Chapter 212

I slurped the soba noodles as the Tyger Claw guys around me all joked and chattered about whatever their discussion drifted to.

 

The Soba was good, I’d had noodles here before, but it had been since Jun and I stayed at the Dojo, so it was a good memory.

 

The weirdness of all these gangsters joking around me without issue was a bit strange.

 

“Did you see his face, when she just locked his blade and slapped him in the face with it?”

“Oh, shit I was howling inside. Couldn’t actually laugh in front of sensei, but if I didn’t have some chrome, I think I would have broken a rib.”

The boys all laughed and joked as if they were normal people and not well, murderers and gangsters.

 

What a weird situation.

 

I slurped my noodles, and looked over. Men that would happily do terrible things to others were joking and acting normal…

 

It reminded me of a song.

 

“You’ll never know the murderer sitting next to you.” I half whispered and half sang before stuffing my face with noodles.

 

“What’s that?”

“Hmm?” I asked, looking up before quickly swallowing the mouthful. “Nothing, just a song stuck in my head.”

“Oh that’s right. I heard the Oni mention it, you’re a Rockerboy too right?” I blinked at the tattooed man that was probably ten years my senior who seemed to talk to me like he would his own kid sister.

 

Fucking weird.

 

“Yeah something like that. Alright. I’m done. Thanks for the meal boys.”

“Anytime Yurei!” One of them called out and I winced at the name before waving and heading out.

 

The situation with the Tyger Claws was… Different now.

 

Was it Fujimura, the fact I was working with Hayato, or just my general actions?

 

Either way I was too tired to train anymore without a nap so I slid onto the Kusanagi, and enjoyed the way my girl rumbled to life.

 

Another thing to consider, but not worry about at the moment.

 

The streets were busy as I slipped into the traffic, and I ended up caught in light after light. The slow stop and go traffic gave me plenty of time to consider what I should do from here.

 

Probably needed to set up the next Section 9 training day. Maybe some sniper training? I bet I could get an Ashura and train everyone in using it, giving Section 9 some low level sniper support if needed?

 

I was just about to start moving again when gunshots rang out, and like many of the people in cars around me we ducked down. I took cover on the other side of the Kusanagi, as I was already drawing my Burya ready to fire, but the bullets were coming my way.

 

A gangoon came stumbling down from a building, his feet practically slipping and failing to catch the steps as he held a Unity up towards the door before just rocketing away with the gun pointed in the general direction of the doorway as ran.

 

I considered taking a shot.

 

He was right there. Probably some gangster causing issues. It was free XP.

 

The Burya was out and pointed and his stumbling run wasn’t enough for me to miss but…

 

I holstered my gun as two goons stumbled out of the entrance. Some minor gang I had no idea of, shouting and cursing at the running man.

 

Yeah, not any of my business. I slipped back onto the Kusanagi and hit the gas.

 

Just another day in Night City.

 

—–

 

I was tinkering with some songs at home, I’d had plans for something big, but it turns out that even with my memory getting the whole thing put together was a big mess.

 

So I was mostly putting off that and playing with the song that had popped into my head at the noodle stand.

 

“All my friends are heathens, take it slow.” I crooned as I strummed the chords. Heathens was a great song, and it really fit the dangerous gangoon lifestyle. I had no doubt it would be popular if I ever played it.

 

I hesitated mid chord.

 

Would I play it? I shook off the thought. That was a problem for future Motoko.

 

Instead I kept playing the song, recording it into my music box as I suddenly got a call.

 

I checked the number and frowned.

 

That wasn’t someone I expected to see again.

 

*This is Motoko.*

*Kid. It’s Bishop from the Afterlife. Got a situation. You open for work?* Bishop. The Afterlife merc and his Edgerunner team I’d worked with a while back. Bishop the solo that reminded me a lot of someone trying to be Morgan Blackhand too hard. Mira the Sniper Exotic… Stupid exotics. Sam? It was Sam something, their corpo front, and Hakase the Street Samurai.

 

*I’m kinda just hanging out, what’s the sitch?*

*Sam got klepped trying to have a meeting with a corpo contact. The meeting didn’t go well. We need to bust him out. We’re on a time limit, before Ion Frontier decides he isn’t worth trying to get info out of. I remember you’re good at sneaking around.*

*Pay?* I asked, instead of what I really wanted to say which was hell yes.

 

Rescuing a gonk from some corpo sounded like fun.

 

I was already setting my gear aside, and reaching for a maxdoc. My muscles were still sore from earlier, but a maxdoc, would make up for not taking a nap.

 

*I’ll pay at the Afterlife rate, with hazard pay.* I hummed, because frankly I had no idea what that was like, but I was already in my room grabbing some stuff. Copperhead? It was bulkier, but corpo security tended towards body armor. All the better to take out any street kids causing trouble.

 

No.

 

I looked at the two Katana I had resting against the corner of the room. My older Thermal Katana, and the much higher quality, but also more brittle Musashi blade.

 

Infiltration Ninja?

 

*So you in?*

*I’m in.* I agreed, grabbing my Thermal Blade, I liked the brutality of it more. Sliding it into my belt.

 

I turned and headed out to the living room, and slipped on my boots.

 

*Where are we meeting?*

*I’ll send you the deets. Talk to you when you get here kid.*

*Yeah yeah.* I grumbled as the call cut off, and I hurried out of the apartment.

 

Time to have some fun!

 

—–

 

Normally I would have taken the Quadra but traffic was still pretty rough right now, and with a time limit I couldn’t just amble along.

 

My Kusanagi roared as I lane split, and then cut into a turn lane as they had a green and then cut over to keep going straight.

 

The maneuver had me laughing a little.

 

*100 Driving XP Gained.*

 

An alert meant it was well done I guess? Either way my unsafe driving cut off at least a few minutes from the drive as I pulled off the street and into an alley that my GPS was guiding me towards.

 

The small pack of vehicles and familiar faces father inside meant I didn’t hesitate in driving right up.

 

“I’m here.”

“Good timing.” Bishop offered and Mira, despite how she had acted last time just gave me a single nod before turning her eyes back up to the sky. The joking shark girl was gone, instead a much more worried woman took her place.

 

We were in an alley that connected a lot of office buildings, and the one she was focused on was probably where the target was.

 

“Got any data on this Frontier Ion?”

“Ion Frontier. They’re a small corp. They produce some of the EMP equipment for Militech. They’re not big, but we were on a gig to pull some data from their server. Sam got grabbed while he was holding an above board meeting with them. He got an alert off.” Bishop started explaining as I arrived.

 

“Can you get us in?” Mira asked, and I shrugged, as I looked up at the building.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Do you have blueprints or anything? What floor the corp is on?”

“Seventh.” Hakase offered, while Bishop handed me a shard. I slotted it, and instantly firewalled it and checked it over verifying it was clean before I accessed it.

 

Hmm. They controlled all of floor seven, and it had security, turrets, and goons. Nothing like Kang Tao, or Arasaka, but big guns, and at least some military surplus.

 

Of course this data was old. I could practically taste the netrunner who had pulled this data, some little net rat grabbing data from everything and anything they could get their hands on. The way the data was formatted meant for quick infiltrations and grabs.

 

I unslotted the shard and tossed it back to Bishop.

 

“Okay, I can help with this. Instead of getting you all in. I can get in and get to him, but it’s the exfil that could be sketchy.” I offered as I looked at the group. Hmm. A Sniper, a Solo, and a Samurai. Another Netrunner would make this more comfortable, but I’d deal with what I had.

 

“Are you sure? We can’t take any risks with Sam.” Mira asked, and I waved her off.

 

“Infiltrating is my speciality. You want him to get out and fast? Without the corp that captured him just finishing him off when they notice you try to rescue him? Then I go in alone.” I stated the fact as confidently as I could as I met the woman’s eyes.

 

“We’ll hold the lobby. We can lock it down and give you an exit.” Bishop offered already formulating some sort of plan.

“No.” I denied instantly. “If I’m infiltrating the moment anyone in that building gets a whiff something is up, they’ll lock it down or worse. Mira is already looking at our exfiltration point.” I said and everyone looked to Mira who had looked back down, then she looked back up.

 

“No fucking way.”

“Fucking way.” I denied as I looked up at the large glass windows. The buildings were tightly packed next to each other, and would be more than capable of giving sight lines. There were even old fire escapes on the other building.

 

I was already off. A single bounce hit a concrete wall and then another had me over the guard wall around the building and I was off, with another jump I hit the bottom of an old fire escape, and with a bit of muscle got the ladder to descend to let the others follow.

 

“Seventh floor.” I reminded them, not wasting any more time, as I jumped off and headed towards the building’s back door. Time to infiltrate a corpo building!

 

The rear door was just like every rear door, locked, but that barely slowed me down. My Kiroshi scanned the door and confirmed a security trigger. If the door opened it would let out an alarm, but I didn’t even have to do anything to disable that, I popped open the security pad and licked two fingers, and a moment later the door unlocked, I quickly checked inside the long hallway wasn’t empty unfortunately, and I just huddled down fingers pressed against the pad keeping the lock from activating and watching through the tiny crack as the worker of the place walked down the hall and then into one of the rooms.

 

Once he was gone, I slipped in, noticing the foil taped over the security system that would sound the alarm in case anyone opened the door.

 

Workers making sure they had rear access no doubt, likely a smoke break if the cigarette butts littering the alley told the story correctly.

 

I was in with a whisper, I crept down the hall and checked into the room the worker had just left. Breakroom. Perfect. I went past and right into another door that said employees only. The workers were rent a cops. The cheap kind. Nothing better than greeters at the front desk. So I wasn’t worried about them, but unfortunately, this wasn’t just a motel or something. Corpo rented space meant security was tighter.

 

I needed a jack in point. Something in the building, so I could slip into their security. Unfortunately the room I was in was nothing but a storage room. There wasn’t even a computer, or security access point.

 

I flashed my Kiroshi as I started scanning. They had some security obviously, where did they keep their security room?

 

Not on the ground floor, which is already impressive for building security. Someone knew what they were doing… I turned around and after checking slipped into the hallway and went back the way I came.

 

Only one way forward.

 

I opened the breakroom, and sauntered in like everything was normal. The casual movements gave me the few seconds I needed to approach the worker. He looked up from his coffee and then back down, and then jerked up just as I reached him.

 

One hand around his mouth giving me half a second to muffle his shout as my arm wrapped around and secured his larynx, I leapt a bit to get the right grip so I was practically monkeying on his back, but he choked out his cry for help and as I adjusted my grip I cut off the blood to his brain and he dropped. I made sure he didn’t break his skull on the way down and laid him out.

 

*250 XP Gained.*

 

“Sorry buddy.” I whispered as I started undressing him while grabbing his ID shard which would give me access to the elevator.

 

I ended up tying him up as best I could with the crap in the breakroom and stuffing him in one of the cupboards around the room. That should at least slow him down when he woke up.

 

I headed out, and pulled the security guard’s cap lower over my face as I walked past a security camera, and towards the elevator.

 

My finger hovered around the 7 for a moment, but I ended up hitting 2 instead.