Chapter 27

I think my sense of time towards how long a wound takes to heal was a bit off. The next morning after once again not sleeping a full eight hours Jun dragged me back through the window and into the Dojo then downstairs into the surprise Ripper clinic.

The same ripper checked me over, gave me some meds including some drugs to acclimate to the new limbs, and told me that she wouldn’t have to see me again unless something went wrong.

That was the good part.

“It should be another two or three days before everything feels normal, and probably another two weeks after that before you can start really using your arms for more than light work.” She informed me as she air hypoed me with whatever drugs she wanted me to have.

“That’s way too long! I’ll be fine sooner than that!” I argued but Jun and the Ripper weren’t having it.

“Normally a surgery like this wouldn’t take that long to recover from, a few days at most, but you went through two surgeries back to back. Trust me Motoko. You need to take it very easy for a while. Let your shoulders heal unless you want to deal with permanent damage. You are lucky that the Tyger Claws decided to allow you the use of some of our Speed Heal. If not for Jun’s contribution to the Tyger Claws it would not have been offered considering how low our stock is.” The ripper informed me as she checked over a medical monitor.

“Wait. Is that expensive or something? I can pay for it… Actually I should pay for all of this. How much? I have a chunk of eddies already, and I can go get more.” My mind instantly turned to how much loot I would be collecting from the dead Maelstrom I would soon be mowing through.

“Don’t worry about it Imouto. It’s all taken care of.” Jun stated simply trying to end the conversation but I just ignored him and kept looking at the ripper.

“Hard to say, I’m not running a normal clinic here. I’m only here to work with the Kamikaze. But Speed Heal is currently almost impossible to find on the streets. You can guess why. Plus those arms of yours might have come from something your brother collected, but they still belonged to the Claws.” She looked at me for a moment. “It was an expensive procedure.”

“Fill out a statement of how much when you get a chance. I’ll take care of it.” I told her with a shrug. She was already basically wiping her hands of dealing with me, so I was more than happy to pay eddies not to have Tyger Claw feeling like I owed them hanging over my head.

“You will not! It has already been taken care of Motoko. You don’t need to worry about anything.” Jun butts in, trying to cut me off. Jun was doing the overprotective big brother thing so that was nice.

But I was a bratty kid sister.

“So just make sure you get that to me soon.” I told her, completely ignoring Jun, before slipping off the chair. She was done looking me over, and frankly.

I had things I wanted to do, and people I wanted to see.

“Hey Jun. You said you were gonna go to the apartment to pick stuff up right? So can I come with?” I decided to change the subject as Jun was glaring at me with his cold emotionless eyes.

It quickly warmed up as I changed the subject. He hesitated a moment before sighing a bit at my puppy dog eyes. “Fine. We will be going incognito anyways. C’mon. I borrowed a car.”
“Probably a good idea. I can’t exactly drive my car like this.” I agreed, and the reminder seemed to make Jun twitch a bit.

“Right. A car. How exactly did you afford a car?”

“It’s a long story. I was on a job for Wakako.”

“I still don’t know how you pulled that off. Wakako isn’t exactly our biggest fan.”

“She was nice enough. I mean, old lady rude, but I could deal. She even said I was a valuable agent last time we talked!” I argued as Jun guided me out of the dojo, back through the apartment block this time I was led into an underground parking garage that was obviously blocked off for Tyger Claw use with a lowered gate. I was settled into an unmarked heavily tinted Arche Hella. And Jun started the engine and we were out in the city.

To my surprise Jun actually drove like a normal person.

“Have to pretend we are unimportant. I don’t want any Maelstrom to track us.” He mentioned, after noticing my surprised look.

“So that’s what it takes to get you to drive safely. Interesting.” I teased him, earning a scowl as he continued down the road.

“Before we stop at home, there is a place I need to go.” I told him now that we were already on the road and it would be harder to refuse. “Need to go to Little China.” I told him earning a very unimpressed look from Jun.

“We aren’t going on a side trip. What do you even need in Little China?”

My eyes went gold as I sent him a text for the location. “My ripper. Vik is one of the best in Night City, and I mean that honestly. He’s a legend for those in the know.” I told him as he looked at me like I was…

Well his amnesiac kid sister making grand proclamations.

“Listen. Just… Please. I know you have your Ripper doc that you brought me too, but I don’t… I would feel a lot more comfortable with a checkup from Vik… Please Jun?” I begged.

He was definitely glaring, and I could see his chromed hands gripping the steering wheel tightly.

“Fine. But first you have to tell me why you even went to a ripper, or how you know this guy.”

“Oh. You didn’t notice? My eyes Jun. I got a set of Kiroshi’s Vik managed to find them for me.”

“Ow.” I muttered as I barely stopped myself from bonking my head on the dash. Really glad I had my seatbelt on.

Jun had hit the breaks. Hard.

“What?! When? How!? Kiroshi aren’t cheap! I don’t even have a set of Kiroshi!”

“All of which is basically the same answer Jun. I told you. I’ve been doing gigs for Wakako… And some side biz. It’s your fault you know! I wanted to tell you all about the adventures I’ve been having but you wouldn’t even answer your phone!”

“I couldn’t I was on the job! You can be tracked through calls by a skilled Netrunner. I was trying to protect you!” His voice rose up into a shout at the end. “Now I find out you were doing jobs for Wakako! That you met some creepy back alley ripper!? That you chipped new chrome and I didn’t even know!?” He was roaring, his fist rocked out and smashed into the dash electronics and buttons pinged around for a moment.

I wasn’t really surprised. I mean it wasn’t the first time that Jun had expressed his anger by punching something.

We really should work on that, it was a bad way to release stress. But it was what he said that made me sad, or maybe what he was saying.

“I was safe. Hiromi was with me when Vik chipped me. She was super sus too. But Vik’s good people. Like an honestly good person. So I was fine. And yeah Wakako is surprisingly nice to me. I mean she is really to the point, we don’t chit chat… And she may have sent me on some really boring gofer missions. I should tell you about the wedding ring fiasco… Anyway. I’m okay Jun. Honest. And I’ll be okay moving forward. What happened yesterday wasn’t your fault.”

He slowly pulled his fist out of the dash. His fist clenching and unclenching.

I realized then.

Jun for all of his attempts to be cool was struggling with all his new chrome just like I was.

I reached out without a word. Even if it was still floppy I put my hand in his clenching fist.

I held his hand the rest of the way. Slowly feeling the tension in his fingers die down.

Which was super weird by the way because I was still getting a really bad phantom limb sensation, so I barely even felt like we were holding hands at times.

But I kept cool. I was trying to comfort my stupid brother after all.

Finally after a few minutes of driving through Night City traffic Jun spoke. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there, Motoko. I’ll… I’ll be there from now on. I promise.”

“Don’t worry. And just give me some space, showing up to a gig with my big brother peering over my shoulder would be embarrassing. Almost as embarrassing as the time I had to take the bus to a job and the people I was trying to collect from literally watched me get off the bus… I thought I was gonna die.”

“Pfft.” A noise escaped Jun and I pouted at him as his little burst of amusement turned into a chuckle as he processed what I had just told him. “They really saw you get off the bus?”

“Yep. They were at the gas station right there. I had to do a long walk over to them too.”

“Hahaha!” Jun’s laughter was nice. It had been a while since I heard him laugh as he took endless joy at my suffering.

“At least you’ve been safe… Until yesterday.”

“Yeah I only got shot like once.” Well more than that, but I had successfully covered up the bullet wounds every other time! Because I was a genius and master of disguise!

That was about when Jun once again slammed on the brakes.

“YOU WHAT!?”

—–

Jun pulling the car in front of Misty’s Esoterica was a relief. He had been seething for the last few minutes.

“It was just a flesh wound.” I mumbled. Quietly. Very quietly. Because the last time I had said that Jun almost smashed the car into a pole because he was yelling at me. Jun might have already parked, but I didn’t trust him not to start throttling me if I tried to say it again.

Apparently the reveal that I had been shot on a job was not doing good things to Jun’s blood pressure.

I was gonna ask Vik to check over Jun now too. Because his face going so red probably wasn’t healthy.

“Oh my! Motoko!?” A voice called out and I turned to see Misty having come out of her shop after seeing me.

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“Hey Misty. How’s the biz?” I asked, but that was ignored as she rushed up to me.

“Your arms! Vik didn’t tell me you were getting that much work done! Is everything connected well? No problems?”

“Ah. Well it wasn’t Vik. I got klepped by some Malestrom, they were pretty pissed so they decided to cut me up a bit. I’m here for a checkup from Vik. I trust him to make sure everything is good.”

“Oh.. Oh! Motoko. I’m sorry.” Misty gasped as she looked from my arms still held in their slings then up to my face. “Are you… Are you gonna be okay? Do you want to talk? I have some really nice soothing ambience shards that really help in meditation, and a f-”

“I’m alright.” I interrupted her. “I just want to get Vik to check me over. I don’t know the ripper that ended up fixing me up… Oh by the way this is my brother Jun.” I say shifting sideways since I couldn’t really point very well. Misty sort of blinked in that foggy way she tended towards as she looked Jun over.

The fact he was wearing a big heavy shirt to cover most of his tattoos, yet still looked like a yakuza on vacation probably ran through Misty’s head. “Nice to meet you.” She seemed to settle on and Jun just gave a disinterested nod. He was grumpy at me still.

“Is Vik in?”

“Oh of course, come on, I’ll walk you down. This is so serious. I can’t believe that the Maelstrom grabbed you. I mean, I’ve heard they do that sometimes, but that is…” She trailed off again with a sad little sigh.

“Yeah it was pretty rough. I wish I had been a little less surprised. I would have been able to fight back a lot better, but I wasn’t exactly prepared… Which I guess is my fault. Always be prepared right? Eh. I’ll remember it for the future.” I told her with confidence.

It didn’t seem to help as she was nibbling at her finger nail nervously.

But we all walked through her shop and down into Viks clinic. Jun was looking around, obviously unhappy with the aesthetics.

Hiromi and Jun were both so alike sometimes! No reason to be so skeptical. Just because Viks clinic was underground, in an alley, in a storage unit and not a building! No reason to be so sketched out! Vik was amazing!

I led us down as Misty followed behind along with Jun who was looking all over the place.

“Hey Vik!” I called out sounding a little chipper. I felt way more comfortable here than I had in the Tyger Claw Rippers chair.

Seriously the lady felt like a back alley yakuza doc. Which I guess she kinda was.

“Oh? Is that Motoko, what’s going on kid, any-What the hell?” He stopped as he looked me over and noticed that both of my arms were in a sling.

“Hey Vik. Lot of stuff happened. I kinda need a check up.” I offered looking down at my arms.

“Damn kid that’s a hell of a job to have done… No that ain’t right. What happened?” He asked his voice changing from surprise to anger as he actually got off his rolly chair and stalked over. Jun seemed to step closer, but I just moved away from him so Vik could see. His hand pulled up the shoulder of the generic T-shirt Jun had given me to wear as his eyes narrowed.

“This was a hackjob. What absolute piece of shit did this work on you.”

“Well first was a Spider Ripper with Maelstrom. He cut my arms off and decided to add some Sketch Chrome. It was set up to drive me Psycho. Jun my brother, Say hi Jun! Rescued me and took me to his Tyger Claw Ripper. She got the arms off and chipped in these Condors so at least I would have limbs… I’m just wanting a check up from someone I trust. Make sure everything was handled right.”

Vik was real quiet for a moment, as I watched his jaw clench. I realized he wasn’t looking anymore, but instead was staring off into the distance.

Oh Vik was real angry.

“Vik?” I prompted forcing him to come back.