Ghost in the City

Chapter 208

“Yo!” I greeted the group of classy Arasaka students all wearing their fancy uniforms as I walked up.

“Motoko!” Hiromi cheered her previous flat look shifting into the smile I was so familiar with.

“Hey Hiromi. Hey David. How’re you?” I asked, the boy had been standing beside Hiromi.

“Who is this trash?” Answered another boy instead, surprising me. I looked over and…

“Wow, that's a shitty haircut. You should fire your hairdresser.” I said instantly, before I could think on it, and then I blinked, wait wasn’t that David’s Bully. Kat… Katsu? Katsu-

“See Katsuo, even someone off the street instantly knows your haircut is shit.” Hiromi said, and I could see the boy's face twitch as rage ran over his features.

“Shut your mouth Mitsunashi! You dumb whore, the onl-” He was cut off as I stepped forward and suddenly he was lifted off his feet.

“Apologize.” I demanded simply, my voice calm as I held the boy by his jacket's Lapels.

“Wha- Let go of me your street bitch! Do you have any idea who I am?” He argued and I could see his chooms, two stooges that previously had his back had stepped back.

A moment later he lashed out.

Slow, weak.

I ducked his punch if you could call it that, and dropped him, grabbing his wrist and twisted. When I had his arm held behind his back I reached out and grabbed him by his shitty bowl cut mullet thing.

Then I forced him to stare right into Hiromi’s face.

“Apologize to Hiromi for calling her a whore. That was rude.” I said simply, and Hiromi looked tied between wanting to stop me, and wanting to egg me on.

In the end, I didn’t get what I wanted, as two men dressed in Arasaka suits stepped forward from the building.

Dammit.

They approached calmly, showing no rush, but also complete intent. I caught them quickly thanks to my Kiroshi, but while Katsuo was hissing and cussing me out, he didn’t notice until everyone else turned to the two men.

“Let him go.” I was threatened, and I made no move to release the brat, who now noticed he had saviors.

“Kill this street rat! Get her filthy hands off me!” Katsuo yelled, and I noticed his friends had come back forward looking ready to ‘help’ by looming.

Menacingly. I’m sure.

But the two guards had all my attention.

“Wait!” Hiromi called out and leapt forward, getting between me and them. “This is my Bodyguard, she was defending me. So this matter is resolved. Motoko release Katsuo.”

I did so and he stumbled forward for a moment before rising up.

“Ms. Mitsunashi. There is to be no problems on Arasaka Tower Property.”

“I understand. I believe the issue is resolved.”

The two men looked from Hiromi to me, and I could see it in their posture. Both had either cyberware or glasses hiding their eyes, but they were thinking of making something of it.

But then as they looked at me, and scanned me suddenly they shifted and nodded.

“Very well.” And both turned to walk away. I blinked actually surprised. I expected there to be-

“Wait! I am Katsuo Tanaka! I demand you to do something! Or my father will hear of this!” He said not quite shrieking, but it was close.

“The matter is resolved.” One of the guards said and I continued to be surprised.

Huh.

“Well since that’s been resolved. Let’s go Motoko!” Hiromi said with a fake smile on her face as she ignored Katsuo who was looking at the retreating backs of the guards with real anger.

I followed along, and stopped when David was still just standing there, under the three gonks glares.

“David. Let’s go choom.” I said and he twitched a bit at his name, but decided to walk after us.

“I didn’t really intend for David to come.” Hiromi whispered to me, and I just smiled at her.

“Can’t just leave him there. I think Katsuo was going to start screaming.”

“Nah, he’s full of hot air, and his dad doesn’t really care that much. Not that it stops him from name dropping him whenever he can.” Hiromi spoke but I shrugged, turning to David who was walking behind us with hesitant steps.

“Hungry? Hiromi and I were going to get some lunch.”

“Ah… I could eat?” That taller boy offered a bit awkwardly.

“Preem! Let’s find something! My treat!”

“Then I can definitely eat.” He said almost too quickly and I chuckled as I turned and started searching for food.

—--

“So those guards didn’t shoot me.”

“Of course they didn’t!” Hiromi argued as we settled around a bench in the little park area to eat.

“Yeah it’s weird.” David offered and I smiled as at least one of the people that go to Arasaka Academy understands exactly how untrustworthy Arasaka is.

“It’s not!”

“They scanned me and decided to leave me alone which is a bit weird.” I offered as I took a bite of my lunch.

“Hmm. Maybe your Counter Intel… Contact?”

“V?” I asked suddenly and blinked… That was certainly possible, so I decided to find out.

*Motoko: Hey, just had a minor run in with some Arasaka Security outside the tower, they scanned me and decided to drop it. Was that you?*

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I blinked away the text I just sent to V, and looked over at our newest guest.

“How’s work been David? Making Eddies?”

“Some. Not so much recently, things have been slow… You uh. Doing anymore Ghost BD’s?”

“Oh.” I realized at that, It had been a while since I’ve bothered to record any BD’s that I would actually want to hand off.

The fact was, most of the gigs I had done recently had been the TC and 6th Street ones, or when Kang Tao attacked us, and fact was, I didn’t want to sell a BD of me hitting a corp. That just ran too much risk of the BD’s being taken as an insult, or something.

“I’ll have to prep some more. I hadn’t really been thinking about them.”

“Me either.” Hiromi added with a shrug. “Business has been good, so I wasn't pushing you for more.”

“Hmm. Maybe our next gig then.” I decided and Hiromi nodded looking happy as ever at the idea we might make more eddies.

“Preem.” David whispered a bit breathily, and then I looked to David.

He might go a bit overboard with the Sandy, but he had become an acceptable Solo. His experience had shown through in a lot of ways.

Should I try to bring him in? I’m sure Rebecca would thank me, well… Maybe. There was no telling if Rebecca would have the same thoughts about him she had in the anime.

People were funny like that.

But then I shook it off. I wasn’t really looking to hire just another Solo to Section 9. I’d be more likely to try and hire Lucy if anything. Another netrunner would be nice.

Sorry David, if you want to be an Edgerunner, it won’t be because of me, or a Sandy this time. But I did plan on making sure Gloria survived. I’d already decided to do that much in exchange for making sure that Sandy ended up in my hands.

I hummed a little thinking on it.

“Motoko?”

“Just thinking about what day it is.” I answered Hiromi’s question. It would happen in the next couple months at least. I’d have to set up a few things to make sure I didn’t miss it. Luckily it was pretty unlikely anything I had done would change what’s his face from being the test dummy for the Prototype Sandy that would drive him to Cyberpsychosis.

All I would have to do is set up some Daemons to alert me for specific Cyberpsycho attacks, and maybe a camera or two right here in City Center.

That would be enough. I’d just have to be there before Gloria makes a call to Maine to plan to sell it off. I hummed feeling a smile cross my lips as I imagined having such a nova piece of tech.

Aaah! I wanted to be perfect! And that might just be the first big step towards getting there

—--

“What are you doing?” Jun asked as he got home and I looked up from the living room table where I was watching paint dry.

“The most boring thing in the world. Welcome home Jun-nii.”

“Hmm.” He responded with a suspicious noise as he entered the apartment and started getting comfortable throwing his jacket over the back of the couch and heading for the fridge.

“What?”

“You don’t usually call me Jun-nii anymore. Are you trying to butter me up for something?”

“Pfft.” I responded, breaking into snickers at his words. “No, I’m good. I just felt like it was right. I talked to Alice.”

“Oh yeah?” He asked, suddenly interested as he poked his head out of the fridge.

“Did a jam session with her and her band last night. They were nice enough, they invited me to play with them on their gig this weekend. They needed a temp.”

“Did you say yes? You should say yes!” He said ignoring the fridge and hurrying over.

“Gonk. I already said I would, they paid me in a nice Guitar.” I explained waving at the Orphean. “It was broken, so I’ve been fixing it all day.” I explained and Jun was suddenly there, grabbing me up and lifting me off the couch.

“Motoko!”

“Hey! Idiot! Watch the guitar!” I growled as he spun me around, if he smashed me into the guitar after I just spent all this time fixing it I was going to be pissed!

“You’re gonna be an awesome Rockerboy!”

“Shut up! Alice’s band sucks, and so do you! I’m just doing it because I figured I might as well. Idiot!”

“I’m so happy! When is the gig? I want to come?”

“Ugh, yeah I know. I’m sure Alice would have invited you anyways.” I grumbled and Jun finally let me down as I stood on the couch glaring at Jun for once actually being almost as tall as him.

“I’ll come to see you play.” He assured me with a big goofy, stupid, idiot, gonk smile.

“Do what you want. Now get out of the way, the paint is still drying.” I told him and made sure he wasn’t touching the guitar with his legs or something.

—--

Finally that night I put the guitar back together and hooked it up to the amp. The guitar was newly painted. I smirked at the colors. White and Blue. “It’s a TachiGuitar!” I whispered to myself so Jun wouldn’t hear and giggled at the thought.

But then I took a breath and slowly adjusted the volume, and the tone knobs. Altering the sound a bit, as I started strumming.

A few more adjustments, and I had the sound as I wanted for the song I was going to play, and then started up Never Fade Away.

I made it halfway through the song before stopping and making some more adjustments. The pickups on the treble side were a bit low, so I adjusted them and went back to it. The smooth sound of Samurai came out and I couldn’t help but get drawn into the song, singing along softly as I played and gave the repaired guitar a bit of a chance to stretch its legs.

“Yep. Sounds good.” I muttered looking at the guitar and I couldn’t help but be a little irritated at how much better the sound was.

I’d have to redo a ton of songs now!

Grumbling, I rose up and stretched. Now I had some other work to do.

I headed into my room, and pulled up my CAD program and got to work on another project I had put on the back burner.

My Tachikoma had proven itself on a gig, and I needed to keep improving them, and getting them ready.

Wheels.

I had started the project to make the Tachikoma more mobile but had gotten side tracked with all the shit that kept happening.

So I settled in and started adjusting the design. The same problem hit me though. The Tachikoma was already too compact. I couldn’t fit more things into the legs without removing functionality that was already there.

At least not yet.

I hadn’t had any idea how to get around the problem but that had been a while ago. I had weeks to sleep on it, and I came up with an idea.

I started work on a new device. A battery pack, a small electric motor and a wheel.

And a place for the Tachikoma to lock its feet in, so that it could drive around, equipping the wheels, or losing them as needed.

Detachable wheel modules.

I hummed pleased with the idea as I went to work. I would need to do some slight modification on the grippers of the Tachikoma, but after that, I could just manufacture the wheels and the Tachi would have some temporary mobility.

I hummed some more as I went to work.

Ignoring the soft drip of alerts that came through as I worked.

—--

“Okay, so test one on the Tachikoma Wheel extensions.” I whispered to myself as I placed the Tachikoma on the floor of the living room, and then settled in cross legged behind it.

With a nudge I prompted the Tachikoma to use the newly installed hardware, and software drivers and a moment later the quickly noise of tiny engines activated and the Tachikoma started rolling forward,

Then about .5 seconds after that the engines went to absolutely max RPM and the Tachikoma shot off losing control of the torque and suddenly back wheels shot out from under the poor thing and it flipped onto its back.

I stared at it.

It stared at everything, its tiny little optic looking around as the wheels continued buzzing at max speed.

I quickly ordered it to stop, before it burned out the motors, and pulled up the laptop.

Going to have to work on that.

—--

“No, no that’s the-Fridge…”

—--

“Well got that dent buffed out, okay let’s try-No slow down that’s the… Shrine… Whew. Nothing was broken.”

—--

“Okay. Trial nineteen. I’ve adjusted the Tachikoma’s internal speedometer, which isn’t something it even had before, but now that it can internalize how fast it’s going, it should… Should! Work.” I set the Tachikoma down and it wheeled forward looking around, then it started moving not nearly as fast as before, but soon enough it was driving around the apartment, and after a minute of it not smashing into anything I relaxed.

And then winced as it took a turn going full speed without bothering to brake or slow down.

Hmm… the Tachikoma… Needed driving lessons… Actually! That was doable!

I scooped up the Tachikoma and hurried over to the entertainment system. There was something… Here!

Malcolm and Ichi had played a racing game! I quickly paid the eddies for the subscription to the racing game, and set up an account.

Hmm, normally it was a VR game, and the Tachikoma wouldn’t really interact with that right, but I was a netrunner!

Grabbing my laptop I started programming a VR emulation program for the Tachikoma. Which wasn’t hard. I was already dropping them into my Net Lobby, so this was just a emulation of that. I did have to set up the laptop to run the emulation though as the Tachikoma’s hardware wasn’t strong enough on its own.

I still needed to get it some upgrades.

Shaking that off, I set it up so the Tachikoma was dropped into the VR, and did a few clicks.

The game had a race practice sim. So I set it up, and added some code so the Tachikoma would know how to restart the practice. With that I looked at the laptop where an emulation of the VR was displaying and watched as the Tachikoma just sat there in its little beat up Thorton Galena starter car.

The ghostly race instructor was already off, taking clean racing lines as it disappeared.

But the Tachikoma just sat there.

I reached over and hit the gas for a second, and the car jerked forward, and the Tachikoma finally reacted.

The virtual wheel turned all the way around and it hit the gas.

I watched as the Tachikoma spun in circles for a minute before realizing it wasn’t quite understanding the instructions.

I reset the track and told it to follow the Ghost.

It sort of started out, and then fumbled into a wall… But it was learning now.

Rising up I stretched, enjoying the feeling of the muscles between my shoulders extending out. Time to get some lunch.