Ghost in the City

After a few songs Alice called for a break, and then casually flopped onto the couch next to Jun.

Flirting.

I rolled my eyes, but she had been surprisingly nice this time, so I decided to give her a bit of space.

I wasn’t exactly thrilled that Fujimura’s niece was into Jun, but I would just rely on my brother's denseness to romance.

Instead I headed into my room.

The Tachikoma part was completed, so I prepped the next piece, messing with the printer making sure it was good to go, and started it up.

Considering I was giving Alice some space with Jun I decided to be semi productive and look at my stat sheet.

Level 17

Body 8(16) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 8.

-Street Brawler 8

-Annihilation 5

Reflex 8

-Blades 7

-Handguns 7

-Assault 8

-Driving 7

Intelligence 11 (14) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 4.

-Breach Protocol 9

-Quick Hacks 8

-Programming 11

Cool 9

-Ninjutsu 9

-Cold Blood 8

-Rockerboy 8

Technical Ability 6 (10) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 4.

-Crafting 5

-Engineering 5

1 Stat point.

6 Skill point.

Perks.

Ambidextrous Blades 2

Quickdraw Handguns 2

Gun Nut Assault 2

Parkour Athletics 2

Grappling Street Brawler 2

Drive By Driving 2

Cat-like Athletics 5

Cool Nerves Cold Blood 2

Danger Sense Ninjutsu 2

Wall Breaking Breach Protocol 2

Cyber Security Quick Hack 2

Recoil Reduction. Annihilation 2

Cyber Ninja Ninjutsu 5

Fearless Chill. Cold Blood 5.

Improvised Weapons Street Brawler 5

Parry Blades 5

Robotics wizard Crafting 2

Drifting Driving 5

Rapid Reload Handguns 5

Design Wizard Engineering 2

Rifle Ace Assault 5

Ghost touch Breach 5

Perfect Musical Memory Rockerboy 2.

Debug Programming 2

Siren Song Rockerboy 5

Hacking Wizard Quick Hacks 5

Inspired Programmer Programming 5

A.I. Whisperer Programming 10

Slam Fire Annihilation 5

Enduring Builds Crafting 5

That was where I currently was. I looked through my stat block to try and figure out what I wanted to grind next.

Weapons popped to mind. I was a bit behind on gun skills still. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to the range again.

Actually I did have Annihilation. I could grab a shotgun, or a machine gun… Actually no, no machine guns. Shotguns were good though.

Also Engineering and Crafting still stood out… Okay. Grenade time.

I gathered some parts I had. I would stop at a shop and head to the Straight Lane Apartments, to make some grenades since Jun still refused to let me make them in the apartment.

I was low on grenades after that one kid stole them from my Quadra.

I walked out to see Jun looking pretty uncomfortable, as Alice flirted with him, her hair was throbbing pretty quickly to the beat of her heart.

Oooh. Jun was in trouble.

Be strong Jun-nii. It’s only a rockstar going for your innocence! I’m sure no rockstar has ever defiled an innocent maiden before…

“Heh.” I snickered as I walked through the apartment. “I’m heading out. Gonna go build some grenades. You want any?”

“What, you’re leaving? Are you sur- Wait!? What was that about grenades!?” Jun called trying to rise up but I was already out the door.

I guess that means he doesn’t want any.

Slipping into the garage from the elevator I walked over to my Quadra and slipped in. Uncaring about the TC toughs that still hung out down here. I guess it was safe? Being down here kept the kids from being targeted by other gangs I guess.

I roared out of the garage, enjoying the way the Quadra got a little air at the exit every time, I whooped as I slid into the street and then slowed down to the speed limit and drove to the gun store.

Buying a metric ton of supplies I carried the heavy box out of the shop and into the passenger seat of the Quadra before heading to the Straight Lane Apartments.

Time to get to work.

—--

Tinkering with grenades was a surprisingly soothing experience. Future tech meant they were actually pretty safe, like handling C4. You pretty much knew exactly what it would take to cause an explosion and as long as you didn’t do that one thing you were good.

I made a dozen of them using old parts before I ran into the problem of lack of supplies for the casings. Sure I had all the internals, and the triggers, but I had run out of the casings to hold everything.

I frowned. Normally I would head back to the apartment to run the 3D printer, but that was already in use…

Did I want to buy a new one? I was making a lot more stuff. I could probably get a way higher quality printer as well…

I considered it as I spun around in the chair and took in the sight of the netrunning basement.

I shrugged. It wasn’t like I could get any more work done here without either going out and buying casings wholesale, or making them myself. I packed up the grenades, noted that I had earned a Crafting and Tech alert from the dozen completed grenades, and grabbed the box of completed explosives to take with me.

My Quadra was running low on big boom after all.

Heading up, I was stopped as the elevator opened by a pair of girls that I recognized.

“Ah it’s you two.”

“And it’s you.” The smaller one hissed glaring, but the taller girl rested a hand on her shoulder to calm her. “We were waiting for you, hoping you might be willing to discuss something.” She asked, and I felt my eyes narrow.

Last time I had met these two, they had threatened Hiromi, and hadn’t been happy to have us around. It had been a while since then though. So I guess something had changed.

“I don’t really have a lot of time.” I lied, “But if you make it quick I’ll hear you out.”

“Perfect. We are having an issue with a rival gang causing some problems. While we can certainly defend our territory… We are a bit outgunned this time, and wanted to hire you.”

“Call Hiromi then, and run the gig through her. She’s my fixer.” I replied and made to move but the girl moved in.

“Wait! We… We told Hiromi we had everything under control! If she realizes we are struggling with our end of the deal we might lose the deal entirely. Please. It’s just one group. We don’t even need them flatlined or anything! They have higher end weapons is all. They made some deal with 6th St. So they have rifles and things. We just need them to lose the weapons. If they do, everything goes back to normal.”

I sighed. This was dumb. Like literally dumb.

“Okay listen. Hiromi is my best choom, so let’s be real, hiring me is still going to alert her. So let’s cut all the shit. You guys are street kids. You aren’t meant to handle something like 6th St. Hiromi knows that. Just call her, tell her what’s up. I’ll send her a text right now. To look into it, and that we’ll help out.”

The taller girl looked nervous before sighing. “Please.”

“Great. Call her! If she is being a bitch I’ll talk to her, but I doubt she’s gonna drop you guys like that.” Hiromi had mentioned from time to time that the SLS was acting as her low level muscle. No way Hiromi would drop them just because…

Wait, did these kids think Hiromi was some super fixer like Wakako or something… Heh.

I turned and walked away to hide my smirk and my desire to giggle. I was gonna tease Hiromi so bad about how everyone thought she was some elite fixer!

—--

“Best model you can find on the market! The Militech marketplace also offers a wide variety of printable options for the discerning customer!” The man said, patting a 3D printer with one hand.

This was now the third Militech branded printer he had shown me.

“That’s great, but I don’t need a Militech marketplace. I’m looking for something I can run on my own. Which this one won’t. As I have to upload my blueprints to be able to print them.” I argued for the third time. It was actually a good marketing ploy.

The printer was cheaper, and pretty good quality. So by tying it into a local net marketplace Militech got free product to sell, and a constant income.

And I’m pretty sure I could jailbreak it, but I didn’t want to deal with this! I just wanted it to work!

“The Militech marketplace is the greatest concentration of-”

“Choom. I’m not interested.”

The man shut his mouth and then breathed out.

“Yeah alright kid. You want something a bit more flexible, we got that too. C’mon.” His tone had completely changed from the corpo tag line he had been hawking at me.

He led me over to the side of the shop that was sort of tucked away, and there I finally found what I wanted.

“These don’t have any corp support for production, but you know that.”

“I do.” I said checking out the varieties he had. These printers would only work if I could input the model myself without any of the libraries that some of the other printers offered.

“This one.” I said pointing at a Vance T-Form. I had never heard of Vance before, but just checking out the printing details this is the one I wanted.

“Figured you’d grab that. The T are good, but be careful about buildup. They have a really shit cleaning system, so you’ll want to do it yourself. But if you do. They are solid.” He offered hefting up the box that was pretty large, definitely some do it yourself building involved, but I paid and hauled it out to the Quadra to take… Home.

I would flip the printers around. This one could keep working on the Tachikoma, I would need tighter tolerances there anyways, while the old printer could be sent over to the Netrunner lair for grenade parts.

—---

Jun wasn’t home when I got back, which made me wonder if Alice had actually gotten her claws into him. But I ignored it heading into my room, taking out the Tachikoma part that was done. And unplugging and moving the old printer, to make room for the much much larger new one.

I started cackling as I put it together. So much power! So much building! Tachikoma!

Once I had it all settled and ran a quick test part to see.

It came out smooth and within my actual tolerances. Usually the printer made things a bit wonky, but not this time. It was nearly exactly what I wanted.

Perfect.

Satisfied I started on another part, and the timer for completion was certainly better than before.

Well, I still had my old one.

I popped the second printer onto the floor and started printing out grenade casings. Slowly working through the process as the new printer buzzed quietly working much much faster than this old one.

An hour later I swapped out the part being constructed for another build and took all the Tachikoma parts so far and started fitting them together.

I had enough of the outer casing done now that I could start putting together the brain and start fitting it together. I had the parts already, especially since it wasn’t like I was building an AI here.

A SCSM would have about the same level of intelligence as my Tachikoma, at least to start.

Then again Brendan was a S.C.S.M. Yet he was smart enough to make people think he was alive.

It would all come down to the iterative design, and my skill as a programmer.

The brain came together, just some hardware capable of running an OS. It was honestly basic, but it didn’t need to be complex. I just needed the start.

With the brain put together, even with the body still only half completed. I grabbed my laptop and started programming.

—--

I dumped the box of grenade casings onto the table down in the netrunner cave. I had a few hours before the piece of Tachikoma was done. So I had some time to grind more crafting points.

I had made a lot of casings, enough that I wouldn’t need more for a long time. But really it was just a grinding method. I probably wouldn’t even keep all the grenades live.

My hands grabbed the basic tools I need and I went to work. Explosive fitted into the casing, electronic trigger connected to the mechanical one, and then a final twist of a screwdriver sealing it all together.

I gave it a little scan with my Kiroshi, confirming it was live, and then put it to the side.

Then moved on to the next one.

And the next. All the while XP came in small bursts.

*100 Technical Ability XP Gained*

*100 Crafting XP Gained.*

—--

*100 Crafting XP Gained.*

*Crafting skill level up!*

Crafting six? Nice!

I had stilled as the alert came in, slowly putting down the grenade I had been working on. I had dozens of the things now. Each one lined up to the side ready to be used.

I stretched raising my arms high above my head and groaned as I felt my muscles in my back stretch.

That had been a good grinding session!

Now what was I going to do with all of these grenades?

The idea struck me and I laughed, instantly pulling up my agent to make a call.

*Ringing.* I hummed a bit as the call went through, already gathering up the grenades into a box for transport.

*Ringing.*

*Hello? Motoko?*

*Ichi! Glad you picked up. You doing anything right now?*

*Nothing I can’t put down, what’s up?*

*I have a ton of grenades and I figured having some stored in your truck would be a good idea. Just in case you need something with a bit more boom, than the HMG.*

*Grenades? Motoko I don’t really… I don’t think I’m comfortable with that.*

*What? Why? They’re just grenades Ichi.*

*I’ve never handled grenades before Motoko. I don’t exactly want to blow my hand off or something.*

I looked at my box of grenades, ones I had just been planning on storing and using sparingly…

Then I started grabbing all of them and throwing them into the box.

*Ichi meet me at the Straight Lane Apartments. I’m calling Hiromi and Malcolm as well! We are running a grenade course.*

*Fuck… Uh can I opt out?*

*Nope! This is an important skill! Plus it gives me an excuse to actually have so many grenades! So Jun can’t yell at me anymore.*

*Where did you even get all these grenades from? Did you do a gig without telling us?*

*What? No. I just made them.*

*You… Made them? Motoko-*

*Yep! It’s easy. Like super easy. Don’t worry they are safe! Hell they are safer than the ones you can buy bulk from gun stores and stuff. Don’t worry! I made the whole thing myself!*

*Oh god.* He whispered quietly, but this was happening Ichi. Your boss at Section 9 demanded it!

*Okay! Hurry up. I’m calling everyone in.*

—--

“I don’t like this idea.” Hiromi muttered but I ignored her whining as well. Only Malcolm had been all for the idea of practicing with grenades.

But I had gotten them all here now so it was too late!

“Welcome to the Section 9 grenade testing range!” I called out waving behind me at the bare desert.”

“This is just the Badlands.”

“Section 9 grenade testing range!” I repeated, ignoring Ichi’s remarks.

“Yeah!” Malcolm called out, the only one of my chooms that was actually here to have fun.

I kicked the box I was standing over knocking off the lid, and all of my chooms even Malcolm jerked back.

Scaredy cats! Just because it was a crate of grenades!

“Alright! So everyone come up and grab a grenade, just don’t twist the top and we won’t have any issues. If you do accidently twist it just throw it far away, but let’s not do that! First off. Get a feel for the heft of the grenades! They aren’t that heavy!”

Malcolm instantly walked up to grab a grenade, while Hiromi and Malcolm both stayed far back.

“C’mon! Both of you! They aren’t going to hurt you unless you don’t know what you’re doing and that’s why we are here!”

“As a fixer, I don’t think grenade usage falls under my job description.” Hiromi tried to argue.

“I just drive. I don’t do combat much. So I don’t think I need to know this.” Ichi added a moment later.

“Don’t be silly! Hiromi! Combat skills are very important even to a fixer. What are you going to do against some corporate hatchetman squad coming to kill you if you don’t know how to toss high explosives at the bad guys until they are just chunky burrito mix?” I said while pointing at Hiromi, then I switched to Ichi making him flinch.

“And you! Throwing grenades out of your car's window at gonks chasing you is a very useful skill! You both are learning this.” I demanded stomping my foot causing the crate to shift and Ichi and Hiromi both flinched back.

“Wow this is pretty nova Motoko. You made this?” Malcolm asked, looking over the grenade he had picked up.

“Yep! The cap on the top is a timer. The more you twist it the shorter the fuse, while the large pin is the safety. As long as you are holding that no explosion. The timer can’t go under one and a half second. So you should be able to throw it far enough to be safe as well. At the max it has a ten second timer!”

“Why so long?”

“Traps! Pop two or three set the timer and run. Ten seconds is a long time, more than enough for most gonks to think wherever you were is safe to run to now.”

Malcolm nodded, taking in my wisdom.

Hiromi and Ichi were still too far away.

“Get over here and grab a grenade or I’m throwing them at you!” I called out, and that finally got my chooms moving. Hiromi first, with Ichi following behind as both of them walked up to the crate and gently pulled a grenade out.

“Okay so like I said, get a feel for it. First thing we are doing is some test throws! Without popping the timer we are going to see how far you can throw it!”

“Preem.” Malcolm said walking over to where I was on a little hill, and then chucked it over to the other side. Malcolm had a good arm!

“Nice distance! You’ll be able to really freak people out with surprise grenades!” I said while throwing him a thumbs up.

Malcolm smiled happily at my words.

“Hiromi and Ichi’s turn!”

They both tossed the grenade and I winced as Hiromi’s didn’t quite go right, instead throwing almost too far up, as it landed on the hill and then rolled back towards her.

“A-ah!?”

“It’s okay.” I called out walking over and grabbed the rolling grenade, I checked just to be safe, but the primer wasn’t started. “We’ll work on your throw first.” I mentioned without saying that Hiromi would have blown herself up with that throw.

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