Chapter 61

Chapter 61

And thats it! Great job! Hiromi called out as the last box in the truck was dumped off at the foot of a Ripper and we were finally done.

Yes! Whoo! I cheered, jumping into the air a little. We had done it! Sold our loot! It actually felt like something an adventurer would do after clearing some Goblin cave or something! I mean sure Scavs arent exactly Goblins Mostly

But it was the feeling it gave!

Payday! Malcolm cheered, hand out and flat towards Hiromi giving her a cheerful look.

She scoffed and rolled her eyes. Not here you gonk. Cmon lets go to Motokos place and we can split the eddies. She said ignoring Malcolms whine for money as she climbed back into my Quadra.

Wait, why are we meeting at my apartment?

Ichi lives with his Grandmother. Malcolm has his parents, and we arent going to my place. Hiromi answers simply.

Sounds good to me.

I agree. The boys both say with a grin as they jump into the truck and start driving away!

Why did everyone just drive off on me! Bullying gonks!

I huffed but got in my Quadra and started driving home. I hope Jun wasnt home.

--

So the split is completely even. Each of us gets 25%. I doubt anyone is unhappy with the number? Hiromi asked as she passed us a pretty hefty chunk of change each.

My own bank account was grateful and it was more than I would have made doing three gigs for Wakako!

This was amazing. Malcolm said as he flopped back onto the floor of my apartment. We were all sitting around the living room table. Ichi and Malcolm both on the floor while Hiromi and I had the couch.

Uh. Malcolm, that floor isnt super clean, you might not want to lay back like that. I said unable to not mention the dusty floors.

Listen. I still remember how dirty it was when I was doing pushups, and neither Jun nor I had really done any cleaning outside of fixing up our messes

Okay mostly me picking up tech, or guns laying around, but the point still stood.

Yeah its kinda dusty down here.

Ichi cut in then shaking his head as Malcolm dusted himself off a bit. Either way Motoko. Hiromi. Malcolm. Thank you. I was really hurting for eddies, and I couldnt have made anything like this much in such a short amount of time. Motoko You still pay better than any other boss Ive worked for. Thanks.

I grinned at Ichis sincerity as he bowed his head a little but Malcolm spoke first, throwing an arm over his friend's shoulder. Anytime choom! I needed some cash too, I gotta admit, other than the terror and chance of death Which we already dealt with during the war. The pay is certainly better. When are we doing this again?

I blinked.

My crew all looked to me, and I realized what they wanted.

I mean

I have the computers that the scavs and the ripper were using Ill start digging and see if there is any info on another den? I offered with a shy shrug.

Oh oh! Ill reach out to my contacts, because I have those now, and see what I can find out! Hiromi offered, putting both of her hands on her hips and flipping her hair a bit as she looked all pleased with herself. She seriously looked like her mom right there.

I decided I wasnt going to mention that.

Huh. Well Ill call up some of the TC guys I worked with during the war Ill see what they say. Ichi offered looking happy to be involved.

Oh fuck all of you. I dont have any cool contacts. Malcolm said as he slumped over the table.

Dont worry Malcolm, not everyone is good at gathering information! Why dont you see Vik and get some upgrades. Ill probably do that sometime soon too.

Yeah Yeah I can do that. Itll be preem to actually have some real chrome. I mean! Mantis blades you know!? We all laughed as he started faux swinging his arms around as if he was using the blades.

We ended up just kind of hanging out sorta mini celebrating a job well done when Jun finally came home.

Which of course distracted me completely.

GASP! I yelled out as I looked at Jun, and he rolled his eyes at me.

I said I was going to Viks. He said and it was true. His arms looked mostly real now!

Hug! I demand as I jump up and clamber over Hiromi as Jun sighs but gives in and wraps his now fleshy arms around me.

Much better! Did Vik give you a checkup as well, hows the chrome?

He did Better. He did a good job settled, some issues I didnt even know I had You were right. Dont let it go to your head. He mutters and I just giggle happy that Vik took care of him.

Looking good Jun-Nii. Hiromi offered with a wink and Jun rolled his eyes at her flirtations.

Thank you Hiromi. Good to see you too. Doing something new with the hair?

Well the mohawk wasnt me anymore. She demurred a bit as she ran a hand through her hair. Her hair was growing out everywhere but she still had the long mohawk laying sideways.

It looked good even so. Hiromi was one of those girls that always looked pretty no matter what she did.

Ah Ichi, and Malcolm, right. He said and the boys nodded at their name. What are all of you doing?

Celebrating! Malcolm called out cheering a bit as he raised his drink into the air, and Hiromi reached over to clink her can with his. It wasnt alcohol, but we were having fun regardless.

Oh good news on the sales?

Yeah! With Hiromis help we made lots of eddies! I cheered showing Jun just how much we had all made. He smiled and patted my head, looking proud of me.

Yeeessss.

--

A few hours later I was resting on the couch. Everyone had headed out, probably to spend their newly found eddies.

Jun had claimed the TV and was watching some weird ass future show that I just couldnt understand why he liked it.

Part of me wanted to do some more music, but even I wasnt a brat enough to do that while Jun was in the middle of his show, so instead I grabbed the shard I had downloaded all of the Scav data to, and started going through it.

I hadnt just stolen the scavs emails, but the computer's history as well. So as I sorted them out I started looking for anything that would lead to more scavs.

As I buried myself searching through the data for something I could use, time flowed past me.

In the end I came up with nothing.

No emails to Charles about who the boss was, or where I could hunt him down. In fact it was almost as if the Scavs had purposefully kept any connecting info to another den off the systems.

Irritating.

Ugh. I groaned as I leaned back away from the laptop. That was a good couple of hours wasted.

Whats wrong? Jun asked, although he didnt tear his eyes away from the TV.

Just went through all the computer records the Scavs had at the den, trying to hunt down a lead to find more of them.

No? I feel fine. Nothing seems wrong. I said checking my head and neck.

Hmm. Usually youd have something after an install like that. Noticed you werent having a problem with your Cyberdeck install last time either. I dont expect the Smart Link to cause any problem, but a new Neuralware is usually a quick road to a headache for a few days even with my care. Vik muttered as he started running scanners over my head and seemed to be checking me out.

I quickly pulled up my status page while he worked.

First thing I noticed quickly was that my Cyberization number had gone up for Intelligence.

Intelligence 7 (11) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 4.

It used to only be increased by 2. So I guess the EX-Disk made a difference?

But also.

Arasaka SmartLink System. *Adaptation SmartLink 0/0*

Arasaka Ex-Disk *Adatapation Ex-Disk 0/0*

Neither of the two Cyberware had an adaptation cost?

I could only humm to myself as Vik worked on checking me out, but I felt fine. Better than fine really.

Eventually after taking all the scans. Like literally all of them, Vik let me go. He was relieved that he wasnt finding anything, but also sorta grumpy that he wasnt finding what he expected.

So I left him to his grumpiness but only after thanking him, and handing over some money for the work. Then I went home again. I was feeling the need to grind some more. Plus I really wanted to level my programming so I could make my music box idea work.

Even if it was stupid and just for my music hobby, it would be really cool if it worked! No! When it worked!

I hummed along to the radio as I drove home.

-

So I was taking a break from programming Ping. Instead I had pulled out my toy. I mean my very important directional microphone! That was for super important gig work! And not a toy!

But I was trying to program the damn thing.

All I was trying to do was get it smart enough to be able to focus the audio on what I wanted to hear, and filter out any background noise.

Programming is hard though.

I wasnt making much progress, at least not efficient progress. Everything I typed out was twigging my Debug knowledge telling me it was going to be a mess to work with.

But that didnt really matter. I just needed to keep grinding and eventually.

*Programming skill level up!*

That would happen!

Programming 4! I enjoyed the surge of knowledge as I nodded along considering what had just been dumped in my head.

Then I took the program for the mic I had been working on and deleted almost all of it.

Yep. It was dogshit.

Then I started again, using the best bits of the last build. I would get this to work!

-

Will never fade away. I crooned as I had taken a break from my programming to strum my guitar and sing.

I wasnt so much stuck on the programming as just needing to let my mind do something else for a while. So many numbers.

Plus with my two perks filling in for me. I could basically shut down my brain and play a song and not really have to think about it. Letting my brain cool down from the math overload.

*100 Rockerboy XP Gained.*

The message popped in after I finished the song, I couldnt help but smile because Rockerboy leveled up super fast. Even though I wasnt getting alerts after every song, or even every other song, it didnt really matter. I played the songs simply enjoying the music and the alerts came in. Plus it helped that I kept adding more and more to my play.

First it was just strumming and singing badly along, then my instrumental cleaned up, and now I have Siren Song. My voice was so much better, so I was actually singing smoothly

It was fun now! I didnt feel like a grind anymore. When I played it really was just because I wanted to hear the song.

The only thing that annoyed me was that I only had a guitar. I still needed to get my music box programmed so I could start doing the rest of the songs too.

I sighed as I put the guitar down.

Back to work.

--

The next day, long after Jun had left for work again, I was standing on the couch and screaming at the top of my lungs while I rocked out.

I was just a little irritated at the programming not coming together.

But at least I had a nice outlet. The squeal of my guitar echoed around the apartment as I finished the song and flopped onto the couch to catch my breath.

I needed

I dont know. More things to tweak, more programming to grind with. My microphone work had helped, but it wasnt enough. I either needed to get an example of someone already having programmed a directional mic, or I needed to level up a lot more.

It was irritating. Even if I was still getting skill alerts while failing.

I put the guitar on the stand and stood up. The music helped me break how stuck I was so now I had an idea. It was time to go talk to Yoko.

Suiting up in my normal outfit, and a quick drive later I walked into the Dewdrop Inn to see Yoko as always at the counter.

Yoko. I just got an upgrade to my deck, I need some Quick hacks to fill it up Whatcha got? I asked as I leaned over the counter and she nodded.

Heres my selection. She offered, pulling out a data pad, and handing it over and there listed out were all of the programs she had.

In this case she was actually selling them for eddies, but I noticed there was a second tab for better hacks that were only tradable with knowledge.

Luckily I had the eddies. So I quickly started browsing.

Most of it was just stuff from the game I recognized, although there were some different hacks. Some were meant only for Netrunning. Like ICE Shield which could create a temporary barrier against threats, hopefully giving you some time to jack out, or escape in the net.

Or Distract which created Well junk data Daemons. That would spread out through a system and try to interfere with everything, filling files with bad data.

But I wasnt looking for Netrunning code. Mostly because I had yet to really dip my feet into netrunning.

It wasnt that I was nervous or anything, I just didnt really need it. Most netrunners couldnt just infiltrate a building and breach into their network directly bypassing any real worry about Black ICE killing them or anything.

Ill take a Weapon Glitch, and a Reboot Optics. I said confidently. Both were pretty base level programs, but I could fiddle with them, and more importantly, they could both be used in combat when I screwed up and got spotted. Being able to jam some gonks' guns, or blind them would be an amazing help.

I paid quickly and was already installing the programs in my deck as I walked out.

Now I had some new programs to play with and level up!