Ghost in the City

Chapter 206

“Motokooooo!” I blinked looking away from my lunch.

“Hey Hiromi.” I greeted as she rushed inside the apartment and leapt onto the couch. “Shouldn’t you be at school?”

“Noooo!” She whined and I just watched her until finally she stopped. “Yes, technically. But more importantly, Section 9 needs to sell some of the goods we picked up, and I set up some sales today. Guard my body?” She asked, suddenly throwing her head back as she lay on the couch. If this was an old movie, she’d have asked me to paint her like a french girl or something.

“Goof.” I told her as I reached out and poked her nose causing her to shift a bit more backwards and end up flat on her back. “Let me finish my lunch?”

“If you must! Ichi is downstairs in the truck.”

“Poor Ichi.” I said and then grabbed my lunch and took a big bite.

I continued to eat as Hiromi lay on the couch looking up at me upside down and it took until she reached out and poked my side that I realized she was focusing on something.

“Hiromi? I’m not ticklish, you know.” I said as her fingers were exploring my side. Showing no signs of stopping.

“Shush Motoko. If you are going to make me wait, then I’m going to enjoy the view.” She said and I laughed at that, but she was pressing against my side with a look of something on her face.

“Shush.” She instantly hissed and then shook herself off as she sat. “I don’t think I could get those kind of muscles even if I worked out a lot Motoko. Jeez. What did you do to yourself?”

“Yesterday was a big workout day.” I said blandly, not giving anything away. “I’m pretty satisfied though.”

“Yeah me too,”

“Hmm?”

“Nothing! You done yet?”

“Ugh.” I grumbled as I grabbed the remains of my food and started stuffing it down. Can’t even enjoy my own lunch in peace!

—--

“-Should cover the entire purchase.” Hiromi offered, smiling at the Tino gangsters. They looked over the array of junk we had laid out. Although Hiromi had called it valuable merchandise, it was stuff like entertainment systems, and other electronics from the mansion.

I was keeping an eye out as the bodyguard, but was fighting my own boredom as Hiromi worked.

Just as I was thinking this entire thing was going to be boring. I noticed trouble.

A vehicle, the low riding Villefort Alvarado pulling into the parking lot, and then another pickup behind it.

I instantly sent a call to Ichi, as I casually started scanning and preparing to breach into targets.

I was still leaning against the van behind me, and I smirked as I felt the shift inside as the HMG’s activated. The door was still up, but it would only take a moment.

“Hiromi. We have company.” I called as the vehicles approached, and she went still glancing at me, and I nodded, as I walked over beside her, and made sure she was in reach. I might need to pull her out of danger if this went bad.

Out from the front vehicle jumped an obvious Tino. Gold and chrome on full display as he looked around, including at the stuff we had out for the gonks we were selling to to look over.

“Well ain’t this interesting!” He called out, and I knew from his tone this was going to be trouble.

“Good afternoon!” Hiromi offered chirping happily. “We have plenty of things for sale! I hope you find something you like!” She chirped, as if chocolate wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

But I was focused on the men getting out of the truck, a little too casually.

“Yeah? Chica, you think you have anything I want? Hell, you even know what I want?” He asked mocking, and I glared at his tone.

Yeah this wasn’t good.

Hiromi realized it too, as her smile shifted from fake saleswoman to a more serious stare.

“Then excuse me, I obviously misunderstood. What do you want?”

“I want to know why a couple of chinks are on my turf with a shit ton of scop!” He growled and kicked one of the bottles of booze we had been hawking.

It shattered against the van after sailing past Hiromi and I. Suddenly the air stank of fruit and alcohol. And I realized this wasn’t going well.

“We’re leaving.” I said, and stepped in front of Hiromi a bit pushing her back towards the van. But the leader of this Tino group wasn’t going to let that stand.

“The fuck you are!” He pulled a Nova out of his jacket, and pointed the revolver at us, and it was only because I had already started breaching into him that I was able to upload a weapon glitch. The moment he drew, my hands grabbed Hiromi and pulled her away, the only reason he didn’t get a bullet immediately back.

I continued to keep Hiromi behind me as I stared him down, realizing with pleasure he wasn’t pulling the trigger yet. I went to work, uploading weapon glitches into the group as fast as I could, letting him have what he wanted.

Time to monologue.

“You fucking chink bitches! You think you can come on down to our turf, and flash your scop, like you some high tower, Clouds fucking dolls?” He snapped and it took me a moment to parse that I think he was calling Hiromi and I whores?

Man sometimes people just didn’t make a lick of fucking sense.

“We work with Padre. Not sure what the problem is here.” I offered, and Hiromi thankfully was remaining huddled behind me.

“Fucking Padre? The fuck you take me for? Some dumb cunt like you? I’m going to send a message to you chinks about coming out here!” He scoffed and it was only then that I heard it, that we all heard it.

The click of his Nova failing to fire.

So I reacted. I activated my Sandy, to give myself just a moment longer.

I moved doing everything I could in the short time I had with the Sandy active, continuing to hack as many of them as I could. I started to push Hiromi back and drew my Burya, but I aborted it and instead grabbed Hiromi and leapt, pushing my body between hers and the gunmen.

While their leader's gun failed, Where a few of the others weapons failed to fire. Some of the others didn’t have any such trouble, I had only gotten through about eighty percent of the group.

I managed to just get around the Van, when I heard the rear van doors open, and the cries of shock from the Tino’s. I rushed, pushing Hiromi with me towards the cab. We piled inside, Hiromi screaming out in shock and fear at everything and Ichi didn’t even need to hear my order to start driving as we basically jumped half in before he hit the gas, and his Van peeled out, the HMG’s firing behind us, and I had no idea how effective it was, because not long after I heard the noise, we were down the street.

I had pushed Hiromi into the passenger seat and I was holding on mostly by digging my hands into the furniture of the cab, but as we managed to get mostly away I felt it. A pain that ran up my back.

“Fuck fuck fuck!” Hiromi was screaming aloud, absolutely freaking out as she started to adjust herself so she wasn’t just half pushed over the center console. I looked her over, my eyes scanning and felt relieved when I realized she hadn’t been hit.

“Fuck is right.” I said, and was surprised at how weak my voice sounded in my own ears, I reached back and when I brought my hand back it was covered in blood.

Owe. Getting shot stings.

“Motoko!?”

“Gonna need to hit Viks.” I said, as strongly as I could as I just managed to adjust myself and reach into my pouch for a Maxdoc.

I don’t know how many times I had been shot, but I definitely had been.

I popped the Maxdoc and instantly everything became clearer.

Grunting a bit I shifted, getting myself better wedged inside, so I wouldn’t fall out and so I could look out the van to check behind us.

Looked clear.

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“Oh my God. Motoko!”

“It’s fine Hiromi.” I said without even looking. “Just get me to Viks.” I assured her, even though I knew it had been a bit more serious than that. I felt her hand leaping onto my bag and looked over to realize she had taken off her jacket and was holding it against my back.

Oh. She ruined her jacket. I didn’t have any way to tell her I was fine, so instead I just flashed her a smile.

“Looks like they aren’t chasing.” I said towards Ichi, and I took in his pale face, and white knuckled grip on the steering wheel. “Ichi, you okay you didn’t get hit did you?”

“I’m fine! My cab is armored.” He said back sounding frantic and I relaxed a bit enough to close the door and lean back a bit into Hiromi.

“That sucked.” I decided and Hiromi gave a sound between a sob and an agreement all at once.

—--

“She’ll live.” Vik assured Hiromi who had been hovering since I climbed down the steps despite her fussing over me the whole time. He looked to me, then to Hiromi. “Her subdermal caught it, and she didn’t bleed that badly. She’ll be fine. I’ve already given her some stuff to help heal it up.”

Vik’s words finally seemed to get through and Hiromi slumped, and I stepped out of the section he had covered off with a curtain already putting my jacket back on.

Dammit. The bullet had gone right through my jacket and leotard. I’d have to fix that. Again.

“See? I’m fine.” I said with a chipper smile.

“Motoko!” Hiromi leapt at me, but came up short and sort of dithered, so I pulled her into a hug.

“I’m fine. Just a scratch.” I told her, and looked past her shoulder to see Vik and mouth a thank you towards him.

He nodded, and that was that.

“Now, we have something a bit more important than my scrapes to talk about.” I said and Hiromi pulled away looking like she was going to argue with me about downplaying my wounds, but she stopped when she saw my face.

“They die. I’m going to kill them. Every single one of them.” I told her, and I noticed Vik looking back over in surprise at the tone of my voice.

“Yeah. They… They can’t get away with this.” She said and I nodded.

“That’s right. We’ll need to hit my netrunner cave. I need to know exactly who needs to die.”

—--

“Shit choom, you alright?” Malcolm asked, and there was something in his voice. I nodded and threw him a thumbs up.

“It was minor, and Ichi drove me to Viks. I’m fine Malcolm.”

“Good, that’s good. Don’t worry me like that.” He said and I just nodded, because I could understand why Malcolm was twitchy about it.

We were all gathering at the Netrunner cave. Because of course I was going to have to do another dive.

I dropped the to-go order of Ramen on the table and dug in, as Malcolm greeted Ichi and Hiromi, checking in with everyone.

I needed to eat, and then I was going to dive. As the broth hit my tongue it let me think for a moment about what had just happened.

Was it just a normal theft? My instincts said yes, but either way it wasn't acceptable.

Those men and women that had jumped us were going to die, and it was going to be loud, and obvious.

Hiromi had nearly gotten shot, and I took it personally whenever I took a bullet.

“I got a response back from Padre.” Hiromi said, as she settled into the table opposite me, she pushed around the food we had grabbed on our way over but didn’t look interested in eating it.

“What did he say?”

“Nothing important, but he isn’t going to get involved one way or another. The guys might have misstepped but he isn’t going to do anything about it.”

“Well if he doesn’t want to get involved. I don’t want to hear him complain aftwards about any damage we do.” I replied with a shrug.

“I want to pilot the Minotaur.” She said suddenly and I looked up at her in surprise.

“What?”

“I know you Motoko. You’ll want to bring it along, but Ichi won’t be driving it this time. I will.” Hiromi said firmly. And there was a deadly edge to her voice.

That’s right. I might have been the one shot, but Hiromi had almost been shot, and she didn’t handle that well.

“Sure. You have to tell Ichi though.” I teased, but she just nodded without rising to my teasing.

Fair enough. If Hiromi needed some safe revenge, then she would get it.

“Alright, catch Rebecca up when she gets here, I’m going to jump into the net.”

“Got it. Be safe.” Hiromi whispered and I just flashed her a confident smile as I walked over, settling in and putting on my netrunner cap to keep my brain cool.

Then I blinked and I was in my lobby.

The room greeted me like usual, and I noticed the Tachikoma were still doing the learning tasks I had put them towards, so with that I jumped into the net itself.

I remembered the area, the fact was there were plenty of shops in the area for me to get some camera perspectives from.

I wasn’t going to let these gonks get away.

—--

“I’m back.” I called out and stretched, folding over a bit to touch my toes with a grunt before rising up.

“Jeeze Strings, should I start calling you Stretch?” Rebecca asked, and I just laughed.

“What you can’t touch your toes?” I asked innocently.

“Sure I can, but like hell I can bend myself in half like that.” She grumbled and I just laughed a bit. My mood had improved now that I knew where the gonks had gone.

“Okay so we have their names, their homes, and where they are.” I said and Ichi and Hiromi were still going over the data on the laptop both looked up and nodded. Hiromi looked furious as she read over the information I had gathered.

“A bunch of overconfident dolts? This is what nearly…” Hiromi trailed off, and I nodded.

I didn’t have the heart to explain to her, that sometimes that’s all it took. A single idiot with a gun can do a lot of damage.

“A bunch of dead men.” I said instead, catching Hiromi’s eyes as she nodded firmly. “Alright. We got the data, and we have the target. Let’s lock in our plan here.” I offered and everyone gathered around.

The boys had an old abandoned shop they had taken over. At least the records didn’t indicate anyone should be in there.

“I can’t believe they took everything.” Hiromi grumbled, and I shrugged. Looking at the video of the Tino, after shooting at us, picking up and taking everything we had come to sell.

“It’s fine. It’ll be our loot twice over. Nothing better than double looted loot.” I said jokingly and she sent me a smile that didn’t last.

Yeah Hiromi was still bothered.

It pissed me off too.

I was strong, skilled enough I could fight entire groups of people, but as a bodyguard I was limited. I wasn’t bullet proof.

I was no Adam Smasher. Not yet anyways. I couldn’t block bullets…

Yet.

I looked over, at my equipment piled up on one of the tables.

I needed to level up Blades to 10, to unlock the perk that would teach me how to deflect bullets…

Yeah, I needed to get my skills up to ten, to get more perks. A lot of my strength came from the perks. So I needed more of them.

My Reflex Stat was still stuck at 9, and it was taking forever to level up. That would be my hyper focus from now on.

“Alright. Let’s take these gonks out. I want to get our stuff back.”

—--

It was time.

I nodded to Malcolm and Rebecca, both of them loaded and armored up.

We had pulled up in the alley behind the supposedly empty store front the Tino boys had taken over and were just waiting on the signal.

It didn’t take long. The sound of a big truck braking was rather unmistakable. Then the sound of the doors opened.

*Go.* I ordered out and lept, crossing the barbed wire fence in a single leap. Malcolm and Rebecca both pushed through a cut through the fence we had made and we rushed in.

The Tino inside still had no idea what was happening, and it was too late for them.

I had breached their security. Each of them had their weapon glitched out, and I had already prepped a Short Circuit in case they actually tried anything.

Then we reached the back door, and I entered the old storefront with a bang as I kicked in the door.

I didn’t bring my Copperhead like I normally would have. Instead one of my hands held my Katana, the fine blade cleaned and ready, the other my Lexington.

Then it was on. The back room was mostly empty, but the golden lights of Ping gave me easy paths straight towards the enemies.

I leapt, clearing the six foot tall shelves, and then spinning around to the other side.

The first gonk was rising from an old couch that had been hauled back here facing a TV and he screamed as my Katana flashed out.

Then he stopped screaming.

*500 XP Gained.*

Before I turned I already heard gunshots.

Smart Rounds shot over the shelves towards the front where one of the men had opened the door to find out what was going on, Malcolm took him out. The homing rounds thunked into his head and chest and he went down.

I charged, sword leading the way as I burst into the main room, to find all of the others. Our loot was laying on a table in the center being picked through, some of it I noticed already damaged, or in use, as the alcohol was obviously being used.

I charged not towards any of the normal gonks, but the one that I wanted more than any other.

The leader. The one that had dared to start all of this.

He yelped as he saw me charging with an open blade and brought up his Nova, which once again clicked as it failed to fire.

Then I tackled him to the floor.

“Aaaaahahahahaha!” Came out a moment later, as Rebecca had used the time to get herself set up.

Suddenly the wall between the back of the store and the front was swiss cheesed as HMG rounds blasted through it, and the gonks turned into blood chunky salsa as high explosive rounds ripped into them.

But my gonk was on the ground, avoiding the bullets Rebecca was sending through as I started pistol whipping him in the face over and over. While using my sword to keep his hands back by just putting it into the path of his fists as he tried to lash out.

The screaming got loud, and I heard at least one of them try to make a break for it, only for even more noise to echo out and the front of the store to shatter as Hiromi was there in the Minotaur. Twin HMG’s turned one specific gonk into nothing but mist as Hiromi made sure to vent her frustration.

Then as I continued to beat the gonk until he stopped I looked up and realized it was over.

Standing up, I sheathed the Katana, and holstered the Lexington.

“Clear!” I called out, and heard the repeated phrase from the back section of the store.

I reached down to the still moaning gonk and grabbed him by his stupid overly product filled hair and started dragging. Ignoring his moans of pain and cries as I dragged him out of the store through the broken front and right in front of the Minotaur.

Hiromi looked down in the massive machine for a moment, and he blinked through his bruised face looking up into the face of a massive robot and he raised his hands probably to plead for his life.

Hiromi lifted a large heavy foot and stomped down.

I winced, because that was going to take forever to clean out.

“Alright! Let’s get looting!” I called out, turning to Malcolm and Rebecca. Already plenty of Tino toughs were around looking at what was going on, but none seemed to want to approach.

Which made sense.

The Behemoth moved closer, practically right up to the now broken windows as it opened up to allow everyone to start looting, while I walked over to the cab.

“You good?” I whispered quietly to Hiromi who was still controlling the Minotaur.

“I’m good.” She said firmly, none of the waver in her voice. “Thanks Motoko.”

“Sure.” I responded back as gently as I could. “Talk to me if you need to.” I demanded and then climbed back out and adjusted myself. Wiping a bit of blood off the front of my helmet I looked over at the audience.

I took a breath and then pulled off my helmet. Jerking my head a bit to settle my hair I dropped the helmet on the ground and sauntered over to the watchers.

I could see the surprise run through them as I approached.

It didn’t take long as I crossed the street before one of them stepped forward a bit more than the others. The leader.

“This was personal business. Has nothing to do with the rest of you.” I called out a bit loudly. “We won’t give you any trouble, if you don’t start any”

“You just walked in and killed some chooms on our turf. You think that’s just gonna be dropped?”

“It will. We took a job from Padre. Went above and beyond.” I continued to speak loudly, and at the name drop faces shifted. “Everything went nova. We flatlined his target, like requested. And grabbed some spare loot. We were selling it to a client. Normal shit, no trouble, everyone was going to walk home happy. Until these gonks showed up. They pulled iron. Shot at me and my chooms. I still have a bullet hole in my ass because of them.”

I got a few actual snorts of laughter from the boys at my joke, but then I went serious.

“They died. All of them. Badly.” I said, and the leader took a step back as my casual voice shifted into something sinister. “So take it as the gonks getting a direct lesson on not fucking with someone out of their league. Now. My chooms and I are going to clean up our stuff, and get out of here. If we aren’t bothered. It’ll be quick. If we are bothered. We brought enough firepower that we won’t be running.”

I think Hiromi in the Minotaur still stomping around gave my point rather direct connotations.

A moment later the leader guy nodded.

“I’ll talk to Padre.” He offered instead of any agreement. Not showing weakness, but not stepping on my toes.

I nodded and just walked away.

Thank fuck that worked. I didn’t look forward to starting my own gang war today.