside. But I would not be tricked. I stopped just before I climbed into my Quadra and turned to Sasha.
“Thanks, for inviting me. This was definitely an interesting experience.”
“Oh.” She stopped and looked a little embarrassed. “It’s… You don’t have to thank me Kitten. I'm the one that dragged you into my biz. You did great though. Totally proved those two wrong.”
I smiled warmly at her, not crazy Sasha was much easier to deal with. “It was useful for me too. If you ever need some back up again you can call me… I guess I’ll unblock your number in my agent.”
“Eh!? You blocked my number!” She whined and I laughed, I hadn’t really, just didn’t pick up.
“No.” I said teasing and she smiled back.
“Same goes for you too, Kitten. Sasha-Senpai owes her Kohai one yeah?” She baby-talked and I just sent her a flat look, this time she smirked at me in turn. “But if you ever need some help, you can call on me.”
“I appreciate that… Senpai.” I said, sighing as I did. Already knowing she’d overreact.
So I just slipped into my Quadra as she started gushing. Yep. Not bothering with that.
I drove off as I considered everything. That had been a breeze of a gig really, but if I had to solo that data fort? I’d have to either go full stealth, or maybe not be able to do it. Fact was, there were just too many defenses, for the netrunner Motoko Kusanagi was right now to be able to do it.
Shit now Sasha’s got me talking in the third person. I needed to escape that cat's evil clutches.
----
A/n: Things are going pretty well, but I might take one more skip for the next update. Sorry, I know that's not what anyone wants to hear, but I'm just needing a bit of space from it. I am writing tons of other stuff for anyone not in the know, on my snippet threads, on SB, or Ao3.
When Sasha’s avatar popped in I instantly turned to her. “How do you live like this?” I had to ask as the entire lobby was covered in pink and glittery cat stuff. The kitty pictures were cute, but the rest of it was just too much.
“Hehehe!” She replied back and that was the only answer I got!?
Thankfully Kiwi looked disturbed even though she still wore her mask mouth plate on the net, and Lucy shared my slightly disturbed look.
“Luce, let’s go. Game is already on.” Kiwi called out not hesitating at all before the two of them jumped off the lobby onto the net.
“Shit!” Sasha cursed and I quickly raced after her, as we were all thankfully heading for the same place.
It was a data fortress owned by some no name corp. I wasn't bothering to even learn the name of. It hardly mattered. Four elite (I was one too!) netrunners was enough to smash just about any data fortress not controlled by the big corps.
Sasha and I reached our own entry point and slipped inside, there was no discussion. Just like when we hit the No/Brainer server we already had our roles.
She rushed ahead straight for the access node, while I prepared for the defenses. The moment she started breaching in, the Daemons noticed the intrusion, but I was already on them a flurry of Flame Bullets roared out and crushed the Daemons into pixels.
*250 XP Gained.*
*250 XP Gained.*
*250 XP Gained.*
*250 XP Gained.*
“Through!” Sasha called out as she broke through a path and we both rushed forward.
This fortress was well put together, the neon pulsing lights of the interior created a pseudo 3D rendering of the hallways and rooms. It was clearer than some servers I’d been on which meant new. Which meant high security.
Again though I wasn’t that concerned.
One Elite Netrunner was dangerous. Two was usually overkill. Three? Four? This was an expensive gig. At least it should be but Faraday had managed to get four netrunners on a single gig for the price of one.
We burst into the next room, as I started tearing through defenses, almost mindlessly as Sasha broke through a firewall that rushed up.
It made me realize that Faraday could have planned this whole thing. Had Kiwi tried to set it up like this?
He couldn’t have known about me really, but three netrunners were more than enough to break through even a well secured data fort like this. It made me wonder if that wasn’t the plan?
Another set of Daemons destroyed as I protected Sasha, and burned defenses until the Firewall dropped.
We rushed forward, hitting the next defense, something similar to the Cyber Moat that was on the No/Brainer server. Sasha started breaking through when almost instantly it connected.
I blinked. Sasha blinked.
Kiwi and Lucy blinked.
“Huh good timing.” I muttered as the four of us all came together.
“You’re actually here?” Lucy asked in surprise.
“Yeah?”
“No time to waste Kitten-Chan!”
“Don’t call me. Whoa!” I called out. As suddenly that same data moat slammed back down. Lucy had started rushing forward at the same time as Sasha, and they both disappeared.
“Huh. I wasn’t expecting that.” I muttered as we got split off.
“Netrunner is on the server activating defenses.” Kiwi commented. Already looking like she was going to rush off, so I shrugged and followed her.
We made it through a new hallway before she stopped and turned to look at me.
“What?”
“What are you doing?”
“Backing you up?”
She sort of just stared at me for a bit before I rolled my eyes. “I don’t give a shit about this competition, I’m just here because I like Sasha a bit, despite her catty attitude.”
“Really?”
“Don’t start. I can make puns too.” I said before smiling. “Besides, what, are you going to run this solo, or are you really going to complain about some backup?”
She looked me over for a while, and shrugged. “Don’t slow me down.”
“Sure.” I said flatly, rolling my eyes. Then I pulled myself into position. “Any role preference?” I asked, and Kiwi made a snorting noise.
“Are you a kid or a netrunner? Do what you can.”
I wanted to say something but Kiwi could actually be right… Had Sasha been babying me in a way? That’s irritating. Fine.
I stayed with her as we hit the next access node, and we both went to work, where before it was a shared experience with Sasha Kiwi simply cleared her own path, guarded her own back. There was no real working together. We each burned Daemons down, we each started breaching.
Kiwi used an interesting quick hack. Instead of destroying the Daemons it caused them to lock up a CC hack. Nice. I might have to ask about that, or make my own.
I finished off a few of her dazed daemons as well, just for the extra XP.
Kiwi was fast. There was no doubt about that. She was better at breaching than I was, but I had tricks she didn’t.
We were already past stealth so it was time to go loud.
I switched from defending against the Daemons for a second and slammed into the security system like a freight train.
Strong Breach was one of my lesser used perks, but that was only because I preferred stealth. The security glitched as I overwhelmed it and even Kiwi looked away from her breach to me, for a moment as there was an obvious shift along the security walls data, an alert going out no doubt as I hit the defense so hard, and it spasmed once before falling opening the path.
I turned and finished a few more Daemons that had restored themselves in the moments it had taken.
“Let’s go.” I told her and Kiwi for the first time didn’t look at me like some kid, but a peer of some sort.
“That was a bit much.”
“What, you unhappy I broke through?” I asked her as we raced down the newly opened data path.
“No.” Was all she said and that was enough. We hit the next room, and this time it didn’t feel like I was fighting alone, just with Kiwi in the room. She covered my back, as I covered hers. Unlike with Sasha, Kiwi would point out parts of a firewall for me to attack while she continued to slip through on her attack. I disrupted, while she slipped through.
It was teamwork of a sort, and soon I was even getting call outs from her, when she needed.
I think working with Kiwi was actually… Better than Sasha. Sasha I only now realized treated me sort of like a kid, or in other thoughts, how I treated Malcolm while on the gig. He could handle certain things, but anything more dangerous, and I’d take over, or not entirely trust him to perform.
Kiwi didn’t care, she expected me to keep up. And I did.
We broke through into another space, and I grinned as we ran into Lucy. She was throwing out a hand, and entire groups of Daemons were simply wiped out.
Now that was an interesting Daemon. Forget Kiwi’s CC hack. I wanted that.
She looked up to see us and blinked as Kiwi and I both arrived.
“Where’s Sasha?” I asked, looking around and Lucy just shrugged.
“It’s not like I stuck around her.” She replied instantly and I looked up as she glanced at Kiwi. “I don’t trust her, so I went solo.”
“Stupid.”
“Smart.” We both said at the same time. Kiwi and I looked at each other for a moment. “If you don’t trust someone at your back, leave them behind.”
“We’re all here for the same gig. Not trusting Sasha isn’t being cautious, it’s being paranoid.”
“Paranoia is a good trait.” Kiwi said back and I just made a face at her.
“The kid came with you?”
“She surprised me.” Kiwi replied with a shrug. “Let’s keep going.”
I just sighed there was no way to know if Sasha was ahead or behind. So I would stick with the group for now.
This felt odd again. Lucy and Kiwi didn’t so much work together, like I had with Sasha, but they both were just so overwhelming that any teamwork was mostly circumstantial than anything.
I did my best to assist, settling into a different role. I’d wipe out Daemons to ensure they could focus, I’d smash into some defenses to redirect focus, and let them slip through. That sort of thing. It was teamwork, but it did leave me feeling a little bit like a third wheel, and worse, Lucy wasn’t really impressed.
I could tell she was trying to pull ahead, sort of break free of me following.
Cold.
But I was more than capable of keeping up and so Lucy, if that was what she was doing, was still solidly in front of me.
Finally we reached the actual core we were trying to break into. This time we weren’t alone in a different way. A netrunner was here, his body was twice the size of normal, and he was surrounded by Daemons.
“Not a step further. You lot have caused enough trouble already, turn around.”
I kinda expected Kiwi, or Lucy to say anything, but instead they just went straight on the attack. Both of them slamming hacks forward in at the same time, causing the Runner to activate defenses. Firewalls, Massed Daemons, even his own hacks launched back, and the added server power gave him a hefty punch. I was continually throwing up my defense hacks to give Lucy and Kiwi extra cover, as I dodged or blocked attacks coming my way as well.
“We don’t need your help.” Lucy argued back, as I put up a solid wall between her and some Daemon barrages.
“Well you’ve got it anyways Moongazer.” I told her, and went all out on my own.
I might not be a childhood supersoldier netrunner like Lucy, or just a pure time and effort, and spite runner like Kiwi, but I was fucking Motoko Kusanagi, and on the net, I was not to be fucked with.
My sandy burned, my cyberdeck whirred up, and I started launching attacks like a woman possessed, not quite to the extent of burning myself out of course this wasn’t like that time in the netrunner arena.
This was just me wanting to show off a bit.
I cut out an entire wave of the Daemons from Lucy opening her up to entirely go on the offensive for the security runner.
This pushed him off focusing on Kiwi, letting her clear up her Daemons and suddenly it was two on one, and then as I kept the Daemons off them, it stayed like that.
This guy might be powered up by an entire data fortress, but Lucy and Kiwi weren’t street gonks.
They plowed through his defenses, until he crumpled.
“Shit! Fucking hell! Easy! Damn you win.” He cried out as his defenses crumbled as his ICE barriers wavered. “Jesus who the fuck did we piss off, you Arasaka or something?”
I calmed as he really did stop the assault realizing he was done, but..
I raised a hand and threw up my strongest ICE. Then double and tripled it, as Lucy lashed out with that weird hack of hers, that caused the data to simply self destruct.
Was that something she learned on the other side of the blackwall?
No, that wasn’t important. “Moongazer! What the fuck, chill! He already surrendered!” I called out as my defense hadn’t been to protect us. But to save the runners life.
Lucy had just tried to flatline him.
“Luce. Ease up.” Kiwi demanded, and that thankfully did it, causing Lucy to stop attacking although her face was still glaring.
The poor netrunner looked like he’d just filled his colostomy bag if he had one hooked in.
Looked like his life just flashed before his eyes.
I rushed over which startled him, but I held up my hands.
“Hey easy choom. Sorry about her, she’s a bit on a hair trigger. You unplug, and we will stop it here, yeah? I doubt this is a job you’re willing to get flatlined for.”
“Yeah fuck this.” He muttered and was already disconnecting but he sent me a look. “Thanks.” Then he disappeared.
Heh. I did a good deed for the day.
“You should have let me kill him. Now he’s going to start locking down the data physically.” Lucy muttered a bit harshly, and I shrugged.
“He’s just a gonk doing his job, and we’re all on the net together. Flatlining him for some data when no one's life is on the line is scop.”
“Let’s move-”
“Sasha is here!” Called out a new voice and I did feel some relief.
“Great.” Kiwi muttered, and I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit at that.
“W-wha! KITTEN-CHAN! NOoooo! Don’t give in to that spiders wiles! Let Neko-mama guide you-”
“Okay I’m going ahead.” I instantly said and turned to avoid whatever the fuck Sasha was on about.
“Yeah.” Kiwi agreed and we all rushed out, Sasha chasing us from behind.
Thankfully there wasn’t anything else. The next room was the archives, and while Sasha was trying to compete with grabbing it first. I just rolled my eyes and joined in on finding the data without turning it into a competition.
We found our data, and after a short download, we all disappeared.
—--
“F-ff-f-f-fuck!” I cried out the moment I came back to my body. I was probably yowling a bit as I climbed out and rolled onto the freezing floor as I tried to disconnect.
“Hey, you’re back.” Rebecca called out as she was tossing back a few-Disgusting things I was blocking out from my vision. Schwab Schwab wasn’t food!
“Y-y-yeah.” I chattered as I disconnected and stood up. My everything felt achey, and I was freezing, and this sucked. I was never using a stupid ice bath again. Whoever came up with this was stupid! Stupid and dumb!
I was just in the middle of looking for something when Rebecca chucked a towel at me.
“Damn strings, put those away before you kill us all. Fuckin’ ab gremlin.”
“What?” Look who's talking about being a Gremlin!
“Yeah.” Lucy offered as she slipped out of her own bath and was already trying to light a cigarette. “I don’t need to see that.”
“I’m jealous, honestly.” Kiwi muttered as she rose up joining Lucy in her smoking.
Oh. Every was naked! I felt myself flush a little and started drying off a bit. This was bullying!
“I don’t accept!” Sasha suddenly called out as she rose up, and wow. She was very- Looking away.
“Hmm?”
“Sasha and Motoko team should be the winner! Spider hag cheated!”
“Cheated?”
“You stole my Kitten!”
“She offered to help… She was useful.” Kiwi added and I sent her a smile in thanks for her words.
“Nooo! Don’t let the old evil spider suck you into her weeeeeb!” I was going to just ignore Sasha when she crashed into me. And I yelped.
“Sasha! Put s-some clothes on!” I demanded pushing my towel into her face so she wasn’t pressing up against me!
“I can’t believe she’s shy.” Rebecca whispered half giggling, and I turned on her.
“I’ll show you shy!” I hissed and it only took half a second to flip the towel a few times and snap.
“You little shit!” Rebecca shrieked as the towel got her and she roared as she rose up and charged.
“Rebecca! I’m naked!” I shrieked just as loud as she talked me.
“That’s your problem! You and your stupid perfect abs!”
“Kya!”
—--
“What’s go-”
“I ain’t asking, and I ain’t going down there.” Maine rumbled, refusing to look away from the TV. Pilar was, but he was also an idiot, but Rebecca had threatened him with a shotgun for trying to peek earlier.
—--
“Hi-yah!” I called as I flipped Rebecca around after she tackled me and now I was holding her by her stupid tiny little legs.
“Wha-Hey! You bitch, Motoko, put me down!”
“Oh you want to be put down do you?” I whispered sinisterly as I held Rebecca up night and high which let her see where I was aiming.
Her arms flailed out and grabbed the side of the ice bath that I was threatening her with. “Don’t you dare you bitch!”
“Mwahahaha!” was my only response for a minute until I heard some giggles and looked over.
Oh right, I’d lost my towel, and was holding up Rebecca…
I could feel the blood rushing up to my face. So I carefully got Rebecca back on normal ground and then ran after to go grab my towel and cover myself!
“Don’t worry Kitten! Your abs are nothing to be ashamed of.” Sasha offered with a big wink and a thumbs up.
I was definitely not crouching in the corner under the far too small towel and wanting to cry.
Why was everyone still naked! Exhibitionists! All of them! Were all Netrunners like this!? Was I the only sane one?
Then again I was basing my looks off the Major, and she had a bit of a thing about- Nope!
I wasn’t thinking about that right now!
“Put some clothes on!” I demanded as I crawled behind what I could and looked for my clothes.
“Pfft!”
This was awful. All these women were laughing at me!
—--
“So who won?” Maine rumbled as we all came sauntering up the stairs. It had taken a while but eventually all these far too comfortable in just their skin netrunners had gotten dressed.
“The real winner was the friends we made along the way!” I called out.
“We did.” Kiwi answered, back at the same time as Sasha.
“Us of course!”
Then the two older Netrunners started glaring.
Maine took one look at everyone and just popped the cap on a new beer and apparently decided he didn’t care.
Surprisingly smart for that guy.
“We got the data though.” I confirmed as I sat down. “Kiwi and Lucy are a solid duo.”
“Course they are. Faraday doesn’t hire small time.” Maine grumbled.
I hummed as I took in the reaction but in the end, not my gig, not my chickens.
“Well I’m heading out. This was… Interesting.”
“Wait Kitten! Tell the old spider that we won! It was totally us! She even cheated and stole you away from meeee!”
Yep. Time to go home.
Rebecca was cackling as I walked out ignoring Sasha trying to pull me back inside. But I would not be tricked. I stopped just before I climbed into my Quadra and turned to Sasha.
“Thanks, for inviting me. This was definitely an interesting experience.”
“Oh.” She stopped and looked a little embarrassed. “It’s… You don’t have to thank me Kitten. I'm the one that dragged you into my biz. You did great though. Totally proved those two wrong.”
I smiled warmly at her, not crazy Sasha was much easier to deal with. “It was useful for me too. If you ever need some back up again you can call me… I guess I’ll unblock your number in my agent.”
“Eh!? You blocked my number!” She whined and I laughed, I hadn’t really, just didn’t pick up.
“No.” I said teasing and she smiled back.
“Same goes for you too, Kitten. Sasha-Senpai owes her Kohai one yeah?” She baby-talked and I just sent her a flat look, this time she smirked at me in turn. “But if you ever need some help, you can call on me.”
“I appreciate that… Senpai.” I said, sighing as I did. Already knowing she’d overreact.
So I just slipped into my Quadra as she started gushing. Yep. Not bothering with that.
I drove off as I considered everything. That had been a breeze of a gig really, but if I had to solo that data fort? I’d have to either go full stealth, or maybe not be able to do it. Fact was, there were just too many defenses, for the netrunner Motoko Kusanagi was right now to be able to do it.
Shit now Sasha’s got me talking in the third person. I needed to escape that cat's evil clutches.
----
A/n: Things are going pretty well, but I might take one more skip for the next update. Sorry, I know that's not what anyone wants to hear, but I'm just needing a bit of space from it. I am writing tons of other stuff for anyone not in the know, on my snippet threads, on SB, or Ao3.
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
Breaks are needed sometimes to avoid burnout is what it is.
Take the time you need, writing needs to be fun and while we love reading it, you need to love writing it too.
Now hurry up! WE WANT MORE!
Now hurry up! WE WANT MORE!
embrace the chuunibyo tendencies you are in cyberpunk. everyone has to be at least a little chuuni to be the gonks they are.
Guardian Box
Radioactive Cognitohazard
Motoko masters the blade, fully engulfing herself into the Chuuni soul.
Hers is the path of the blade, of cold iron wielded with malicious intent.
Time passes, until her fated confrontation with The Smasher begins.
A perfect cut.
Her blade arcs at an angle poised to exploit her foe's weakness.
Except...
The Smasher catches her blade in is iron grip.
"Nice knife." He says, mockingly, as her blade is crushed under his grip.
Hers is the path of the blade, of cold iron wielded with malicious intent.
Time passes, until her fated confrontation with The Smasher begins.
A perfect cut.
Her blade arcs at an angle poised to exploit her foe's weakness.
Except...
The Smasher catches her blade in is iron grip.
"Nice knife." He says, mockingly, as her blade is crushed under his grip.
Chapter 228
Seras
Well-known member
I got home and flopped on the couch. That netdive had taken a lot out of me, and I honestly felt ready for a nap, but first.
I looked at my stat screen.
During the dive I’d destroyed so many Daemons I’d actually hit a level up.
*Level up achieved!*
*One Stat Point Gained.*
*One Skill Point Gained.*
Heh. It made me kick my feet a bit as I stretched out on my stomach on the couch.
Levels levels levels!
And it was time to put the point into my stats as well, so what did I want to level?
Intelligence again? Very tempting. 16 in my netrunning stats sounded pretty strong, but…
It was also a lot already. Maxing out a stat probably was a smart thing. If I could get my Netrunning maxed out, I’d be… Scary.
But… Was that what I wanted? Body, and Reflex were both maxed out, and ready for a level up… Ugh I really needed some Cyberware to add some Cyberization to Cool. Otherwise I’d pick that in a heartbeat. Stealth was still my favorite thing.
So… What do I choose? Try to maximize Netrunning? But with Sasha’s thing done, I was free to do my own thing for a while…
Or I could max Netrunning to try and get more Daemon hunting grounds for more XP.
Blegh. I hate making decisions!
I perked up as the door opened and I pushed myself up looking over the back of the couch as Jun walked in.
“Hey Jun.”
“Motoko.” He greeted as he dropped off his stuff, his jacket thrown at me, and I reacted, rolling forward and dodging it.
“You were supposed to grab it.” He grumbled at me.
“No I wasn’t, you were trying to cover me with your stinky jacket.”
“It’s not stinky!” He snapped instantly, sounding actually offended.
“Stinky Jun~”
“Oh you're in that sort of mood.” He grumbled, as he hit the fridge and pulled a beer out and then walked over to flop on the couch.
“What kind of mood? I’m not in a mood!” I hissed at him, my fingers itching to start poking him for daring to say I was in a mood!
“That kind.” He pointed out which was really offensive! As he fended off my fingers. “Not right now Motoko. I’m tired.” He groaned as he put his feet up on the living room table and I did stop but not because he asked or anything! He just looked done.
His beer ran up and rested against his forehead for a second.
“Something going on?”
“Nothing crazy. Just had to run around a lot. Fujimura is running us all a little ragged… It’s nothing you have to worry about. I see that look.”
“Is it some gonk klepping shit again? I can kill them.”
“Heh. Not this time. We’re getting close to the end of the year, so the numbers for everything are being double checked.”
I blinked. I guess that made sense?
“What is he worried about Taxes?”
“Taxes?” Jun asked almost tasting the world as if he couldn’t quite figure it out. “Where do you get these things? No, the end of the year is when the bosses meet up and hold a big party. All the numbers everyone ran through the year get brought up.”
“Ah. Christmas Bonuses.” I whispered, and Jun sent me another funny look before chuckling.
“I guess you could call it that. Or Christmas beheadings… You know?”
“Does that happen?”
“Not unless people haven’t been reporting things. Which is why I’m double checking all the little side work that Fujimura runs.”
“Makes sense I guess.” I whispered, and then since Jun was relaxing.
“What do you think is the most important? Being Strong, being quick, or being smar-” I of course didn’t get to finish my question as Jun simply brought up his arm at the first question and flexed showing off his stupid fake muscles.
Which… I guess I should have expected that.
I rolled my eyes and instead turned towards the TV as he flipped the channel on.
“Ugh I hate this show.” I whined, but Jun just scoffed at me.
“Then go somewhere else.”
“I was here first!”
“I’m older, so I was here first.”
“Fuck off!” I hissed, sticking a heel right into his side as he dared say that shit to me.
He winced and soon he was grabbing at my foot as we dueled.
Him picking me up and throwing me across the room was totally uncalled for.
—---
“So you think that’s good for the set list?” I asked the band.
Klein, Alice, and Jared all considered what I had said.
“Are you sure we should do Everlong? Wouldn’t the other song, I Won’t be Ignored, fit better?”
“It’s called Faint. Are you sure?” I looked over the list. Hiromi and Alice of course had been working on the actual gig, and we’d gotten a gig from a rock bar. Not Red Dirt, but another of the bars that played that sort of music. A bigger club as well.
“I think it fits better. Everlong is more…” Alice started.
“It’s a rock song.” Klein called out spinning his drumsticks.
“It’s a love song.” Jared argued.
“It’s a breakup song!” I argued and Alice scoffed just laughing.
“Right. Anyway, while this isn’t the Totentanz, they’re looking for something harder. Heathens is already going to be a bit more low key.”
“Fine. We’ll cut Everlong for the set, and… Yeah we can do Faint. You got the backup vocals?”
“Yeah I got it.” Alice confirmed. She’d practiced Mike’s part of the song, while I would take the incredible burden of trying to bring Chesters sound back to life.
“Alright. We’ll add it in.” I confirmed, the set list was easy enough, no great story arc this time, which was a bit disappointing, but if we ever did an album I could set the songs up to tell a story there.
Either way. Faint… Yeah alright. Smells Like Teen Spirit, Rise, Heathens, This Fffire, and The Pretender, then Faint. Maybe Let You Down? Depending on how much the audience was into it. Similar to the normal set, but adding in the new music… Yeah that would work for now.
We hadn’t practiced No One Knows, enough to my satisfaction so that would have to wait.
And… Maybe I’ll do Everlong at the end, if an encore is called for, cause I really did want to play it.
“Everyone satisfied?”
“I’m good.” Jared said, tapping his bass. “I know you’re wanting shit to be perfect Motoko, but I just want to get back up on stage.”
“I feel that!” Klein called out, smacking his sticks together. “We got this. Not our first gig. We’ll pull through.”
I nodded not wanting to admit I had more hesitation than they seemed to. But I looked at Alice, and she was in it. There was no doubt in my mind she wanted this.
Which did reassure me a little. “Alright, in that case. Let’s play through the set. Fair?”
“Yeah.”
All of us found a spot, and the sound of music began. The storage unit wasn’t the best place ever, but no one was complaining about the noise, and so we played through the night.
—--
“I swear it’s taunting me.” I grumbled, looking at the little stat in my character sheet. I just needed to pick. Just pick one. It was fine. I’d level all of them eventually. Just pick one.
I was feeling a little antsy the next morning. We’d practiced all night until the others had needed to stop and actually sleep. The gig was tonight.
And yet, despite that, the anxiety was seeping into other things. I should just pick an option. Live with it, and move on, but the point…
I should just go full Cold Blood, let everything become crystal clear, but I didn’t want to live my life like that.
Sometimes being anxious about a choice was okay, and I shouldn’t just control my emotions like that to dodge it.
Still sucked though.
Hiromi was at school, she wouldn’t get off until later, and Ichi and Malcolm were doing guy things today.
Fairly certain they were at Lizzies, but I wasn’t going to out them to Hiromi.
So I was just lonely today…
Huh.
Fine, instead of getting stuck in my head about this, I should go out and do something.
I pulled myself off the couch and grabbed my shoes. I had no idea where I was going, but I was going somewhere…
Right?
I took the elevator down, and stepped out into the cool December air. It was still California so it wasn’t really getting cold, cold, but it was cooler than it was.
To think, it had been almost a year since I woke up in Night City.
I headed for the garage, deciding to get on my bike. It was perfect motorcycle weather right now.
My Kusanagi rumbled to life, and I delighted in revving her up a bit as I pulled out of the garage and onto the street. Let’s see… Traffic wasn’t super good, so there wasn’t going to be any real speeding around unless I started really breaking traffic laws, and that wasn’t worth it.
I ended up stuck in traffic rather quickly staring at the red light far in front wishing it would just turn red.
“Resist hacking the city traffic. Resist Motoko. You shouldn’t do that.” I whispered to myself, and finally the light went green. I waited, and waited, and traffic barely started moving when the light turned yellow.
“Resist shooting the traffic lights. Resist Motoko. You shouldn’t do that.”
—--
“Hmph! You get fat?”
“It’s muscle.”
“Yes of course. Fatty.” The old woman hissed at me poking at my sides and I rolled my eyes, she was teasing, but still.
“Can you do it?”
“Me? Of course! I can make the clothes fit any gorilla.”
I sent a very firm glare at the old lady and her scowl shifted into a smirk that I couldn’t help but mimic.
“Thanks Granny.”
“I am not that old!”
“Forgetting your own age again? That Dementia is hitting you harder and harder every time we meet.”
“Little brat!” She tsked at me, but nodded. “I’ll start a new set for your new dimensions. No more of that Animal slop if you get any bigger no leotard in the world will fit you!”
“I’m not taking drugs! I’ve been working out!”
“Hmm, perhaps the Gorilla DNA?”
“What’s got your mood all shitty today?” I asked her, and she stilled for a second.
“Ah, forgive me. I have been irritated.”
“Nah it’s fine. You’re just teasing… Anything you need help with?”
“No. No child, nothing anyone can do. It is no matter. My grandsons are fools. Nothing anyone can do now. You’ll leave this to me, and I’ll get you sorted out. Your pants need to be adjusted as well. That I will not help you with.”
“Yeah I know a place where I can buy some pants. I guess I’ll do that now.”
“Hmph!”
I tossed the eddies over and left, the old lady was the teasing type. Apparently after I’d forgiven her for using shit armor weave at first, she’d decided I was one step from family and was like that every time I walked in.
—--
I flopped on the couch bags of new jeans and other things that would fit better dropped on the bed.
“Okay. No more shopping.” I decided. I had to go to a few stores to get everything updated.
Oh well.
I sat back up and considered what I should do for the rest of the day. We had a gig later. Back on stage…
Ugh. I rolled over and pushed my face into my blankets. I didn’t want to think about that right now.
Stats.
Okay fine make a choice Motoko. I was tempted to add one into reflex because moving fast was really useful, but… Was getting another point in Blades something I needed right now?
If I dumped another point into Intelligence, I could raise everything to 16 with the skill points I had right now…
Making choices was hard.
I closed my eyes and clicked.
Opening them.
Intelligence 16 (20) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 10.
-Breach Protocol 14
-Quick Hacks 12
-Programming 15
Fine. It was fine. Sure Intelligence was lame, but hacking was fun, and it was the best way to get more XP currently.
I decided to throw a point into Breach Protocol too.
Breach Protocol 15
*1 Perk Point Gained.*
I weathered the storm of new information for a while. And now I had another choice to make. What sort of perk did I want for Breach? I had stealth, and I had the ability to break down most barriers… I’d just had a lot of time online, so I should have a sense of what I needed.
I thought back to the three Netrunners I’d just watched breach into a heavy data fortress.
Kiwi, Lucy, and Sasha all breached a little differently.
But Kiwi and Lucy had taught me something interesting. Working together on the same goal could create some synergy.
Sasha preferred delineated roles. One for breaching, one for wiping out Daemons, but Lucy and Kiwi shared roles, doing both, which…
Was probably the normal way a netrunner would operate.
No one would fully trust someone else to protect their back unless you were like Sasha, or me.
So… I looked through the perk list and found it.
Team Breach. Know how to work in a team of netrunners to break through even the strongest firewalls.
I wasn’t going to be like Sasha, and I wasn’t going to be like Kiwi and Lucy.
Teamwork was a power that none of them really tried to work with. I hummed as the perk knowledge flowed through me. How to work together with other runners while breaching systems. The know how filled me, when and how to strike a system to let another runner maximize their ability, and in turn how to guide other runners to take up system resources to give you an advantage.
It wasn’t as strong as Strong Breach, or as difficult to deal with as Ghost Touch.
But, this was the perk of someone that knew how useful team work could be. Sasha owed me one, and next time I had to break a data fortress I knew who to call on, and the two of us would be on another level.
Especially once I finished leveling even more!
—-
Finding a spot I parked the Quadra, it was nearly time for the gig. The place was called the Electric Orgasm… Cute. But whatever. It was a club, and I was here to play.
I stepped out noticing the crowds gathered around, but I ignored them. Hopefully no one would be gonk brained enough to go after my Quadra, again.
I took a moment to grab my guitar and some of the easier to carry stuff as I headed towards the door. There was already a line forming, and I could hear music from inside the open door.
We weren’t the first act after all.
“Hold up there.” The Bouncer called out hand raised and looked me over through a pair of dark sunglasses.
“I’m playing tonight. Stand Alone Complex.” I told him while I watched him scan me down. He took a second and then nodded.
“Go on in.”
“Thanks.” I moved past him and entered into a blistering array of noise.
There was a stage immediately to my right down a set of steps. Laser lights shooting down at it, and the band up there already was a bit…
Yeah. Loud would be putting it mildly.
I circled around heading to the bar and smiled a bit in relief as I noticed a familiar face.
“Yo Klein.”
“Oh! Motoko!” He raised a drink up at me. “Got here early huh? Come to enjoy the free drinks for entertainers?” He teased laughing as I sent him a sour look.
“Yeah no.” I brought my guitar in close and took the seat next to him. Glancing over at his Wild Hair, flashing colors, and very bright outfit. Not his usual jeans and a T-shirt. No he was wearing an expensive Holo Jacket, flashing some demonic looking thing on the back, he had lights running down his arms from a series of bracelets that all glowed and strobed.
“Like em?”
“Eh.”
“Hah! They help a bit. Hard to see the drummer behind everything, but add some lights and you give the peeps a light show while you sit there.” He explained and I nodded along. Made sense to me. I looked down at my own clothes, and how bland I looked in comparison…
Eh. That wasn’t me.
“Jared said he’d be running a little late, but Alice should be here soon. Unless she runs off to grab him.” He added after taking another drink and I just nodded pleased at that.
We had to wait for the other band to leave, but I was starting to get that antsy feeling. Excitement, and fear all coiled into one.
“Well now. That’s a face I've been wanting to meet.” I looked away from Klein, and into the aviators, of a man I hadn’t yet had a chance to meet yet.
“Dino Dinovic.” I greeted the Fixer. City Centers very own boss of bosses.
“Motoko Kusanagi.” He returned smirking, the rocker jacket he wore gave him the look of someone just here to rock out, but this guy was serious. As powerful in some ways as Wakako. “You know I’ve heard a lot about you. About this scary kid making a name for herself.”
“Thanks. I’ve heard of you too.” I replied, and he smirked at that.
“Only good things I hope.”
“Something like that.” I honestly didn’t know much about him. Just that he was ‘the’ fixer of City Central, and to control the center of the city meant he was serious biz.
“Good. When I heard you were going to be playing I had to be here. Looking forward to you play, and more importantly. Looking forward to talking with you after. There could be a little work that someone like you could handle, been wanting to touch base, maybe add you to my payroll.”
“I’ll hear you out but no promises.”
“Hey, that's good enough for me. Oh also, little tip?” He looked down the bar for a second, just a flash of his eyes. “Don’t look, but you may have some real producer types here tonight. The band after you has been getting some attention. Maybe you can steal some for yourself if you play well.”
“Eh.” I shrugged. “I play because I like it, not to get famous…”
“Speak for yourself.” Klein offered smirking into his drink.
“Hey! That’s how it should be! Rockerboys should go wild!” Dino exclaimed, laughing. “Keep shooting up kid. Maybe you’ll be the next big thing.”
“Thanks Dino.” I decided to say instead of repeating I wasn’t that interested.
This was… I don’t know anymore, but I couldn’t deny that I did like getting up on stage.
I felt my fingers tap at the counter. I’d have to give my all tonight, not because I wanted to be famous or cared about a producer.
I just wanted to play the songs I liked.
I looked at my stat screen.
During the dive I’d destroyed so many Daemons I’d actually hit a level up.
*Level up achieved!*
*One Stat Point Gained.*
*One Skill Point Gained.*
Heh. It made me kick my feet a bit as I stretched out on my stomach on the couch.
Levels levels levels!
And it was time to put the point into my stats as well, so what did I want to level?
Intelligence again? Very tempting. 16 in my netrunning stats sounded pretty strong, but…
It was also a lot already. Maxing out a stat probably was a smart thing. If I could get my Netrunning maxed out, I’d be… Scary.
But… Was that what I wanted? Body, and Reflex were both maxed out, and ready for a level up… Ugh I really needed some Cyberware to add some Cyberization to Cool. Otherwise I’d pick that in a heartbeat. Stealth was still my favorite thing.
So… What do I choose? Try to maximize Netrunning? But with Sasha’s thing done, I was free to do my own thing for a while…
Or I could max Netrunning to try and get more Daemon hunting grounds for more XP.
Blegh. I hate making decisions!
I perked up as the door opened and I pushed myself up looking over the back of the couch as Jun walked in.
“Hey Jun.”
“Motoko.” He greeted as he dropped off his stuff, his jacket thrown at me, and I reacted, rolling forward and dodging it.
“You were supposed to grab it.” He grumbled at me.
“No I wasn’t, you were trying to cover me with your stinky jacket.”
“It’s not stinky!” He snapped instantly, sounding actually offended.
“Stinky Jun~”
“Oh you're in that sort of mood.” He grumbled, as he hit the fridge and pulled a beer out and then walked over to flop on the couch.
“What kind of mood? I’m not in a mood!” I hissed at him, my fingers itching to start poking him for daring to say I was in a mood!
“That kind.” He pointed out which was really offensive! As he fended off my fingers. “Not right now Motoko. I’m tired.” He groaned as he put his feet up on the living room table and I did stop but not because he asked or anything! He just looked done.
His beer ran up and rested against his forehead for a second.
“Something going on?”
“Nothing crazy. Just had to run around a lot. Fujimura is running us all a little ragged… It’s nothing you have to worry about. I see that look.”
“Is it some gonk klepping shit again? I can kill them.”
“Heh. Not this time. We’re getting close to the end of the year, so the numbers for everything are being double checked.”
I blinked. I guess that made sense?
“What is he worried about Taxes?”
“Taxes?” Jun asked almost tasting the world as if he couldn’t quite figure it out. “Where do you get these things? No, the end of the year is when the bosses meet up and hold a big party. All the numbers everyone ran through the year get brought up.”
“Ah. Christmas Bonuses.” I whispered, and Jun sent me another funny look before chuckling.
“I guess you could call it that. Or Christmas beheadings… You know?”
“Does that happen?”
“Not unless people haven’t been reporting things. Which is why I’m double checking all the little side work that Fujimura runs.”
“Makes sense I guess.” I whispered, and then since Jun was relaxing.
“What do you think is the most important? Being Strong, being quick, or being smar-” I of course didn’t get to finish my question as Jun simply brought up his arm at the first question and flexed showing off his stupid fake muscles.
Which… I guess I should have expected that.
I rolled my eyes and instead turned towards the TV as he flipped the channel on.
“Ugh I hate this show.” I whined, but Jun just scoffed at me.
“Then go somewhere else.”
“I was here first!”
“I’m older, so I was here first.”
“Fuck off!” I hissed, sticking a heel right into his side as he dared say that shit to me.
He winced and soon he was grabbing at my foot as we dueled.
Him picking me up and throwing me across the room was totally uncalled for.
—---
“So you think that’s good for the set list?” I asked the band.
Klein, Alice, and Jared all considered what I had said.
“Are you sure we should do Everlong? Wouldn’t the other song, I Won’t be Ignored, fit better?”
“It’s called Faint. Are you sure?” I looked over the list. Hiromi and Alice of course had been working on the actual gig, and we’d gotten a gig from a rock bar. Not Red Dirt, but another of the bars that played that sort of music. A bigger club as well.
“I think it fits better. Everlong is more…” Alice started.
“It’s a rock song.” Klein called out spinning his drumsticks.
“It’s a love song.” Jared argued.
“It’s a breakup song!” I argued and Alice scoffed just laughing.
“Right. Anyway, while this isn’t the Totentanz, they’re looking for something harder. Heathens is already going to be a bit more low key.”
“Fine. We’ll cut Everlong for the set, and… Yeah we can do Faint. You got the backup vocals?”
“Yeah I got it.” Alice confirmed. She’d practiced Mike’s part of the song, while I would take the incredible burden of trying to bring Chesters sound back to life.
“Alright. We’ll add it in.” I confirmed, the set list was easy enough, no great story arc this time, which was a bit disappointing, but if we ever did an album I could set the songs up to tell a story there.
Either way. Faint… Yeah alright. Smells Like Teen Spirit, Rise, Heathens, This Fffire, and The Pretender, then Faint. Maybe Let You Down? Depending on how much the audience was into it. Similar to the normal set, but adding in the new music… Yeah that would work for now.
We hadn’t practiced No One Knows, enough to my satisfaction so that would have to wait.
And… Maybe I’ll do Everlong at the end, if an encore is called for, cause I really did want to play it.
“Everyone satisfied?”
“I’m good.” Jared said, tapping his bass. “I know you’re wanting shit to be perfect Motoko, but I just want to get back up on stage.”
“I feel that!” Klein called out, smacking his sticks together. “We got this. Not our first gig. We’ll pull through.”
I nodded not wanting to admit I had more hesitation than they seemed to. But I looked at Alice, and she was in it. There was no doubt in my mind she wanted this.
Which did reassure me a little. “Alright, in that case. Let’s play through the set. Fair?”
“Yeah.”
All of us found a spot, and the sound of music began. The storage unit wasn’t the best place ever, but no one was complaining about the noise, and so we played through the night.
—--
“I swear it’s taunting me.” I grumbled, looking at the little stat in my character sheet. I just needed to pick. Just pick one. It was fine. I’d level all of them eventually. Just pick one.
I was feeling a little antsy the next morning. We’d practiced all night until the others had needed to stop and actually sleep. The gig was tonight.
And yet, despite that, the anxiety was seeping into other things. I should just pick an option. Live with it, and move on, but the point…
I should just go full Cold Blood, let everything become crystal clear, but I didn’t want to live my life like that.
Sometimes being anxious about a choice was okay, and I shouldn’t just control my emotions like that to dodge it.
Still sucked though.
Hiromi was at school, she wouldn’t get off until later, and Ichi and Malcolm were doing guy things today.
Fairly certain they were at Lizzies, but I wasn’t going to out them to Hiromi.
So I was just lonely today…
Huh.
Fine, instead of getting stuck in my head about this, I should go out and do something.
I pulled myself off the couch and grabbed my shoes. I had no idea where I was going, but I was going somewhere…
Right?
I took the elevator down, and stepped out into the cool December air. It was still California so it wasn’t really getting cold, cold, but it was cooler than it was.
To think, it had been almost a year since I woke up in Night City.
I headed for the garage, deciding to get on my bike. It was perfect motorcycle weather right now.
My Kusanagi rumbled to life, and I delighted in revving her up a bit as I pulled out of the garage and onto the street. Let’s see… Traffic wasn’t super good, so there wasn’t going to be any real speeding around unless I started really breaking traffic laws, and that wasn’t worth it.
I ended up stuck in traffic rather quickly staring at the red light far in front wishing it would just turn red.
“Resist hacking the city traffic. Resist Motoko. You shouldn’t do that.” I whispered to myself, and finally the light went green. I waited, and waited, and traffic barely started moving when the light turned yellow.
“Resist shooting the traffic lights. Resist Motoko. You shouldn’t do that.”
—--
“Hmph! You get fat?”
“It’s muscle.”
“Yes of course. Fatty.” The old woman hissed at me poking at my sides and I rolled my eyes, she was teasing, but still.
“Can you do it?”
“Me? Of course! I can make the clothes fit any gorilla.”
I sent a very firm glare at the old lady and her scowl shifted into a smirk that I couldn’t help but mimic.
“Thanks Granny.”
“I am not that old!”
“Forgetting your own age again? That Dementia is hitting you harder and harder every time we meet.”
“Little brat!” She tsked at me, but nodded. “I’ll start a new set for your new dimensions. No more of that Animal slop if you get any bigger no leotard in the world will fit you!”
“I’m not taking drugs! I’ve been working out!”
“Hmm, perhaps the Gorilla DNA?”
“What’s got your mood all shitty today?” I asked her, and she stilled for a second.
“Ah, forgive me. I have been irritated.”
“Nah it’s fine. You’re just teasing… Anything you need help with?”
“No. No child, nothing anyone can do. It is no matter. My grandsons are fools. Nothing anyone can do now. You’ll leave this to me, and I’ll get you sorted out. Your pants need to be adjusted as well. That I will not help you with.”
“Yeah I know a place where I can buy some pants. I guess I’ll do that now.”
“Hmph!”
I tossed the eddies over and left, the old lady was the teasing type. Apparently after I’d forgiven her for using shit armor weave at first, she’d decided I was one step from family and was like that every time I walked in.
—--
I flopped on the couch bags of new jeans and other things that would fit better dropped on the bed.
“Okay. No more shopping.” I decided. I had to go to a few stores to get everything updated.
Oh well.
I sat back up and considered what I should do for the rest of the day. We had a gig later. Back on stage…
Ugh. I rolled over and pushed my face into my blankets. I didn’t want to think about that right now.
Stats.
Okay fine make a choice Motoko. I was tempted to add one into reflex because moving fast was really useful, but… Was getting another point in Blades something I needed right now?
If I dumped another point into Intelligence, I could raise everything to 16 with the skill points I had right now…
Making choices was hard.
I closed my eyes and clicked.
Opening them.
Intelligence 16 (20) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 10.
-Breach Protocol 14
-Quick Hacks 12
-Programming 15
Fine. It was fine. Sure Intelligence was lame, but hacking was fun, and it was the best way to get more XP currently.
I decided to throw a point into Breach Protocol too.
Breach Protocol 15
*1 Perk Point Gained.*
I weathered the storm of new information for a while. And now I had another choice to make. What sort of perk did I want for Breach? I had stealth, and I had the ability to break down most barriers… I’d just had a lot of time online, so I should have a sense of what I needed.
I thought back to the three Netrunners I’d just watched breach into a heavy data fortress.
Kiwi, Lucy, and Sasha all breached a little differently.
But Kiwi and Lucy had taught me something interesting. Working together on the same goal could create some synergy.
Sasha preferred delineated roles. One for breaching, one for wiping out Daemons, but Lucy and Kiwi shared roles, doing both, which…
Was probably the normal way a netrunner would operate.
No one would fully trust someone else to protect their back unless you were like Sasha, or me.
So… I looked through the perk list and found it.
Team Breach. Know how to work in a team of netrunners to break through even the strongest firewalls.
I wasn’t going to be like Sasha, and I wasn’t going to be like Kiwi and Lucy.
Teamwork was a power that none of them really tried to work with. I hummed as the perk knowledge flowed through me. How to work together with other runners while breaching systems. The know how filled me, when and how to strike a system to let another runner maximize their ability, and in turn how to guide other runners to take up system resources to give you an advantage.
It wasn’t as strong as Strong Breach, or as difficult to deal with as Ghost Touch.
But, this was the perk of someone that knew how useful team work could be. Sasha owed me one, and next time I had to break a data fortress I knew who to call on, and the two of us would be on another level.
Especially once I finished leveling even more!
—-
Finding a spot I parked the Quadra, it was nearly time for the gig. The place was called the Electric Orgasm… Cute. But whatever. It was a club, and I was here to play.
I stepped out noticing the crowds gathered around, but I ignored them. Hopefully no one would be gonk brained enough to go after my Quadra, again.
I took a moment to grab my guitar and some of the easier to carry stuff as I headed towards the door. There was already a line forming, and I could hear music from inside the open door.
We weren’t the first act after all.
“Hold up there.” The Bouncer called out hand raised and looked me over through a pair of dark sunglasses.
“I’m playing tonight. Stand Alone Complex.” I told him while I watched him scan me down. He took a second and then nodded.
“Go on in.”
“Thanks.” I moved past him and entered into a blistering array of noise.
There was a stage immediately to my right down a set of steps. Laser lights shooting down at it, and the band up there already was a bit…
Yeah. Loud would be putting it mildly.
I circled around heading to the bar and smiled a bit in relief as I noticed a familiar face.
“Yo Klein.”
“Oh! Motoko!” He raised a drink up at me. “Got here early huh? Come to enjoy the free drinks for entertainers?” He teased laughing as I sent him a sour look.
“Yeah no.” I brought my guitar in close and took the seat next to him. Glancing over at his Wild Hair, flashing colors, and very bright outfit. Not his usual jeans and a T-shirt. No he was wearing an expensive Holo Jacket, flashing some demonic looking thing on the back, he had lights running down his arms from a series of bracelets that all glowed and strobed.
“Like em?”
“Eh.”
“Hah! They help a bit. Hard to see the drummer behind everything, but add some lights and you give the peeps a light show while you sit there.” He explained and I nodded along. Made sense to me. I looked down at my own clothes, and how bland I looked in comparison…
Eh. That wasn’t me.
“Jared said he’d be running a little late, but Alice should be here soon. Unless she runs off to grab him.” He added after taking another drink and I just nodded pleased at that.
We had to wait for the other band to leave, but I was starting to get that antsy feeling. Excitement, and fear all coiled into one.
“Well now. That’s a face I've been wanting to meet.” I looked away from Klein, and into the aviators, of a man I hadn’t yet had a chance to meet yet.
“Dino Dinovic.” I greeted the Fixer. City Centers very own boss of bosses.
“Motoko Kusanagi.” He returned smirking, the rocker jacket he wore gave him the look of someone just here to rock out, but this guy was serious. As powerful in some ways as Wakako. “You know I’ve heard a lot about you. About this scary kid making a name for herself.”
“Thanks. I’ve heard of you too.” I replied, and he smirked at that.
“Only good things I hope.”
“Something like that.” I honestly didn’t know much about him. Just that he was ‘the’ fixer of City Central, and to control the center of the city meant he was serious biz.
“Good. When I heard you were going to be playing I had to be here. Looking forward to you play, and more importantly. Looking forward to talking with you after. There could be a little work that someone like you could handle, been wanting to touch base, maybe add you to my payroll.”
“I’ll hear you out but no promises.”
“Hey, that's good enough for me. Oh also, little tip?” He looked down the bar for a second, just a flash of his eyes. “Don’t look, but you may have some real producer types here tonight. The band after you has been getting some attention. Maybe you can steal some for yourself if you play well.”
“Eh.” I shrugged. “I play because I like it, not to get famous…”
“Speak for yourself.” Klein offered smirking into his drink.
“Hey! That’s how it should be! Rockerboys should go wild!” Dino exclaimed, laughing. “Keep shooting up kid. Maybe you’ll be the next big thing.”
“Thanks Dino.” I decided to say instead of repeating I wasn’t that interested.
This was… I don’t know anymore, but I couldn’t deny that I did like getting up on stage.
I felt my fingers tap at the counter. I’d have to give my all tonight, not because I wanted to be famous or cared about a producer.
I just wanted to play the songs I liked.
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
Chapter is the same length as the others but for some reason it just felt short.
Bigking321
Well-known member
For me it's because I read through them so fast.
Waiting, waiting, waiting.
Then a chapter drops, I read it in a couple of minutes, then back to waiting.
Definitely worth it but once you're completely caught up with a story it turns into fireworks.
Boom. Nothing for a while. Boom. Repeat.
There's nothing quite like the feeling of finding a million word story you really are vibing with and can just read for a week straight.
PeaceMaker 03
Well-known member
Sera’s is a crack dealer, fan fic-crack.
Feel like a parched man in the desert, then Sera’s drops a chapter someplace and glug-glug-glug….. satisfied but it only last for fleeting moments & parched again. Maybe it is time to reread one of her stories from the start.
Feel like a parched man in the desert, then Sera’s drops a chapter someplace and glug-glug-glug….. satisfied but it only last for fleeting moments & parched again. Maybe it is time to reread one of her stories from the start.
NitroNorman5688
The Armchair Reader
Do what you like. Do it naturally. It's your life. Isn't life a mystery?
You're all right.
Dubdubdubdubdub!
You're all right.
Who do you want? Who do you want to be?
Nobody needs to worry about thee.
Just let it be.
You're all right. You're all right. You're all right.
Just let it be.
You're all right.
Dubdubdubdubdub!
You're all right.
Who do you want? Who do you want to be?
Nobody needs to worry about thee.
Just let it be.
You're all right. You're all right. You're all right.
Just let it be.
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
This is Motoko
Chapter 229
Seras
Well-known member
“Motokoooo!” I was nearly attacked from behind as Hiromi charged up to the bar and against me.
“Hey Hiromi.”
“Are you ready? Are you feeling sick? I brought a towel I could go wet down and-”
“I’m fine!” I laughed at her mother henning, as I looked around her and waved at Ichi who had followed her in.
“Motoko. How goes?”
“I’m fine!” I responded huffing a bit, he was looking worried for me too!
“Okay so Rebecca said she’s coming, and Malcolm is outside of course.”
“His car again?”
“Yes.” Hiromi said, rolling her eyes. “He’s going to get his car klepped.”
“Hopefully not. Chasing down car thieves is a lot of work.”
“Profitable!” Hiromi argued, poking me, looking pleased.
“That too.”
“And, there is Jared.” Klein called out and I looked up to see the Bass player walk up. Jared, like Klein, had a very Rockerboy inspired outfit. Where Klein went for lighted clothing, Jared showed off his body. No shirt, open jacket, Plastic abs, and chrome glowing up and down his chest.
“So do you turn the lights off most of the time?” I couldn’t help but ask, as I remember he had glowed in our last gig too, but I didn’t see it otherwise.
“Sup Motoko. Yeah the lights get annoying trying to chill out. I look down and end up half blinding myself. Need to get anti-Dazzle on my optics. But I just turn them off when I’m not on stage.”
I just nodded, but couldn’t help but notice his muscles he showed off were all fake, and he wasn’t the buff guy that his clothes showed when he wasn’t dressed up for it.
Might need to start exercising my Rockerboys too at this rate.
Why was everyone so lazy in Night City?
Oh right, exercise sucked.
Yeah fair.
We all settled in, the other band was still on stage, and playing as loud as they could, but, the audience was mostly just drinking rather than listening.
Sorry guys.
Finally Alice came in, carrying her gear and joined us nodding at Jared and Klein, giving me an up and down, and then looking at Hiromi. “Everything good?” She asked Hiromi a moment later.
“Everything good.” Hiromi confirmed with a shark-like smile.
“Great. We need to go all out tonight then.” She said, looking over the rest of us.
“Why what’s up?” Jared asked, looking away from the bartender as he turned back to the group.
“There's a producer here. We go just before the band he’s looking into. If we do well we can steal the hype, and interest.” Alice offered smiling evilly, Hiromi’s own smile matching.
“Wait… Did you plan this?”
“Of course! I was looking into things, and got a bit of a tip off that this producer was looking into a band. So I checked on when they would next play, and set up our set before them.” Hiromi said her head practically tilted back as she spoke as her ego grew larger and larger.
I felt like if I poked her head, she’d pop with how inflated she was.
Oh well. Hiromi was cute when her little plots worked out.
“We’ll play the best we can and see what happens. No stress.” I decided to say looking at everyone. But the others were definitely looking stressed, but not in a bad way. Jared’s face shifted into a serious look, and Klein, who had already known about the producer from Dino, nodded with his buddy.
Well I guess I was outvoted.
“Well if Faint doesn’t catch their attention. I don’t know what will.” I offered and Alice smirked evilly.
“Exactly.”
“We got this. Hell yeah.” Jared whispered, pumping himself up.
I just wanted to sigh, but it’s okay. Hopefully everyone just had some fun.
I shook off my thoughts and focused as the other band finally seemed to be wrapping up.
A few minutes later they headed off stage taking off their equipment, and Dino pointed at us, while the music of a radio kicked on to cover the wait.
We all got to work, taking stuff up to the stage, then heading outside to grab drum sets, and other equipment. Ichi and Malcolm helped out. Malcolm pulling himself away from a much older woman who’d been a little too interested in him, but we got everything set up and we were ready to get started.
We all did a check, making sure everything was good, and a nod at Dino was all we needed to get the music to stop.
Then… I realized I needed to talk. My throat clenched, but I opened my mouth anyway.
“Hello! We’re Stand Alone Complex, and we’re going to start with Smells like Teen Spirit!” I instantly started the power chords to the start of the song. Letting my hands soar over the strings as the song began, and brought the others into my momentum.
“Load up on guns, bring your friends.” I sang, my voice husky, crooning into the mic, but I needed more than that.
This was important to the band.
My fingers danced, my voice boomed over the crowd, and more and more of them were looking up. Their eyes caught mine, and when they did, I dragged them into my rhythm too.
Playing, singing. Those were only a part of what being a Rockerboy meant.
I flashed, smiles, winked, moved around, and let the energy of the song flow from not just the music but my performance.
“Ooh well, whatever, nevermind.” I crooned, rolling my eyes visibly, letting that teenage angst flow through me. And the crowd was liking it.
I played around when Jared flubbed a chord, making it seem normal. I altered the rhythm when Alice needed, or as Klein got into his drum solo,
I didn’t just repeat a song verbatim. I played the song along with a band.
And at the end, I shifted to Alice, and she figured out what I wanted, and we both dueted the last loong line. “A Deniiiiial!”
Her voice would have ruined it solo, but the electronic quality of her singing voice worked with me dueting against it.
I stepped back as the song ended, and Alice was absolutely thrilled. I could see the way her eyes lit up as the crowd reacted, plenty of stomping feet, and whistles and shouts.
“Oh you liked that? We’ll I think you lot will like this one even more. Come with me and RISE!” I turned and the sound played out, as the electronic part of the song went over, and everyone took their positions.
We played through RISE, and as expected, the song was well liked, the crowd was getting into it, I could see people scanning me, wanting to find out who it was, but that was fine.
Hiromi was actively walking through the crowd passing out shards of some sort.
I didn’t want to know. So I wasn’t going to ask.
But I needed to be more than just someone playing a song. This was a gig, a stage show. I roared as I roamed the stage, I got the crowd sticking their fist up when I yelled Rise, the crowd roaring along with me as they fell under the spell of a good song.
And then it was time for something new.
As Rise ended I checked on the band and they were definitely into it.
Jared was playing up the crowd, his Bass guitar’s strumming drawing the eye of some of the women in the crowd. Klein though was already sweating, but in a good way. He was absolutely in the groove.
Good.
I nodded to Alice and she nodded back. Time for the big reveal.
“Stand Alone Complex is showing off something new this time! I’d like everyone to enjoy, because I know you’re all just, Heathens!” I shouted out, and then the stage went silent for a moment. I was smiling because I wasn’t playing an instrument this time. My guitar was on a stand, and instead a guitar case was next to my feet.
“All my friends are Heathens, take it slow.” I crooned, capturing the audience as the music came out. Whether because no one had heard this before, or because people liked it, they listened as the melody started, the quiet lyrics, the faint sound of something wrong slowly getting louder.
And while I sang I moved along the stage, I kneeled down, sang to the small dance floor in front of the stage getting them in close, letting them think everything was normal.
Then it was time.
“But after all I’ve saaaaid!” And I kicked out, Mic slipped back into the stand, just as the case popped open, and yes I may have practiced this a few times while we tested things for this song.
My Carnage, the Shotgun flipped up and into my arms.
“Please don’t forget!” I cocked the Carnage, the grinding metal ran right through the mic, and everyone flinched, the people rocking out the chillers, the producer at the bar, even Dino who had been head bobbing to the song flinched.
The rest of the band took over. Alice’s voice was perfect to sing the heavily electronic bits, I reached out for the flying shotgun shell, grabbed it and in one movement underhanded it right towards one of the people closest to the stage.
The guy reacted snagging it out of the air and then looked down at the very life shotgun shell he now held.
“Watch it!” The distorted voice of Jared echoed out as I cocked the Carnage again. The second shell flew out and I threw it again. Again it was caught, and the crowd was reacting. This section of the song was the fastest, the hardest pace, everything had been brought up to this point, and the appearance of a shotgun, cocking over the room had only added to the theater of it all.
I went back to the mic as the section ended and waved behind me with the shotgun in one hand.
“All my friends are Heathens, take it slooow.”
Klein got his moment a few lyrics later, slamming the drums as the song picked back up again. Alice singing into the mic, her electronic throat working perfectly for this section, while I hyped the crowd,
“WATCH IT!” Jared roared, and I once again cocked the shotgun, another shell racing across the crowd as hands were rising up for it now. Cries were heard.
Then again, I was playing it up. The crowd was loving it. Rebecca I noticed was cackling like a maniac from the bar, her legs waving in the air.
Rebecca’s leg thing was so funny, but I didn’t have time to process it.
The end was coming! The last crescendo, the last shell thrown out, and I turned back to the mic.
“I tried to warn you just to stay away.” I crooned, as the song mellowed down.
“And now they’re outside ready to bust.” I teased them moving like I was going to cock the shotgun again.
“It looks like you might be one of us.” I crooned out the last line and then flipped the Carnage, sending it spiraling forward. Right into the arms of one of the Girls I’d had my eye on the whole time. I’d played her up. Singing to her at the start. Then threw the shells around her, but never at her, despite my eye grabbing hers and drawing her in.
Then the heavy carnage landed in her shocked arms, as I sang right to her.
That she had been the one the song was about all along.
Instant quiet as the lights cut off, and the band were silent, giving the room that moment of shock to breathe.
I stepped back without a word, as the girl, her eyeliner glowing, looking around, everyone looking back at her, with massive whiplash, as I simply sauntered away pulling on my Guitar, the lights still out.
I got back to my position, and just ignored the girl who was calling out about the Carnage wondering what to do with it.
“This Ffffire!” I roared, the lights came back on, and Klein started the cymbals, as I joined him moments later with the guitar.
And soon everyone forgot all about it. Carnage Girl was soon shouting one hand raised up in the air while the Shotgun was wrapped in her other arm.
There was no longer any question about whether the audience was into it. Once the beat and song got started, I had the crowd yelling out the chorus back at me and hyping everyone up.
By the time the song ended, I was feeling it, and of course Hiromi was there tossing up a water bottle for me, and the towel for some reason?
I chugged the water as I ran the towel over my head, cooling off a bit and then tossing both to the side.
“The Pretender.” I spoke almost soothingly as I introduced the next song. We had this down.
There was no hesitation, as the band played, there was too much energy. Klein was hammering the drums, as I kept the lead guitar, just tearing through the song as I roared.
“What if I say, I’m not like the others!”
I roared out over the crowd, noticing that even Dino was fully into it behind the bar. He was bouncing, along with the roaring vocals.
So I went even harder.
“Yeah who, are you!?” I roared, putting as much energy into it as I could, and in turn the crowd ate it up.
The song ended and I backed away from the mic breathing a bit heavily just because of how much I’d been roaring. I checked on everyone and nodded.
Yeah. Everyone was good.
“We got another new song for you tonight.” I said almost coyly into the mic. “Do you think you’re ready for it?” I asked, and held out the mic.
““Yeah!””
“Yeah you sound ready.” I repeated back smiling as I looked over the crowd. “But you aren’t.” I added almost sinister, as I turned and flipped on the music box.
“This is Faint.” I whispered, as the sound began.
The electronic intro wailed, giving me a few moments, before the song blew up. A power chord and then Klein slammed into the drums full bore, and the energy that had been spiking up from The Pretender instantly returned.
Alice stepped up, as I stepped back, hammering the guitar as she opened up, covering Mike Shinoda’s vocal parts.
I could have done both, but this was perfect for her her electronic vocals fitting the Cyberpunk era.
We shared Guitar as well, letting me really hammer away while she was rapping, and then when it came to my Chester solo’s I could give it my all.
The vocals were the heart and soul, messing them up was not allowed. Plus, no one else had ever heard Chesters screams in this world. I was the only person alive to know what it sounded like.
My love of Nirvana was a childhood sound, but my love for Linkin Park was all my teen angst, and I was going to let it all out.
Alice was loving it. All the eyes were on her, as she rapped. “But I’ll be here, ‘cause you’re all that I got!” Alice called out, and I could hear the joy in her voice as she was able to rap this part of the song without her vocal issues.
“I CAN’T FEEEEEL THE WAY I DID BEFORE!” I let it all out. My voice crashed down on the crowd the sudden change, something they couldn’t have expected practically causing the mob of bouncing faces to stutter.
“Don’t turn your back on me, I WON’T BE IGNORED!” I dropped down to crowd height and roared and the crowd reacted. Carnage girl screamed right along with me.
Yeah I thought she had a bit of Heathen in her.
Alice jumped in, more energetic than I’ve ever seen her taking on the rap sections and blazing, throwing all her energy into it, and that energy was magnetic.
Switching in and out, Alice and I played through the crowd.
“I WON’T BE IGNORED! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” I belted it out, anger frustration and everything tearing out of my vocal cords splashing across the crowd.
“Hear me out now! You’re gonna listen to me, like it or not, RIGHT NOW! HEAR ME OUT NOW!”
There was howling in turn, the crowd roared back, the walls felt too small, and I knew that this was a song meant for larger crowds, and someday it’d get it.
“Don’t turn your back on me! I won’t be ignored!” And the sound stopped. Everyone was breathing heavily as I looked over the band, and the crowd was screaming.
Linkin Park was my favorite band after all. I smiled and laughed, my throat was okay, I knew exactly how to scream my heart out without messing with my voice, but I still felt voiceless as the noise of the shouting crowd just didn’t let up.
I held up the mic and the crowd screamed louder.
Huh.
—--
Eventually we managed to get everything to calm down, but there was no doubt that Faint was a new favorite for a lot of the crowd.
Hiromi, Malcolm, and Ichi I noticed were going through the crowd selling shards. No doubt Hiromi had dragged them into it, and where before the little bar had seemed more of a place to hang out and drink, now it felt like an actual concert. There was an energy to the room.
And Carnage Girl was standing right up at the front, in her neon glowing eyeliner, and glowing fishnet stockings clutching the old Shotgun like she was the winner at life.
I was flattered honestly.
We’d obviously been given a flag to play more, but I shook my head. Let you Down would not be the right song to play right now. Definitely not, and we’d already dropped two new songs tonight.
I’d just brought up the energy to an insane level. Let You Down would do just that, let the crowd down after that level of energy. Besides… It was the next bands problem now.
We started breaking things down, and eventually the Bouncer had to step up, the massive black man standing in the way of the crowd to give us a way off the stage and let us start taking our equipment off stage so the next band could get up there.
I felt bad. We mostly ran in circuits throwing things into the back of Alice’s little Mahir Supron, throwing things inside, and then rushing back to get the rest. Malcolm thankfully joined us, keeping an eye out so no one klepped anything, and we managed to secure all the equipment off the stage without more than a few grasping hands.
“Hey.” Alice called out to me as she slammed the back of her van closed and looked at me. “That…”
“That was awesome.” I decided to say. Sure I felt like I wanted to puke, but with getting the equipment off the stage there hadn’t been time for it to hit me yet. I was riding that wave that would eventually lead me straight into a freakout, but for now I was good. “You did perfect. You hit the lyrics perfectly.”
“I-Thanks, you really went all out. Holy hell.” Alice whispered, running a hand through her sweaty hair.
“That song means a lot to me.” Was all I could really say and she nodded.
“I felt it.” She agreed, a fire in her eyes as she looked at me. “Everyones going to hear about that song after this!” She wiggled, pumping her arms, unable to keep the energy in.
“I’d like to think so.” A new voice cut in and we looked over at the man that approached us. He was getting looks from everyone, but the fact Dino was walking with him, meant the Bouncer didn’t intrude. “Charles Davis, CCT Records.” He pulled out a business card and offered it to me, but before I had to do anything Hiromi popped up beside me.
“Hiromi Mitsunashi, Manager of Stand Alone Complex.” Hiromi offered, pulling out her own card and offering it to the man.
He only took a second to change tracks and smiled at Hiromi.
“A pleasure. An indie band with a good Manager only makes them more valuable.” He offered and Hiromi smiled at the flattery, but she looked like a shark.
“Ah, Mr. Davis… The reason you are speaking to us, is it because you're interested in signing our band?” Alice cut in, getting to the heart of the matter, and I noticed Hiromi glance at her, but she didn’t tell Alice to be quiet.
“CCT would be interested in discussing the possibility. I can’t deny that it’s rare to see an unknown band bring that much energy into such a small stage.”
Alice I noticed was practically buzzing, but I noticed Dino was side-eyeing me and I jerked my head to the side and he nodded.
I broke off as Hiromi started grilling-I mean discussing things with Charles Dino and I walked around a bit around the back of the building getting some quiet from all the talking.
“Before we get into the bizz kid, let me say. Hell of a show. I was halfway to ducking under the bar when you flipped up that Carnage. Turning the thing into an instrument? Rockerboy as hell. I dig it.”
“Thanks.” I couldn’t help but smile a bit at his words. “The cocking sound was always part of the song, but for the live performance, I figured I might as well integrate it a bit into the show.”
“Heh, it fucking worked. Those kids going home with a round are going to remember that shit for a long time. Preem shit.” He looked around after that checking on things. “But I wanted to talk to you about biz. Got a gig, something difficult, need it done clean, no one sees, and no flatlines.”
“Stealth Op?”
“Yeah, need something picked up and replaced. Just a shard, nothing big. Gotta be done within the next few days, and I hear you're the girl to reach out to if you need something done sneaky. You interested?”
I shot him a message, with my contact information. “I can’t promise, but if you throw me the deets, I can confirm I’m able to do the gig, and we can hash out the details.”
“Heh, not confident you can do it?”
“I’m capable of a lot of things, but I’m not perfect. I can’t tell you if I can do it without the info.”
“Fair enough. Alright. I’ll forward some data, and we’ll talk.”
I nodded, turning to look as he walked away to see Hiromi and Charles speaking hurriedly about all sorts of things.
Seemed serious, but that was a worry for another time. I was tired and still felt like my stomach was going to decide to rebel. I wanted a quiet drive away from everything.
“Hey Hiromi.”
“Are you ready? Are you feeling sick? I brought a towel I could go wet down and-”
“I’m fine!” I laughed at her mother henning, as I looked around her and waved at Ichi who had followed her in.
“Motoko. How goes?”
“I’m fine!” I responded huffing a bit, he was looking worried for me too!
“Okay so Rebecca said she’s coming, and Malcolm is outside of course.”
“His car again?”
“Yes.” Hiromi said, rolling her eyes. “He’s going to get his car klepped.”
“Hopefully not. Chasing down car thieves is a lot of work.”
“Profitable!” Hiromi argued, poking me, looking pleased.
“That too.”
“And, there is Jared.” Klein called out and I looked up to see the Bass player walk up. Jared, like Klein, had a very Rockerboy inspired outfit. Where Klein went for lighted clothing, Jared showed off his body. No shirt, open jacket, Plastic abs, and chrome glowing up and down his chest.
“So do you turn the lights off most of the time?” I couldn’t help but ask, as I remember he had glowed in our last gig too, but I didn’t see it otherwise.
“Sup Motoko. Yeah the lights get annoying trying to chill out. I look down and end up half blinding myself. Need to get anti-Dazzle on my optics. But I just turn them off when I’m not on stage.”
I just nodded, but couldn’t help but notice his muscles he showed off were all fake, and he wasn’t the buff guy that his clothes showed when he wasn’t dressed up for it.
Might need to start exercising my Rockerboys too at this rate.
Why was everyone so lazy in Night City?
Oh right, exercise sucked.
Yeah fair.
We all settled in, the other band was still on stage, and playing as loud as they could, but, the audience was mostly just drinking rather than listening.
Sorry guys.
Finally Alice came in, carrying her gear and joined us nodding at Jared and Klein, giving me an up and down, and then looking at Hiromi. “Everything good?” She asked Hiromi a moment later.
“Everything good.” Hiromi confirmed with a shark-like smile.
“Great. We need to go all out tonight then.” She said, looking over the rest of us.
“Why what’s up?” Jared asked, looking away from the bartender as he turned back to the group.
“There's a producer here. We go just before the band he’s looking into. If we do well we can steal the hype, and interest.” Alice offered smiling evilly, Hiromi’s own smile matching.
“Wait… Did you plan this?”
“Of course! I was looking into things, and got a bit of a tip off that this producer was looking into a band. So I checked on when they would next play, and set up our set before them.” Hiromi said her head practically tilted back as she spoke as her ego grew larger and larger.
I felt like if I poked her head, she’d pop with how inflated she was.
Oh well. Hiromi was cute when her little plots worked out.
“We’ll play the best we can and see what happens. No stress.” I decided to say looking at everyone. But the others were definitely looking stressed, but not in a bad way. Jared’s face shifted into a serious look, and Klein, who had already known about the producer from Dino, nodded with his buddy.
Well I guess I was outvoted.
“Well if Faint doesn’t catch their attention. I don’t know what will.” I offered and Alice smirked evilly.
“Exactly.”
“We got this. Hell yeah.” Jared whispered, pumping himself up.
I just wanted to sigh, but it’s okay. Hopefully everyone just had some fun.
I shook off my thoughts and focused as the other band finally seemed to be wrapping up.
A few minutes later they headed off stage taking off their equipment, and Dino pointed at us, while the music of a radio kicked on to cover the wait.
We all got to work, taking stuff up to the stage, then heading outside to grab drum sets, and other equipment. Ichi and Malcolm helped out. Malcolm pulling himself away from a much older woman who’d been a little too interested in him, but we got everything set up and we were ready to get started.
We all did a check, making sure everything was good, and a nod at Dino was all we needed to get the music to stop.
Then… I realized I needed to talk. My throat clenched, but I opened my mouth anyway.
“Hello! We’re Stand Alone Complex, and we’re going to start with Smells like Teen Spirit!” I instantly started the power chords to the start of the song. Letting my hands soar over the strings as the song began, and brought the others into my momentum.
“Load up on guns, bring your friends.” I sang, my voice husky, crooning into the mic, but I needed more than that.
This was important to the band.
My fingers danced, my voice boomed over the crowd, and more and more of them were looking up. Their eyes caught mine, and when they did, I dragged them into my rhythm too.
Playing, singing. Those were only a part of what being a Rockerboy meant.
I flashed, smiles, winked, moved around, and let the energy of the song flow from not just the music but my performance.
“Ooh well, whatever, nevermind.” I crooned, rolling my eyes visibly, letting that teenage angst flow through me. And the crowd was liking it.
I played around when Jared flubbed a chord, making it seem normal. I altered the rhythm when Alice needed, or as Klein got into his drum solo,
I didn’t just repeat a song verbatim. I played the song along with a band.
And at the end, I shifted to Alice, and she figured out what I wanted, and we both dueted the last loong line. “A Deniiiiial!”
Her voice would have ruined it solo, but the electronic quality of her singing voice worked with me dueting against it.
I stepped back as the song ended, and Alice was absolutely thrilled. I could see the way her eyes lit up as the crowd reacted, plenty of stomping feet, and whistles and shouts.
“Oh you liked that? We’ll I think you lot will like this one even more. Come with me and RISE!” I turned and the sound played out, as the electronic part of the song went over, and everyone took their positions.
We played through RISE, and as expected, the song was well liked, the crowd was getting into it, I could see people scanning me, wanting to find out who it was, but that was fine.
Hiromi was actively walking through the crowd passing out shards of some sort.
I didn’t want to know. So I wasn’t going to ask.
But I needed to be more than just someone playing a song. This was a gig, a stage show. I roared as I roamed the stage, I got the crowd sticking their fist up when I yelled Rise, the crowd roaring along with me as they fell under the spell of a good song.
And then it was time for something new.
As Rise ended I checked on the band and they were definitely into it.
Jared was playing up the crowd, his Bass guitar’s strumming drawing the eye of some of the women in the crowd. Klein though was already sweating, but in a good way. He was absolutely in the groove.
Good.
I nodded to Alice and she nodded back. Time for the big reveal.
“Stand Alone Complex is showing off something new this time! I’d like everyone to enjoy, because I know you’re all just, Heathens!” I shouted out, and then the stage went silent for a moment. I was smiling because I wasn’t playing an instrument this time. My guitar was on a stand, and instead a guitar case was next to my feet.
“All my friends are Heathens, take it slow.” I crooned, capturing the audience as the music came out. Whether because no one had heard this before, or because people liked it, they listened as the melody started, the quiet lyrics, the faint sound of something wrong slowly getting louder.
And while I sang I moved along the stage, I kneeled down, sang to the small dance floor in front of the stage getting them in close, letting them think everything was normal.
Then it was time.
“But after all I’ve saaaaid!” And I kicked out, Mic slipped back into the stand, just as the case popped open, and yes I may have practiced this a few times while we tested things for this song.
My Carnage, the Shotgun flipped up and into my arms.
“Please don’t forget!” I cocked the Carnage, the grinding metal ran right through the mic, and everyone flinched, the people rocking out the chillers, the producer at the bar, even Dino who had been head bobbing to the song flinched.
The rest of the band took over. Alice’s voice was perfect to sing the heavily electronic bits, I reached out for the flying shotgun shell, grabbed it and in one movement underhanded it right towards one of the people closest to the stage.
The guy reacted snagging it out of the air and then looked down at the very life shotgun shell he now held.
“Watch it!” The distorted voice of Jared echoed out as I cocked the Carnage again. The second shell flew out and I threw it again. Again it was caught, and the crowd was reacting. This section of the song was the fastest, the hardest pace, everything had been brought up to this point, and the appearance of a shotgun, cocking over the room had only added to the theater of it all.
I went back to the mic as the section ended and waved behind me with the shotgun in one hand.
“All my friends are Heathens, take it slooow.”
Klein got his moment a few lyrics later, slamming the drums as the song picked back up again. Alice singing into the mic, her electronic throat working perfectly for this section, while I hyped the crowd,
“WATCH IT!” Jared roared, and I once again cocked the shotgun, another shell racing across the crowd as hands were rising up for it now. Cries were heard.
Then again, I was playing it up. The crowd was loving it. Rebecca I noticed was cackling like a maniac from the bar, her legs waving in the air.
Rebecca’s leg thing was so funny, but I didn’t have time to process it.
The end was coming! The last crescendo, the last shell thrown out, and I turned back to the mic.
“I tried to warn you just to stay away.” I crooned, as the song mellowed down.
“And now they’re outside ready to bust.” I teased them moving like I was going to cock the shotgun again.
“It looks like you might be one of us.” I crooned out the last line and then flipped the Carnage, sending it spiraling forward. Right into the arms of one of the Girls I’d had my eye on the whole time. I’d played her up. Singing to her at the start. Then threw the shells around her, but never at her, despite my eye grabbing hers and drawing her in.
Then the heavy carnage landed in her shocked arms, as I sang right to her.
That she had been the one the song was about all along.
Instant quiet as the lights cut off, and the band were silent, giving the room that moment of shock to breathe.
I stepped back without a word, as the girl, her eyeliner glowing, looking around, everyone looking back at her, with massive whiplash, as I simply sauntered away pulling on my Guitar, the lights still out.
I got back to my position, and just ignored the girl who was calling out about the Carnage wondering what to do with it.
“This Ffffire!” I roared, the lights came back on, and Klein started the cymbals, as I joined him moments later with the guitar.
And soon everyone forgot all about it. Carnage Girl was soon shouting one hand raised up in the air while the Shotgun was wrapped in her other arm.
There was no longer any question about whether the audience was into it. Once the beat and song got started, I had the crowd yelling out the chorus back at me and hyping everyone up.
By the time the song ended, I was feeling it, and of course Hiromi was there tossing up a water bottle for me, and the towel for some reason?
I chugged the water as I ran the towel over my head, cooling off a bit and then tossing both to the side.
“The Pretender.” I spoke almost soothingly as I introduced the next song. We had this down.
There was no hesitation, as the band played, there was too much energy. Klein was hammering the drums, as I kept the lead guitar, just tearing through the song as I roared.
“What if I say, I’m not like the others!”
I roared out over the crowd, noticing that even Dino was fully into it behind the bar. He was bouncing, along with the roaring vocals.
So I went even harder.
“Yeah who, are you!?” I roared, putting as much energy into it as I could, and in turn the crowd ate it up.
The song ended and I backed away from the mic breathing a bit heavily just because of how much I’d been roaring. I checked on everyone and nodded.
Yeah. Everyone was good.
“We got another new song for you tonight.” I said almost coyly into the mic. “Do you think you’re ready for it?” I asked, and held out the mic.
““Yeah!””
“Yeah you sound ready.” I repeated back smiling as I looked over the crowd. “But you aren’t.” I added almost sinister, as I turned and flipped on the music box.
“This is Faint.” I whispered, as the sound began.
The electronic intro wailed, giving me a few moments, before the song blew up. A power chord and then Klein slammed into the drums full bore, and the energy that had been spiking up from The Pretender instantly returned.
Alice stepped up, as I stepped back, hammering the guitar as she opened up, covering Mike Shinoda’s vocal parts.
I could have done both, but this was perfect for her her electronic vocals fitting the Cyberpunk era.
We shared Guitar as well, letting me really hammer away while she was rapping, and then when it came to my Chester solo’s I could give it my all.
The vocals were the heart and soul, messing them up was not allowed. Plus, no one else had ever heard Chesters screams in this world. I was the only person alive to know what it sounded like.
My love of Nirvana was a childhood sound, but my love for Linkin Park was all my teen angst, and I was going to let it all out.
Alice was loving it. All the eyes were on her, as she rapped. “But I’ll be here, ‘cause you’re all that I got!” Alice called out, and I could hear the joy in her voice as she was able to rap this part of the song without her vocal issues.
“I CAN’T FEEEEEL THE WAY I DID BEFORE!” I let it all out. My voice crashed down on the crowd the sudden change, something they couldn’t have expected practically causing the mob of bouncing faces to stutter.
“Don’t turn your back on me, I WON’T BE IGNORED!” I dropped down to crowd height and roared and the crowd reacted. Carnage girl screamed right along with me.
Yeah I thought she had a bit of Heathen in her.
Alice jumped in, more energetic than I’ve ever seen her taking on the rap sections and blazing, throwing all her energy into it, and that energy was magnetic.
Switching in and out, Alice and I played through the crowd.
“I WON’T BE IGNORED! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” I belted it out, anger frustration and everything tearing out of my vocal cords splashing across the crowd.
“Hear me out now! You’re gonna listen to me, like it or not, RIGHT NOW! HEAR ME OUT NOW!”
There was howling in turn, the crowd roared back, the walls felt too small, and I knew that this was a song meant for larger crowds, and someday it’d get it.
“Don’t turn your back on me! I won’t be ignored!” And the sound stopped. Everyone was breathing heavily as I looked over the band, and the crowd was screaming.
Linkin Park was my favorite band after all. I smiled and laughed, my throat was okay, I knew exactly how to scream my heart out without messing with my voice, but I still felt voiceless as the noise of the shouting crowd just didn’t let up.
I held up the mic and the crowd screamed louder.
Huh.
—--
Eventually we managed to get everything to calm down, but there was no doubt that Faint was a new favorite for a lot of the crowd.
Hiromi, Malcolm, and Ichi I noticed were going through the crowd selling shards. No doubt Hiromi had dragged them into it, and where before the little bar had seemed more of a place to hang out and drink, now it felt like an actual concert. There was an energy to the room.
And Carnage Girl was standing right up at the front, in her neon glowing eyeliner, and glowing fishnet stockings clutching the old Shotgun like she was the winner at life.
I was flattered honestly.
We’d obviously been given a flag to play more, but I shook my head. Let you Down would not be the right song to play right now. Definitely not, and we’d already dropped two new songs tonight.
I’d just brought up the energy to an insane level. Let You Down would do just that, let the crowd down after that level of energy. Besides… It was the next bands problem now.
We started breaking things down, and eventually the Bouncer had to step up, the massive black man standing in the way of the crowd to give us a way off the stage and let us start taking our equipment off stage so the next band could get up there.
I felt bad. We mostly ran in circuits throwing things into the back of Alice’s little Mahir Supron, throwing things inside, and then rushing back to get the rest. Malcolm thankfully joined us, keeping an eye out so no one klepped anything, and we managed to secure all the equipment off the stage without more than a few grasping hands.
“Hey.” Alice called out to me as she slammed the back of her van closed and looked at me. “That…”
“That was awesome.” I decided to say. Sure I felt like I wanted to puke, but with getting the equipment off the stage there hadn’t been time for it to hit me yet. I was riding that wave that would eventually lead me straight into a freakout, but for now I was good. “You did perfect. You hit the lyrics perfectly.”
“I-Thanks, you really went all out. Holy hell.” Alice whispered, running a hand through her sweaty hair.
“That song means a lot to me.” Was all I could really say and she nodded.
“I felt it.” She agreed, a fire in her eyes as she looked at me. “Everyones going to hear about that song after this!” She wiggled, pumping her arms, unable to keep the energy in.
“I’d like to think so.” A new voice cut in and we looked over at the man that approached us. He was getting looks from everyone, but the fact Dino was walking with him, meant the Bouncer didn’t intrude. “Charles Davis, CCT Records.” He pulled out a business card and offered it to me, but before I had to do anything Hiromi popped up beside me.
“Hiromi Mitsunashi, Manager of Stand Alone Complex.” Hiromi offered, pulling out her own card and offering it to the man.
He only took a second to change tracks and smiled at Hiromi.
“A pleasure. An indie band with a good Manager only makes them more valuable.” He offered and Hiromi smiled at the flattery, but she looked like a shark.
“Ah, Mr. Davis… The reason you are speaking to us, is it because you're interested in signing our band?” Alice cut in, getting to the heart of the matter, and I noticed Hiromi glance at her, but she didn’t tell Alice to be quiet.
“CCT would be interested in discussing the possibility. I can’t deny that it’s rare to see an unknown band bring that much energy into such a small stage.”
Alice I noticed was practically buzzing, but I noticed Dino was side-eyeing me and I jerked my head to the side and he nodded.
I broke off as Hiromi started grilling-I mean discussing things with Charles Dino and I walked around a bit around the back of the building getting some quiet from all the talking.
“Before we get into the bizz kid, let me say. Hell of a show. I was halfway to ducking under the bar when you flipped up that Carnage. Turning the thing into an instrument? Rockerboy as hell. I dig it.”
“Thanks.” I couldn’t help but smile a bit at his words. “The cocking sound was always part of the song, but for the live performance, I figured I might as well integrate it a bit into the show.”
“Heh, it fucking worked. Those kids going home with a round are going to remember that shit for a long time. Preem shit.” He looked around after that checking on things. “But I wanted to talk to you about biz. Got a gig, something difficult, need it done clean, no one sees, and no flatlines.”
“Stealth Op?”
“Yeah, need something picked up and replaced. Just a shard, nothing big. Gotta be done within the next few days, and I hear you're the girl to reach out to if you need something done sneaky. You interested?”
I shot him a message, with my contact information. “I can’t promise, but if you throw me the deets, I can confirm I’m able to do the gig, and we can hash out the details.”
“Heh, not confident you can do it?”
“I’m capable of a lot of things, but I’m not perfect. I can’t tell you if I can do it without the info.”
“Fair enough. Alright. I’ll forward some data, and we’ll talk.”
I nodded, turning to look as he walked away to see Hiromi and Charles speaking hurriedly about all sorts of things.
Seemed serious, but that was a worry for another time. I was tired and still felt like my stomach was going to decide to rebel. I wanted a quiet drive away from everything.
PeaceMaker 03
Well-known member
Dino mixing music & merc’n….. Moto happy to oblige.
Chapter 230
Seras
Well-known member
Waking up the next morning I rolled over away from the sun slipping through the blinds and had to consider everything. There was no doubt that the band was getting attention. Hiromi had even waved me away assuring me everything was being taken care of when I decided to leave last night, and she hadn't come with me.
Hiromi had stayed long after the gig talking to the talent scout? Producer? I wasn't sure what his position was.
Either way, I had a feeling Hiromi was going to be pushing for something with regards to the Band. But…
Being up on stage, playing music I could only listen to before? Feeling that response from a crowd as I roared out from my heart? It was a good feeling.
I checked my messages, Dino had sent me a packet about the gig he wanted done last night. But that wasn't all I had. I'd gotten multiple alerts for Rockerboy XP. The full band experience, really letting it all go, had earned me another step closer to hitting level 10.
I looked at the packet from Dino. Just from the basics I understood the difficulty. There was one dealership that sold new Rayfield vehicles in Night City, and Dino wanted a Shard they'd have in the office switched out.
I didn't know exactly what the data was, but he had maps of the dealership, timetables, and even information about their security.
Could I do it?
Yeah. The security was top of the line, but it didn't have Netrunner support. The dealership was secure enough inside a building in Downtown sharing space with a few other high end corporations. The fancy dealership even had a special circular track around the building that people looking to buy high end vehicles could drive around without traffic stopping them.
Of course I wasn't after the vehicles, but just to replace a Shard with another inside the dealership office.
I slipped out of bed, and got ready. Even as I was in the shower I was going over the data Dino had sent, checking entrances, and information about the people that would be there.
The dossier on the entire place was thorough. Dino wasn't skimping, this wasn't just a generic smash and grab, but the data was set up as a professional Op.
As I was drying my hair I noticed something that might work as an entry point.
The pay for the gig was good… Probably? No, it was. It definitely had enough zeroes there.
Hiromi would be proud of me for actually checking, rather than just jumping into something, but to be fair, this was a full stealth gig, I couldn't be seen, or leave any hints that I had been there, or the gig failed. So I wouldn't be getting any XP for this, eddies were the only benefit I would draw out of it.
Decision settled, I sent out the confirmation to Dino.
*Motoko: I'll accept the gig. I can get it done today. Just need the replacement shard.*
*Dino: Alright, cords for a pickup. The delivery boy's name is Simon, that'll be the code that he knows it's you. Look forward to the update on the gig completion.*
Well that was settled then. Now I just needed to sort everything else. Even if this was a stealth mission, I was trying to be better than the gonk that I could be at times.
*Motoko: I got a gig from Dino, it should be quiet, just a sneak and grab. But I was wondering if anyone is free to be super bored and act as my extraction in case something bad happens.*
*Ichi: I'm on the clock right now, but I can come if you need me.*
*Malcolm: Ah, not a great time for me, but I can be there.*
*Rebecca: Nah you two, I got this. Strings, where we meeting up. I've been bored all morning. Might as well be bored and doing something.*
*Motoko: Preem Becca. Sure I'll send you a cords.*
*Hiromi: I can come!*
*Motoko: Hiromi you have class. You can't come.* I reminded her with a roll of my eyes as I hit the garage.
I was sliding onto my Kusanagi to make it through Night City morning traffic as I got Rebecca's confirmation, and Hiromi's cry emoji.
—--
Dino's delivery boy was a guy sitting in the back of a Villefort Columbus. The van doors were open and he was hawking XBD's if what I was seeing was right. Scoping him out as I pulled up on my Kusanagi. I didn't bother getting off, just driving right up to him which had him obviously preparing a weapon behind him, but as I stopped I called out.
"You Simon?"
"That's me. Got your package right here." He offered holding out a BD wrapper. I took it and felt the Shard inside.
With that I drove off without a word, and headed down and across a bit to another parking area. This one was a few floors up, and I found the spot I wanted. Right up against the north side of the building, where right there across the street and a floor down was the Rayfield dealership. I leaned against the wall and watched.
A car was racing around the track. Not one of their top of the lines. This was no Caliburn, but it would still be a high end car. I watched as it circled for a while, until a glitzy fashionista parked it near an entrance door, and stepped out. The passenger was a well dressed salesman, and he followed her inside. The moment they were out of sight a man in cheaper clothes stepped out and got in the car to drive it back inside the dealership.
But what I had seen on the information Dino had sent, was that the guy came out of another entrance way, not into the main office, after all, the dealership doesn't want some mechanic in coveralls being seen by the high priced clientele.
That was my entrance point. The door he came through was a mechanic room, and most importantly, connected to the back office through a much more private door that I could use to slip past almost all the agents in the dealership since they'd all be up front dealing with clients.
It wasn't long before a rumbling engine came up the parking garage and Rebecca's monster of a Nomad spec Thorton Mackinaw came rumbling over and parked itself.
I honestly hadn't seen her drive it around much, so I couldn't help but lean sideways to get a view of the driver door when it opened, and the comparatively tiny woman came out of her truck.
I couldn't help but laugh as she had to get out in three movements, sliding off the seat, onto a foot rest on the side of the truck, then hop off again to settle on the ground.
"Eat shit, Strings."
"I really think that truck is too big for your Becca."
"Pfft. It's perfect sized! I get to run people over in it, and they die."
I couldn't help but nod and give her that one. That was fair.
"So what's the deal here?"
"See that dealership down there?" I asked her, and she looked at the boundary around the parking Garage that was a bit above her head.
"No."
I snorted, and she reached out and punched at me, which I let her. My new leotard was still armored, and it wasn't as tight anymore. It didn't hurt.
"Okay so Dealership?" She asked.
"Rayfield. I need to sneak in and swap out a shard without being seen, or leaving behind any bodies."
Rebecca stepped back. Her previous joviality, gone in a flash. "That sounds tough. Wouldn't it be easier to wait until tonight?"
"You'd think so, but with how busy it is. It's actually easier during the day." I explained to Rebecca as I jerked my head across the way, specifically not pointing. "See the track around the dealership? They keep it real private, only one car at a time, since they only have limited customers, but the customers are treated like royalty. Multiple attendants for each one. I noticed it on some of the pictures that Dino sent me."
"Okay so… Everyone is distracted by the prima donnas so once that happens you sneak in."
"Exactly. Which is why your help is really nice. I'm sneaky, but not perfect, if I flub it having some backup for extraction is always nice.." I waved around the non secure parking garage.
"Okay preem. So you need me for overwatch?"
"And escape. But mostly overwatch you'll relay details I need as I make my infiltration." I started explaining that part of the gig, and Rebecca ended up climbing up onto the hood of her truck sitting back and crossing her legs like she was just chilling enjoying the view as I explained.
I couldn't help but smile at how casual she made it. Rebecca might be the smallest of my chooms, but she was older, and it was times like this that it showed. Plus her experience working gigs. Malcolm would be pointing over the edge while I explained things, and I'd have to smack his hand each time to get him to stop pointing.
Rebecca understood immediately with just one context clue not to bring any attention.
So I finished explaining and in the end since Rebecca had very little to do she just stayed relaxing against the hood of her car, while I headed out.
While the easiest way to get to the dealership would be just leaping across and using some street lights, to get across the way, there would be too much chance of a commotion if I tried that.
So I left the parking garage, and waited the long ass time for the cross walk to let me cross, only needing to cuss out one asshole that blew through the light and nearly hit me. Which was pretty good for Night City.
Crossing over I found an entrance to the building through another parking garage although this one was private. The entrance had a key reader and multiple security devices including a rather large gate that would keep people not welcome out.
I waited for no one to be coming in, and just walked up. This was a Kiroshi security optic keypad. It could be opened through other optics, but Kiroshi of course promised increased viability through their own work.
But that also created a weakness in the system. When I poked my eyes in front of it, it sent a data packet to my eye, which I co-opted, quickly altered the access information and sent it back.
It then sent back a further confirmation, this time with a code, that it thought I was sending to ensure it was correct. Only the code could only send codes that already existed on the database.
So I sent another confirmation and the gate opened with a small text message of 'Welcome Mr. Luxor!' Displayed, and I was into the private garage.
Okay easy part done.
The interior garage itself had some dangers, security cameras and the like, but it was also already secured from the outside, so thankfully only the one camera that I had to worry about, along my route.
Poking my head out from around a concrete pillar, I easily hacked it before it spotted me, and did a quick loop on the recording, the last ten seconds repeated again.
That's all I needed to rush across the garage and into the building's interior hallways.
From there it was smooth sailing. Multiple corps ran in this building, and there were plenty of reasons a teenager might be heading upwards through the stairs, especially since I was already through part of the security.
No issues.
I climbed up the stairs, heading to the floor two levels above the dealership. Unfortunately the floor above was another corpo office, and I couldn't get through to that, but the next one up, was multiple minor office spaces.
It was child's play to walk out of the stair access and down the interior hall space, separating all the different offices. There was a security door that opened for me without issue, and no one inside even saw me as I entered into some sort of call center office.
I walked right through only ducking a little to be below the cubicles set up, and reaching the exterior door.
The office had a nice little outside space that ran around the building, and now I was out. I walked around. Acting like I was supposed to be out here. Since it ran around the entire building all the offices on this level had access, so none of them would be able to tell I wasn't supposed to be here.
Humming a bit of something or another I walked around until I found the spot I needed to be at. Right across from me was Rebecca who secretly waved for a moment at me.
And so I settled in to wait.
*Rebecca: Go.*
I moved without hesitation leaping over the side of the edge, my chrome fingers grabbing onto the side of the concrete barrier between a set of windows, slowing me just a little as I slipped down and then there was a drop.
I could just see the car that was being test driven turn out of sight as I fell.
While there were cameras overlooking the track it wasn't perfect coverage. I fell right in a blind spot, grunting even with all my talent towards taking a fall as I hit the ground spreading the impact as best I could as I rolled forward bleeding the momentum in a different way.
Then I ran. Right towards the side door that the mechanics used to bring the car back in. I had about twenty seconds or less to get in. The door used a security card reader, but honestly this was the third floor, and well away from any easy access points. The track only accessed through the interior elevator unless you jumped or climbed up.
It took three seconds for me to get it to register an access and the door opened. I slipped in quiet as a mouse, and forced the door closed just in time, as there was a mechanic inside just across the room, and the sound of the car driving around could have alerted him.
He was sitting at a computer, his back to me, so I had a few moments. I looked around.
This shop room was obviously a waiting room for the mechanics, nothing interesting, no cameras inside, as there was nothing valuable.
Also no easy ways to walk past the mechanic to the office without being seen, as the computer was facing it.
No real space to hide either, my instincts told me trying to hide anywhere normal would just be seen. So I looked up.
I exhaled silently and jumped. The mechanic room didn't have any fancy ceilings or anything, Just open access to the fluorescent lightingI leaped up I grabbed the metal struts running across the ceiling. I hesitated for a second as even with the textured pads my hands were still chrome and it made a noise as I gripped.
Thankfully the mechanic didn't notice, and I pulled myself up, until I was nearly horizontal with just my two hands.
Thankfully my arms couldn't get tired, but I felt my core shift as I kept myself as flat up to the ceiling as I could.
Now I wait.
Finally there was a beep on the computer, and the Mechanic got up and walked right under me to go check in the car.
Which was perfect. The driver would be heading back inside, and distracting everyone as they discussed sales. The moment the door closed behind the mechanic, I dropped and rushed for the office door.
The back offices were rather plain, no point in fancying them up, but there were security cameras.
There were always security cameras around workers when needed.
Luckily, Dino had given me floorplans that were recent. I slipped inside, and stayed low crouching along the left wall. The only camera that would be seeing where I needed to go, would be facing away from my entrance, and I walked right under it as I started scanning.
A few moments to set up the daemon to repeat the last ten seconds again and I was off, walking forward on quick steps to one of the back offices, and slipping in. The place didn't even have security besides a lock on the door, but it opened without issue.
I slipped in and looked over the office. The nameplate on the desk read, Mr. White Sales Manager.
The office was nice enough, but it was mostly full of storage and records. While he was the Sales Manager, he wasn't the owner. Just another worker keeping eddies flowing. I checked each filing cabinet, and they were each filled with cheap folders with information in each of them.
Nope nope nope.
I ran down the names, skipping a few as it was thankfully in alphabetic order.
Finally I found the right file, and opened it, there was a shard case, which I popped open and pulled the Shard out, replacing it with the one that Dino wanted in its place.
With that the file was pushed back into place, and I was ready to get out of here.
*Motoko: Okay Rebecca, let me know next time the mechanic heads out to pick up a vehicle.*
*Rebecca: You got it strings.*
Then I waited, hiding in the room just in case anyone headed back here, but it was quiet, until I finally got a message from Rebecca.
*Rebecca: He's heading out now.*
I took a second at the door checking to make sure no one was coming and then walked back under the security camera. Removing the Daemon that kept the recording looping, so no one could find it, and then headed back into the mechanic room.
It was empty and I walked to the door. Accessing the security I forced the door to open just a tiny crack so I could listen, and when the car drove around the track, I exited, and slowly moved across the track until I could slip over the edge.
I fell a few feet, hit a ledge and then leapt across to a street light, sliding down it while spinning around to bleed off momentum, ending with me on the street and blending into the crowd.
I took a second to adjust myself, smirking at how easy it all went.
*100 Athletics XP Gained.*
*Athletic skill level up!*
I blinked at the alert, and smiled pleased. I'd been worried I'd have to start going all in on running around and flips and things to get more levels, but considering what I'd just done I guess I earned enough to get an XP alert.
*Motoko: Gig complete. Thanks Rebecca.*
*Rebecca: No problem choom. I mean I've just been hanging out. What now?*
*Motoko: Well I message Dino and get confirmation we're all good. Lunch?*
*Rebecca: That sounds like a plan.*
I laughed as I walked across the sidewalk, hurrying while keeping an eye out to make sure no one was going to run the light.
—--
*Dino: Alright, you say gigs done, gigs done. I'll transfer funds.*
*Motoko: Thanks Dino. You want the shard I replaced as proof?*
*Dino: Nah, I don't like evidence handed to me. Just trash it, I'll trust you're on the level. Good working with you kid. Clean gig, no deaths, no reports of fires, or explosions. I'm pleased.*
*Motoko: Is that a normal worry?* I couldn't help but ask, half laughing into my noodles at his response.
*Dino: More often than you'd think. Professionals are hard to come by.*
I was smiling as the Eddies transferred over to my account. It was a good chunk of change. I instantly split it in half and tossed it to Rebecca.
"Huh? Nah choom. You don't have to do that. That's way too much."
"Halfsies." I told her with a smile.
"Nah, I didn't do shit." She waved her hand at me, but I just denied her attempt to transfer it back.
"Keep it you helped a lot actually, and if something had gone down, you were my escape plan. Always make sure your escape plan is paid well." I told her, earning a snort from her.
"Fine. I'll take your overpayment. Just don't let Crush find out."
"Yeah duh. Hiromi still bugs me about overpaying on gigs." I rolled my eyes and Rebecca laughed.
"That's cause you do."
"Nope. I pay what my chooms are worth, as much as I can anyways. I'm not a billionaire." I said with an arrogant smirk and it took her a second before she realized I was including her in that.
"Gonk." She punched me in the shoulder lightly. "Whatever. I'll keep it then."
"Good! You need the eddies for your chrome right? How's that coming?"
My question was in fact answered as Rebecca turned a bit on the Ramen stands bar stool and sent me the most tooth filled, arrogant proud grin of anyone I'd ever seen in my life.
"Get the fuck out of here!" I laughed pushing on her face as she shouted and squawked at my actions. "You got them?"
"Ordered, received and cackled like mad about, and I've been tinkering with them before chippin in."
"Tinkering huh?"
"Pfft, yeah. I hate out of the box chrome. It's scop. You go in, you check over everything, I had Sasha check the programming."
"I coulda done that." I pouted a bit. I didn't know Rebecca was modding her chrome!
"Nah Sasha made me promise her way earlier. Anyway, I'm using Pillars tools to replace some parts. The arms are kinda cheap normally ya know?"
"Yeah, you wanted the big bulky ones for your quick change."
"Yep! These beauties are monsters! Guehehehe!" She guffawed practically goblin laughing about her chrome.
"Preem."
"Yeah! So I'm replacing some of the finger joints. They have a bad tendency to break. Once I'm done with that I just need to paint them, and then chip them in." She stretched out her arms and fingers crossed. "Gonna be nova."
"Yeah, do you have a Smart Link for them?"
"Ballistic Coprocessor. It'll increase accuracy since I don't really use Smart Weapons."
"That's cool. You'll have to show them off, when you're ready. Oh, what Ripper are you using? Vik is the best in the city."
"Nah, I got my own. I go to Ryder, it's where I got my tats too." She explained showing off her stomach.
"Well… You should go check in with Vik too. He's amazing." I argued and Rebecca sent me a look before smirking.
"You got a crush on the older Ripperdoc? Like when he digs all up in there?" She asked, and I squawked this time, shooting a kick at her that she barely dodged.
"Vik is old enough to be my grandpa!"
"Not always a bad thing if that's what you're into!"
"Rebecca!"
"Guehehehehe!"
Hiromi had stayed long after the gig talking to the talent scout? Producer? I wasn't sure what his position was.
Either way, I had a feeling Hiromi was going to be pushing for something with regards to the Band. But…
Being up on stage, playing music I could only listen to before? Feeling that response from a crowd as I roared out from my heart? It was a good feeling.
I checked my messages, Dino had sent me a packet about the gig he wanted done last night. But that wasn't all I had. I'd gotten multiple alerts for Rockerboy XP. The full band experience, really letting it all go, had earned me another step closer to hitting level 10.
I looked at the packet from Dino. Just from the basics I understood the difficulty. There was one dealership that sold new Rayfield vehicles in Night City, and Dino wanted a Shard they'd have in the office switched out.
I didn't know exactly what the data was, but he had maps of the dealership, timetables, and even information about their security.
Could I do it?
Yeah. The security was top of the line, but it didn't have Netrunner support. The dealership was secure enough inside a building in Downtown sharing space with a few other high end corporations. The fancy dealership even had a special circular track around the building that people looking to buy high end vehicles could drive around without traffic stopping them.
Of course I wasn't after the vehicles, but just to replace a Shard with another inside the dealership office.
I slipped out of bed, and got ready. Even as I was in the shower I was going over the data Dino had sent, checking entrances, and information about the people that would be there.
The dossier on the entire place was thorough. Dino wasn't skimping, this wasn't just a generic smash and grab, but the data was set up as a professional Op.
As I was drying my hair I noticed something that might work as an entry point.
The pay for the gig was good… Probably? No, it was. It definitely had enough zeroes there.
Hiromi would be proud of me for actually checking, rather than just jumping into something, but to be fair, this was a full stealth gig, I couldn't be seen, or leave any hints that I had been there, or the gig failed. So I wouldn't be getting any XP for this, eddies were the only benefit I would draw out of it.
Decision settled, I sent out the confirmation to Dino.
*Motoko: I'll accept the gig. I can get it done today. Just need the replacement shard.*
*Dino: Alright, cords for a pickup. The delivery boy's name is Simon, that'll be the code that he knows it's you. Look forward to the update on the gig completion.*
Well that was settled then. Now I just needed to sort everything else. Even if this was a stealth mission, I was trying to be better than the gonk that I could be at times.
*Motoko: I got a gig from Dino, it should be quiet, just a sneak and grab. But I was wondering if anyone is free to be super bored and act as my extraction in case something bad happens.*
*Ichi: I'm on the clock right now, but I can come if you need me.*
*Malcolm: Ah, not a great time for me, but I can be there.*
*Rebecca: Nah you two, I got this. Strings, where we meeting up. I've been bored all morning. Might as well be bored and doing something.*
*Motoko: Preem Becca. Sure I'll send you a cords.*
*Hiromi: I can come!*
*Motoko: Hiromi you have class. You can't come.* I reminded her with a roll of my eyes as I hit the garage.
I was sliding onto my Kusanagi to make it through Night City morning traffic as I got Rebecca's confirmation, and Hiromi's cry emoji.
—--
Dino's delivery boy was a guy sitting in the back of a Villefort Columbus. The van doors were open and he was hawking XBD's if what I was seeing was right. Scoping him out as I pulled up on my Kusanagi. I didn't bother getting off, just driving right up to him which had him obviously preparing a weapon behind him, but as I stopped I called out.
"You Simon?"
"That's me. Got your package right here." He offered holding out a BD wrapper. I took it and felt the Shard inside.
With that I drove off without a word, and headed down and across a bit to another parking area. This one was a few floors up, and I found the spot I wanted. Right up against the north side of the building, where right there across the street and a floor down was the Rayfield dealership. I leaned against the wall and watched.
A car was racing around the track. Not one of their top of the lines. This was no Caliburn, but it would still be a high end car. I watched as it circled for a while, until a glitzy fashionista parked it near an entrance door, and stepped out. The passenger was a well dressed salesman, and he followed her inside. The moment they were out of sight a man in cheaper clothes stepped out and got in the car to drive it back inside the dealership.
But what I had seen on the information Dino had sent, was that the guy came out of another entrance way, not into the main office, after all, the dealership doesn't want some mechanic in coveralls being seen by the high priced clientele.
That was my entrance point. The door he came through was a mechanic room, and most importantly, connected to the back office through a much more private door that I could use to slip past almost all the agents in the dealership since they'd all be up front dealing with clients.
It wasn't long before a rumbling engine came up the parking garage and Rebecca's monster of a Nomad spec Thorton Mackinaw came rumbling over and parked itself.
I honestly hadn't seen her drive it around much, so I couldn't help but lean sideways to get a view of the driver door when it opened, and the comparatively tiny woman came out of her truck.
I couldn't help but laugh as she had to get out in three movements, sliding off the seat, onto a foot rest on the side of the truck, then hop off again to settle on the ground.
"Eat shit, Strings."
"I really think that truck is too big for your Becca."
"Pfft. It's perfect sized! I get to run people over in it, and they die."
I couldn't help but nod and give her that one. That was fair.
"So what's the deal here?"
"See that dealership down there?" I asked her, and she looked at the boundary around the parking Garage that was a bit above her head.
"No."
I snorted, and she reached out and punched at me, which I let her. My new leotard was still armored, and it wasn't as tight anymore. It didn't hurt.
"Okay so Dealership?" She asked.
"Rayfield. I need to sneak in and swap out a shard without being seen, or leaving behind any bodies."
Rebecca stepped back. Her previous joviality, gone in a flash. "That sounds tough. Wouldn't it be easier to wait until tonight?"
"You'd think so, but with how busy it is. It's actually easier during the day." I explained to Rebecca as I jerked my head across the way, specifically not pointing. "See the track around the dealership? They keep it real private, only one car at a time, since they only have limited customers, but the customers are treated like royalty. Multiple attendants for each one. I noticed it on some of the pictures that Dino sent me."
"Okay so… Everyone is distracted by the prima donnas so once that happens you sneak in."
"Exactly. Which is why your help is really nice. I'm sneaky, but not perfect, if I flub it having some backup for extraction is always nice.." I waved around the non secure parking garage.
"Okay preem. So you need me for overwatch?"
"And escape. But mostly overwatch you'll relay details I need as I make my infiltration." I started explaining that part of the gig, and Rebecca ended up climbing up onto the hood of her truck sitting back and crossing her legs like she was just chilling enjoying the view as I explained.
I couldn't help but smile at how casual she made it. Rebecca might be the smallest of my chooms, but she was older, and it was times like this that it showed. Plus her experience working gigs. Malcolm would be pointing over the edge while I explained things, and I'd have to smack his hand each time to get him to stop pointing.
Rebecca understood immediately with just one context clue not to bring any attention.
So I finished explaining and in the end since Rebecca had very little to do she just stayed relaxing against the hood of her car, while I headed out.
While the easiest way to get to the dealership would be just leaping across and using some street lights, to get across the way, there would be too much chance of a commotion if I tried that.
So I left the parking garage, and waited the long ass time for the cross walk to let me cross, only needing to cuss out one asshole that blew through the light and nearly hit me. Which was pretty good for Night City.
Crossing over I found an entrance to the building through another parking garage although this one was private. The entrance had a key reader and multiple security devices including a rather large gate that would keep people not welcome out.
I waited for no one to be coming in, and just walked up. This was a Kiroshi security optic keypad. It could be opened through other optics, but Kiroshi of course promised increased viability through their own work.
But that also created a weakness in the system. When I poked my eyes in front of it, it sent a data packet to my eye, which I co-opted, quickly altered the access information and sent it back.
It then sent back a further confirmation, this time with a code, that it thought I was sending to ensure it was correct. Only the code could only send codes that already existed on the database.
So I sent another confirmation and the gate opened with a small text message of 'Welcome Mr. Luxor!' Displayed, and I was into the private garage.
Okay easy part done.
The interior garage itself had some dangers, security cameras and the like, but it was also already secured from the outside, so thankfully only the one camera that I had to worry about, along my route.
Poking my head out from around a concrete pillar, I easily hacked it before it spotted me, and did a quick loop on the recording, the last ten seconds repeated again.
That's all I needed to rush across the garage and into the building's interior hallways.
From there it was smooth sailing. Multiple corps ran in this building, and there were plenty of reasons a teenager might be heading upwards through the stairs, especially since I was already through part of the security.
No issues.
I climbed up the stairs, heading to the floor two levels above the dealership. Unfortunately the floor above was another corpo office, and I couldn't get through to that, but the next one up, was multiple minor office spaces.
It was child's play to walk out of the stair access and down the interior hall space, separating all the different offices. There was a security door that opened for me without issue, and no one inside even saw me as I entered into some sort of call center office.
I walked right through only ducking a little to be below the cubicles set up, and reaching the exterior door.
The office had a nice little outside space that ran around the building, and now I was out. I walked around. Acting like I was supposed to be out here. Since it ran around the entire building all the offices on this level had access, so none of them would be able to tell I wasn't supposed to be here.
Humming a bit of something or another I walked around until I found the spot I needed to be at. Right across from me was Rebecca who secretly waved for a moment at me.
And so I settled in to wait.
*Rebecca: Go.*
I moved without hesitation leaping over the side of the edge, my chrome fingers grabbing onto the side of the concrete barrier between a set of windows, slowing me just a little as I slipped down and then there was a drop.
I could just see the car that was being test driven turn out of sight as I fell.
While there were cameras overlooking the track it wasn't perfect coverage. I fell right in a blind spot, grunting even with all my talent towards taking a fall as I hit the ground spreading the impact as best I could as I rolled forward bleeding the momentum in a different way.
Then I ran. Right towards the side door that the mechanics used to bring the car back in. I had about twenty seconds or less to get in. The door used a security card reader, but honestly this was the third floor, and well away from any easy access points. The track only accessed through the interior elevator unless you jumped or climbed up.
It took three seconds for me to get it to register an access and the door opened. I slipped in quiet as a mouse, and forced the door closed just in time, as there was a mechanic inside just across the room, and the sound of the car driving around could have alerted him.
He was sitting at a computer, his back to me, so I had a few moments. I looked around.
This shop room was obviously a waiting room for the mechanics, nothing interesting, no cameras inside, as there was nothing valuable.
Also no easy ways to walk past the mechanic to the office without being seen, as the computer was facing it.
No real space to hide either, my instincts told me trying to hide anywhere normal would just be seen. So I looked up.
I exhaled silently and jumped. The mechanic room didn't have any fancy ceilings or anything, Just open access to the fluorescent lightingI leaped up I grabbed the metal struts running across the ceiling. I hesitated for a second as even with the textured pads my hands were still chrome and it made a noise as I gripped.
Thankfully the mechanic didn't notice, and I pulled myself up, until I was nearly horizontal with just my two hands.
Thankfully my arms couldn't get tired, but I felt my core shift as I kept myself as flat up to the ceiling as I could.
Now I wait.
Finally there was a beep on the computer, and the Mechanic got up and walked right under me to go check in the car.
Which was perfect. The driver would be heading back inside, and distracting everyone as they discussed sales. The moment the door closed behind the mechanic, I dropped and rushed for the office door.
The back offices were rather plain, no point in fancying them up, but there were security cameras.
There were always security cameras around workers when needed.
Luckily, Dino had given me floorplans that were recent. I slipped inside, and stayed low crouching along the left wall. The only camera that would be seeing where I needed to go, would be facing away from my entrance, and I walked right under it as I started scanning.
A few moments to set up the daemon to repeat the last ten seconds again and I was off, walking forward on quick steps to one of the back offices, and slipping in. The place didn't even have security besides a lock on the door, but it opened without issue.
I slipped in and looked over the office. The nameplate on the desk read, Mr. White Sales Manager.
The office was nice enough, but it was mostly full of storage and records. While he was the Sales Manager, he wasn't the owner. Just another worker keeping eddies flowing. I checked each filing cabinet, and they were each filled with cheap folders with information in each of them.
Nope nope nope.
I ran down the names, skipping a few as it was thankfully in alphabetic order.
Finally I found the right file, and opened it, there was a shard case, which I popped open and pulled the Shard out, replacing it with the one that Dino wanted in its place.
With that the file was pushed back into place, and I was ready to get out of here.
*Motoko: Okay Rebecca, let me know next time the mechanic heads out to pick up a vehicle.*
*Rebecca: You got it strings.*
Then I waited, hiding in the room just in case anyone headed back here, but it was quiet, until I finally got a message from Rebecca.
*Rebecca: He's heading out now.*
I took a second at the door checking to make sure no one was coming and then walked back under the security camera. Removing the Daemon that kept the recording looping, so no one could find it, and then headed back into the mechanic room.
It was empty and I walked to the door. Accessing the security I forced the door to open just a tiny crack so I could listen, and when the car drove around the track, I exited, and slowly moved across the track until I could slip over the edge.
I fell a few feet, hit a ledge and then leapt across to a street light, sliding down it while spinning around to bleed off momentum, ending with me on the street and blending into the crowd.
I took a second to adjust myself, smirking at how easy it all went.
*100 Athletics XP Gained.*
*Athletic skill level up!*
I blinked at the alert, and smiled pleased. I'd been worried I'd have to start going all in on running around and flips and things to get more levels, but considering what I'd just done I guess I earned enough to get an XP alert.
*Motoko: Gig complete. Thanks Rebecca.*
*Rebecca: No problem choom. I mean I've just been hanging out. What now?*
*Motoko: Well I message Dino and get confirmation we're all good. Lunch?*
*Rebecca: That sounds like a plan.*
I laughed as I walked across the sidewalk, hurrying while keeping an eye out to make sure no one was going to run the light.
—--
*Dino: Alright, you say gigs done, gigs done. I'll transfer funds.*
*Motoko: Thanks Dino. You want the shard I replaced as proof?*
*Dino: Nah, I don't like evidence handed to me. Just trash it, I'll trust you're on the level. Good working with you kid. Clean gig, no deaths, no reports of fires, or explosions. I'm pleased.*
*Motoko: Is that a normal worry?* I couldn't help but ask, half laughing into my noodles at his response.
*Dino: More often than you'd think. Professionals are hard to come by.*
I was smiling as the Eddies transferred over to my account. It was a good chunk of change. I instantly split it in half and tossed it to Rebecca.
"Huh? Nah choom. You don't have to do that. That's way too much."
"Halfsies." I told her with a smile.
"Nah, I didn't do shit." She waved her hand at me, but I just denied her attempt to transfer it back.
"Keep it you helped a lot actually, and if something had gone down, you were my escape plan. Always make sure your escape plan is paid well." I told her, earning a snort from her.
"Fine. I'll take your overpayment. Just don't let Crush find out."
"Yeah duh. Hiromi still bugs me about overpaying on gigs." I rolled my eyes and Rebecca laughed.
"That's cause you do."
"Nope. I pay what my chooms are worth, as much as I can anyways. I'm not a billionaire." I said with an arrogant smirk and it took her a second before she realized I was including her in that.
"Gonk." She punched me in the shoulder lightly. "Whatever. I'll keep it then."
"Good! You need the eddies for your chrome right? How's that coming?"
My question was in fact answered as Rebecca turned a bit on the Ramen stands bar stool and sent me the most tooth filled, arrogant proud grin of anyone I'd ever seen in my life.
"Get the fuck out of here!" I laughed pushing on her face as she shouted and squawked at my actions. "You got them?"
"Ordered, received and cackled like mad about, and I've been tinkering with them before chippin in."
"Tinkering huh?"
"Pfft, yeah. I hate out of the box chrome. It's scop. You go in, you check over everything, I had Sasha check the programming."
"I coulda done that." I pouted a bit. I didn't know Rebecca was modding her chrome!
"Nah Sasha made me promise her way earlier. Anyway, I'm using Pillars tools to replace some parts. The arms are kinda cheap normally ya know?"
"Yeah, you wanted the big bulky ones for your quick change."
"Yep! These beauties are monsters! Guehehehe!" She guffawed practically goblin laughing about her chrome.
"Preem."
"Yeah! So I'm replacing some of the finger joints. They have a bad tendency to break. Once I'm done with that I just need to paint them, and then chip them in." She stretched out her arms and fingers crossed. "Gonna be nova."
"Yeah, do you have a Smart Link for them?"
"Ballistic Coprocessor. It'll increase accuracy since I don't really use Smart Weapons."
"That's cool. You'll have to show them off, when you're ready. Oh, what Ripper are you using? Vik is the best in the city."
"Nah, I got my own. I go to Ryder, it's where I got my tats too." She explained showing off her stomach.
"Well… You should go check in with Vik too. He's amazing." I argued and Rebecca sent me a look before smirking.
"You got a crush on the older Ripperdoc? Like when he digs all up in there?" She asked, and I squawked this time, shooting a kick at her that she barely dodged.
"Vik is old enough to be my grandpa!"
"Not always a bad thing if that's what you're into!"
"Rebecca!"
"Guehehehehe!"