Chapter 171

“You handled that without killing anyone…” Wakako spoke the not quite question, as I was sitting across from her, not at our usual spot.

 

Wakako had sent me a drop off that ended up being an old apartment complex. A few men, obviously TC, or at least with their looks helped carry Susan out of my car and into an apartment that had two other people.

One was a ripper, and the other was Wakako.

 

“I thought about it honestly. I could have killed them all, almost did. But they weren’t Scavs, even if they tortured your contact. I uh… Figured it was cleaner this way.”

“You did well.” She said after a while, taking a puff on her cigarette. “Padre is already annoyed with the discovery of my agent. The lack of bodies to clean up will make our next communication more civil than it would have been.” She explained casually.

 

“Those guys were Padres?”

“They were Valentino.” She responded as if that answered the question and I guess it did.

 

Every Tyger Claw was probably under Wakako’s thumb in a similar way at least to her mind.

 

“Should I call him and apologize for roughing up the guys?”

“No.” She answered back simply and I nodded. “Motoko.” Wakako said suddenly as I was looking over at the ripper taking care of Susan, making sure she wouldn’t die.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t enjoy offering surprise gigs like this, without warning and demanding it from you. It’s unprofessional. You took it without complaint and did what I needed.” She took another puff of her cigarette. “You’ve grown from the fool who walked into my office earlier this year.”

“Oh, thanks.” I said, a little happy despite myself. Wakako was like my strict asian Grandma… Well my Yakuza Grandma.

 

“You haven’t done any work at the Afterlife yet.” She said suddenly, and I perked up and looked over.

 

“No. Rogue gave me the invite, but I haven’t really needed to do much work. Recently. I’ve been doing other things.”

“I suppose you wouldn’t, with Ms. Mitsunashi’s jobs keeping you busy.” She said and I smiled as Hiromi was acknowledged.

 

“The last one was pretty fun.”

“I heard about it. 6th St. Were quite unhappy with your interference. Although none of them wanted to interrupt, considering the armament you brought along.”

“The Minotaur is so cool.” I replied back smiling because it fucking was!

 

“Wakako? The patient is waking up.” The ripper called and Wakako turned her attention away.

 

“Motoko. Payment will come through soon, Just give me a few hours.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. You got something else to do first.” I assured her and got up, stretching a bit, and accidentally hearing a tearing noise. “Dangit, this stripper gear is shit!” I cursed earning an actual scoff from the older lady.

 

“That isn’t stripper apparel, dear. You are far too dressed for that.” She snarked at me, and I couldn’t help but laugh at the older woman’s words, but I also really didn’t want to ask how she knew that in case I would be subjected to mental trauma so I headed out with a wave.

 

Wakako seemed pretty gentle with Susan…

 

She wasn’t a relative or something… Right?

 

—–

 

“Please don’t ask any questions.” I sighed. I had decided to change once I was back in the apartment. Changing in the car hadn’t been very comfortable the first time, but even with my normal jacket over my shoulders, and carrying my gear in my arms. I still looked like I just left my job as a stripper.

 

And Jun was not just home, but had been walking back to the couch with a burrito in his hand when I opened the door, no chance for me to sneak in.

 

“I have so many questions.” He said going directly against what I had asked as he turned away from the couch towards me. “Let’s start with-”

“Nope! No, questions. I need to get changed and throw this away. It’s not mine, and doesn’t fit.”

“Well yeah, of course it doesn’t fit, you had to stuff the shit out of that top.” Jun snarked back and I felt my jaw drop as I brought my holsters and leotard up to my chest to hide it.

 

“No I didn’t!”

“Motoko.” Jun said in a monotone, and then added nothing else. As if saying my name would make me realize how silly I was!

But jokes on Jun! I’m capable of bringing up his weakness! The nuclear option in this situation!

 

“We are not talking about my tits right now.” I demanded, and Jun flinched, deciding that the better part of valor was to run away.

 

Which I also did hurrying to my room to take off the stripper wear and get dressed in comfortable leotard.

Definitely covering more skin… I looked down. Actually when I didn’t wear the jeans with it, I think I actually showed more skin…

 

Nope. That thought was going to be shoved into a dark corner and never thought of again.

 

Stepping out fully dressed I noticed Jun was still waiting for me, with a look on his face demanding answers.

 

“Ugh! Okay I’ll say this once, and we never talk about it again! Wakako called for an emergency gig. Had to pick up a contact that got ratted out. They were holding her in a club, like a BD bar. I had to sneak in. They had a netrunner watching the cams, so I couldn’t just walk in normally. I saw one of the girls leaving and… acquired her uniform. That’s it. We are never speaking of this again.”

“Motoko.”

“What?”

“You looked like a stripper.”

 

“Jun.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Yeah?”

“You look like a two bit yakuza.” I offered back and Jun actually flinched looking down at his clothes.

 

“What part of me is two bit? Motoko! Hey don’t walk away, what part of me is two bit!?”

 

—–

 

Tachikoma was doing well. I had spent the night after the gig working on building a personality kernel. The small seed wasn’t anything big yet, still far too early to really do much, but of course I wanted my Tachikoma to be cute when it was done!

 

I couldn’t run it yet. I didn’t have the processing power on my hardware on hand. But I had a plan for that.

 

Long before the sun was rising, I was heading out. Driving across the city to the netrunner cave!

 

There I plugged not just my laptop into the server, but the Tachikoma as well.

 

The server synced in just a moment, and I edited my lobby to allow the Tachikoma access. With a bit of work it was ready, and I went and plugged into my netrunner chair. Making sure to fully hook in. I wasn’t doing a deep dive, but I was going to do a lot of work.

 

A moment later I was in a digital landscape.

 

There was a… Well it was more like a mess of squiggles than any specific shape. The Tachikoma didn’t have a sense of self, or even a digital avatar. It wasn’t even at the level of a Daemon yet.

 

It was probably about 70% on its way to having enough data to be considered an IMP. Of course unlike an IMP it would be capable of improving.

 

I was going to speed that up. First thing I did was bring in the dimensions for the Tachikoma and sync up the digital connection.

 

The digital mess buzzed for a second as it shifted into the form of a Tachikoma.

 

It took a second, but the learning module activated as it took a step. And then another, and then it was walking around.

 

It wasn’t quite right to call it exploring, there was no impetus in the motion yet.

That was what I was here for. Personality was actually really easy. Anything digital had some personality now after all. The thought made me think of Brendan the SCSM capable of so accurately pretending to be alive people thought it was a full AI.

 

There were even personality systems for Agents, to let them talk to their users.

 

I didn’t have one, myself, or at least I had never activated one. I didn’t need a second voice in my head.

 

Anyway, with the Tachikoma settled I pulled up a digital screen.

 

There were plenty of personality matrices out there. I could go to any shop and buy one that would let my agent, or my clock, or whatever talk to me in some famous actor’s voice.