Ghost in the City

Once my chooms were all suited up I disappeared into my room after pushing Hiromi out to get changed myself. Of course I had the actual Netrunner undersuit!

So instead of pants and armored jacket, I slipped on a suit, leaving me in skintight flexible armor! Then I threw on the boots, and chest rig. I had to make some quick adjustments for the faulds since I wasn’t wearing the silly pants that came with it, and instead wrapped the straps around my legs with some velcro-like material I had.

Then I adjusted the chest rig, threw on the armored gloves, and then the helmet.

I stalked out of my room and stood before my mostly still armored chooms. Malcolm had taken off his helmet to eat, and Hiromi was half slid out of her chest rig.

“And this is what it will look like when you guys stop being weird and put on the skin tight armored netrunner suit!” I proclaimed showing off the much tighter fit of the armor and my improved maneuverability!

“Pass.”

“Hard pass.”

“I don’t mind you using it, but I like pants.” Hiromi added and I huffed at all of them.

“Fine! Wear your subpar armor!” I then promptly walked over and flopped onto the couch and wiggled to get my helmet off too.

“Yeah alright.” Ichi muttered lazily, reaching over and throwing me a back of some sort of pseudo potato chips I pulled from a vending machine.

“What are we watching?” The TV was on, and Ichi and Malcolm were sort of zoned out watching it.

“Some comedy show thing? Not sure. Apparently Ichi wants to watch Watson Whore after.”

“I didn’t say that!” He snapped at Hiromi looking a little red.

“Well I don’t think I really want to watch that… Sorry Ichi.”

“It’s fine! I didn’t say I wanted to. Only that it was coming on next!”

“And then he refused to let us change the channel.” Hiromi whispered into my ear, and I giggled.

I quickly changed the channel through the expedited power of I had hacked all of the entertainment system forever ago.

Then we just sort of vegged out in full kit.

—--

“I don’t want to know.”

“I do! This looks like the weirdest start to some XBD I’ve ever seen!” Akari called out right behind Jun as they both walked in and stopped looking at the pile of armored teens spread across the couch.

“Don’t say that!” I shrieked blushing red at Akari who instantly broke into her cackling laugh at my outrage. My chooms were all flushing at the idea too!

“Is that your new armor? The one you klept from the Arasaka shipment?” Jun asked but Hiromi jumped in.

“We gathered all of this completely legally as per our contract with Arasaka management in recovery of the critical data that was stolen from their klepped shipment.”

Jun just blinked and nodded slowly as if he understood.

“Wow she is a little corpo aint she?” Akari asked, and Jun just nodded. Ignoring how Hiromi was pouting, I decided to show off. Standing up and resettling the helmet back on my head.

“So what do you think? Preem right? High end armor. ECM integrated, with a directional mic embedded into the helmet! We haven’t messed with the ECM emitters yet, but we will be able to personalize that as well!”

“You look like a doughgirl.” Akari offered instantly, with zero hesitation or empathy.

So I of course attacked her. “I’ll show you dough girl!” I roared as I jumped at her, earning an honest squeak from Akari as she wasn’t expecting my lack of chill and then I slammed into her.

Akari of course fought dirty and instantly tried to stab me in the eyes, but I had a helmet!

Her probing attacks were deflected and I started grappling, which wasn’t easy since she was all chrome as well, but then something lifted us bodily apart.

Jun was holding me up by the back of my rig, and Akari back by her arm, Akari was smiling teeth fully exposed, like she was ready to tear my throat out.

I would have done the same back, but I had my helmet blocking my mouth.

“Alright cut it out. Akari, calm down please, Motoko is playing.”

“Call me a doughgirl again! You-” And then Jun just shook me up and down a few times.

“See, just playing.”

“Pfft! You look like a strangled cat like that!” Akari offered cackling and I just pouted at Jun which was blocked by my helmet…

Okay the helmet was a problem. But I took a deep breath and decided to be the bigger person.

“I’m done. Let me go Jun.” I said calmly, and he looked at me with narrowed eyes as if he suspected I was lying, but eventually he let me go, although funnily enough he didn’t let go of Akari who had noticed and was giving him a petulant look.

Then I stepped back and brushed myself off.

“I win.” I told her simply and that set her off.

“What!? How! Jun interfered!”

“Exactly. Jun as my older brother is obviously my secret weapon. Any time he interferes it means I win.”

“That’s! That’s cheating!”

I shrugged and strutted back to my chooms who had been watching with interest.

“You okay?” Hiromi asked and I just laughed as I tugged off the helmet.

“I’m fine. Although I really need to wear my tech gogs under this helmet or something. Akari going for my eyes was a bit of a scare.”

—--

“Okay so you want… This?” I asked Malcolm as his holo emitters activated.

Yellow lights flowed around him, with some silver here and there as well.

“You look like your car.” Ichi called out teasing and Malcolm just flipped him off.

“The Caliburn yellow and silver is an excellent color combination! They tested it!”

“Boo!” Hiromi called out, earning a glare from Malcolm, but I just moved on. If this is what he wanted, it was good enough for me.

“Alright Hiromi-”

“Green! Maybe flames? Can you do flames?”

“I can do flames. It’s a slightly upjumped holo emitter after all. Green flames it is.” I offered as I started designing the hologram that would flow over her, to activate the ECM system.

Within a few minutes Hiromi looked like she had green fire flowing out of her hands and around her hips up her back. More than enough coverage to make sure the ECM protection would kick in.

“Mwahahahaha!” She cackled evilly, suddenly startling everyone before she looked at all of us. “How was that? Did I get it right?”

“Boo.” Malcolm called in turn and tossed some of his chips at her.

Ignoring Malcolm and Hiromi getting into a fight, neither could really hurt each other with all the armor.

I moved on to Ichi.

His was simpler.

“Just make it not look stupid like their choices.” He called out, just loud enough that Hiromi and Malcolm could hear him.

Which of course changed the target as Malcolm attacked Ichi from behind and Hiromi joined in.

I ignored the wrestling match happening right next to me, and focused on the hologram design.

Well Ichi could get a copy of what I was doing then.

Lines of light flowing up through the body. Of course I wasn’t just going to keep it as a stable source.

The activation would have the light flow upwards from the feet and hands until it reached the head in just a moment increasing the light and keeping it stable.

Okay so I was basically just pulling a Tron, but Tron was pretty Cyberpunk! And it looked so cool!

Ichi would get an orangish red color.

While I went pure white.

Then I activated both of our colors. Malcolm and Hiromi jerking back as Ichi’s holograms started, the light flowing up his arms and into his chest,

My own white lines arcing up my legs and forming a cool outline.

“There. All done!” I chirped happily rocking back and forth a little to see the holo emitters do an okay job keeping up with the movement.

I bet this would look awesome on a motorcycle.

“It’s nova.” Ichi said, playing with moving around and seeing the light arc off him as well.

“I like my fire more. But it does look preem… Although Ichi you need to change, you can’t just match with Motoko!’ Hiromi argued, but Ichi and I both just ignored her.

—--

We all had a good time after everything was done playing around and ignoring Jun and Akari, as Akari kept interfering, but eventually everyone had gone home with their armor and equipment, and my room was suddenly much emptier.

That and I finally had time for other grinding again!

That morning I was back at the gun range.

Thanks to the Raffen gig, I was actually pretty close to leveling reflex. Shooting all the Raffen running around blindly in their camp had taken some effort, and had given me a lot of alerts.

Now I just needed to grind out the last bit.

Settling into the gun range I had been going to, I quickly loaded up the magazines I had for my Copperhead. But that wasn’t all that I had brought.

The Arasaka Masamune was a gun I had wanted to play with for a while.

Sure it was overly engineered, but I wasn’t really planning on using it in the field. I liked guns that could get half blown up and still fire for that. But for a gun range?

It was a nice treat.

I pulled it out of the case and grabbed a few of the stupid Arasaka logo marked magazines, and started loading those up as well. I set the Copperhead to the side for a minute. Instead I slipped the mag into the Masamune and took aim. The holo sight was already perfectly on point. No need for any zeroing.

I fired. And in a three round burst that I barely felt it punched holes through the hologram targets.

Then I fired again, and again.

I don’t really like three round bursts. I switched it to single shot and started plinking away as well. It was irritating. It actually was possible to mod the rifle to be full auto, but I hadn’t done it with this one yet.

Probably a project I would do once I went home, cause three round burst was blegh!

Either way I burned through the expensive Arasaka branded ammo I had brought with me and then put the Masamune away.

Pulling out the Copperhead I was actually smiling, as I flipped off the safety took aim and held the trigger down.

Full auto silenced fire burst from the gun and I easily held her in control, putting rounds right through the holograms without any effort as my arms kept the recoil completely controlled.

Then as soon as I was about to run out of ammo, I dropped the magazine, quick-loading in another and just started firing again.

I had made sure there was a round still in the chamber, so it only took half a second to put in a new mag and I was off again.

I almost felt like cackling as I kept firing full auto.

This is what a rifle should be! Firepower!

Then finally I got it.

*100 Assault XP Gained.*

*Assault skill level up!*

Yay! I nearly cheered at the level up! Assault 8!

Wait… I wasn’t here to grind assault! I was trying to grind Reflex!

I took a second for that thought to flow through my head before I did actually break out into giggles.

I shifted my grip on the rifle a little, slightly more secure, a tiny synergy with Rifle Ace to be able to line up a shot that tiny millisecond faster.

My poor Copperhead was a bit overheated, so since I had just maxed out what I could do with it. I unloaded it, and set it back to the side.

I still had Handguns to level!

Smiling, I pulled out my Lexington and whistled as I fitted the silencer.

—--

I didn’t quite manage the Reflex level, or the Handgun one, before I decided to take a break. Heading home I took the scenic route. Driving through the heavy city traffic and just enjoying the feel of my Quadra rumbling along.

Honestly everything was kind of quiet right now.

Section 9 was flush with cash. We had lots of new equipment. My armor build for the team was done, and Hiromi was the only one still doing any real work as she was setting up deals to sell off some of the stuff we didn’t need.

So it was just kind of quiet.

I had considered picking up a new gig from Wakako or another fixer, but I was kind of enjoying the grind time. A bit of me time, just for myself between gigs. It felt nice.

In fact…

I didn’t want to go home. Bit weird, as I was a bit of a homebody. I wanted to go out and do something. Hiromi was in class. Ichi and Malcolm could be fun, but you know what? I was a cool Afterlife merc!

I shifted heading towards Watson.

Traffic got pretty bad on the way, enough that I was tempted to just park and maybe call my Kusanagi so I could just swerve around, but I was feeling pretty chill after all that reflex training so I just relaxed into the comfy Quadra seating and inched my way to the club.

When I finally arrived, there was plenty of open parking and I grabbed a spot and sauntered down the steps into the Afterlife.

Heh.

As if this place was going to be my afterlife. No, mine would probably be a digital landscape, full of daemons to fight or something.

Hell. I’m saying I’m probably going to hell, but eh.

That just means more demons to fight.

The bouncer gave me a nod not even needing to scan me, as he stepped aside letting me in.

He must have a good memory, it’s not like I had been around much. Either way I walked into the heavy music of the club, and felt the atmosphere. Like always there were mercs all over the place, although this time there was no one dying on a table so that was nice.

No, I guess being midday the place was more quiet and preparing for the night raids than anything else.

I walked up to the bar.

It wasn’t Claire behind the bar, but another guy that I didn’t recognize but I just ordered a soda and settled in.

I was honestly just planning on staring into the bottom of my drink for a while. Not because I was in a depressed mood, but just to enjoy the ambience.

There was nothing quite like a Cyberpunk bar after all.

I was just chilling out enjoying the music and vibes when the queen herself walked in. Rogue sauntered in, and I could feel the ripple of attention she brought with her. Mercs all over the club glanced up as she walked in and towards her little booth area.

It was interesting, but more than that. I noticed a few of the mercs around the bar stand up, they sort of… Got in line?

Well they talked to Rogues guard to set up a meeting I guess.

“Huh.”

“You need anything else, honey?” I blinked at the question from the bartender before shaking my head.

“Not really, just noticed everyone got up to go talk to Rogue as soon as she came in. You’d think they would just like, send her a text if they needed something from her.”

“Hah! Send the boss a text, that’s a good one. Nah honey, if you are looking for an Afterlife gig, you come to Rogue in person. Same if you need something from her. She doesn’t do biz over the line, never know who's watching, and with someone like Rogue?”

“A lot of people are probably watching. Yeah, makes sense.” I muttered. Before looking at the bartender again. “So Rogue hands out gigs if you come talk to her?”

“Yeah, sometimes. Not always, and not to every crew. You have to have the skills she needs yeah? But if you talk to her, you can find out if you got what she needs for a gig.”

“Weird.” I uttered before shrugging. Not interested anyways, and honestly if I want a gig that bad, I’ll just go make one. Sure there could be more blowback without a fixer, but the pay was real preem.

“Hey! Anyone in here a Techie? We need one!” A voice called out and I was doubly surprised as heads popped up all over.

“Now what’s going on?”

“Heh, that honey is someone told by Rogue they need a skillset they don’t got. They might be able to tap in a free merc, or steal someone from another team. It’s all part of the game.” She offered and I nodded. That made sense.

I watched as an obvious techie with a set of body armor that was covered in tools wandered over to the guy that had called out and a few moments later they shook hands and wandered back to Rogue who was rolling her eyes and tossed the man a shard.

Gig acquired I guess.

Neat.

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