Ghost in the City

“Motoko!” Hiromi called out as she entered Lizzies.

Sure she looked a bit awkward about it, staring a bit too long at some of the Mox bouncers, but I waved her over and her nervousness faded as she got closer.

I guess it might be a little awkward for a girl like Hiromi who usually was covered in TC stuff to walk into the Mox home.

But honestly I wanted to get away from using the Ho-Oh club as our meetup place.

That stupid mask I now had hidden away in my room was taunting me with the fact that Fujimura was eager to recruit me fully.

I didn’t want to deal with that.

“You’re late.” Ichi pointed out as he sipped on his drink. Malcolm and Ichi had actually been here early…

A little ‘too’ early if my estimation was right, but boys will be boys.

“Pfft! I was busy! Reaching out to some contacts about potential buyers.” Hiromi said eyebrows twitching in an insinuation about their future payday.

“All is forgiven.” Ichi offered with a faux bow and Hiromi cackled as she slipped into the seat next to me. We were at the bar for now, but I would drag my chooms into one of the private booths before we got to talking too much.

Hiromi ordered a drink, Ichi and Malcolm both happy to drink a bit on my tab. Because I am a generous leader.

“So you found something?” Malcolm prompted, looking eager. This wasn’t his first attempt to pry information out, but I had told him to wait for Hiromi.

“Not here. Get your drinks, and let’s go grab a bit of privacy. Thanks Mateo.” I said to the bartender, dropping a tip as I dragged my eager chooms out of the main room.

In the end we took over one of the booth rooms, as I settled my chooms around and then I called all of them just like last time.

Instantly I sent all of them the information I had gathered about the new scav den.

The office building looked run down from the outside, and closed off, that image moved inside giving a bit gruesome scenes of the interiors.

*Disgusting.* Hiromi muttered into the group call. *But it looks like they have a lot of product.* She said looking at the boxes of chrome the Scavs were collecting.

*How did you even find this place?* Ichi asked and I threw him a peace sign.

*I backtraced missing peoples reports and slipped into security systems all along the streets. Everyone has security cameras after all, and a lot of them are pointing at the street. So with a bit of finangling and a lot of illegal hacking I was able to track people.*

*Holy shit! That must have been pretty hard. I’m surprised more people don’t do that.*

I shrugged. *It’s dangerous. One bad server that has some nasty ICE, and I could be in a lot of trouble.*

*Motoko! If you are going to do something so dangerous then call on us to help! We can at least get you to your ripper if something goes wrong.* Hiromi demanded glaring and I nodded hands raised at her anger.

*Yeah, probably smart.*

*Good!*

*Should be a good payday. Any issue with the numbers Motoko?* Ichi asked, *Need us to come in guns blazing this time?* He said while motioning with his hand as if shooting a gun.

*No. I’ve already taken over their system, when I hit them, all of the scavs are going to lose their ability to see simultaneously!” I chirped, grinning at the idea of what I was going to do to these monsters.

*Nice.*

*Malcolm: You grabbed all of their camera data here right?* Malcolm asked, still forced to send his question as a text as he didn’t have an interior agent.

Gonna have to remind him he could get that upgrade now.

*Yeah, their security was good, but not that good. They had it all saved to a laptop. I actually think it might have been something one of them did as a mistake. The security for the network was set up by a netrunner, but this is the kind of amateur mistake I expect from someone who has no idea what they are doing.*

*Malcolm: Then, can’t we use your little back trace trick to find more scav dens?*

I blinked at Malcolms text. That was… possible.

While I had tracked the van back to this place. They still had to transport their gear to another site to sell, could I figure out where?

Could I track their shipments to find even more? I could follow cameras like I had before…

Well maybe not alone.

But I wasn’t alone.

*Okay chooms. Malcolm had a great idea. I might be able to track the scavs, but I’ll need your help. Rather than hit just one scav den. I want to find where all of the chrome gets sent.* I said and suddenly all three of my chooms sat up straight.

We had made bank on the small scav dens.

But if there was a central repository? If there was even just a storage space for where all the chrome went?

We could make…

A lot of eddies.

Like a lot of eddies.

*Okay. Malcolm, you have a good eye for that sort of stuff. Start going through the camera, see if you can spot something we can use.* I point out and the boy actually flushes and looks pleased at my words.

*Hiromi. If we hit a place that has even more equipment we might need more transport. Think you can use your connections to find us people willing to transport stuff for us?*

*I have a few ideas already.* She confirmed with a nod.

*Ichi if we are moving that much stuff, we are going to need a place to store it… Maybe even a gang to help protect it.* I had to admit with a scowl. *I have some TC contacts if this actually works that I can pull on, but maybe find us some low key storage we can move stuff to?*

*I know of a few places I can use. Leave it to me!*

*Alright, in that case… I guess I need to get back on the net… Actually. All of us should get moving. I can pull more info and send it to you guys to check over as I’m running.*

“Oh! Um…” Malcolm said aloud before stopping, hesitating. “Should I call Omaeda?”

I blinked, Omaeda was… Oh! He was the netrunner that Ichi and Malcolm had been friends with.

“I haven’t seen him in a while, now that you mention it.”

“Omaeda bailed on us during the war. He basically went home and hid. We haven’t talked since.” Ichi offered with a grumpy face.

“It wasn’t like that Ichi. You know that. Omaeda wasn’t as into the TC as you. He didn’t want to get shot in a gang war.”

“He bailed on us when we needed him. We don’t need him.” Ichi said ending the conversation for a moment as Hiromi and I both kind of just looked at each other awkwardly.

“Let’s go without him for now?” I prompted and Malcolm hesitated and just shrugged a bit.

“Alright. We should head to your place?”

“Yeah, it sounds like tonight is going to be busy for all of us.” I say and Hiromi groans a bit.

Heh, corpo brat. Ichi and Malcolm both looked excited.

—--

An hour later I was back in the net. My chooms were set up on laptops connecting to the server so I could pass them data in real time, and I rushed back to the scav den’s server.

With the work I had done before I was able to just slip right back inside, and this time I was accessing their data looking for something in particular.

*Malcolm see anything on the cameras yet?* I called out, the phone connection with my group was active despite being in the net.

*They had a bunch of the chrome crates disappear about a month ago, but I’m narrowing down when it happened.*

I nodded to myself as I accessed the camera system myself. I could access the system in a way that Malcolm couldn’t since I was in the net, multiple screens popped up, and I set each of them to be a different day the camera had recorded and just waited for the crates to disappear.

*The tenth.* I sent to him, as I noticed some of the scav guys load up a bunch of the crates on handtrucks and move them out.

There wasn’t really a good exterior camera so I was forced to move outward. Checking both ends of the street for active cameras.

Nothing.

The cameras just weren’t good in the area. I had only been able to narrow down the scavs to this street to begin with.

So I went wider, slipping into more and more camera systems in a big circle, the actual searching I left to my chooms. I was giving them access, pulling the camera data and then moving on, and then finally we got a hit.

*Found it! Going down Pondsmith.* Ichi said and I pulled out of the cafe I had been pulling a video from. I jumped across the net, I checked the image Ichi had found of the white scav van, and then I jumped to the systems down the street, finding one that had a street cam. I accessed it’s records confirming the vans path.

*Alright everyone, I’m gonna start sending the video data. Find me this truck's path.* I called out, switching back to hitting every camera just a bit further down the street I could find and pulling their video records.

Some didn’t keep records, some didn’t have cameras with the right angle.

In the end I just kept digging, letting my chooms find the vans path, from the data I pulled. Sometimes making me pull back when the van turned suddenly.

Sometimes I was forced to spread out my net wide, when we lost track of it, going down every street connected to the road we lost the van on just to see if we can catch sight of it on the cameras.

I was really happy I had my chooms helping out.

This could have been something taking me days to slowly path out the vans movements without the external help.

While a part of me couldn’t help but wonder why the NCPD didn’t do something similar, It was the reminder in my head that breaking into every business and personal camera I could on the path would be something the NCPD would need a warrant for. Plus a netrunner to do this for every crime.

I shook it off, I wasn’t here to judge NCPD’s lack of investigation talent.

I was here to track these scavs through the city, to find them.

In the end we did truly lose them.

*Anything?* I asked my team only to get groans back.

It was late. We had been tracking this truck through the city for hours. Everyone was getting close to being overworked.

*I don’t know where the truck went, Motoko! This is so fucking stupid! God damned Corpos! No wonder scavs get away with this shit! The Corpo security practically protects them!* Malcolm cursed getting frustrated at the entire situation.

*Alright I’m pulling out. I think we all need a break.* I call into the chat, and slowly pull myself back to my body.

I blinked back in my flesh. I sat up slowly seeing my chooms all sitting around the basement in different levels of disarray. I looked at the clock and winced at how late it was.

“Sorry guys. I shouldn’t have kept pushing you all so late. Let’s get some rest we can continue tomorrow.” I offered and Malcolm and Hiromi both groaned but seemed willing to stop.

Ichi’s fist slammed onto the table, startling us all.

“No. Motoko, you’ve been netdiving for like six hours. You must be exhausted, take a break. Grab some food whatever you need. But I’m not… You brought us in, it’s our turn to prove we aren’t just… hanging onto your rep. I’m not giving up. Not yet.” He said and Hiromi instantly plopped back into her chair and focused on the laptop.

Malcolm let out a chuckle and shook his head. “Yeah fair enough. Not like we haven’t done late nights before. I could use some chow though.”

“I’ll go get some food!” I told them cutting Malcolm off. “I owe you guys for being so great!” I said and before they could say anything I was there. Rushing in.

Malcolm got first hug since he was closest. I lifted him up and spun him around a bit before dropping him onto his wobbly feet and rushed at Hiromi who squeaked as I lifted her out of her chair.

Ichi tried to defend himself. But his Street Brawling was weak.

Something to work on in the future.

My grapple hugs completed, I hummed happily as I headed to the elevator. There was a diner down the street, I bet I could get a couple of to go meals there.

—--

Bags full of steaming hot meals I walked back to the apartment. The diner was close enough I decided to just walk, it would take longer to have to park the car.

While I did I considered the problem.

The Scavs obviously had to have a way to get the chrome out of the city. That was the rumor, or at least my understanding. The Scavs stole chrome from the city and sold it off, usually in russia.

Okay so assuming that is right, they had to ship it. It’s why I was so confused. Why would they drive into City Center? There were no docks big enough for a transpacific cargo ship there. You would want to go northside for that.

But they had come from the northside, traveling into City Center.

So why?

Why would you head into City Center? The truck they used was pretty big. More than enough for the many crates they loaded up. The same style of crates we had found in the original scav den. The only one that hadn’t had the same style was Charles shop, but his was obviously a weird scav situation, since he was reselling the chrome he found.

So they brought in tens of crates, how do they get them out?

Did they load them into an AV for transport out of the city? But why City Center? There were better places to load an AV closer.

So a ship?

But why? The only docks in City Center were like… High end Yacht club stuff. The sort of place that has insane security, that a bunch of scavs wouldn’t be able to slip in.

Did they gather it up and transport it out in bigger trucks? I suppose the scavs could have a corpo working with them, giving them a place to store huge amounts of their loot.

In the end I just wasn’t sure where to go next.

Luckily I could still be snack provider.

As I walked into the basement room it was quiet, my chooms were all still staring at the screens and I decided it was time for a break.

“Food time!” I called out holding up the bags of to go diner meals in the air.

“Yeah I could eat.”

“Food!” Malcolm and Ichi both spoke as one, and pulled away from the system. I settled the food on a table that Morgan had probably set up for just that purpose and parceled out the meals.

“It’s so frustrating! How can they just disappear like that! I just want to know where they went!” Hiromi whined as she plopped into the chair.

“Well they didn’t disappear.” Malcolm said after a moment as he finished swallowing a bite of the pasta that I was absolutely sure wasn’t what the diner called it, but hey it was warm and filling.

“We lost them though.”

“Yeah the fuckers drove down Corpo, I mean Corporation st. and we can’t find a camera to hit them with after.” Ichi offered, chowing down.

“Yeah but like… We know where they end up.” Malcolm said, suddenly sitting up straight as he put the food down.

“No we don’t? We lost track of them.” I reminded him but his eyes weren’t focused on me, he was a million miles away.

“Malcolm?”

“They return to the scav den.” He said in a mumble. “When they are done. They return to the scav den.”

“Yeah?”

“So they don’t disappear. We know where they are… Motoko, instead of trying to track their path to where they are going. Try to track them on their way back!” I considered it. They likely would take the same path back, but what if they didn’t?

Either way it was more data.

“Malcolm. Good job.” I said throwing him a thumbs up, but as my chooms all stood to rush back to their stations I reached out and started pushing people back into chairs. “Hold it!” I demanded startling everyone.

“Food first. Breaking a Scav ring comes after.”

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