Ghost in the City

I considered going out and using it right away, but I needed to test it first, and I had perfectly good guinea pigs.

I mean friends!

Ichi and Malcolm were summoned!

The little food place I had called them too was nice enough, but I wasn’t inside. Instead I was on a roof across the way watching the two boys arrive, look around not seeing me, and slide into a booth.

I quickly hacked into both of them and slipped in the Daemon , making sure to set it to the lowest setting.

I didn’t want to give them a heart attack after all! This was just some minor fuckery-Teasing. Just minor teasing! Between chooms!

Watching the two it didn’t take long before Ichi jerked in his seat and looked around as if searching for something.

Malcolm asked him a question and Ichi just shook his head and they went back to their discussion. Then Malcolm jumped nearly out of the booth as he patted at his legs and then ducked under the booth but came up looking confused.

The two boys settled back in, and then it just kept happening. Odd twitches, or slight movement.

I thought about the Laughing Man a lot when it comes to hacking. The ability to just remove yourself from someone's vision, or change how you look in real time is incredibly powerful in a world where everyone has cyberware vision.

I wasn’t at that point yet. Altering someone's vision in real time was insanely resource intensive, at least as far as I understood it. Of course that understanding could change as I leveled up more and more.

But that didn’t mean I couldn’t touch on that sort of Hack.

Onryo was very simple. Slowly over time the user's vision would have flashes of something, in the corner of their eye, or in the shadows of a table below them.

A ghostly shadowed version of me with white hair and glowing red eyes, and claws and fangs.

I had gone all out.

If the Tyger Claws wanted to call me Onryo, then I was going to scare the shit out of my enemies.

So I watched as a faint version appeared over Malcolm’s shoulder, a hand reaching out, not in Malcolms vision, but in Ichi’s. He twitched and called out, Malcolm reacted, his hand slapping his own shoulder right through the image making it vanish. Not that Malcolm saw it… Hmm.

Both boys looked at each other and then spoke.

Then I got a call.

Oops. I think they figured it out.

I leapt off the building without answering and crossed the street before entering the diner.

“Motoko! Was this you?” Malcolm demanded and I raised my hands in surrender.

“Sorry! Sorry! I’ll pay for lunch so forgive me okay?” I pleaded giving the boys a cute look.

“You were already going to pay for lunch!” Ichi joined in as I joined them and slumped.

“Dinner?”

“And snacks!” Malcolm added and I nodded in surrender. I had been fucking with them after all.

“So what was that?”

“My new quick hack! Version 1, anyways. While watching you all react, I realize it has some weaknesses. Shared network alterations are a must if this is going to work on a group of people, and I need something to induce a physical feeling.” I muttered, already my vision was covered by the code as I started fiddling with it.

“Jeeze. That scared the shit out of me. Why make a quick hack that just makes you look like a ghost?”

“Mostly to terrify my enemies. It’s an Onryo.” I explained and both boys nodded. They had heard that nickname for me before. “Basically I don’t even have to attack a group. I can just hack them, and if they don’t have a netrunner capable of realizing what’s going on. They’ll be too busy chasing ghosts to stop me from doing whatever I want.”

The boys both nodded along as I spoke, but then I revealed the truth. “Of course an Optic Reboot would be more efficient. Just blind them and get to whatever I need to do, but sometimes you just want to scare the shit out of a group of assholes.”

“Hear hear!” Ichi cheered and the boys clinked their glasses together.

Great, I was forgiven.

—--

“Ah, there you are.” Jun greeted me as I got home. I threw my jacket over the back of the couch as I leapt over to flop into the cushions beside him.

“Sup, Jun?”

“Those fuckers that were trying to mess with you? Don’t worry about it. Fujimura-Sama made sure that it won’t happen again.”

“Yeah? The fuck did they want anyways?”

“Nothing. Just… Stupid shit.”

“Blackmail?” I asked, because it had felt like I was about to be blackmailed.

“Not, exactly. I think he wanted to try and weaken Fujimura-Sama by stealing you away. I think he was trying to recruit you.”

“What? Why? I’m pretty sure he hates me.”

“Motoko, Moritaka isn’t the sort of man that would allow his feelings to get in the way of his goals.” Jun said and I frowned a bit at that.

He didn’t seem that way when I met him.

Jun noticed my disbelieving look and just rolled his eyes at me.

“Don’t worry about it. I took care of it and Moritaka is getting talked to by Nakagawa-Sama. He overstepped a bit this time. Especially since they started a fight with you.” Jun said idly, and then threw me a wink.

Ah. I see. “Yep. They started the fight. Definitely.” I assured him having picked up the context.

He smiled and that was that.

I relaxed the irritation of it all sliding off my shoulders. I knew that I wasn’t done with Tyger Claw nonsense again, but at least I could kick it down the road a bit more.

That was the goal. Just keep pushing the things I can’t deal with safely now until later, until I could deal with them.

The fact lit a fire under me again and I hurried to my room.

Time to get some work done.

I scooped up the Tachikoma that was practicing something with its blocks and shut it down for a bit. I needed to do an upgrade. Luckily I had the parts from when I made the directional mics.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I popped off the out shell with a few screws and looked at the internals.

Flashed my eyes at my laptop and accessed it remotely pulling up the CAD software. As I worked I rolled around my room grabbing the parts from different places. A spare mic that had rolled under my dresser.

Some wires in the top drawer right next to my underwear. The soldering iron was somewhere, and it took a minute to find it in my closet hidden under some clothes.

Grabbing everything I rolled back to my work desk as I finished up the design.

I really just had to make sure it had some room, everything else was already in place. An hour later I was done.

The Tachikoma now had access to a microphone. Able to pick up sounds, so it wouldn’t be deaf. A few holes drilled into the case would let it hear, and it was done. Put back together. I set it on the table and started programming.

Just because it had the hardware didn’t mean it knew how to use it.

Luckily I didn’t even really need to program the whole thing. Microphone software to let a program ‘hear’ was old code.

I ripped it from a few different devices just in the apartment, including the TV and my radio. Fiddled with the code so it was actually functional to my needs, and not full of garbage and then updated the Tachikoma.

I accepted the alerts that popped up over the little project.

*100 Engineering XP Gained.*

*100 Crafting XP Gained.*

*100 Technical Ability XP Gained*

I got a few alerts for each one. But no level ups.

That was fine. It was an easy project, and the system always liked when I finished something, but it wasn’t exactly complicated.

Just a minor update to the Tachikoma Chassis.

I wish I had the hardware upgrades for its mind. I hadn’t heard anything from Hiromi about it since I brought it up a while back.

Sure, the Tachikoma were functional as scouting drones right now, but if I wanted a scout drone, I’d have bought some off the shelf garbage. The Tachikoma were more than that.

Shaking it off, I made a note to bring it up with Hiromi sometime soon, and instead rolled over to my programming laptop.

I turned on the Tachikoma, and basically pushed it through some tests for its new mic. While I went to work on the Onryo Hack.

Like I had told the boys it wasn’t really that efficient. Blinding people would work better than just fucking with their vision. But efficiency wasn’t always the right path in every situation.

Now I had to figure out how to craft a hack that had another sense involved. Touch was… Difficult.

Sure, if they had Real Skinn, or other similar products, it would be easier. Real Skinn had sensors to transmit touch, but tapping into that and keeping it all in sync with the visual changes…

No wait. I didn’t need to have it actually interact with Real Skinn.

The flash of inspiration had me cackling as I checked my own hardware to make sure it was functional.

Funny thing about Neural Links, and Agents. Agents had silent alerts and notifications integral to the system.

Guess what it could do? It could make a buzzing, or a shock feeling on a palm, or something like that, but it wasn’t really doing anything to that part of your body, it was just sending an electrical signal to the brain.

I could co opt that. Agents were touted as being pretty difficult to get into, but it just wasn’t the case. The on board AI wasn’t really great. They were good at learning habits and behaviors, and assisting their user, but they weren’t intelligent enough to counter a foreign install.

I went to work. Watching over the Tachikoma with one eye as it ran around exploring sounds and registering them into its system.

I winced as I noticed the file growing exponentially, and had to take a break to stop it and work with the Tachikoma, to register an easier way to process sounds.

I couldn’t have it create a file library of every sound it heard. If the Tachikoma did that, it would bloat so large the Tachikoma’s mind would break under the weight of its own memories.

Well. It would crash until I fixed it, but the point remained.

So instead, I needed it to process sounds not as a copy pasted registry, but as an inquisitive module.

Take in the sound, Look to register what it was and process accordingly. Except for speech, which would be in a registry library.

Those were pretty small though. People were more than capable of fitting an entire language software in their agents alone…

I should probably get more languages myself actually.

It almost made me stop working, but I shook it off. I’ll make a note to pick up a few of the common ones. Japanese would probably help a lot when dealing with the Weebs.

—-

“Hey, Motoko! Your song is on!” Jun called out suddenly and I looked away from my programming to faintly hear my own voice coming from the living room. Rising up I stepped outside and indeed it was true.

This Fffire was playing. And Jun was doing his proud older brother thing as he looked from the radio to me.

It still felt weird to hear my own voice.

Jun was quiet as the song played through, just looking all proud that it was on, and only when it was over and Ash came over the air did he turn to me.

“So? What do you think?”

“I think it still sounds awful and I hate it.” I told him, but that was actually lying, and he caught that. Giving me a look.

“C’mon don’t be like that.”

“It’s weird.” I answered truthfully. “I should probably do some more songs soon.”

“Oh!? You have some more ideas?” He asked, sounding interested which made it a bit awkward when they weren’t exactly ‘ideas’ in the creative sense.

“Yeah something like that. I’m sure Hiromi is going to bug me soon about putting out more songs… Or doing more gigs.” I groaned at that idea.

“Heh.” Jun just chuckled at me and stood up throwing an arm over my shoulder pulling me in for a hug. “I think you’ll somehow live.” He teased and I gently elbowed him, but didn’t really pull away.

“Shut up. It’s not like I want to come up with an entire new set list or anything… Even though I have some ideas.” I mumbled, and that was my mistake.

Talking to Jun. That was the mistake.

“Hehe!” He said and suddenly I was lifted up, hands under my armpits as Jun spun me around in the air. “I look forward to hearing it! When are you going to be done? Need any help?”

“Nooo!” I groaned as I kicked a little, but Jun was lifting me up and it wasn’t like I wanted to really dick kick him or something. So I could only really pout and look away from him as he hefted me up like I was a toy.

Stupid light body. I was going to get a full body conversion and weigh a ton or something and laugh as Jun failed to mess with me like this!

Then Jun put me down and sort of looked embarrassed. “I was uh, talking to Alice the other day. She mentioned that she wanted to ask if you wanted to play a song with her band sometime.” He offered and I blinked.

“Really?”

“Really. Her band, Violet Hemorrhage is going through some shit. So she’s looking for people to play with. You know?”

“Violent Hemorrhage.” I corrected him, and shook myself a bit after he put me back down, adjusting my clothes. “And I don’t know Jun. If they are having band trouble. I don’t want to stick my nose in it.”

“Maybe just a jam session then? I bet she’d be happy to help you play some of your songs.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You just want me to focus on Rockerboy stuff so I’m not getting into fights.”

“I think you have an amazing talent, and want you to be happy… And I want you to focus on Rockerboy stuff, so you aren’t getting into fights.” He said and I scoffed but couldn’t help but chuckle. I’m pretty sure I had used that one on Jun before.

“Tell her, I don’t mind jamming or maybe doing some stuff together sometime… I guess.”

“Preem. I’ll call her and let her know, but before that. Tell me about this new set!”

“Ugh. I don’t… I haven’t really thought about it.” I said truthfully, but now that I was… I could pull something together… Or I could fuck with Jun. “I’ll write some love songs! All about love and sex and-Urk!”

“No love songs!” Jun demanded grabbing for me which I ducked and dodged, he swiped at me, getting more serious as I started humming a tune as I slipped around, and then jumped flying over his head in a flip.

“You can’t stop me!” I called out, and starting singing. “I’m in love with the shape of you! We push and pull like Magnet do, although my heart is falling too, I’m in love with your body!” I sang running around and struggling not to die laughing as Jun groaned with every line chasing after me, he was far less nimble over the couch.

“Motoko!”

“C’mon Jun. You know I’m not really interested in doing a love song.” I offered, laughing, and Jun sighed out seeming to relax a bit.

“Thank God.”

“But I’ll likely put one out eventually. I mean, love songs are super popular.” I admitted and Jun just glared at me, but I laughed at his look. “Relax Jun. Maybe I’ll get someone else to sing it, and I’ll just give it to someone.”

“No love songs.” He grumbled at me, which made me cackle and I shook my head refusing to accept his demand. Not that I had much interest in them.

“Alright. I’m getting back to work. Talk to you later Jun.” I waved him off laughing at our little rough housing as I headed back into my room.

—--

I pulled up to the parking area near the Straight Lane Apartments, and hummed the first few bars of a random song.

I had spoken with Hiromi about formalizing stuff, so here it was.

The first official gig day of Section 9.

Grabbing some gear I headed down the street humming all along as I reached the entrance, and noticed some familiar faces hanging around. The girls that tried to get overly protective of their gang leader. They noticed me and sort of looked away.

Preem, not dealing with that today.

I walked past and to the elevator heading down not surprised to see Hiromi already there, along with someone that did surprise me. Rebecca.

“Hey Becca.” I greeted happily and she looked up from where she was sort of looking over Hiromi’s shoulder at the laptop she was working on to wave. Hiromi quickly looked up and smiled.

“Motoko! Great timing. We got the work details. This should be something fun. We are retaking some data that some Maelstrom stole.” Hiromi offered and I perked up.

Hey, that sounded like fun. Also fuck Maelstrom.

I walked over and stood behind Hiromi to look over her other shoulder from Rebecca and see. “Hmmm. That’s not a large group either.”

“O-of course! They brought a lot of heat on their heads. So they are hiding out. We can move in and clear them out and make some good eddies.”

“Preem. Who's the Fixer?” I asked and Hiromi went a bit quiet so I looked away from the computer to her. “Hiromi?”

“Regina.” Hiromi finally said and I blinked in surprise.

“Huh, I didn't think she wanted to work with me.”

“I uh, don’t actually know. I didn’t tell her that you were involved.” Hiromi admitted and I shrugged.

“Okay. That’s fine. I don’t like dealing with that part of the gig anyways. I’ll leave it to you.”

“Yeah! You can leave it to me!” Hiromi said with a big dopey smile. I smiled back and heard the elevator start up.

“That’s the boys.” I confirmed it with a quick check of the lobby camera.

“Good, I was about to start puking.” Rebecca said and I shifted to her.

“What? Are you sick?” I asked worried and Rebeeca stilled before looking away.

“Nah, just I’m good. Don’t worry about it. We’re about to kill some gonks, and make some eddies!” Rebecca cheered, sounding normal… She didn’t look sick…

I shook it off as Ichi arrived, with Malcolm in tow, both of them looked ready. Already mostly kitted out.

“Perfect! Everyone suit up. I’ll do an initial sweep of their system before we hit them.”

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