Chapter 75

I plugged into my laptop with my personal link, and opened up the program for Ping.

 

I was going to start at the beginning.

 

Instantly I felt literal revulsion.

 

Whoever had put this program together should be shot…

 

Okay I had been shot before so I’ll give myself a pass here.

 

It was a mess. My own work wasn’t… good. But it wasn’t just my work I was critiquing. Such a simple program bloated and twisted.

 

I could fix this.

 

But why bother?

 

Instead I started a new program, and started typing, my mental interface helping me adjust settings without needing to stop typing as my hands blurred over the keyboard.

 

There were a few lines in the old program I carried over. A few that had acceptable coding.

 

But I still fixed them. I altered them, smoothed them out.

 

Removed fluff.

 

Despite being a large enough program my Cyberdeck registered something as simple as Ping as actually taking up space on the Cyberdecks slots.

 

It didn’t need to be.

 

It could be tiny, a small efficient program that did exactly what it should do.

 

Hell. The way the program worked at a base level could be completely altered. Right now it connected with the foreign system, and basically blasted the system with requests for everything it was connected to.

 

It was like walking into a server and ringing a bell. Sure you would get the information, but anyone watching would now know.

 

So I did something different.

 

A little trick I had picked up thanks to Ghost Touch, and with the tiny size Ping now was, and the fact system connectivity was by definition less secured data than nearly anything else.

 

I looked up as Jun pushed my screen down. “Jun?” He ignored my question for the moment. Plopping a burrito in front of me with a look.

 

“Eat.”

 

“I’m in the middle of something.” I grumbled instantly especially at the sight of the burrito.

“Motoko, you’ve been on that laptop all day. Eat.”

 

I blinked looking out the window.

 

I had thought the dim light meant the sun was still coming up, but no.

 

The sun was going down.

 

“Oh.”

 

“Oh she says.” Jun grumbled at me, but I had decided to be a better Imouto. So I reached out despite my fingers desperate to go back to the keyboard and peeled the disgusting not burrito.

 

It was horrible, but it did fill me up.

 

—–

 

“Hiromi is here!” The voice calling out as our front door opened nearly sent me on the floor, only the fact I was holding my laptop full of wonders meant I didn’t end up tossing it to reach for a gun.

 

“Hiromi!” I snapped at her once again surprise entrance. I really needed to teach that girl to knock.

 

“Motoko!” She called back, instantly leaping over the side of the couch to land on me.

 

My quick reaction to save the laptop the only thing saving it from fat Hiromi ass destroying it.

 

“Hiromi! Watch it! You almost broke my laptop!”

“Nah you were gonna move it. Now what’s this I hear from Jun about you going all nerdy hermit?” She asked and I scoffed looking around the apartment for my brother, but I did vageuly remember him leaving a while back after making me eat… again. What time is it?

 

“Jun is a narc. I’m fine. I’ve been programming!”

 

“Ooh! Let me see?” Hiromi demanded sitting sideways in my lap, as she kicked her boots up on the couch.

 

“Hiromi, take your boots off. I like this couch.” I told her firmly, and she blinked before looking a little sheepish and did as I asked, although she then flopped back on top of me demanding attention.

 

“Personal space?”

“Don’t need it!” She replied instantly to my comment and I rolled my eyes at her, as I reached over her and grabbed my laptop.

 

“I’ve been fixing my Ping Quickhack.” I told her as I opened the laptop showing the code. Literally just lines of code all organized together.

 

I knew what was going to happen the moment I did so of course.

 

“I have no idea what this is.” She tells me after a minute of making understanding noises and looking over the code.

 

“Gonk.” I told her as I closed the laptop that wasn’t any use to my choom. “So Jun called you to come check on me?” I asked adjusting myself a bit as Hiromi continued to lay on top of me.

 

“Basically! He told me you were acting weird and to make sure you were okay. So… Want to go party? I’m still mad that last time you went with Malcolm and Ichi without me.”

“You had school!”

 

“I hate that you actually care about that.” She told me, as she sighed and slumped over me even more. “Motokoooo.” She whined at me as she flopped against me.

 

“Fine, we can go out for the night.”

 

“Great! I want to ride around all night! I’ve been stuck in a classroom forever! Motokoooo! Let’s goooo.” She whined at me, and I couldn’t help but laugh at my lap full of squirmy demanding best choom.

 

“Alright, let me get dressed and we will go for a drive.”

Stolen story; please report.

“Great! I’m dri-”

“No.”

“Ugh! I want to take my bike!”

“I’m not letting you drive again. That’s dangerous.”

Hiromi scoffed at me, before smirking, “Fine! You drive my bike.” She reached out and poked my nose and I snorted.

 

“Your bike is so…”

“Hey! Don’t badmouth my ride! If you don’t like it get your own Kusanagi!”

 

“Maybe I will!” I offered back and then Hiromi smirked at me. Ah.

 

She tricked me.

 

“Cool, I want to be there when you buy it and I demand the first ride.” She said looking proud of herself.

 

I just rolled my eyes. “I don’t have the eddies for a new bike right now Hiromi. But I’ll put it on the list. I do want a Kusanagi, but just a normal one.” I said finger pointed at her.

 

She just laughed at me, and slipped off letting me stand to get ready.

 

Finally dressed I followed Hiromi out of the apartment as she skipped towards the elevator which I climbed in with. Like normal her bike was parked outside the apartments on the sidewalk. Normally I would worry about it being stolen, but in this one instance her choice of bike had an advantage.

 

This was a TC neighborhood, and no one lifted a TC styled bike. I mean Hiromi still had plenty of TC decals on her bike too, so it really was protected.

 

If only it wasn’t so stupid looking! Massive swoop back seats? On a crotch rocket!?

 

My eyes glaring at the stupid back seat that just ruined the lines of a beautiful bike.

 

“Pfft. You are so picky. C’mon hop on!” she demanded as she jumped on and made room for me to drive, patting the seat in front of her.

 

I did as demanded, this was Hiromi time, she did deserve some time away from school, so if she wanted to drive around the city for a while, that was no problem for me.

 

She quickly grabbed hold of me tightly, like she expected me to just floor it out of the sidewalk. Which I of course didn’t, waiting for a break in traffic I pulled the bike into the street and headed out onto the town. Hiromi’s moans complaining of me driving like a gonk in my ear.

 

—–

 

We drove around the city for hours, just enjoying the view and feel of the road.

 

It wasn’t something I would normally do, I liked having a goal whenever I went out driving, but in this case Hiromi just wanted some freedom, to escape the cage of school.

 

In this case I could understand, and so I didn’t mind that every time I started thinking about driving home Hiromi would notice and ask to go somewhere else.

 

We ended up driving all over. Checking out the sites, we even drove past the old Shinto Shrine out by North Oak.

 

We didn’t stop to go inside, just driving past it along the windy mountain road.

 

It was just a tourist trap anyways.

 

But the sights of the city from up on the mountains was nice.