Chapter 48

“Damn.” Jun whispered behind me as I turned away from the barn to see him already walking amongst the corpses. With a motion he tugged free the knife in the Raffens throat. Bringing it up to his face he looked it over. “I remember. When you were practicing that.” He said sounding a little off.

 

“I uh… spent some time on it. It’s a useful skill.” I lied. I really hadn’t done much knife throwing since I played with it so long ago, but the instincts, the experience, the muscle memory was all part of Ninjutsu.

 

I could practically feel the blade still between my fingers. The motion I had made to throw it. I hadn’t even thought about it. Just did what I knew was right.

 

“Well. You cleared them out alright.”

“Go ahead and look around Jun, might find something you want. I’m gonna call Scorpion.”

“Scorpion?” Jun asked but I ignored his question as I turned away from him, took a few steps away and felt my eyes turn gold again.

 

I felt my foot tapping away for a while as Scorpion didn’t pick up at the first ring, or the second, or the tenth.

 

Finally the call connected, and a grumpy voice came over the line.

 

*Fuckin’ hell. What!? Do you have any idea what time it is!* Scorpion cursed and grumbled on the line but I smiled.

 

*Hey Scorpion, you still need a car?* I asked ignoring his complaints, I was trying to do him a favor after all.

 

*What?*

 

I rolled my eyes at his question, the man must have been asleep he was really being slow to catch on.

 

*Wait Motoko? Why are you calling so late?*

 

*C’mon Scorpion keep up. Do you still need a car? Or rather any of the Aldecaldos? I have… Six? Raffen Vehicles that are now ownerless. You or your family want them?*

 

*What?* I snorted, at least this time it was a what of surprise, and not just pure confusion. I let the call stay silent for a minute.

 

*Fuck you hit another Raffen Camp?* He asked blearily, obviously struggling to think.

 

*More like a pit stop. I was searching for someone else, and ran into them. So you want the vehicles? I’ll give you a good deal for them.*

 

*Fuck. Yeah. Hold on. Give me… Give me a minute. I need to wake up.* He grumbled a bit and the line went silent, as he must be paying attention to something other than the call.

 

While I waited I turned towards the bodies and started looting them. Each of them men of course had a weapon, rifles or shotguns seemed to be the preference.

 

I looked through the growing pile of weapons with an interested eye. I certainly didn’t need much else, but it was always nice to see if there was something interesting among the chaff. I didn’t find anything I wanted to add to my growing armory, but I did find a few pieces of interest. Optics, or little mods that I quickly uninstalled on the weapons and chucked into the Quadra’s trunk.

 

I could have some fun with some of that!

 

*Motoko. You there?*

 

*Course Scorpion, feel a bit more awake?*

 

*Yeah at least I’m alive. You said you had six vehicles?*

 

I didn’t respond right away, instead looking into the barn and taking a picture of the vehicles all parked. Then sent that.

 

*Yep.*

 

*Holy… Preem. Very Preem. Motoko, you know we don’t have the cash reserves for all of them, but I, well I’m still stuck on my bike, I wouldn’t mind an actual roof over my head.*

 

*That’s fine, listen if you can come pick them up, we can count it as an IOU. I don’t really want to try and hold these until other Raffen decide to come find out where their buddies are, and I don’t have the desire to try and sell them to a bunch of gonks. Pay me what you can, and maybe we can barter out some other stuff, but I know you’re reliable so I gave you a call.*

 

The line went silent at my offer for a long while. Long enough I started to wonder if I had lost connection.

 

*Scorpion?*

 

*Yeah. Yeah I’m here. Fuck Choom. I don’t know what to say.*

 

*Say you’ll come take these off my hands and pay me what you can later.* I told him with a laugh which I got an almost strangled sound in turn.

 

*Alright. I’ll get the Aldecaldos together. We’ll come take them off your hands, won’t be difficult to get them repainted and keyed to us. Listen. Kid, I still owe you one. A big one, and this… I’ll pay you back somehow. I promise.*

 

*Don’t stress so much Choom. Getting these out of the hands of Raffen is already a lot. Listen I gotta run. I’ll send you the coordinates, but I’m in the middle of something. Don’t have time to hang around.*

 

*Yeah of course. I’ll… I’ll keep in touch. Don’t hesitate to come by if you ever need something.*

 

“Motoko. Are we going to be waiting around all night?” Jun asked, interrupting, and I threw him a one moment gesture at him.

 

*I gotta run. Stay safe Scorpion.*

 

*You too kid.*

 

I nodded, as I finally disconnected.

 

“Okay. Ready to go? Loot anything good?” I asked him but Jun just shook his head.

 

“I just klepped some Eddie shards. They didn’t have anything I wanted.”

 

“Preem! Follow me then I want to find that serial killer fuck before he can target anyone else.”

 

I jogged over to the car pointedly ignoring Juns eyebrow as he looked around at the dead bodies around him.

 

—–

 

We drove to another farm nearby only for another miss.

 

While I drove I was looking over my stat screen. Since there was no traffic out in the badlands it was easy enough to split my attention.

 

4500 XP from the Raffen. None of them were big guys, so I only got 500xp a head.

 

Still that leveled me up again.

 

*Level up achieved!*

 

*One Stat Point Gained.*

 

*One Skill Point Gained.*

 

Level 9.

 

Of course as much as I wanted to start spamming stats again. I knew the rule. So the stat point was immediately dropped into adaptation for my arms. I twitched a little as the point went through. A coolness in my chest that I realized had actually been impacting my breathing as I tried to naturally shy away from the cold, eased. I inhaled, and exhaled. Feeling.

 

Better.

 

One more step.

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But what was I gonna do with all these skill points? I had four of them saved at this point, and that was a lot.

 

But I didn’t really need to spend it on anything. Most of my skills were getting close to the stat cap, or they were something I would grind once I had some better tools.

 

Looking at you Quickhack. One of these days I was gonna get an upgrade to my Netdeck and get some actual toys.

 

In the end I just pushed it away. I would think about it when I wasn’t mid hunt for a serial killer.

 

“Okay we are coming up on the next potential place. Keep your eyes open.” I told Jun, who had been yawning for a while.

 

Poor Jun was sleepy.

 

We were coming close to three in the morning after all.

 

Lights off I turned off my engine as we started coasting down the empty road.

 

I had been forced to head back into the city and go out a different exit just to get to this point. Edgewood Farm.

 

The name was sort of foggy-familiar. So I was really hoping this was it. As we approached I noticed the large gate surrounding the area, and while that didn’t ring any bells in my head, as we coasted past the entrance. I saw it.

 

Mines.

 

“Jun.”

“I saw it. This the place?”

 

“Yeah.” I muttered as I let the car keep drifting down the way a bit farther from the farm house and barn so that when I braked it was as quiet as could be.

 

“Alright we gotta be careful.”

 

“No kidding. How are you going to get around the mines?”

 

“Slowly.” I told him with a laugh. We both stepped out of the car and headed towards the gate. I crept up to the edge of the locked gate waving Jun back as I started scanning.

 

First I needed to turn off those cameras. A security camera was over the entrance to the farm house. I started breaching in through the Quickhack, but noticed the problem pretty quickly. This psycho was a netrunner. Or at least good enough that his defenses weren’t easy to break through.

 

I pulled back. I wasn’t breaking into the cameras defenses without setting off an alert, and that was something I didn’t want to happen.

 

“Motoko?” Jun whispered and I shook my head. “Defenses on his stuff is tight. Give me a minute.” I told him as I thought. I could try to get around to the camera to breach it directly, I could try to sneak into the little house, but no telling what he had set up there…

 

And I would be in direct view of the camera.

 

So what can I do?

 

Wait.

 

I don’t need to do this silent. He was one guy in the middle of nowhere…

 

I just needed to draw him out.

 

“Jun I’m going to draw him out and then just headshot this fucker. Once he is down, we can get through his defenses at our own pace.”

 

“Okay. I’m with you.” He said and I threw him a thumbs up as I hurried back to the car. I had left my Nekomata inside. Quickly pulling her free I rushed back to the entrance.

 

I might not be able to break into the camera, but I could get a mine to go off.

 

Once I settled back in I grabbed a rock, and with a smirk hucked it over the wall right towards a Mine I had already spotted.

 

The explosion was deafening in the silent night.

 

A moment later two turrets popped out of the ground near the barn. I wanted to whistle but kept silent as they started searching around. Automatic lights also activated lighting up the farm.

 

But then silence. I could feel Jun getting jittery behind me as I just waited for it. I was backed up just enough that the camera couldn’t spot me, or the barrel of the Nekomata as I kept it pointed at the front door of the little farmhouse.

 

He had to be here. It was so early in the morning.

 

Then a few minutes later the door opened.