Chapter 154

So my night was a bit off from there. I ended up camping out on the couch with Jun, as he watched TV. We didn’t talk much more about the Scavs. I just tried to relax, but that was only that night.

 

After a good night’s rest, I headed out. First things first, I needed verification. Driving over to Arroyo on my Kusanagi I parked far down the street, and instead of walking down the street which would leave me far too open. I leapt into the industrial parks and used my ankles and Parkour to leap through the abandoned factories until I was on the roof overlooking the Electric Corp power plant.

 

There I leaned down, hiding in the shadows of old brickwork to watch.

 

The factory as I expected was active. Tires tracks ran through an old gate in the destroyed asphalt and dirt loading area.

 

I waited for a while, simply looking down into it. For now the rolling door was closed, and no sound escaped from within.

 

The camera to the side of the door told me this wasn’t as abandoned as it appeared. I began breaching, carefully, utterly slow and quiet.

 

Slipping in, I accessed the camera, seeing the loading area through its eye, I then moved to the other cameras in the system.

 

Smiling as just inside the plant there was a very familiar looking van. I couldn’t be 100% sure it was the same one, but hell. I was willing to bet.

 

I took pictures of everything. Going through every camera and gathering everything they could see. Then since I was fairly confident I was right. I pulled free of the cameras.

 

There were men and women inside, and it hadn’t taken but a single NCPD database check to verify they were wanted for Scav related activities.

 

This was it.

 

I had found the assholes that hadn’t liked Hiromi moving in on the XBD market.

 

I slipped away without a sound. As I jumped through old rusted metal landing on the concrete far down the street, I brushed myself clean. Taking a moment. I sent a single picture to my chooms. The van parked in the dark plant, and a message.

 

*Found them.*

 

——

 

“Motoko! You did it!” Hiromi cheered as she slammed into me laughing in delight.

 

“I did. Jun gave me a reminder of some other info I had and I put it together, and then I went and checked it out.” I said as I spun Hiromi around. We were all meeting up at my place, and Hiromi was last as she had school today so she had to finish that up first.

 

“This place is nova. An old power plant? Kinda pissed the Scavs claimed it.” Malcolm added from the couch. “Motoko says it goes down pretty deep.”

“Yeah definitely some sublevels. I’m going to need backup just to secure the whole place. Which is where you guys come in.” I then looked to Jun who I had invited to join us, since I had offered him a friendly sibling murder session. “And Jun agreed to help out too.”

“Perfect! Jun! Thank you for helping!” Hiromi added throwing him a smile but he just waved her off.

 

“Don’t worry about Hiromi. I’m just glad to keep Motoko out of trouble.”

“Which is an absolute lie! I’m never in trouble!” I lied confidently as I jumped back onto the couch. “Now we have some external images and we’ll need to figure out how we are going to hit this.”

 

“Go in kill everyone?” Jun asked, and everyone looked at him like he was crazy but I was nodding along.

 

“The most straightforward method.” I confirmed.

“I mean do we really need to do anything more than that?” Ichi asked, looking between Jun and I. “Motoko clears out places like this before breakfast, and Jun is the Oni.”

“Of course not!” Jun answered while I cut him off.

 

“Of course we do!” I roared louder than Jun and even slammed my fist into the table lightly the metal on metal sound echoing.

 

“Wha?” Jun asked but I ignored him pointing at my chooms.

 

“We can’t ever get complacent! It’s one of my own weaknesses! So I need my chooms to keep reminding me! We plan, we prepare, it’s an advantage we might not need, but it’s not something we should throw away through overconfidence!”

 

Thankfully Malcolm responded. “She’s right. Just because we don’t need it every time doesn’t mean we shouldn’t prepare as much as we can, we are still talking about a gun fight. What if they have a bomb or something and it blows up. If we just sit back and expect Motoko to handle it, how can we move in to help if she gets hurt or something.”

“Exactly! We prepare and gather every advantage we can before we move in!” I called out. “And also it’s totally your guy’s job to remind me to do that when I get too excited.” I added offhandedly.

 

“Oh so it’s our job is it?” Ichi asked sarcastically and I just threw him a thumbs up.

 

“Yep!”

 

“That’s fine! We can all remind Motoko to be careful and prepare before rushing in. We all want Section 9 to keep going for years and years after all.” Hiromi added and I nodded along with Malcolms eager nod.

 

“Right. That’s true. Okay so what can we do to prepare?” Ichi asked.

 

“Well I do have more gadgets now, but none of them are directly going to help this time. Not yet at least. The Tachikoma are still in alpha testing.”

 

“The what?” Hiromi asked, looking confused, and I smiled brightly because it was the perfect excuse!

 

I leapt off the couch jumping over Hiromi’s head as I did so and ran over to my room and then came out holding my little walky bot.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

 

“The Tachikoma Drone system!” I called out and placed it on the table in front of everyone.

 

Where it immediately started walking much smoother than it had before.

 

Until it hit the edge of the table and just fell right off.

 

“Umm…”

“It’s an alpha product! I haven’t done edges yet!” I said happily as I picked it back up and placed it on the table again. Where it walked off.

 

“Motoko?”

“Hold on. It’s got this.” Then I placed it on the table again, and this time, as it walked forward it stopped at the edge, one of its legs reaching out to check the edge.

 

Then it walked off again.

 

“Right.” Hiromi said flatly.

“It’s learning! Give it some time.”

“Motoko… Is that an AI?” Jun asked, utterly serious and I started laughing at such a foolish question.

 

“Jun the Tachikoma is running a small CPU, and the extra processing power of my laptop in my room. Your XXL Burrito SCSM has more processing power.”

 

“That didn’t really answer the question.”

“It’s a learning system, but not an AI. I would need like… Four of the servers I have down in my netrunner cave to even process a small AI.” I answered truthfully. Well… Not exactly that much. I could do it with a lot less, if I used some different processing choices.

 

But this? Tachikoma wasn’t an AI. No Ghost. Not yet anyways.

 

“Anyway! The Tachikoma are cute, but aren’t ready for the battlefield yet, but give me a bit and we’ll have our own battlefield reconnaissance drones!” I cheered, just as my agent lit up with a call.

 

A call with a very familiar name, but not one I expected.

 

“Hold on chooms. I’m getting a call.” I turned away from everyone to answer.

 

*Hello?*

 

*Yo Kitten.*

 

*Becca I told you I wasn’t accepting that as my nickname.*

*Too late.* She said but she wasn’t the rambunctious girl she normally was. Something was wrong. *I’m not calling for fun though. Since you’re chooms with Sasha I think… Well I figure you should know.*