Chapter 78

After getting confirmation from Wakako that she had the target, we both got wired the eddies as I was driving back home.

 

“So what did you think?” I asked, Jackie had been quiet for a while, mostly just smiling to himself at the reward for the gig.

 

“You’re certainly the best overwatch I’ve ever been with. You helped every step of the way.” Jackie muttered quietly, obviously the big man was thinking.

 

“Yep, and I couldn’t have done it without you. Trying to haul that guy out by myself would have been a disaster. Like I said before, I need someone to work with. I’m best as either outright infiltrator, or an overwatch position. So want to keep working together?”

 

“Heh. Alright Hermanita. You’ve proven your point. You know how to handle yourself, even if I still think you are too young. What is that cannon you are packing by the way? When you fired that thing I thought my head was going to ring.”

“Ah! My Burya!” I mentioned as I pulled her out of the holster and passed her over.

 

“That’s… A big gun.” Jackie said, looking surprised at my girl.

 

“Hah! I don’t go anywhere without her… Anymore. Never know when you’ll come face to face with a borg that needs something with oomph.”

“Never needed anything bigger than my Nue personally.” Jackie said, slinging his pistol out and even twirling it on his finger.

 

Gonk.

 

But I was smiling even so.

“Nue are good guns. Honestly if I came across one while on a gig I would snatch it. But my Lexington is nice, it balances my Burya. I got the big loud hand cannon for big stuff, and the automatic pistol for small fry.”

 

“Heh smart. I’m surprised you can even shoot this thing. I mean, I’ve heard horror stories about gonks trying it without the right chrome. I know you got your arms, but is that enough?”

 

“Honestly? No. But when I first got it, I nearly broke every bone in my arm firing it… Don’t tell my brother I told you that, he still doesn’t know. Anyway, I figured out a trick on how to handle the recoil so I can actually use it.” I sort of rolled my right wrist showing Jackie. “It’s all in how you lock your joints and the give in your body.”

 

“Huh.” He mentioned looking at the Burya with a glimmer in his eye that I couldn’t help but laugh at.

“If you want to give it a try, I don’t mind, but before you go buying more iron, how about some new chrome? Those optics you got could use an upgrade, what even are they? My scan says Omicron Zeta Something or other.” I mentioned earning a chuckle from Jackie.

 

“Yeah my OZ Soul 3.0 They aren’t the best optics on the market, but they got the best soulful look, you’d be amazed at how many times these eyes got me out of trouble. Just a minute of my soulful stare works wonders, every time. With a bit of old boy politeness of course.” He said, chuckling.

“Gonk.” I could help but laugh. “I’m pretty sure a pair of Kiroshi would serve you a lot more.”

“Eh maybe. I’ll ask Vik about it sometime.” He said with a shrug and I let it go, we weren’t really partners yet. No point in trying to push things.

 

“Alright this is our stop.” I mentioned as I pulled into the parking garage of my apartment. “Sure you don’t want to celebrate our gig with a meal?”

“Next time Hermanita.” Jackie assures me as he reaches over and shakes my shoulder. “I’ve got plans already for tonight. Got a date.” He offers laughing and I smile.

 

“Oh? Girlfriend?”

“Of course! Camilla has been on my ass all week about going out on a big date, and I finally got the eddies. Have a good night Motoko.” He offered as he stepped out, but I was too shocked.

 

Right. Jackie wasn’t dating Misty.

 

They weren’t even friends yet.

 

Oh.

 

I really didn’t want to get involved in getting a gonk like Jackie dating his true girl.

 

Eh. It’ll sort itself out… Right?

 

—–

 

“Welcome back.” Jun called out as I entered the apartment.

 

“Hey Jun. You still around?”

“No work until tonight. You good? Your gig go well with that gorilla?”

 

“Pfft!” I burst into laughter. “What is it with you an gorilla’s recently? You called me that too.”

“It just fits is all.” He said as I joined him on the couch, he had been watching some TV show his feet up on the table. Letting me see the way his feet were covered in that grayish plastic that meant it was chrome, but hadn’t been covered in Real Skinn.

 

“Alright but out of the two of us only you look like a gorilla.” I teased him, grabbing his attention away from the TV to give me a grumpy look.

 

“I might look like one, but you have the personality of one.” Jun said bluntly and then turned back to the TV.

 

That…

 

Absolute asshole!

 

I punched him in the side which he ignored!

 

Stupid borg!

 

I punched him again, and again, tenderizing his side until finally he got annoyed and grabbed at me, which led both of us wrestling on the couch.

 

“You are proving my point!” He growled at me, but I ignored his words!

 

In the end Jun won the wrestling match and I retreated to my room to lick my wounds from once again being defeated by my stupid brother.

 

It wasn’t fair!

 

Flopping on my bed I looked around the room, at all the stuff that I had collected.

 

The stuff that sort of sat on top of the old Motoko’s stuff.

 

Old Tyger Claw junk hidden under guns or equipment I had nabbed.

 

I even reached under the bed and patted the Uragan case. Just making sure it was still there.

 

What was my next goal?

 

Probably jump back into programming again. I thought. I still wanted to upgrade my Reboot Optics, and Weapon Glitch hacks. If I could get both working, being able to interfere with multiple people at once, I would go from only being able to disable eight or nine gonks back to back before my poor Seacho couldn’t handle it, to dozens.

 

Of course my programming laptop was out in the living room, so I got back up off my bed and headed out.

 

As soon as I appeared Jun noticed and raised both hands in knife hands as if he expected me to attack him!

 

“Gonk.” I told him before ignoring his presence and grabbing my laptop.

 

“Ah so you calmed down good. Wild gorilla- Oof.” He grunted as I didn’t punch him, just chucked a pillow into his face.

 

“Stop instigating. I have work to do.” I told him as if I was the adult and he was the child.

 

He huffed and ignored me though going back to his show.

 

While I dug into the program that I had found incredibly useful.

 

Reboot Optics.

 

My previous work on it made me cringe as I looked at it. I could do better, so much better.

 

So just like Ping I decided to just start from scratch.

 

Reboot Optics at its most simple was a virus. Infesting optical systems and causing them to reboot, or overload, depending on the chrome.

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It worked, but it could be better.

 

There was something I had learned from using computers in the past. Most users had no idea what the tech they were using actually did, or how it worked.

 

They knew enough to use the basic functions they were familiar with and that is it. Any actual in depth knowledge was completely beyond them.

 

So rather than attacking the system causing it to reboot, which was a pretty common method, I wanted to hit them with a double whammy.

 

It wouldn’t work on every optical system, but the idea had hit me as soon as I started writing the program.

 

Inspired Programmer coming in clutch.

 

Instead of the virus just causing a reboot, it did one other small change into the system while it was rebooting.

 

It was going to set the visual brightness of the chrome to zero.

 

I hadn’t been surprised that dimming effects on optics were very popular. Being able to dim your eyes when things got bright was a common enough feature in most optics, and those that don’t have it, still had settings to adjust how the brain processed the image.

 

All I had to do was make it so the system when it rebooted would still show nothing but a black, or incredibly dark picture to the brain.

 

The normal gonk would freak out when their eyes suddenly rebooted, only to then still be blind when their system starts back up.

 

Sure all they would have to do is go into their settings to adjust the vision… Their hud system would still work as normal…

 

Unless I adjusted the color of the Hud to match the dimmed visuals…

 

Heh.

 

But I would bet money that most people didn’t even know a settings menu existed in their optics.

 

It wouldn’t work for long against people who knew what they were doing, but it would still take time to fix their eyes themselves.

 

Time in a gunfight that could prove lethal.

 

Sure the program was going to need to be completely remodeled to do the double load, but that just required a bit of work. It’s what good programming could do. Instead of ballooning the program too much, when I was done, my Reboot Optics would hopefully be even slimmer than the off the shelf shovelware I had been using.

 

And it could affect multiple people at once.

 

Of course unlike Ping, which had only taken a couple of days to program up.

 

Reboot Optics was going to take a while. There were no quick shortcuts here. Each piece of the coding would need a lot of attention to make sure it worked.

 

But thanks to my perks, not only was it doable, not only was it going to be amazing when it was done!

 

But it was actually really fun!

 

Watching my coding turn into a weapon. That image so long ago of me crafting a magical sword was stuck in my head.

I guess Inspired Programmer knew what I needed to stay engaged, because I was going to make the best magical eye gouging digital sword I could.

 

“Hey.” Jun interrupted me, waving his hand in front of my face making me look away from my line of code with a glare.

 

“What?”

“Been calling you for a minute. I’m heading out, got some easy work… Don’t stay up all night, and get some food and stuff. I don’t want to see you totally spaced out in the same spot again when I get home.” He ordered waving a finger in my face.

 

Like all teenagers everywhere I rolled my eyes, but did set an alarm in my hud.

 

“Alarm is set, I’ll eat and sleep. Be safe.” I demanded in return and Jun smiled confidently before patting me on the head.

 

“I’ll see you in the morning Motoko.” Jun offered and I threw up a thumps up in return which he chuckled at as he walked out of the apartment.