Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 80 (Patreon)

Hiromi took care of giving Richard the car back, I hadn’t wanted to talk to the gonk after everything, and in the end I drove her home. Both of us were pretty quiet on the way, but to my surprise Hiromi didn’t just get out when I reached her home.

“Come up with me. There’s something I still need to do.” She demanded, and I looked surprised at her sudden aggressiveness.

“Hiromi, I’m-”

“I know. You have to go talk to Jun and deal with Fujimura-whatever. But come up first.” She demanded and I sighed and ended up following her up to her high end apartment.

To my surprise, unlike before it seemed empty now. I guess her parents would be back at work with the gang war over. But she dragged me into her room, and pushed me into a chair before heading into the bathroom.

Coming out with a medkit.

I almost snorted, but Hiromi was looking so serious,  I kept my amusement hidden as she sat beside me and started fussing over me.

“You don’t have to do that.” I told her, but she just shook her head, her hair flying around at the harshness of the motion.

“I do. So just… Sit there and let me make up for my screwup.” She ordered and who was I to argue with Hiromi being this serious?

I didn’t need much really, I was mostly bruised on my cheek, and probably on my stomach, but Hiromi sprayed some sort of gunk on my cheek anyways.

It did numb my skin so that was nice, but not really needed. I didn’t even notice the pain.

“I messed up, got hot headed, thought it was like it always had been, that I could just mouth off to the stupid Claw gonks and get on with it… I didn’t even think that you wouldn’t want to start killing them. So I mouthed off.”

“They were being idiots. Trying to intimidate two girls that were there for business. It was dumb.” I added my own frustration with the whole scenario coming out.

“They were just acting like people act. I wouldn’t be happy if someone came up to me and started demanding you give back the netrunning gear or something.” She said, playing devils advocate.

“Hey! I looted that clear.”

“I know you gonk.” Hiromi said, shaking her head as she worked on putting a bandage on my cheek.

Silly Hiromi, I didn’t need a bandage for a bruise, but she was fussing so I allowed it.

“But I mean, I walked in not thinking, and then got frustrated… I guess I expected them to treat me like they always did. Just another TC hanger on, but I’m not dressed like that anymore. I came in looking like an enemy.”

“They shouldn’t have done that anyways. You don’t conduct business by messing with people like that.” I argued, shaking my head. “We’ll just make sure we have more muscle or something next time.”

“Yeah.” Hiromi offered nodding and then she reached out and double checked my bruise. “Sorry.”

“It doesn’t even hurt. Besides, it gave me a good excuse to punch them back. Very satisfying.” My joke managed to earn a giggle from Hiromi and it seemed to help her finally calm down.

“Want to come over? We could do a sleepover.” I offered, considering her parents weren’t around, Hiromi might not want to be alone at the moment.

She hesitated before nodding. “I have some school stuff I have to do first, so give me a few hours and I’ll come over?”

“Sounds preem!”

—--

Of course hanging out with Hiromi had to end eventually. I headed home, expecting to see Jun already there.

I had texted him that Akari took care of everything and we were good during the earlier drive, but when I got home it was empty.

So I shrugged, sent Jun a text telling him I was home, grabbed something to eat and decided to do some programming while I waited.

Reboot Optics was definitely more complicated than Ping, and the time it was taking for me to ‘fix’ it was definitely proving that. The lines of code were filling in pretty quickly in the grand scheme of things. I mean, most modern hacks are probably designed by committee in some corp rather than being free range like what I was doing, but while they could get things done faster.

I could do it better.

Maybe… Probably.

I was still only at level 10, and I was still going under the assumption that level 20 was the max.

So I was only half way there.

But I was still an amazing programmer. Level 10. The human peak.

My fingers blazed across the keyboard. The lines I wrote were clean, and the few errors I made were easily caught and fixed with Debug.

I was never stumped. I never hit a point where I had to wonder what the next line of code should look like, it all came to me before I was even ready.

And so spent a few hours creeping closer to a finished program.

The door opening made me glance up, my voice already about to greet Jun, but it wasn’t Jun.

“Hey Hiromi.” I called out instead realizing that it was getting late, and Jun hadn’t come by.

Weird.

“Motoko!” Hiromi greeted with a smile, seemingly much recovered from the scare. “Whatcha doin?”

“Programming. I’m working on streamlining a quick hack.” I explained showing her the laptop screen which was just displaying line after line of code.

“That’s preem… I have no idea what I’m looking at though.”

“It’s fine, I should take a break anyways, I’ve been pretty good about hyper focusing on my coding. Want to put on some terrible TV?”

“Yep! I brought snacks!” She chirped, showing a bag full of all sorts of random stuff.

And so thanks to horrible TV and snackfood, everything was good.

—--

Hiromi was passed out snoring on my shoulder on the couch. I had muted the TV but left it running for the extra light. The ability to skip sleeping was still one of those super useful side features of the Gamer system.

I had pulled up my programming laptop to work with after Hiromi fell asleep.

I hadn’t been in the mood to sleep myself, so I worked instead.

It was to this scene that Jun suddenly walked into. I blinked. It was nearly three in the morning. I expected Jun to have slept wherever he was, like he tended to do when he didn’t come home.

We both looked at eachother, Jun looked like he wanted to say something but after noticing HIromi he just nodded and didn’t speak.

Instead he walked over quiet as a mouse thanks to his Lynx Paws, and knelt down gently patting my head as he looked me over.

I could see the anxiety on his face, that look of anger and frustration. But I wasn’t going to let Jun just walk away.

So I called him. Literally. My eyes went gold as I could hear the ringing in my head.

*I’m okay Jun. So is Hiromi. Thanks for helping us out. I didn’t really want to murder a bunch of TC guys. It would have caused trouble.*

*You should have killed them. All of them. They shouldn’t have touched you.* He responded back without hesitation, his face angry.

I shook my head, reaching out and patting him on the head in return just like he had just done for me.

*There were better reasons not to jump to murder. What’s his face? Was a jerk, but it’s fine. I hope Fujimura didn’t cause you too many problems?*

*I was sent to Sensei to cool off… Fujimura wasn’t happy that I wanted to go and rescue you.* He said and I snorted quietly.

What Fujimura wasn’t happy with was Jun definitely planning to murder all the TC guys that ran that base.

*I punched him pretty hard after. So we’re square.* I inform him with a quiet thumbs up. And Jun finally rolled his eyes, a bit of amusement shining through his expression.

Good.

*Next time someone threatens you, just flatline them. If they are TC I’ll take care of smoothing everything out.* He tells me and I smirk a bit.

*I’ll be careful. Next time I have to speak to a gang, I’ll either go in better armed so I’m more of a threat, or I’ll bring more muscle for the same reason.*

Jun just shakes his head.

*I’d prefer if you didn’t go into a gang base at all. But Motoko will Motoko. You always do.*

*You love me.* I told him smirking as he scoffed and ruffled my hair but stood up. Heading to his room. *But I love you more.*

It wasn’t until he was fully in his room that the call finally ended but of course he still sent it.

*Love you too.*

—--

Hiromi was kind of clingy in her sleep.

At some point she had grabbed onto me instead of just drooling on my shoulder, and I had to fight off the grasping hands of my best choom.

Thankfully programming was quiet, and I didn’t wake her while I worked slowly adding more and more to my Reboot Optics hack.

Oh man. If Yoko thought my Ping was cool. This was going to blow her processor!

Hacker humor!

Since I was a hacker I needed to practice it!

But eventually the sun rose up and it started getting bright enough that Hiromi was grumbling and shifting in her sleep.

Slowly she started waking up, lazily shifting and contorting as her body tried to wake up but she fought it.

Until eventually I felt her hand squeeze my stomach twice as if her brain realized she was wrapped around something and she glanced up, eyes blearily open to see my own eyes looking down at her.

Then she let out a squeak and leapt away.

Which of course sent her over the end of the couch and onto the floor.

I had tried to grab her, but she flailed quite hilariously. As she went right over the edge of the couch. Disappearing from sight.

“Hiromi? You alright?”

“Never better.” She called out after a few moments as I peeked over the edge of the couch, she was looking up at me from the floor, one foot still  up on the couch cushion she had just tripped over and the rest of her in a mess on the floor seemingly desperate for no one to notice her current state.

“Okay…” I said drawing it out but instead of helping I just edged back over the couch and took my spot.

It took a few moments for her foot to disappear over the edge of the couch completely and a few moments after that for her to rise up and brush herself off.

“Morning.” She greeted casually as if everything that had just happened, never did.

“Good Morning. Hungry?”

“Still full of snacks I think.” She said casually retaking her seat and slowly running her fingers through her hair trying to reorganize the mess of bed head.

She was failing, so I reached over and helped untangle a bit of her hair letting it go flat.

She was so embarrassed about her messy hair she went red! How cute!

—--

In the end Hiromi had cleaned up and gotten dressed not long after and as much as she wanted to stay she had to head home.

So I went back to programming until Jun woke up. My brother was just as bleary as Hiromi had been, and while his hair wasn’t as long as Hiromi’s mohawk style it was still standing up in the back.

“Sleep well Jun-Nii?”

“Where’s Hiromi?” He asked in turn, looking around.

“Went home already.” I told him and he nodded rubbing the back of his head as he yawned.

“Slept okay. You?”

“Eh. Hiromi’s a bit of a grabby sleeper.” I told him instead of telling the truth that I hadn’t slept at all.

“Heh.” He chuckled as if that was a joke and not just the damned truth. Pretty sure I still had a red handprint on my thigh from where Hiromi had wrapped herself around my leg.

It’s a good thing she didn’t have chrome hands, that could have hurt.

“Fujimura-Sama wants to see you today… To talk about what happened.” Jun offered and I scowled as I pretended to ignore him focusing on the laptop.

I’m not a damn dog. That jerk can’t just summon me when he wanted.

“I think you should see him Motoko… He wants to apologize.”

“What?” I asked jerking up at that. Why would he want to apologize?

“Motoko. You’ve helped out the TC a bunch, saved one of our bosses. Remember? If one of our members assaults you? That’s a big deal. A huge black mark. Fucks up our Giri bad.”

I frowned I guess that made sense, I mean I hadn’t expected the sudden sorta kidnapping from them either.

“Fine I guess…”

“Great. Why don’t you get ready? I’ll need a shower first.” He grumbled heading into the bathroom.

Alright. Code more later. Deal with Pseudo Yakuza boss first.

—--

Jun refused to let me drive so I was stuck on the back of his bike as he drove us to our destination.

Where?

No idea. In fact I suppose this would be the first time I’ve been to Jun’s work since the whole Casino thing. And I knew he didn’t work there anymore.

I doubted he would ever want to return to that place.

So we drove across the bridge into Watson, but unlike how I would usually turn down into Kabuki, we kept going to head into Little China.

We got off the freeway, and were basically instantly turning into a small strip mall type place.

It honestly reminded me of the Tattoo parlor. Similar setup.

Take over a business, surround it with TC members, and the place gets locked down and income comes streaming in.

This time it was more like an alleyway market place. Stalls set up along the walls of the very slim walking path, hawking everything from food, to weapons if what I saw was right. Jun parked in the parking lot outside it and waved me to follow which I did. It was pretty easy to follow along through the crowd, Jun’s bulk easily made a path.

Well that and the respect people had for him.

I saw plenty of TC gangers nodding their head to Jun, or calling out greetings, usually calling him “Oni.”

I guess Jun-Nii was pretty popular.

We walked through nearly the entire alley before Jun walked up to a door that looked the same as any other and opened it revealing a set of stairs downwards.

“C’mon Motoko.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I confirmed following along, it wasn’t like a little darkness was going to worry me.

The stairs curved at the bottom opening up to a bar of all place.

It reminded me of all those little dark japanese bars you would see in anime. A man behind the counter, bottles of alcohol behind him. All wood and dark leather. I crinkled my nose at the smoke.

Apparently there wasn’t a non-smokers section. Hell this place was so old fashioned there was even a little piano in the corner.

Of course I also noticed everyone inside was TC.

Tattoos, weapons, attitudes, all screamed Tyger Claw. Men and women. Sitting around the bar, the tables, a few in booths set along the darkened corners. It was surprisingly full, but then again, I doubted this was actually a bar at all.

If Fujimura worked out of here, then this wasn’t a bar but probably the nerve center of the TC in the area.

I followed Jun down into the carpeted floors.

I was getting plenty of looks, but none were hostile. To my surprise though I didn’t recognize anyone. I thought I would, but I guess most of the Kamikaze hadn’t continued working solely with Fujimura after the war.

“Junichirou.”

“Howard.” Jun was greeted by the barkeep who was doing the most stereotypical bartender things and rubbing a glass with a rag.

“Fujimura-Sama will be back soon, take the private booth.” Howard the Bartender offered as he settled a glass down onto the drying rack and walked over to seemingly prepare some drinks.

“C’mon Motoko.” Jun called as he led me past the bar towards a back area, it was gloomy at first, but more of those bead curtains just blocked the light from a set of private booths that as Jun waved me into one was well lit by a few ornate faux candles around the booth.

“This doesn’t strike me as very TC. No neon? I’m almost disappointed.”

“It was originally a bar owned by a smaller gang that controlled this area. When it was taken over the decor ended up being something a few of the guys liked and so it’s stayed the same.” Jun offered as he settled into his booth seating. “You want anything?”

“Not really.” I shook my head and it was true. The stink of cigar, and cigarette smoke filled the air killing my thirst and hunger.

“Sorry.” Jun grumbled, noticing the way my nose was crinkled.

“It is what it is, so Fujimura?”

“Should be here soon.” Jun offered just as the beads were parted and the bartender dropped off a tray of drinks. More drinks than just for Jun and I.

Jun nodded and even took a tumbler of something amber himself.

“You aren’t going to drive home if you drink.” I inform him and Jun actually hesitates before scowling at me and taking a drink.

“You can call your car then. I’m not riding bitch on my own bike.”

“Heh.” I chuckled, giving him a lopsided smile as I imagined Jun, the big tough guy that he is forced to ride behind his little sister cause he was too drunk to drive. “I’ll drive you home in my Quadra. You can call for your bike.”

“No way.”  He grumbled and I just rolled my eyes at Jun.

I would force him to drive home with me if he drank too much… Even if his chrome probably would protect him from most driving accidents.

In the end we both were just sort of waiting.

“I’m bored.” I told Jun after about twenty minutes of sitting around.

“Just be patient. Fujimura-Sama is a busy man.” I rolled my eyes, not because I didn’t believe him. I am sure a TC boss like Fujimura probably was busy. But what did that have to do with me being bored?

“You got about a minute before I start doing something to relieve my boredom.” I informed Jun and then started mentally counting down to Jun’s concerned face.

“Minutes up.” I said as I stood up, avoiding Jun’s grasping hand as he tried to keep me in the booth as I stepped out back onto the bar floor.

Mentally I went through my options. The street market upstairs could have something interesting, but I pretty much already had everything I wanted…

I stopped.

Piano.

I’ve never played a piano before.