Chapter 83

“Motoko!” Hiromi called out as she entered Lizzies.

 

Sure she looked a bit awkward about it, staring a bit too long at some of the Mox bouncers, but I waved her over and her nervousness faded as she got closer.

 

I guess it might be a little awkward for a girl like Hiromi who usually was covered in TC stuff to walk into the Mox home.

 

But honestly I wanted to get away from using the Ho-Oh club as our meetup place.

 

That stupid mask I now had hidden away in my room was taunting me with the fact that Fujimura was eager to recruit me fully.

 

I didn’t want to deal with that.

 

“You’re late.” Ichi pointed out as he sipped on his drink. Malcolm and Ichi had actually been here early…

 

A little ‘too’ early if my estimation was right, but boys will be boys.

 

“Pfft! I was busy! Reaching out to some contacts about potential buyers.” Hiromi said eyebrows twitching in an insinuation about their future payday.

 

“All is forgiven.” Ichi offered with a faux bow and Hiromi cackled as she slipped into the seat next to me. We were at the bar for now, but I would drag my chooms into one of the private booths before we got to talking too much.

 

Hiromi ordered a drink, Ichi and Malcolm both happy to drink a bit on my tab. Because I am a generous leader.

 

“So you found something?” Malcolm prompted, looking eager. This wasn’t his first attempt to pry information out, but I had told him to wait for Hiromi.

 

“Not here. Get your drinks, and let’s go grab a bit of privacy. Thanks Mateo.” I said to the bartender, dropping a tip as I dragged my eager chooms out of the main room.

 

In the end we took over one of the booth rooms, as I settled my chooms around and then I called all of them just like last time.

 

Instantly I sent all of them the information I had gathered about the new scav den.

 

The office building looked run down from the outside, and closed off, that image moved inside giving a bit gruesome scenes of the interiors.

 

*Disgusting.* Hiromi muttered into the group call. *But it looks like they have a lot of product.* She said looking at the boxes of chrome the Scavs were collecting.

 

*How did you even find this place?* Ichi asked and I threw him a peace sign.

 

*I backtraced missing peoples reports and slipped into security systems all along the streets. Everyone has security cameras after all, and a lot of them are pointing at the street. So with a bit of finangling and a lot of illegal hacking I was able to track people.*

 

*Holy shit! That must have been pretty hard. I’m surprised more people don’t do that.*

 

I shrugged. *It’s dangerous. One bad server that has some nasty ICE, and I could be in a lot of trouble.*

 

*Motoko! If you are going to do something so dangerous then call on us to help! We can at least get you to your ripper if something goes wrong.* Hiromi demanded glaring and I nodded hands raised at her anger.

 

*Yeah, probably smart.*

 

*Good!*

 

*Should be a good payday. Any issue with the numbers Motoko?* Ichi asked, *Need us to come in guns blazing this time?* He said while motioning with his hand as if shooting a gun.

 

*No. I’ve already taken over their system, when I hit them, all of the scavs are going to lose their ability to see simultaneously!” I chirped, grinning at the idea of what I was going to do to these monsters.

 

*Nice.*

 

*Malcolm: You grabbed all of their camera data here right?* Malcolm asked, still forced to send his question as a text as he didn’t have an interior agent.

 

Gonna have to remind him he could get that upgrade now.

 

*Yeah, their security was good, but not that good. They had it all saved to a laptop. I actually think it might have been something one of them did as a mistake. The security for the network was set up by a netrunner, but this is the kind of amateur mistake I expect from someone who has no idea what they are doing.*

 

*Malcolm: Then, can’t we use your little back trace trick to find more scav dens?*

 

I blinked at Malcolms text. That was… possible.

 

While I had tracked the van back to this place. They still had to transport their gear to another site to sell, could I figure out where?

 

Could I track their shipments to find even more? I could follow cameras like I had before…

 

Well maybe not alone.

 

But I wasn’t alone.

 

*Okay chooms. Malcolm had a great idea. I might be able to track the scavs, but I’ll need your help. Rather than hit just one scav den. I want to find where all of the chrome gets sent.* I said and suddenly all three of my chooms sat up straight.

 

We had made bank on the small scav dens.

 

But if there was a central repository? If there was even just a storage space for where all the chrome went?

 

We could make…

 

A lot of eddies.

 

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Like a lot of eddies.

 

*Okay. Malcolm, you have a good eye for that sort of stuff. Start going through the camera, see if you can spot something we can use.* I point out and the boy actually flushes and looks pleased at my words.

 

*Hiromi. If we hit a place that has even more equipment we might need more transport. Think you can use your connections to find us people willing to transport stuff for us?*

 

*I have a few ideas already.* She confirmed with a nod.

 

*Ichi if we are moving that much stuff, we are going to need a place to store it… Maybe even a gang to help protect it.* I had to admit with a scowl. *I have some TC contacts if this actually works that I can pull on, but maybe find us some low key storage we can move stuff to?*

 

*I know of a few places I can use. Leave it to me!*

 

*Alright, in that case… I guess I need to get back on the net… Actually. All of us should get moving. I can pull more info and send it to you guys to check over as I’m running.*

 

“Oh! Um…” Malcolm said aloud before stopping, hesitating. “Should I call Omaeda?”

 

I blinked, Omaeda was… Oh! He was the netrunner that Ichi and Malcolm had been friends with.

 

“I haven’t seen him in a while, now that you mention it.”

 

“Omaeda bailed on us during the war. He basically went home and hid. We haven’t talked since.” Ichi offered with a grumpy face.

 

“It wasn’t like that Ichi. You know that. Omaeda wasn’t as into the TC as you. He didn’t want to get shot in a gang war.”

 

“He bailed on us when we needed him. We don’t need him.” Ichi said ending the conversation for a moment as Hiromi and I both kind of just looked at each other awkwardly.

 

“Let’s go without him for now?” I prompted and Malcolm hesitated and just shrugged a bit.

 

“Alright. We should head to your place?”

 

“Yeah, it sounds like tonight is going to be busy for all of us.” I say and Hiromi groans a bit.

 

Heh, corpo brat. Ichi and Malcolm both looked excited.

 

—–

 

An hour later I was back in the net. My chooms were set up on laptops connecting to the server so I could pass them data in real time, and I rushed back to the scav den’s server.

 

With the work I had done before I was able to just slip right back inside, and this time I was accessing their data looking for something in particular.

 

*Malcolm see anything on the cameras yet?* I called out, the phone connection with my group was active despite being in the net.