Chapter 141

 

“Yeah, alright, fine.” Malcolm grumbled as he took off the control band and huffed at all of us. It had taken a bit of urging to get him to actually stop stomping around in the Minotaur.

 

“So, The reason we are still here, and not heading straight back to the city. I found something. The reason the Wraiths were able to down the Arasaka AV? The specific one loaded up with high end equipment?”

 

I noticed Hiromi perk up at that, although information wasn’t part of the gig her dad had sent us on, she was always looking for a bonus.

 

“Well the reason we are waiting here is because I called in V, she works for Arasaka Counter Intel. Because under the substation we were at, there was a Militech listening post.” I dropped the bombshell, and I could tell Malcolm and Ichi were just kinda taking in the information without much response, but Hiromi went still.

“Wait… A listening post!?”

“Yeah. Full tracking, conversations, AV’s, hell. They were even tracking space lift offs. I think it was made just before the Unification War. To track Night City. But then Arasaka came back, and they either forgot about it… Or just left it running in secret.”

 

“Fuck.” Hiromi cursed as she took that in. “Wait you said… Counter Intel? She isn’t going to like, flatline us right?”

“No, I trust V. She’s good people… Mostly. Just let me do the talking and pretend you don’t know anything. But you deserve to know what’s going on. You’re my team after all.”

 

“Arasaka Counter Intel… Good people?” Malcolm faux whispered to Ichi who just elbowed him to shut up. Ichi obviously realized that with Hiromi’s reaction it must be a big deal.

 

“Okay so what does that mean for us?” Ichi asked and I shrugged.

 

“Honestly? Depends on V, and her boss I guess. But something like this? Tracking Arasaka air traffic to even keep an eye on their secret AV stuff? Yeah this is super big. Either huge payday… Or they try to quiet all of us.” I answered with a shrug.

 

I didn’t think V would go along with that, but it was something I had to consider. Fucking Night City.

 

“I should call my dad then. He can-”

“No! Hiromi. We don’t know what the listening post can pick up. No calls about this. I waited until we were here before I even sent a text to V and it was super vague.” I cut Hiromi off urgently.

 

She looked grumbly for a moment before nodded. “Yeah that’s smart, but I’ll call him in an instant if some CI bitch starts making trouble!” She says and I just laugh, because Corpo V was such a bitch!

 

But she was a likable bitch.

 

“Okay. Motoko this is your… Choom. I’ll leave it to you.” Hiromi decided with a nod and I smiled in relief.

 

“Thanks Hiromi. I promise she won’t disappoint. I think we should tell your dad once we head back into the city. Bringing Counter Intel is just smart, so getting your dad up to speed, we could spread the rep for the find a bit I think?”

 

“Hmph! Of course! Dad is the one that created this gig, so anything we find should go to him first!”

 

“So… That’s it right?” Malcolm cut in. After Hiromi’s exclamation. I looked to him curiously but shrugged my shoulders.

 

“Yeah that was the whole thing.”

“Great! Dibs on finishing my turn with the kill bot!”

 

“It’s not a kill bot, it’s an Arasaka Brand Minotaur!” Hiromi snapped, but everyone ignored her.

 

“Aww. I wanted my turn next.” I whined.

 

Oh well. It was going to be mine soon regardless. Someone had to go into the programming, clear up all the Arasaka back doors, and Wraith trash, and then repaint it so it didn’t have Arasaka all over it.

 

I was thinking… Blue, and white?

 

Heh.

 

——

 

I did finally get another turn to play with the Minotaur, and then had been kicked off by Ichi when my time was up without preamble.

 

It had switched between all of us until we had nearly drained the CHOOH2 tank. In the end we put it away and switched, at Hiromi’s demand to start categorizing our loot.

 

I was just finishing packing up a crate that was now actually ordered instead of just stuffed with junk when I heard the revving of a large engine pulling up to our side of Dakota’s garage.

 

For some reason things around here had been quiet since we brought out the Minotaur and had it stomping around.

 

The Chevillon Emperor pulled up and I relaxed, noticing not only the familiar redhead at the wheel, but that there were no Arasaka markings on it.

 

“Hey guys! V’s here!” I called out deeper into the truck as I jumped down and hurried over noticing V didn’t look pleased, her sunglasses dipping down her nose showing me a glaring set of glowing optics.

 

“Kid. Not sure what the fuck this is all about, but I want answers, and fast.”

 

“Let me get in, and let’s talk.” I told her. Waving at my chooms who were wondering what to do as I ran to the other side of her big ass truck.

 

Never been in one of these. I slipped into the truck noticing the interior was expensive. Like super expensive. I shook it off and only when the door was closed did I start. Pulling out the shard from my socket and handing it over.

 

“Found something while on this Arasaka gig. Finding the loot from an Arasaka AV that was taken down in the badlands. Everything went smooth, found the guy who did it, started clearing him out… Only he was acting weird. Holding up in a place that he had no reason to settle. Turns out. He found a Militech NUSA listening post, Unification war era, that’s been watching NC ever since. Including Arasaka flights in and out of the city.” As I spoke V had slipped in the shard and was looking at the pictures of what I had taken that I had saved just for her.

 

“Jesus Christ.”

 

“Yeah. I have no idea if anyone is actually still listening, or it’s just all automated, so I couldn’t make any direct calls about it. I gathered some data, and brought you out.”

 

V’s eyes blinked after a few more moments and she looked at me. “You called me. Why? You could have just turned this into Mitsunashi, and been done with it.”

“Because last I checked V, finding a NUSA listening post is a Counter Intelligence thing, and it would be a huge win for you… Right?”

 

She looked at me for a while, an intense look, her optics practically whirling as they seemed to try and find something.

 

“Yeah. It’ll help a lot. At least it’ll keep Jenkins from flatlining me for running out of the city suddenly. He probably thinks I’m going off reservation or something. I’m going to need to see this listening post.”

 

“Yeah. That’s why I called you before we went back to the city. My ride or yours?”

 

“As much as I would prefer it. Let’s take yours. Too easy for this thing to be traced back to Arasaka.” V muttered as she stepped out, and I followed. Hiromi walked up and I waved her up.

 

“Taking V back to the substation. Sit tight for a bit?”

“It’s fine Motoko. Go with the scary Counter Intel lady. We’ll keep our loot safe.” Malcolm interrupted before Hiromi could, throwing an arm over her shoulder and giving me a thumbs up.

 

Hiromi elbowed him but nodded to me as she stalked off.

 

“Is… Everything okay?” I asked confused.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Don’t worry about it!” Malcolm called out his thumb still up so I quickly returned it awkwardly as I closed my Quadra’s car door.

 

“You little chooms up to something?”

“No? At least I don’t think so. I think they’re just messing with me. Don’t worry about it. They’re cool V. I promise. I trust them.”

The older woman just scoffed, but then we were off. Driving out of Dakota’s garage rest stop.

 

—–

 

The drive was quiet, small talk wasn’t something V wanted to do, like at all.

 

I had eventually run out of anything to actually talk about so I just turned on the radio to Morro Rock, and was thankful that a Samurai song was playing. As that seemed to ease tensions. Both of us quietly rocked out to the radio as I drove the long way out to the electrical substation.

 

Finally though we pulled over the hill that blocked it from view, and I could see V sit up as the place was a ghost town.

 

Dakota had really only taken the vehicles, and hadn’t wanted anything else like tents or anything. So the place was abandoned, dead left to rot in the sun.

 

As I pulled up to the station. I could see V looking around it, eyes narrowed.

 

“The top of the station. That’s where all of the Wraiths were killed from. Assault Rifle?”

 

“A Copperhead, and you’re right! I was up there. Good catch. Or was it some crime scene program or something?”

“You did this-No. That makes sense. Sneaky fuck.” She mumbled the last bit and I laughed at her smiling happily at her remembering. Finally parking we stepped out and I waved at her to follow as I led her inside, past the dusty room into the little office. I didn’t need to as I already had access, but I opened the desk cupboard that had the hidden keypad, and then called up the elevator.

 

“I’ll need access.”

 

“Sure. I’ll give you the code.” I agreed as I followed her into the elevator, she hadn’t even hesitated before entering.

 

“How did the Wraiths find this place?” She asked me, and I just had to shrug.

 

“I don’t know. None of them had a shard with all their history laid out with dates or something for me.” I said almost laughing at the fact the game did that all the time. She nodded without a word, and when the door opened she was first out. Walking straight in, looking over the dead bodies with a grimace, but heading around, checking it out.

 

I just settled onto the table in the center and watched as she first accessed the system. She stared at the display of the entirety of Night City with AV’s marked. It did have a few other things as well. But I didn’t know what they were, and didn’t really care.

 

V either did, or just thought the info was valuable regardless. She tried to pull a shard out of her neck but stopped.

 

“Can I download this data without an alert going out?” She asked me suddenly and I jerked up and hurried over.

 

“Let’s find out.” I muttered, quickly snatching a chair and rolling into spot as I began accessing it, and checking what this system was taking in, and putting out.

 

“Maybe. Hold up, I might need to partition a drive though.” I mutter, there was definitely some sort of NUSA spyware installed on these, but I was pretty sure I could put all the data it had saved into one of the laptops already accessed by the system and then just get the system to report it as a hardware failure and forget it ever existed. Letting us take it out without a problem.