Chapter 174

“Okay, you had me at Netrunner Combat Zone.” Malcolm said after I had gone on a long explanation of what I would be doing.

 

“That was easy.” I muttered as I settled onto the net chair, idly grabbing the cooling cap I had hanging from the chair now. I had bought it before coming in, since this was my first time doing some real netrunning since I lost my Seacho Netdeck.

 

And maybe Hiromi’s remarks about it being like armor had hit their mark, but I would never admit that.

 

“C’mon Motoko, netrunning is wild. I mean I don’t have a Cyberdeck, for me, netrunning is just… Some weird thing some people can do. Getting to see it in action? That’s pretty nova.”

“Well you know what to do if something goes wrong, right?”

“Activate the disengage, and pull you out only once it allows… And if I have any issues, call Yoko.”

“Great. See you on the web.” I offered and flopped back. When I opened my eyes I was in my lobby.

 

I looked around and then stopped.

 

The Tachikoma data kernel was growing quickly.

 

The Tachikoma was wandering around, and as I watched it even did a little leap to climb up on top of the small table in the center of the couches.

 

*What is that?* Malcolm asked, as I was streaming my sight to the laptop.

 

“A digital form of the Tachikoma AI I’m developing. It’s growing really well over here. I’m going to need to do something about that soon.” If I didn’t get some better hardware for the Tachikoma to run off of, it would slow down its development pretty soon.

 

Shaking it off, I disappeared into the net. A few quick hops and I was then walking down the dark corner of the web into the netrunner bar.

 

*Whoa. It looks like a normal club.* Malcolm chattered in my ear as I walked into the lobby.

 

“Yeah.” I agreed, but this time I wasn’t going to listen to Sasha that jerk! I walked up to the woman at the counter. “Hi. Umm. I’ve been here before, but I’ll be honest, my… Choom brought me in without explaining shit to me.”

The woman behind the counter blinked from her quad eye set up. Each one blinked in a different pattern.

 

“Saw your match. Surprised you are still alive, hell of a burnout.” She said suddenly and then nodded. “Heard that you were new, and the Stray Cat dragged you in without giving you a heads up. Not supposed to do that. Talk to Admin. Follow the IMP.” She offered, and opened her eyes, a small IMP Daemon appeared.

 

It looked like a hovering ball of light and spiraling data, but it floated around and then started into the club.

 

“Thanks.” I followed it in, as it led me through the light crowd of the place before floating over to a man, alighting onto his outstretched hand and disappearing.

 

“Well if it isn’t Ghost in the Shell herself.” he greeted, a deep brassy voice, but not unkind. He sounded older than even his digital avatar portrayed though. “Surprised you are still alive, after you got Derezzed.”

“I had some chooms keeping my brain from melting.” I explained as I walked over, but hesitated before sitting.

 

“Slide in, slide in. You wanted some data on the rules and regs? Good idea. It was a real shock when you fried yourself for the win.”

“Yeah well… I wasn’t intending on jumping in head first like that.”

“No, nor should you.” He added, sounding unhappy. “Normally, I don’t just offer easy answers. Young runners come in all the time and the usual path is for them to trade for info, but as an apology for what happened, let me give you a simple run down.” He offered, flicking his fingers, and a Shard appeared in his hands.

 

Obviously a digital representation, but it got the point across.

 

I took it, and did a thorough scan before accessing the data. It was clear, but not entirely bug free. I wiped what I found and then did another pass just to be sure. Before accessing it.

 

“Heh, you have no idea how often kids just jam whatever data is offered to them right into their brain.” Admin said almost wistfully.

 

Ignoring the old man’s words I instead checked over the data.

 

It was a… Brochure? I mean that wasn’t quite it, but it was close enough. Basically a spiel on what the netrunner Combat Zone was and how it worked.

 

The dive into the combat server had a protection system built in. Anything too bad would be stopped before it could reach a user, unless of course the user did something stupid and overheated themselves.

 

That part wasn’t in there, but I read between the lines.

 

It also taught me there were a few access commands I could have used things like auto logout, and a few other features.

 

“This would have been nice to know.” I snarked and the old man hummed in agreement.

 

Then when he spoke next he didn’t sound pleased at all.

 

“What that Stray Cat did broke multiple rules. She isn’t welcome around here at the moment.” He said his deep voice sounded rather ticked off.

 

And for just a moment I felt some sympathy for Sasha. Sure, she wasn’t my favorite person at the moment, but…

 

“It’s not… Entirely her fault? I don’t think she is handling her current situation very well. I hope it’s not a permanent ban? Although I actually don’t know how often she comes here.” I admitted. Was this like a normal thing for Sasha, or just something she does to blow off steam sometimes?

 

I knew so little about the woman despite… Well despite seeing her die.

 

“It’s not permanent. She was simply told not to come back until she cooled off.” He replied firmly. “Does this satisfy you? Normally one would request more of a harsher punishment.”

“No. That’s more than enough.” I waved it off.

 

If any punishment was going to be meted out, it should be from me, not some random guy I’ve never met.

 

“Thanks.” I offered and rose up, receiving a single nod from the man as I wandered over to one of the other booths and settled in, a screen popping up as I settled showing the inside of the arena. It was quiet currently, no battles taking place, but there was an option to view past matches.

 

“You getting this Malcolm?”

*Fuck yeah I am.” Malcolm replied back instantly, as I started the most recent match, settling in to watch how they fought, and generally how this whole thing worked…

 

You know without being dropped into it.

 

—–

 

Junichirou Kusanagi

 

“C’mon Jun-Chan!”

 

“Yuto. You know I want to help you.”

“Then just do it!”

“Motoko will literally kill you.” Jun offered, as he reached up and rubbed at his face.

 

Yuto getting out of jail was a surprise, he hadn’t even remembered his old choom. Not with everything that had happened in his life.

 

Moving up in the TC, breaking out of the low level runners that he and his chooms had done for so long. The Casino. Kasumi. He stilled as the name ran through him. The white hot rage that had once consumed him, feeling like it was burning him alive was only embers. Still there.

 

Always there.

 

But it didn’t fill every moment with rage and hate anymore. It couldn’t. Lashing out at everyone around him, had almost… Almost hurt Motoko.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

 

So he had let the fire dim, learned to keep it down, how to breathe and for the first time in his life, Jun had learned how to control his anger.

 

What was the point at getting angry with minor things? Not after he learned what true anger was.

 

It was why Fujimura-Sama had grown to trust him so much.

 

From kid drug runner, to Casino worker, to Kamikaze, to trusted lieutenant. And now, an old choom was asking him to potentially throw it all away.

 

Motoko was right.

 

Yet, Jun owed Yuto. The boy had saved Jun’s life more than once. He owed him. Honor and Jun’s own wants to help a friend.

 

But trying to murder the kid of one of the higher ups was suicide.

 

“Yuto, let it go. Fuck him. You’re out now. You got the whole rest of your life ahead of you. Go find an output and live.”

“Fuck that! He disrespected me Jun! You can’t let that kind of shit go! You know that!” The boy, no… The man. Yuto and Jun were both men now.

 

One through death, one through prison. Both had changed, and yet.

 

Yuto wasn’t being reasonable. His desire to flatline Kisaru Moritaka was shortsighted.

 

Jun sighed, looking around the bar. Thankfully while it was a TC bar, no one really knew who Yuto was yelling about. Yuto was pretty drunk at this point, enjoying his freedom.

 

And so quick to throw it away.

 

“Yuto.”

“Don’t fucking Yuto me Junichirou! We swore to always back eachother up! I know you couldn’t do shit to get me out of the slammer, but fuck man! You’re borged out! Fucking cold blooded killer now, help me kill this fuck!”

 

Jun just sighed, looking down into his drink.

 

Motoko was going to kill him. Or Yuto.

 

Probably both.

 

“Yuto. How about we do this the right way. We go down and talk to Wakako. Motoko has a good connection with her.”

“Fuck man. What kind of bitch brings a fixer into this shit? I’m not some punk Jun-chan! I can kill a gonk fucker!”

“Yeah, but if you do, you spend the rest of your short life being chased around. Get Wakako in on it, and problem solved.”

“I don’t have that kind of eddies. Fuck man, you know that.” Yuto snapped obviously frustrated with Jun’s constant attempts to get him to calm the fuck down.

 

“How about we try it? I have eddies.”

 

“Fuck Jun. I feel like everything is crazy now. Used to be, you would be the first to jump at a chance to flatline some fuck that crossed us. Now you are arguing against it, and… Everyone else already left.”

“They have jobs Yuto.”

Yuto looked at Jun with a look that would have killed if it could. “You gonks were my chooms. What happened?”

 

Jun flinched at the accusation for a moment before firming up.

 

Things had changed.

 

But Jun wasn’t sure it wasn’t for the better.

 

“We grew up Yuto.”

 

The man exhaled like he was punched. Jun sympathized.

 

“Come on choom. Let’s get out of here, get some sleep. We’ve been celebrating you being back all night.”

 

Yuto was quiet, staring down into his drink for a long while.