Chapter 153

—--

The last attack on the SLS had happened in an alleyway just off Lele st. This was Charter Hill. One of the richy rich places in Night City. Which is why I was struggling to find a good camera to peep through.

Most of the camera systems in the area were controlled by whatever corp owned the building. Or were heavily protected by building security.

I quickly slipped out of another server as I could see a netrunner beginning to look around at the increased server load of me wandering around on it.

“Another bust.”

*Dangit! We’ll try to find another business.* Hiromi added and I nodded as I hid myself in a corner of the digital city. This area was cleaner than most other sections of the net. The net felt clearer, and faster.

But it was also much more dangerous.

City Center hadn’t even been this bad, although that was because there were lots of little private shops all through the area.

Not so much here. Most of the stuff was all kept controlled by the corporations in charge.

I was watching the data move around, trying to find new access points, when I noticed it.

“Heya.” I called out casually, as I rested against the side of a digital skyscraper.

“Never seen you around here before.” A response came as a netrunner stepped out of the shadows.

“On a gig. Not looking for any trouble.”

“Well that all depends.” She offered. I looked into the rainbow colored blazing eyes, and fiery burning hair.

I readied myself. I didn’t like threats. Especially not on the net.

“I don’t like threats. Get processing choom.” I said, even using a fun bit of netrunning jargon.

“Pfft. You entered into a server I got under contract. You slipped inside without me even noticing, and then you were out. Not long enough to grab anything. So what’s the deal? You scoping out? Am I gonna have to worry about an attack? I want some answers, and I’-”

“Nah. I’m trying to get eyes on an alley on this street. One of my clients was attacked a few days ago. I’m tracking the attacker. Nothing to do with you.” I answered back much more calmly. This wasn’t going to turn into a battle after all.

The woman looked confused at my words like I was talking nonsense.

“What? So you try to slip into protected servers to what? Peek through the cameras?”

“Basically.”

“That’s crazy.” She answered instantly. “You’ll run into ICE and get brain fried. No one is stupid enough to do that.”

“I kinda do it all the time.” I answered honestly, mostly because the look on her face as I said it made me grin.

“You… Slip into servers all the time just to check their cameras.”

“It’s really useful for tracking gonks down. I don’t suppose you’d let me peek at your outdoor cameras on the server you protect?”

“Not a chance.”

“Figured. Hey, you must know the area pretty well.”

“I don’t like where this is going.” She interrupted sighing.

“Know of any small businesses in the area that have cameras peeking at the alley on Lele, between-”

“I know the alley. There is one. And… Well it’s not my hide either way. Sure there is an access point to a transport business down there. They have an external camera. If you are trying to keep an eye on the alley, that’s the way to do it… But it’s not like they don’t have ICE and stuff. You can’t seriously just jump in.”

“Sure I can! Thanks Choom. I’m Ghost by the way.” I introduced myself since we weren’t going to fight. Awesome that saved me so much time hunting down the access point.

“Blazed.” She answers and then to my surprise she follows me as I head down the steps she had pointed out. As I walked down into the steps. I instead came out into an open space stepping out of the darkness of the transfer.

The web was really silly sometimes.

“Ah there it is.” I confirmed finding the access point without any fuss as I could see the data traveling through it.

“Yeah.”

“You following me for a reason?”

“I kinda want to see you get stuck in the ICE and brain fried.” She answered and I scoffed out a laugh as I decided to just ignore her then.

I walked to the point, and after a few moments I breached the defenses, opening it up, and sending my Daemon into the system. A few moments later I waved at Blazed and slipped inside.

I nodded pleased. The security in this server was waaay lighter than the others in the area.

I slipped past a blinded Security Daemon. And then to a password secured connection to the camera system.

Less than a second later, I was breached into the door, the password accepting an admin password for this particular model of camera and letting me bypass the ten seconds it would take to breach it normally. Then I was into the camera security logs, and I pulled up the date and general time.

I copied an hour chunk and sent that on to my chooms to begin examining.

Then I just walked right back out.

If we needed a different time period, I could always slip back on, but the longer I was on the server the more likely the increased load of my presence would be noticed.

I stepped back out into the small open space, and to my surprise Blazed was still there.

“Bullshit.”

“What?”

“No way you just slipped the data that fast. That was what? Thirty seconds?”

“I mean. I just needed to copy an hour chunk of the camera logs, it wasn’t really hard.”

“Bullshit, that’s bullshit!”

“Okay? Anyway, thanks for the help-”

“Fuck no. Hold on. I have to see this.” She demanded and then she walked over to the access point, and started poking at it.

The seconds tore on, and I waited, and winced, as I could see her breach attempt. It was working, sure, but it was kinda slow.

“How the fuck. Did you fix their security or something? How’d you breach so fast?”

“There’s a bypass in that version of ICE they are using.” I answered and she looked to me, before scoffing and just stepping away. Ending her breach attempt.

“Ghost?”

“Yeah?”

“Never heard of you. At least I don’t think so, I mean you aren’t the only gonk calling themselves Ghost or a Ghost.”

“Yeah I don’t really hang out much on the net… I mostly hang out with Yoko at the Roundabout? I do programming work.”

“Shit. You program too? You any good?”

“I’m pretty good! I do a lot of commissioned Debugging work! Yoko bugs me all the time to fix her code.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Yoko? Nova. Alright, I'll take it back. You aren’t some 2-bit. I’m Blazed. Mostly contract security. Here.”

I blinked as she sent me contact info.

“Umm. Thanks?” I responded a little confused. Was I supposed to send my info back? Was this some sort of netrunner thing?

It seemed so, as a moment later of me waffling trying to figure out what to do, her face shifted from a smile into a frown.

“Not in your league huh?” She responded and I just shook my head.

“Umm. I just don’t know what’s going on. I really don’t interact with people on the net much. I kinda just hop on to get whatever gig I’m doing done, and then jump off.”

“Wait seriously? I mean… How many hours on the net you got? I’m hitting about 21k. Mostly server security. They got me doing 12’s every day.”

“Umm… Yeah I have no idea. I never kept track.” I said instead of admitting it was less than 100 hours or something. The long camera hopping days had taken up most of that.

“Right. Yeah makes sense. It’s pretty common, if you run into a runner and you make contact a lot of time we share contact info. Increase our contacts you know? Someday I might call you up and offer a favor for work, or you can call me, and do the same. Usually we give each other heads up if we might need to agro their server or something.”

“Oh! Sure, here.” I passed over the same contact info that Yoko used for my netrunner work. Mostly an email to send programming work to, but Blazed seemed pleased at that.

“Nova. Alright. I gotta get back to work then. Nice meeting you Ghost.”

“You too!” I offered, smiling as she disappeared back into the depths of the stairs.

*I don’t like her!* I jumped at the sudden words in my ear.

*Motoko trying to get a new Output while on the job? For shame.* Malcolm spoke up next, his tone absolutely teasing.

“What?” I asked wondering what these gonks were talking about!

*Motoko watching you flirt up a girl is entertaining, but maybe we should focus on the gig?* Ichi added in next and I heard Hiromi then choking for a minute.

“I wasn’t flirting!”

*Suuuure.* Ichi responded back really rolling with the sarcasm.

“I wasn’t!” Then I remembered they were fucking with me. I rolled my eyes at the boys teasing, as I focused instead on the gig. “Okay tell me you found our suspect.”

*Found. The time was about right. Showing you what we got… You uh. Probably aren’t going to like this.* Malcolm offered, and I watched as a video was sent to me, it popped up on a screen in front of me and I watched in interest. As a van pulled up at the end of the alley.

Our seller was sitting on a loading dock in the alley with his bag open. I have to give Hiromi credit. It actually did look like he was slacking off more than trying to sell stuff, but I wasn’t a BD seller, so who knows how that worked.

The van let out two men from the side door and I frowned.

It wouldn’t have been noticed in person. But the same function in my Kiroshi that blurred my face was in use on these men.

I felt my hands tightening and I was glad we were in the net because otherwise my chrome hands would be creaking with how hard I was gripping.

The two men walked over and one instantly punched the seller, throwing him around, as the other grabbed the bag, and then once they roughed up the kid they turned and left.

The fact the seller didn’t have a SLS guard was the reason this happened. The two men got back in their van and then took off. Not even in a hurry just casually driving away.

*Motoko?*

“I know what’s going on.” I answered back furious. The video ended thankfully I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, the virtual air not satisfying me in the way I wanted.

The two men had the same glowing masks that all Scavs tended to use.

Fucking Scavs.

—---

I didn’t have time to jump out of the net and deal with my fury of once more facing Scavs. No, instead I needed to track that van.

It wasn’t easy. But since I wasn’t trying to look down a specific alley. I had a lot more options for systems to slip into.

A cafe down the street, a clothing shop that had melted ICE for security, a food stand on the street that had a security camera pointed at the street that could see the four way intersection.

We tracked them right down.

As usual Scavs never expected retribution. Especially not for something this low level. Who would care about a single teenager selling XBD’s in an alley?

I would. Especially when they worked for my friend.

I would. When they were attacked by Scavs.

And so unfortunately for these fucks, they had someone actively hunting them and they never even knew it.

They took a right onto Pardey, not far from the assault, and then headed over the bridge to Arroyo.

I lost them right after, because North Arroyo was all industrial parks, and there was no street level cameras to peer through. I searched for hours, trying to find something on the other side of the bridge that would give me eyes on which way the van went.

The only thing I could guarantee was that the Van didn’t take Republic way into City Center. They traveled through Arroyo.

We even tried Malcolms back tracing idea. Following them from the other direction, but they actually just came from the same direction, and we lost them at the same place.

*What do we do now?* Hiromi asked, and I hummed as I sat on the steps of a digital building to think. Watching the traffic slip by. Digital information traffic was kinda soothing to watch.

Scavs… What were they doing? BD stuff? They didn’t kill the kid which was interesting. Why not? Northern Arroyo? What was in Northern Arroyo that would interest Scavs? Industrial parks. Mostly abandoned, and 6th st. claimed most of them.

I felt like something was there. Just on the edge of my tongue. I just couldn’t solidify it.

“Any smart ideas Malcolm?” I asked, and he laughed, but I could hear the denial.

*I got nothing here Motoko. Nothing fast anyways… You made those spy cameras right? Maybe we go out and put a few of them in the area. See if we can’t get eyes on the same van later?*

“The license plate was blocked. We would be tracking every van that travels through the area. That’s a bit more work than I’m willing to do.”

*Yeah… Then a trap? We send out another seller, and bait them into attacking?* He offered and I hummed.

“Could work.”

*Not really. No way my sellers would let themselves be bait. I might not have accepted this actually was the truth before, but the sellers have. I’ve been getting requests for more security, and I think I’ll have to do that now.* Hiromi added with a sigh.

*Duh, then we just have one of us do it.*

“Absolutely not. The Scavs were gentle before. But there is no telling what they will do in the future. If this is their way of saying stay off their territory, then…” I trailed off letting my chooms fill in the blanks.

*Right. You’re right. We can’t do that.*

“Alright. I’m done here. I’m coming out.” I called out, as I stood up and leapt into the data streams sending me back to my lobby in a flash of data.

—--

“Oooh that feels good.” I moaned as I shoveled warm food into my mouth. “Ichi you get a promotion.”

“Nice.”

“Hey!” Malcolm said as he pouted. “I got the food too!”

“But Ichi got me this food, so he gets the promotion.”

I ignored Malcolms faux outraged mumbling before I laughed and just stuffed more food into my face.

“So let’s put together what we learned. Scavs attacked the XBD sellers. We know they come and go from northern Arroyo.” I added and left off looking around.

“We know that they have something to do with BD’s. These aren’t Scav targets they are after. They were only interested in the BD’s.” Hiromi added in.

“The van they were driving was set up to look as common as possible. Nothing defining on it. I couldn’t even see any scratches or something we could use for verification.” Ichi added in.

“Okay so we have a bunch of Scavs hiding in Arroyo… Can we call in any contacts? Anyone that could give us more information?” Malcolm asked.

“I can reach out.” Hiromi said, looking fierce. She obviously wasn’t happy about the entire situation happening under her nose.

“Alright. I need a break. Let’s call it here tonight. We’ll meet up in a few days if we get more info.” I offered with a groan as I stretched out my legs a bit. “I think I’m done for the day.” I called out as I headed out, to the calls of goodbyes from everyone. They were all packing up as I entered the elevator and headed out.

The drive home was quick and it left me feeling refreshed.

I got home and threw my jacket over the couch as I headed for the fridge pushing aside all the XXL burritos to get a soda that I had hidden in the back.

No Jun huh? I shrugged, it wasn’t that late yet, instead I headed into my room, and had to stop and giggle.

The Tachikoma drone had somehow ended up on its back. Its legs wiggling in the air weakly.

“Silly thing.” I cooed, as I picked it up and carried it over to the laptop. I would go over what it had learned so far today and make some improvements!

—--

“Motoko?”

“Jun! Welcome home!” I called out, the Tachikoma code had evolved a lot, although not that much with it getting stuck on its back and then sending the entire thing into a loop.

But that was okay. It had a few hours of growth for me to trim and improve.

“What’s that you’re working on?” He asked as he poked his head into my room. I spun my chair away from the laptop I had been working on and instead lifted the Tachikoma drone from my lap. Lifting it over my head I spun the chair and sang

“Dooo dooo do doooo! It’s a Tachikoma! A drone prototype!” I answered after I stopped spinning.

“Huh.” He uttered a little confused, but as always Jun liked to be supportive so he walked into my room to get a closer look.

“That’s preem. What can it do?”

“Right now? Walk and get stuck on its back when it hits a wall. But the goal is to have it running a SCSM. Mostly sneaking into places, maybe some assassination work. I’m going to install a gun into the chassis, once I got the kinks worked out.”

“Why not just buy a drone? Those floaty ones are everywhere.”

“The Bombus? Those are garbage. It was originally a caretaker drone that people realized was cheap enough to duct tape a bomb onto. Tachikoma are meant to be fully autonomous recon assistants!”

“Right. Why blue?”

“It’s cuter this way!” I chirped, showing off the blue paint scheme.

Jun just snorted and patted me on the head. “Well as long as it’s keeping you busy and out of trouble.”

“Eh. Only partially. I stole blueprints for a bunch of grenades from a really protected gun store server, and then found out that Hiromi’s BD peddlers have been attacked by Scavs. So we went on a hunt for-”

“Motoko… Just call me if you need help.” Jun interrupted sounding tired, and I laughed at him.

“Sure Jun. We are hunting down the Scavs right now. But they are sneaky, hiding in Arroyo… Or maybe Northern Arroyo, it’s hard to tell. Once we find them, want to come slaughter some Scavs with me?”

He blinked, and I was honestly a little surprised as well. I hadn’t really invited Jun to come on a raid before, and the words had left my mouth without me thinking about it.

“Sure.”

I smiled brightly. Jun might be a kill stealer, but this could be fun. Now I just had to find some damn Scavs, with a connection to BD’s in Arroyo, I mean, the only connection I remember from the game would be the-

“Fuck.” I uttered as the lightning bolt of awareness hit me.

I knew. I knew exactly where these Scavs would be hiding, and more importantly? I would happily murder all of them for the horrible shit they did.

“Motoko?”

“I know where the Scavs are. I think. Pretty sure. Ninety percent. Jun hold on a second.” I demanded putting my Tachikoma back on the floor as I started pacing.

The same location that the Scavs had holed up in, the place that V would someday in the future break into, murder blending everyone to find Evelyn. The place Scavs were setting up XBD’s with captured people.

I had forgotten about it. I shouldn’t have! I had done that quest in the game enough times. I should have remembered!

“Motoko.” Jun said but I ignored him because the fucking scavs had been there this whole time!

I stomped as I paced around. How could I have forgotten something so obvious!? Those fuckers had been allowed to work completely unopposed! That should have been my first tar-

“Motoko!” Jun demanded arms wrapped around me and lifting me entirely off the ground. I went still in his grip as he hug-grabbed me. “Are you okay?”

I breathed in, which was hard with Jun’s arms pinning my back to his chest, but then I exhaled. Cool.

Feel cold. Control the emotions, don’t let them control you.

“Yeah. I’m better. Sorry Jun. I had the clues I needed to know where a big Scav setup is at, and I totally spaced it.” Slowly I was lowered down to my feet and was released.

Jun looked worried.

I exhaled again. “Don’t give me that look, I’m okay. Not Cyberpsycho or anything, just angry. And mad at myself. I know where a group of Scavs are taking people and using them to make XBD’s. And funnily enough. It’s the same group that was attacking Hiromi’s BD sellers. I literally spent hours searching for them on the net… But I knew where they were the whole time.” I grumbled. Jun nodded then slowly, and pulled me in for a more normal hug.

“We’ll get them.”

“Hell yeah we will.” I whispered back.