Chapter 202

An hour later Kang Tao headed off having retrieved the data and everything was settled.

 

Just another night in Night City where the corps felt that killing anyone that had even touched their data was the better course than just trusting some mercs to have not read it.

 

I didn’t, but I was tempted to after they screwed us like this, but Regina had gotten paid and then some for all the trouble, so I was just going to let it go. I didn’t want to deal with Kang Tao right now.

 

Getting to Hiromi’s apartment I was let in quickly as Hiromi opened the door before I even got there.

“C’mon!” She urged me, grabbing my arm and pulling me inside. It was a bit tense in the apartment. It looks like Hiromi’s Mom was here, and she was giving the group a little bit of a stink eye as the group of teenagers splayed out on her fancy couch.

 

“Mother! Motoko is back.”

 

“Hello again.” I greeted the stern looking woman, who looked me over, and I noticed her optics locking in on my new chrome as well. But then she nodded seemingly pleased.

 

“This issue with Kang Tao is dealt with?” She asked and I nodded.

 

“Yep. They backed off, everything is settled.”

 

“Good. Hiromi, dear, be more careful.” She said in a tone that was actually a bit softer than I’d ever heard from her.

“Yes Mother.” Hiromi said, without even a hint of irritation. Which surprised me, because we were careful.

 

Then Mama Hiromi walked out of the living room for her office, and the atmosphere calmed down.

 

“Whew.” Hiromi sighed a bit as she left.

 

“Be more careful?” I prodded quietly, and Hiromi just shook it off.

 

“She worries. But she lets me do this.” Hiromi argued back, almost snapping at me, and I nodded, raising my hands.

 

“Got it, sorry.”

“It’s fine.” She whispered back, and then she turned to everyone. “Okay! Motoko got everything settled!”

“Finally!” Malcolm called out, but I realized he was teasing. “Gosh Motoko, taking so long.”

“Yeah Motoko.” Ichi said distractedly as he was currently eating some food that was on a fancy plate and looking shocked at what he was eating.

 

“Oh fuck off!” I told Malcolm laughing, as I walked over and pushed his head. “I had to sneak past an entire team of Kang Tao to get that data drive dropped off.”

 

“Pfft. Just one team? Are you getting slow in your old age?” Malcolm teased, so I just flipped him off and Rebecca’s laugh made me laugh along with her.

“Funny as fuck chooms. But we’re good? Vik did good work, but I’m still feeling sore.” Rebecca said, pointing at her leg that was currently resting on the glass coffee table. That might have been why Mama Hiromi was hovering.

 

“Yeah, Kang Tao agreed to back off on this one. Regina brow beat them with the data.”

 

“Nova. Alright then. I’m out.” Rebecca said and groaned as she started to get up. I frowned.

 

“Want a hand?”

“Ehhh… Yeah.” She admitted as she winced a bit as she put weight on her leg.

 

I walked over and scooped her up gently, earning a yelp of surprise from Rebecca as I slowly made sure she was comfortable.

 

“Jeeze choom! I’m not that small!”

 

“You’re pretty light Rebecca!” I responded back with a laugh showing her how easy it was to lift her. Honestly the weight was mostly on my back thanks to my arms being chrome, and my core handled the rest just fine.

 

“Fuck. I forgot all those muscles you got Strings.”

I just laughed at Rebecca’s surprised sound.

 

“C’mon I’ll help you get home. Oh before I forget.” I mentioned stopping my turn towards the door. “We didn’t get to loot the place with everything that happened. But I’m amazed at how well everyone handled today. Ichi, your van okay?”

He gave me a small grimace. “Repairs aren’t going to be cheap.”

“It was during an OP, and it saved our ass, so Hiromi? Can we make sure that gets squared away? I can pull from my eddies if that would work.”

“Don’t worry about it Motoko.” Hiromi said, although she was giving me a strange focused look. “We have the company account for that sort of thing.”

 

“Okay… Just let me know if there are any issues. Thanks everyone.”

“Pfft. We all did what we could.” Malcolm said surprisingly blase about the whole thing. “I’m gonna head out too.”

 

And with that other than Hiromi giving me a strange look, and Rebecca giggling for some reason. Our first official gig day ended.

 

—–

 

“So Ash has been reaching out. She’s had a few people reach out to her, music people on the down low trying to get contact information.” Hiromi informed me the next morning.

 

I blinked at her as she had just walked into my bedroom as I was being a bit lazy and still in bed without a word and just flopped down and started talking.

 

“What? Hiromi!”

She rolled her eyes but she was trying to keep from breaking out into a smile so she was definitely fucking with me. I just rolled my eyes back and waved my wrist for her to go on.

 

“Okay so. People are interested. Interest is good. It means we have leverage. I want to set up some meetings. Some DJ’s for different stations want your music, and some producers, I think they want to add you to their label!”

 

“Sounds horrible.”

“It has its drawbacks.” She admitted a little too quickly. “But the eddies would be much better!”

“Hiromi.”

“Motoko.”

 

I sighed. Working with some corpo middleman music producer sounded like a horrible idea. I could tell Hiromi knew what I was thinking as she added.

 

“I’ll be with you the whole time. I’ve actually been studying. Arasaka does have a Music section, and I looked over their course load. I know what to look out for!”

 

I side eyed Hiromi because she probably didn’t realize how little that reassured me. I wasn’t worried about how good she was, I was worried about how evil whoever we were talking to was.

 

I shrugged it off. I could always just kill people.

 

That familiar mantra left me feeling more at ease. “Alright. I’ll leave it to you.”

“Yeeees! Okay can you get ready? I want to set up a meeting!”

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“Alright, sure. Tell me who you want us to meet.” I asked as I got up and stretched, groaning a bit as I let my muscles stretch out, with a hop I jumped off my bed and started grabbing clothes. Fighting my ass into my jeans I turned to Hiromi who seemed a little distracted. “Hiromi?”

“Wha? Yes! Okay so. First meeting is with Richard Fox. He’s actually a DJ for Morro Rock.”

“Yeah that name sounds familiar.” I muttered, I think I’d heard him on the radio? I did listen to Morro. It was where I had originally listened to Samurai and played along with.

“He wants to play Pretender, at least mentioned it to Ash directly. So we are going down to the radio station to talk eddies.”

 

“Do they even do that? Just buy singles?”

“Not usually, in fact I doubt we’ll get any eddies from this… Sort of the opposite.”

“You want to pay him to play the song?”

“Yes. More people listening to the song means more people interested. It’s advertising!”

 

I looked at Hiromi and she was firm about this.

 

“Okay.” I agreed. If Hiromi thought this was the best path, then I’d play along.

 

—–

 

The station wasn’t anything super fancy, a pretty normal building in City Center, near the Mayor’s office.

 

We parked the Quadra and headed in through the armored glass doors with the Morro Rock Logo on it.

 

The inside didn’t even have a secretary. Instead Hiromi walked up to the computer at the desk and typed in some information before getting a guest pass.

 

I followed her into the elevator and then up we went.

 

We were both quiet as we went up. I could feel Hiromi getting a bit nervous, so she was shifting into her corpo mode. Her face smoothing out and getting an almost haughty tilt to her head.

 

Then the door opened and we walked out into a room that actually had a secretary.

 

“Hiromi Mitsunashi?”

“Yes.”

 

“Mr. Fox will see you now. First door on your left.” She said, the secretary was lazing back practically with her feet on the desk, and I was shocked she wasn’t blowing bubbles with bubblegum.

 

Hiromi strode down the hall head high and I followed in her wake just enjoying the way Hiromi had shifted from nervousness to full confidence.

 

Inside was a personal office. A big desk, with a man sitting behind it. Lots of records on the walls, and a few pictures of famous musicians shaking the man’s hand.

 

“Ah excellent! Richard Fox, and you’d be?”

“Hiromi Mitsunashi, Manager. This is Motoko Kusanagi, Ghost in the Shell.” Hiromi introduced us, and the mans smile was bright and wide. He was gregarious, happily shaking both our hands and offering us a drink as he settled us into the chairs across the desk.

 

“Well can I just say before we get to business? Pretender, absolutely banging track. That opening guitar pick? Really drew me in.” He offered and I blinked and couldn’t help but smile at his compliment.