Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 108 (Patreon)

I was sitting on the couch. Well laying on it more than anything. I probably should go kill those Scavs… Or play some music to let the hobby do what it was supposed to and soothe out these kinds of emotional issues, but I was just so done.

“Fuck today.” I reminded myself and that was good enough.

“Fuck today.” Jun called out from his room, obviously hearing me.

Then I got a call.

Fuck.

*Hey Hiromi.* I answered. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to my best choom. I just didn’t want to talk to anyone right now.

*Motoko! Tell this fucking ugly gonk at the front of your building to let us up! Otherwise Hiromi is gonna whoop some fuckheads ass!*

I sighed.

Fuck today.

*I’ll be right down.*

I climbed up and didn’t so much put on my boots as I just threw them on my feet. So I wouldn’t step on anything sharp lying around and headed downstairs.

I was so done with today I even used the elevator.

The door opened to arguing.

“Move aside already! I don’t know who you are, and you certainly don’t have the right to keep us from seeing Motoko. We’re Motoko’s gang! Her crew! Who the hell are you supposed to be?”

“The guard in charge bitch! No one bothers the Kusanagi’s! I don’t care what crazy shit you say! You’re gonna get your ass knocked the fuck out if you don’t-Motoko! Hey! Just getting rid of-”

“Hiromi, Ichi, Malcolm. Get in the elevator.” I demanded, not ready to deal with this.

“Ah! They are your chooms then? Had to stop them, and make sure you know? Can’t let some weirdos bother you and your brother Motoko! Do you need anything? I-”

“Hurry it up you three.” I called out and stepped back into the elevator.

“Finally!” Malcolm said obviously as irritated at the argument as I was. “Hey Motoko. How’re you holding up?” He asked, as the first one in the elevator.

“Fuck today.” I informed him and he just nodded along like I said something wise.

“It’s okay Motoko! Your chooms are here to make your day better!” Hiromi called out smiling and Ichi passed me an apologetic smile.

“She was determined to bring us all together today to see what we can do to help.”

“Ah. That explains Hiromi’s Hirominess.” I offered, earning a protesting noise from the girl. I threw an arm over her shoulder and pulled her into a hug. “Thanks for checking in on me. I guess I could use a break from all the stuff going on.”

“Right! If my Motoko needs some relaxation, that’s what we are here for!”

“I thought we were here to make Motoko let us help kill Scavs.” Malcolm said to Ichi in a faux whisper.

Hiromi of course kicked him and the two would have broken into a fight if the elevator didn’t open.

“C’mon.” I called as I walked past the distracted HIromi with Ichi following.

“Oh wow.” Hiromi stalled out along with the boys when they got a look at the apartment. I mean there wasn’t any glass left lying around, but there were still big holes in the walls and the barrier blinds.

“Yeah it’s a little fucked up still. Jun and I need to call in an actual repair guy or something.”

“You are both gonks. I know someone. I’ll call them in to get everything fixed up.” Hiromi said and before I could stop her, her eyes flashed as she made a call and she turned and ignored me as I moved to stop her.

“Heh. That’s Hiromi alright.” Ichi said laughing as he ignored my ineffectual attempts to get Hiromi to stop.

She was stronger though! Did she get more chrome? I looked her over with narrowed eyes. Then I reached out.

“Eep! Motoko!”

“When did you get muscles?” I asked as my hands pulled away Hiromi’s casual clothes to let me check out her bicep, and then her stomach.

Yep those were muscles there.

“I-it’s a Biotechnica upgrade package! Motoko!”

“That’s so… Cool.” I said I was going to say unfair, but really I had absolutely no room to talk there. Biotechnica huh?

That was neat. I hadn’t thought much about Bioware since I kinda just wanted to go full borg eventually.

I shrugged and pulled my chrome hands free of Hiromi’s clothes realizing why Hiromi was wiggling and flushed at my exploration.

“Ah! Sorry were my hands cold!?” I quickly pulled them away and checked my chrome palm against my cheek for a second.

No it wasn’t too bad. Maybe Hiromi just has a high body temperature? She was always looking flushed after all.

“When did you get bioware work done?” Malcolm asked curious, and Hiromi shushed him as she was still on the phone.

A few moments later she blinked and her eyes were back to normal and then she leapt on me.

“Wha!”

“YOU! NOT WHEN I’M ON A BUSINESS CALL YOU GONK!” She shrieked as she pushed me down and tried to faux strangle me.

I couldn’t help but start giggling, because while Hiromi was pretty strong, I was still stronger, and her response was great.

“Sorry!”

“You aren’t sorry!” She said struggling and I only giggled harder. Okay maybe today wasn’t entirely awful.

“Ah that explains the noise.” Jun said as he poked his head out of his room and into the living room. “Hey guys.”

“Jun!”

“Hey Jun.” Malcolm and Ichi both greeted my brother while Hiromi focused on trying to stuff my face into the couch.

She was failing and it was definitely irritating her.

Relying too much on chrome, or mods is a bad idea Hiromi. Gotta have the skill to back it up, and my grappling perk made me pretty good at this.

“Ugh fine!” She eventually gave in as I kept her from achieving her goal as she sat up surprising me, by sitting her stupid fat ass right on my stomach, knocking the air out of me a bit.

“Oof! Hiromi!”

“I don’t listen to chairs.” She said to the air and then looked to Jun. “Hey Jun. You doing okay?”

“Heh. The day has come where my kid sister's little chooms are worried about me.” He uttered shaking his head and standing up straight flashing her a grin to my surprise. “I’m fine. Irritated about everything but fine.”

“Hmm. Motoko hasn’t talked about it yet. Anything we can do to help? I do have connections now.” Hiromi said partially preening at her own words.

“Nah. The Maelstrom basically said the guy that attacked them wasn’t one of theirs and the TC is going along with it. So we only got Scavs to retaliate against, but… It’s impossible to know which group attacked us, or if there will be more attacks coming.”

My chooms were quiet at Jun’s final words.

“I’m sorry.” Hiromi said, reaching over and grabbing my hand as she adjusted herself to not be sitting on my stomach. “I can’t… I can’t believe they attacked your home, and now you can’t pinpoint the ones responsible.”

“So we just kill them all.” I say with a shrug. “It’s been my solution since it happened. I’m just going to kill every Scav I find until there aren’t any more.”

Jun snorted, looking like he was going to agree, but to my surprise he ran a hand over his face and through his hair. “Maybe it’s time we settle it there too, Motoko. We reach out with our contacts and make a deal.”

“Hell no!”

“Motoko. We got lucky last time. You spotted the sniper just in time, but that guy was an amateur. What if they just bombed our apartment while we were in here. Or sent more than a van full of grunts… Honestly I’m surprised they sent so few.”

“I think Randall was the one responsible for that.” I muttered and everyone looked at me. “The Maelstrom sniper, apparently his name was Randall… I ran into him before. The night I recorded my BD for The Only Thing They Fear.” I explained sitting up pushing Hiromi to the side a bit so I was sitting up and not just half way sprawled across the couch.

Sitting up I ran through what I had figured out.

“So that night I ran into a Maelstrom girl in the Scav den. They had pulled her apart, but she was still awake… I felt sorry for her, so I helped her get help. Randall was one of the Maelstrom fucks that showed up. He was a moron. But he must have realized who I was after… Probably from the BD? According to GearSlot he seemed incredibly interested in all the Chrome the Scavs had. I think he found a Scav group and reached out to them. Set up the assault on Jun and I. Maybe Revenge for the war? Or he offered our location to the Scavs. I mean it’s not like my BD’s aren’t getting around. Maybe he told them he knew who was recording the BD’s and… I don’t know.”

Everything was just an assumption. Jun had made sure we wouldn’t be able to ask Randall, and the Scavs weren’t exactly chatty.

“Motoko… There is something else. Something Fujimura-sama mentioned to me. He assigned us a few guards, but they are just kids they can’t stop shit… He mentioned that we should move into a more secure location.”

“Fuck no!” I snapped outraged at the very idea, but Jun didn’t let my instant response ruffle him.

“I think we should consider it Motoko. There are plenty of locations we could move to that have more security. Fujimura-sama controls a floor of a building that he rents out to TC. It’s safe. Protected.”

“Jun I said no! We arent-I’m not moving! This is our home!” I denied but Jun moved away from the wall he had been resting against and walked around Ichi and Malcolm who were both being really quiet.

Shit that was the look of a couple of people watching an argument between family members and not being sure what to do.

Sorry guys.

Jun stopped in front of me and rested his stupid heavy hand on my head.

“Home is where we live. Not a place. I want you to be safe, Motoko. I want us to be safe… I try to protect you as much as I can, but you just do whatever you want anyways, so I can’t stop you there. But I think we should move. To a bigger place, a more secure place… Don’t you want a bigger room? One with your own space.”

“I like my current room just fine!”

“It’s a closet you gonk. You’ve never had a real room before. You could have a workbench and tinker with your stuff without me accidentally sitting on it or-”

“Wait, when did you sit on my stuff!?”

Jun blinked at me and then just mushed my hair. “We are going to look around at places… Maybe tomorrow. Keep an open mind, okay?” Then Jun disappeared and as I fixed my hair I looked up to see him disappear back into his room.

“I’m like 90% sure he just tried to distract me from the fact he apparently sat on some of my stuff and broke it.”

“You think so?” Hiromi asked, and I nodded.

“I’m honestly more curious than upset. I don’t remember finding anything missing…” I shook it off. I would tackle Jun in his sleep and demand my answers later. “Alright chooms, enough of this shit. Want to get some food, and watch some garbage TV or something?”

“Sounds good to me!” Malcolm said before anyone else could argue.

“Great. Malcolm, you are with me on the food run. Hiromi, Ichi figure out what to watch?”

—--

The next morning, long after everyone had gone home, Jun poked me as I was working on some programming stuff for Yoko in payment for the Scav locations.

“C’mon.”

“I already told you Jun. I’m not moving.”

“Come anyways.” He demanded and gave me a look.

Fine. If only because if I didn’t go with him he was going to lift me up and carry me like a sack of angry kittens.

I got up, got dressed, wasted some time taking a shower specifically in protest, and came out only to get whipped in the face with a towel.

Then Jun attacked me with the towel.

“H-hey! Sto-oooop!” I whined but my brother has no mercy in his heart. He ran the towel over my hair like a machine and when he finally released me I fell to the floor blinking as if someone had just mugged me.

“There, your hair is dry, c’mon.”

“You… Are you kidding me? I’m a girl you gonk! Now I have to do my hair! Look at it!” I yelled at him my hair was poofy I could feel it. Standing up more like an afro than my normal style!

“I look like I just got in a fight with an electrical outlet! And I lost!”

“Heh.” Jun just laughed at me, and made no motion to do anything more so I scurried back into the bathroom to battle my hair.

I ended up needing to wet it back down just to be able to style it again.

“You know it’s funny. You don’t really do makeup or anything, but you’re pretty protective of your hair style.” Jun said from the kitchen as he watched me wrestle my hair with a brush desperately trying not to get it stuck in the mess of my hair.

“I’m plenty girly!”

Jun just gave me a look of disbelief. Hey! That’s so mean!

“Motoko I’ve seen you wear the same leotard for days on end before.”

I paused in utter betrayal! I was programming then! I was too busy for things like… Showering… Or changing clothes…

“We never speak of this again, or I tell everyone about the bed burrito.”

He blinked. Considering. Then nodded. Turning around and walking away like the conversation never happened.

Good.

Some things should just be kept between siblings.

—--

“Wow. I’m totally impressed, Jun-nii! Truly this is the best place ever!”

“Your sarcasm isn’t really necessary.” He grumbled at me as we looked at the building.

Funnily enough, we were just down the street from the apartments that I cleared the other night. The same tutorial Scav den from the game. Just north, along the same road I had leapt over while escaping Jun was a bunch of apartment buildings all smashed together into a mess.

Of course the entrance was a big red Torri Gate. That and everything was covered in graffiti Tigers.

If you missed the fact this was Tyger Claw Territory.

“Just come look at the apartments, okay? They are big. Bigger than our current place, and they are safe.”

“I’m playing along for now, mostly because I love you, and want to spend time with you, but I’m not interested.” I informed him, which to my secret delight earned me a heavy hand ruffling my hair a little.

I swiped a punch at him in retaliation of course, but it was still nice.

“C’mon let’s see the place before anything else. You might like it. We’ll have neighbors that aren’t Ms. Kagura.” He offered and I blinked before remembering the old lady that was our neighbor on our floor.

“Oh right. I forgot about her.”

“Well there will be some kids our age here. So maybe someone you actually get along with. Someone to add to your little group?”

“Yeah sure Jun.” I agreed without actually agreeing. If they lived here they would be TC brats… Okay that’s not a good excuse considering most of my friends were just that, but they were probably gonks.

My decision not to like the situation I was stuck in, had Jun rolling his eyes as I shot grumpy looks at him constantly.

We walked into the building from a side entrance through a shop into a hallway that led to a dozen closed doors. Jun led us to an elevator and then hit the twenty-seventh floor.

Finally we hit the floor, and I had to admit. The moment the doors opened I did have to quirk an eyebrow. The elevator entrance area was clean.

Like actually clean.

It was actually a surprise I was so used to the decaying squalor, I barely noticed it anymore.

Yet here, there were clean carpets. White walls which did have Tyger Claw stuff on it, but it was paintings, instead of just graffiti.

“I told you Fujimura-sama owns this floor and rents it out to Tyger Claws. You think he would put up with a messy space?”

I scoffed but followed Jun down the hall. I noticed the security without a thought. Ninjutsu and Netrunning meant I couldn’t help but notice it.

Quality cameras, security features on every door. A hidden HMG turret in the roof inside the elevator entrance way.

Okay it was definitely more secure than our previous place.

There we only had security gates on the stairs which didn’t do much since the elevators were still open access.

“This is it.” Jun said suddenly as he stopped in front of a room. 2704.Jun looked to me like he was expecting some interest, but I had literally been in plenty of apartments over the last few days.

Mostly killing Scavs, but the point stood.

He looked a little bummed that I was remaining disinterested as he opened the door.

The apartment was actually pretty big.

It opened into a large living room. Something we didn’t really have in our place. It even had one of those round media couches indented into the floor in the corner.

There was a small inset nearby that had a fridge, and a pseudo kitchenette. Just without any of the normal stuff in a kitchen, because people don’t cook in Cyberpunk.

More like they were pushed to not cook, but that wasn’t something I was going to focus on right now.

The Bathroom still didn’t have an actual door.

Fucking Cyberpunk. I swear to god doors on bathrooms were normal! Why did no one have a damn…

I sighed letting the irritation go. I was still finding myself easily riled up since the attack. It was obvious the attack hadn’t exactly left me my usual self. I took a deep breath and let it out, feeling arctic for a moment, as I steadied my heart and then breathed normally.

Jun was wandering around looking around the place with a happy smile on his face.

Dammit. Jun wanted to move didn’t he?

The brush with returning Cyberpsychosis seemed to have washed off his back after everything. Which was good, but it did kind of piss me off, because it meant Jun was actually…

Jun was actually happy looking around this apartment. It wasn’t faked, or something he was trying to convince me.

This was something he wanted.

I forgot.

People in Night City cared about reputation. Reputation was important. And the way you showed off your rep was owning things.

Fast cars, fancy clothes, lots of chrome.

A big apartment.

Our place was kinda a shithole. I knew that. I just… I had grown comfy. It was security. Safety like a blanket.

I was going to have to be the mature one. Jun deserved that. Jun deserved to be able to have a nice big apartment with room to actually move, and fancy stuff.

He was a teenager taking care of his kid sister. His kid sister that shouldn’t be throwing a fucking tantrum like an actual teenager about moving into a bigger, fancier, more secure apartment.

Dammit. I hated when my face was rubbed in the negative effects of my own childishness. I mean… I wasn’t going to change, but at least I could acknowledge when it caused problems.

There actually was more than one room here. I guess I really would have my own room. Jun was distracted with checking out the entertainment system, acting like the teenager he was as I checked the rooms.

“I call dibs on this one!” I call out, knowing the reaction it would get.

“That’s the bigger room!” Jun yelped as he charged at me, and I broke the smile on my face before he could see it.

There would be a fight, I would likely be sat on for a while, and in the end Jun would ‘earn’ his master bedroom. But it was better this way.

Because as much as I was focused on my own happiness. I wanted Jun the big gonk to be happy too, and maybe… Maybe it was time to let him have that happiness without his needy, childish sister getting in the way.