I arrived at Lizzies not long after. The saved BD of my parkour performance should be pretty fun. Hopefully Nox would be able to sell it.
Or not. I an the BD creation thing was more for than anything.
Unfortunately I was stopped at the door by Rita. I waved a hand at her as I approached but was stopped instantly as she reached out and grabbed my shoulder.
Mona take over for ? She called out to another bouncer suddenly.
Sure Rits. The other bouncer called back and then I was pushed inside and into the side room by Rita.
Rita?
I want to know Motoko, before anything else. Are you okay?
I blinked.
Yeees? I an I had Vik my ripper do so work on my hands earlier bu- She shook her head, cutting off. The borg woman settled both of her hands on my shoulders, even bending down a little so we were at the sa height.
Motoko, I saw your BD. The one with the song, and with you going completely Cyberpsycho on the Scavs. Rita said dropping a bomb and I winced.
Dammit. Was that still causing trouble!? That was supposed to have been fun! Well I an. It was.
Like super fun.
But that was besides the point. I hated when fun things I did caused problems later!
Im fine Rita. Honest. I was doing an experint that night to go along with the song that I wrote and-
Motoko. Rita cut off sounding really serious. You sound okay. You look okay, and you arent closed off or freaking out, but Ive seen a lot of people I thought were okay with a smile on their face as they murdered people they loved and cared for.
I was just trying sothing different. Letting myself get super angry, even forcing it a bit.
Kid, you were absolutely wrecked during that BD. If I had been hit half as hard as that Scav punched you, Id be down for the count.
Im pretty tough! Look. I said, spreading my arms. Im not hurt. All healed up. Vik my ripper does great work. Took care of . Yes I went overboard. Ive even I even admitted that to myself. I did the music and I thought it would be cool to be all brutal like that, but it sorta The music wasnt supposed to be that it was supposed to be the thing that pulls away from that sort of stuff. That was the whole point. So yeah I fucked up.
Rita continued to watch as I sort of rambled before sighing. And then to my surprise she pulled into a hug.
She was pokey. All the spikes I an.
So you arent going Cyberpsycho? You an it?
Im actually doing okay. I an Ive been super irritated recently with the Scavs attacking my ho, and the move to a new place, and the TC boss Fujimura keeps wanting to get to admit to being his underling and its annoying.
If he is bothering you, we can take care of that for you. She said then and I couldnt help but feel warm at how quickly she offered to basically fight a TC boss for .
Rita was good people.
Nah. Hes Juns boss. And he got us a new apartnt. Jun is over the moon about it, cause its all big and I have a much bigger room now and stuff Its just different and I didnt want different. Fujimura, despite being a little pushy, hasn't crossed the line.
Hmph. Well when he does. She offered and I smiled.
I dont think I would want to get the Mox involved in my trouble. But I appreciate it. Rita scoffed but nodded, reaching out and resting a hand on my shoulder.
If you need to talk. Dont forget you have friends here. You arent the first young girl to show up here with family in other gangs needing help.
I dont I dont need help Not yet! I added at her unconvinced look. Jun is great, and Fujimura is annoying, but he hasnt pushed past the line Like I said, a lot of things have changed and its just making uncomfortable.
Then rember Im always willing to listen. Cmon then, youre here to see Judy right? She asked as she finally pulled away from , and I noticed she looked a little uncomfortable herself.
Yeah! I did a new BD focused around Parkour instead of other stuff. It was preem. I leapt off the side of the building Im on and made it all the way to Sakura Market.
Rita shivered a bit as I spoke as she guided out of the room. You leapt off a building?
Yeah! A couple tis. Rita shivered again and it made realize sothing. Rita is afraid of heights. Probably not a BD for you then.
No, no I dont think so.
--
I dropped off the BD with Judy only after swearing this BD wasnt so gore fest that would make her want to clean her fingers from brain matter again.
Then I was driving back to the apartnt flopping onto the couch and wondering what to do next.
I once again heard the faint thump of bass through the floor and knew what I had to do!
I got up and grabbed my guitar and went at it.
I needed more songs. More music! I had to defeat the Rockerboy Neighbor! So I jamd out. Working on so Foo Fighters, because I was already doing Nirvana. Might as well.
But the idea hit , and I stopped mid way through The Pretender to work on another song.
Think by Kaleida. Ill never! Break your heart! I jamd out, having had so trouble getting the drums for the song right since they weren't normal drums, but I found the right instrunt sound eventually.
Now I had a John Wick song!
It took a good couple hours to get the track done, and then I went back to the Foo Fighters.
More songs!
More music!
More levels!
Long into the night. After Jun had co ho and gone to bed. While working on tweaking so of the hologram motions. Making play through The Pretender again, for what felt like a millionth ti.
It happened.
*Rockerboy skill level up!*
Rockerboy 8.
Yes! I cheered, leaping up onto the couch to celebrate I could feel even more musical knowledge flow into .
At this point, it would be an actual surprise if I flubbed a chord while playing anything but the hardest songs!
--
What are you three doing? I asked as I was brought into Malcolms apartnt.
Around the TV laying around the couches were three teenagers that looked like they were in a full food coma.
So many snacks. Malcolm moaned from where he was laid up. His feet up on an ottoman and a blanket over most of him. The many many bags of chips and things that surrounded him told a story. Its all Ichis fault. He moaned.
The boy in question didnt say anything, just continued to stare into the ceiling with a dazed look in his eyes.
Hiromi was here too to my surprise and while she wasnt as bad as the boys she looked like she got into a fight with a cake and lost.
I walked over and she threw a big smile as she lay half on the couch and half off.
Leaning down I wiped the bit of frosting that was stuck on her cheek. You three look like you got in a fight with your snacks and lost. I told them as I stuck the bit of frosting into my mouth.
Huh. That was almost chocolate.
Ugh. Ichi moaned without shifting his dead eyed stare at the ceiling.
What did you guys do? I asked, laughing. I had gotten the ssage that everyone wanted to et up in the morning but I had been
Well I was napping after leveling Rockerboy. So after looking at the ssage and seeing it wasnt an ergency I went back to sleep.
So I was late to this party.
Its Ichis fault. Hiromi inford , looking up at with a big smile.
Its Hiromis fault! Ichi retorted. I said I would get snacks. So Hiromi dragged to this crazy corpo shop. Everything was expensive but they had all sorts of stuff. Ichi said in turn, still glazed out.
Saka-Go is a very valuable mber of the Arasaka conglorate that ensures that traveling Arasaka mbers can always find their ho town snacks even across the world. Hiromi replied, speaking in a cadence that made think she was repeating sothing she had heard before.
Of course Ichi and Malcolm both instantly started throwing whatever snack they had on hand at her, so I quickly backpedaled away to avoid the friendly fire.
H-hey! You all enjoyed the snacks! Dont give that!
So of it was good. Malcolm agreed and I couldnt help but chuckle at the look Hiromi threw at the crew.
A few chips stuck in her hair as she stood up with all the dignity she could retain and headed into the bathroom to clean up.
I walked over and after pushing so chip bags out of the way settled near Malcolm.
How you feeling choom?
Hey Motoko. Im actually feeling pretty good. Im able to get up and walk around now without any pain or anything. Dr. Vector did tell to just take it easy for another week or so, but that I was good to do normal things. Ive got a checkup tomorrow to be basically cleared for light stuff. Malcolm offered with a smile even as he tugged up his shirt a bit showing the scar on his chest and side. Both looked a little red still. But more like irritated scar tissue than recently damaged wounds.
Healing nicely.
Yeah. Hey I Motoko. It still feels like it hasnt hit yet you know? That I was so close? He offered and I felt the light hearted conversation change as he went serious. I just wanted to thank you, for saving .
I was just glad I got there in ti. I said honestly. I was once again thankful I didnt dream if I slept under the system. I really didnt want to deal with the nightmares I would be sure to have.
Heh. Yeah. I wasnt getting through to anyone until I called you. Im glad Im really glad you picked up.
I nodded and then probably to Malcolms surprise I bent down and drew him into a hug.Were chooms! Of course I would do everything I could to save you.
Yeah. Thanks Choom.
Hey! Hugging Motoko without !? I refuse! Hiromi called out as she ca back into the living room and instantly rushed over to Malcolms surprise she jumped into the hug pulling Malcolm and I tight.
I am not doing a group hug. Ichi called out from the other side of the couch.
Group hug on Ichi!? I gasped in delight and after a mont of helping Malcolm up to not jostle him too much, we all collapsed on our other choom much to his irritation when Hiromi just ended up sitting on him instead of actually hugging him.
While we all vegged out on the couch spending the rest of the day hanging out. I sent the text to Jackie to wrap up the gig.
Since Malcolm would be back on his feet soon it was ti to put out so bait.
--
That night Section 9 t up in my netrunning cave.
Even Malcolm was here. Although with so help from the Straight Lane Shooters above. I had found a nice couch and brought that in so Malcolm was able to be comfortable.
Even if his whining about us treating him like an invalid was getting old.
Im feeling fine guys. You dont have to baby ! He continued to harp as we had set him up with not just the couch, but a table close by he could rest his Laptop on, along with so blankets and things.
Vik hasnt given you the all clear yet. I reminded him and he rolled his eyes.
Only because I have the final check up in the morning. Really. Im fine!
Here Malcolm, make sure to stay warm okay? I said purposefully adjusting the blank around his feet so his toes would stay warm.
He faux kicked that had laughing, but I did stop bothering him then.
There was a reason we had all gathered here.
Malcolm had originally set up the car trade through a reliable website he went to for car trades, or at least he considered it reliable.
Either way, if the gonks that attacked him were using it, that ant they were just as likely to co back and use it again. So it was ti to set so bait.
Okay everyone. First thing first. Malcolm, lets check out your car trade site. Im going to slip in, so we can send the fake car trade out. Ill be making sure our guys see it. I grinned.
I smiled ferally as I thought about what was going to happen to these fucks.
Alright. Ill set up the actual offer since I know what they look like. Malcolm agreed and Hiromi and Ichi would be working on backing up.
I settled into my netrunning chair and took a mont to attach all the connections into my netrunning suit, shivering a bit as the coolant pump started sending ice over my skin.
Then I sat back and since I had it. I flipped the netgoggles over my eyes.
I didnt really need them, but they were cool.
Then in a blink I was in the net. The entire digital world set out before .
Okay seriously Motoko. You need to set up a lobby. I whispered to myself looking over the blank pillar that I stood on.
But I shook it off and stepped off and into the web.
Unlike when heading to Yokos I didnt have the direct IP. So I had to actually look for the website. I walked along neon lights. The road nonexistent below . In so places, bad connections. Or old wiring, caused the world to flicker or turn to static, and of course the figures that I walked past were mostly inhuman figures. Daemons, for search engines and things that normal people use.
This world was sothing I had only touched on the most shallow ends of.
I would have to explore down here more soti.
But for now I followed along the lines towards the website. Using a Search Engine to basically create a path for to reach the server I was looking for.
When I got there I had to roll my eyes.
So much spam.
The entire outside of the server was covered in Spam Daemons.
Little goblin creatures that would attack any Daemon or access request and try to flood them with their carried spam.
The first one that tried to attack was lted with my [HELL FLA Anh. 2.132] Hack. Watching the Daemon lt into digital sludge along with its spam funnily sent the rest of the pack hiding away.
It took a mont to realize this was sothing their creator must have co up with.
No one wanted days of work on their Daemons to be removed because they annoyed a netrunner after all.
So they must have been programd to ignore anyone that managed to destroy one of them. I would have left it at that but
*250 XP Gained.*
I grinned and flas burst into my hands as I activated my ICE to slow the Daemons down, keeping the programs from being able to escape into the net as I cut them all down.
1,500 XP wasnt sothing I was just going to ignore.
I walked into the server ignoring the flaming chunks of Daemon I left behind.
I stepped into the chipper bright lights of the Server.
It was kinda badly designed though. Instead of the white room having multiple exits to other sections of the server. It was like they hadnt realized they could section off things and just plopped everything into this one room.
I bet this server lagged like hell when it was in use.
The different sections of the server were set up like Stands? No, it was more complete than that. As if soone had just taken a massive room and just plopped square rooms in different places.
At least it told sothing important.
If this place did have netrunner security. I wasnt fucking worried.
I walked up to one of the rooms that had admin login on the door. It didnt take long to get the door breached open and let in.
I wrinkled my nose.
Fuckin Spaghetti code. I grumbled aloud as I took in the ss of wires leading to different control options.
Definitely not a netrunner because any netrunner worth their salt would see this fucking ss of admin tools and just burn it all to the ground and start fresh.
I spent more ti finding the user information than I did breaking into the admin side of the server.
Finally I was able to pull up Malcolms info from this side and find his request looking for a Rayfield Caliburn.
I spent a minute just arguing with myself about wanting to hit Malcolm after.
This site wasnt a reliable car trade site. Malcolm you fucking gonk. You just searched car traders or sothing and found a random site didnt you?
Regardless I was able to see the contact, the one that had confird they had what Malcolm was looking for.
Pulling up NCAutoRepairRC From the ssage he had sent Malcolm I noticed sothing pretty quick.
Assholes had been doing this for a while. About twenty different ssages just like the one Malcolm had gotten were sent out from the profile. All confird the car they had on hand with pictures that looked normal.
Only the fact I was able to see all of them clued into the fact they were all taken from all over the city and likely either sothing they had just noticed on the side of the street and snapped a picture of, or stolen from sowhere else.
Irritated at such a stupid scam, I dug in. They had actually been active a few tis since Malcolms shooting. Although they certainly hadnt sent out anything.
*Okay guys Im in the site. Go ahead and upload that car trade.* I called out to the team as I settled in to get this crappy site to do what I needed.
A mont later a new advert was added into the sea of requests and trades.
Within a few monts I added a bit of code into the request.
Next ti NCAutoRepairRC logged in, they would see the request we just added in right near the top of the new page. No matter how long it took, whether it was tomorrow, or a week from now, our advert would show up as if it was pretty new.
Okay I pulled out walking out of the server and back into the open electronic city. The bait was set. Now we just had to wait for a bite.
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