Chapter 66

Deciding to go full in on netrunning for a bit to make myself feel better about getting my ass kicked, and failing a gig. I went full ham into grinding.

 

Breaching through the ICE with full intent, it did mean I wasn’t doing much besides thinking about the puzzle of code in front of me, and thanks to Ghost Touch, If I was having a lot of problems, I could slow down, and work my way around the ICE.

 

Acting as if it wasn’t even there.

 

The actual mechanic behind the perk was weird. In essence, I was sending my data through back channels, sending bytes worth of data, at a time through old ports, and system code that hadn’t been used in… Forever.

 

But then those little bits of code would all collect together behind the ICE and create a channel that bypassed the ICE entirely.

 

It took a long time though. The one time I tried to use it, Took me over an hour just to set up on the system. That’s with the ICE being something I could break in a few minutes or work normally, and it being against a laptop, and not a corpo server.

 

But it worked. The sort of crazy hacking trick that only someone that truly understood computers, could ever hope to pull off.

 

Completing it the first time had even given me a couple of Breaching alerts throughout the attempt.

 

I kept at the grind though. As much as my guitar was calling for me, the fact was I needed the self improvement.

 

I hated feeling sorry for myself, and if a few days grinding like crazy to get some level ups was all I needed to feel better then it was worth it.

 

In the end, even though it cost me all the rest of the WET ICE, I gained two levels thanks to nonstop hardcore and experimental grinding.

 

Mixing what I learned from Ghost Touch, into my normal Breaching. I did the opposite. Breaching loudly, without care about the alerts sent up just to see how the program would react, and over the course of three hours, figuring out how to not just hard breach an ICE system, but how to muffle the alerts… At least somewhat. It was basically learning what the Perk would have taught me if I picked it instead of Ghost touch, but of course not as skillfully.

 

Thought it didn’t mean I didn’t get some level ups over the entire course.

 

*Breach Protocol skill level up!*

 

Level 7 Breach!

 

When I got the alert, I hadn’t actually noticed at first and kept working on Ghost Touching through an ICE I had already breached before, just because of how distracted I was.

 

“Done.” I grumbled, rubbing my eyes. They felt tired despite not being actually able to feel weariness. My body didn’t feel stiff, in fact I stood up and stretched a bit and felt physically fine, but I could feel the tiredness in my mind.

 

I had gone without sleep before, but never when I was simply slamming my head into a complex mental problem like this.

 

I walked into my bedroom and flopped on my bed. Jun was out. So I would sleep.

 

—–

 

I was at the ramen joint in the Cherry Blossom Market the next morning. Slurping up a bowl of noodles for breakfast as I ran through a few things in my head.

 

I had a few responsibilities, and a few things I needed to keep doing.

 

Grinding. Doing gigs. Helping out my chooms with work. Making sure Jun ate something besides his XXL burritos.

 

But honestly, the grinding kept me busy, the gigs paid more than any amount of bills I might have, and helping out my chooms wasn’t too hard. Find some evil gonks, kill them, steal everything.

 

But what was it that I wanted?

 

It wasn’t eddies. I was pretty comfy in the apartment that Jun and I shared, although I knew someday we would probably get something bigger, or split up.

 

But I wasn’t planning on jumping off the edge like David. I liked living. I liked waking up every morning and deciding for myself what the day will be full of.

 

But in order to keep that comfy pace, I was gonna need to get stronger. The fact was the more of a rep I built by doing fun stuff, the more dangerous my life would become.

 

So I would have to keep growing stronger and stronger to ensure that I could have my fun filled life.

 

Which meant… I needed to kill. I needed enemies, and a lot of them. But, I needed them at my pace. I didn’t want to go piss of Arasaka and end up overwhelmed.

 

With the gang war over, things were quiet.

 

But there were still plenty of Maelstrom gonks around. Lots of Scavs, or just evil people in general.

 

But as easy as it was to say I have plenty of people I could kill it was really hard to know where they were.

 

Which is why I realized I needed to stop fucking around with the most powerful weapon in my arsenal.

 

It was time to step into the net.

 

To stand among the ones and zeroes, and find out just how much it would open up for me. Problem was. I didn’t have a lot of gear for it. If I was going into the net, I would need a full Netrunner suit to start with, since I didn’t have a bathtub in the apartment.

 

Or I would need to netrun from somewhere other than home.

 

Ugh!

 

I swirled the last bits of Ramen in the bowl and downed it like a thirty year old Japanese businessman downing Yebisu after work.

 

I suppose I could go talk to Yoko at the Dewdrop Inn. Maybe rent her Netrunning chair?

 

But what if I embarrassed myself? I had never really gone into the net except for that one time, and I had nearly melted by brain then!

 

No, I couldn’t allow anyone to see my first Netrunning experience. They might think I’m a noob!

 

So I needed to get some supplies…

 

Wait. I knew how to set up all the equipment for a netrunner thanks to Technical attribute.

 

I could just steal everything I needed! I nodded to myself that would make it all easier, and I already had a crew capable of hauling everything out of some gonks Netrunning den.

 

Now I just needed to find a target!

 

Wait… That was the problem I had in the first place! God dammit!

 

—–

 

“So that’s the problem.” I explained to Wakako a few minutes later. In the end I realized I needed to stop trying to handle everything myself. I simply didn’t have the knowledge I needed to start my new plan, but that was what contacts were for!

 

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Wakako took a drag on her cigarette and nodded. “You seek info on someone who has a full set of Netrunning equipment, you could steal?”

“Loot! The correct terminology is looting Wakako! C’mon get with the times!” I joked only to instantly cough and settle back down as I realized what I had just said could be taken negatively.

 

Thankfully Wakako seemed to ignore me.

 

“Hmm, I can gather the information. The price will be high.”

 

“Aww C’mon Wakako, you know I’m not just messing around. I’m good for pay, and work.” I tried to argue, and maybe, just maybe I saw a hint of give in the old dragon lady.

 

“I will give you the information you want, but you will kill the one that has your equipment. The information itself will be your pay.” She said smirking at me, as if she thought I wouldn’t accept!

 

I blinked. Wait. Did Wakako just ask me to murder a gangbanger who had my future loot, and the payment would be the info to find them!?

 

Wakako! I love you!

 

“Sure!” I chirped happily, not earning direct eddies from Wakako was one thing, but this all started because I needed to find more people to kill! “Wakako? Tell me everything.”

 

—–

 

I looked over the rundown apartment building that my new target was inhabiting. It was more complicated than I liked. The netrunner I was after had taken over the fifth floor of the building according to reports, run everyone out of the apartments, and turned it into a little kingdom. Not so different than what the scavs did.

 

But this wasn’t scavs.

 

But only barely.

 

The netrunner had made a gang. No rather it was one of the netrunners chooms, had made the gang around the netrunner. To protect him, while using his information.

 

I was on the roof of a nearby building looking over the side at the building. And at all the security that had been put up all of it turned the building into a secure vault.

 

The street gang would have been ignored, maybe even been a non entity to Wakako if not for one fact.

 

They had a Netrunner, and he was a pretty good one.

 

One of the first acts the small gang had done was hijack an electronics store delivery. The Netrunner had known exactly where to hit it, and it had been the first in a string of successes. The only problem?

 

The Netrunner was a greedy bastard, and had stolen things he shouldn’t. Stolen from someone he shouldn’t.

 

Wakako hadn’t been interested in taking the gig beforehand. Pay wasn’t high enough, and it was in her interest to leave them be as they weren’t stealing from her.

 

But suddenly I showed up, asking for gear, and Wakako realized she could use this.

 

She’d get paid for a gig, I would clean up, and I would become even more useful. Netrunners are always useful after all.

 

I had just come by to get some images of the place and look around their security, but just from what I had seen, made me realize this wasn’t going to be a one woman job.

 

Not even my chooms who still called themselves Section 9 in the group chat they had put together!

Traitors!

 

They wouldn’t be enough. I was gonna need another gun. There were too many of them, and no way I would be able to sneak in. Sure. I could probably hack the system, shut down the cameras, but the moment I did the gang would know.

 

There was one other problem.

 

From the rooftop I looked over at the party that was going on. The gang was hanging out on the roof drinking and partying.

 

But they were kids.

 

Most of them were teenagers. Even if I knew their ‘boss’ was in his thirties.

 

So that’s how it was. The fucker had grown so fast by hiring street kids.