Chapter 117

Judy Alvarez

 

I let go of the wire at the exact moment it started flinging me up. Instead of being flung up into the ceiling of the pathway, it launched me across and I just managed to slam my boots into the floor to send me tumbling out the other end of the path, through the open window and into nothing.

 

Air.

 

Nothing but air.

 

Instantly Judy slammed the cancel code into the console and threw herself out of the BD. Rolling off her chair and grabbing for the trash can.

 

She panted, every inch of her body shivering, and sweating. She had already ripped off most of her clothes just so she could cool down.

 

“Fuck that kid. Fuck. Fuck fuck.” She moaned into the trash can, but thankfully she didn’t actually pop. Free from the sensation of falling with nothing to catch her she managed to slowly regain her breath.

 

She had finished editing the BD for the most part, but she couldn’t actually get all the way through it to call it done.

 

It was…

 

“Heights! Why did it have to be heights!” She moaned as she stood up on shaky legs grabbing a can of something with more caffeine than healthy and popped it, then chugged it down.

 

“Damn Judes. You alright?” She didn’t quite freeze, but she did jerk a bit at the voice looking over at the one that got her into this.

 

“Nox! This is all your fault! You introduced me to that little!” She growled clenching and unclenching her fists at him as if she was going to throttle him, or her.

 

Well. It would be him. Judy had long realized that Motoko wasn’t in her league. Out of shape, nerd that spends all her days in a BD is not comparable to a teenage cyberpunk super assassin.

 

She was still secretly putting money on the girl being some corpo experiment.

 

“Hey hey, don’t blame me!” He whined, shoulders slumped. “I’m not even in charge anymore… Fucking corpo bi-” He cut himself of and looked around as if expecting the girl in question to appear. Before relaxing and continuing. “Bitch.”

 

“I don’t want to hear you whining, I’ve already offered to speak to Rita about it.”

“No. She’s a turbo rusty lady but I can’t… I’m making more in profits now than I was before, despite her taking her cut.” He grumbled, retracing common ground.

 

One of Motoko’s friends had muscled in on Nox’s hustle, and had taken over. Nox was pissy about it, but the look on his face whenever the eddies he was making were brought up always shut him up.

 

“Don’t insult people with Midnight Lady. Rita will fuck you up if she hears you say that.” Judy reminded the boy and he scoffed, but did a mumbled half apology under his breath.

 

“So! Motoko’s new BD causing you trouble? She texted me, that she had dropped off another one.”

“I’m not good with heights Nox, and that’s all this one is. Fuck.” She hissed as she bounced a bit just to remind her brain what body she was in. BD skewing was something she had long since learned to cope with.

 

“Preem. Is it done?”

 

“It should be, but I can’t finish it without feeling like I’m going to pop.” She complained, throwing a hand at the headset. “Jump in, I’ll use you as a test dummy.”

“Uhh… This one is just heights not like, The Only Thing… Right?” He asked, hesitating.

Judy shivered. “I told you not to ever remind me about that. No. It’s like… Parkour stuff. She’s just a psycho.”

“Preem.” He called out jumping onto the chair and pulling up the Wreath.

 

A moment later he was in, and Judy walked over to her desk to track the program. Watching the information it was sending her, for dangerous highs, or lows.

 

Unlike her, Nox handled it just fine and in the end he jerked upright, hand grasping for something as the BD ended.

 

“Whoa!” He muttered eyes wide as he slowly came back to his own body. “That was intense… Jude! We got another preem experience on our hands!”

 

“Yeah.” She muttered. Motoko hadn’t given her much to work with in a while, Judy had honestly been relieved it wasn’t another massacre BD. “Any issues?”

“Nah, it felt smooth as anything.”

“Alright. I’m not seeing any issues either. Thanks for taking over.” She offered the boy who just smirked.

“Well, it’s my future merch! Gotta experience it to sell, even Hiromi thinks so.”

“Preem. Alright. Go ahead and take a copy, I’m taking a break.” She said, grabbing a cig and gathering up her clothes. She was still half naked after all, she was pretty uncaring, but it’s not like was going to walk around topside without wearing a bit more.

“Where you going?”

 

Judy stilled as she took a puff of her cig and then glared at nothing.

 

“I kinda want Ramen.” She explained and Nox’s eyes grew large as it stirred something in him too.

 

“Yeah.”

 

Sakura Market it was.

 

—–

 

“This is boring.” Malcolm muttered. We were all lying in different places around the room. Eating snacks, or in Hiromi’s case playing that game on her tablet.

 

Ichi had even found a TV and brought it down, with my help we had access to the building’s TV channels, and so he was camped out watching that.

 

“It’s just a waiting game now Malcolm. Once they respond we will have them.”

“I’m still bored.” He grumbled and I couldn’t help but chuckle at his whining. He had claimed responsibility for getting the message but I guess it was bothering him as he kept checking his agent over and over for a response.

 

“Yeah I’m bored too.” I offered, standing up from where I had been sprawled over my netrunner chair. “Anyway, want some food or something? I want to stretch my legs.”

 

“I’ll come with.” Malcolm offered to my surprise as he stood up and I could see Ichi sit up at that wanting to deny him but after a moment he didn’t.

 

“Be careful.” Ichi called out instead and Malcolm just waved his hand.

We went into the elevator and thankfully Malcolm was walking without pain as we left the apartment and walked down the sidewalk.

 

“You know we might not hear from them for a few days. Or more. They will likely stay in hiding for a while.”

“I know.” He grumbled and I nodded at that. As I stretched my arms up to the sky.

 

“You gonna be okay?”

“I’ll live.” He offered with a bit of grump. “Thanks again… Motoko. For saving my ass.” He said suddenly and I couldn’t help but flash back to that day.

 

“You scared the fuck out of me.” I answered instead. I caught the wince out of the corner of my eye. Obviously it wasn’t the first time he had heard that.

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

 

“Yeah. My dad said that too.”

 

“Why’d you go alone? Something big like that? That’s a lot of eddies to throw around without backup.” I asked the question I had been sitting on since it all happened.

 

He was quiet for a long while as we walked down the road toward the diner.

 

“I just wanted to do something myself. I guess. I had my iron… I thought I could handle it.”He finally replied after a while and I frowned.

 

That was a tough statement to reply to. I reached over and slipped my arm in with his own to his surprise.

 

“We all make mistakes, and sometimes have to suffer the scars for them.” I offered squeezing his bicep with my chrome fingers.

 

My mistake led me to losing my arms. Malcolms almost cost him his life.

 

“So we learn from them. I don’t go anywhere without firepower to handle a borg. And I kept improving. My Netrunning stuff helps a lot.”

 

“I’m not like a weird super ninja like you are Motoko.” Malcolm offered sounding down.

 

“You don’t have to be. Motoko is a super ninja cause it’s what Motoko wants.” I said in third person for my own amusement. “So what does Malcolm want?”

 

“I want… To be something more than just some kid. I wanted to be…” He didn’t say it, but I could understand. He wanted to be what every Night City kid wanted. To be an edgerunner. A Street Samurai. A Gang leader.

 

He wanted to prove he mattered.

 

“Well that’s easy then.” I offered, pulling free and walking ahead and then walking backwards just because. “You can very easily stop being a kid, Malcolm. Just live.”

 

Then I turned around and continued walking.

 

“Heh.” I heard a chuckle from Malcolm that was half exasperation.

 

Hmm. What do I want? Be a cool merc. Make money. I wanted to stamp out the whole Scav thing. Stupid Stand Alone Complexes.

 

Then… I had to laugh to myself.

 

I just wanted to enjoy my life. Whatever that meant. This was my second life, and I had been letting it drag me down.

 

Letting the dark nasty parts focus too much of my attention.

 

—–

 

It was getting late. Even with the dinner I had brought in everyone was crashing, and Malcolm was getting ready to head home to get some sleep and be ready for Vik’s meeting in the morning. I had been trawling through the net a bit. Mostly just checking on some Scav locations I had been sent by some netrunners when I got the message from Ichi.

 

*Motoko come out. They responded!*

 

I quickly disconnected coming back to myself in just a few moments before pulling myself free of the netchair.

“What did they say!?”

 

“That they definitely have a Mizutani Shion that they can sell us.” Malcolm called and I rushed over to check the laptop he had been working on.

 

The response was exactly what we had expected. A confirmation they had what we wanted, The price, and some pictures that since I had seen their other messages they used, I knew were ones they had used before while ‘selling’ a shion.

 

Somehow they just kept selling the same car! How lucky!

 

I scoffed at the request but patted Malcolm on the shoulder. “Set up the meeting. But make sure it’s after your visit with Vik in the morning. Wouldn’t want to miss out on the fun would you?” I asked and Malcolm shook his head with a glare, as he slowly started tapping out a message back.

 

—–

 

The next afternoon we were ready. Malcolm was declared completely healed from Vik. And we had set up the time for the car ‘traders’ to show up.

 

To my amusement they had picked the same spot they had ambushed Malcolm at from before.