Ghost in the City

“Yeah, alright, fine.” Malcolm grumbled as he took off the control band and huffed at all of us. It had taken a bit of urging to get him to actually stop stomping around in the Minotaur.

“So, The reason we are still here, and not heading straight back to the city. I found something. The reason the Wraiths were able to down the Arasaka AV? The specific one loaded up with high end equipment?”

I noticed Hiromi perk up at that, although information wasn’t part of the gig her dad had sent us on, she was always looking for a bonus.

“Well the reason we are waiting here is because I called in V, she works for Arasaka Counter Intel. Because under the substation we were at, there was a Militech listening post.” I dropped the bombshell, and I could tell Malcolm and Ichi were just kinda taking in the information without much response, but Hiromi went still.

“Wait… A listening post!?”

“Yeah. Full tracking, conversations, AV’s, hell. They were even tracking space lift offs. I think it was made just before the Unification War. To track Night City. But then Arasaka came back, and they either forgot about it… Or just left it running in secret.”

“Fuck.” Hiromi cursed as she took that in. “Wait you said… Counter Intel? She isn’t going to like, flatline us right?”

“No, I trust V. She’s good people… Mostly. Just let me do the talking and pretend you don’t know anything. But you deserve to know what’s going on. You’re my team after all.”

“Arasaka Counter Intel… Good people?” Malcolm faux whispered to Ichi who just elbowed him to shut up. Ichi obviously realized that with Hiromi’s reaction it must be a big deal.

“Honestly? Depends on V, and her boss I guess. But something like this? Tracking Arasaka air traffic to even keep an eye on their secret AV stuff? Yeah this is super big. Either huge payday… Or they try to quiet all of us.” I answered with a shrug.

I didn’t think V would go along with that, but it was something I had to consider. Fucking Night City.

“I should call my dad then. He can-”

“No! Hiromi. We don’t know what the listening post can pick up. No calls about this. I waited until we were here before I even sent a text to V and it was super vague.” I cut Hiromi off urgently.

She looked grumbly for a moment before nodded. “Yeah that’s smart, but I’ll call him in an instant if some CI bitch starts making trouble!” She says and I just laugh, because Corpo V was such a bitch!

But she was a likable bitch.

“Okay. Motoko this is your… Choom. I’ll leave it to you.” Hiromi decided with a nod and I smiled in relief.

“Thanks Hiromi. I promise she won’t disappoint. I think we should tell your dad once we head back into the city. Bringing Counter Intel is just smart, so getting your dad up to speed, we could spread the rep for the find a bit I think?”

“Hmph! Of course! Dad is the one that created this gig, so anything we find should go to him first!”

“So… That’s it right?” Malcolm cut in. After Hiromi’s exclamation. I looked to him curiously but shrugged my shoulders.

“Yeah that was the whole thing.”

“Great! Dibs on finishing my turn with the kill bot!”

“It’s not a kill bot, it’s an Arasaka Brand Minotaur!” Hiromi snapped, but everyone ignored her.

“Aww. I wanted my turn next.” I whined.

Oh well. It was going to be mine soon regardless. Someone had to go into the programming, clear up all the Arasaka back doors, and Wraith trash, and then repaint it so it didn’t have Arasaka all over it. ṜÁ𐌽ÔᛒƐŞ

I was thinking… Blue, and white?

Heh.

—---

I did finally get another turn to play with the Minotaur, and then had been kicked off by Ichi when my time was up without preamble.

It had switched between all of us until we had nearly drained the CHOOH2 tank. In the end we put it away and switched, at Hiromi’s demand to start categorizing our loot.

I was just finishing packing up a crate that was now actually ordered instead of just stuffed with junk when I heard the revving of a large engine pulling up to our side of Dakota’s garage.

For some reason things around here had been quiet since we brought out the Minotaur and had it stomping around.

The Chevillon Emperor pulled up and I relaxed, noticing not only the familiar redhead at the wheel, but that there were no Arasaka markings on it.

“Hey guys! V’s here!” I called out deeper into the truck as I jumped down and hurried over noticing V didn’t look pleased, her sunglasses dipping down her nose showing me a glaring set of glowing optics.

“Kid. Not sure what the fuck this is all about, but I want answers, and fast.”

“Let me get in, and let’s talk.” I told her. Waving at my chooms who were wondering what to do as I ran to the other side of her big ass truck.

Never been in one of these. I slipped into the truck noticing the interior was expensive. Like super expensive. I shook it off and only when the door was closed did I start. Pulling out the shard from my socket and handing it over.

“Found something while on this Arasaka gig. Finding the loot from an Arasaka AV that was taken down in the badlands. Everything went smooth, found the guy who did it, started clearing him out… Only he was acting weird. Holding up in a place that he had no reason to settle. Turns out. He found a Militech NUSA listening post, Unification war era, that’s been watching NC ever since. Including Arasaka flights in and out of the city.” As I spoke V had slipped in the shard and was looking at the pictures of what I had taken that I had saved just for her.

“Jesus Christ.”

“Yeah. I have no idea if anyone is actually still listening, or it’s just all automated, so I couldn’t make any direct calls about it. I gathered some data, and brought you out.”

V’s eyes blinked after a few more moments and she looked at me. “You called me. Why? You could have just turned this into Mitsunashi, and been done with it.”

“Because last I checked V, finding a NUSA listening post is a Counter Intelligence thing, and it would be a huge win for you… Right?”

She looked at me for a while, an intense look, her optics practically whirling as they seemed to try and find something.

“Yeah. It’ll help a lot. At least it’ll keep Jenkins from flatlining me for running out of the city suddenly. He probably thinks I’m going off reservation or something. I’m going to need to see this listening post.”

“Yeah. That’s why I called you before we went back to the city. My ride or yours?”

“As much as I would prefer it. Let’s take yours. Too easy for this thing to be traced back to Arasaka.” V muttered as she stepped out, and I followed. Hiromi walked up and I waved her up.

“Taking V back to the substation. Sit tight for a bit?”

“It’s fine Motoko. Go with the scary Counter Intel lady. We’ll keep our loot safe.” Malcolm interrupted before Hiromi could, throwing an arm over her shoulder and giving me a thumbs up.

Hiromi elbowed him but nodded to me as she stalked off.

“Is… Everything okay?” I asked confused.

“Don’t worry about it!” Malcolm called out his thumb still up so I quickly returned it awkwardly as I closed my Quadra’s car door.

“You little chooms up to something?”

“No? At least I don’t think so. I think they’re just messing with me. Don’t worry about it. They’re cool V. I promise. I trust them.”

The older woman just scoffed, but then we were off. Driving out of Dakota’s garage rest stop.

—--

The drive was quiet, small talk wasn’t something V wanted to do, like at all.

I had eventually run out of anything to actually talk about so I just turned on the radio to Morro Rock, and was thankful that a Samurai song was playing. As that seemed to ease tensions. Both of us quietly rocked out to the radio as I drove the long way out to the electrical substation.

Finally though we pulled over the hill that blocked it from view, and I could see V sit up as the place was a ghost town.

Dakota had really only taken the vehicles, and hadn’t wanted anything else like tents or anything. So the place was abandoned, dead left to rot in the sun.

As I pulled up to the station. I could see V looking around it, eyes narrowed.

“The top of the station. That’s where all of the Wraiths were killed from. Assault Rifle?”

“A Copperhead, and you’re right! I was up there. Good catch. Or was it some crime scene program or something?”

“You did this-No. That makes sense. Sneaky fuck.” She mumbled the last bit and I laughed at her smiling happily at her remembering. Finally parking we stepped out and I waved at her to follow as I led her inside, past the dusty room into the little office. I didn’t need to as I already had access, but I opened the desk cupboard that had the hidden keypad, and then called up the elevator.

“I’ll need access.”

“Sure. I’ll give you the code.” I agreed as I followed her into the elevator, she hadn’t even hesitated before entering.

“How did the Wraiths find this place?” She asked me, and I just had to shrug.

“I don’t know. None of them had a shard with all their history laid out with dates or something for me.” I said almost laughing at the fact the game did that all the time. She nodded without a word, and when the door opened she was first out. Walking straight in, looking over the dead bodies with a grimace, but heading around, checking it out.

I just settled onto the table in the center and watched as she first accessed the system. She stared at the display of the entirety of Night City with AV’s marked. It did have a few other things as well. But I didn’t know what they were, and didn’t really care.

V either did, or just thought the info was valuable regardless. She tried to pull a shard out of her neck but stopped.

“Can I download this data without an alert going out?” She asked me suddenly and I jerked up and hurried over.

“Let’s find out.” I muttered, quickly snatching a chair and rolling into spot as I began accessing it, and checking what this system was taking in, and putting out.

“Maybe. Hold up, I might need to partition a drive though.” I mutter, there was definitely some sort of NUSA spyware installed on these, but I was pretty sure I could put all the data it had saved into one of the laptops already accessed by the system and then just get the system to report it as a hardware failure and forget it ever existed. Letting us take it out without a problem.

“Okay that one.” I pointed across the room. “Unplug that laptop before anything, but start it up. I gave you credentials to get in. User: V Pass: Hacked. Capital H.” I informed her, as I continued working on making sure the system wouldn’t try to connect to it again, if I could get it to accept the laptop was damaged and so destroyed even if NUSA decided to look into this place they would never know it was missing.

“Motoko. Can you get this data sent to another location, without Militech noticing?” V asked, and I grimaced.

“That… I don’t know V. Honestly. I’m good, my net stealth is pretty good, but I would definitely be worried I could fuck it up. Better I think for you guys to maybe send a team over later to make your own hidden connection. I know you have good netrunners. Better than I am.”

V hesitated, like she wanted to argue before she sighed and nodded. “Yeah, better not to push our luck. I got this at least.” She said, patting the laptop. “This is big Motoko. You… I owe you one for calling me in. This was definitely worth the trouble… Thanks.” She finally added at the end and I could feel my smile spreading.

“You V. My choom. Are very welcome.” I said, continuing to grin directly at her, until she stopped looking thankful and just started looking irritated.

“Alright. C’mon I need to get back.”

“Yep!”

—---

V wasn’t much more talkative on the way back, and as soon as I dropped her off, she was off, power striding straight to her truck, and then away.

It was okay though, because to my shock as we pulled up she had sent a big dump of eddies into my account without a word about it.

I guess that was her way of paying for the info?

Well I was going to forgive her, because I was honestly pretty tired. I wanted to go home.

“Alright chooms. I’m back!” I called out after I watched V race away. “Tell me nothing big happened?”

“Nothing big happened. It was boring. Hiromi did buy some more CHOOH2 to power up the Minotaur though. That was cool.” Ichi told me from the back of his van, which was so packed to the brim the poor boy had to sit on the roof.

“They didn’t break it did they?” I questioned a little haunted, please don’t let my new toy get broken already!

“No, it’s fine. C’mon I want to get out of here. Unload the loot, somewhere, and head home for a shower, a meal, and a nap in that order.” Ichi called out looking as done with the desert as I was.

“Ichi, I literally couldn’t have put it better myself.”

We quickly found Malcolm and Hiromi still playing with the Minotaur, although from the looks of the targets of old oil cans they had set up, I had a feeling those guns would be a whole lot emptier than they had been before. Sighing without any heat I forced them to pack up and we all got back on the road.

The drive to Night City was long but quiet. The big old Behemoth rumbled along, completely uncaring at the slightly rough roads, despite the heavy load we were hauling. It definitely wasn’t the heaviest load ever carried by this beast. So it was no problem.

It was a little lonely though. All of us were in different vehicles to help out. Ichi and I hauled the big stuff. While Hiromi and Malcolm both raced around us, Hiromi in my Quadra, while Malcolm used his newly looted Wraith Shion.

And then hours later we were pulling into a storage yard, one Hiromi had set up in advance, and one that was familiar.

I guess Hiromi still had no issue calling up Fujimura, because it was that same TC storage lot.

With a sigh, I pulled in, parked, and all four of us got to work hauling out loot from the vehicles. Once everything was stored away and all four of us collapsed sweaty into chairs gathered from around the lot.

“Maybe… Maybe there is such a thing as too much loot?” I whispered to myself before just shaking it away.

No, not that was obviously some sort of heresy. More loot was always better.

“I just want, like… the biggest cheeseburger.” Malcolm aired with a sigh.

“I wouldn’t mind a burger.” I agreed and looked to Hiromi and Ichi who either shrugged or nodded.

“Preem.”

“We just have one last thing to do, I’m afraid.” I mentioned earning a new round of moans as I pointed. “What are we doing with this thing? Hiromi?”

“Uuuugh.” She moaned at me. “As the leader of Section 9- Hey!” She flinched at my kick, but she was smiling at me teasingly regardless. “As the manager of personnel, of Section 9. Vehicles obviously fall under our vehicle and driver specialist. So Ichi what do we do with this thing?”

“Nope, that’s not my gig. I’m the Light vehicle, and transport specialist. Heavy vehicles are out of my wheelhouse. Malcolm! This i-Ow!”

“Don’t even.” Malcolm grumbled having punched Ichi in the shoulder. “I have no idea what to do with a truck that big. That thing is huge. Sell it?”

“Maybe we should keep it? If we do more badlands gigs like this… I mean. We needed the transport lift.” I offered, but Hiromi just groaned at me.

“We don’t have any place to put it! Look at that thing!”

“Park it out in the badlands somewhere?”

“That’ll just get it klepped Malcolm.” Ichi answered instantly. “Maybe… Maybe we just buy a space for it? I mean there are industrial spaces… Hiromi couldn’t we like… Rent it to a transport company?”

The girl’s eyes squinted. “Yeeees?” She answered eventually very unconvincingly. “Just find a place for it for a few days. If it gets klepped then it’s just one less problem for us.”

“Oh! I can fix that actually.” I muttered reaching into the back of my belt. Before the gig had started I had bought two new pouches, one for my TachiCama, and one for my Trackers.

I popped a tracker out and flashed it to my chooms before walking up to the Behemoth and finding a good hidden spot, basically climbing on top of the truck and finding a place it would secure in nicely, before returning.

“What was that?”

“I made a tracker! And a little camera! I call these TachiCama!” I proclaimed revealing my cute little spy cameras! “See they got cute little grabby hands! And the color scheme is sooo cute!” I gushed as I offered it to my chooms, definitely not stuffing it into their faces with a bit too much force.

“That’s… Preem? Motoko.” Ichi replied first looking to Hiromi and Malcolm for backup, but Hiromi was just smiling, and so Malcolm was the next to comment.

“Sooo… Spy Cameras huh? That’s useful. Can I get one?”

“I made enough for everyone! I got a set of tracker and TachiCama for everyone! I was on a bit of a binge with stuff just before the gig. Oh! I have them in my trunk!” I ran to the Quadra and found the box of stuff I had brought along. I had meant to give it to everyone, but the long drive had had it slip my mind.

After passing out the new equipment, I sat back down and smiled as my chooms looked over the new gadgets.

“Alright, I see how these would be useful… Why not just buy some though?’ Hiromi asked, and I just rolled my eyes. Of course Hiromi would want to just buy some off the shelf stuff.

“Cause, since I bought, crafted, and programmed them. I know they are safe. I’ll make some improvements eventually. I want to make a Daemon to run the Tachikoma so they can actively look around and maybe even crawl along walls… Yeah. That would be pretty useful.” I remembered Star Wars had little spy droids that were incredibly effective every time they appeared, but almost never did because they were too good.

I wanted that sort of thing!

But then again eventually I would have Tachikoma!

“Okay so… We have a tracker on the truck. We leave it somewhere mostly secure for now and call it good?”

“I’m literally just going to park it out on the street. Fuck driving that thing around any more than I have to. Ichi you need to learn how to drive a Behemoth! This is a command!” I pointed at him, and he did a snort laugh, but he nodded.

“Alright. I’ll get some practice or something… Honestly. Motoko since you know how. You can teach me.”

“Ehhhh. I hate teaching thoooough.” I whined, but I did eventually deflate and nod. “Alright. I’ll give you a run down. Let’s go.”

“Wait now?”

“Ichi. We gotta move it, and Fujimura will kill us for leaving that thing in his lot. Now or never. C’mon! Faster we finish, the faster we can go for burgers!”

—--

Ichi only stalled out, twice, and rammed into a fence three times! Not bad! It wasn’t Fujimura’s fence, so no one really cared.

Burgers were a delight and we all left a massive mess in the booth of sand and dirt, but I dropped a big tip as well as paying, and the waitress seemed to forgive us.

After that, we all finally split up. Hiromi with the loot for her dad, headed home. Malcolm, to go get his new car properly repainted, and Ichi just went home, with a to go order for his Grandma. I even paid for it, cause that’s just sweet.

I went home. Immediately walked into the shower and just. Sat there. I had taken off my belts and holsters, and my boots but everything else was already so dirty, that a little water wasn’t going to hurt it.

Slowly I stripped out of the muddy jeans. My uncomfortably sand filled Leotard, and everything else leaving me to finally feel free of the desert for the first time in two days.

Another reason I couldn’t be a nomad. I didn’t know how Panam did it.

“Motoko?”

“Jun! I’m back! Taking a shower!”

“Alright! Take your time!” Jun sounded happy through the stupid beads as he walked back to the living room and I finally got around to washing myself clean. Soaps and shampoo lathered up to clean me all over.

Once I was fully done. I grabbed my stuff and chucked it into the washer, my holsters would need some attention later, but for now I was pulling the brat card and just leaving them on the floor. A towel and a hurried trip across the apartment later to my room. I got some new clothes and finally felt like a human again.

Stepping out of my room to see Jun still on the couch, as I dried my hair was nice and I plopped down next to him, and before he could say anything I burst into chatter. Telling him everything about the gig, even about the listening post.

The whole time he was a good listener. Not talking, but made interested noises as I explained the fights and the interesting bits, until the very end.

“That sounds like a crazy couple days Imouto.” He finally decided on, then he reached out and patted me on the head, and I wasn’t going to refuse any attention right now. I slumped over and settled my head on his thigh, using the towel as a pillow and demanded more attention.

I would sit through one of Jun’s stupid tv shows right now. For him of course. He sometimes needed some physical affection.

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