Chapter 41

The next morning I decided I needed some friend time. So I went over to see Hiromi.

 

While I made it up to their floor, it took almost ten minutes after I hit the button for the doorbell before someone came to the door.

 

“Oh hello Hiromi’s mom.” I greeted her with a smile as she opened the door. A scowl set on her face.

 

“Hiromi is in class right now.” She said as if that explained everything.

“Wait. I thought they closed the academy while everything was going on?”

 

“They have. Hiromi is taking her class right now.” Hiromi’s mom explained getting annoyed and I realized what she was actually saying, Hiromi would be in the middle of her Group BD class… Thing.

 

“Oh gotcha… Umm do you know how long that is gonna take? Should I wait in my car, or go grab some lunch before coming back or something?”

 

The woman sighed before stepping aside to my surprise. “You can wait in her room, just don’t disturb her while she is in class. Hiromi will be happy to see you.” The woman offered, sounding kind of stilted as I slowly walked in. Hiromi’s mother took a few steps before slowing. “Hiromi hasn’t handled the security measures we implemented well… Your last visit was… Well taken.” The woman offered a little awkwardly before she seemed to breathe in and out, and then that solid stone face was back. “Remember, don’t disrupt her class.”

 

“I won’t.” I agreed, a little surprised. I guess Hiromi’s parents did care… They were just corpo. Which had its own issues.

 

I walked into Hiromi’s room, and there she was resting on a big comfy looking chair, a BD wreath on her head actively in the middle of her session.

 

Cool.

 

I decided not to bother her, instead settling on another chair in front of her computer.

 

I waited for a while before I realized this was going to be boring. So I looked at the computer she was hooked up to.

 

Obviously her class wasn’t a normal BD, in the show it allowed multiple people to all take part in a class environment. So it would need a lot of processing power. The fact they could even do this remotely was… Impressive. But considering how many Arasaka executives went to the school, of course they would choose the option to keep their kids from being murdered or kidnapped.

 

Still.. It was right there… I popped the cord out of my neck and pushed it into the computer’s access port.

 

Oh! That was some strong security! I guess Arasaka execs wouldn’t buy their daughter cheap stuff… I could do this without sending any alerts up, since it wasn’t like I was actually looking to break through. So I started poking the security, touching the ICE.

 

It was tough shit!

 

How fun! Without any need to worry about time or anything it was like opening a puzzle game while I waited.

 

*100 Intelligence XP Gained*

 

I smiled happily as the alerts for upgrades came in.

 

*100 Breach Protocol XP Gained.*

 

Both skills were being tested with this security. But long before I would have broken through especially with how slow I was taking it, Hiromi moved.

 

I looked over as she sat up groaning a bit as she stretched her arms as she was taking off her wreath. I held up my hand.

 

“Hey Hiromi!”

 

“EEEeee!” She squealed, arms jerking and sending her wreath up into the air. I pushed on the floor letting the chair I was on roll a bit as I held out a hand and snatched the wreath out of the air.

 

“Safe!”

 

“MOTOKO!?”

 

“Hiromi!” I greeted with a smile that had her blinking a bit as she looked around like she wasn’t sure what was going on.

 

“What are you doing here?”

 

“I wanted to come visit! Your Mom let me in as long as I didn’t bother you while you were in your class. Have fun?”

 

“A-ah. No. It’s boring… But I’m glad you’re here.” She said instead with a smile that I returned.

 

“Anyway! Let me unplug out of this.” I told her my neck cord was stretched to its limits in order to save Hiromi’s Wreath from the floor.

 

“Wait. Why are you plugged into my system?”

 

“Mostly because I was bored! But you have really good security! I was practicing breaking through the ICE, it’s really good shit by the way.” I told her as I rolled back to the system and unplugged.

 

“Wait. You were trying to break through my ICE!? Motoko! That! I have private stuff on that system!” She said face going a little red.

“Oh I wasn’t gonna look at anything Hiromi I promise. I’ve just been working on my Netrunning stuff recently, and I was curious what the ICE would be like. It was really advanced Arasaka stuff. It was cool… I didn’t mean to make a pun there.” I admitted, Hiromi rolling her eyes at me, but at least she wasn’t mad anymore.

 

“Nobody says Cool anymore Motoko. Were you watching old shows or something?”

 

“H-Hey Cool is cool! You can’t just replace Cool!”

“Preem so much better.” She said, but she was purposefully teasing me I could tell.

 

“Anyway! Want to play some games? Or watch some TV? I’m taking a cool down day after last night.”

“What happened last night?”

“Well Jun invited me to another Kamikaze raid-”

“Whaaa! How was it? Was it amazing?” Hiromi asked looking so much like a kid wanting a fun story.

 

I laughed, I couldn’t help it. “So I recently klepped this absolutely Preeeeem. Nekomata. Its previous owner came down with a case of ripped out throat, so I took her, and she is a dream. He might have been Maelstrom, but he did take care of his girl.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“A Sniper Rifle? Do you even know how to shoot one?”

“Course I do! My arms make it super stable too! Anyway, So I-”

 

—–

 

“Jeez you’re out there doing so much stuff… I’m not even able to leave the house.” She sighed during the story Hiromi had cuddled up and was now looking up at me from my lap. “I… I’m sorry. You always tried to drag me into stuff, but I’m just a coward.”

 

“You’re not a coward Hiromi. If I had any sense I wouldn’t be running around with all the crazy shit going on.”

 

“But you are… You aren’t afraid.”

 

“I’m afraid sometimes! Just not like in the moment.” I told her being honest. “Besides fear is good. Fear is that little voice in your head telling you that you are being stupid. It just means you are smarter than me. Cause I don’t listen.” I told her, making fun of myself a bit to earn a chuckle from her.

 

“It still sounds so preem. So cool. You gonk.” She added poking me making me laugh as she used my slang.

 

I couldn’t help it! Even if everyone looked at me weird when I shouted cool.

 

“Well… Do you want to see?”

 

“Hmm?”

“I forgot to tell you, I made friends with some Mox a while back, saved him from getting jumped, but he offered me a job idea, and I thought it was a good idea. So I went to Viks and got a BD Recorder implant.”

“Motoko!” Hiromi jerked out of my lap. “You can’t! The Mox BD’s are-!”

I couldn’t help but laugh at Hiromi’s reaction, it was just like Jun’s!

 

“No no Sorry sorry. Nox wants me to make BD recordings of my gigs!” I told her as I put my finger to her lips to keep her from exploding. “So I recorded the last couple of times I’ve been out. Including last night’s raid… So do you want to see? I was planning on dropping a visit to the Mox’s BD editor today to drop off the recordings.. I don’t know how long it will take to edit them b-”

“Of course! I want them!” She assured me, Hiromi was sitting up now staring me in the face. “But Motoko. You should be more careful. The Mox aren’t as nice as they like to make everyone think. How much are they even paying you for the Recordings?”

“Not much at first.”

“Ugh. Motoko! BD recordings are hot items! If you have an awesome recording you could sell it for a ton!”

 

“Hey! I’m not a complete gonk. Nox the guy that came up with the idea is our age, so I’m giving him a break to get started, but if it works out, you’re right a lot of eddies will start flowing… Besides if he ever does fuck me over. I can always just hunt him down and kill him. I kinda do that for a living.” I remind her with a shit eating grin.