Chapter 218

Hiromi as usual haggled fiercely, but even her best wasn’t enough to really give us much, if any, sort of discount.

 

It was fine. I’d been making a lot of eddies, and never really spending it. Buying new Cyberware was basically my main cost anyways.

 

Hiromi and I were leaving the stadium, she was holding the gear keeping my hands free as I kept my eyes on everyone and everything.

 

“Relax Motoko.” She whispered to me voice teasing, but I just smiled at her, and then ignored her anyway.

 

We made it back out to the setting sun and I had a moment of realization that despite how dangerous this place was, and it was, no doubt about that. It still had its own kind of life. I watched people camping out all along the sort of valley that Dog Town was built into. Campfires, and parties.

 

Stupid to do it here, but I guess some people preferred Barghest to NCPD.

 

Just as we were about to hit the top of the stairs I heard it, and stilled.

 

The noise was familiar, perfectly tuned Quadra Super 640 Hyper engine.

 

My engine.

 

“Fuck.” I whispered as I raced forward for a moment ignoring Hiromi as I jumped up, getting as high as I could to watch as my Quadra, my baby, with it’s pretty black paint raced out of the parking area, slamming into a bit of abandoned junk along the sidewalk and then roared forward down the main boulevard away from the stadium.

 

“Motoko!” Hiromi called out from below me, but I waited, eyes locked, as I went to work. It was already almost too far. I sent a Ping and activation code to the trackers that littered the car.

I watched as golden spider webs stretched out as the trackers reached out for open network nodes to transmit to me, and then just a bit more the car was too far and my Kiroshi stopped tracking the access lines.

 

But I watched on anyways, come on.

 

Come on.

 

I waited. There were only a few streets in Dog Town, and the biggest issue was my car was heading right towards the turn off towards the exit.

 

If my car turned off into Night City proper…

 

It would take less than ten hours for my car to be turned into scrap and disappear. My network tracking method would be too slow.

 

I saw brake lights as they came up to the turn and felt my stomach drop, but a Barghest truck drove in front of them, and the Quadra’s lights turned off and rushed forward.

 

Driving right past the entrance to Dog Town, and farther in.

 

I breathed a sigh of relief, even if the air passing my lips came out feeling like arctic cold.

 

Turning back I jumped down from the top of the kiosk I’d leapt onto. “C’mon Hiromi. We need to move.” I told her, and reached over to help push her forward.

 

“Motoko? Was that your car!?”

“Yeah.” I confirmed and she had a look of real anger spreading across her face.

“Those bastards! Hey you!” Hiromi called out to a Barghest guard that was leaning against the concrete wall of the stadium. “Someone stole my chooms car!” She called out and I watched as the guy just looked at her blankly before shrugging just once. Then ignoring her.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought would happen.” I confirmed, still moving her down the steps of the stadium. I needed….

 

“Fucker! Aren’t you- Motoko!”

 

“There, let’s go.” I said pushing her along away from the Barghest guard that would more than likely just shoot her than listen to her.

“What? Motoko? I should call everyone! We need a ride-”

“We have a ride. I need to get you somewhere secure, and then I need to go get it.” I told her back and pushed her forward, right towards the Heavy Hearts.

 

It would be safer inside there, a booth and time would keep Hiromi safe while I took care of things.

 

Hiromi looked like she was going to argue with me, but instead she simply nodded and put some effort into hurrying up. Good, that gave me time to think.

 

I had my weapons. Lexington with two spare mags on the back rig, my Burya with two replacement mags, and my Katana at my hip.

 

It would be enough, and if it wasn’t, I’m sure whoever was stupid enough to steal my car would have some more weapons. We crossed the street and then ran up to the Pyramid entrance. The Barghest guards looked like he was going to stop us, but thought better of it, as we slowed and I walked Hiromi inside. “Just find a quiet place, let everyone know there might be trouble.”

“Shouldn’t you wait for backup? Isn’t that what you always tell us?” Hiromi reminded me as I was already half turned away.

 

“Yeah probably, but if I don’t hurry they might start taking apart my car. I’ll keep you updated with my location just in case.”

“Alright. You’ll have backup soon, but be safe.”

I nodded and hurried out the door, breaking into a light jog as I started moving across Dog Town. I didn’t know this area at all. I had no idea the safe places if you could call it that, or the gang territory. The only thing I knew was that at least one person was about to die. When I found out who stole my car I was going to make it painful.

 

I paced myself perfectly, and wasn’t bothered by a light jog. Across broken sidewalks and over old graffitied benches I crossed the area as quickly as I could on foot. Luckily Dog Town wasn’t that large.

 

I made good headway, ignoring the looks I was receiving from the natives. I raced along the street until it ended, which was annoying, but I was still getting a few stray pings from my trackers. Further forward.

 

As I ran I ended up running right into what looked like a little shopping district. A large tree of all things, a real tree stood in the center. I looked around for a moment, but the ping which was coming from what looked like a netrunner center in a cargo container kept pointing me forward.

 

I jogged through and finally I found it. Turning a corner I heard it first. Russian voices. There was a chair set into an old container that was looking out over the gap in between two containers and a Scav was sitting there keeping watch… Mostly on his TV.

 

Okay. My breath was good, but I had exerted myself. Calm. Cool.

 

I sent a ping to Hiromi giving my location and a brief description of what I’d found. I activated the BD recorder, opening my eyes to a world recorded. Then I peaked out from around the container and pinged the Scav.

 

Lights splashed across my vision. More and more as the stealthiest Ping I could do stretched its web between all the Scavs connected to it.

 

I added onto the message to Hiromi that I was looking at fifty plus Scavs…

 

I reached up and realized I was smiling, my heart hammering in my chest in a completely different way from exertion.

 

An excuse to murder an entire Scav den, and a big one? Oh I was going to really enjoy this. I took a moment to upload another hack into the gonk.

 

[Onryo]

 

I installed it at a very low setting, basically it would slowly propagate along the network for now, but not actually do anything. Just enough that when I needed I could start really fucking with everyone.

 

Then I moved. Stepping back I took two leaps, once against the wall and then over the container. Getting above the guard they had posted. I hunkered down already cataloging the moving pieces all around me.

 

Okay, the first target was clear. I leapt across the gap, landing without a sound, and slipping in through the back of the container behind the Scav.

 

My knife came up and I muffled his mouth as steel slipped into his jugular, ending his life.

 

*500 XP Gained.*

 

I dragged him out of the plastic chair and tucked him into a corner out of sight. No one would even notice he was gone until long after I was done here.

Stolen novel; please report.

 

This gave me an open view down a ramp and into a broken construction area. The large towers that I was shadowed by were skeletal things, incomplete and this was where the Scavs had set up their home.

 

There she was. Right down in the open my Quadra sitting at the base of the ramp and people were looking her over.

 

She was still complete. They hadn’t started ripping her apart yet.

 

I moved. Leaping off the container, and slipping into a crouched position on an old rickety walk way. Using the covered railings to hide myself as I got closer and closer, until I could hear them.

 

“I said six kay, that’s all I’ll do.”

“It’s a fucking modded to fuck Quadra! She’s worth more than that!”

“She’s also klepped. Six Kay.” I watched as the guy who obviously stole my ride haggled with a full faced Scav.

 

The kid… No I shouldn’t call him that, he was older than me, probably late teens, and he was a target anyways.

 

He would die.

 

He looked like he wanted to argue even more but eventually just tsk’ed and nodded, holding out a hand. He shook with the Scav, and the deal was done.

 

Six thousand eddies… For my car? My baby?

 

The shit in her trunk was worth more than six thousand eddies!

 

I watched as the thief handed over a shard… He’d already copied the shard? That was… Actually impressive. I could do it… Probably. Never had before, but that was impressive considering it hadn’t even… Well he probably started stealing my car the moment we went into the stadium.

 

The little thief turned and walked up the ramp, six thousand eddies richer.

 

I followed him.

 

—–

 

Tony Gonzalez

 

Tony walked calmly out of The Scrapers yard and only when he was sure that he was out of sight did he hurry a bit more to get away, finding a quiet corner to duck into and catch his breath.

 

Selling to Scavs was always a danger. Tony kept his Lexington visible in his waistband just in case.

 

He checked his account, six kay… That was a lot of eddies, not as much as the car was worth, but it was good eddies, more than he’d make in a couple of months working some scop job or worse.

 

Easy eddies. He’d go buy Melissa that skirt she’d been looking at. He wouldn’t mind seeing her in it.

 

He patted his jacket, the car cracker was still there. It was his key to a good life. He’d klepped it from a dead runner. Old Etienne was a VDB, Tony did some work for him, moved things and the like, but he’d gone to pick up a new package only to find the old runner fried.

 

So Tony had helped himself, getting the fuck out of there hopefully without anyone noticing. He hadn’t gone for any of the gear. Nah, that was shit that the other Boys would notice missing. No he klepped the little things that Etienne made. A car cracker, a runner stunner, and all the eddies he knew the old man kept around as he didn’t trust virtual eddies.

 

It worked out for Tony. Months of living real quiet, letting old Etienne’s death blow over until no one would ever think Tony had anything to do with it, or that he had klepped something from the old man.

 

Then when his eddies were running out, he’d gone out to keep an eye on the stadium lot.

 

He couldn’t klep a ride from locals, or anyone too important. There was a way of things, and pissing off Barghest would end with him dead in a ditch, but some outsiders coming to use the blackmarket? Outsider kids even?

 

Just a couple girls, corpo and street rat, coming to the black market to feel the thrill probably. Buy something illegal, get into some trouble. Now they’d have a story to tell about their stolen suped up car. Probably daddy’s or something.

 

Tony nodded as he made to move on, only he couldn’t. His legs dropped as quickly as his blood pressure, as his throat was opened up.

 

—–

 

*250 XP Gained.*

 

I took a moment to look through the gonks pockets, a stun stick, nasty fucker too, and a Car Cracker. It’d sync up to a vehicles on board computer override the key system, and with just a press of a button most cars would flash a new key and you’d be off.

 

The only problem was, my Quadra had good security, it probably took a while to crack. When I got out of here, I was going to update the security even more. Fucking hell.

 

With that cleared up I headed back to the tower that was basically a massive scav den. I looked over the numbers from back on top of the storage containers hidden among the refuse.

 

There were netrunners around, but not good ones.