Chapter 224

“Kawaii-Kitten-Koh-”

“Sasha, stop it.” I interrupted her flatly with a glare. “Seriously.”

“Ah.” She hesitated a bit and slumped pouting at me. “Fine… Motoko.”

“Thank you.” I offered back feeling a little better already. “You ready?” I asked her, and she grinned at me.

“Yes! Another trip into the No/Brainer server!” She called out and pointed at the server in question.

 

We both walked in, and as much as I wanted to instantly start crushing Daemons…

 

That wasn’t my job this time.

 

I started breaching the server, even as Sasha and I rushed along, the both of us breaking through the first rooms very fast, Sasha’s tendency to use massive overwhelming hacks finally made some sense.

 

You enter a new room, and release something large wiping out if not all the defenses, a huge majority of them, and then clear out the weakened defenses, take your time doing whatever you need, and by the time you’re done you move onto the next room and repeat.

 

It worked I guess…

 

“Ah, can we slow down a little Kitten?”

“Getting old Cat?” I asked back as I had already breached through this room’s defenses, opening up the gate to the next network node, but Sasha hadn’t had time to relax yet.

 

“No bullying Sasha!” She demanded and I rolled my eyes, but slowed down. “Hmph! You got new hardware.”

“Yeah, a full set of stuff. Ex-Disk upgrade, RAM, Got a Camillo.”

“Ooh!”

“And ICE.”

“Hmm, you got that sneaky kitten Shadow Deck. So you’ve what? Doubled your available RAM?” She asked, noticing it instantly, as we slowly ‘walked’ to the next room.

 

“Just about. It’s… Noticeable.”

“Yeah Sasha bets it is! You’re crushing the Breach… It’s making Sasha annoyed. She took longer to let Kitten kill all the Daemons like she wanted, and now Sasha is looking slow.”

“Heh.” I couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “I think you’re a very strong Runner Sasha.” I offered, because frankly, those massive hacks she threw around like candy were…

 

Clean. The Quick Hack themselves weren’t anything to write home about, but Sasha wasn’t a programmer. She was a Netrunner. Everything she did was… Clean. Practiced, and with all the mistakes removed over years of practice.

 

She’d tear me apart if we fought. I might be able to escape her, but she was just that much better than me when it came to the essence of being a netrunner.

 

“Heehee! Sasha is happy!”

 

“And those feelings are gone. Stop talking about yourself in the third person, it’s creepy.”

“Bullying again!?” She whined and I knew that whatever it was that made her act this way was going to be a constant thing.

 

“Ready for the next room?”

“Yes!” She chirped happily and raced ahead, and by the time I entered the room the faux heat wave of her program rippling across the room washed over me. Thankfully it was entirely visual, a distortion of the server as it handled a massive load increase.

 

“I’ll get the bridge.” I called out wishing I could just slay Daemons cause XP, but I needed to prove to Sasha I could handle both sides of what was needed.

 

I rushed to the access node, the glowing bit of data was already clear of Daemons, but its defenses were active.

 

It instantly tried to lock down on me, but I threw its probes into my new ICE and let it get chewed up there, letting me attack without distraction as I Breached through, instantly an array of security systems rushed over my eyes, but I wasn’t bothered.

 

This was ancient shit.

 

I didn’t even need to actually crack it like Sasha had. This was a twenty year old defense program minimum, and likely older than that.

 

I could have simply inputted a security key from the manufacturer, and altered the IFF of the server defenses.

 

But that would be cheating, and wouldn’t show off what I could for Sasha. This was a test to see how well we could work together, and how well we each could handle the job.

 

I was the apprentice here. Even if I refused to let Sasha think of me like that… She totally already did.

 

But still!

 

So I was proving my place.

 

All so I could beat Kiwi in a silly game just because…

 

I killed the distractions in my head, and simply attacked. The security gate whined as I pinned its grasping defenses one by one before reaching the core, and flipping the switch.

 

The Moat bridge appeared.

 

“Way to goooo!” Sasha cheered, even as she continued to wipe out the slowly returning daemons.

 

I pulled away.

 

“No sweat.” I assured her, and we both raced across, I did manage to get a few Daemon kills on the way.

 

—–

 

“Hmm? Kitten isn’t done?” Sasha asked, after we left the server, having run through it without any issue.

 

“I’m going to run it solo, get some practice.”

“You sure? Sasha can come with?”

I was going to deny her, but… “If you aren’t doing anything you’re welcome to follow along.” I offered, and she lit up brightly, smile stretching across her face.

 

“Yes! That sounds fun!” She offered for once not sounding like she was trying to be cute.

 

“Come on then. Let me handle everything unless I totally mess it all up.”

“Heeheehee!” She laughed. “Don’t take it bad Kitten, but I almost hope you do, just so I can see it. But your Senpai believes in you!”

“Thanks.” I said flatly and slipped back into the server.

 

I had way more RAM, and better yet, the hardware to keep my Cyberdeck from overuse.

 

So when I entered the first room, I went all out.

 

Unlike Sasha, who used massive node clearing hacks, so she didn’t have to aim, or set up any sort of use process. I did the opposite. Dozens of low RAM hacks instantly loaded up.

 

I felt the strain of it for a second and instantly began adjusting the workload processes.

 

The program would load RAM from each of my pieces of Cyberware Even the Self-ICE had enough RAM it could run a double load of [HEAT Bullet] Which meant instead of overloading my Cyberdeck running so many consecutive programs, It was actually only the initial activation, and then aiming that was loaded on my Cyberdeck.

 

Then the program list went from a dozen to two, and exploded out of me, racing across the server like fireballs, each of them smashing two or three into Daemons that had been already heading towards me.

 

Sasha had been right.

 

Overwhelm the initial defenders and by the time you were ready to move on, you were cooled for the next room. That’s the sort of netrunner knowledge that my system didn’t really show me as such.

 

*250 XP Gained.*

 

*250 XP Gained.*

 

*250 XP Gained.*

 

*250 XP Gained.*

 

*250 XP Gained.*

 

*Level up achieved!*

 

*One Stat Point Gained.*

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

 

*One Skill Point Gained.*

 

*250 XP Gained.*

 

*250 XP Gained.*

 

I grinned as the information flowed through me.

 

Yeah. That’s the stuff. Sorry Sasha. I won’t need your help this time.

 

—–

 

“Okay so you got it?” I asked, and Klein nodded, spun his drum sticks around with a flourish and repeated the beat this time… Well it was better. “Alright let’s try that again.” I asked, and got nods from everyone.

 

Everlong. I needed the actual studio version, so… As part of practice and to reveal the full version for our next gig, we were doing it.

 

“Hello! I’m waiting here for you!” I sang my hands dancing over the strings, Klein kept the fast snare run going.

 

Jared and Alice both kept their guitars going, the beat sounded good, a little flat at parts, but that was what practice was for.

 

“I promise I’ll stop when I say when.” I crooned letting the song trail off as Klein finished up the last of the song on the drums.

 

I turned and everyone was looking a little tired.

 

“That was a lot better.” I confirmed, it felt weird being in charge. Especially since everyone was older than me, but I was treating it like a gig. Well, like a combat gig.

 

Messups were tolerated in training, but needed to be fixed so I was being more proactive than usual. I was actually calling out issues, and working to fix it, which did feel uncomfortable, but it had to be done.

 

“Thoughts? Feelings?” I asked as I grabbed a water bottle to hydrate a bit as I looked over everyone.

 

“I’m getting it, I think.” Klein called out and did a quick repeat of Everlongs snare run. “Should be good.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“It’s a bit… Old school. No real flare to it.” Alice finally said. “I know you said it’s done, but maybe a bit of a sound machine, add a bit more vibe to it?” She asked, and while my first instinct was to tell her hell no, how dare she try to ruin Everlong.

 

I swallowed it, and instead moved to her.

 

“We can try a few things, I mean, I have the acoustic version as well, so a different sound isn’t bad.” I offered and she lit up. Right. This wasn’t just me, these were musicians that wanted to stretch their musical talents too.

 

“Great! Let me mess with a few things.” She rushed over to the recording studio, and considering…

 

“Klein, you mind if I take drums for this?”

“You want to drum? Fair enough.” He confirmed, wiping a hand through his hair that glowed and pulsed. The fact he was wearing pretty normal clothes gave him a funny sort of feel. Although that was just because we were practicing and not actually playing a gig. He dressed up in tons of the current fashion when it was time to play.

 

I replaced him and spun the sticks. I actually kinda liked drumming funnily enough. Something about just bashing away with a pair of sticks called to me.

 

I didn’t hesitate as Alice was still fucking around, to just start laying out Everlongs drums.

 

Jared nodded, and started playing the Bass right along, and Klein picked up my Guitar after a nod, and we all started jamming out.

 

No vocals, just the three of us playing.

 

Alice rolled her eyes but not long after, some additional noise started echoing through the booth.

 

I don’t think I really liked it, not really. But Alice was jamming out doing it live, and frankly that was okay.

 

This whole band thing was… Well it was a bit stressful, but playing music was fun.