Chapter 200

I considered going out and using it right away, but I needed to test it first, and I had perfectly good guinea pigs.

 

I mean friends!

 

Ichi and Malcolm were summoned!

 

The little food place I had called them too was nice enough, but I wasn’t inside. Instead I was on a roof across the way watching the two boys arrive, look around not seeing me, and slide into a booth.

 

I quickly hacked into both of them and slipped in the Daemon , making sure to set it to the lowest setting.

 

I didn’t want to give them a heart attack after all! This was just some minor fuckery-Teasing. Just minor teasing! Between chooms!

 

Watching the two it didn’t take long before Ichi jerked in his seat and looked around as if searching for something.

 

Malcolm asked him a question and Ichi just shook his head and they went back to their discussion. Then Malcolm jumped nearly out of the booth as he patted at his legs and then ducked under the booth but came up looking confused.

 

The two boys settled back in, and then it just kept happening. Odd twitches, or slight movement.

 

Closing my eyes I opened it again, connecting to the Daemons so they’d send the data to me as well.

 

I thought about the Laughing Man a lot when it comes to hacking. The ability to just remove yourself from someone’s vision, or change how you look in real time is incredibly powerful in a world where everyone has cyberware vision.

 

I wasn’t at that point yet. Altering someone’s vision in real time was insanely resource intensive, at least as far as I understood it. Of course that understanding could change as I leveled up more and more.

 

But that didn’t mean I couldn’t touch on that sort of Hack.

 

Onryo was very simple. Slowly over time the user’s vision would have flashes of something, in the corner of their eye, or in the shadows of a table below them.

 

A ghostly shadowed version of me with white hair and glowing red eyes, and claws and fangs.

 

I had gone all out.

 

If the Tyger Claws wanted to call me Onryo, then I was going to scare the shit out of my enemies.

 

So I watched as a faint version appeared over Malcolm’s shoulder, a hand reaching out, not in Malcolms vision, but in Ichi’s. He twitched and called out, Malcolm reacted, his hand slapping his own shoulder right through the image making it vanish. Not that Malcolm saw it… Hmm.

 

Both boys looked at each other and then spoke.

 

Then I got a call.

 

Oops. I think they figured it out.

 

I leapt off the building without answering and crossed the street before entering the diner.

 

“Motoko! Was this you?” Malcolm demanded and I raised my hands in surrender.

 

“Sorry! Sorry! I’ll pay for lunch so forgive me okay?” I pleaded giving the boys a cute look.

“You were already going to pay for lunch!” Ichi joined in as I joined them and slumped.

 

“Dinner?”

“And snacks!” Malcolm added and I nodded in surrender. I had been fucking with them after all.

 

“So what was that?”

“My new quick hack! Version 1, anyways. While watching you all react, I realize it has some weaknesses. Shared network alterations are a must if this is going to work on a group of people, and I need something to induce a physical feeling.” I muttered, already my vision was covered by the code as I started fiddling with it.

 

“Jeeze. That scared the shit out of me. Why make a quick hack that just makes you look like a ghost?”

“Mostly to terrify my enemies. It’s an Onryo.” I explained and both boys nodded. They had heard that nickname for me before. “Basically I don’t even have to attack a group. I can just hack them, and if they don’t have a netrunner capable of realizing what’s going on. They’ll be too busy chasing ghosts to stop me from doing whatever I want.”

The boys both nodded along as I spoke, but then I revealed the truth. “Of course an Optic Reboot would be more efficient. Just blind them and get to whatever I need to do, but sometimes you just want to scare the shit out of a group of assholes.”

“Hear hear!” Ichi cheered and the boys clinked their glasses together.

 

Great, I was forgiven.

 

—–

 

“Ah, there you are.” Jun greeted me as I got home. I threw my jacket over the back of the couch as I leapt over to flop into the cushions beside him.

 

“Sup, Jun?”

“Those fuckers that were trying to mess with you? Don’t worry about it. Fujimura-Sama made sure that it won’t happen again.”

“Yeah? The fuck did they want anyways?”

“Nothing. Just… Stupid shit.”

“Blackmail?” I asked, because it had felt like I was about to be blackmailed.

 

“Not, exactly. I think he wanted to try and weaken Fujimura-Sama by stealing you away. I think he was trying to recruit you.”

“What? Why? I’m pretty sure he hates me.”

“Motoko, Moritaka isn’t the sort of man that would allow his feelings to get in the way of his goals.” Jun said and I frowned a bit at that.

 

He didn’t seem that way when I met him.

 

Jun noticed my disbelieving look and just rolled his eyes at me.

 

“Don’t worry about it. I took care of it and Moritaka is getting talked to by Nakagawa-Sama. He overstepped a bit this time. Especially since they started a fight with you.” Jun said idly, and then threw me a wink.

 

Ah. I see. “Yep. They started the fight. Definitely.” I assured him having picked up the context.

 

He smiled and that was that.

 

I relaxed the irritation of it all sliding off my shoulders. I knew that I wasn’t done with Tyger Claw nonsense again, but at least I could kick it down the road a bit more.

 

That was the goal. Just keep pushing the things I can’t deal with safely now until later, until I could deal with them.

 

The fact lit a fire under me again and I hurried to my room.

 

Time to get some work done.

 

I scooped up the Tachikoma that was practicing something with its blocks and shut it down for a bit. I needed to do an upgrade. Luckily I had the parts from when I made the directional mics.

 

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

I popped off the out shell with a few screws and looked at the internals.

 

Flashed my eyes at my laptop and accessed it remotely pulling up the CAD software. As I worked I rolled around my room grabbing the parts from different places. A spare mic that had rolled under my dresser.

 

Some wires in the top drawer right next to my underwear. The soldering iron was somewhere, and it took a minute to find it in my closet hidden under some clothes.

 

Grabbing everything I rolled back to my work desk as I finished up the design.

 

I really just had to make sure it had some room, everything else was already in place. An hour later I was done.

 

The Tachikoma now had access to a microphone. Able to pick up sounds, so it wouldn’t be deaf. A few holes drilled into the case would let it hear, and it was done. Put back together. I set it on the table and started programming.

 

Just because it had the hardware didn’t mean it knew how to use it.

 

Luckily I didn’t even really need to program the whole thing. Microphone software to let a program ‘hear’ was old code.

 

I ripped it from a few different devices just in the apartment, including the TV and my radio. Fiddled with the code so it was actually functional to my needs, and not full of garbage and then updated the Tachikoma.

 

I accepted the alerts that popped up over the little project.

 

*100 Engineering XP Gained.*

 

*100 Crafting XP Gained.*

 

*100 Technical Ability XP Gained*

 

I got a few alerts for each one. But no level ups.

 

That was fine. It was an easy project, and the system always liked when I finished something, but it wasn’t exactly complicated.

 

Just a minor update to the Tachikoma Chassis.

 

I wish I had the hardware upgrades for its mind. I hadn’t heard anything from Hiromi about it since I brought it up a while back.