Chapter 43

The next morning I headed out to go see Judy. I did at least wait until afternoon, as I was pretty sure Judy wasn’t a morning person. She just gave me that vibe.

 

Pulling up into Lizzies I was greeted at the door by a different bouncer than usual. Rita wasn’t there. But I was waved through and I headed into the back and down the stairs.

 

I slipped into Judy’s studio, only to find Judy mid BD.

 

I shrugged and grabbed a chair and settled in waiting for her to finish her editing. Or whatever she was doing. Unfortunately this was boring, and it wasn’t like I could go and hack into her system. Judy wasn’t Hiromi.

 

So I just waited. Minutes passed as I watched Judy sort of mumble to herself as she rested on the chair.

 

Finally she shifted, slipping the wreath up away from her eyes and letting her stretch a bit.

 

“Hey Judy.”

 

“EEEEEee!” She shrieked as I accidentally startled her.

 

I should probably stop doing that.

 

“Sorry Judy, you okay?” I asked after a moment as Judy was gasping for air and holding her heart.

 

“Don’t do that!” She hissed at me, hand clutched to her heart.

 

“Sorry! I just didn’t want to disturb you while you were working.”

She muttered a few expletives in spanish under her breath as she slowly rose up and took a few steps around as if gathering herself again.

 

“You are way too quiet. Those Lynx Paws of yours must be high end.” She finally said and I tilted my head.

“I don’t have a pair of Lynx Paws. I thought about getting them, they would definitely help me be sneaky, but I haven’t picked them up yet.”

“What? That’s not right, you’re already super quiet. What do you have that lets you do that?”

“Practice mostly.” I answered semi-truthfully, I even pulled up my boots and undid one to show my normal fleshy foot. “See.”

 

“Shit!” she blinked before shaking herself a bit. “What crazy corpo black ops training did you crawl out of? Half the stuff on the BD, I have no idea how you even do it. Really Motoko… It was eye opening. Where did you learn to move like that?”

I decided a lie was perfect here. Let people draw their own conclusions. “Well my Mom used to be a Netrunner, and my dad was a Solo. They worked together.” I decided to offer with a shrug, as if that explained everything.

 

Nailed it.

 

“Right… Crazy. Anyway. You here for the BDs?”

“Yeah! Did you finish them?”

“I did… I spent all night editing them. The side jobs were smooth, I actually thought they were pretty interesting. The Maelstrom one? It was preem work. Terrifying but preem. Took forever to edit the virtu, but it was good… You, uh… Do that a lot? Killing people?” She asked nonchalantly as she was busying herself with her system, leaning back and pushing some keys on a keyboard.

I hummed a bit. “Sometimes. Depends on the gig and the people. I’ve killed a lot of Maelstrom recently, but that’s more for personal reasons.” I replied, wiggling my hand a little to show what I meant.

 

“Right. Right. Preem.” She muttered, obviously uncomfortable with the thought.

 

“Not really your thing huh?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“I don’t like XBDs. There’s a reason I do BD work for the Mox, and not anyone else.” She mentions pushing a final key and looking over to me, her expression was still uncomfortable, but I could see her try to get over it.

 

I winced a bit. “Sorry. Should Nox and I find a different editor?”

 

“No, no nothing like that. It just makes me uncomfortable, but it ain’t the first time I scrolled some fucked up shit. This was less fucked up than most to be fair. Really it was the surprise at how it felt more than anything. You’re more deadly than you let on. You know?” She said quietly, looking me over as if… Well I guess she was comparing the me that was sitting in a chair in front of her, to the one she had seen in the BD.

I could only shrug and smile at that. “I try.”

 

“Yeah.” Judy said awkwardly before pulling herself together, she reached over and hit a button on a machine connected to her system, a short buzzing noise echoed out, and I blinked when I recognized it. A BD file producer.

 

As I watched a few BDs started clunking out, each of them wrapped in that stupid condom wrapper.

 

Four in total.

 

“Well here you go. The first of your BDs.” She said, swiping them up and offering them to me. I quickly grabbed each of them, gently looking them over. I couldn’t help but snort as the wrapper had Mox colors, and well… The packaging wasn’t really matching. But I knew how to be polite, and it was a Nox problem.

 

“Thanks Judy.”

 

“Hey don’t mention it. Nox is the one who bribed me to do this, so it’s not like you owe me anything.”

 

“Still thanks. I can’t wait to show these to my Choom Hiromi. I hope it cheers her up a bit.”

 

“XBDs would cheer her up?” Judy asked, sounding a little skeptical.

“Not that! Not exactly, but like. Seeing what I do because she’s been a little trapped and… it’s a long story.”

“Right, not my bizz. I-”

“JUDY! I’m here!” Nox suddenly called out as he ran down the steps, his hair a bit in disarray.

 

“Did you just get out of bed?” I couldn’t help but ask as I noticed the way his hair was everywhere and he looked half asleep.

 

“Yes! Hey Motoko, I was up all night waiting… but I’m here! Judy, you finished the BDs?”

 

“Yep, a while ago, they weren’t super long, not like a long session… Anyways. You need to make them though. You aren’t burning through my printer.”

“Aww. C’mon Jude, You know Suzie charges me!”

 

“It costs money to make BD’s Nox, you know that.”

 

“How much? I have some cash I can put in.” I offered, interrupting as Nox was going full puppy dog.

 

“Hey I can’t do that Motoko… You already put in enough eddies!”

“It’s not a big deal Nox.” I offered my eyes going blue as I threw a couple grand towards Nox. “There you go. That should be enough to get started right?”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“A-a-eh!” He choked a bit but Judy just snorted at his reaction.

“Just make sure you make more than you spend Nox.” She tells him as she pulls a shard out of her computer. “Here. These are the four files. Go on, I got some work to finish up… After my break.” She muttered rubbing her eyes a bit. I guess I had been proven wrong, Judy was a morning person, she just stayed up all night to be one.

 

“R-right. C’mon Motoko! Let’s go! I’ll show you how to make some BDs.”

 

I shrugged, willing to take a look.

 

The puppy-I mean, Nox led me upstairs chattering away at how he had already put some buyers together, and if sales went well, he knew some street kids that would sell them on his behalf.

 

Nox definitely had some ideas about spreading them around.

 

It was cute how excited he was about it.

 

He led me up and into one of the BD booths upstairs, where I did my best to ignore the music and the partying going on around me.

 

He put the shard into a machine along the wall, and with a few options selected, BDs began flowing out.

 

“I’ll start with like ten of each, spread it around, let some interest build up. I hope it’ll explode right out, but sometimes it takes a bit before buyers will start biting, word of mouth and stuff… That okay?” He asked over the blaring music and I threw him a thumbs up.

 

“Yeah nothing happens instantly. Just let me know. I don’t know when my next gig will be, but I’ll let you know once I have some more cool recordings.

 

“Great! Okay! All done.” He said the same backpack he had when I first rescued him was now full of BD wrappers.

 

“Do you… Want to come along? See the process?” He asked, sounding a little nervous. Was he worried about getting jumped again?

 

“Sorry I have some other stops to make, but if anyone causes you any trouble call me. I’ll come help.” I told him. While he smiled at my reply, it was a bit of a weak one.

 

“Right. I guess I’ll see you later?”

“Of course. Keep in touch Nox, let me know how the sales go! I’m super excited to hear about it.”

“I’ll… I’ll send texts every day, to uhh. Update you?”

“Preem!”

 

—–

 

Funnily enough, it was Hiromi that gave me the idea for my next grinding session.

 

Her Arasaka ICE had been a good whetstone to grind against for my overall Netrunning skills.

 

So I headed over to Yoko’s for my next adventure. The Netrunning Cafe was as busy as always, only one of the chairs was actually in use.

 

But as always Yoko was standing there already watching me behind her glasses as I entered.

 

“Oh? Back already?”

“I need some ICE. Preferably something pretty high end.” I told her and flashed her a smile.

 

“You already know what I deal in. Any information to trade?” Yoko’s question made me wince. I really didn’t have anything.

“I don’t suppose what I just asked for is something I can buy with Eddies?”

“Not unless you want some over the counter WET.” She said with a blank look behind her sunglasses.

“Wet?” I couldn’t help but ask. The way she said it was weird.

 

“ICE that’s melted. Already been solved. Useless.” She informed me and I nodded. That was good to know. It also gave me an idea.

 

“Actually… WET would be just fine. Do you have something that was solid before it was solved?”

 

Yoko seemed to take in my words with a sort of confused stare, before she shrugged.

 

“Sure Motoko, I have some old copies of everything, it’s sort of my thing. What do you want?”

 

“How much will…. Two grand get me?” I asked checking my account. Wakako had given me some good eddies for the gigs I had done plus bonuses. I could spend a little here. Splurge really.

 

“I’ll go get you a stack.” She replies laughing a little as she disappears into the back.

 

Cool!