Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 71 (Patreon)

Ichinose

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he slotted the BD in the wreath.

So he settled in and put the wreath on his head and fell into the braindance.

As he opened his eyes to the sights within the BD, he noticed it instantly. The feel of his body following along in Motoko’s footsteps was certainly…

Different.

He had known the girl was off. He had known it since the first time he had met her again after the coma.

Normally he wouldn’t have started some random BD handed out by a Mox, but there had always been that question.

How?

How did Motoko do what she did? How had she gone from the punk TC brat to what she was now?

He blinked as he felt himself take a deep breath and everything became…

Sure.

There was no hesitation, no fear. He was jogging down a familiar alley, he had parked his truck right there, to load up stuff. But this wasn’t after the raid. It was before. He walked up to the back door of the den, he felt himself quickly open the door without hesitation.

Then he was in. He snuck through the small vehicle garage checking the windows and noticing the scavs hanging around.

Still alive at this point, but none noticed as he walked through the room.

It was a little startling to remember that soon enough all of them would be dead.

He moved up the stairway, his feet not making a sound despite the fact he knew Motoko didn’t have a Lynx Paw. She was just that quiet. The pull of the muscles in his leg so foreign as he moved just so, to reduce any noise of his boots hitting the metal steps.

He knew he would have shivered, but he didn’t. There was no fear. No hesitation. Just a simple calculus. A confidence that he had a gig to complete, and people to flatline, but first he needed info. He followed in her footsteps around as he checked two closets, both full of junk some of which he had helped steal later, watched as he competently breached through the building's security system.

While he followed the movement, the actions. The actual knowledge of what Motoko had just done was beyond him.

Then, the room lit up. He could see them. Again Ichi wanted to gasp, but there was only ice in his veins, as he looked around. No, as Motoko looked around.

The ray of light leading to every Scav in the building.

Wow. He wanted to pause the BD there, just to look at it, he had never seen this himself. It was something new. Something… Kinda preem. But he felt little as Motoko kept moving, walking the catwalk above the scavs without fear looking down on them, and he could practically feel the sinister amusement of her plans to murder them.

Of his plans.

He felt the confusion and then disgust as he watched a scav fail at a game.

Wow Motoko. That was kinda harsh, that game wasn’t easy.

And then he felt her confidence as he moved leaping over the edge, in a move that should have caused his heart to flip flop.

Instead he felt pure confidence, landing with barely a scuff against the concrete in a low crouch all four limbs spread to reduce the impact. Then he was downstairs, but Ichi was backseating, as Motoko went through the computer gathering information checking an email that confirmed that Ripper knew exactly what was happening in his clinic, and then he smirked, did some more netrunning stuff that Ichi couldn’t follow and turned right around.

A few moments later everything froze. It felt like his chest couldn’t move without choice, like everything was completely 100% under his control.

But it wasn’t him in control, it was Motoko. He moved and the scavs died, he felt nothing as he cleaved through them, knife cutting and ripping and when it was all done he pushed himself off the Scav he had just watched die face to face, and he felt.

Confident. Powerful.

This was Motoko? This was the girl that acted like a gonk half the time, and the other half like a cold blooded high end merc?

He was so shocked he could barely pay attention as Motoko moved him back down and then up into the rippers shop.

Hiromi and his face were blurred out as she confronted Charles. As he simply killed him, no fear or wavering, just a faint feeling of assurance. Of knowing he was doing the right thing.

And the BD ended, and Ichi gasped, pulling the wreath from his face as he suddenly felt his own body again, and the lack of that pure control left an almost palpable sense of wrongness as he reached for his beer and took a swig.

His heart was suddenly racing, as the Icy control was gone.

Malcolm beside him was doing something similar to him, his face telling a story.

“So what do you think? Was the BD good? I never actually watched it after Judy did her editing. Did you like it?” Motoko intruded into his space, asking while sounding almost a little shy.

Ichi opened his mouth and then closed it. What was he supposed to say to Motoko? His choom? His sorta boss?

That she scared the shit out of him? That he felt like his body was wrong, and he wanted to puke a little.

That he now understood why she didn’t hesitate to solo a scav den, because they were never a threat to her?

“It was cool.” He said instead. Her little joke with the word the only thing he could think of.

Thankfully it seemed to satisfy her, with the way her face broke out into a happy smile.

Fuck she confused him.

—--

I waved goodbye to my chooms. It was getting late, and both Malcolm and Ichi had been a little twitchy since leaving the BD.

I guess murder was still a bit too much for my chooms.

Anyways! At least Nox was happy! The Scav Den BD had apparently been super popular.

Lots of people had lost someone to scavs. Being able to watch a bunch of them get murdered? Apparently it was very cathartic.

But it was time for more net diving.

A short drive later I was sliding into my netrunner suit and plugging everything in.

Time to get some training!

The blur of awareness as I switched from reality to the net only lasted a moment, and then I was there, once more in the ethereal neon city.

This time it only took a moment for me to jump straight to the Dewdrop Inn server, since I had the IP. A momentary blur of fast travel, and I was there walking up to the roundabout.

I bypassed the netrunners outside and went straight for the club. Yoko would be inside.

The techno music, a rhapsody of all the noises a computer could make and more hit me as I entered but other than noting the song, and memorizing it. I ignored it.

Yoko was lazing in a private booth as I approached her, and her sensual smile was as dangerous as the woman herself.

“Motoko, finally here?”

“I had some stuff to deal with, I spent some time with my chooms. But I’m ready.”

“Excellent. You wanted this, don't forget. Come with me.” She offered and another one of Yoko’s doors opened up beside her, she rose and walked through with me following.

Inside was just a large space, a lot of memory and data set aside on the server for it.

“Alright. Let’s get started then.” She said and before a moment passed her tails twitched, and fire burst forth towards me.

The assault was something I recognized. It was a Breaching assault meant to burn through ICE to open up systems.

I threw up a few of my ICE programs, before returning the assault with a Breach program, on my side a blade appeared beside me and shot off, rocketing right through the fire towards the Kitsune.

The sword was actually a representation of a hacking attempt. Seriously, Netrunning was so weird!

It stopped cold. A stone statue appeared in front of Yoko. It was a… Komainu? The Lion dogs statues you would see around Japanese Shrines.

Yoko really stuck to her aesthetic.

I could respect it!

They were basically a form of ICE. Very tough stuff.

The fight continued. My agreement with Yoko had a few factors, the most obvious was information. Guidance, on the rules of the net, basic net culture and the like which we could cover mostly just by talking, but that was only part of it.

More importantly, I had asked her to fight me, hit me with everything she had so I could learn to react to combat on the net.

I had the instincts thanks to my skills. Quick Hack, and Breach both filled part of Netrunning combat, but having the instincts and knowledge was one thing. Doing was another.

She was going easy on me. I could tell, just her Cyberdeck alone would be a high end system because she was able to throw up multiple heavy RAM usage hacks back to back, while I had to rely on ICE shields to hold back her assault while my Cyberdeck did its best to keep up with my requests.

But I was learning.

So, so so so much!

*100 Quick Hack XP Gained.*

*100 Quick Hack XP Gained.*

*100 Breach Protocol XP Gained.*

*100 Breach Protocol XP Gained.*

*100 Quick Hack XP Gained.*

*100 Breach Protocol XP Gained.*

*Breach Protocol skill level up!*

*100 Quick Hack XP Gained.*

*100 Quick Hack XP Gained.*

*Quick Hacks skill level up!*

*1 Perk Point Gained.*

Breach Protocol 7, and Quick Hack 5! Both levels had come in as I fought, and the new knowledge and skill was going to immediately be used again.

I grinned with an almost feral intensity as I fought back against a literal Nine tailed Fox throwing around magic and spells.

Fuck I loved my life.

—--

Eventually Yoko called an end mentioning I was showing signs of heat shock, and I had to take a moment to remember that there were repercussions on what I was doing.

My poor body back in the basement was overheating, and I purposefully had to lower all my inputs turning the world into a hazy 3d rendering, all monochrome lines to reduce the workload of my Cyberdeck, and try to keep it from overheating.

“Thank you Yoko.” I said looking at the blurry woman. “This was amazing!” I said with a thumbs up.

“You are a very strange girl Motoko Kusanagi.” She mentioned as her avatar approached. “I don’t usually accept requests to show off my hacks, but I’ll admit, throwing my programs around like this is rather refreshing. It’s been a while since anyone has actually challenged me here on my server.”

“Hah, yeah considering how much RAM you have access to, it would be kinda stupid huh?” I asked, earning a change in the avatar that I was pretty sure was a particularly fox like smirk.

“You noticed that? Not everyday some kiddy runner realizes that the entire server acts as a support for my Cyberdeck.” She giggled, reaching over and patting my avatar on the shoulder, although I didn’t feel anything, and it was more of an emote not actually touching me but looking like it was.

“So take a break from this for now? I still need to learn more about the net.”

“Of course. Come with me, I’ll take you around to a few of the common haunts.”

—--

Yoko did in fact do just that. We traveled through the digital Night City, walking to seemingly random places that had servers set up as meetup locations.

With Yoko guiding me she helped me get access and I got to see it all.

Her own Avatar had disappeared, turning into the same blank outline that everyone had besides their face and a general shape, and once we returned to the Dewdrop Inn she shifted back into her Kitsune avatar with an almost relieved sigh.

I got the feeling Yoko didn’t leave her server much.

And once again she brought me to that white room, but this time she didn’t fight me directly.

Instead she summoned up a Daemon.

Daemon were a mix between an AI, and a program. Not quite intelligent enough to be considered a true AI, but a bit more nuanced than a normal program. They were background programs often used to monitor systems, to make sure everything was going right, or to balance different systems.

If a Quickhack was a tool, like a knife. Then Daemons were pets. A rudimentary intelligence. A being capable of acting as a guard dog, or a simple button presser.

Of course this time, Yoko summoned the smallest Daemon.

An Imp.

It didn’t look like some fantasy creature, not at this level, instead it was an orb of light, with two almost cartoonish red eyes glaring at me, it made little noises, beeps and whistles as it glared.

“Begin.” She offered and the Imp attacked.

Daemons were capable of being uploaded with basic programs, quick hacks of their own, it’s why they were so useful as overwatch for systems, Upload a strong Daemon, give it some good offense and you don’t have to stand guard 24/7 against a Netrunner.

Well, you still did because as good as Daemons were, they weren’t able to match a person.

The Imp had two programs, and I saw them both very quickly. One was the Fire burning ICE program that Yoko had used before, although it was smaller, a weaker fire capable of corroding code.

The other was a screech that suddenly filled my ears, and made me wince and become disoriented, it wasn’t noise but junk data.

Like getting hit with a flashbang. My sight went jerky, and laggy with distortions and image sway.

In essence the Imp was flooding my connection to the server with junk, like a DDos attack, in a way.

I threw up my ICE shield to block the fire, and used a Barrier shield for the screech. The ethereal neon panes appeared in front of me to block the assault, and the Imps attacks ended.

It continued to pelt me with the same two attacks, practically in order. One then the other. But the screech was just throwing junk data against a wall of junk data, and the fire couldn’t burn through my ICE before I fixed it.

So it was my turn.

Fire roared, shooting out from my hand and pierced through the Imp.

The Daemon came apart with a static sound as it broke into pieces.

*250 XP Gained.*

An alert popped up right after almost startling me as I processed and then had to fight the urge to smile massively.

I could beat Daemons for XP in the net too!? That was amazing!

“Not bad. Let’s see how you handle something a bit bigger.” Yoko called out as a… Thug. It looked like a cartoon thug, only the glowing red eyes showed why it was called a Daemon.

Instantly it looked to me. And attacked.

I yelped as it had a much more powerful direct attack, a gun was pointed and fired, and my Barrier flared resisting the attack, but only just.

The pane of light cracked. The bullet was a virus that deleted data. So when it hit my junk barrier it just deleted chunks of it.

I reinforced the shield even as the thug continued firing every few moments, one round at a time it simply locked onto me and shot, more like a static turret than a sentient creature.

I sent my barriers to coat the thug like I had with the Netrunner I fought, and it took only a few moments before he was cut off, sealing him up in a tight box that was squeezing the program.

It died a few moments later as its access to any system resources literally ended, and it basically lagged out and died, disintegrated as its core systems simply couldn’t do anything through the lump of data it was trapped in.

*250 XP Gained.*

I was only slightly sad that it wasn’t more XP.

“Not bad at all. But at the moment, you are just overpowering them with better programs. Let’s work on a bit more finesse.” Yoko called out and summoned another Imp. “This time, no offense hacks, try to disable the Imp.” She demanded and I nodded, jumping into the task.

It took a while.

But that was what training was all about!

It took me a long time to disable the Imp without relying on my powerful hacks.

Instead I was forced to do my teleporting trick, making the Daemon think I was somewhere else on the server making it’s attacks miss.

In the end the idea came to me with a sinister smile as I shifted my position.

It sent it’s data purging fire at me, only I had put myself inside the file that the Daemon was running off of.

Watching it fire a blast of fire at me only for it to turn back around and slam into the Daemon was hilarious.

But as it died, I got a nice surprise.

*250 XP Gained.*

*Level up achieved!*

*One Stat Point Gained.*

*One Skill Point Gained.*

That was the last bit I needed for level 10.

“You okay kid?”

“Huh? Oh yeah Yoko. I’m good, just happy, that was fun.” I told her with a smile as I tried to stretch only for the act to not really work.

I was only a digital avatar, not my real body.

“Heh. Stretching won’t do you much good here. If you are feeling the sympathetic need to move and stretch you should head back to your body.” She told me and I nodded.

“Yoko. Thanks. I’ll be back for more training soon.”

“Heh. You certainly don’t quit. I’ll see you then Motoko.” The kitsune nodded and then blurred as she left, and I did the same blurring as I pulled my avatar back through all the systems I had moved through until I was back in my lobby and then I disconnected.

I groaned and stretched as I sat up. Back in reality with all that entailed.

While I had a few moments of quiet I pulled open my stat screen and checked my perks.

I remember the last time I had looked at my Quick Hack perks I had mainly been focused on game stuff.

A perk to make quick hacking upload faster. A perk to make my Cyberdecks RAM restore faster.

In fantasy terms, the perks would let me cast spells faster, and let my mana regenerate quicker.

But I’ve learned a lot since then. I had been wise enough to pick the defensive perk last time. The knowledge of how to defend myself had probably helped a lot even before this training with Yoko.

But I had gained a lot of awareness of what was useful.

So instead I started searching for something else.

And then I found it.

Hacking Wizard. Upload multiple Quick Hacks at the same time, to one or more targets.

I selected the perk without another moment's hesitation and shuddered as the knowledge slipped in. It wasn’t an immense amount of knowledge.

It wasn’t the plans for a program, or anything like that.

It was pure mathematics and multitasking.

It would more than double the RAM usage if I tried to send two hacks or more at once, but in the end, if I was in an emergency I could inundate someone with multiple Quick Hacks all at once, a surprise assault.

Or, I could use a Quickhack multiple times to target multiple people.

With the knowledge that some of the higher quality hacks could already spread through a crowd?

I could do multiple waves of net assaults on anyone that pissed me off!

Yeah, as always, perks were OP. Plz don’t nerf. Too much fun!

I giggled as I rested back on the chair feeling lazy enough I didn’t want to unplug everything right away…

I sent a message to Jun letting him know I was gonna sleep in my new place, and decided to enjoy eight hours of sleep.

—--

The next morning I went home for a shower and general cleanliness issues, stepping out of my room wearing a clean leotard and patting down my damp hair. I noticed my mess of stuff still all over the living room.

“Ugh.” I whined but nodded realizing that I really needed to do some cleanup. I wandered around picking things up and settling them into my room, basically packing away all my little projects so I could still get to them, but so they wouldn’t clog the entire living room table.

Patting my HMG on my way back out of my room I looked over the…

Cleaner? Tidier? Living room.

It was better, I would take it.

I settled in and reached over for my guitar, but before I started playing, I did something I should have done last night. I opened up my screen, and I slipped another stat point into Adaptation, and the feelings the sense of touch and proprioception that my arms gave me seemed to jerk a little as I realized the sense of touch had been just a tad off.

But it was better now! Of course before I could go down the road of playing with my sense of touch I noticed my stat screen.

Militech Concord *Adaptation Militech Concord 4/8*

Wait.

WAIT.

When did my adaptation requirement go down!?

It used to be out of ten! I stared at it for a while without any point coming to mind and ended up just shrugging. I would have to keep a closer eye on it, but it was… Interesting, that it could lower the max. I guess I had been mentally adjusting to the chrome pretty well over time.

My new sense of touch on the strings of my guitar had me smiling as it distracted me, and I strummed a chord.

Instantly a song slipped into my brain, and I started strumming the notes.

“She’s so cold and human.” I sang along to Lithium Flower.

It figured if I was going to play a song I should play a Major Motoko Kusanagi Theme.

The sound was different from my normal music preferences, but I jammed out to it, enjoying the way my chrome hands had no difficulty hitting the notes, that the song came out sounding good. My voice crooning alongside.

Yeah, this was fun.

Sure Night City was a nightmare. Sure I knew someday someone I knew would die. One of my chooms would end up murdered by the city. Because this city murdered everyone eventually.

But until then I couldn’t help but admit. I loved it here.

“I want to go surfing with her!” I sang the last lyrics trailing off as I finished the last refrain.

I sighed when I finished.

*100 Rockerboy XP Gained.*

“Alright Motoko. Pick a problem to solve today.” I told myself.

I had so much that needed to be done.

I wanted to finish my Music box. Which meant Programming and Tech grinds.

I wanted to hunt more scavs. Which would bring in eddies to me and my crew, and potentially new chrome.

I should try to help the SLS guys with a gig, which meant information. Which meant I needed to dive into the net again.

I wanted to hang out with Jackie again. Had he still not finished that Gig Wakako gave him? Very disappointing Jackie. I might actually have to step in.

I still had other projects I wanted to get started on as well. My future desire for a Tachikoma to complete the cospla-I mean, for help on gigs. I had even taken the Robotics perk and never got to use it. Because robots were hard.

I also wanted to just hang out with my chooms, the other night was fun, and Hiromi had gotten left out.

Plus there was so much more to do!

As annoying as it was to have a bit of choice paralysis, the fact I could do all of them just given time meant it wasn’t exhausting or making me angry. Instead it was just…

Which did I want to do first?

Well considering I wasn’t sure…

I made a call.

*Motoko.*

*Wakako! How’s it going? Thanks again for the help, that netrunner gear is coming in super handy.* I told her cheerfully.

*Good. I hear you took over the street gang as well.*

*Eh that was more Hiromi’s doing. I’m just glad I didn’t have to kill a bunch of gonk kids.*

*Hmm. Well having lines you don’t cross is fine, as long as you don’t ruin a gig because of them. I take it by your call that you are looking for more work?*

*Not directly. How’s Jackie Wells doing? I expected him to have finished up by now.*

Wakako actually sighed over the line and there was silence for a moment.

I just knew she had lit up a cigarette and was preparing to complain.

*The boy is too cautious. The gig is still open, and nothing has been done that I have seen.*

*Want me to go poke him?* I asked and the line was silent for a minute.

*I will not pay you for completing someone else’s gig.*

*Not something I’m worried about. Besides, I told you before. Jackie has some talent as a good bruiser. I could use someone like that on my gigs. Me helping him out now will be a good foot in the door to convincing him to work with me in the future.*

*Very well. I’ll send the details of the gig to you. Handle it however you want.*

*Thanks Wakako…*  “And she already hung up.” I said, realizing my agent was quiet.

Wakako you bitch!

It’s called a goodbye! Would it kill you to say it every once in a while?

But a moment later I got a beep as a text message. Directly from Wakako. It was basically a copy of a message she had sent to Jackie Wells.

I read through the notes and I realized pretty quickly what was causing the hold up.

Jackie would definitely need some help on this gig.