Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
That armor also has fingerless gloves too its just they weren't on in this picture
Ghost in the City Cyberpunk Gamer SI
- Thread starter Seras
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- cyberpunk gamer self-insert
That armor also has fingerless gloves too its just they weren't on in this picture
Blasterbot
Well-known member
shit that is good. the future of the 80s wins again.
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
Here is the complete light variant of Arasaka armor.
This is the heavy variant.
They both sort of vaguely resemble samurai armor. Pretty weebish of them IMO.
EDIT:
I also forgot about this version of their armor.
This is the heavy variant.
They both sort of vaguely resemble samurai armor. Pretty weebish of them IMO.
EDIT:
I also forgot about this version of their armor.
Last edited:
Chapter 141
Seras
Well-known member
“Yeah, alright, fine.” Malcolm grumbled as he took off the control band and huffed at all of us. It had taken a bit of urging to get him to actually stop stomping around in the Minotaur.
“So, The reason we are still here, and not heading straight back to the city. I found something. The reason the Wraiths were able to down the Arasaka AV? The specific one loaded up with high end equipment?”
I noticed Hiromi perk up at that, although information wasn’t part of the gig her dad had sent us on, she was always looking for a bonus.
“Well the reason we are waiting here is because I called in V, she works for Arasaka Counter Intel. Because under the substation we were at, there was a Militech listening post.” I dropped the bombshell, and I could tell Malcolm and Ichi were just kinda taking in the information without much response, but Hiromi went still.
“Wait… A listening post!?”
“Yeah. Full tracking, conversations, AV’s, hell. They were even tracking space lift offs. I think it was made just before the Unification War. To track Night City. But then Arasaka came back, and they either forgot about it… Or just left it running in secret.”
“Fuck.” Hiromi cursed as she took that in. “Wait you said… Counter Intel? She isn’t going to like, flatline us right?”
“No, I trust V. She’s good people… Mostly. Just let me do the talking and pretend you don’t know anything. But you deserve to know what’s going on. You’re my team after all.”
“Arasaka Counter Intel… Good people?” Malcolm faux whispered to Ichi who just elbowed him to shut up. Ichi obviously realized that with Hiromi’s reaction it must be a big deal.
“Okay so what does that mean for us?” Ichi asked and I shrugged.
“Honestly? Depends on V, and her boss I guess. But something like this? Tracking Arasaka air traffic to even keep an eye on their secret AV stuff? Yeah this is super big. Either huge payday… Or they try to quiet all of us.” I answered with a shrug.
I didn’t think V would go along with that, but it was something I had to consider. Fucking Night City.
“I should call my dad then. He can-”
“No! Hiromi. We don’t know what the listening post can pick up. No calls about this. I waited until we were here before I even sent a text to V and it was super vague.” I cut Hiromi off urgently.
She looked grumbly for a moment before nodded. “Yeah that’s smart, but I’ll call him in an instant if some CI bitch starts making trouble!” She says and I just laugh, because Corpo V was such a bitch!
But she was a likable bitch.
“Okay. Motoko this is your… Choom. I’ll leave it to you.” Hiromi decided with a nod and I smiled in relief.
“Thanks Hiromi. I promise she won’t disappoint. I think we should tell your dad once we head back into the city. Bringing Counter Intel is just smart, so getting your dad up to speed, we could spread the rep for the find a bit I think?”
“Hmph! Of course! Dad is the one that created this gig, so anything we find should go to him first!”
“So… That’s it right?” Malcolm cut in. After Hiromi’s exclamation. I looked to him curiously but shrugged my shoulders.
“Yeah that was the whole thing.”
“Great! Dibs on finishing my turn with the kill bot!”
“It’s not a kill bot, it’s an Arasaka Brand Minotaur!” Hiromi snapped, but everyone ignored her.
“Aww. I wanted my turn next.” I whined.
Oh well. It was going to be mine soon regardless. Someone had to go into the programming, clear up all the Arasaka back doors, and Wraith trash, and then repaint it so it didn’t have Arasaka all over it.
I was thinking… Blue, and white?
Heh.
—---
I did finally get another turn to play with the Minotaur, and then had been kicked off by Ichi when my time was up without preamble.
It had switched between all of us until we had nearly drained the CHOOH2 tank. In the end we put it away and switched, at Hiromi’s demand to start categorizing our loot.
I was just finishing packing up a crate that was now actually ordered instead of just stuffed with junk when I heard the revving of a large engine pulling up to our side of Dakota’s garage.
For some reason things around here had been quiet since we brought out the Minotaur and had it stomping around.
The Chevillon Emperor pulled up and I relaxed, noticing not only the familiar redhead at the wheel, but that there were no Arasaka markings on it.
“Hey guys! V’s here!” I called out deeper into the truck as I jumped down and hurried over noticing V didn’t look pleased, her sunglasses dipping down her nose showing me a glaring set of glowing optics.
“Kid. Not sure what the fuck this is all about, but I want answers, and fast.”
“Let me get in, and let’s talk.” I told her. Waving at my chooms who were wondering what to do as I ran to the other side of her big ass truck.
Never been in one of these. I slipped into the truck noticing the interior was expensive. Like super expensive. I shook it off and only when the door was closed did I start. Pulling out the shard from my socket and handing it over.
“Found something while on this Arasaka gig. Finding the loot from an Arasaka AV that was taken down in the badlands. Everything went smooth, found the guy who did it, started clearing him out… Only he was acting weird. Holding up in a place that he had no reason to settle. Turns out. He found a Militech NUSA listening post, Unification war era, that’s been watching NC ever since. Including Arasaka flights in and out of the city.” As I spoke V had slipped in the shard and was looking at the pictures of what I had taken that I had saved just for her.
“Jesus Christ.”
“Yeah. I have no idea if anyone is actually still listening, or it’s just all automated, so I couldn’t make any direct calls about it. I gathered some data, and brought you out.”
V’s eyes blinked after a few more moments and she looked at me. “You called me. Why? You could have just turned this into Mitsunashi, and been done with it.”
“Because last I checked V, finding a NUSA listening post is a Counter Intelligence thing, and it would be a huge win for you… Right?”
She looked at me for a while, an intense look, her optics practically whirling as they seemed to try and find something.
“Yeah. It’ll help a lot. At least it’ll keep Jenkins from flatlining me for running out of the city suddenly. He probably thinks I’m going off reservation or something. I’m going to need to see this listening post.”
“Yeah. That’s why I called you before we went back to the city. My ride or yours?”
“As much as I would prefer it. Let’s take yours. Too easy for this thing to be traced back to Arasaka.” V muttered as she stepped out, and I followed. Hiromi walked up and I waved her up.
“Taking V back to the substation. Sit tight for a bit?”
“It’s fine Motoko. Go with the scary Counter Intel lady. We’ll keep our loot safe.” Malcolm interrupted before Hiromi could, throwing an arm over her shoulder and giving me a thumbs up.
Hiromi elbowed him but nodded to me as she stalked off.
“Is… Everything okay?” I asked confused.
“Don’t worry about it!” Malcolm called out his thumb still up so I quickly returned it awkwardly as I closed my Quadra’s car door.
“You little chooms up to something?”
“No? At least I don’t think so. I think they’re just messing with me. Don’t worry about it. They’re cool V. I promise. I trust them.”
The older woman just scoffed, but then we were off. Driving out of Dakota’s garage rest stop.
—--
The drive was quiet, small talk wasn’t something V wanted to do, like at all.
I had eventually run out of anything to actually talk about so I just turned on the radio to Morro Rock, and was thankful that a Samurai song was playing. As that seemed to ease tensions. Both of us quietly rocked out to the radio as I drove the long way out to the electrical substation.
Finally though we pulled over the hill that blocked it from view, and I could see V sit up as the place was a ghost town.
Dakota had really only taken the vehicles, and hadn’t wanted anything else like tents or anything. So the place was abandoned, dead left to rot in the sun.
As I pulled up to the station. I could see V looking around it, eyes narrowed.
“The top of the station. That’s where all of the Wraiths were killed from. Assault Rifle?”
“A Copperhead, and you’re right! I was up there. Good catch. Or was it some crime scene program or something?”
“You did this-No. That makes sense. Sneaky fuck.” She mumbled the last bit and I laughed at her smiling happily at her remembering. Finally parking we stepped out and I waved at her to follow as I led her inside, past the dusty room into the little office. I didn’t need to as I already had access, but I opened the desk cupboard that had the hidden keypad, and then called up the elevator.
“I’ll need access.”
“Sure. I’ll give you the code.” I agreed as I followed her into the elevator, she hadn’t even hesitated before entering.
“How did the Wraiths find this place?” She asked me, and I just had to shrug.
“I don’t know. None of them had a shard with all their history laid out with dates or something for me.” I said almost laughing at the fact the game did that all the time. She nodded without a word, and when the door opened she was first out. Walking straight in, looking over the dead bodies with a grimace, but heading around, checking it out.
I just settled onto the table in the center and watched as she first accessed the system. She stared at the display of the entirety of Night City with AV’s marked. It did have a few other things as well. But I didn’t know what they were, and didn’t really care.
V either did, or just thought the info was valuable regardless. She tried to pull a shard out of her neck but stopped.
“Can I download this data without an alert going out?” She asked me suddenly and I jerked up and hurried over.
“Let’s find out.” I muttered, quickly snatching a chair and rolling into spot as I began accessing it, and checking what this system was taking in, and putting out.
“Maybe. Hold up, I might need to partition a drive though.” I mutter, there was definitely some sort of NUSA spyware installed on these, but I was pretty sure I could put all the data it had saved into one of the laptops already accessed by the system and then just get the system to report it as a hardware failure and forget it ever existed. Letting us take it out without a problem.
“Okay that one.” I pointed across the room. “Unplug that laptop before anything, but start it up. I gave you credentials to get in. User: V Pass: Hacked. Capital H.” I informed her, as I continued working on making sure the system wouldn’t try to connect to it again, if I could get it to accept the laptop was damaged and so destroyed even if NUSA decided to look into this place they would never know it was missing.
“Motoko. Can you get this data sent to another location, without Militech noticing?” V asked, and I grimaced.
“That… I don’t know V. Honestly. I’m good, my net stealth is pretty good, but I would definitely be worried I could fuck it up. Better I think for you guys to maybe send a team over later to make your own hidden connection. I know you have good netrunners. Better than I am.”
V hesitated, like she wanted to argue before she sighed and nodded. “Yeah, better not to push our luck. I got this at least.” She said, patting the laptop. “This is big Motoko. You… I owe you one for calling me in. This was definitely worth the trouble… Thanks.” She finally added at the end and I could feel my smile spreading.
“You V. My choom. Are very welcome.” I said, continuing to grin directly at her, until she stopped looking thankful and just started looking irritated.
“Alright. C’mon I need to get back.”
“Yep!”
—---
V wasn’t much more talkative on the way back, and as soon as I dropped her off, she was off, power striding straight to her truck, and then away.
It was okay though, because to my shock as we pulled up she had sent a big dump of eddies into my account without a word about it.
I guess that was her way of paying for the info?
Well I was going to forgive her, because I was honestly pretty tired. I wanted to go home.
“Alright chooms. I’m back!” I called out after I watched V race away. “Tell me nothing big happened?”
“Nothing big happened. It was boring. Hiromi did buy some more CHOOH2 to power up the Minotaur though. That was cool.” Ichi told me from the back of his van, which was so packed to the brim the poor boy had to sit on the roof.
“They didn’t break it did they?” I questioned a little haunted, please don’t let my new toy get broken already!
“No, it’s fine. C’mon I want to get out of here. Unload the loot, somewhere, and head home for a shower, a meal, and a nap in that order.” Ichi called out looking as done with the desert as I was.
“Ichi, I literally couldn’t have put it better myself.”
We quickly found Malcolm and Hiromi still playing with the Minotaur, although from the looks of the targets of old oil cans they had set up, I had a feeling those guns would be a whole lot emptier than they had been before. Sighing without any heat I forced them to pack up and we all got back on the road.
The drive to Night City was long but quiet. The big old Behemoth rumbled along, completely uncaring at the slightly rough roads, despite the heavy load we were hauling. It definitely wasn’t the heaviest load ever carried by this beast. So it was no problem.
It was a little lonely though. All of us were in different vehicles to help out. Ichi and I hauled the big stuff. While Hiromi and Malcolm both raced around us, Hiromi in my Quadra, while Malcolm used his newly looted Wraith Shion.
And then hours later we were pulling into a storage yard, one Hiromi had set up in advance, and one that was familiar.
I guess Hiromi still had no issue calling up Fujimura, because it was that same TC storage lot.
With a sigh, I pulled in, parked, and all four of us got to work hauling out loot from the vehicles. Once everything was stored away and all four of us collapsed sweaty into chairs gathered from around the lot.
“Maybe… Maybe there is such a thing as too much loot?” I whispered to myself before just shaking it away.
No, not that was obviously some sort of heresy. More loot was always better.
“I just want, like… the biggest cheeseburger.” Malcolm aired with a sigh.
“I wouldn’t mind a burger.” I agreed and looked to Hiromi and Ichi who either shrugged or nodded.
“Preem.”
“We just have one last thing to do, I’m afraid.” I mentioned earning a new round of moans as I pointed. “What are we doing with this thing? Hiromi?”
“Uuuugh.” She moaned at me. “As the leader of Section 9- Hey!” She flinched at my kick, but she was smiling at me teasingly regardless. “As the manager of personnel, of Section 9. Vehicles obviously fall under our vehicle and driver specialist. So Ichi what do we do with this thing?”
“Nope, that’s not my gig. I’m the Light vehicle, and transport specialist. Heavy vehicles are out of my wheelhouse. Malcolm! This i-Ow!”
“Don’t even.” Malcolm grumbled having punched Ichi in the shoulder. “I have no idea what to do with a truck that big. That thing is huge. Sell it?”
“Maybe we should keep it? If we do more badlands gigs like this… I mean. We needed the transport lift.” I offered, but Hiromi just groaned at me.
“We don’t have any place to put it! Look at that thing!”
“Park it out in the badlands somewhere?”
“That’ll just get it klepped Malcolm.” Ichi answered instantly. “Maybe… Maybe we just buy a space for it? I mean there are industrial spaces… Hiromi couldn’t we like… Rent it to a transport company?”
The girl’s eyes squinted. “Yeeees?” She answered eventually very unconvincingly. “Just find a place for it for a few days. If it gets klepped then it’s just one less problem for us.”
“Oh! I can fix that actually.” I muttered reaching into the back of my belt. Before the gig had started I had bought two new pouches, one for my TachiCama, and one for my Trackers.
I popped a tracker out and flashed it to my chooms before walking up to the Behemoth and finding a good hidden spot, basically climbing on top of the truck and finding a place it would secure in nicely, before returning.
“What was that?”
“I made a tracker! And a little camera! I call these TachiCama!” I proclaimed revealing my cute little spy cameras! “See they got cute little grabby hands! And the color scheme is sooo cute!” I gushed as I offered it to my chooms, definitely not stuffing it into their faces with a bit too much force.
“That’s… Preem? Motoko.” Ichi replied first looking to Hiromi and Malcolm for backup, but Hiromi was just smiling, and so Malcolm was the next to comment.
“Sooo… Spy Cameras huh? That’s useful. Can I get one?”
“I made enough for everyone! I got a set of tracker and TachiCama for everyone! I was on a bit of a binge with stuff just before the gig. Oh! I have them in my trunk!” I ran to the Quadra and found the box of stuff I had brought along. I had meant to give it to everyone, but the long drive had had it slip my mind.
After passing out the new equipment, I sat back down and smiled as my chooms looked over the new gadgets.
“Alright, I see how these would be useful… Why not just buy some though?’ Hiromi asked, and I just rolled my eyes. Of course Hiromi would want to just buy some off the shelf stuff.
“Cause, since I bought, crafted, and programmed them. I know they are safe. I’ll make some improvements eventually. I want to make a Daemon to run the Tachikoma so they can actively look around and maybe even crawl along walls… Yeah. That would be pretty useful.” I remembered Star Wars had little spy droids that were incredibly effective every time they appeared, but almost never did because they were too good.
I wanted that sort of thing!
But then again eventually I would have Tachikoma!
“Okay so… We have a tracker on the truck. We leave it somewhere mostly secure for now and call it good?”
“I’m literally just going to park it out on the street. Fuck driving that thing around any more than I have to. Ichi you need to learn how to drive a Behemoth! This is a command!” I pointed at him, and he did a snort laugh, but he nodded.
“Alright. I’ll get some practice or something… Honestly. Motoko since you know how. You can teach me.”
“Ehhhh. I hate teaching thoooough.” I whined, but I did eventually deflate and nod. “Alright. I’ll give you a run down. Let’s go.”
“Wait now?”
“Ichi. We gotta move it, and Fujimura will kill us for leaving that thing in his lot. Now or never. C’mon! Faster we finish, the faster we can go for burgers!”
—--
Ichi only stalled out, twice, and rammed into a fence three times! Not bad! It wasn’t Fujimura’s fence, so no one really cared.
Burgers were a delight and we all left a massive mess in the booth of sand and dirt, but I dropped a big tip as well as paying, and the waitress seemed to forgive us.
After that, we all finally split up. Hiromi with the loot for her dad, headed home. Malcolm, to go get his new car properly repainted, and Ichi just went home, with a to go order for his Grandma. I even paid for it, cause that’s just sweet.
I went home. Immediately walked into the shower and just. Sat there. I had taken off my belts and holsters, and my boots but everything else was already so dirty, that a little water wasn’t going to hurt it.
Slowly I stripped out of the muddy jeans. My uncomfortably sand filled Leotard, and everything else leaving me to finally feel free of the desert for the first time in two days.
Another reason I couldn’t be a nomad. I didn’t know how Panam did it.
“Motoko?”
“Jun! I’m back! Taking a shower!”
“Alright! Take your time!” Jun sounded happy through the stupid beads as he walked back to the living room and I finally got around to washing myself clean. Soaps and shampoo lathered up to clean me all over.
Once I was fully done. I grabbed my stuff and chucked it into the washer, my holsters would need some attention later, but for now I was pulling the brat card and just leaving them on the floor. A towel and a hurried trip across the apartment later to my room. I got some new clothes and finally felt like a human again.
Stepping out of my room to see Jun still on the couch, as I dried my hair was nice and I plopped down next to him, and before he could say anything I burst into chatter. Telling him everything about the gig, even about the listening post.
The whole time he was a good listener. Not talking, but made interested noises as I explained the fights and the interesting bits, until the very end.
“That sounds like a crazy couple days Imouto.” He finally decided on, then he reached out and patted me on the head, and I wasn’t going to refuse any attention right now. I slumped over and settled my head on his thigh, using the towel as a pillow and demanded more attention.
I would sit through one of Jun’s stupid tv shows right now. For him of course. He sometimes needed some physical affection.
“So, The reason we are still here, and not heading straight back to the city. I found something. The reason the Wraiths were able to down the Arasaka AV? The specific one loaded up with high end equipment?”
I noticed Hiromi perk up at that, although information wasn’t part of the gig her dad had sent us on, she was always looking for a bonus.
“Well the reason we are waiting here is because I called in V, she works for Arasaka Counter Intel. Because under the substation we were at, there was a Militech listening post.” I dropped the bombshell, and I could tell Malcolm and Ichi were just kinda taking in the information without much response, but Hiromi went still.
“Wait… A listening post!?”
“Yeah. Full tracking, conversations, AV’s, hell. They were even tracking space lift offs. I think it was made just before the Unification War. To track Night City. But then Arasaka came back, and they either forgot about it… Or just left it running in secret.”
“Fuck.” Hiromi cursed as she took that in. “Wait you said… Counter Intel? She isn’t going to like, flatline us right?”
“No, I trust V. She’s good people… Mostly. Just let me do the talking and pretend you don’t know anything. But you deserve to know what’s going on. You’re my team after all.”
“Arasaka Counter Intel… Good people?” Malcolm faux whispered to Ichi who just elbowed him to shut up. Ichi obviously realized that with Hiromi’s reaction it must be a big deal.
“Okay so what does that mean for us?” Ichi asked and I shrugged.
“Honestly? Depends on V, and her boss I guess. But something like this? Tracking Arasaka air traffic to even keep an eye on their secret AV stuff? Yeah this is super big. Either huge payday… Or they try to quiet all of us.” I answered with a shrug.
I didn’t think V would go along with that, but it was something I had to consider. Fucking Night City.
“I should call my dad then. He can-”
“No! Hiromi. We don’t know what the listening post can pick up. No calls about this. I waited until we were here before I even sent a text to V and it was super vague.” I cut Hiromi off urgently.
She looked grumbly for a moment before nodded. “Yeah that’s smart, but I’ll call him in an instant if some CI bitch starts making trouble!” She says and I just laugh, because Corpo V was such a bitch!
But she was a likable bitch.
“Okay. Motoko this is your… Choom. I’ll leave it to you.” Hiromi decided with a nod and I smiled in relief.
“Thanks Hiromi. I promise she won’t disappoint. I think we should tell your dad once we head back into the city. Bringing Counter Intel is just smart, so getting your dad up to speed, we could spread the rep for the find a bit I think?”
“Hmph! Of course! Dad is the one that created this gig, so anything we find should go to him first!”
“So… That’s it right?” Malcolm cut in. After Hiromi’s exclamation. I looked to him curiously but shrugged my shoulders.
“Yeah that was the whole thing.”
“Great! Dibs on finishing my turn with the kill bot!”
“It’s not a kill bot, it’s an Arasaka Brand Minotaur!” Hiromi snapped, but everyone ignored her.
“Aww. I wanted my turn next.” I whined.
Oh well. It was going to be mine soon regardless. Someone had to go into the programming, clear up all the Arasaka back doors, and Wraith trash, and then repaint it so it didn’t have Arasaka all over it.
I was thinking… Blue, and white?
Heh.
—---
I did finally get another turn to play with the Minotaur, and then had been kicked off by Ichi when my time was up without preamble.
It had switched between all of us until we had nearly drained the CHOOH2 tank. In the end we put it away and switched, at Hiromi’s demand to start categorizing our loot.
I was just finishing packing up a crate that was now actually ordered instead of just stuffed with junk when I heard the revving of a large engine pulling up to our side of Dakota’s garage.
For some reason things around here had been quiet since we brought out the Minotaur and had it stomping around.
The Chevillon Emperor pulled up and I relaxed, noticing not only the familiar redhead at the wheel, but that there were no Arasaka markings on it.
“Hey guys! V’s here!” I called out deeper into the truck as I jumped down and hurried over noticing V didn’t look pleased, her sunglasses dipping down her nose showing me a glaring set of glowing optics.
“Kid. Not sure what the fuck this is all about, but I want answers, and fast.”
“Let me get in, and let’s talk.” I told her. Waving at my chooms who were wondering what to do as I ran to the other side of her big ass truck.
Never been in one of these. I slipped into the truck noticing the interior was expensive. Like super expensive. I shook it off and only when the door was closed did I start. Pulling out the shard from my socket and handing it over.
“Found something while on this Arasaka gig. Finding the loot from an Arasaka AV that was taken down in the badlands. Everything went smooth, found the guy who did it, started clearing him out… Only he was acting weird. Holding up in a place that he had no reason to settle. Turns out. He found a Militech NUSA listening post, Unification war era, that’s been watching NC ever since. Including Arasaka flights in and out of the city.” As I spoke V had slipped in the shard and was looking at the pictures of what I had taken that I had saved just for her.
“Jesus Christ.”
“Yeah. I have no idea if anyone is actually still listening, or it’s just all automated, so I couldn’t make any direct calls about it. I gathered some data, and brought you out.”
V’s eyes blinked after a few more moments and she looked at me. “You called me. Why? You could have just turned this into Mitsunashi, and been done with it.”
“Because last I checked V, finding a NUSA listening post is a Counter Intelligence thing, and it would be a huge win for you… Right?”
She looked at me for a while, an intense look, her optics practically whirling as they seemed to try and find something.
“Yeah. It’ll help a lot. At least it’ll keep Jenkins from flatlining me for running out of the city suddenly. He probably thinks I’m going off reservation or something. I’m going to need to see this listening post.”
“Yeah. That’s why I called you before we went back to the city. My ride or yours?”
“As much as I would prefer it. Let’s take yours. Too easy for this thing to be traced back to Arasaka.” V muttered as she stepped out, and I followed. Hiromi walked up and I waved her up.
“Taking V back to the substation. Sit tight for a bit?”
“It’s fine Motoko. Go with the scary Counter Intel lady. We’ll keep our loot safe.” Malcolm interrupted before Hiromi could, throwing an arm over her shoulder and giving me a thumbs up.
Hiromi elbowed him but nodded to me as she stalked off.
“Is… Everything okay?” I asked confused.
“Don’t worry about it!” Malcolm called out his thumb still up so I quickly returned it awkwardly as I closed my Quadra’s car door.
“You little chooms up to something?”
“No? At least I don’t think so. I think they’re just messing with me. Don’t worry about it. They’re cool V. I promise. I trust them.”
The older woman just scoffed, but then we were off. Driving out of Dakota’s garage rest stop.
—--
The drive was quiet, small talk wasn’t something V wanted to do, like at all.
I had eventually run out of anything to actually talk about so I just turned on the radio to Morro Rock, and was thankful that a Samurai song was playing. As that seemed to ease tensions. Both of us quietly rocked out to the radio as I drove the long way out to the electrical substation.
Finally though we pulled over the hill that blocked it from view, and I could see V sit up as the place was a ghost town.
Dakota had really only taken the vehicles, and hadn’t wanted anything else like tents or anything. So the place was abandoned, dead left to rot in the sun.
As I pulled up to the station. I could see V looking around it, eyes narrowed.
“The top of the station. That’s where all of the Wraiths were killed from. Assault Rifle?”
“A Copperhead, and you’re right! I was up there. Good catch. Or was it some crime scene program or something?”
“You did this-No. That makes sense. Sneaky fuck.” She mumbled the last bit and I laughed at her smiling happily at her remembering. Finally parking we stepped out and I waved at her to follow as I led her inside, past the dusty room into the little office. I didn’t need to as I already had access, but I opened the desk cupboard that had the hidden keypad, and then called up the elevator.
“I’ll need access.”
“Sure. I’ll give you the code.” I agreed as I followed her into the elevator, she hadn’t even hesitated before entering.
“How did the Wraiths find this place?” She asked me, and I just had to shrug.
“I don’t know. None of them had a shard with all their history laid out with dates or something for me.” I said almost laughing at the fact the game did that all the time. She nodded without a word, and when the door opened she was first out. Walking straight in, looking over the dead bodies with a grimace, but heading around, checking it out.
I just settled onto the table in the center and watched as she first accessed the system. She stared at the display of the entirety of Night City with AV’s marked. It did have a few other things as well. But I didn’t know what they were, and didn’t really care.
V either did, or just thought the info was valuable regardless. She tried to pull a shard out of her neck but stopped.
“Can I download this data without an alert going out?” She asked me suddenly and I jerked up and hurried over.
“Let’s find out.” I muttered, quickly snatching a chair and rolling into spot as I began accessing it, and checking what this system was taking in, and putting out.
“Maybe. Hold up, I might need to partition a drive though.” I mutter, there was definitely some sort of NUSA spyware installed on these, but I was pretty sure I could put all the data it had saved into one of the laptops already accessed by the system and then just get the system to report it as a hardware failure and forget it ever existed. Letting us take it out without a problem.
“Okay that one.” I pointed across the room. “Unplug that laptop before anything, but start it up. I gave you credentials to get in. User: V Pass: Hacked. Capital H.” I informed her, as I continued working on making sure the system wouldn’t try to connect to it again, if I could get it to accept the laptop was damaged and so destroyed even if NUSA decided to look into this place they would never know it was missing.
“Motoko. Can you get this data sent to another location, without Militech noticing?” V asked, and I grimaced.
“That… I don’t know V. Honestly. I’m good, my net stealth is pretty good, but I would definitely be worried I could fuck it up. Better I think for you guys to maybe send a team over later to make your own hidden connection. I know you have good netrunners. Better than I am.”
V hesitated, like she wanted to argue before she sighed and nodded. “Yeah, better not to push our luck. I got this at least.” She said, patting the laptop. “This is big Motoko. You… I owe you one for calling me in. This was definitely worth the trouble… Thanks.” She finally added at the end and I could feel my smile spreading.
“You V. My choom. Are very welcome.” I said, continuing to grin directly at her, until she stopped looking thankful and just started looking irritated.
“Alright. C’mon I need to get back.”
“Yep!”
—---
V wasn’t much more talkative on the way back, and as soon as I dropped her off, she was off, power striding straight to her truck, and then away.
It was okay though, because to my shock as we pulled up she had sent a big dump of eddies into my account without a word about it.
I guess that was her way of paying for the info?
Well I was going to forgive her, because I was honestly pretty tired. I wanted to go home.
“Alright chooms. I’m back!” I called out after I watched V race away. “Tell me nothing big happened?”
“Nothing big happened. It was boring. Hiromi did buy some more CHOOH2 to power up the Minotaur though. That was cool.” Ichi told me from the back of his van, which was so packed to the brim the poor boy had to sit on the roof.
“They didn’t break it did they?” I questioned a little haunted, please don’t let my new toy get broken already!
“No, it’s fine. C’mon I want to get out of here. Unload the loot, somewhere, and head home for a shower, a meal, and a nap in that order.” Ichi called out looking as done with the desert as I was.
“Ichi, I literally couldn’t have put it better myself.”
We quickly found Malcolm and Hiromi still playing with the Minotaur, although from the looks of the targets of old oil cans they had set up, I had a feeling those guns would be a whole lot emptier than they had been before. Sighing without any heat I forced them to pack up and we all got back on the road.
The drive to Night City was long but quiet. The big old Behemoth rumbled along, completely uncaring at the slightly rough roads, despite the heavy load we were hauling. It definitely wasn’t the heaviest load ever carried by this beast. So it was no problem.
It was a little lonely though. All of us were in different vehicles to help out. Ichi and I hauled the big stuff. While Hiromi and Malcolm both raced around us, Hiromi in my Quadra, while Malcolm used his newly looted Wraith Shion.
And then hours later we were pulling into a storage yard, one Hiromi had set up in advance, and one that was familiar.
I guess Hiromi still had no issue calling up Fujimura, because it was that same TC storage lot.
With a sigh, I pulled in, parked, and all four of us got to work hauling out loot from the vehicles. Once everything was stored away and all four of us collapsed sweaty into chairs gathered from around the lot.
“Maybe… Maybe there is such a thing as too much loot?” I whispered to myself before just shaking it away.
No, not that was obviously some sort of heresy. More loot was always better.
“I just want, like… the biggest cheeseburger.” Malcolm aired with a sigh.
“I wouldn’t mind a burger.” I agreed and looked to Hiromi and Ichi who either shrugged or nodded.
“Preem.”
“We just have one last thing to do, I’m afraid.” I mentioned earning a new round of moans as I pointed. “What are we doing with this thing? Hiromi?”
“Uuuugh.” She moaned at me. “As the leader of Section 9- Hey!” She flinched at my kick, but she was smiling at me teasingly regardless. “As the manager of personnel, of Section 9. Vehicles obviously fall under our vehicle and driver specialist. So Ichi what do we do with this thing?”
“Nope, that’s not my gig. I’m the Light vehicle, and transport specialist. Heavy vehicles are out of my wheelhouse. Malcolm! This i-Ow!”
“Don’t even.” Malcolm grumbled having punched Ichi in the shoulder. “I have no idea what to do with a truck that big. That thing is huge. Sell it?”
“Maybe we should keep it? If we do more badlands gigs like this… I mean. We needed the transport lift.” I offered, but Hiromi just groaned at me.
“We don’t have any place to put it! Look at that thing!”
“Park it out in the badlands somewhere?”
“That’ll just get it klepped Malcolm.” Ichi answered instantly. “Maybe… Maybe we just buy a space for it? I mean there are industrial spaces… Hiromi couldn’t we like… Rent it to a transport company?”
The girl’s eyes squinted. “Yeeees?” She answered eventually very unconvincingly. “Just find a place for it for a few days. If it gets klepped then it’s just one less problem for us.”
“Oh! I can fix that actually.” I muttered reaching into the back of my belt. Before the gig had started I had bought two new pouches, one for my TachiCama, and one for my Trackers.
I popped a tracker out and flashed it to my chooms before walking up to the Behemoth and finding a good hidden spot, basically climbing on top of the truck and finding a place it would secure in nicely, before returning.
“What was that?”
“I made a tracker! And a little camera! I call these TachiCama!” I proclaimed revealing my cute little spy cameras! “See they got cute little grabby hands! And the color scheme is sooo cute!” I gushed as I offered it to my chooms, definitely not stuffing it into their faces with a bit too much force.
“That’s… Preem? Motoko.” Ichi replied first looking to Hiromi and Malcolm for backup, but Hiromi was just smiling, and so Malcolm was the next to comment.
“Sooo… Spy Cameras huh? That’s useful. Can I get one?”
“I made enough for everyone! I got a set of tracker and TachiCama for everyone! I was on a bit of a binge with stuff just before the gig. Oh! I have them in my trunk!” I ran to the Quadra and found the box of stuff I had brought along. I had meant to give it to everyone, but the long drive had had it slip my mind.
After passing out the new equipment, I sat back down and smiled as my chooms looked over the new gadgets.
“Alright, I see how these would be useful… Why not just buy some though?’ Hiromi asked, and I just rolled my eyes. Of course Hiromi would want to just buy some off the shelf stuff.
“Cause, since I bought, crafted, and programmed them. I know they are safe. I’ll make some improvements eventually. I want to make a Daemon to run the Tachikoma so they can actively look around and maybe even crawl along walls… Yeah. That would be pretty useful.” I remembered Star Wars had little spy droids that were incredibly effective every time they appeared, but almost never did because they were too good.
I wanted that sort of thing!
But then again eventually I would have Tachikoma!
“Okay so… We have a tracker on the truck. We leave it somewhere mostly secure for now and call it good?”
“I’m literally just going to park it out on the street. Fuck driving that thing around any more than I have to. Ichi you need to learn how to drive a Behemoth! This is a command!” I pointed at him, and he did a snort laugh, but he nodded.
“Alright. I’ll get some practice or something… Honestly. Motoko since you know how. You can teach me.”
“Ehhhh. I hate teaching thoooough.” I whined, but I did eventually deflate and nod. “Alright. I’ll give you a run down. Let’s go.”
“Wait now?”
“Ichi. We gotta move it, and Fujimura will kill us for leaving that thing in his lot. Now or never. C’mon! Faster we finish, the faster we can go for burgers!”
—--
Ichi only stalled out, twice, and rammed into a fence three times! Not bad! It wasn’t Fujimura’s fence, so no one really cared.
Burgers were a delight and we all left a massive mess in the booth of sand and dirt, but I dropped a big tip as well as paying, and the waitress seemed to forgive us.
After that, we all finally split up. Hiromi with the loot for her dad, headed home. Malcolm, to go get his new car properly repainted, and Ichi just went home, with a to go order for his Grandma. I even paid for it, cause that’s just sweet.
I went home. Immediately walked into the shower and just. Sat there. I had taken off my belts and holsters, and my boots but everything else was already so dirty, that a little water wasn’t going to hurt it.
Slowly I stripped out of the muddy jeans. My uncomfortably sand filled Leotard, and everything else leaving me to finally feel free of the desert for the first time in two days.
Another reason I couldn’t be a nomad. I didn’t know how Panam did it.
“Motoko?”
“Jun! I’m back! Taking a shower!”
“Alright! Take your time!” Jun sounded happy through the stupid beads as he walked back to the living room and I finally got around to washing myself clean. Soaps and shampoo lathered up to clean me all over.
Once I was fully done. I grabbed my stuff and chucked it into the washer, my holsters would need some attention later, but for now I was pulling the brat card and just leaving them on the floor. A towel and a hurried trip across the apartment later to my room. I got some new clothes and finally felt like a human again.
Stepping out of my room to see Jun still on the couch, as I dried my hair was nice and I plopped down next to him, and before he could say anything I burst into chatter. Telling him everything about the gig, even about the listening post.
The whole time he was a good listener. Not talking, but made interested noises as I explained the fights and the interesting bits, until the very end.
“That sounds like a crazy couple days Imouto.” He finally decided on, then he reached out and patted me on the head, and I wasn’t going to refuse any attention right now. I slumped over and settled my head on his thigh, using the towel as a pillow and demanded more attention.
I would sit through one of Jun’s stupid tv shows right now. For him of course. He sometimes needed some physical affection.
"Why is she friend shaped?"
"I didn't even know my IFF even had a non-Arasaka friendly designation!"
xachariahxx
Well-known member
Motoko got a lot of loot, but now that I think about it, how much of that does Arasaka even know about? It actually makes perfect sense that they wrote everything off and are fine with this payday.
- The vehicles (Militech Behemoth, Malcolm's new car, and all the ones sold to Dakota) weren't on the AV.
- The Minotaur might have been on the AV, but probably not. And even then, a kill-bot that's been in enemy (netrunner/techie) hands is never safe to use again.
- Most of the guns were from wraithes.
- Body armor outside of chain of custody can't be trusted. If it's kevlar weave you don't know if it went outside of temperature tolerance (and will fail) and if it's ceramic/metal it's only good for the 1st shot and you don't know if it's cracked internally. It's like a bike helmet, never buy a used one because they're only good once.
- Intel, which Arasaka did get recovered.
So the only thing they actually lost out on was some man portable weapons that might have already been used by wraiths. And using a weapons shipment as payout to some edgerunners is well within expected parameters, especially because the weapons weren't even in Arasaka's hands anyways. It wouldn't be worth recovering to them so it cost them nothing to give up.
- The vehicles (Militech Behemoth, Malcolm's new car, and all the ones sold to Dakota) weren't on the AV.
- The Minotaur might have been on the AV, but probably not. And even then, a kill-bot that's been in enemy (netrunner/techie) hands is never safe to use again.
- Most of the guns were from wraithes.
- Body armor outside of chain of custody can't be trusted. If it's kevlar weave you don't know if it went outside of temperature tolerance (and will fail) and if it's ceramic/metal it's only good for the 1st shot and you don't know if it's cracked internally. It's like a bike helmet, never buy a used one because they're only good once.
- Intel, which Arasaka did get recovered.
So the only thing they actually lost out on was some man portable weapons that might have already been used by wraiths. And using a weapons shipment as payout to some edgerunners is well within expected parameters, especially because the weapons weren't even in Arasaka's hands anyways. It wouldn't be worth recovering to them so it cost them nothing to give up.
Last edited:
Seras
Well-known member
The Minotaur was part of the AV package.
Chapter 142
Seras
Well-known member
After giving Jun some affection, making sure he was okay and happy, and comfy and back to feeling like he was home and everything was okay. I finished cleaning up. Grabbing my gear I ran it all through a thorough cleaning. Holsters, belts, guns, and equipment. Just everything needed a cleaning.
So much dust.
Bleh! I hate the Badlands!
After that everything was settled I took a nice sleep, something I hadn’t really enjoyed during the gig and woke up feeling refreshed and ready to get to work!
First thing first.
My stat page.
Level 17
Body 8(16) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 8.
-Athletics 7
-Street Brawler 8
-Annihilation 5
Reflex 8
-Blades 7
-Handguns 7
-Assault 7
-Driving 7
Intelligence 10 (14) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 4.
-Breach Protocol 9
-Quick Hacks 8
-Programming 10
Cool 9
-Ninjutsu 9
-Cold Blood 8
-Rockerboy 8
Technical Ability 5 (9) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 4.
-Crafting 4
-Engineering 4
3 Stat point.
7 Skill point.
Perks.
Ambidextrous Blades 2
Quickdraw Handguns 2
Gun Nut Assault 2
Parkour Athletics 2
Grappling Street Brawler 2
Drive By Driving 2
Cat-like Athletics 5
Cool Nerves Cold Blood 2
Danger Sense Ninjutsu 2
Wall Breaking Breach Protocol 2
Cyber Security Quick Hack 2
Recoil Reduction. Annihilation 2
Cyber Ninja Ninjutsu 5
Fearless Chill Cold Blood 5
Improvised Weapons Street Brawler 5
Parry Blades 5
Robotics wizard Crafting 2
Drifting Driving 5
Rapid Reload Handguns 5
Design Wizard Engineering 2
Rifle Ace Assault 5
Ghost touch Breach 5
Perfect Musical Memory Rockerboy 2
Debug Programming 2
Siren Song Rockerboy 5
Hacking Wizard Quick Hacks 5
Inspired Programmer Programming 5
A.I. Whisperer: Programming 10
Annihilation 5 *Unused*
Cyberware:
Seacho Electronics Mk.2 *Adaptation Seacho Mk.2 0/0*
Kiroshi Mk1 *Adaptation Kiroshi Mk1 1/2*
Militech Condor *Adaptation Militech Condor 5/6*
Arasaka Smart Link System. *Adaptation Smart Link 0/0*
Arasaka Ex-Disk *Adatapation Ex-Disk 0/0*
Militech-Armalite Ballistic Guard *Adaptation Ballistic Guard 1/2*
Serano Air-Groove Ankles *Adaptation Serano Air 1/1*
MoorE Titanium Bones (Shoulders, back, and ribs.) *Adaptation Titanium Bones 0/1*
Biotechnica Muscle and Bone Lace *Adaptation Muscle and Bone Lace 0/0*
Looking through it I took in all the little changes. Reading everything carefully so I would know exactly where I was at. And there were a few minor changes indeed.
My adaptation max had dropped again for my Condors! It was now only 6! I wiggled my shoulders and smiled. I guess I had gotten pretty used to the things. Maybe it also had to do with the Titanium bones? One of the problems I had was the chrome was a bit heavier than a normal limb, and so it was pulling on normal muscle and bone…
By improving my body more, had I eased one of the problems the Condors were causing? It was kinda annoying how complicated Adaptation was!
Either way, whatever caused it! It was awesome! One less point I would have to spend!
In fact…
I pushed the button without even thinking about it. It had to be done. A finale to the whole thing. A completion of a task.
Militech Condor *Adaptation Militech Condor 6/6*
It was over. I exhaled not even in relief because the Condor had been something I hadn’t been really bothered by in a long time. But in a way this was me finally, completely recovering from the Maelstrom attack.
Complete. I felt complete, I stretched my arms and nothing felt weird, or uncomfortable. Just muscles stretched around titanium bones in my back and my arms just felt like my arms.
I slammed a fist into my palm.
Fuck yeah!
I grinned goofily as I felt the happiness just surge up through me. I did it!
I shook it off patting my cheeks to refocus. I still had other things! I had a perk point!
Well, I’ll be honest and admit I’ve had it forever. Annihilation was just… I didn’t know what to pick!
But today was a clean slate kind of day. Time to clean up my stuff!
So I popped open the perk selection and hummed as I looked it over. There was… Well a lot of stuff for sure, but I needed something… It was a split of perks for the most part. Shotgun stuff, and Machine gun stuff.
I mean, I used both weapons, but when it really came down to it. Neither were ever going to be my primary weapons. Most of the time I would need more penetration for serious missions than a shotgun offers, and machine guns were good, but… I’m kinda small, and those things are chunky.
My first Annihilation perk had been Recoil Reduction, probably one of the best perks I picked, considering how versatile it was, but now I needed something… I read through the list and there wasn’t just a perfect option I could find. No perk that would just affect everything, or would blow things away.
In the end I just shrugged. I grabbed a Shotgun perk. I’d grab a Machine gun one next time.
Slam Fire. You know how to hold, cock and fire a pump shotgun.
It seemed simple, but firing a shotgun faster was a neat trick.
I selected it and shivered in delight as the knowledge flowed through. Once it was done, I rolled backwards off my bed sliding from my arms up onto my feet and into a brisk walk without slowing down as I found my Tactician, and unloaded it.
I brought it to bear and noticed how my hands shifted automatically. My grip changed, and I brought it down, and then up down and up, and then I faux fired, pumped and fired again. Both of my arms worked in tandem, pushing and pulling the gun at different intervals. I knew I was also adjusting for recoil that wasn’t there, and then I blurred through firing, and I slammed out eight rounds in just a few moments.
Quick! Really quick!
I nodded pleased. I wouldn’t be as quick with the Carnage because that thing was brute and cocking it was like bashing two pieces of metal together until something gave, but it would probably still be a lot faster than it had before.
I reloaded the Tactician and put it back by my bedroom door before heading back to my bed.
Okay I was satisfied with that! Now onto the really interesting bit.
Intelligence 10 (14) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 4.
I took a breath and clicked on Intelligence. Putting in a stat point and then.
Well nothing. I didn’t… Feel different? Well I shrugged it off, I was used to Intelligence being kind of a zany stat.
No, instead I moved on to see what was beyond 10.
I only had one Intelligence skill at 10 already. Programming, which was definitely a powerful tool. So it was perfect to test out.
I put in a skill point, which the system reminded me I needed to use a skill point to gain anything in skills over 10, and then…
I yelped, blinking stars that were definitely not in my vision, at the surge of new information.
It was… Oh.
Oooooh.
I get it now. I understood. The difference between under 10 in a skill, and over. Why I needed Cyberization! It all made sense!
The information I gained was a lot of repeated information in a way. Things I already knew, but now? Now I knew how to do them solely with my cyberware. To integrate being a cyborg into the task so there was no need for something more. No need for a laptop, for typing.
Just me, and the code. Me and my ghost accessing the digital space.
While I had always been a cyborg, I hadn’t been using the connection of machine and man to its full extent I now realized.
This was more than just a repeat of old information. If before I was learning how to code as a human, now I was learning how to code as a cyborg. I had only touched on the barest of programming without a laptop before in emergencies, when I needed to rewrite some code on the fly, and it hadn’t been easy.
But now? I had all the beginner tools to do it without getting distracted or losing sight of what I was trying for.
“BrrRrrrrRrrrRrrr!” I exhaled and shook my head back and forth for a few moments. Then I once again slapped my cheeks a few times.
That was a lot.
“Okay. Note to self. Don’t double skill upgrade with post 10.” I felt like my brain was overheating. But I felt normal, just sort of swamped.
I was really glad I was on my bed so I just flopped back and waited for a bit to get used to it.
Programming 11… It wasn’t a direct increase in power exactly. I couldn’t just make hacks at a new tier or something, but it felt like… I could code faster.
Maybe even cut off half the time in any project with just that one point.
The ability to split my focus through my cyberdeck. To code without touching a keyboard, but I could still synergize that. Code with both? Potentially.
It was a lot. I could tell I was pushing beyond human, beyond what just my flesh brain could handle without support.
And honestly?
It felt amazing.
—--
A few hours later I headed over to the storage lot. Thankfully nothing looked stolen, even without me performing overwatch for the night again.
I wasn’t saying I trusted Fujimura to be enough of protection on its own, but this time I didn’t have a gang of gonk kids that would happily klep everything from me knowing we just had a payday.
Plus if anyone did steal something I would just track them down and teach them it was a bad idea.
I had opened up the unit and was pulling out the tactical gear for the team. I had left it here yesterday because after unloading everything from the big truck, I was a bit too tired to want to haul it around again to home.
Now I felt much better and was gathering up the Arasaka tactical armor and piling it into the Quadra. Along with a bunch of the extra guns and equipment we had found.
I wanted to clean up a bit of everything for my chooms to use. The Arasaka equipment was certainly better quality than some of the stuff we used up until now.
I might not be a fan of the Masamune for example, but it was a very accurate and dangerous rifle, although I was thinking something specific for my chooms.
Piling on another stack of equipment into the Quadra’s passenger seat I once more spotted the TC grunts watching me out of the corner of my eye.
They were keeping an eye on me, but hadn’t tried to talk to me, or bother me. So I was mostly ignoring them, but the attention still made me aware, made me consider ways to defend myself.
Thankfully it wasn’t needed. I was done with what I needed today. Hiromi would be handling the rest over the next while.
I took one last look at the Minotaur the desire to play with it almost irresistible, but I had work to do before I could take it out and play with it.
I closed up the garage, and climbed back into the Quadra and drove home.
Time for some real tech work.
I had so many supplies, literally piles of guns. I was going to rip anything we didn’t sell apart, and start working on the grind.
A few trips between apartment and car later, I was all set up.
First I pulled out the helmet of the armor. I did a scan, and started basically tearing it apart.
Frankly I was planning on redesigning most of it, but I first wanted to look it over for something I suspected to find.
Trackers. Listening devices. Anything for Arasaka to just keep one more finger on the pulse of their troopers.
It couldn’t be anywhere not easy to find, I really tore this one apart. Every piece of tech was taken apart, examined, and explored.
I was even getting Crafting and Tech alerts for it!
The helmets were pretty simple. Actual armored hard case. Internal electronics, and external electronics.
That was it.
The internal electronics were simple enough. A sound baffling to keep their ears from being blown out by gunfire, or flashbangs, and an internal booster, and squad radio.
I really wanted both pieces, and so carefully examined the whole thing. Even going through the chips that ran everything to check what everything did.
It was all… Normal.
Maybe it wasn’t in the helmets?
Well, I had a fully taken apart the helmet with all its electronics, scans of the whole thing which I was already storing in my laptop in case I ever needed to repair or replace the parts…
But what do I do with the Helmet? Couldn’t just leave them as is. Getting thought of as being Arasaka forces would not be a good idea. I had to alter the form of the helmet. Plus, I had to decide on paint as well. Did we pick a solid color, a camo?
Oh… Wait… I could probably get some of the ECM emitters that the TC used in their tats. ECM equipped armor could be pretty neat. It would probably be super expensive, but like…
I had a lot of eddies right now.
I shook that off. Stop feature creeping. I haven’t even gotten the helmet figured out yet. Staring at the disassembled helmet I wondered what I could do other than just change up the paint. How could I give Section 9 a look…
I did consider going Sentai Rangers, but no. That was just silly.
Hmm… Well I did have my directional mic, something these helmets didn’t have integrated…
I pulled up the CAD program, and tossed the helmets dimension into it, thank you Kiroshi scan tech!
Then I went to work, adding and adjusting, it wouldn’t be expensive, at least not for the directional mic. I already had the design done and it was cheap to begin with.
The housing for it would be cheap as well, a bit of extra armor, I could even potentially use some of the spare armor from the extra sets to make it, but I would probably just go buy something feasible. It didn’t need to be perfectly bullet proof since it was just a directional mic.
The program came together and I nodded at the look, the triangle horns sticking out of the top. Yeah that could work. Of course the problem would be hooking it up to the squad radio already integrated into the helmet.
Luckily I was a programmer!
I pulled it apart, and started hooking it up to check the programming when Jun knocked.
“Motoko?”
“I’m here! What’s up Jun?” I called out barely tearing my eyes away from the code I was dissecting, before realizing I didn’t need to do that. I slipped my personal link into the laptop and was suddenly accessing the code on a visual spectrum in my agent, and then I could just… Start modifying.
Programming 11! Stronk!
“Hey, want to get lunch?” I blinked as I whirled to Jun who was in more casual clothing than his usual TC gang outfit.
“Yeah!” I agreed instantly. Putting my coding to the side, but not shutting it down as I hurried after. Slipping my boots on I followed after casual clothes wearing Jun as he grabbed his big Cyberpunk jacket and slipped it on. I quickly reached out as we left the apartment to grab his hand, swinging it back and forth happily.
—--
Jun and I spent a nice lunch together and then split up. He was heading out to hang out with some of his chooms, while I went home to continue my work.
I had done a little more programming work on the walk to the Ramen place we ended up using, which meant by the time I walked back into the apartment and settled at my workbench, I was ready.
The in built helmet radio was actually wired to the antennae in the back to increase its ability to punch through any ECM interference. But it meant I could splice a new wire in with the new coding and now instead of having multiple private channels on different frequencies. It had one, that I made sure wasn’t the normal Arasaka frequencies anyways, and the radio could now toggle to connect to the directional mic.
It was a neat bit of coding and I was super proud of how it came out! All the work on the helmet was already paying dividends as I was getting Crafting, Engineering and Tech alerts as I solved each of the problems.
I rolled around the workbench grabbing supplies to start work on the actual directional mic housing. I would need them for each of us, but I figured a prototype first to show off what I was working with would be the best.
As I let my 3D printer form the metal I had into the right shape, I sent a text to my chooms in our group chat.
*Motoko: Fixing up the armor now, doing some prototype work still, but I need suggestions for color, or camo? Anyone have a preference? Also might want to integrate an ECM unit into the chest rig, like the ECM tats the TC use. Sound cool?*
*Malcolm: Oooh! I want mine in yellow!*
*Motoko: I’m not designing your armor in the same color as a Caliburn Malcolm. This is our combat equipment. Be serious.*
*Ichi: Yeah Malcolm be serious. Camo would be good. City colors? Greys and concrete colored?*
*Malcolm: I am serious! Fine both of you pick on me. I don’t know. Camo sounds so corp. I’d rather we do something Kitsch!*
*Ichi: Motoko, can you give us any visuals of what different versions would look like before we decide?*
*Motoko: Oh yeah. I can do that. I don’t have a complete set yet, but once I do, I’ll give us a 3D rendering, and we can mess around with the colors. That sound good?*
*Malcolm: Sounds perfect to me!*
*Hiromi: Can’t talk in class. Sounds preem Motoko! Thanks!*
*Motoko: That’s fine Hiromi no rush. Talk to me when you are done. I might need help sourcing the ECM stuff. Have fun in class Badass corpo bitch!*
*Malcolm: Yeah! Bad corpo bitch Hiromi! Kick all those arrogant shits ass!*
*Ichi: I don’t think you should beat up the other corpos you go to class with, but I’m not saying don’t do it.*
I giggled at the messages we all sent at Hiromi which she undoubtedly couldn’t read right now. I shook it off and went back to work. I could finish most of the stuff and do color schemes and other things later.
Back to work.
So much dust.
Bleh! I hate the Badlands!
After that everything was settled I took a nice sleep, something I hadn’t really enjoyed during the gig and woke up feeling refreshed and ready to get to work!
First thing first.
My stat page.
Level 17
Body 8(16) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 8.
-Athletics 7
-Street Brawler 8
-Annihilation 5
Reflex 8
-Blades 7
-Handguns 7
-Assault 7
-Driving 7
Intelligence 10 (14) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 4.
-Breach Protocol 9
-Quick Hacks 8
-Programming 10
Cool 9
-Ninjutsu 9
-Cold Blood 8
-Rockerboy 8
Technical Ability 5 (9) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 4.
-Crafting 4
-Engineering 4
3 Stat point.
7 Skill point.
Perks.
Ambidextrous Blades 2
Quickdraw Handguns 2
Gun Nut Assault 2
Parkour Athletics 2
Grappling Street Brawler 2
Drive By Driving 2
Cat-like Athletics 5
Cool Nerves Cold Blood 2
Danger Sense Ninjutsu 2
Wall Breaking Breach Protocol 2
Cyber Security Quick Hack 2
Recoil Reduction. Annihilation 2
Cyber Ninja Ninjutsu 5
Fearless Chill Cold Blood 5
Improvised Weapons Street Brawler 5
Parry Blades 5
Robotics wizard Crafting 2
Drifting Driving 5
Rapid Reload Handguns 5
Design Wizard Engineering 2
Rifle Ace Assault 5
Ghost touch Breach 5
Perfect Musical Memory Rockerboy 2
Debug Programming 2
Siren Song Rockerboy 5
Hacking Wizard Quick Hacks 5
Inspired Programmer Programming 5
A.I. Whisperer: Programming 10
Annihilation 5 *Unused*
Cyberware:
Seacho Electronics Mk.2 *Adaptation Seacho Mk.2 0/0*
Kiroshi Mk1 *Adaptation Kiroshi Mk1 1/2*
Militech Condor *Adaptation Militech Condor 5/6*
Arasaka Smart Link System. *Adaptation Smart Link 0/0*
Arasaka Ex-Disk *Adatapation Ex-Disk 0/0*
Militech-Armalite Ballistic Guard *Adaptation Ballistic Guard 1/2*
Serano Air-Groove Ankles *Adaptation Serano Air 1/1*
MoorE Titanium Bones (Shoulders, back, and ribs.) *Adaptation Titanium Bones 0/1*
Biotechnica Muscle and Bone Lace *Adaptation Muscle and Bone Lace 0/0*
Looking through it I took in all the little changes. Reading everything carefully so I would know exactly where I was at. And there were a few minor changes indeed.
My adaptation max had dropped again for my Condors! It was now only 6! I wiggled my shoulders and smiled. I guess I had gotten pretty used to the things. Maybe it also had to do with the Titanium bones? One of the problems I had was the chrome was a bit heavier than a normal limb, and so it was pulling on normal muscle and bone…
By improving my body more, had I eased one of the problems the Condors were causing? It was kinda annoying how complicated Adaptation was!
Either way, whatever caused it! It was awesome! One less point I would have to spend!
In fact…
I pushed the button without even thinking about it. It had to be done. A finale to the whole thing. A completion of a task.
Militech Condor *Adaptation Militech Condor 6/6*
It was over. I exhaled not even in relief because the Condor had been something I hadn’t been really bothered by in a long time. But in a way this was me finally, completely recovering from the Maelstrom attack.
Complete. I felt complete, I stretched my arms and nothing felt weird, or uncomfortable. Just muscles stretched around titanium bones in my back and my arms just felt like my arms.
I slammed a fist into my palm.
Fuck yeah!
I grinned goofily as I felt the happiness just surge up through me. I did it!
I shook it off patting my cheeks to refocus. I still had other things! I had a perk point!
Well, I’ll be honest and admit I’ve had it forever. Annihilation was just… I didn’t know what to pick!
But today was a clean slate kind of day. Time to clean up my stuff!
So I popped open the perk selection and hummed as I looked it over. There was… Well a lot of stuff for sure, but I needed something… It was a split of perks for the most part. Shotgun stuff, and Machine gun stuff.
I mean, I used both weapons, but when it really came down to it. Neither were ever going to be my primary weapons. Most of the time I would need more penetration for serious missions than a shotgun offers, and machine guns were good, but… I’m kinda small, and those things are chunky.
My first Annihilation perk had been Recoil Reduction, probably one of the best perks I picked, considering how versatile it was, but now I needed something… I read through the list and there wasn’t just a perfect option I could find. No perk that would just affect everything, or would blow things away.
In the end I just shrugged. I grabbed a Shotgun perk. I’d grab a Machine gun one next time.
Slam Fire. You know how to hold, cock and fire a pump shotgun.
It seemed simple, but firing a shotgun faster was a neat trick.
I selected it and shivered in delight as the knowledge flowed through. Once it was done, I rolled backwards off my bed sliding from my arms up onto my feet and into a brisk walk without slowing down as I found my Tactician, and unloaded it.
I brought it to bear and noticed how my hands shifted automatically. My grip changed, and I brought it down, and then up down and up, and then I faux fired, pumped and fired again. Both of my arms worked in tandem, pushing and pulling the gun at different intervals. I knew I was also adjusting for recoil that wasn’t there, and then I blurred through firing, and I slammed out eight rounds in just a few moments.
Quick! Really quick!
I nodded pleased. I wouldn’t be as quick with the Carnage because that thing was brute and cocking it was like bashing two pieces of metal together until something gave, but it would probably still be a lot faster than it had before.
I reloaded the Tactician and put it back by my bedroom door before heading back to my bed.
Okay I was satisfied with that! Now onto the really interesting bit.
Intelligence 10 (14) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 4.
I took a breath and clicked on Intelligence. Putting in a stat point and then.
Well nothing. I didn’t… Feel different? Well I shrugged it off, I was used to Intelligence being kind of a zany stat.
No, instead I moved on to see what was beyond 10.
I only had one Intelligence skill at 10 already. Programming, which was definitely a powerful tool. So it was perfect to test out.
I put in a skill point, which the system reminded me I needed to use a skill point to gain anything in skills over 10, and then…
I yelped, blinking stars that were definitely not in my vision, at the surge of new information.
It was… Oh.
Oooooh.
I get it now. I understood. The difference between under 10 in a skill, and over. Why I needed Cyberization! It all made sense!
The information I gained was a lot of repeated information in a way. Things I already knew, but now? Now I knew how to do them solely with my cyberware. To integrate being a cyborg into the task so there was no need for something more. No need for a laptop, for typing.
Just me, and the code. Me and my ghost accessing the digital space.
While I had always been a cyborg, I hadn’t been using the connection of machine and man to its full extent I now realized.
This was more than just a repeat of old information. If before I was learning how to code as a human, now I was learning how to code as a cyborg. I had only touched on the barest of programming without a laptop before in emergencies, when I needed to rewrite some code on the fly, and it hadn’t been easy.
But now? I had all the beginner tools to do it without getting distracted or losing sight of what I was trying for.
“BrrRrrrrRrrrRrrr!” I exhaled and shook my head back and forth for a few moments. Then I once again slapped my cheeks a few times.
That was a lot.
“Okay. Note to self. Don’t double skill upgrade with post 10.” I felt like my brain was overheating. But I felt normal, just sort of swamped.
I was really glad I was on my bed so I just flopped back and waited for a bit to get used to it.
Programming 11… It wasn’t a direct increase in power exactly. I couldn’t just make hacks at a new tier or something, but it felt like… I could code faster.
Maybe even cut off half the time in any project with just that one point.
The ability to split my focus through my cyberdeck. To code without touching a keyboard, but I could still synergize that. Code with both? Potentially.
It was a lot. I could tell I was pushing beyond human, beyond what just my flesh brain could handle without support.
And honestly?
It felt amazing.
—--
A few hours later I headed over to the storage lot. Thankfully nothing looked stolen, even without me performing overwatch for the night again.
I wasn’t saying I trusted Fujimura to be enough of protection on its own, but this time I didn’t have a gang of gonk kids that would happily klep everything from me knowing we just had a payday.
Plus if anyone did steal something I would just track them down and teach them it was a bad idea.
I had opened up the unit and was pulling out the tactical gear for the team. I had left it here yesterday because after unloading everything from the big truck, I was a bit too tired to want to haul it around again to home.
Now I felt much better and was gathering up the Arasaka tactical armor and piling it into the Quadra. Along with a bunch of the extra guns and equipment we had found.
I wanted to clean up a bit of everything for my chooms to use. The Arasaka equipment was certainly better quality than some of the stuff we used up until now.
I might not be a fan of the Masamune for example, but it was a very accurate and dangerous rifle, although I was thinking something specific for my chooms.
Piling on another stack of equipment into the Quadra’s passenger seat I once more spotted the TC grunts watching me out of the corner of my eye.
They were keeping an eye on me, but hadn’t tried to talk to me, or bother me. So I was mostly ignoring them, but the attention still made me aware, made me consider ways to defend myself.
Thankfully it wasn’t needed. I was done with what I needed today. Hiromi would be handling the rest over the next while.
I took one last look at the Minotaur the desire to play with it almost irresistible, but I had work to do before I could take it out and play with it.
I closed up the garage, and climbed back into the Quadra and drove home.
Time for some real tech work.
I had so many supplies, literally piles of guns. I was going to rip anything we didn’t sell apart, and start working on the grind.
A few trips between apartment and car later, I was all set up.
First I pulled out the helmet of the armor. I did a scan, and started basically tearing it apart.
Frankly I was planning on redesigning most of it, but I first wanted to look it over for something I suspected to find.
Trackers. Listening devices. Anything for Arasaka to just keep one more finger on the pulse of their troopers.
It couldn’t be anywhere not easy to find, I really tore this one apart. Every piece of tech was taken apart, examined, and explored.
I was even getting Crafting and Tech alerts for it!
The helmets were pretty simple. Actual armored hard case. Internal electronics, and external electronics.
That was it.
The internal electronics were simple enough. A sound baffling to keep their ears from being blown out by gunfire, or flashbangs, and an internal booster, and squad radio.
I really wanted both pieces, and so carefully examined the whole thing. Even going through the chips that ran everything to check what everything did.
It was all… Normal.
Maybe it wasn’t in the helmets?
Well, I had a fully taken apart the helmet with all its electronics, scans of the whole thing which I was already storing in my laptop in case I ever needed to repair or replace the parts…
But what do I do with the Helmet? Couldn’t just leave them as is. Getting thought of as being Arasaka forces would not be a good idea. I had to alter the form of the helmet. Plus, I had to decide on paint as well. Did we pick a solid color, a camo?
Oh… Wait… I could probably get some of the ECM emitters that the TC used in their tats. ECM equipped armor could be pretty neat. It would probably be super expensive, but like…
I had a lot of eddies right now.
I shook that off. Stop feature creeping. I haven’t even gotten the helmet figured out yet. Staring at the disassembled helmet I wondered what I could do other than just change up the paint. How could I give Section 9 a look…
I did consider going Sentai Rangers, but no. That was just silly.
Hmm… Well I did have my directional mic, something these helmets didn’t have integrated…
I pulled up the CAD program, and tossed the helmets dimension into it, thank you Kiroshi scan tech!
Then I went to work, adding and adjusting, it wouldn’t be expensive, at least not for the directional mic. I already had the design done and it was cheap to begin with.
The housing for it would be cheap as well, a bit of extra armor, I could even potentially use some of the spare armor from the extra sets to make it, but I would probably just go buy something feasible. It didn’t need to be perfectly bullet proof since it was just a directional mic.
The program came together and I nodded at the look, the triangle horns sticking out of the top. Yeah that could work. Of course the problem would be hooking it up to the squad radio already integrated into the helmet.
Luckily I was a programmer!
I pulled it apart, and started hooking it up to check the programming when Jun knocked.
“Motoko?”
“I’m here! What’s up Jun?” I called out barely tearing my eyes away from the code I was dissecting, before realizing I didn’t need to do that. I slipped my personal link into the laptop and was suddenly accessing the code on a visual spectrum in my agent, and then I could just… Start modifying.
Programming 11! Stronk!
“Hey, want to get lunch?” I blinked as I whirled to Jun who was in more casual clothing than his usual TC gang outfit.
“Yeah!” I agreed instantly. Putting my coding to the side, but not shutting it down as I hurried after. Slipping my boots on I followed after casual clothes wearing Jun as he grabbed his big Cyberpunk jacket and slipped it on. I quickly reached out as we left the apartment to grab his hand, swinging it back and forth happily.
—--
Jun and I spent a nice lunch together and then split up. He was heading out to hang out with some of his chooms, while I went home to continue my work.
I had done a little more programming work on the walk to the Ramen place we ended up using, which meant by the time I walked back into the apartment and settled at my workbench, I was ready.
The in built helmet radio was actually wired to the antennae in the back to increase its ability to punch through any ECM interference. But it meant I could splice a new wire in with the new coding and now instead of having multiple private channels on different frequencies. It had one, that I made sure wasn’t the normal Arasaka frequencies anyways, and the radio could now toggle to connect to the directional mic.
It was a neat bit of coding and I was super proud of how it came out! All the work on the helmet was already paying dividends as I was getting Crafting, Engineering and Tech alerts as I solved each of the problems.
I rolled around the workbench grabbing supplies to start work on the actual directional mic housing. I would need them for each of us, but I figured a prototype first to show off what I was working with would be the best.
As I let my 3D printer form the metal I had into the right shape, I sent a text to my chooms in our group chat.
*Motoko: Fixing up the armor now, doing some prototype work still, but I need suggestions for color, or camo? Anyone have a preference? Also might want to integrate an ECM unit into the chest rig, like the ECM tats the TC use. Sound cool?*
*Malcolm: Oooh! I want mine in yellow!*
*Motoko: I’m not designing your armor in the same color as a Caliburn Malcolm. This is our combat equipment. Be serious.*
*Ichi: Yeah Malcolm be serious. Camo would be good. City colors? Greys and concrete colored?*
*Malcolm: I am serious! Fine both of you pick on me. I don’t know. Camo sounds so corp. I’d rather we do something Kitsch!*
*Ichi: Motoko, can you give us any visuals of what different versions would look like before we decide?*
*Motoko: Oh yeah. I can do that. I don’t have a complete set yet, but once I do, I’ll give us a 3D rendering, and we can mess around with the colors. That sound good?*
*Malcolm: Sounds perfect to me!*
*Hiromi: Can’t talk in class. Sounds preem Motoko! Thanks!*
*Motoko: That’s fine Hiromi no rush. Talk to me when you are done. I might need help sourcing the ECM stuff. Have fun in class Badass corpo bitch!*
*Malcolm: Yeah! Bad corpo bitch Hiromi! Kick all those arrogant shits ass!*
*Ichi: I don’t think you should beat up the other corpos you go to class with, but I’m not saying don’t do it.*
I giggled at the messages we all sent at Hiromi which she undoubtedly couldn’t read right now. I shook it off and went back to work. I could finish most of the stuff and do color schemes and other things later.
Back to work.
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
The answer is obvious all black with a skull on the helmet
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
xachariahxx
Well-known member
Arasaka already does the all black theme, and Barghest already has skulls on the helmets.
Honestly, Section 9 are edgerunners. They should be flashy. Motoko just put on triangular cat-girl ears on the helmets to house the directional mic. Go who hog with it, and make light up neon LEDs and cat whiskers like Hiromi had and slap some LEDs underneath the tiger claw ECM paint so that it lights up like rave bodypaint when you activate it.
Honestly, Section 9 are edgerunners. They should be flashy. Motoko just put on triangular cat-girl ears on the helmets to house the directional mic. Go who hog with it, and make light up neon LEDs and cat whiskers like Hiromi had and slap some LEDs underneath the tiger claw ECM paint so that it lights up like rave bodypaint when you activate it.
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
All the flashy people die, Morgan Blackhand is probably still alive though.
EDIT: Also Motoko is the Edgerunner the rest are clean up.
Last edited:
Motoko is a STEALTH expert. Flashy is NOT what will help her.
PeaceMaker 03
Well-known member
True but ECM that can be toggled off to stealth mode or even multiple color/ designs to help blend in, or more fade into the background.
Sometimes stealth is not looking like a maxtac team. Now if Moto can add a chameleon cami feature too……
xachariahxx
Well-known member
LEDs can turn off.
Unless they come with a prebuilt computer, then they're hardwired to fans for some reason.
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
There is a cloaking implant, It kind of sucks in the game due to balance but in the lore people can stay cloaked for awhile.
Corvus 501
Active member
Chapter 143
Seras
Well-known member
The housing for the directional mic was done. So I took the prototype helmet, and integrated my old mic into it. Setting both pieces of the mic into the housing and sealing it together, then running the wire through the helmet to connect with the radio, flipping the thing around I just popped the radio casing, and hard wired them into unused ports. A few quick checks making sure it all still worked, I sealed it back up and flipped it around.
Yep. Looked a little weird, but hey. Additional functionality!
I plopped it on my head and ran some tests switching radio to directional mic, and it worked like a charm!
I laughed in delight as I spun around on my chair letting the mic struggling to handle the quickly changing environment, but that was fine!
Because I was pulling in more and more alerts!
*100 Crafting XP Gained.*
Satisfied I set the helmet aside and decided to change things up. I still needed to figure out what an ECM system would look like before I messed with the chest rig, so I decided to do some work on weapons instead.
This particular weapon was something I had a plan for. So I quickly checked it out, pulling it out of the case that it had been in. Took it apart, made sure everything was working, and put it back together.
The Shingen was a really good Smart SMG. Probably one of the best Smart weapons out on the market, even if it was a tiny thing.
And Malcolm had a smart link. The gonk had barely used it, but it was perfect. He could be my backup with the Shingen letting him stay in cover and be safe while still helping!
I set it aside, and picked up the next weapon case. I had considered for a while what to get Ichi. His vehicle focus was great, but that still left him in danger, but since we had just lifted a high end Arasaka shipment?
Well the choice was fairly obvious.
Yukimura were solid smart pistols. I had actually slipped two of them out of the shipment. One for Ichi, and one for Hiromi.
I think Hiromi already had a smart link, or if she didn’t I would talk her into getting one, but Ichi didn’t, but again I was going to bully him into it.
Sure, if we dealt with enemies with ECM their smart rounds would be way less effective, but I wasn’t worried about my chooms running into ECM backed borgs. I was worried about Scavs, or street gangs. Giving them each a smart weapon?
It was the greatest advantage, accuracy and rate of fire with the lowest negative. Sure I could have pulled a Malorian for Ichi, I even considered it, but Ichi and Hiromi both weren’t combat focused. So better to specialize them towards smart weapons, giving them a big damage boost, while training them to delta the fuck out of any combat they wind up in.
I looked at the three weapons and nodded. I would add them to each of the armored suits as I prepped them. I could even paint them to match if my chooms wanted.
With that sorted it was back to the grind.
I would need to make sure the holsters would be specialized for my chooms weapons of choice. Malcolm of course would get his Shingen clipped into the front of his chest rig since it was a bit big to holster normally.
I did have some fabric around, but I wanted something a bit tougher. So it was time for another shopping visit to the old lady that made my leotards.
—---
The old lady waved me in the back door after I knocked and I entered the sweat-shop like back room.
“You need more Leotards? Get bullet holes in even more of them?”
“Not this time! I’m doing some work altering some combat armor, and need some supplies.” I answered as I followed the woman over to her little desk which I joined across from her.
“Hooh? Combat armor is good. Keeps your insides on the inside. What are you thinking?”
“Well I want to make some holsters that will match the armor, as well as some adjustments. The armor is currently built for much bigger people than my chooms.” Well other than maybe Malcolm? He was pretty tall. Gangly teenager and everything.
“Hmm. Well then I can be of help. I have a roll of Armadillo weave that might suit you.” The old asian woman lit a cigarette and blew out a mass of smoke from her lungs. “It’s over there, take a look girl.”
I nodded hurrying over to where she was waving, finding the roll of… Well I wouldn’t call it fabric, it was almost like textured plastic, but it was flexible like fabric, and it was studded with some sort of hexagon armoring throughout.
“It’s bulletproof. Decent stuff. Expensive.”
“I have eddies. That’s not a problem.”
“Good! Then we will trade! Now come tell me how that leotard has been holding up. Issues? Chafing?”
“No, it's still very comfortable, thank you. I might need an adjustment soon. I’m planning on getting some more chrome.”
“Hmph. You children and your chrome. Very well. Come with your new measurements and all of your old ones, and I will fix them, or make new. Good?”
“Yes. Thank you. Oba-san.”
“Pfft. Your Japanese is terrible girl. Stick to english.” I pouted at her as she just cackled before we haggled a bit for the roll of Armadillo, but I got it cheap in my eyes and headed back out.
I still had so much work to do!
—--
The sun was coming down when I got a knock on the door, before I could even go to check it opened.
“Motokooooo!” A wild Hiromi cry echoed through the apartment, and I shifted back from the workbench before she burst in.
“Hi Hiromi!” I greeted and had to quickly stand up to deflect the Motoko seeking missile from pushing me into the workbench.
“Schools done! Show me the armor!”
“I haven’t done most of it, but alright c’mere I’ll show you the prototype stuff.” I walked beside my workbench where a disassembled set of Arasaka troop armor was laying.
“This is the basic stuff right? So I’ve been going through each piece and seeing what I can upgrade. Since as powerful as Arasaka is, some stuff is expensive to outfit their grunts with.”
“Arasaka has the best equipped troops in the world, Motoko.” Hiromi replied, and I gave her a teasing look.
“Corpooooooo.”
“Stahp!” She whined at me, and I just laughed but didn’t tease her more.
“It’s good, don't get me wrong, but not perfect. I already added some additional functionality to the helmet, and I’m thinking of an ECM system for the chest rig.”
“Yeah you sent me the request. I haven’t had tim-”
“Hey it’s okay. I’m just going over it. No rush. We have time.” I interrupted her. She had started to sound like she had messed up and she certainly hadn’t.
“Anyway. That’s what I came up with so far. Painting and stuff is obvious, but also, we will need adjustment, so I just got back from picking up this!” I showed the roll of Armadillo weave armored fabric. “This still will give me some material to work with. I’m thinking… Either we get rid of the old jumpsuits we bought, or maybe just alter them?”
Hiromi looked at the fabric before humming as she thought.
“We should definitely do something to increase our style. We need to be… Well not flashy, but we need some flash. Something to make us stand out. It’ll help our marketing.”
I just giggled at the idea of Section 9 having marketing. “Sure. I was thinking a tight undersuit, maybe even in the netrunner styles… Oh that’s an idea.”
Our casual stuff can be netrunner chic. But I can do like a cape, or poncho type thing to wear while we aren’t in armor. Gunslingers of the web? That could be a cool aesthetic!
I sat back down and rolled over to my laptop. I already had netrunner suits scanned of course, so I pulled up a 3d model. And then started basically throwing a slick black poncho over the top.
“That looks weird. What are you thinking?”
“Netrunner Gunslinger. Like the wild west cowboys. Clint Eastwood style. Oh! I could even get everyone some netgogs for tactical displays! Or just the aesthetic.”
A group of four walking up in armored netrunner suits, and netgogs. We would seem like a cool netrunner gang!
And then of course we show up in the full armor!
“Can mine be green?” Hiromi asked, and I shrugged, shifting the color on the poncho to more green. No, that wasn’t right. Maybe green around the edges? I could do some of that with the netrunner suit as well. When I was done I looked to Hiromi and she was nodding.
“Not sure the boys will want to go skintight netrunner suits though.”
“They are comfy, and have protection! Plus, you can wear them under normal clothes. Besides, it’s just for when we are on the job!”
“Hey, I’m just saying Ichi and Malcolm will probably complain.” Hiromi said and I had to nod at that.
It’s fine. This was a cool little project. I already had their measurements. I would need to see the old lady again for more netrunner suits.
—--
Hiromi and I were hanging out in the living room just watching TV as I took a break when the boys finally showed up.
“Let’s get the party started!” Malcolm called out from the door as I opened it and he and Ichi came sauntering in arms full of snacks and drinks.
“This was supposed to be a meeting about our stuff.” I grumbled, but Hiromi was happily cheering along with the boys so I couldn’t do much but just shrug and turn this into a party.
We had done a big gig after all, and we had all had some time to have a sleep and clean up.
“Aw man! That was the beeeest!” Malcolm called out arms up in the air with a Broseph in his hand. “I mean! We did it!”
“My upgrades to the van worked out great.” Ichi added in sounding proud.
“Double HMG turrets are very scary.” I agreed, “Were there any issues with them hitting each other? I know you don’t have a lot of space with both of them.”
“A little. I ended up taking over one of them manually to keep firing.”
“I’ll kludge together some firing programs for you. Make sure they fire together and don’t interfere with each other.” I said and instantly Ichi looked pleased.
“Blegh! No more work talk! Party!” Malcolm demanded throwing a Broseph into Ichi’s hands, and attempting to put one on me but flipped it back on him and picked up my soda.
“Motoko showed me her idea for our new stuff. Including the netrunner undersuit.” Hiromi added, and I looked at her in confusion, because the way she was speaking was almost teasing.
“Absolutely not.”
“Nope.” Both boys instantly denied. “I’m never getting in one of those skin tight things.” Malcolm added, and I looked between the two of them.
“No, but! It’ll look cool! There will be an armored poncho on top for casual wear, we’ll be cyber gunslingers! It’ll look preem!”
“No.” Ichi denied shaking his head. I looked to Hiromi who was holding in her laughter and at the sight of my face she failed.
“I’m sorry!” She gasped out around giggles. “I just knew it wouldn’t work and wanted you to know before you set your heart on it.”
“You guys suck.” I grumbled. Fine. I’ll keep the cool cyber gunslinger outfit for myself! “What do we do for our less armored setup then? I was planning on it being something we could easily throw our gear on top of.”
“I’ll just wear my normal clothes. Just take off my jacket or something.” Malcolm offered and Ichi just shrugged along with it.
“Fine, you absolutely tasteless fools! I’ll make you armored clothing or something. Ugh.” I grumbled my idea of a team of matching cyber ninjas all disappearing.
Maybe another time.
It didn’t matter. Whatever my chooms wanted as long as they would wear it and keep their butts safe I was happy.
“Oh! I have stuff for everyone!” I stood up and rushed to the room grabbing the cases with the weapons and cheerfully bringing them back to the living room.
“So since we just got a bunch of high end Arasaka equipment, I think it’s time we do some weapon upgrades. Hiromi, Ichi, these are for you.” I pushed both of the smaller cases to them and Hiromi looked pleased as she pulled out her Yukimura, quickly gripping it, and checking it out.
Good she did have a Smart link.
Ichi on the other hand just looked neutral about it.
“I don’t have the equipment for this.”
“I know.” I said assuringly. “Smart link and optics are something I figured would be a good idea to start with anyways… Is that okay? You aren’t like… Against Cyberware or something right?”
“No, of course not. It’s just expensive. And I didn’t really think I would use smart weapons much.”
“They are perfect for you though! Easy to use, highly accurate. Perfect for spraying into a crowd of gonks causing you trouble, and then you have your HMG’s for bigger stuff. Hiromi gets a Yukimura too, it’s a really really solid self defense pistol.”
“Yeah… I guess. Probably about time I spend some eddies on some chrome anyways.” He offered, scratching at his head.
“Well just make sure to take it slow. Smart link and optics, just get some good stuff, you have the eddies now yeah?”
“Yeah.” He said, finally sounding confident. A reminder that we had made a lot of eddies on that last gig helped.
“What about me?”
“Something a bit bigger.” I said, sliding open the bigger case and there it was. The Shingen.
“Huh. Shingen?”
“Firepower and accuracy. You already got the smart link, so it can help make sure every bullet counts, and you get a bit more firepower than Hiromi and Ichi… Since you’ll be my backup more often than not.” My words caused a reaction.
Malcolm looked up and our eyes locked and then he smiled, looking pleased.
“Yeah. I’ve got your back.”
I smiled at his confidence. “Oh I finished the prototype for the helmet as well, I want your feedback!” I called out as I rushed back to my room grabbing the helmet and bringing it back out held in front of me with a big smile.
“Tell me what you think!”
“Motoko, why does your helmet have kitty ears?”
“What? No it doesn’t!” I denied, that was a bold-faced lie!
“Those are definitely kitty ears.” Hiromi confirmed looking at the housing for the directional mic.
“That’s not what that is!”
“It’s kitty ears.” Everyone kind of just nodded along together as they looked over the helmet.
“It’s really not! That’s where the direction mic is located! I just had to make a housing structure for it to make sure-”
“Mokoko, it’s fine.” Hiromi said, patting my shoulder and all I could do was pout as my chooms talked about my kitty eared helmet.
I hate them all!
“Sure we aren’t going to piss off Danger Gal with this?” Malcolm asked Hiromi and she shook her head.
“Kitty ears aren’t trademarked, besides Danger Gal hasn’t been really active as a company in years. They only pop out to do special gigs now.”
“Preem. So when do we get the complete ones.”
“I don’t know, maybe when I stop making them look like cat ears apparently.” I grumbled, but my pouting didn’t help, and only made my chooms laugh all the louder.
Soon enough everyone was nudging me and smiling and I finally sighed and just decided to let it go.
I guess I accidentally’ed cat ears onto my helmet.
“Forget it then! Now let’s all party!” I cheered, raising my Ni-Cola into the air and everyone clacked their drinks to mine.
—--
We partied hard and while everyone was relaxed I took fresh measurements for my adjustments. The next day after rolling my chooms off my couch and out into the day I headed out as well. As much as I wanted to keep slamming my head into the tech work. There was something I had been preparing.
I headed to Vik’s. Stopping to see Misty and chattered at her for a while about my recent adventures before heading back down into Viks shop.
“I hope you're ready!” I called out as I stomped into the bottom only to stop and smile as Vik wasn’t alone.
“Jackie! I haven’t seen you in forever, choom!”
“Hah. It hasn’t been that long Hermanita. How ya been?”
“Good! We just got back from a huge gig! Worked with an Arasaka corpo to recover some stolen goods.”
My answer seemed to shock Jackie. “What? Really?”
“Oh yeah. Hiromi’s dad works in the corp, and he hired us through her to get the stuff back. Turned into a big thing, but we made some serious eddies! I saw V too. I needed to call her in because of a thing.”
“Well… It’s good she’s doing well. Haven’t seen her in a month or so. She’s been busy.” Jackie offered, seemingly shaking himself a bit to focus, but I did catch it.
He was upset.
“Jackie?”
“Ah. It’s nothing Hermanita. Nothing.” He assured me, patting my shoulder a lilttle awkwardly.
Jackie was so funny.
“You know… If my team ends up picking up another big gig. We could always use more bodies. People we can trust to watch out back. The eddies are good.” I offered and he seemed to wince more than seem happy at the offer.
“I’ll think about it Hermanita, but let’s switch topics. You’re here for the old man eh?” Jackie looked to Vik who had been gathering things up for me.
“That's right Jack. I told you I had an appointment. You ready kid?”
“For chrome? Always.” I said, but then took back my words as I didn’t want Vik to think I was being blase about it. “I’m mentally prepared, and I do need this. It’s important.”
“Alright kid. Well it’ll be a while. So go ahead and get comfortable. Jack-”
“Say no more Vik, I’ll come chat with you about that move I can’t get another time.”
“Just practice it, I think you’ll surprise me, if you keep at it. Alright kid. Let’s get you changed.”
I nodded, and slipped into the medical gown.
Yep. Looked a little weird, but hey. Additional functionality!
I plopped it on my head and ran some tests switching radio to directional mic, and it worked like a charm!
I laughed in delight as I spun around on my chair letting the mic struggling to handle the quickly changing environment, but that was fine!
Because I was pulling in more and more alerts!
*100 Crafting XP Gained.*
Satisfied I set the helmet aside and decided to change things up. I still needed to figure out what an ECM system would look like before I messed with the chest rig, so I decided to do some work on weapons instead.
This particular weapon was something I had a plan for. So I quickly checked it out, pulling it out of the case that it had been in. Took it apart, made sure everything was working, and put it back together.
The Shingen was a really good Smart SMG. Probably one of the best Smart weapons out on the market, even if it was a tiny thing.
And Malcolm had a smart link. The gonk had barely used it, but it was perfect. He could be my backup with the Shingen letting him stay in cover and be safe while still helping!
I set it aside, and picked up the next weapon case. I had considered for a while what to get Ichi. His vehicle focus was great, but that still left him in danger, but since we had just lifted a high end Arasaka shipment?
Well the choice was fairly obvious.
Yukimura were solid smart pistols. I had actually slipped two of them out of the shipment. One for Ichi, and one for Hiromi.
I think Hiromi already had a smart link, or if she didn’t I would talk her into getting one, but Ichi didn’t, but again I was going to bully him into it.
Sure, if we dealt with enemies with ECM their smart rounds would be way less effective, but I wasn’t worried about my chooms running into ECM backed borgs. I was worried about Scavs, or street gangs. Giving them each a smart weapon?
It was the greatest advantage, accuracy and rate of fire with the lowest negative. Sure I could have pulled a Malorian for Ichi, I even considered it, but Ichi and Hiromi both weren’t combat focused. So better to specialize them towards smart weapons, giving them a big damage boost, while training them to delta the fuck out of any combat they wind up in.
I looked at the three weapons and nodded. I would add them to each of the armored suits as I prepped them. I could even paint them to match if my chooms wanted.
With that sorted it was back to the grind.
I would need to make sure the holsters would be specialized for my chooms weapons of choice. Malcolm of course would get his Shingen clipped into the front of his chest rig since it was a bit big to holster normally.
I did have some fabric around, but I wanted something a bit tougher. So it was time for another shopping visit to the old lady that made my leotards.
—---
The old lady waved me in the back door after I knocked and I entered the sweat-shop like back room.
“You need more Leotards? Get bullet holes in even more of them?”
“Not this time! I’m doing some work altering some combat armor, and need some supplies.” I answered as I followed the woman over to her little desk which I joined across from her.
“Hooh? Combat armor is good. Keeps your insides on the inside. What are you thinking?”
“Well I want to make some holsters that will match the armor, as well as some adjustments. The armor is currently built for much bigger people than my chooms.” Well other than maybe Malcolm? He was pretty tall. Gangly teenager and everything.
“Hmm. Well then I can be of help. I have a roll of Armadillo weave that might suit you.” The old asian woman lit a cigarette and blew out a mass of smoke from her lungs. “It’s over there, take a look girl.”
I nodded hurrying over to where she was waving, finding the roll of… Well I wouldn’t call it fabric, it was almost like textured plastic, but it was flexible like fabric, and it was studded with some sort of hexagon armoring throughout.
“It’s bulletproof. Decent stuff. Expensive.”
“I have eddies. That’s not a problem.”
“Good! Then we will trade! Now come tell me how that leotard has been holding up. Issues? Chafing?”
“No, it's still very comfortable, thank you. I might need an adjustment soon. I’m planning on getting some more chrome.”
“Hmph. You children and your chrome. Very well. Come with your new measurements and all of your old ones, and I will fix them, or make new. Good?”
“Yes. Thank you. Oba-san.”
“Pfft. Your Japanese is terrible girl. Stick to english.” I pouted at her as she just cackled before we haggled a bit for the roll of Armadillo, but I got it cheap in my eyes and headed back out.
I still had so much work to do!
—--
The sun was coming down when I got a knock on the door, before I could even go to check it opened.
“Motokooooo!” A wild Hiromi cry echoed through the apartment, and I shifted back from the workbench before she burst in.
“Hi Hiromi!” I greeted and had to quickly stand up to deflect the Motoko seeking missile from pushing me into the workbench.
“Schools done! Show me the armor!”
“I haven’t done most of it, but alright c’mere I’ll show you the prototype stuff.” I walked beside my workbench where a disassembled set of Arasaka troop armor was laying.
“This is the basic stuff right? So I’ve been going through each piece and seeing what I can upgrade. Since as powerful as Arasaka is, some stuff is expensive to outfit their grunts with.”
“Arasaka has the best equipped troops in the world, Motoko.” Hiromi replied, and I gave her a teasing look.
“Corpooooooo.”
“Stahp!” She whined at me, and I just laughed but didn’t tease her more.
“It’s good, don't get me wrong, but not perfect. I already added some additional functionality to the helmet, and I’m thinking of an ECM system for the chest rig.”
“Yeah you sent me the request. I haven’t had tim-”
“Hey it’s okay. I’m just going over it. No rush. We have time.” I interrupted her. She had started to sound like she had messed up and she certainly hadn’t.
“Anyway. That’s what I came up with so far. Painting and stuff is obvious, but also, we will need adjustment, so I just got back from picking up this!” I showed the roll of Armadillo weave armored fabric. “This still will give me some material to work with. I’m thinking… Either we get rid of the old jumpsuits we bought, or maybe just alter them?”
Hiromi looked at the fabric before humming as she thought.
“We should definitely do something to increase our style. We need to be… Well not flashy, but we need some flash. Something to make us stand out. It’ll help our marketing.”
I just giggled at the idea of Section 9 having marketing. “Sure. I was thinking a tight undersuit, maybe even in the netrunner styles… Oh that’s an idea.”
Our casual stuff can be netrunner chic. But I can do like a cape, or poncho type thing to wear while we aren’t in armor. Gunslingers of the web? That could be a cool aesthetic!
I sat back down and rolled over to my laptop. I already had netrunner suits scanned of course, so I pulled up a 3d model. And then started basically throwing a slick black poncho over the top.
“That looks weird. What are you thinking?”
“Netrunner Gunslinger. Like the wild west cowboys. Clint Eastwood style. Oh! I could even get everyone some netgogs for tactical displays! Or just the aesthetic.”
A group of four walking up in armored netrunner suits, and netgogs. We would seem like a cool netrunner gang!
And then of course we show up in the full armor!
“Can mine be green?” Hiromi asked, and I shrugged, shifting the color on the poncho to more green. No, that wasn’t right. Maybe green around the edges? I could do some of that with the netrunner suit as well. When I was done I looked to Hiromi and she was nodding.
“Not sure the boys will want to go skintight netrunner suits though.”
“They are comfy, and have protection! Plus, you can wear them under normal clothes. Besides, it’s just for when we are on the job!”
“Hey, I’m just saying Ichi and Malcolm will probably complain.” Hiromi said and I had to nod at that.
It’s fine. This was a cool little project. I already had their measurements. I would need to see the old lady again for more netrunner suits.
—--
Hiromi and I were hanging out in the living room just watching TV as I took a break when the boys finally showed up.
“Let’s get the party started!” Malcolm called out from the door as I opened it and he and Ichi came sauntering in arms full of snacks and drinks.
“This was supposed to be a meeting about our stuff.” I grumbled, but Hiromi was happily cheering along with the boys so I couldn’t do much but just shrug and turn this into a party.
We had done a big gig after all, and we had all had some time to have a sleep and clean up.
“Aw man! That was the beeeest!” Malcolm called out arms up in the air with a Broseph in his hand. “I mean! We did it!”
“My upgrades to the van worked out great.” Ichi added in sounding proud.
“Double HMG turrets are very scary.” I agreed, “Were there any issues with them hitting each other? I know you don’t have a lot of space with both of them.”
“A little. I ended up taking over one of them manually to keep firing.”
“I’ll kludge together some firing programs for you. Make sure they fire together and don’t interfere with each other.” I said and instantly Ichi looked pleased.
“Blegh! No more work talk! Party!” Malcolm demanded throwing a Broseph into Ichi’s hands, and attempting to put one on me but flipped it back on him and picked up my soda.
“Motoko showed me her idea for our new stuff. Including the netrunner undersuit.” Hiromi added, and I looked at her in confusion, because the way she was speaking was almost teasing.
“Absolutely not.”
“Nope.” Both boys instantly denied. “I’m never getting in one of those skin tight things.” Malcolm added, and I looked between the two of them.
“No, but! It’ll look cool! There will be an armored poncho on top for casual wear, we’ll be cyber gunslingers! It’ll look preem!”
“No.” Ichi denied shaking his head. I looked to Hiromi who was holding in her laughter and at the sight of my face she failed.
“I’m sorry!” She gasped out around giggles. “I just knew it wouldn’t work and wanted you to know before you set your heart on it.”
“You guys suck.” I grumbled. Fine. I’ll keep the cool cyber gunslinger outfit for myself! “What do we do for our less armored setup then? I was planning on it being something we could easily throw our gear on top of.”
“I’ll just wear my normal clothes. Just take off my jacket or something.” Malcolm offered and Ichi just shrugged along with it.
“Fine, you absolutely tasteless fools! I’ll make you armored clothing or something. Ugh.” I grumbled my idea of a team of matching cyber ninjas all disappearing.
Maybe another time.
It didn’t matter. Whatever my chooms wanted as long as they would wear it and keep their butts safe I was happy.
“Oh! I have stuff for everyone!” I stood up and rushed to the room grabbing the cases with the weapons and cheerfully bringing them back to the living room.
“So since we just got a bunch of high end Arasaka equipment, I think it’s time we do some weapon upgrades. Hiromi, Ichi, these are for you.” I pushed both of the smaller cases to them and Hiromi looked pleased as she pulled out her Yukimura, quickly gripping it, and checking it out.
Good she did have a Smart link.
Ichi on the other hand just looked neutral about it.
“I don’t have the equipment for this.”
“I know.” I said assuringly. “Smart link and optics are something I figured would be a good idea to start with anyways… Is that okay? You aren’t like… Against Cyberware or something right?”
“No, of course not. It’s just expensive. And I didn’t really think I would use smart weapons much.”
“They are perfect for you though! Easy to use, highly accurate. Perfect for spraying into a crowd of gonks causing you trouble, and then you have your HMG’s for bigger stuff. Hiromi gets a Yukimura too, it’s a really really solid self defense pistol.”
“Yeah… I guess. Probably about time I spend some eddies on some chrome anyways.” He offered, scratching at his head.
“Well just make sure to take it slow. Smart link and optics, just get some good stuff, you have the eddies now yeah?”
“Yeah.” He said, finally sounding confident. A reminder that we had made a lot of eddies on that last gig helped.
“What about me?”
“Something a bit bigger.” I said, sliding open the bigger case and there it was. The Shingen.
“Huh. Shingen?”
“Firepower and accuracy. You already got the smart link, so it can help make sure every bullet counts, and you get a bit more firepower than Hiromi and Ichi… Since you’ll be my backup more often than not.” My words caused a reaction.
Malcolm looked up and our eyes locked and then he smiled, looking pleased.
“Yeah. I’ve got your back.”
I smiled at his confidence. “Oh I finished the prototype for the helmet as well, I want your feedback!” I called out as I rushed back to my room grabbing the helmet and bringing it back out held in front of me with a big smile.
“Tell me what you think!”
“Motoko, why does your helmet have kitty ears?”
“What? No it doesn’t!” I denied, that was a bold-faced lie!
“Those are definitely kitty ears.” Hiromi confirmed looking at the housing for the directional mic.
“That’s not what that is!”
“It’s kitty ears.” Everyone kind of just nodded along together as they looked over the helmet.
“It’s really not! That’s where the direction mic is located! I just had to make a housing structure for it to make sure-”
“Mokoko, it’s fine.” Hiromi said, patting my shoulder and all I could do was pout as my chooms talked about my kitty eared helmet.
I hate them all!
“Sure we aren’t going to piss off Danger Gal with this?” Malcolm asked Hiromi and she shook her head.
“Kitty ears aren’t trademarked, besides Danger Gal hasn’t been really active as a company in years. They only pop out to do special gigs now.”
“Preem. So when do we get the complete ones.”
“I don’t know, maybe when I stop making them look like cat ears apparently.” I grumbled, but my pouting didn’t help, and only made my chooms laugh all the louder.
Soon enough everyone was nudging me and smiling and I finally sighed and just decided to let it go.
I guess I accidentally’ed cat ears onto my helmet.
“Forget it then! Now let’s all party!” I cheered, raising my Ni-Cola into the air and everyone clacked their drinks to mine.
—--
We partied hard and while everyone was relaxed I took fresh measurements for my adjustments. The next day after rolling my chooms off my couch and out into the day I headed out as well. As much as I wanted to keep slamming my head into the tech work. There was something I had been preparing.
I headed to Vik’s. Stopping to see Misty and chattered at her for a while about my recent adventures before heading back down into Viks shop.
“I hope you're ready!” I called out as I stomped into the bottom only to stop and smile as Vik wasn’t alone.
“Jackie! I haven’t seen you in forever, choom!”
“Hah. It hasn’t been that long Hermanita. How ya been?”
“Good! We just got back from a huge gig! Worked with an Arasaka corpo to recover some stolen goods.”
My answer seemed to shock Jackie. “What? Really?”
“Oh yeah. Hiromi’s dad works in the corp, and he hired us through her to get the stuff back. Turned into a big thing, but we made some serious eddies! I saw V too. I needed to call her in because of a thing.”
“Well… It’s good she’s doing well. Haven’t seen her in a month or so. She’s been busy.” Jackie offered, seemingly shaking himself a bit to focus, but I did catch it.
He was upset.
“Jackie?”
“Ah. It’s nothing Hermanita. Nothing.” He assured me, patting my shoulder a lilttle awkwardly.
Jackie was so funny.
“You know… If my team ends up picking up another big gig. We could always use more bodies. People we can trust to watch out back. The eddies are good.” I offered and he seemed to wince more than seem happy at the offer.
“I’ll think about it Hermanita, but let’s switch topics. You’re here for the old man eh?” Jackie looked to Vik who had been gathering things up for me.
“That's right Jack. I told you I had an appointment. You ready kid?”
“For chrome? Always.” I said, but then took back my words as I didn’t want Vik to think I was being blase about it. “I’m mentally prepared, and I do need this. It’s important.”
“Alright kid. Well it’ll be a while. So go ahead and get comfortable. Jack-”
“Say no more Vik, I’ll come chat with you about that move I can’t get another time.”
“Just practice it, I think you’ll surprise me, if you keep at it. Alright kid. Let’s get you changed.”
I nodded, and slipped into the medical gown.