160

"It's not too bad.. Right?"

"I think it suits you." Misty assured me. It was a full twenty hours after I went under the knife. Vik had done a lot of work, and after eight hours I felt… Perfect.

My neck was a little weird, but that was something adaptation would help with.

I looked in the little hand held mirror and what gazed back at me, was something more than human.

The Neural Link Vik had chipped into me was an Arasaka brand. So the chrome was the usual black with little red ports for everything.

I knew Hiromi would love it. But it wasn't just a few chip slots hidden beneath the flesh that had long grown over it.

This was heavy duty chrome, and I didn't like hiding my chrome.

So the entire back of my neck, from just above where my Occipital bun as Vik had called it, but it was just the bump on the back of my head. Everything below that was chrome to just above my shoulder blades. I even had some cool chrome stretching into the sides of my throat giving me a bit of flash there.

And now Misty was cleaning up my hair on the back of my head, and there it was.

The largest chunk of myself other than my arms, that wasn't natural, something I wouldn't be hidden away beneath my boots like my ankles.

And I low key fucking loved it.

"Vik did a great job. It looks amazing." I said… Okay so maybe it was more like high key I loved it.

"Hehe, it really suits you. You always carried that Neo-Mil look. Well it looks even more so now."

I felt myself smiling even wider as I turned the mirror so I could see Misty.

"Thanks Misty."

"Of course. You'll make sure to take all the drugs Vik gave you in exchange."

I kept myself from laughing too hard as Misty was cutting my hair a bit but I flashed her a smile. "Sure you bet."

"Good. You're one of the patients that actually listen to all the recovery instructions. You have no idea how hard it is to get a bunch of gonks to take their medicine correctly."

I giggled all the louder as Misty ranted, happily telling me horror stories of idiots not listening to Viks orders and coming back with their body rejecting chrome or worse.

"All done… It looks about the same as before, but from the back… Well it definitely stands out… In a good way!"

"Hold the mirror?" I asked her and she nodded as I walked over to a wall mirror and with Misty's help was able to actually see it.

Heh. I'm really glad that Vik or whoever owned it previously got rid of the Arasaka symbol on the back, instead of looking tacky, my chrome looked… Sinister.

Cool.

"Remember to follow Viks instructions!" Misty demanded, and I nodded in agreement, the feeling felt weird as my neck no longer moved in the same way.

But I would get used to it.

Finally Misty let me free, and I would follow Viks instructions, only the actual instructions he had given me. We hadn't wanted to tell Misty that I had already healed post surgery, so Vik had given me different instructions before I had left.

I walked out and breathed in the Night City air. People walked past me, in a blur of neon and suspicion clad faces.

But I didn't care. Because today? I had just done something amazing. Time to go home. Despite the heal, I was still ordered to go very easy on my Cyberdeck, and not to even think about using my Sandy.

Even if the urge was there.

—--

"You're staring."

"Of course I am. My little sister got a nova upgrade." Jun agreed as he had intercepted me as I got home.

"Shouldn't you be at work?" I said, flushing a little at the attention.

"I have the day off. Show me." He demanded but it was with a gentle smile and I huffed and did just that. Settling onto the couch.

"It's an Arasaka Neural Link, an ODA apparently. The Sandy's a Dynalar. Just a Mk.2."

"Nova. That's good chrome." Jun confirmed as he spun around me so he could get a better look.

"He did a good job on the install, I can barely see the wounds." I nodded slightly at that. He had done an amazing job, but the real reason there weren't any wounds was because I had slept eight hours after the install.

"Anyway, I haven't used it yet of course. I need to give it some time for everything to settle in. Docs orders. So I'll be working on stuff around the house… Do you need anything done… Armor for instance." I hinted and Jun just happily ignored me as he patted me on the shoulder.

"Nah don't worry about it. That armor just got in the way. It was interesting, but not for me-Ow! Motoko!"

"I'm sorry I just happened to hit you right where you got shot the other day! Oops! Wow too bad you weren't wearing the armor properly or it would have blocked that bullet and only given you a bruise!" I hissed at him, and while Jun looked like he was about to pick me up and throw me, he hesitated, glancing up at my neck.

I reached up and rubbed my neck too and that put a damper on it. Jun wasn't going to rough house while I was healing.

"I wish you would wear more armor." I told him seriously. "Look at how effective it was for us. I got shot a few times in that fight Jun, but it didn't even slow me down."

He didn't say anything in turn at my turn towards the serious. Instead just patting me on the head. "Don't forget to call Hiromi. She'll freak."

"Hehe! I'll do that now. Maybe she wants to spend the night?" I wondered and jumped off the couch to run to my room to make the call.

—--

"That kinda tickles."

"It's so cool. Arasaka brand and everything! I'm so proud." Hiromi said faux sniffling as she continued to poke at the back of my neck. I rolled my eyes.

"It's not the best link on the market, just the one that I have." I tried to argue, but Hiromi just ignored me. Happy that I had some Araska chrome. Honestly we sort of matched. Her own Neural link wasn't the heavy duty one that I had, but she did have a strip of black chrome hidden under her hair along the back of her neck. Her chip ports were set into it.

"There is a problem though." I grumbled.

"What? What happened? Something wrong? Bad chrome!? I'll kill that old man ripper of yours!"

"No! What? Hiromi, chill choom. Vik is amazing. No, I used to have my Personal link cords on the back of my neck remember?"

"Oh yeah, you picked that weird install. They still there?"

"Yeah, but the ODA's have a slightly different link design. Here see?" I said as I reached behind my head and felt around until I found it, then showed it to Hiromi.

The ODA had a lot of modularity despite being Arasaka branded. Not something you would expect from them, but it was actually sort of one of their trademarks. Other than the black and red design.

The personal link cord wasn't in quite the same spot as it used to be. It now detached from a recess along the right or left side of the neural link. Meaning it was more on the side of my neck behind my ears, than it used to be directly behind on the back.

"Tehee!" Hiromi giggled as she popped the personal link out of my neck and then put it back in a few times.

"That kinda tickles Hiromi." I told her and that just made her giggle more and keep doing it until I swiped her hands away.

"It looks nova Motoko! And with a Sandy our work is going to be even smoother!" Hiromi said with glee kicking her legs as she raised them off the floor.

"It'll definitely increase safety. It'll be nice not to be pushed back by every speedware user now."

"Heh. And that one TC girl you spar with! You'll be able to beat her ass now! Which you should! Definitely beat her ass!"

"Oh, yeah Hayato. I haven't talked to her recently. I'll have to reach out. She'll be a great test for using the Sandy in a fight… My sandy." I repeated, because it bore repeating. I had a sandy now.

Sandevistan. One of my own.

It wasn't Davids OP as fuck secret black project sandy, but it was fine.

"Yep! Well in that case, I'll focus on the BD stuff for a while. Not like we can go on gigs while you are still recovering from your chrome." HIromi added shrugging.

"Oh yeah. I still have the BD from the Power Plant. Think I should delete it?" I asked. Things had gotten a bit serious on the gig. And it could be dangerous to have it come back to us.

"Wait.. You made a BD of that?"

"Yeah of course I did. I always turn my BD tuner on before doing something. I just delete it if it's boring or in the case of the Badlands gig… Well if things get crazy."

"Definitely! Oh oh! I have a good idea! It'll be perfect! Gimme! Gimme!"

"Wha-hold on Hiromi, I'll need to take it to Judy to get fixed up."

"I know! That's why give it to me, I'll take it! I have an idea."

"Okay sure!" I said laughing as Hiromi was practically reaching for my chip slots like she could just pull it from my head. I quickly flashed a shard and after a moment of it saving I handed her the raw BD.

"Perfect! Hehehehe!" She cackled as she rose to her feet, like full on maniacal laughter.

"I really don't think I want to know what your idea is."

"Don't worry! It's perfect!" Then before I could say anything else, she ran out of the apartment.

"Was that Hiromi?" Jun asked, poking his head out of his room looking confused. I just sent him a look of confusion in turn. "Wasn't she spending the night?"

"I honestly don't know."

—--

I flopped on my bed just after Hiromi left. With any sort of heavy work taken off the field, I didn't have much to do. Sure David had chipped in his Sandy then used it right away, but he also fucked himself up enough to pass out doing that, and was a fucking gonk.

I was going to follow my doctor's orders to take it easy for a few days, even with my instant heal.

I looked over and Tachikoma was steadily working.

The programming was clearing up. The program had learned what it was trying to learn, and so actual improvement was going pretty quick. I purposefully pulled up the data on my laptop and didn't link in to go ahead and do more pruning.

Getting rid of incorrect data, or repeats, cleaning it up and making it streamlined. But it was getting to be time to add more into the program.

So I walked over and picked up a chunk of steel, and placed it in front of the Tachikoma.

A moment later the small addition to its programming I had added started up.

It moved to the sphere and stopped… Then it rammed it.

But steel was heavy.

Nope little guy. If you want to learn how to pick things up you need to do better than that.

Setting the program to run I ended up just laying on my bed staring at the ceiling for a while.

My neck… Well it felt kinda stiff. Like I wanted to stretch it, but I couldn't.

The negative side to chrome. But I relaxed. I would put in some adaptation and be good to go.

And in exchange for this discomfort… A Sandy.

Which I couldn't use yet…

"Jun! I'm going to sleep for a while!" I yelled out from my bed without getting up.

"Okay! Sleep well!" Jun called back. Cool.

Another eight hours would make the time until Sandy usage go down a lot.

So I closed my eyes and drifted off.

I awoke instantly and blinked. The light in the room was off, not that there wasn't enough light from my printers and laptop. So I rose up and blinked.

"That… Isn't quite it little guy." I muttered staring at the Tachikoma that had failed at lifting the block… It was using its little grippers on the block and was just… Sort of jerking itself forward and back. But the block wasn't going anywhere, because it was using the extension I had built into the grippers… Kinda cute though. I stood up and moved to the computer. Oh yeah, that was a glitch alright.

A few moments later I sent the update and the Tachikoma stopped and then with a bit of prodding on my behalf through code, it finally managed to lift the block. Then it started walking and dropped it.

"Ganbatte, Tachikoma-chan." I whispered to my drone and looked at the screen. I really should sit down and put in some actual work on the Tachikoma interface…

Just thinking about it instantly brought ideas to my mind thanks to inspired programmer… And it was like 2 am so I might as well get something done.

I shrugged and even if I couldn't program with my cyberdeck, I could still do it the old way.

I started typing, getting lost in the synergy between the VI I was creating from the Tachikoma, and a program to manually control them.

I would need to get the Minotaur interface tomorrow to look that one over as well. I could copy some of the program…

Where was the Minotaur anyways? Last I saw it, Ichi had… Ichi! That little sneak! I realized that Ichi had definitely stolen the Minotaur away from me! Well we would see about that.

I knew where he lived!

—--

Ichinose

Ichi woke up to his alarm blaring.

Sighing into his pillow he blinked up his agent and then shut it down. He sighed into his pillow as he mustered up the energy to get up. Slowly he rose, eyes blinking, one of the benefits of optics, is that he didn't feel like he could barely see anything when he first woke up, everything was clear from the light coming in from his open window.

Which was weird, Ichi never left his window open. Something he had learned as a kid. He narrowed his eyes at it, and reached over to flip the switch, closing it back down. Nodding at that, he rose unsteadily to his feet, and took a few moments to stretch and groan.

He didn't want to get up this early, but Hiromi had dragged him into that SCSM job, and well…

It wasn't about the pay so much, but it was a good experience. Ichi really liked driving through the city, seeing new places, and meeting people.

Malcolm might talk up his massively overpriced supercar, but he was also the idiot that could barely ever drive his car anywhere.

Ichi drove through the whole city whenever he wanted.

As he slipped into the bathroom he made the call to his new 'partner.' even if the guy liked to try and get Ichi to call him boss.

Max was the guy that ran the SCSM shop. He was alright, but since Hiromi was technically Ichi's boss, it gave him a lot of leeway.

*Hey kid! You coming in today or not? You caused a real issue yesterday!*

*Hey Max, yeah I'm getting ready to come in. I'll have the Behemoth. Won't have full capacity though.*

*Fuck. How much room do I got?*

*About seventy percent, maybe eighty.*

Ichi ignored the cursing coming over the line, quickly washing up his hair and then once he was soap free stepping out, and grabbing a towel, quickly drying off he checked his mirror, doing a bit of work on his hair to even it all.

*Fine. But we'll have to haul ass to get a full route done in that case! I expect you in soon kid!*

*It'll be about thirty minutes Max." Ichi refuted the man's demands casually, pretty used to him now. It was kinda cool to be a teenager able to tell grown men to fuck off. It wasn't like Max had any other trucks with the same amount of armor, or capacity. And Hiromi had made it clear to the man that Ichi was the one in charge of the truck, full stop.

Not that Ichi went out of his way to piss him off. The extra storage area and secure holding for the truck was worth a lot on its own.

He stepped out of the bathroom, glad he had his own private one since this was an older style home pushing the beads out of the way he made two steps and then stopped cold.

"M-Motoko?" He asked, because there sitting on his bed, with her feet up was Motoko. Along with his Yukimura in her lap, that she was fiddling with.

"Ichi." She greeted back calmly and Ichi felt a bit of discomfort, because Motoko was acting weird.

For one she was literally in his room.

"Motoko? What's going on?" He asked a little awkwardly, making sure his towel was properly tightened around his waist. Dangit Motoko he just got out of the shower! Had Grandma let her in!?

She rose with a predator's grace, something she had started to show more and more lately, and almost languidly stalked him across the room.

Ichi felt his back hit the cold wall as she stalked him right into a dead end, and then she grabbed his hand and put his Yukimura into his palm.

"You should really have more weapons on hand Ichi, I was able to take your pistol while you slept and you didn't even notice." She said almost jokingly and he relaxed a bit about to make a joke before asking her to get the hell out but suddenly her palms slammed into the wall beside his head.

Oh.

Oh no.

"Ichi?"

"Y-yeah?"

"Where's my Minotaur?" She said with sinister intent and all Ichi could do was swallow, the emotions running through him in that moment complicated and unknowable.

"I uh… Can show you?"

"Perfect, get dressed." She agreed back to happy Motoko as she walked out of his room.

Ichi slumped nearly sliding down the wall.

What the fuck?

"I guess it's okay." I mumbled, Ichi had led me outside, into his little backyard. It had actually been a surprise that Ichi lived out in Arroyo, because I had always thought he had rented near the rest of us, but apparently this was his Grandmother's home.

It even had a little garage outback, with dirt cutting through the grass leading through a side gate.

He quickly opened it up, and showed his van.

His van that still had my Minotaur in it.

"Umm… So do you need it for something?"

"Not the Minotaur itself. I'm going to grab the control program, and see what it's made of." I explained as I hefted myself up into the van, noticing the control crown and plopping it on my head.

"Oh, great. So is that new chrome?" He asked suddenly and I threw him a smile as I showed off my neck.

"Sure is! New Neural Link, and Sandy."

"Whoa. Sandevistan? What'd you get?"

"Just a Dynalar. I was going to wait on chipping one until I had the perfect one, but… Jun reminded me I should be looking at the short term as much as the long term."

"That's preem Motoko. What's it like?"

"I don't know!" I laughed at the reveal. "I'm not allowed to turn it on yet, docs orders. Install is still fresh."

"Oh, tell me about it once you use it."

"Why? Thinking about one yourself?"

"Speedware is useful for drivers." He answered in turn before humming. "Do you need me? I got work."

"Just give me one minute, and I'll get out of here." I looked at Ichi who looked relieved. "The SCSM job?" I asked for clarification as I worked.

"Yeah, I kinda like it, I guess. It's simple enough, lets me drive around and I don't get shot at. At least not yet."

"That sounds nice. Make sure you bring your gun though. You never know when you'll need to shoot back."

"Obviously." He agreed and seemed to relax. Ichi had been kinda high strung this morning. I wonder if he just didn't process well in the mornings? Needed a cup of coffee or something first?

While I was talking to him, I was plugged into the control crown for the Minotaur, pulling the data, downloading all of it, into a set of shards I had plugged into my new chip slots.

I was downloading into multiple shards at once a barrage of data flowing into me much faster than my old system could have done. The new neural link was definitely an upgrade even at a base level from what I used to own. It was very very cool.

"Okay all done. Before I leave, what security do you have for the garage?"

"Uh… A lock?" He answered and I nodded, reaching into my back pouches and pulling out a TachiCama.

"Here, let's set it up somewhere it can see your garage, just remember to charge the battery once a week. Set a reminder or something okay?" I offered as I started examining the back porch on his home to find a place to hook it in.

"Uh. Sure. I can do that… Thanks Motoko."

"No problem." I muttered as I found a good hidden place in the rafters where it could see the garage while being mostly hidden. Once its cute little feet were clamped on I turned to Ichi who was still sort of nervously moving from foot to foot.

Okay fine.

I reached out and flicked his forehead suddenly.

"Ow! Motoko!"

"That's for totally stealing my cool Minotaur, that I totally wanted to use myself. Also-" I interrupted myself, walked over and slapped him on the back. "Good job finding something you can do to be extra useful." There. That should solve the problem with his nervousness. Seriously it was like he expected me to attack him for stealing my Minotaur or something.

"Alright I'm out! Have fun at work!" I called out, waving an arm over my head as I headed out.

"Uhh."

—--

I was back home looking over the program for juicy bits when I got a message from Hiromi. Checking it I nodded.

Payday. Enough of the equipment from the gig had been sold off, Hiromi sent out the first quarter… Wait no, there were six of us. The first sixth of the payday.

It was pretty juicy and I nodded pleased before refocusing on my program. I was still using my chrome as little as possible so I was just looking over the programming as I displayed it on my laptop.

But suddenly I had a call come in.

*Ringing.*

Rebecca? Preem! I quickly accepted before the second ring.

*Hey choom.*

*What the fuck?*

*Uh… I don't know?* I asked in turn and had a moment of quiet before Rebecca responded again.

*I just got the pay from your choom for the gig. What the fuck?* She repeated almost breathlessly.

*Oh! Now I get it! Relax,that's not the full payment! Hiromi hasn't sold off everything yet, but she sold enough of the loot to give us part of it.*

*Yeah I know! I read her message, but what the fuck! That's more eddies than I've ever earned before from a gig! By a lot! So what the fuck!?*

*That's just a sixth of what we earned from selling the loot. Why? I don-*

*A sixth… This is a sixth!?*

*Uh yeah? We split the eddies evenly between everyone I told you that remember?*

*I thought you meant it was a split of the percentage!*

The line went quiet for a while and I was almost wondering if she had hung up when a quiet voice that I was pretty sure I wasn't supposed to catch spoke.

*These kids are fucking nuts.* Then she spoke up clearly again. *Okay seriously, is this like a first time bonus or something? How do you do anything?*

*No? We always just split the eddies evenly. I thought it was a good idea. That way everyone knows the more we make the more they make. I mean the gigs we do, everyone has some danger, so it's hazard pay.*

*Hazard pay… That's hilarious choom.* She said and then actually broke into cackles. *Okay okay, seriously though. How do you pay for anything!? Ripper costs? Tech prep. Ammo?*

*Well Ammo we just buy for ourselves? Ripper costs haven't really come up, but we have a great ripper in Vik and he takes care of us… Tech I just buy that myself. It's one of the things I take care of in the team.*

*Bribes for information? I mean, I want to ask about a bunch of other stuff too, but hell you guys seriously just split the fucking loot… That's fucking crazy.*

*Um… I usually do the information myself, so it's free other than time.*

*Netrunner… That's right. Fuck.. Wait. Sasha never does that for us! That bitch!* Rebecca cursed a bit and I actually laughed at her foul language. *Fuck you're weird. Fucking hell. Alright fine. When is the next gig? Eddies like this are pretty nova.*

*No idea. One of the downsides to the way we operate, we have to hunt our targets ourselves. I mean, sure I could probably talk to Wakako… Maybe Rogue too? I'm not sure what the Rogue situation is yet, she said she might offer me gigs, but we haven't talked since… Anyway! We find our targets and clear them out. So it can be a little bit. One of the reasons the pay is so good.*

* No Fixer pay? Well fuck… But a good fuck. Even if it's not all the time, a payday like that ain't something I regret. Damn choom. Just damn.*

*We still need to get your armor sorted out as well.* I reminded her, and she went quiet again.

*You really are a good kid huh? Heart of gold and all that.*

*No I'm not! I'm a badass merc that kills people for money!*

*And worries about her allies acting like a mother hen! It's cute as shit. You're a funny one Motoko… Hey listen, change of topic a bit. You doing anything right now?*

*No! What's up? Want to hang out choom?*

*Something like that. I got a call from my brother. I've been kept away from their safehouse until now, but things are cooling off, and my bro wants me to bring some shit. So you want to come see Sasha? I know you were worried about her.*

*Yeah! Yeah I really do! Is that… Is that okay? Will Maine even allow that?*

*I'll message him, it'll be fine. I vouch for you. Not like you are going to tell Biotechnica where she's hiding out. Meet up at my place? A ride would save some time.*

I paused for a second before cracking into a smile.

*Is the main reason you are asking me to come with, because you don't want to haul whatever your brother asked you to bring on the N-Cart?*

*I don't know what you are talking about.* She said airly.

Yep, that was 100% it.

I laughed at her making sure it went over the agent. *Sure choom, send me the address?*

*Already done.*

I nodded, it was indeed. And I rose up and stretched. Time to check on Sasha.

—--

"Whoa choom. New chrome?"

"Yeah I picked up a Sandy, but I needed an upgrade to my Neural link." I confirmed as Rebecca flopped into my passenger seat a large duffel bag full of stuff plopped onto her lap.

"Head towards Arroyo, I'll guide you there. They don't want any digital info on where it is." She said suddenly and I nodded as I set off. "That's preem. You doing okay?"

"Yeah, Vik is amazing, and I'm not allowed to use the Sandy or anything yet. It's still settling in."

"Heh, you're so funny. You got this bad ass killer vibe one second, and the next you're all rule abiding the next. I can't quite pin you down."

"A lot of rules are there to keep everyone safe." I said pointedly looking at her complete lack of seatbelt.

"Pfft. Who needs a seatbelt? Those things just-Whoa!" I of course was speeding up unnoticed, and when she refused I just slammed the brakes.

"That's not funny." She told me, looking up from the passenger footwell glaring up at me.

I just smiled.

"I beg to differ."

"I'm not putting on the seatbelt."

"I'm not promising you won't go flying a few more times through the ride." I retorted back instantly, and she glared, and to my pleasure regained her seat and put on her seatbelt.

I didn't tease her any further as she was sending me glares, instead I threw on the radio and just settled in to drive all the way from Watson down to Arroyo.

"Get off at MLK… We're going into Rancho Coronado." She added as we hit Arroyo and I nodded. I knew the place. The pink flamingos were something that was hard for me to forget. Delemains offshoot that hated them as it drove around the suburbs had made me laugh while playing the game.

Maybe I'd run one over in memory of that fragment.

I pulled off at MLK Blvd and down into the suburbs. Going around a bit, following Rebecca's 'directions' that got us lost twice, as we tried to figure out where the address was, before finally finding it.

A house that looked like any of the houses in the area. There was a whole bunch of trash built up around the edges of the fence, hiding what was inside, and as we pulled in, I noticed that despite being a run down sort of place, it did have a few much newer looking security cameras hidden in places.

"This is it?" Rebecca whispered, looking a little confused, but I think I understood.

"This is the address right?" I said as I turned off the engine and stepped out, but before I got far A familiar face poked out through the front door and then relaxed, opening the door the rest of the way, showing Dorio was holding an Overture.

"There you are Becca, and I see you brought a choom." Dorio greeted, as Rebecca walked up with her arms behind her head.

"Yep, I needed a ride, plus I figured Sasha wouldn't mind a distraction." She offered and Dorio just sighed before letting us in. Shutting and then locking the door behind us.

"Hey, listen kid. This isn't some place we want shared around. So-"

"It's a safehouse, where Sasha is lying low after the Biotechnica gig. Don't worry. I won't tell anyone." I assured the larger woman who blinked at me in concern before looking to Rebecca.

"Don't look at me, I didn't tell her!" Rebecca denied, but I just ignored that because stepping up out of the basement was the girl in question.

Sasha had looked better.

Instantly I could tell what had happened. One of her arms, the left one from the middle of her bicep down was all chrome now. New chrome.

New enough she hadn't even gotten Real Skinn, with red irritated skin surrounding where the chrome met flesh.

"Hey Sasha." I greeted gently, and I watched as the woman actually jumped a little in surprise. She obviously hadn't noticed there were visitors.

She looked at me with wide surprised eyes for a moment before noticing Rebecca, and then she blinked and she smirked.

"Hey Kitten. How's my little Kohai doing?" She called out, faking a much happier attitude than she had a moment before.

"Good." I said instead of what I wanted to say which was 'Better than you.'

"Becca." Maine rumbled echoing through the house from the living room. Maine was sitting on a couch making it look more like a single person reclined. "Why did you bring the kid?"

"What was I supposed to walk here?" Rebecca asked and then scoffed. "Besides, Motoko is Sasha's choom. She was even worried sick when I told her that Sasha was hiding out."

"This isn't a place where I rolled out the fucking welcome mat." Maine rumbled and sensing some issue I decided to step in.

"Hey, I know me showing up wasn't on the books. Sorry about that. Honest, this is your safe house so the more people that know about it the less safe it actually is. I totally get the frustration. But I mean… Isn't it less conspicuous if I drive Becca here, instead of making her walk?"

Maine looked to me, and the man who was easily four of me in size didn't look like he agreed.

"Easy Mainey! We needed to bring in Rebecca to get some stuff, and Motoko only makes that easier yeah?" Sasha intervened, and the big man held his glare for a few moments before sighing.

"Just don't tell anyone." He demanded finger pointing at me.

"I won't. Promise." I added which didn't seem to add much to Maine's confidence.

"There you are! Did you bring it?" Pilar demanded coming down from the upstairs practically leaping down the stairs as he charged at Rebecca.

"Ugh get off me you fucking gonk." She snapped, but did reach over to the duffel bag and slide open the zipper, letting Pilar laugh insanely as he reached in and came out holding a toolkit.

"My babies!" He cried out and then disappeared back up the stairs, and Rebecca just rolled her eyes at his actions.

I kept my mouth shut despite my desire to yell at Pilar for being so rude. If Jun treated me like that I would have kicked his ass.

Pilar hadn't said anything to Rebecca after getting his tools.

But I shook it off and instead looked to Sasha. "How're you holding up?"

"What? I'm fine!" She denied, but I mean that was obviously a lie. But then she perked up and sent me a smile. "But I've been super duper bored! So hey! Distraction!" She called out as she grabbed my arm and started tugging me along, her new arm was weaker than her old one only gently pulling as I let her lead me away.

"Ah, Sasha! Hey Rebecca-"

"Don't worry choom. I knew Whiskers would do this. I'll catch up, wanna talk to Maine." Rebecca responded, throwing the duffel bag onto the kitchen table clearing off tons of empty food boxes.

"Yeah! C'mon!" Sasha demanded and I followed letting her pull me downstairs into a small barely there netrunner setup.

"You've been out on the net?"

"Only a little!" She said and I frowned, because if I had Biotechnica after me, I wouldn't be going anywhere near the net.

"Oh don't worry." She answered as if reading my mind. "I've already reached out to an old contact at Biotechnica. The company barely cares about what I did. They sent out a kill team, and if they find me, they'll kill me, but they aren't looking real hard. Give it a month, and that order will be removed from their system after a small 'update' goes through." She said with a shrug, and I was reminded that despite Sasha's personality this was a woman that was an elite netrunner.

"Will they really just let it go?"

"They will." She said her voice going from sugary sweet to dark and angry. "They barely even noticed… Biotechnica stock didn't even dip." She said and I frowned at that. I did remember that the Securicine reveal hadn't done much damage to the company, but nothing?

"Nothing?"

"Barely anything. They made a public apology, and fired one of the managers in charge, for damage control but… It's Biotechnica. They are untouchable as long as they're producing food, medicine, and Chooh2." She said as she flopped into a chair in front of a laptop and taped fingers to an almost manic anxious beat.

Food, Medicine, and Fuel. Biotechnica were the creators of Chooh2, as long as the world relied on it for fuel…

Yeah I guess I can figure out what happened. Everyone in the know, just ignored the securicine update, no government wanted to make waves. It was like the middle east and oil. The money just kept flowing in, and no matter what nonsense they got up to, as long as it kept going, they were untouchable.

"That stinks."

"It's bullshit." She agreed darkly and then she turned and her face turned into a smirk. "So little Kohai! Want to keep your Senpai Sasha-chan company?"

"Um… Sure?"