Ghost in the City

The explosion of the grenade going off sent dust and debris flying everywhere, but we were all safe.

“Woo! Yeah! Nova!” Malcolm called out as he bounced on his feet. He had already thrown a half dozen grenades, but still cheered every time.

The others had even started to get into it too. Hiromi actually had a really good throw once she got a little practice. Turned out her chrome hands had been to blame as it messed with her throw. Something she hadn’t even known until now.

Ichi had finally gotten comfortable, and the two boys were seeing who could throw the farthest.

It was nice that everything was coming together!

“Motoko! We got company!” Ichi called out, and I looked over and frowned. We were pretty far out in the middle of nowhere. Specifically because hey we were throwing grenades around. We had even driven off the main highway into the desert to do our training. And now a few cars spewing dust up behind them were driving towards us.

“Ichi! Get in your van and hide out. Malcolm! You have your weapons?”

“Yeah.”

“Load up. Hiromi get in the Quadra.” I ordered as I hurried to the Quadra’s trunk.

I wasn’t exactly armored up at the moment, but I grabbed my Copperhead and a spare magazine in one hand, and my own Shingen in the other, which I quickly passed over to Hiromi.

She nodded, holstering her own pistol and grabbing the Smart SMG as she hunkered down in the armored vehicle. I noticed with a bit of amusement she was still gripping a grenade in her off hand.

Then I turned to the approaching cars, which as they approached I noticed were in fact Wraith markings covering them.

Well this just got more interesting, and a lot more dangerous.

I walked a bit away from the Quadra and let myself go casual. Hiromi was hidden in the Quadra. Ichi had his HMG’s ready to go, and Malcolm? Malcolm was being smart.

He was hiding! I was actually really impressed for a moment, as he had hunkered down under the truck. Using brush to break up his outline. Shingen poking out and just waiting.

The two Wraith vehicles pulled up in a sliding skid, sending dirt and gravel flying, and then a moment later out stepped four gonks. Two from each vehicle.

I quickly scanned all four as the dust cleared. Each of them was armed, and swaggered out, only hesitating a tiny amount when they saw my Copperhead. One of them nudged the other and pointed me out, pointing out that I was armed.

“Drop the gun kid.” The apparent leader called out waving around an Ajax. Something I noticed he had experience handling.

Like most of the Wraiths, these guys were a small step above the normal Night City gangs. Better weapons, usually some military training.

So I dropped the Copperhead.

I didn’t need it, and it would make them let down their guard a bit. “Satisfied? Now what do you want?”

“Yeah, I am. You’re out here using up our turf, fucking around on Wraith territory. I know you Night City kids don’t think much of us Nomads, but out here? Well this isn’t Night City. This is our home, and now you owe us a nice Juicy tax.” The man said, but to my surprise he wasn’t talking about eddies. “Preem ride. Where’d you get her?”

My eyes narrowed and my hackles rose up. Because he was looking squarely at my Quadra.

“It’s a bit of a long story, and if I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.” I answered back, sounding like I was joking.

I wasn’t joking.

“Hah! Nice one kid, but those are nomad wheels, and you don’t look like any nomad I know of. You Clan?”

“No. Night City brat through and through.” I admited with a laugh.

“Even more interesting, but I think that’ll do, just hand over the wheels, and you lot can go home, and tell everyone about the big scary Wraiths. It’ll be a fun story to tell your chooms.”

He demanded, his focus on me shifting as he looked away. His three other buddies were split, looking at me, or at Ichi in the cab of the truck who had been faux hiding.

Making enough noise and moving around that they knew he was there. I wonder if Malcolm had asked him to do that.

Since everyone was in position and these gonks thought they had won. It was time to act.

The leader had his back turned, and none of them had visible speedware.

So I quick drew the Burya and punched a hole through the leader.

*750 XP Gained.*

I must have hit something serious, because I got the XP alert instantly.

“Fuc-” I was already moving, leaping up and over the Quadra, drawing the idiots attention to me, and away from the truck.

The truck that even as I started taking some fire, suddenly opened up. The idiots didn’t even hear it, too focused on me, and then the noise of their rifles was drowned out.

The roar of the HMG’s firing in unison echoed out, despite the fact they weren’t super accurate, rate of fire had a charm of it’s own. The three gonks despite moving a bit into cover to surround the Quadra were soon mulched without me even needing to do more than take cover. Malcolm was firing as well, so even as they tried to slip into new cover the Smart rounds pelted down onto them.

Then everything went quiet.

“Kill check!” I called out as I stepped out from around the Quadra to quickly look over the four bodies. I popped bullets into the three extras just to be sure, but they were dead.

“Everyone alright?” I called out, and Malcolm and Ichi both confirmed they were okay. Malcolm took a moment longer to slide out from under the truck.

But as I walked over to the Quadra, Hiromi still hadn’t spoken up. I hurried to the car and popped it open only to relax, Hiromi was shaking a bit, and looking…

She wiped at her eyes, but she was okay.

I leaned in and pulled her into a hug.

“It’s okay. I’m just glad you’re okay. Everything’s fine.”

“It’s stupid. They weren’t even shooting at me.” She whispered back and I just hugged her tighter. For a while until she eventually calmed down and nodded quietly, pushing me away and stepping out.

“You okay?” Ichi asked Hiromi gently and she nodded.

“I’ll be fine. Ugh. Look at this mess.” She said instead, staring at the corpses.

“Well… I mean…” I trailed off looking at the Wraith vehicles. Considering how many of them we had already sold off these probably wouldn’t net us much…. “Who wants to throw grenades at the cars until they explode?”

“Oh! Me me me!” Malcolm called out jumping up and down like a little kid, and even Ichi snuffed out a laugh before raising his own hand.

“Oh fine.” Hiromi added herself. Stomping over to grab some grenades.

“Okay, first let’s check them for loot, then let’s turn this into good practice. Try to aim into the cabin!” I called out as my chooms all grabbed high explosives.

This was such a good day.

—--

I flopped onto the couch beside Jun when I got home that evening. We had used up all the grenades I had crafted, turning the Wraith vehicles into hunks of scrap.

Fuck the Wraiths.

“Welcome home. You’ve been out in the badlands?” Jun asked, I looked up and he was looking me over. Huh. Did he scan me?

“Gonk. You don’t have to scan me, you can just ask where I’ve been.”

“I didn’t! I just noticed all the dust on you.” He answered back trying to sound cool, but I was barely dusty anymore. So I just kept staring at him until he got awkward.

“Okay I did a small scan.”

“Goooonk. But yeah, Section 9 didn’t know how to use grenades so I made a whole bunch of them, and we went out into the desert and blew shit up. It was kinda nova.”

“You could have invited me.”

“Jun I love you, but inviting my brother along with my chooms is weird.” Then because I really didn’t care about being weird… Well mostly… Sometimes… I shook my head. “You can come next time.”

Jun smiled at my offer and reached over, dropping a hand into my hair.

“Next time then. What are your plans for the rest of the night?” He asked and in return I smiled and adjusted myself so I was laying sideways on the couch.

“Well first, I’m going to veg out on the couch with my gonk brother and watch his crappy TV shows. Then I’ll probably do some more work on my drone.”

“Heh. Well this gonk brother knows there is going to be a new show starting tonight!”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah it’s about a drug dealer in-”

“Blegh.” I answered instantly. “That sounds like total scop. I don’t want to watch that.” I grumbled, but Jun was by now well used to ignoring my complaints about any and all TV shows in the future.

He just continued to ramble on about what he had heard about this new show.

I ended up watching the first episode.

I wanted to kill the director.

—---

The Tachikoma Chassis was done.

I had finished every piece, and put it all together, even uploaded the very basic program into its little brain the moment it was finished I got a burst of alerts. Programming. Engineering. Technical Ability. The system liked when I finished a big project.

Then I set the tiny drone onto its four limbs and flipped it on.

It ran through its check process. It’s eye rolling around as it checked the rotation. Limbs one at a time stretching and moving gathering range of motion data.

Then it was off. Taking a wavering slow step forward, then another leg moved, and another and soon despite how unsteady it was, the program I had created was learning, and it walked, and walked. And…

Touched the wall. Then it just kept trying to walk forward…

I waited a minute, hopeful the program would figure out something was in the way.

But no.

“Oookay. That needs to be fixed.” I reached down and picked it up, and despite being lifted it still just tried to walk forward.

I grabbed my personal link and plugged it in….

Yep it had gotten stuck on the basic walking program I had made. It hadn’t actually switched over to the learning process….

Oh. It wasn’t a programming fault.

It was hardware.

“Fucker sold me an off brand CPU.” I grumbled. It literally wasn’t strong enough to run both sides of the program, which meant I needed to buy a new one, and or get creative.

I sighed as I grabbed a personal link cord and my laptop.

“Time to offload some of that thinking little Tachikoma.”

—--

While I watched the Tachikoma slowly walk in circles hampered by a length of cord, I at least was happy enough.

It was definitely learning now.

The laptop was basically running the learning part of the program, and the chassis was running the actual movement.

It was a bit of a gonk setup, but at least it was improving. Slowly becoming more and more capable of taking the steps with surety.

The learning program was just something I had nabbed out of a SCSM. Basically the same thing that would have likely evolved into the program Brendan used to learn about people. Well with a few years of advancement.

It wasn’t anywhere near an actual AI of course. We were talking low level iterative learning. Half the time I had to plug into the laptop and make the adjustment manually before the Tachikoma would actually learn it.

But that’s okay. It wasn’t about what it could do now. It was just the first step. Tachikoma V0.000001.

“Okay while you keep figuring out walking. I’m going to go make more grenades.” I reached down and patted the Tachikoma on its head. “Ganbatte Tachikoma-Chan!”

Satisfied I had cheered on my little bot I headed out. I would need to stop at the store for more parts though.

Thankfully the new printer was hammering out the grenade casings I would need.

—---

The sun came up long before I took another break. The Netrunner lair was now stocked up on a good amount of grenades. I pushed the second box full of them under the table and out of the way.

But I was all smiles despite the long session.

*100 Technical Ability XP Gained*

*Technical Ability Leveled up!*

That was Tech 7. And since it had upgraded. I was finding myself excited to do even more builds.

Mostly because despite getting one Crafting alert after leveling, the grenade grind was nearing its limits.

I needed to make something new.

Well my first idea was to go sideways more than anything. Right now all I was doing was making frag grenades, but grenades in Night City were crazy. Laser grenades. Poison grenades. All sorts of different stuff.

And EMP grenades could be super useful against borgs.

Unfortunately I didn’t actually have the blueprints for them, and I wasn’t going to try and make explosives, especially an EMP in my netrunner cave.

So that meant it was time to go on the net.

I stretched and wandered over to my net chair. I needed some data, so of course I was going to steal it!

Plugging in I shivered a bit, as the coolant started flowing through my leotard, but then I paused… I should be smart about this… Yeah… Smart! I could do that!

*Ringing,*

*Ringing.*

*Motoko?*

*Hey Malcolm, you doing anything right now?*

*Noo?*

*Preem. Hiromi is at school, so I had to call someone. Want to help me with some netrunning? I can’t promise it’ll be exciting, but I’m going to steal some weapon blueprints, so I-”

“Stop talking. You had me at stealing. Your netrunning lair?*

*Yeah. I’m already here.*

*Alright on my way!*

—--

“Okay so what do I do?” Malcolm asked as he arrived and I just pointed him at the laptop station that my chooms had used to monitor the videos while we hunted people down.

“Really simple. Mostly just take data that I sent to the server. Make sure it has what we need, and if I start flatlining. Save my butt.”

“Right. Sure, how do I do that?”

“Well, mostly unplug me and call for Vik.”

“Preem. That I can do.”

“Alright I’m diving. Thanks Malcolm, I know this might be kinda boring, but I appreciate having someone to watch my back.”

“Hey, that's what Section 9 is all about.” He said and I flashed him a massive smile.

They were calling themselves Section 9 now! Eeeee!

I quickly flopped back, shivered as the coolant once more started up, and then blinked.

I was no longer in the basement. No, I was in my private lobby. A classy Tron like meeting room.

“I love this place.”

*It’s kinda cool I guess.* Malcolm replied and I laughed, having not expected him to hear me.

“You going to watch over my shoulder?”

*I figure I might as well… That okay?*

“Sure, enjoy the sights of the net.”

*It doesn’t look all that. Whoa.*

I had opened the wall of my lobby revealing the actual net space. The digital city of moving lights, and data streams, and Malcolm was basically seeing what I was seeing. If not in great quality.

“I’ll probably not keep the camera going once things get started Malcolm. I’ll need the bandwidth.”

*Oh sure. Don’t let me hold you back.*

“Nah, choom. You are definitely pushing me forward. Alright let’s go.” I jumped, disappearing into a search engine as I went looking for what I needed.

Thankfully it wasn’t exactly like I was trying to steal military secrets. So I slipped into the search engine and found exactly what I wanted.

A weapon store that sold the grenades that I wanted.

It was a Gun O’ Rama. I came up to their website and entered. The digital interface schized out and I rolled my eyes at the terrible web maintenance, as I walked into basically a white room with a menu screen.

Whoever ran this place, definitely didn’t have a netrunner on tap.

I bypassed the shitty website and walked right behind it to the sealed door.

Ten seconds of breaching, and the door opened, and I was into their system.

The back end of the shop made me still instantly. It was an actual net space. I was wrong. This place did have a netrunner on retainer, they just didn’t actually jazz up the front end. There were defenses all over, Daemons awake and active.

The room reminded me of some level out of doom. Gray concrete stone, and a single door to continue on the other end of the room, worse?

Most of the Daemons were off the shelf defenses, but not all of them.

I looked across and grimaced at the two ‘turrets’ that were already unfolding from their defenses. Some kind of protected Daemon? They didn’t have my stealth Daemons attached to them. They had seen me.

I’d have to examine those to figure out how they had bypassed my own hack after this.

I instantly raised a Barrier as the system came to life. The two turrets alerting the horde to my presence.

A few random bits of code slammed into the barrier and slowed to a crawl, the attacks from the blinded Daemons weren’t entirely focused. Shooting in my general area thankfully, but that would go away once they got a lock.

I would have to act fast.

[Hell Fire] Was activated and I lashed it out, focusing on the most dangerous Daemons. A set of Guards that looked like men in trench coats. Their guns raised and lashing out with purple beams of coded death. The fire hit the first one, and instantly it started melting, its code turning into spaghetti.

*250 XP Gained.*

Of course my own assault had broken the stealth effect of my Daemons. The facehuggers basically stopped working as I attacked. Something else I should probably have learned before this. But my own lack of netrunning experience was biting me. All the daemons focused on me, and the wriggling blinding Daemons all turned into particles. Their ability to hamper my enemies gone.

*Dropping connection for a minute Malcolm!* I called as I cut his video monitor. I needed all the bandwidth I could get, instantly I got a small boost in speed, and used it.

I activated my ICE Shield to create a wall of scrap data that the Daemons were forced to chew through. Giving me some protection from the purple beams of death, small Imp Daemons throwing digital fireballs, and the two automated turrets. I’ve never seen turret Daemons like that before, but I realized just how dangerous they were when they started firing.

They shot the same weapons as the Guard Daemons, but in rapid fire. I did a quick scan, and realized the hack they were sending out was a really nasty sort Short Circuit. Trying to fry me right out of their system.

I threw up more ICE Shield And moved, hiding behind the wall of ice that was quickly disintegrating despite my new additions and fired another [Hell Fire] at the Guards.

*250 XP Gained.*

Then another, turning the main guards into puddles of dead code.

But this system seriously had a lot of defense Daemons. Whoever set this up was a fucking maniac about their private information.

Imp fireballs started getting closer and closer, but the turrets were the biggest threat.

I threw up another barrier and winced, hearing the warning from my system about my body heating up as I was burning through programs, but I didn’t have any other choice, unless I wanted to just run away.

Hell Fire was activated again, and this time I was able to aim towards one of the turrets, watching it melt down.

*250 XP Gained.*

With only one more turret, despite the Imps moving in, I had more breathing room, and was able to rebuild my defenses for a few moments. Throwing out more ICE walls, and Barriers to fortify up. Despite the turret still chewing through with its constant attacks. Wincing at the way even through cyberspace I could feel my body heating up.

Once I was more secure. I took a bit of time to try and cool off, before sending out another Hell Fire was activated again and again, as soon as I could without frying myself, as I burned first the turret, and then through the horde of Imps.

*250 XP Gained.*

*250 XP Gained.*

*250 XP Gained.*

*250 XP Gained.*

*250 XP Gained.*

*250 XP Gained.*

Finally the room was quiet, and I took a deep breath despite being a digital avatar at the moment. That was a lot.

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