Chapter — 29

Rei vaulted level after level of the fire escape placed in an alley on her way down from the roof of one of the shorter buildings around. It was exhilarating and excellent practice.

「Notice:

[Parkour] skill level has increased.

Level: 3 → 4」

New information flooded her mind as she vaulted the last two meters to the ground, the skill providing her with new ingrained knowledge through the nanites connected to her mind.

She didn't stop, though, neither on the skill level up nor on her landing, but took off down the alley, kicking off a wall to get some extra air as she slapped one hand against the dumpster passing beneath.

Rei kept running, a grin on her face as she panted from exertion.

It was the second day after Miyo had moved into her flat, and Rei had just spent the morning working out at the gym. When she got a message from Ichiro, though, telling her that he would arrive at Miyo's apartment in just over two hours after the final checkups from the ripper, she couldn't help but hurry home.

Well, not hurrying precisely as there had still been a while left, she took her time to rest and eat as she sampled the vending machines, then set to training [Parkour] on the way back.

Rei had meant to just use the closest back alleys to get back quickly, but when she'd started running, she just couldn't seem to stop.

Her route had become increasingly circuitous as she ventured further afield, testing her limits by climbing obstacles she could reasonably access and avoiding areas that seemed too heavily guarded — at least for now.

All the construction sites she'd encountered had been guarded by security bots and cameras, even while the crew was hard at work, meaning she'd have to take a risk if she wanted to play there.

Rei didn't know if she could afford to take such risks — not yet, not until all the Pistons were dead and gone.

She shook off the effects of [Merciless] that had begun to creep up at the darker thoughts, ruining her mood.

It had at least made her regain some clarity from the runner's high — parkour high? — and check the time in her agent.

Fuck! I'm nearly late.

Regaining some of the euphoria as she put some extra speed behind her movements — her tardiness creating a challenge — Rei ran out of the alley while dodging a few loitering addicts. One of them seemed to pull a gun, perhaps to rob her, but she was gone before he'd even raised it in her direction.

This is so fun! No wonder I saw another fellow skipping across a rooftop in the distance. I'll have to do this more often.

Also get cyberware that allows me to move like he did...

He'd practically flown between buildings, jumping off air-filtering units and running across thin pipes.

Arriving at a street as crowded as usual, Rei slowed down, her lungs still working like bellows as she replaced her hood that had slipped off. Her lower face had still been hidden as she'd run, as she'd ordered a half-face mask to be delivered by drone the day before.

It wasn't anything special, but it suited her needs.

It was a black, thin plasteel cover with internal padding that fastened it to her face like one enormous suction cup as she donned it. It went all the way back to below her ears, not covering them but making any accidental hits unlikely to dislodge it. Thin lines of slightly luminescent orange that could be dimmed to nothing ran across it in sharp-angled patterns, and a circular, slightly protruding air filter sat before her hidden mouth.

It didn't get in the way and was unobtrusive, but it made the air feel fresher than expected without making her feel like she was breathing through a wet cloth.

It's no wonder I've seen other people with masks. Even if they've got nothing to hide, the improved air quality is worth it.

Arriving outside Tranquilnot and moving into the complex opposite, Rei rode the elevator while ignoring everyone — they giving her the same courtesy. Arriving outside Miyo's flat, she didn't wait to be let in; she simply provided the key Miyo had given her after returning from work the day before, opening the door.

"-I swear she said she'd be here like half an hour ago," Miyo said as Rei entered.

"And here I am!" Rei said happily, bouncing over to give her brother a fierce hug. "Glad to see you're back! Miyo's new apartment is just the best, isn't it?"

Ichiro smiled and hugged her in return, not bothered in the least that she'd arrived late. "Come sit down, Imouto. I got some takeout on the way here."

Rei did, looking around as she sat between Ichiro and Miyo, making her elder sister grumble as she had to scoot aside to give space.

"No friends with you?"

"Nah, Al' escorted me here but departed just after congratulating Miyo on her new job."

"Didn't want to ruin the family reunion, I suspect," Miyo supplied as she reached for one of the three packages of steaming noodles on the coffee table.

"Aren't we going to eat at the table over there?" Rei asked, pointing at the slightly larger table with four chairs around it in the corner dedicated to the kitchenette.

"Why? There's no cushions," Ichiro said, confused.

Oh, yeah. Our family doesn't eat seated on chairs. Only sofas, couches, and cushions. It is comfier, though, so I'm not complaining.

"Eat, Rei-chan, before it gets cold."

"Don't mind if I do!" Rei said happily to Ichiro, not one to turn down real free food with her increased dietary needs.

For a few long moments of peace, the three siblings simply ate, taking comfort in each other's presence. They had all made it out of a situation that could have turned out a whole lot differently, and they all knew it. Even Ichiro.

After the meal, Rei told Ichiro everything she'd told Miyo, likewise over text, as she wasn't sure hidden microphones weren't installed. She'd scanned for them over the mesh but found nothing, but as Miyo's bosses owned a large part of the complex, she couldn't be too careful.

After all, they might be shielded like the tracker installed in my cyberdeck.

It wouldn't surprise Rei in the least if they kept a close eye on new hires for the first few weeks to ensure everything was up and up.

Rei had managed to keep her composure somewhat this time, only her eyes growing somewhat red as Ichiro became somber.

"It seems we were all wrong about him," Ichiro sent back to the other two after Rei was done, his expression pensive. "And you still have no idea why someone's after you?"

"No, I do not," Rei answered, this time aloud. "I'll figure it out, though, but I don't want you two taking any part in it."

Ichiro opened his mouth to protest, but Rei cut him off. "No, brother. This is Magi business. Take a look at yourself for a second. Do you think you're fit to join me looking like that?"

Ichiro glanced down at his hands, which were nothing like his old cyberware designed for high-performance physical augmentation — grimacing as he did.

"I'll get new cyberware," he said stubbornly, clenching the now clunkier hands into fists.

"Not too quickly, you won't," Miyo said sternly.

Miyo's hands stopped idly playing with her chopsticks, instead using them like weapons to point at him. "Your mind might have adapted to your old cyberware, but now you're readapting to what's chipped in right now. You will take it slow and steady as you acquire new cyberware to not go psycho. Do you understand, Ichiro?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Promise us," Rei said, backing up her sister.

Ichiro looked a bit sour, but he nodded after a few seconds. "Alright. I promise. It's not as if I can spend that much credit at the moment anyway. If Miyo had to look for a new apartment, I certainly have to, as I was even tighter with the Fangs than her. Not to mention that I will need new work."

It was decided that Ichiro would spend a few days with Miyo before he got himself a new place. Rei had also looked into getting a new apartment and had found three offers she liked so far.

They were much too expensive for her if one only counted on her income from her UBI with all her other expenses, but she thought she'd manage.

"There's just one problem. I really need something from my apartment," Ichiro said, and as much as Rei hated to admit it, so did she.

I'm really gonna risk it for a plushie and a rusty old sword? I'm a fool.

***

"This is such a waste of time."

"Shut up, Ben."

"I've told you a million times squeak, it's Benarilousi."

"And I've told you a million times that whoever the fuck named you, Benwhatever, must have hated your guts. What? Why are you glaring? You can't honestly like it. Everyone calls you Ben, so just start doing the same and save the rest of us from the bother of hearing you complain."

"You!"

Rei crept outside the open door to her old apartment, listening to the two men — at least she thought they were men judging by their voices — arguing inside as she heard furniture being moved about and possessions searched.

It had taken Rei ages to arrive at her apartment, as she'd had to move extremely carefully. She'd breached the cameras inside the complex on her floor slowly and steadily before splicing the server housing the footage and deleting it as she went.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

It had given her a level in [Stealth], which provided some new information on how to cut the recordings and replace it with footage absent of her presence to not leave a conspicuous gap, but not enough to make it convincing for anyone closely inspecting it.

She wasn't that stealthy yet.

As far as she could tell, Rei was alone in the complex's local mesh but traces left behind indicated that someone had tampered with it — a Meshmagi, no doubt.

There was no timestamp on when this editing had occurred, as whoever had done it wasn't fool enough to leave behind logs of their actions, but whether it was something WolfMosh had done when Rei stayed with Miyo or if her pursuer had come along snooping afterward was anyone's guess.

Rei was surprised and relieved that no cameras were to be found in her and Miyo's old apartment, but she was likewise annoyed as it now prevented her from scoping out the two men going through their belongings.

"Why are we even searching this place? It's been gone over like twenty times already."

"Ben, if you don't want to search, then why are you doing it? To complain? Honestly, you're the worst partner one can have at a stakeout."

So, were these rustskulls left behind in case either Miyo or I turned up? They've probably gone through everything days ago and don't think I'll return.

Who in their right mind would?

Miyo hadn't taken Mr. Nibbles with her when Rei had said to only bring the essentials, which felt like a gross oversight to her, as Miyo had remembered to get Sally.

No, that isn't fair. My attachment to a plushie is entirely irrational, while Sally's, well, Sally.

All the same, she was there now and had to get a move on before someone noticed she was.

About to peek through the entrance to her flat, she nearly stumbled in surprise as the door opposite opened. A young boy exited with the door closing behind him — his eyes swirling silver and apparently not keeping any watch on the surroundings.

"Check who that was, Ben."

"Fuck off. I did it last time. You go."

"...Fine."

Finally seeing her, the boy's eyes cleared, and he looked curiously at her as she crouched there, the mask covering her lower face and soulless orange eyes peeking out from under the black hood.

"Who-"

"OI!" The not-Ben inside shouted, making the boy flinch, "Who are you talking to, boy?"

Damned children and their fearless curiosity...

Rei sprung around the corner, not giving the boy even the chance to flick his eyes back in her direction, the dagger flashing out of its sheath as her quick mind began breaching the man's cyberware.

Rei had barely successfully breached the man's neural link — the rest of his cyberware's nodes not visible in her scan — before she met an all-too-familiar feeling of staleness in the programming composing the man's ICE. Scarcely a few seconds later, yet another familiar thing happened:

A presence or force she had come to realize belonged to another Magi remotely fending her off.

No mesh magic. Got it.

There were swifter ways to neutralize her targets if a Magi was aiding them from a distance — especially one as skilled as the one from last time. Even with her supposedly secure memories and thoughts, she wouldn't risk tangling with them without more preparation.

As if in slow motion, Rei saw the man begin raising his piston arms to defend against her dagger moving up towards his jugular. The brief time she spent training under Ichiro's guidance the previous day and using her two remaining skill points to increase [Melee Mastery] to level 4 aided her in her pursuit.

Just as she was about to slit the shocked man's throat — his gray cybernetic eyes wide in dawning horror — one of his limbs suddenly jerked and intercepted her dagger, the motion so unnatural that it caused the man to unbalance and stagger backward.

Rei was also surprised but re-engaged after correcting her posture from the miss.

The other arm came up this time and barely managed to block her. Rei attempted to divert the strike at the last moment to sink it into the man's stomach instead but failed.

Then the first arm moved, this time seemingly under the Piston member's command — either in reflex or an actual skilled maneuver — as he punched toward Rei's stomach. There was no chance to dodge in such close quarters.

Rei flew out through the apartment entryway, barely missing the young boy still standing there, dumbstruck, before hitting the wall with her back.

A gasp of air escaped her mouth, but she managed to keep the pain from overwhelming her senses this time, even with what felt like four shattered ribs.

So, melee is also out.

She'd hoped to finish him quickly by taking the man by surprise before moving on to the other, but that didn't seem realistic.

Sheathing her dagger, Rei fumbled to grab her handgun as she rose to her feet and took aim.

The man charged at her, arms raised in a guard to shield his face, but even if Rei had no practice with ranged weaponry — an oversight she'd have to correct, she decided — the doorway was too narrow to allow the man to effectively dodge.

She fired as fast as she could at him, trying to keep her aim at his center mass but missing more than she'd preferred as her gun bucked in her two-handed grip like a rowdy stallion. Still, a few of them hit, and the man staggered in his charge, one of his plasteel arms lowering slightly in instinctual surprise toward the hit area.

Rei didn't miss her chance.

Two bullets were fired. One missed, but the other hit on pure luck.

Blood and brain spattered the apartment doorway, and the young boy shrieked.

"Go!" Rei shouted, trying to give the boy a jolt to his common sense but not having the mental capacity to care further if he lived or died.

Rei felt herself receive a notification but pushed it aside with an application of willpower, her feet taking her around the corpse whose arms still stretched in her direction even though she was moving — as if trying to grab her.

Barely entering the apartment, Rei had to duck as a whole table — their coffee table — came flying for her face. She narrowly managed, and the splintering plastic above made it clear what would have happened had she failed.

She charged forward as stray shards of table rained down from above, her gun raised and aimed at the other Piston member's head.

She shot once, missed, tried to shoot again, and then felt it click empty.

Rei cursed, and the frankly ugly man with sharp, metal teeth and a plate of steel for a nose grinned.

Should've used my split mind to count the bullets...

Rei aborted her straight-on charge to veer sideways, Ben's eyes tracking her before he crouched like a tiger, ready to pounce.

Not having time to reload her gun, she dropped it and went for her dagger, barely getting a hold of it before he was upon her. His movements had been remarkably swift, and he arrived crouched, both arms cocked backward and aiming for her legs.

Oh no, you don't!

Analyzing everything the recent levels in [Parkour] had taught her, she leaped just as he struck, her body twisting in the air as the hand not holding her dagger pushed off one of the now extended arms. It was a close thing, as she'd had to time it perfectly and rely on luck, as there was no way for her to track his extending fists when in motion.

It simply happened too fast.

Vaulting the man, she tried slitting his throat in passing but missing, not good enough to pull off the maneuver. Her actions had taken him by surprise, however, and as he began to spin around, she did the same, her dagger flashing as [Melee Mastery] told her the most likely trajectory of her target.

The skill didn't let her down.

A gurgling choke rang out as her dagger pierced some kind of subdermal armor around his throat, the softly humming oscillating edge of her VibroFang piercing through like it was made of paper.

The half-second she spent looking into his eyes after fully turning from spinning on her feet and seeing the realization sink in nearly caused her undoing.

Rei jerked backward, falling on her ass as she tore the dagger out in a spurt of blood. The limb that had moved to grasp her on its own caught the dying man as he slumped forward, his other hand going to hold his neck before moving to a pouch at his waist.

What is he..?

Recognizing what he was doing, she ran to pick up her gun and sheathed her dagger, her hands clumsy as she did her best to eject the empty magazine and replace it with a full one.

Ben held some kind of injector in his hand as she raised the gun to take aim, what looked like a tiny spray bottle rolling across the floor in front of him.

Three shots rang out, and only one hit, pinging off his forehead but jerking his head back violently and making the injector miss his neck. Adjusting her aim, Rei tried shooting his throat instead, hitting once as she emptied her magazine while keeping her distance, wary of the remote puppeteering going on with his other arm.

I need to get closer. It seems I'll have to use my mesh magic.

It was a risk, but she couldn't ignore her most potent weapon just because some unknown force fought her off and tried breaching her back.

She breached and began splicing his neural link — as whatever nodes the rest of his cyberware had were cut off from her scan — immediately getting into a head-on conflict with whoever was on the other side.

It was a struggle, as Rei recognized that her Magi opponent was better than her, and not by a small degree. Yet, as she began reloading her gun with one part of her mind, she realized something:

Unlike me, they are limited in how much resistance they can put up due to the distance and bandwidth needed. Ben's cyberware clearly wasn't made to support much data transfer over the mesh, meaning I'm at a slight advantage.

She took to it with that in mind, code flowing through her thoughts as she slowly approached with the gun raised.

I'll be able to get through the ICE eventually while doing my best to fend the defender off from breaching me in turn, but my body won't last that long.

She was already heating up, if not to a lethal degree yet.

As Ben snapped his head back and tried jabbing the injector into his neck again, Rei did her best to impede him, her digital fight intensifying as she focused all her efforts on stopping the limb.

With only one thing to defend against, though, and abandoning their own attempt at breaching her, Ben's defender managed to hold her off for long enough.

Ben's neck swelled as the injector finally hit true, disgorging nanites or something else into him. He started to crawl toward the spray he'd dropped, but Rei had long since reloaded and was close enough.

This time, she didn't miss. One, two, then three bullets hit his neck and throat, each one damaging the subdermal weave slightly but not halting the bullet perfectly. It was much more resilient against the projectiles than her VibroFang, but three bullets were too much.

His neck nearly exploded from the third close proximity discharge.

Leaping back, Rei let her notifications come, needing to ensure that all was as it seemed.

「Notice:

New skill learned.

[Ranged Mastery, Level 1]

Governing attribute: Body

Description: Range is often-」

Rei was glad to have finally gotten a ranged counterpart to her melee skill but pushed the skill description aside, focusing on the following notifications.

「Notice:

[Athleticism] skill level has increased.

Level: 4 → 5」

「Notice:

[Breach] skill level has increased.

Level: 10 → 11」

「Notice:

Skill level ceiling hit. Governing attribute: Mind, insufficient for further progress.」

「Notice:

[2] Adversaries neutralized.

Received: 300 Experience」

300 total? At least both are confirmed dead by the System.

Pushing the hood that had fallen off her head back on, Rei swiftly picked up the spray bottle that had been dropped and inspected it briefly for any apparent traps or trackers before putting it in her pocket. She ignored the cybernetic limbs slowly dragging the two corpses in her direction — running to her room while looking around.

Like the rest of the apartment, it had been completely trashed — her desk was in two pieces and all drawers scattered, her dresser likewise mistreated, and her bed lying upside down with its covers torn open.

A familiar red panda plushie lay near the bed in one corner, having suffered its own mistreatment. It sparked the tiniest glimmer of rage in Rei's muted emotions, her orange eyes burning as she ran forward.

Most of the stuffing was outside, and a slit along its side had been made to search it for hidden items. Rei picked Mr. Nibbles up, cradling him to her chest for a second before putting him in the small backpack she'd bought just for him.

Putting it back around her shoulders, she ran out of the apartment, her breath coming heavily through the air filter in her mask.

I can't manipulate the cameras any longer. Connecting to it is too risky since they already know I'm here.

Having run off, the boy was no longer there, so Rei chalked it up as a loss for Darwin before moving toward the elevators. No one impeded her path — either merely absent at their work or too clever to inspect gunshots in an apartment complex.

Now there's just Ichiro's stupid sword left. I sure hope none are still searching his apartment, as I need to scarper before more goons show up. Or a whole hit squad. Fuck if I know what will come from me being discovered here.

Why am I this stupid?

There was no way for her to rationalize her actions with [Merciless] active. She only knew that with it off, she'd regret not following through on what she'd begun.

I need to learn how to make my various skills work together better. With my handgun and now [Ranged Mastery] present, I was too scattered in my approach. I should be able to tackle my opponents with my dagger in one hand, handgun in the other, and one stream of consciousness battering their ICE, all simultaneously working together to overwhelm them.

It was easier said than done, as no matter her skills, she was still relatively low-level and without any expensive cyberware aiding her other than the cyberdeck. That she could even take on two gangers physically augmented into superhuman levels already spoke volumes of how dangerous she'd become if she learned to utilize her skills to their full potential.