“So there we are, Pilar, is acting like a gonk, and this borg is just looming over him. Pilar looks down to the electronic key he had to Maine's car and he says, ‘Well you can’t really blame me for this, your security sucks.’ And Maine just glares.” Rebecca spoke standing on top of the couch we were all sitting around at.

Somehow after the shooting range Rebecca had decided we all needed to party some more and here we were.

“Did Maine bash his head in?” I asked, and Rebecca started cackling.

“No, it's better! Maine looks down at the electronic key, and hits my bro where it hurts, he says. ‘Your toy didn’t work, so I can.’ And PIlar the fucking Gonk, gets outraged. ‘It would have worked if it wasn’t for that fucking kid!’ And points at Sasha.”

I chuckle at the image of younger Sasha being a little shit as Rebecca continued.

“So Maine basically dragged Pilar to the car and forced Pilar to try again, and it actually worked! Pilar really did make a working hack key for Maine's car. So Maine decided if he could do that, he could do it for other rides, and so Pilar was brought into Maines crew.” Rebecca explained and I laughed at the end of the story.

I looked over and saw that while I was interested in Rebecca’s story the rest of my chooms weren’t that into it. They were each distracted by their own thing. Hiromi had disappeared at some point, while Malcolm and Ichi had both been distracted by one of the girls on the dance floor.

I smirked at their very obvious stares, and the fact she was at least a few years older, and obviously not interested.

“How’re they doing anyways?” I asked, trying to sound casual, as Rebecca took a sip from her drink.

“Same old. Sasha is getting more freedom, things are cooling down. Maine even traveled to the Afterlife to check in for some work. They didn’t tell me if something came up though.” She explained, but at the end I picked it up. A hint of bitterness.

Rebecca had been a bit squirrely about joining us for range day at first. I looked her over and she noticed before sighing.

“It’s nothing. Just pissed that Maine is still treating me like a hanger on, and not a member.” She offered, and I nodded at that. It must grind at her, to have us accept her so readily, and Maine still hesitates.

I would just have to keep offering her honey until she was fully a member of Section 9, and Maine could go jump off a bridge.

I nodded. Yeah, Operation Steal Rebecca was working out wonderfully.

Movement to the side caught my eye and I looked up to see Judy approaching suddenly.

“Hey, I heard you were up here.” She greeted, and I offered her a smile and a wave.

“Yep. We are doing a celebration day. Hey Judy, how’re you?”“Tired.” She decided after a moment and without a word she sat down. A drink in her hand earned her full attention for a few moments, and then she sighed as she finished. “I really liked your music BD.” She finally said and I blinked in surprise at the response.

“Oh.”

“So uh. Here.” She said, pulling out a shard and offering it to me. I took it and realized with a quick scan that it was just my Red Dirt Gig BD on a shard. I looked at it in confusion and turned to Judy and she sort of sighed. “Would you sign it?” She asked, and I very slowly blinked. Forcing my eyes to close and then open to make sure this was reality.

“What?”“What Music BD?” Rebecca asked, interrupting my own confusion as she stood up on the seat and peered over the table at what I was holding.

“I did a performance, like up on stage a while back.” I explained, a little awkwardly. “I just played some songs, but I gave Judy the raws for my BD’s and I scrolled one then.” I looked up at Judy. “You want me to… Sign it?”

“Please.” She agreed. “That thing is going to be worth eddies in a few years.” She said surprisingly confidently and I felt a little odd.

“What?”

Judy just rolled her eyes at me. “Motoko, you have technical skill, and you’re good at writing songs. You sing with emotion, you play well, you’ve made new songs, songs that aren’t corpo trash. People are already starting to like your music.” She explained and I just looked away awkwardly, which didn’t help, but Rebecca was right there.

“Okay this I want to see. You mind letting me see?” Rebecca asked Judy, who nodded waving her hand. “Sure, but only if Motoko actually signs it.” She said again, smirking at me, as I looked at the shard.

I breathed in and out.

“Sure.” I said after a moment. It didn’t matter. I took the marker Judy had and signed it, and a moment later, she took the BD and popped it into a BD case, and then pulled out a different one and handed it to Rebecca.

“Here.” She offered and Rebecca grinned as she took it, and grabbed one of the BD wreaths that were all over the bar, and settled in. I watched as she slipped the shard inside and then as she slumped back into the world of the BD.

“You doing alright?” Judy asked suddenly. I looked at her in confusion and she looked a little bashful.

“Yeah why?”“You looked pretty uncomfortable when I asked for your autograph. Figured… Nah it’s nothing. You being careful? New artists can get in trouble in Night City. Especially ones that don’t have backing to protect them.”

I opened my mouth to blow off the question, but instead took it seriously. Breathing in and out I figured out what to say.

“I’m not extremely worried. Hiromi has good Corpo training. She’ll see most of the traps coming… I hope. And it’s pretty hard to threaten me physically. I’m confident in killing anyone that tries to make a run for me, unless they are absolutely top tier mercs… But yeah. I’m still a little uncomfortable with it I guess.”

Judy nodded, sipping at her drink some more. “Well, I can’t offer much.” She admitted softly glaring towards the corner of the room which I followed her eyes and saw none other than Suzie Q. “Suzie’s been pulling back on a lot of our work helping people lately. She’ll just say you aren’t one of us, so why should she offer to help.”

“I appreciate that you want to help Judy, you’ve always been cool with me, even with all my crazy shit. Well other than when you sold my BD without asking.” I said pointedly.

“Just don’t dump another Only Thing BD on me without a fucking warning, you cyberpyscho…” She said purposefully avoiding what I said. “But just because the Mox won’t help… Doesn’t mean the Mox won’t help. Maybe even as an apology as well.” She offered, and I nodded, she was basically offering what she could, and I appreciated it a lot.

We both went silent after. Judy relaxing and enjoying her drink, and seemingly absorbing the atmosphere of the club, while I went back to watching the boys who had both been shot down by the girl they had their eye on. Both boys had deflated pretty badly when she had gone for some older pretty boy with a fake platinum chain, who was trying too hard to look rich.

Which is hilarious, because if the girl was interested in eddies. Ichi and Malcolm definitely had more, my chooms were loaded thanks to me.

Well, I looked over at Malcolm. His tendency towards expensive cars might mean he wasn’t as loaded as he appeared.

Did my chooms have money problems still? We hadn’t really discussed it much. I mostly let Hiromi handle money and I expected my choices to be good, but I was also weird about eddies, and Ichi had his Grandma, and Malcolm had his family…

I moved around the still Braindancing Rebecca and settled in next to the chooms.

“Hey guys.”“Motoko.” Malcolm greeted with a grumble. The boy was practically face down on the table.

“Don’t worry about it choom. She wasn’t the sort of girl you wanted anyways.” I offered, but Malcolm just sent me a look.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“I wasn’t going to marry her Motoko.” Malcolm replied, and Ichi and I both snorted at the same time. Ichi’s failure as well, seemed to weigh on him less as he patted Malcolm on the back.

“It’s alright Choom.” He offered and Malcolm sighed.

“But we both failed. I really wanted to beat you.” He whined and Ichi laughed.

“Not all bets work out.” Ichi replied and I blinked at that.

“You guys bet on who could pick up a girl?”“Well… Yeah?” Ichi said, blushing a little. “It was just a bro bet.” He offered and I looked confused as Malcolm sort of faux coughed.

“It was just to mess with each other, Motoko. We would have teased whoever lost, but uh, We both did. Bummer.”

“Well, I’m kinda glad you did. That girl looks like trouble.”

“I wasn’t going to date her either.” Malcolm whispered into a sigh, looks like Malcolm didn’t care if she was trouble or not.

We all relaxed, and eventually Malcolm perked up, returning to shooting the shit with Ichi, and girl watching.

I mean Lizzies was a BD bar, so I wasn’t sure if this was really the best place to try and pick up girls, but boys will be boys.

“Woo!” Rebecca suddenly cried out and I jumped a bit reaching for my gun before relaxing. “That was NOVA!” She cried out jumping up onto the table as she pulled off the Wreath, I noticed Judy grabbing it and taking the shard a moment later.

Then Rebecca turned to me.

“What the hell!? You’ve been holding out on me, Strings!”

“Strings?”“Yeah, you definitely ain’t a kitten! You played those strings like a pro!” Rebecca offered and I smiled at the fact I had apparently earned an upgraded nickname before Rebecca flopped onto the table in front of me, staring me in the eye.

“Why didn’t I get an invite huh? Your choom Becca wants to go to a fucking awesome concert you know?”

“Sorry.” I answered back, but I was definitely a bit uncomfortable. Rebecca was a bit close. “I just didn’t really want to invite anyone for it? It was supposed to just be a me thing, and someone invited Jun, and then it spread.” I said giving a side eye to my chooms who looked away.

Rebecca glared at me for a moment longer before switching into a smirk. “Fine, I’ll forgive you, but I get free tickets to all your shows!” She demanded and I just laughed back.

“Sure Rebecca. All of my many future shows that I’m totally planning.” I said with a roll of my eyes. How many gigs would I really do in the future? Like… Two? I was really only doing this for fun.

—--

That night I spent a while working on the Tachikoma. Cleaning up more of its code, slimming it down again, making sure what it actually needed to know was saved while junk code was removed.

I was basically letting the Tachikoma tell me what it had learned through the day and then I was cutting or reinforcing the data to make sure it was accurate.

No Tachikoma-chan, Jun’s head wasn’t a good place to place the metal blocks. I literally have no idea where you came up with that idea…

Okay so I may have saved that particular data and might maybe use it later, but that was beside the point!

Random processes could pop up with decisions that I had to remove because they were absurd.

And so the night went. Tachikoma was currently inhabiting its actual shell, and I was pruning its decision making as I also sometimes took control, and practiced moving around. It was a good combo, letting me teach the Tachikoma directly what I wanted it to do.

I was idly listening to the radio as I worked, my mind a blur of programming meaning I wasn’t really paying attention, until suddenly I heard it. A familiar set of chords.

The intro to a song that I was incredibly familiar with, because I had played those chords.

I turned away from Tachikoma, as Growl FM began playing The Pretender.

To hear Foo Fighters on the radio? It was nostalgic, it was… Nice. Even if I couldn’t stop shivering at the sound of my own vocals.

That was me.

I listened until the song ended, until it moved onto another song from someone I’ve never heard of.

But… That was going to keep happening. I was on the radio now.

The sound of something falling over had me turn and I stared at the Tachikoma. I was still plugged into it, synced in, but I had stopped acting, so it had taken over its controls again and followed through with the instructions I had been giving it. The set of blocks were pushed off the edge of the table.

I let myself refocus, smiling at the little bot correctly doing what it was supposed to.

“Good job Tachikoma-Chan.”

—--

The slap of fists into the padding was filling the air as Hayato and I went at it. I had woken up feeling like doing some fist fighting, and invited Hayato for a workout.

She spun, letting off a spinning kick which was pretty outside of her normal move set, as she usually didn’t like taking her eyes away from her enemies thanks to her Keren giving her increased perception.

I could only assume it felt like a long time as you spun around that you simply had no idea what was happening.

I braced letting the kick land on my forearms, which if not for her shin padding she’d have felt it more than I would before, charging in to grapple.

“Nooo!” She howled rapid fire as I grabbed her and lifted her bodily off the floor before slamming her down into the tatami mats.

The sound of her breath blown out of her was my signal for victory.

I gave her a few moments to catch her breath before I had to tease her a bit.

“That was an impressive kick.” I offered and she pushed me away with a scowl.

“You and your stupid defense! Moron!” She yelled at me, and even sent a faux kick from the floor that made me jump up and away laughing.

“That was a bad time to kick.”“It should have worked! You don’t have a Keren, and you aren’t using your Sandy!”

“You practically told me what you were doing. Your eyes kept flickering, and you were light on that leg, it was obvious you were psyching yourself up for a big kick.”

“Ugh!” She hissed glaring, standing up and wiping some of her hair from her forehead. Strands sticking with how much she was sweating. We had been at this for a while. The two of us, going at it, and to my surprise Hayato hadn’t cut it short like she had last time.

We were just pitting ourselves against each other for the win.

“You will have to tell me what make of Syn-Lungs you are using.” She said, sounding a little out of breath as she stood up and resumed her stance.

“I don’t have any. I’m still using my natural ones.” I said as I retook my stance as well.

For a moment Hayato looked irritated, before it disappeared. But I still caught tiny snippet of her cursing under her breath. “-StupidExcercisenut!”

“Hayato?”“Prepare yourself!” She shouted out and then charged, and we were back at it, blows coming in, once again I was on the back foot from her Keren’s speed, giving her so much time to adapt and adjust for each of my blows, whenever I did go on the offensive, she was frustratingly elusive, slipping and ducking each blow as casual as could be.

I jerked back and she got a nice punch through smashing into my cheek, but I jerked with the hit and retaliated by grabbing onto her extended arm.

“Ohnotthisagaiiiiiin!” She yowled, as I gave her a nice hip toss sending her tumbling onto the mat, and once I had her down, her enhanced perception wasn’t strong enough to stop me from pinning her again.

“This is supposed to be a match for good martial arts, not dirty grappling.” She grumbled, and I just laughed at her.

“Grappling happens in every fight once you aren’t in a ring. You’d best get used to it. Make sure it doesn’t catch you by surprise. Besides, Jiu-Jitsu is a great martial art.”

I ignored her grumbling as I let her up and once again she rose up to her feet to go again. I laughed and we went back into it.

Whatever had happened in her life to give her this much energy was pretty fun.

I just continued fighting, enjoying the slow trickle of Street Brawling, and Body alerts I was getting as we smashed into each other. “Hayato-Sama.” Her guard called out suddenly and I pulled back, I saw the flash of fury over the girls face before it blanked out.

“I ordered not to be disturbed.” She spoke simply quietly, and actually slow paced. It told me she was honestly pissed.

“Forgive me Hayato-Sama. Nakagawa-Sama demanded I interrupt. You are requested at home.” He offered apologetically even bowing to the girl as she glared and just breathed in slowly in and out.

“Very well. I will have to cut our match short.” She told me, and I nodded.

“Till next time.” I offered, and she nodded seemingly pleased that I wasn’t upset at her sudden leaving. I took a moment to put our pads away in the storage chests around the area, and then headed for the showers.

A quick shower to wash the sweat away was enough for me to feel better as I left the dojo, I would have to come back again tomorrow for another match with someone. I really wanted to get my Blades and Street Brawling skills up. Relying only on guns was the hallmark of a bad assassin after all!

What was the movie again? Leon the Professional? Yeah that sounded right. Sure taking advice on assassination from Hollywood was a mistake, but it sounded right, so I was going to go-

I stopped. A horde of TC gangsters were sitting on my car. I took it all in, reading the body language, and instantly knew shit was about to go down.

What the fuck?

“Go on. Don’t stop walking.” A voice behind me had me turn and there was Musashi, and a few of the guys from the Dojo. All of them with live blades at their sides. Well now, this was unexpected.

I went to start hacking into everyone around me as I slowly turned to keep both groups in sight as if I was taking in what was happening and not already plotting to kill them all, when I felt it. A Netrunner was in their system protecting them. They hit me with the equivalent of an electronic slap, trying to push me out of the system and give me a warning that they were there.

I might be able to break through their defenses and attack, but I had no connection to them, even while they had one to me.

I was on the defensive until I could get them in sight. Thankfully they were attacking me, and I could back trace it easily enough. A line of golden light went through the walls around the Dojo. They were there.

“What’s going on?” I demanded, trying to get some information about what the hell was going on, but Musashi behind me scoffed. He took a few steps forward that told me he was some sort of ring leader here.

“That is none of your concern. You will be coming with us. Perhaps if you are quiet, and do not irritate me, I won’t get to enjoy showing you true talent with a blade?” He asked aloud, looking at the gangsters around us that were all grinning amused.

I glanced back at him and just had to wonder. What were these idiots thinking? I wasn’t important to the TC, but I had connections.

“You realize my Brother the Oni, won’t take this lightly. Nor will Fujimura-Sama.” I spoke, and then to my surprise I was slapped. I had seen it coming. Musashi had telegraphed the move just fine, so I jerked my head as he struck to lighten the hit, but he still did it.

“Don’t bring up Fujimura-Sama’s name so casually. Your Brother is one of the reasons we are speaking. You will come with us. Moritaka-Sama commands it.” He continued calmly, and I realized that Musashi for all his Samurai aesthetic was a dirtbag.

“If Moritaka wants to speak with me there are proper ways to do this. Are you sure this is how this needs to go down?” I asked, but I was already ready.

“You are nothing but a welp, and Moritaka wants to ensure the Oni knows his place. You will-”

I leapt bouncing well past Musashi’s reach as he tried to reach out. I flipped, landing on the edge of the wall surrounding the dojo and then flipping inside, out of sight of anyone.

So this was about Jun? What he had done? Who was Moritaka? And most importantly… How many of these fools should I kill for this?

As I landed I faced a woman, early twenties probably? She glanced up in surprise at my sudden appearance.

And then I leapt forward pushing all of my power into a punch slamming her stupid face into the concrete wall behind her.

The golden light connecting me to the Netrunner that was trying to protect these fools cut off.

Getting your ass knocked unconscious will tend to disrupt hacking attempts.

I watched her slump, blood already gushing down her broken nose.

*250 XP Gained.*

So she was still alive. I ignored her and leapt again, this time just avoiding the first gunshot from one of Musashi’s goons.

Looks like despite carrying blades they had guns too.

Screams of surprise from the vendors that surrounded the inside walls rang out, and suddenly it was a madhouse.

But I was leaping up onto the roof of the Dojo and from there I disappeared. Time to get to work.