Chapter 206

“Motokooooo!” I blinked looking away from my lunch.

 

“Hey Hiromi.” I greeted as she rushed inside the apartment and leapt onto the couch. “Shouldn’t you be at school?”

“Noooo!” She whined and I just watched her until finally she stopped. “Yes, technically. But more importantly, Section 9 needs to sell some of the goods we picked up, and I set up some sales today. Guard my body?” She asked, suddenly throwing her head back as she lay on the couch. If this was an old movie, she’d have asked me to paint her like a french girl or something.

 

“Goof.” I told her as I reached out and poked her nose causing her to shift a bit more backwards and end up flat on her back. “Let me finish my lunch?”

“If you must! Ichi is downstairs in the truck.”

“Poor Ichi.” I said and then grabbed my lunch and took a big bite.

 

I continued to eat as Hiromi lay on the couch looking up at me upside down and it took until she reached out and poked my side that I realized she was focusing on something.

 

“Hiromi? I’m not ticklish, you know.” I said as her fingers were exploring my side. Showing no signs of stopping.

“Shush Motoko. If you are going to make me wait, then I’m going to enjoy the view.” She said and I laughed at that, but she was pressing against my side with a look of something on her face.

 

“You could get muscles if you exercised too.”

“Shush.” She instantly hissed and then shook herself off as she sat. “I don’t think I could get those kind of muscles even if I worked out a lot Motoko. Jeez. What did you do to yourself?”

“Yesterday was a big workout day.” I said blandly, not giving anything away. “I’m pretty satisfied though.”

 

“Yeah me too,”

“Hmm?”

“Nothing! You done yet?”

“Ugh.” I grumbled as I grabbed the remains of my food and started stuffing it down. Can’t even enjoy my own lunch in peace!

 

—–

 

“-Should cover the entire purchase.” Hiromi offered, smiling at the Tino gangsters. They looked over the array of junk we had laid out. Although Hiromi had called it valuable merchandise, it was stuff like entertainment systems, and other electronics from the mansion.

 

I was keeping an eye out as the bodyguard, but was fighting my own boredom as Hiromi worked.

 

Just as I was thinking this entire thing was going to be boring. I noticed trouble.

 

A vehicle, the low riding Villefort Alvarado pulling into the parking lot, and then another pickup behind it.

 

I instantly sent a call to Ichi, as I casually started scanning and preparing to breach into targets.

 

I was still leaning against the van behind me, and I smirked as I felt the shift inside as the HMG’s activated. The door was still up, but it would only take a moment.

 

“Hiromi. We have company.” I called as the vehicles approached, and she went still glancing at me, and I nodded, as I walked over beside her, and made sure she was in reach. I might need to pull her out of danger if this went bad.

 

Out from the front vehicle jumped an obvious Tino. Gold and chrome on full display as he looked around, including at the stuff we had out for the gonks we were selling to to look over.

 

“Well ain’t this interesting!” He called out, and I knew from his tone this was going to be trouble.

 

“Good afternoon!” Hiromi offered chirping happily. “We have plenty of things for sale! I hope you find something you like!” She chirped, as if chocolate wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

 

But I was focused on the men getting out of the truck, a little too casually.

 

“Yeah? Chica, you think you have anything I want? Hell, you even know what I want?” He asked mocking, and I glared at his tone.

 

Yeah this wasn’t good.

 

Hiromi realized it too, as her smile shifted from fake saleswoman to a more serious stare.

 

“Then excuse me, I obviously misunderstood. What do you want?”

“I want to know why a couple of chinks are on my turf with a shit ton of scop!” He growled and kicked one of the bottles of booze we had been hawking.

 

It shattered against the van after sailing past Hiromi and I. Suddenly the air stank of fruit and alcohol. And I realized this wasn’t going well.

 

“We’re leaving.” I said, and stepped in front of Hiromi a bit pushing her back towards the van. But the leader of this Tino group wasn’t going to let that stand.

 

“The fuck you are!” He pulled a Nova out of his jacket, and pointed the revolver at us, and it was only because I had already started breaching into him that I was able to upload a weapon glitch. The moment he drew, my hands grabbed Hiromi and pulled her away, the only reason he didn’t get a bullet immediately back.

 

I continued to keep Hiromi behind me as I stared him down, realizing with pleasure he wasn’t pulling the trigger yet. I went to work, uploading weapon glitches into the group as fast as I could, letting him have what he wanted.

 

Time to monologue.

 

“You fucking chink bitches! You think you can come on down to our turf, and flash your scop, like you some high tower, Clouds fucking dolls?” He snapped and it took me a moment to parse that I think he was calling Hiromi and I whores?

 

Man sometimes people just didn’t make a lick of fucking sense.

 

“We work with Padre. Not sure what the problem is here.” I offered, and Hiromi thankfully was remaining huddled behind me.

 

“Fucking Padre? The fuck you take me for? Some dumb cunt like you? I’m going to send a message to you chinks about coming out here!” He scoffed and it was only then that I heard it, that we all heard it.

 

The click of his Nova failing to fire.

 

So I reacted. I activated my Sandy, to give myself just a moment longer.

 

I moved doing everything I could in the short time I had with the Sandy active, continuing to hack as many of them as I could. I started to push Hiromi back and drew my Burya, but I aborted it and instead grabbed Hiromi and leapt, pushing my body between hers and the gunmen.

 

While their leader’s gun failed, Where a few of the others weapons failed to fire. Some of the others didn’t have any such trouble, I had only gotten through about eighty percent of the group.

 

I managed to just get around the Van, when I heard the rear van doors open, and the cries of shock from the Tino’s. I rushed, pushing Hiromi with me towards the cab. We piled inside, Hiromi screaming out in shock and fear at everything and Ichi didn’t even need to hear my order to start driving as we basically jumped half in before he hit the gas, and his Van peeled out, the HMG’s firing behind us, and I had no idea how effective it was, because not long after I heard the noise, we were down the street.

 

I had pushed Hiromi into the passenger seat and I was holding on mostly by digging my hands into the furniture of the cab, but as we managed to get mostly away I felt it. A pain that ran up my back.

 

“Fuck fuck fuck!” Hiromi was screaming aloud, absolutely freaking out as she started to adjust herself so she wasn’t just half pushed over the center console. I looked her over, my eyes scanning and felt relieved when I realized she hadn’t been hit.

 

“Fuck is right.” I said, and was surprised at how weak my voice sounded in my own ears, I reached back and when I brought my hand back it was covered in blood.

 

Owe. Getting shot stings.

 

“Motoko!?”

“Gonna need to hit Viks.” I said, as strongly as I could as I just managed to adjust myself and reach into my pouch for a Maxdoc.

 

I don’t know how many times I had been shot, but I definitely had been.

 

I popped the Maxdoc and instantly everything became clearer.

 

Grunting a bit I shifted, getting myself better wedged inside, so I wouldn’t fall out and so I could look out the van to check behind us.

 

Looked clear.

 

Stolen story; please report.

“Oh my God. Motoko!”

 

“It’s fine Hiromi.” I said without even looking. “Just get me to Viks.” I assured her, even though I knew it had been a bit more serious than that. I felt her hand leaping onto my bag and looked over to realize she had taken off her jacket and was holding it against my back.

 

Oh. She ruined her jacket. I didn’t have any way to tell her I was fine, so instead I just flashed her a smile.

 

“Looks like they aren’t chasing.” I said towards Ichi, and I took in his pale face, and white knuckled grip on the steering wheel. “Ichi, you okay you didn’t get hit did you?”

“I’m fine! My cab is armored.” He said back sounding frantic and I relaxed a bit enough to close the door and lean back a bit into Hiromi.

 

“That sucked.” I decided and Hiromi gave a sound between a sob and an agreement all at once.

 

—–

 

“She’ll live.” Vik assured Hiromi who had been hovering since I climbed down the steps despite her fussing over me the whole time. He looked to me, then to Hiromi. “Her subdermal caught it, and she didn’t bleed that badly. She’ll be fine. I’ve already given her some stuff to help heal it up.”

Vik’s words finally seemed to get through and Hiromi slumped, and I stepped out of the section he had covered off with a curtain already putting my jacket back on.

 

Dammit. The bullet had gone right through my jacket and leotard. I’d have to fix that. Again.

 

“See? I’m fine.” I said with a chipper smile.

“Motoko!” Hiromi leapt at me, but came up short and sort of dithered, so I pulled her into a hug.

 

“I’m fine. Just a scratch.” I told her, and looked past her shoulder to see Vik and mouth a thank you towards him.

 

He nodded, and that was that.

 

“Now, we have something a bit more important than my scrapes to talk about.” I said and Hiromi pulled away looking like she was going to argue with me about downplaying my wounds, but she stopped when she saw my face.

 

“They die. I’m going to kill them. Every single one of them.” I told her, and I noticed Vik looking back over in surprise at the tone of my voice.

 

“Yeah. They… They can’t get away with this.” She said and I nodded.

“That’s right. We’ll need to hit my netrunner cave. I need to know exactly who needs to die.”

 

—–

 

“Shit choom, you alright?” Malcolm asked, and there was something in his voice. I nodded and threw him a thumbs up.

 

“It was minor, and Ichi drove me to Viks. I’m fine Malcolm.”

“Good, that’s good. Don’t worry me like that.” He said and I just nodded, because I could understand why Malcolm was twitchy about it.

 

We were all gathering at the Netrunner cave. Because of course I was going to have to do another dive.

 

I dropped the to-go order of Ramen on the table and dug in, as Malcolm greeted Ichi and Hiromi, checking in with everyone.

 

I needed to eat, and then I was going to dive. As the broth hit my tongue it let me think for a moment about what had just happened.

 

Was it just a normal theft? My instincts said yes, but either way it wasn’t acceptable.

 

Those men and women that had jumped us were going to die, and it was going to be loud, and obvious.

 

Hiromi had nearly gotten shot, and I took it personally whenever I took a bullet.

 

“I got a response back from Padre.” Hiromi said, as she settled into the table opposite me, she pushed around the food we had grabbed on our way over but didn’t look interested in eating it.

 

“What did he say?”

“Nothing important, but he isn’t going to get involved one way or another. The guys might have misstepped but he isn’t going to do anything about it.”

“Well if he doesn’t want to get involved. I don’t want to hear him complain aftwards about any damage we do.” I replied with a shrug.

 

“I want to pilot the Minotaur.” She said suddenly and I looked up at her in surprise.

“What?”

“I know you Motoko. You’ll want to bring it along, but Ichi won’t be driving it this time. I will.” Hiromi said firmly. And there was a deadly edge to her voice.

 

That’s right. I might have been the one shot, but Hiromi had almost been shot, and she didn’t handle that well.

 

“Sure. You have to tell Ichi though.” I teased, but she just nodded without rising to my teasing.