Chapter 164

“We go in, beat up some low rank rezzers, and make some fun eddies! It’s a good way to get your name out too!” Sasha offered practically bouncing despite being in cyberspace.

 

“What kind of battles? I don’t like the sound of Combat Zone, and Sasha, really I need some deets before I do something like this.”

 

She looked at me for a moment before sighing. “Okay come with me.” She demanded and faux grabbed my wrist to tug me along. I eventually relented and rose to follow. She led me back through the door she had entered and into a… It reminded me of a locker room.

 

“Okay Motoko, here is the deal. We are 2v2. There will be a couple of amateurs on the other side. We beat them. No killing, but you do your hacks to disable them. They will get tugged out by the system if something goes bad. It’s all safe as can be. Hasn’t been a death in the Combat Zone in years. And that was practically a suicide. Follow me so far?”

 

“Sort of. Why, though? Why would a netrunner show off their hacks like that? Isn’t that dumb?”

“Eh. You don’t really bring in the best of the best stuff that you want to keep secret, and kiddy scripts aren’t going to be new to anyone. But yeah if you got something special you come in show it off, and you might get someone, or multiple someones interested, then you trade for better hacks, or data, or equipment.”

 

“I never heard about this place before.”

“Which is weird!” She suddenly exclaimed, arms waving. “Even kiddy scripters hear about it! The fact you don’t know is super weird! So here we are! You back me up. I can handle this myself if I have to, but I have to bring a +1 for the double battles. So just sit back and let Senpai Neko-Nyan<3 show you how it’s done!”

 

“I’m not sure I want to jump right in Sasha, I’d kinda rather watch to get an idea of what’s going on first. Besides my hacks aren-”

“Oh it’s too late for that.” She interrupted, and then suddenly I felt it. I was pulled from the server I had been on before, and instantly moved to another section. I couldn’t even fight it, as it felt more like the entire server section I was in dropped deeper into the net.

 

Which was a truly uncomfortable feeling. This server wasn’t normal. The restrictions, and setup was odd. Truly odd. I could feel foreign code slam down. Rules of the server architecture that…

 

It was a game. I was in a game. I twitched, wanting to rip the entire thing apart and get out of here, but I mean…

 

It was a little intrusive with how I had just dropped in, and I didn’t know the rules, but I quickly pinged the system and confirmed that the rules would keep anything from going too wrong.

 

Suddenly the far wall of the locker room burst apart into data revealing what looked like a recreation of a garbage dump beyond.

 

“Sasha.” I said flatly not at all amused. “Did you just walk me into the arena while explaining what this place even is?”

“Yep! Put down a bet on your behalf as well!” She said with a wink.

 

“Don’t kill her Motoko. Don’t kill her.” I whispered to myself. I just saved her. Killing her would be a mistake…

 

“Wooo!” Sasha cried out as she charged ahead, and then threw out a hack. The data coalesced from her hand in a stream of white hot plasma that ripped a hole straight across the arena towards the other side. The blast distorted the data in the way, smashing through every piece of terrain the arena had created.

 

A moment later she snapped her fingers. “Aww. That sometimes works. Killing them before they leave their starting zone.”

 

“Great. I’m teamed up with a spawn camper.” I muttered in realization.

 

Sasha was a toxic gamer.

 

Fuck.

 

I hurried to escape the spawn point not sure what the fuck was gonna happen in retaliation, and I did so just in time.

 

A… Missile? It looked like a missile, or lots of them anyways, shot over the terrain and then came down in a mass towards our entrance. Slamming into the little locker room and exploding constantly, a barrage of damage, that I was able to see beyond the display, and realize it was tearing apart data that was struck. A virus, and a nasty one.

 

Looking around I realized that Sasha was completely missing.

 

“Bitch.” I muttered and then breached into the server around me. Its defenses were strong. Probably to stop people from doing just what I was up to, but I hadn’t been seen, and I wasn’t going to.

 

I could hear explosions and sounds of fire, and wind, and even the noise of many footsteps all rushing around, but I remained hidden. Using everything I knew about staying invisible to keep me out of this mess as I started breaching. Whoever we were against wouldn’t have access to the server right? They would have to breach in too, so they shouldn’t notice?

 

Fuck if I know. Fuck if Sasha had given me a chance to figure out what the fuck was happening!

 

Finally I broke through. The entire server architecture displayed before my eyes.

 

Then it reconfigured, and… Those fucking gonks.

 

I was looking at a minimap. Whoever designed this arena planned for a breach of access and set it up so that if you slipped through the defenses you could get a mini map…

 

Which meant someone might know where I was. I quickly removed my information from the system, my stealth Daemon activating as I had access now. It appeared beside me since the breach was complete. The Face Hugger burst away from me, going invisible as it did, and it spread, each Daemon it would find it would help blind me in their eyes.

 

That left Sasha and…

 

Two were still there, two big red dots that were netrunners. Dozens of smaller ones that were Daemons, and one green one. Sasha.

 

Sasha was fighting them. I could see her green dot running around blasting massive server breaking attacks at them, but together they seemed to be defending.

 

I considered it. I could just fucking leave. Let Sasha take the loss…

 

But I was also pretty competitive, and while this was a mess I had walked into, it was also Sasha.

 

For the girl I had watched die so many times… Yeah fine. I would deal with this.

 

But I didn’t have the programs for this. What Sasha and the enemy netrunners were throwing around was way beyond what I had.

 

The programs I had picked up from V3L0CITY way back, had been on his server storage. They weren’t his best, but hacks he didn’t use anymore, or just found and thought they were interesting. I wasn’t throwing Kamehameha waves around like Sasha had just done! My hacks were mostly Anti-Daemon tools. Sure Hell Flame wasn’t something a netrunner wanted to touch, but it was easily defended against by anyone competent.

 

So I would just have to be sneaky.

 

I couldn’t program something fast enough to matter here, but I could at least act as support, and maybe an assassin.

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So I got up and started moving. As I did I walked around a corner and had to duck backwards. A Daemon. The netrunners we were fighting must have activated it. It was a pretty common grunt Daemon, but it was designed to look like a soldier, and came in a squad of five.

 

Their faces were already covered by my face hugger daemon so they didn’t notice me… That gave me a chance.

 

I breached one of them. If I had a Cyberpsychosis hack I could probably cause them some trouble, but I didn’t have anything like that installed.

 

Considering what I did have installed…

 

I walked up behind them, made a quick modification of the upload rate of my hack and activated it, feeling the heat of the flame almost echo the heat of my Cyberdeck heating up.

 

I cast the hack five times, each of them only barely moving. Just a flame sort of hanging in the air, before I released them all at once.

 

The fire shot forward towards the five Daemons that were walking away from me, and had no clue I was around.

 

Instantly all four took the hit and burned into nothing.

 

*250 XP Gained.*

 

*250 XP Gained.*

 

*250 XP Gained.*

 

*250 XP Gained.*

 

*250 XP Gained.*

 

I blinked at the little menu pop up.

 

That’s right.

 

Daemons killed meant XP for me… Okay maybe after bitching out Sasha after this I might think about forgiving her.

 

I took off, moving through the server as fast as I could. I wasn’t so much walking, as forcing my position to change on the digital landscape. It was an aspect of breaching. Basically instead of using my normal virtual movement, I was just force moving myself through the architecture.

 

Then I landed on top of the highest point, giving me not just a minimap view, but also an actual view of the arena.

 

It was a giant circle. Trash piles meant to block sight and movement. With paths in between.

 

And I could see the battle. Sasha was zipping around sending out massive attacks that disrupted the terrain every time. While the two netrunners worked together on defense, assisting each other.

 

One was constantly activating more Daemons. The soldiers I saw before, a search program shaped like a dog, and a mass amount of flying I.M.Ps.

 

The daemons weren’t doing much as most of them searched the arena, probably for me. But the rest focused on Sasha, disrupting her mass AOE hacks, forcing her to stop attacking the runners and protect herself.

 

I should probably go help.

 

On the other hand. She wanted to handle it on her own and got herself into this situation. And that was a lot of Daemons wandering around.

 

I turned and leapt, disappearing as I breached close to another group of soldiers.

 

A few moments later they burned into digital slag.

 

*250 XP Gained.*

 

*250 XP Gained.*

 

*250 XP Gained.*

 

*250 XP Gained.*

 

*250 XP Gained.*

 

And that was worth it all. XP. Easy XP. Non murder focused XP.