Chapter 237

“There, just perfecto! Just keep that look, no, don’t touch your hair, it’s falling perfectly, ruffled and teenage angsty! No no! No, talking you will shift your hair.” She demanded from me, as I almost opened my mouth to ask what teenage angsty was supposed to look like.

Fucking weirdos, and that was coming from me!

Thankfully, even with the bright lights setup, my Kiroshi were more than capable of adjusting to the glare of camera flashes.

“Ugh, look at this, even with the picture and my work at it’s best you are wearing such old chrome, worn! Do you never polish yourself?”

I pointedly only shifted my eyes to glare, because she was half a second away from telling me not to talk anyways.

“Ah yes you can learn, good.” She teased. She was lucky I hadn’t gone first. If I hadn’t seen her treat everyone this way, I’d have introduced my fist to her face at some point.

Whatever, just a photo shoot. Just part of the contract, just something tedious and stupid and uncomfortable I had to do.

I had actually said no at first, but well…

Agreeing to be a Rockerboy meant I should get used to this sort of thing. It was fine, besides there were some advantages to all this.

“Okay you are done. Very good girl, yes?” The woman asked, in that thick accent that I was still trying to figure out what it was meant to be.

Probably entirely fake just to make herself stand out. I was in that sort of circle right now.

“Good.” I grumbled, and rose up, adjusting myself. They’d absolutely coated my hair in some gunk to give them control, and already an assistant was rushing up to readjust my hair for another shoot I was sure.

I tapped my new jacket. Similar in style to my old one, but this one wasn’t an off the shelf addition. It had actually been handed to me out of a box when I arrived today. The fact they’d taken my current jacket style and just… Having an expensive shiny new one made was kinda a flex.

Also it was comfy as fuck.

I was pointedly not thinking about how expensive it no doubt was, cause I wasn’t going to just not roll around in blood and guts when in a gunfight because my jacket was expensive.

It would just have to deal with the stains of merc work, it would add realism to it or something, insert corpo buzz word here. Hiromi would know.

I looked over the others, Alice, Jared, and Klein had already started taking advantage of all the goodies MSM Records had provided. Most of their chrome had been adjusted, if not swapped out. The cheap garage band cyberware was now the expensive chrome of a made Rockerboy.

I was still sporting my normal stuff, but I was going to bring their catalogue to Vik, and ask for his advice. Hiromi had finally sort of convinced me that I should take advantage of the offer.

It’s not like I hadn’t already sold my soul to the devil, might as well get a benefit out of it. “You look like you’re planning to run away.” I glanced up, frowning a little at the well dressed man. He was wearing a suit sort of like what V wore, similar style. Black suit expensive, and chrome just hinted at, enough to show he had eddies to burn.

“Do I know you?”

“Not yet, but I’m Alex Angelopuoulos, just call me Alex.” He said, offering a hand. I took it warily and he smiled. “Welcome to MSM, I’ve been hearing good things about you Miss Kusanagi.”

“Okay?”

“Ah, my first impression isn’t doing so well huh? Well I’ve been assigned to you as an assistant.”

“I don’t need an assistant.”

“I understand, trust me, that’s a fairly common reaction, but let me be clear, it’s more that I’m a Rockerboy Wrangler.” He chuckled at his own joke. “I’ll be working with you, and of course Miss Mitsunashi. I’m simply here as a point of contact between MSM and yourself and Manager. Think of me as the one that is responsible for making sure you show up to the events, and handle any issues that arise.”

“Isn’t that just the manager’s job?”

“Only unimportant managers, handling third stringers. We are MSM records, we only handle true talent.”

I frowned at the man’s confidence, since I smelled some nasty trap here, but I shrugged. “Talk to Hiromi, I don’t care.”

“Of course Motoko, can I call you Motoko?”

“Whatever dude.”

“Excellent. I’ll be helping you with anything you need, are you thirsty? Hungry? We can get a table at Dark Matter if you’d like? I hear Kala Tsui from Watson Whore will be there tonight!”

“The fuck would I care?” I grunted as I decided now was a good time to walk away from this conversation.

Of course the man followed.

“Not a fan then? I’ll make sure to make a note about that. Still she won’t be the only one. Or I could order something in for you? Bleu is the finest restaurant in Night City, we could bring in a sample platter from the restaurant, or get a reservation. A few pictures and an endorsement would cover that.”

“I’m good, thanks.” I said, walking out the doors of the studio and back out into the sunny Night City afternoon light. I took a minute to break, it was almost suffocating being surrounded by so many people all of them treating me more like an object than a person. I ran a hand through my still styled hair.

Whatever.

“I was also supposed to talk to you about a Militech Showroom visit?” He spoke then, and I actually stopped. I turned to look at the man again, who was just a little too smug.

“Well?”

“We reached out to Militech, and set it up. There is some discussion about those Condors of yours.”

“What about them? I didn’t agree to swap my chrome.”

“Not yet you haven’t, and I understand, you’ve had that chrome for a while, solid work, but Militech is very interested in a sponsorship deal, their new Eagle Cyberarms. I have the data here.” He started sending me a file and I really did consider uploading something in reverse, but Instead just blocked the transfer, checked the file, and other than some corpo tracking shit, which I tore apart, I took the file and checked it out.

The image in my eye was of a new Cyberarm. They were of the more expensive Militech Eagle Cyberarms. The Condors, much more expensive and fancy brother.

If the Condor were excellent in their durability for standard troops, the Eagle was the fancy special forces version.

I looked them over. They were… Good, honestly. Not quite as armored as my Condors, but better flexibility and the sensitivity settings were way better. The sense of touch and dexterity was crazy high if the numbers were accurate.

Not even touching on the modifications pace.

These were next gen, easily modifiable for what was needed, more than enough space for the common cyber arm weapon augments. Even used a core of the Orbital Crystal to make the frame twice as durable at half the weight.

At least according to the blurb.

It was… Honestly, kinda tempting. They certainly looked good, and I liked the PSI grip strength, I could do some awesome movements with that much grip strength…

I looked up, pushing the files away to see the man. Alex, standing there with that smug little look on his face.

He was definitely that type. A devil offering goodies, but why?

Whatever. It didn’t matter, I’d let Hiromi deal with this, and if it got annoying, well…

A head in a box tended to send messages. That was probably not too over the top, killing overly annoying ‘assistants’ was probably like…Normal?

No, probably not, whatever.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Don’t think too long! The Showroom is holding an opening next week on Thursday, we’ll need confirmation at least two days before that so they can get everything they need.”

“Tuesday got it.” I waved him off as I turned and walked away. My Kusanagi was waiting for me in the secure carpark and frankly a nice drive to get away from all this sounded nice-

“Do you want me to call up a car for you? We have a few Rayfields in the carpark, if you want to get behind the wheel of something nice.”

“My buddy has a Caliburn, I’ve driven it plenty.” Well technically I had only done a few around the streets, Malcolm was a baby about his baby, but still. I preferred my Quadra anyways.

I made it to the Kusanagi and started her up, relaxing a little as her rumble filled the air.

“Ah, more of a motorcycle gal, huh? Well you know Yaiba could always be reached out to, there is a rumor they are producing something new.”

“That’s great. Bye.” I throttled up and took off, leaving the man in my dust, and the entire situation with it. As I managed to get on the main streets after flashing my credentials at the security stop I took a moment to really give her some throttle, feeling the wind in my hair and finally being free.

Only… My stupid hair felt weird with all the shit in it. So even as the wind flowed around me, it felt almost like I’d already been changed.

Stupid comfy jacket. It was probably made with evil too.

—–

“So after that I called Hiromi, she told me it’s a fairly common scam, well she called it a corporate playbook. They try to show an ‘assistant’ that can do things my old manager can’t. Set up deals, brand stuff, expensive food and all that.” I complained as I stared up at the ceiling.

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The faint noises of whatever crappy show Jun was watching filled the living room, but I’d pointedly turned the volume down when I flopped on the couch so Jun would stop watching such terrible shows and stuff. That’s definitely why.

“I like expensive food.”

“Shut up Jun, I’m telling you about the evil corpo plots, it’s not something you are supposed to want.” Then I looked at him firmly. “Besides, you only want XXL Burritos.”

“Well yeah. The XXL is the expensive brand version. I don’t eat XL Burritos Motoko.” He responded as if I was stupid.

“I don’t… Jun they would try to make you eat like XXXL Burritos or something.”

“Do… Do they make those? Is there a triple XL Burrito? Why didn’t I know about this?”

“God dammit Jun, stop joking around.” I grumbled at him, and for a moment I wasn’t sure if he was actually joking at all, as he had a look on his face like he was considering it before shifting into a smirk at me. “Idiot.”

“Heh. XXXL Burritos. That’s funny.”

“I’m serious!”

“I know, I know. Go on, tell me about your crazy day.”

“That’s most of it. He’s going to be sickeningly helpful until I either kill him, or I switch from Hiromi to him as my manager, that’s the sort of plan.”

“But Hiromi knows about it, and you’re good.”

“I know about it, sure, but they might cause issues for Hiromi, if they think it’ll make me switch.”

“Won’t they not do that, now that you know?”

“I don’t think they care very much… But if they mess with Hiromi-”

“Head in box?”

“Head in box.”I agreed. Jun had taken my idea in stride and even agreed it was a good idea. I don’t think that actually meant it was a good idea, but I was willing to accept my brother’s stupid advice if it was something I wanted to do.

I’d literally gotten texts from ‘Alex’ after I took off.

The guy was lucky I didn’t upload a virus that made his Agent scream at him constantly or something.

Maybe later.

“I think…”

“What?” I said instantly a little defensive as Jun had sounded like he was about to start critizing me.

I take criticism super well Jun, but you better not be able to tell me I’m wrong!

I think he understood my innocent and peaceful look that I shot him through narrowed eyes as he thought about it then seemed to just shrug.