Chapter 165

I was wincing internally as I was getting alerts from my netrunner chair about my temp.

 

My Cyberdeck wasn’t made for shit like this! It specialized in quick hacks, for breaking and entering! Not… Video games!

 

Fucking Sasha! My GPU was ten years out of date, and you threw me into a next gen max graphic game!

 

I almost burst into laughter at the thought, but the Balrog coming through the trash pile to our left, literally blasting through junk data, burning a hole through everything in its way was rather distracting.

 

“Sasha! Balrog!”

 

“Bal-what? Oh. Yeah.” She said turning from where she was… Cooling off.

 

This fucking! She really didn’t do anything but the biggest most RAM intensive hacks she could! I was going to kill her! I’ll drown her in her probably boiling ice bath!

 

“Relax kitten!” She said throwing me a smile despite the fact I was already preparing defenses for an attack I could see coming in.

 

She went to work, even as I blocked another barrage of missiles, and a newly growing squad of Daemon grunts. She activated her hack, that big energy attack prepped appeared, even as the Balrog charged at me. I put my faith in her and focused on keeping her safe, and just as the Daemon started melting my ICE walls the attack went out.

 

The destructive data wave hit the Daemon, and instantly ripped a hole through it, literally ripped apart, as its data was systematically merged into itself. To my eyes it looked like its insides had been blended, and that disrupted the Daemon enough it fell, instantly shattering into broken data.

 

“See? Nothing to worry abou-” Sasha mid sentence stopped. We both looked down, where through her chest there was now a large hole as wide as my fist.

 

I looked over at the netrunners. And one was pointing a finger at her, where the beam of energy had come from.

 

They had some sort of sniping hack? I couldn’t help but wonder how that worked. How had it cut through my defenses? I could think of a few ways to do something similar. I guess it was definitely possible, definitely something I could make myself.

 

Sasha fell beside me and instantly burst into light.

 

*NEKO OUT!* A voice boomed out over the arena.

 

She wasn’t dead.

 

She wasn’t. She wasn’t wasn’t wasn’t dead. I hadn’t done what I could to save her, to have her die in this stupid game.

 

She wasn’t dead, she said it herself. It was safe. I could see that she hadn’t been sent out of the net, just pulled from the arena. That was definitely part of the system that meant she was alive.

 

Right.

 

Right.

 

Right.

 

Right!

 

“FUCKERS!” I roared aloud.

 

I wasn’t an ace netrunner. I was good. Probably better than 90% of the runners out there, but I was limited in that I focused more on real life use from a cyberdeck.

 

My hacks weren’t ones I made myself in here. My deck wasn’t suited for it, these two absolutely should beat me.

 

But none of that entered my mind as I roared out every ounce of rage, and simultaneously activated my Sandevistan.

 

They had killed Sasha, I’d fucking end them!

 

—–

 

Sasha

 

“Ow ow ow ow!” She whined as she appeared in the waiting room. The hack that struck her was an altered overheat. So she was definitely going to be feeling that once she disconnected! From her system check she was bleeding from her eyes again.

 

Dangit! Maine always freaked when she did that, and Dorio would tease her about getting so emotional about the net she would cry blood again! She wanted to punch something. Preferably with her left arm her original left arm. With what was left of her actual flesh and blood and not the fucked up feeling of this chrome one, that she woke up some nights feeling as if it was crawling up her shoulder. Consuming more of her.

 

Like she had always thought her mothers chrome had consumed her.

 

But it hadn’t been chrome, it was the medicine. She knew that now! She shook herself.

 

She didn’t have a cyberware phobia! She had a cyberdeck! She installed scratchers! Her arms had mods for extra strength! It was just…

 

Her mother had cyber arms after the military…

 

She blinked, forcing herself to look back at the arena. With a flick of her wrist she changed the view to look at poor Kitten all alone without her senpai!

 

Shit she had really fucked this one up. She had just wanted some excitement! Being stuck inside all day, and Kitten was such a little noob! It was cute! To find someone at the start of their net journey after already being a badass? It was hilarious! Teasing material!

 

Of course Sasha only had Rogue’s estimation, and little Becca’s story to know how good Motoko really was. The kid was a bit of an enigma….

 

Also her crush was so cute! She hadn’t gotten all stuttery again after that first time, but eeee! So cute.

 

She watched as Motoko reacted to her loss.

 

Sorry Kohai! You can do it though! Just fight on! You’ll lose but as long as you look cute doing it it’s okay!

 

Then Motoko screamed.

 

Sasha’s smile dropped.

 

Sasha may be alone in her box, but there were easily hundreds of people watching this match. And Sasha knew that people would not be happy with her after this.

 

Motoko… Did Motoko think she was actually dead?

 

She had explained it right! That people don’t die in this?

 

Shit. She had thought it would be cute to drag Motoko in while she was arguing against gambling, but now?

This narrative has been purloined without the author’s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

 

Motoko didn’t know what was going on. No wonder she had disappeared for so long in the match.

 

Fuck.

 

The atmosphere in the arena shifted, as Motoko turned her eyes, once so full of life and delight and now? Now they were a glare of pure hatred.

 

Becca had told her that Motoko was a killer. Motoko being welcomed to the Afterlife, should have confirmed that.

 

But it was only now as Sasha looked into Motoko’s eyes. Through the screen. Where Motoko couldn’t see her back, she was sure.

 

Motoko was a killer, just like she was.

 

Then Sasha gasped, as Motoko blurred. Speedware!

 

The kid had activated speedware online. Not unusual, but it left a noticeable effect. Her body distorted, as the server was forced to try and keep up with micro movement of the sent data.

 

Then Motoko moved.

 

Sasha blinked in shock and then gasped, because in just a split moment, she had appeared behind the other netrunners.

 

That was high end breaching! Good shit! Right, Motoko had even breached the server on her own! Not something she would have expected.

 

A common strategy was to send out Daemons as a distraction, and Breach into the system to get the Minimap first, so you could hide your position from the opposing side. But that wasn’t an easy task for anyone without a lot of experience.

 

Sasha herself didn’t bother with it, as it took too long. Better to just blast the enemies into bytes and win!

 

But Motoko had done it solo, without ever seeing the server before. Which now that Sasha was able to think was… Impressive.

 

The girl didn’t stop, her body glitching, she turned and Sasha flinched.

 

[HELL FLAME Anh. 2.132]

 

She had recognized the program. It wasn’t bad, a bit out of date, but its ability to eat into data servers was well liked by runners that had to do anything against AI. Sasha had never done a Blackwall dive, but she knew how it worked. Often throwing up something that could cause server damage would distract the AI for a time letting the runner escape.

 

But she also knew the hack was pretty RAM intensive.

 

Around Motoko, in an instant multiple orbs appeared, right after a server jump?

 

The rezzers reacted, shields were brought up, but it hardly mattered.

 

A moment later Motoko buzzed around them. Multiple Breach jumps in a row? That was a high end trick, and it left Sasha burned out when she had to do it.

 

Doing that while also summoning in hacks, as fireballs slammed into each side of the runners shield.

 

Then before it was even done, she summoned more.

 

Hell Flame was already eating away at their shields, causing the runners to realize they were in trouble, but the kid wasn’t done. More and more of the Hell Flame built up.

 

Finally they realized she had them properly pinned and did the smart thing.

 

They vanished, Breach jumping themselves to escape the flame filled zone.

 

Well at least Motoko had gotten them to split up, maybe she could-and Sasha gasped, as Suddenly Motoko was just there.

 

Both of them split up when they jumped, one ended up on the other side of the junk data terrain, while the other split farther off.

 

But it didn’t matter, before the poor kid had a chance to breathe, Motoko was already there.

 

A modified Hell Flame, configured into a blade slamming through his defenseless form.