Ghost in the City

Two days. Of programming and I was…

Done.

My music box, or at least the code was ready. I just needed to finish putting it all together.

I flopped back onto the couch and just groaned. You would think coding something like this would take less time than a Quick Hack, and in some ways you would be right, but this was sorta… Complicated. A quick hack only did one thing, this box needed to be flexible.

I ran through my head what parts I would need and that list started to grow.

But it would be worth it. This was my pet project. Sure it was a glorified toy, but it was important for me to finish it anyways.

I got up to get dressed, stopped and realized I hadn’t showered in…

Okay so it’s been two days. I wince as I was very thankful that Jun hadn’t noticed. If he thought I wasn’t taking care of myself he would be upset.

I took a quick shower, and then realized I really needed to eat.

Okay downside to be constantly inspired. I was gonna have to start setting alarms if I was going to code anything.

I finished getting dressed and headed downstairs. Meatstick stall guy was outside the apartment like usual and I ended up devouring a few of them before I felt better. Now that I was properly taken care of. It was time to get back to it.

To finish the box I really needed some specific supplies. I headed out driving to the music shop I had bought my guitar from.

As I walked in the first few chords of Never Fade Away played above me.

Something that still made me chuckle a bit. Johnny would be rolling in his digital grave if he realized that Samurai were practically corporate jingles now.

I walked right through the many instruments laying around until I found what I needed.

A synth keyboard.

I popped my personal link into the slot to check if it had everything I needed.

“You obviously know what you want.” A voice called out and I looked up to see the sales person. The guy looked like a forty year old rocker stuffed into a corporate uniform.

His bushy beard completely covered the lanyard with his name on it.

“Yeah, just checking the code to see if this is the one I need.”

“Oh? Looking to make some digital music huh?”

“I just need to replicate a lot of different instruments.” I offered and he nodded before pointing above me.

“If you want a wide selection you want the Digi-tizer. The E-Numeral you are looking at, has a real wonky brass selection.” He offered pointing to another Synth.

“Oh. Thanks.” I muttered pulling out of the synth and moving to the next, after a few checks including running a few riffs on the keyboard because I had the ability and it was fun I nodded. He was right. The Brass notes sounded better.

“Damn. Was that Chippin In? Rare to see a kid these days know the classics.” He said and I just smiled with a shrug.

“Samurai were good. Johnny might be a bit of a bastard, but he knew his music.”

“Hah! Spoken like a true Rockerboy. You lookin to take the Digi?”

“Yeah, I’ll take it. Thanks. I’ll take that amp and a few bits and bobs as well. You guys don’t happen to have a holo emitter?”

“Oh? Looking to make some bitchin visuals too? Unfortunately not. Instruments and supplies only, but I know the place my band bought one. Just don’t tell the bosses I told you to buy from them.” He said with a wink and I laughed at that, and made the promise.

—--

Back home I was taking up 90% of the couch, and 100% of the table as I worked everything together.

The synth had a personal link port, so with the coding of that, and literally ripping the instrument apart and hooking it into my music box, I now had the ability to play just about any instrument purely through my link.

To save size, I kept the speaker, and amp as separate items, but there was another thing I needed to hook directly into the system

Three holographic display emitters.

They were a cool piece of tech, a lot of places used holographic TVs, the tech was well used, and it didn’t take me long to hook them into the music box, a bit of soldering a bit of fitting things together, a bit of adjustment to the power links and they were in.

Once I finished it, I sat back enjoying the alert telling me I got a few blips of XP for my Tech Attribute. But not a level up.

I really needed to work with tech more. It was too useful to ignore.

But I ignored that because it was done!

Well part of it anyways.

The code was complete.

The hardware was put together.

But now I had to actually create what I wanted using what I had.

First thing, I went into my room and dressed up. Brushed my hair. Did some makeup, which took a while because I hadn’t exactly practiced doing any makeup since I woke up. But I managed it. Making my eyes pop a little. Wearing a clean leotard and even cleaned up my jacket before slipping into it.

Okay then I went back out and had the music box actually record what I looked like. Standing still as the emitter slowly ran a scan over me. Creating a 3d image of myself, that it could add into whatever holographic display I wanted it to show.

Of course right around then I realized I would need images of the instruments as well.

Dammit.

I rushed back to the music shop. Carrying in my music box, I ended up dropping a couple hundred eddies, to the music shop guy to let me take scans with all the instruments, particularly the best quality, or coolest looking ones.

—--

Once more back in the apartment I was ready to start my first test.

I decided on a song and went to work. Plugged my personal link into the music box, and started with the most important part.

The music.

With my guitar in my hands mostly just to let my hands play over the notes, I started recording a track.

The sound of the guitar played back into my head sounded great, any error was easy to cut the correct chord back in, and I was off. Finishing the song with the guitar without any issue. I had played it a few times with just that already.

Then I switched to drums. Mentally creating the track. Using the Synth to recreate the noise of the drums as I played through the song adding in the drums to the guitar track.

Something I couldn’t do without all my Rockerboy knowledge. I had never touched a guitar set before outside of playing around in a past life, or while getting scanned in this one, yet I knew exactly how to use the Synth to create a digital track. What notes and how to get the sound right. It all flowed together.

Then I had to stop and do some work on creating unique sounds because some of the sounds used in the song weren't instrumental, I had to use my own programming skill to alter the Synths programming even further, to give me the ability to create entirely new sounds. Sounds that had only existed in my head.

Again and again, I played through the song until I had every beat sounding as perfect as I remember thanks to Perfect Musical Memory.

Guitar, drums, electronic, even the ending roaring vocals I managed myself. Every sound of the song pulled together completely from my brain, through a machine interface.

I loved the future.

And it was all silent as a grave outside my brain.

As I put the song together no neighbor heard it. It was just for me, and me alone.

—--

I hid behind my new stack of mess on the table when Jun came home, purposefully pretending I wasn’t able to see his judgemental look as I continued to put the display for the song together.

I ignored him when he came out later as well, as I was still editing the holographic display to match up.

I was watching a visual of what it would show on the laptop as I edited it mostly with my neural connection which was really really tough, but as long as I took it really slow, I could get better accuracy than going through it by hand.

The three emitters would all have their own image to display, and the track was finished, both with the guitar track baked in, and one without. Just in case I wanted to do a live play of the song.

And slowly it all came together.

Holographic tech was old hat to Cyberpunk. With my own computer skill it only took me a few hours to fill in the seven minute track.

Then finally it was ready. A single program with a completed version of a song that I recreated. Every note, every sound, every roar just how it was in my head.

I sat back blinking, realizing what I had just completed. That my music box was finally… Finally done. That it was working and everything was how it should be.

But I was way too hyped up to not do something. I stood up but stillled, unfortunately I was too embarrassed to just go out and start playing!

People would see me!

So I decided to fall back on my usual solution when I felt an urge to move.

Murder!

When I sold my debugging services to the netrunners, my trade had been knowledge on Scavs. Locations, holdouts, favorite bars.

Anything.

Everything.

Whatever they had.

While not all of them had direct Scav den locations. A few did.

Sure I could wait for my chooms… But it was late… Well early, the sun would be coming up soon.

But they might notice I was being weird! No one can know! If it goes bad the Scavs will all be dead anyways!

So I popped a shard into the music box, recording a copy of the song, quickly took a moment to etch the name of the song onto the shard, and went to grab some gear.

Considering the nature of the song…

My Carnage was selected. I didn’t use a shotgun often enough. I loaded one of my attachable pockets full of shells and looked around… What else could I take?

Katana was an option and I considered it. But I had to shake my head. It would be a little more finessey than I was going for tonight. This music wasn’t sword fight music, not unless you were carrying a greatsword or something.

Another time. Another song.

I did reach over into the medkit that I had been putting together from stuff I’ve collected. I grabbed all the MaxDocs I had and stuffed them all over the place, hooking them into whatever place I could. I was looking for a brutal fight tonight. Had to make sure I would walk away in the end.

I stepped out of my room right into Jun, who reached out and put a hand on my Carnage to stop me.

“Motoko?”

“Yes, this is Motoko?”

“What are you doing?”

I opened my mouth to answer and didn’t have a good enough answer.

“Murder?”

He frowned at me. “Details.”

“I know of a Scav den, I’m gonna go murder them… I uh, finished a song so I wanted to do a BD of me murdering a bunch of Scavs while I rocked out to it… It’s gonna be cool.” I explained trying to get away but Jun wasn’t having it.

“That’s… Motoko you are the weirdest person I know… I’m coming with.”

“No way!” I denied instantly. “It could be embarrassing! You can’t come.”

“Motoko you aren’t hitting a Scav den without backup.”

“Why? I usually do!”

“You usually have your chooms with you… I don’t even know how you keep finding these dens, they are usually hidden.”

“Internet.” I said smiling dopily at being able to pull out an old meme.

Jun didn’t get it.

“Why don’t you call your chooms then?” He argued and I grumbled, I had already explained that I didn’t want them to see!

“Fine! I’ll call in Ichi and Malcolm after I’m done to loot everything down. Now you don’t have to follow me.” My perfect reasoning delivered I moved to step around him.

He didn’t accept my reasoning.

—--

“This is so embarrassing.” I muttered as I parked the Quadra in the parking area for Megabuilding H11.

“I’m just here to make sure you don’t get in over your head.” Jun told me completely uncaring about how much I whined at him that I didn’t need supervision while murdering Scavs.

“I called Ichi and Malcolm. They’ll help!”

“You said you didn’t want to call them in until afterwards. I don’t want you in a firefight without someone to back you up. It’s common sense Motoko… The fact you are so skilled and keep forgetting that is gonk brain shit.” He grumbled at me. “You want me to trust you to fight, I do. But that doesn’t mean you skip basic shit.”

I huffed, but didn’t really have a response to that.

Fucking Jun. Using common sense and shit on me.

I don’t want common sense. I want action!

Whatever. I was a badass merc! Jun babying me would be water over my back!

I stepped out of the car and did the same thing I had done the last time I hit a Scav den in a megabuilding.

I found an elevator and went up to the floor above the one that I had been told was the den. Jun followed me around much to my irritation.

When I was there I circled the floor, searching for the usual signs, and while there weren't a bunch of emptied apartment buildings like there had been in the last one, they still had a whole section of the building cut off with trash and refuse.

“That’s them.” I told Jun as I pointed to the corner section of the building. This late at night the whole thing was bathed in red light and shadows, but it was still obvious where the Scavs lived.

“Sure you don’t need any help?” He asked, sounding more vicious than usual, but I shook my head.

This was my murder, get your own!

“Just sit tight and watch.” I told him instead, poking a finger into his side that he slapped away.

Then I focused, first I knelt down, and could just see a camera the Scavs had set up. As usual they loved putting up their little security system. Too bad they sucked at it.

My eyes blazed as I breached into the camera, nearly instantly slipping through the ICE and then moving through the security system.

There were four cameras hooked up around the place. None of them showed the actual ripper room, but that was just common sense. But one of the Scavs could be seen, resting on an old couch as he smoked a cigarette, and watched TV.

I pinged him, letting the program unspool and slowly slip through the Scavs system to all of his buddies.

I smirked as the group all highlighted in my vision.

Okay. There were quite a few of them. This was a big den, and it was late.. Or early. So I guess they were mostly here resting.

It didn’t matter. I was already in their system. Weapon Glitch was prepared. My personal version of Weapon Glitch had been completed, and was ready for its baptism.

The war will soon begin.

I smiled. I was ready. I shushed Jun and waved him a bit away before closing my eyes. When I opened my eyes it would be go time. What was the movie term? A single take? I was going to clear this Scav den in slightly less than seven minutes the song would last. No fuckups would be tolerated. This was going to be pure adrenaline if I did it right!

I smirked to myself. Hopefully the Scavs could last long enough.

Then I exhaled ice.

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