Ghost in the City

I was wincing internally as I was getting alerts from my netrunner chair about my temp.

My Cyberdeck wasn’t made for shit like this! It specialized in quick hacks, for breaking and entering! Not… Video games!

Fucking Sasha! My GPU was ten years out of date, and you threw me into a next gen max graphic game!

I almost burst into laughter at the thought, but the Balrog coming through the trash pile to our left, literally blasting through junk data, burning a hole through everything in its way was rather distracting.

“Sasha! Balrog!”

“Bal-what? Oh. Yeah.” She said turning from where she was… Cooling off.

This fucking! She really didn’t do anything but the biggest most RAM intensive hacks she could! I was going to kill her! I’ll drown her in her probably boiling ice bath!

“Relax kitten!” She said throwing me a smile despite the fact I was already preparing defenses for an attack I could see coming in.

She went to work, even as I blocked another barrage of missiles, and a newly growing squad of Daemon grunts. She activated her hack, that big energy attack prepped appeared, even as the Balrog charged at me. I put my faith in her and focused on keeping her safe, and just as the Daemon started melting my ICE walls the attack went out.

The destructive data wave hit the Daemon, and instantly ripped a hole through it, literally ripped apart, as its data was systematically merged into itself. To my eyes it looked like its insides had been blended, and that disrupted the Daemon enough it fell, instantly shattering into broken data.

“See? Nothing to worry abou-” Sasha mid sentence stopped. We both looked down, where through her chest there was now a large hole as wide as my fist.

I looked over at the netrunners. And one was pointing a finger at her, where the beam of energy had come from.

They had some sort of sniping hack? I couldn’t help but wonder how that worked. How had it cut through my defenses? I could think of a few ways to do something similar. I guess it was definitely possible, definitely something I could make myself.

Sasha fell beside me and instantly burst into light.

*NEKO OUT!* A voice boomed out over the arena.

She wasn’t dead.

She wasn’t. She wasn’t wasn’t wasn’t dead. I hadn’t done what I could to save her, to have her die in this stupid game.

She wasn’t dead, she said it herself. It was safe. I could see that she hadn’t been sent out of the net, just pulled from the arena. That was definitely part of the system that meant she was alive.

Right.

Right.

Right.

Right!

“FUCKERS!” I roared aloud.

I wasn’t an ace netrunner. I was good. Probably better than 90% of the runners out there, but I was limited in that I focused more on real life use from a cyberdeck. ṛÄΝȪᛒËȿ

My hacks weren’t ones I made myself in here. My deck wasn’t suited for it, these two absolutely should beat me.

But none of that entered my mind as I roared out every ounce of rage, and simultaneously activated my Sandevistan.

They had killed Sasha, I’d fucking end them!

—--

Sasha

“Ow ow ow ow!” She whined as she appeared in the waiting room. The hack that struck her was an altered overheat. So she was definitely going to be feeling that once she disconnected! From her system check she was bleeding from her eyes again.

Dangit! Maine always freaked when she did that, and Dorio would tease her about getting so emotional about the net she would cry blood again! She wanted to punch something. Preferably with her left arm her original left arm. With what was left of her actual flesh and blood and not the fucked up feeling of this chrome one, that she woke up some nights feeling as if it was crawling up her shoulder. Consuming more of her.

Like she had always thought her mothers chrome had consumed her.

But it hadn’t been chrome, it was the medicine. She knew that now! She shook herself.

She didn’t have a cyberware phobia! She had a cyberdeck! She installed scratchers! Her arms had mods for extra strength! It was just…

Her mother had cyber arms after the military…

She blinked, forcing herself to look back at the arena. With a flick of her wrist she changed the view to look at poor Kitten all alone without her senpai!

Shit she had really fucked this one up. She had just wanted some excitement! Being stuck inside all day, and Kitten was such a little noob! It was cute! To find someone at the start of their net journey after already being a badass? It was hilarious! Teasing material!

Of course Sasha only had Rogue’s estimation, and little Becca’s story to know how good Motoko really was. The kid was a bit of an enigma….

Also her crush was so cute! She hadn’t gotten all stuttery again after that first time, but eeee! So cute.

She watched as Motoko reacted to her loss.

Sorry Kohai! You can do it though! Just fight on! You’ll lose but as long as you look cute doing it it’s okay!

Then Motoko screamed.

Sasha’s smile dropped.

Sasha may be alone in her box, but there were easily hundreds of people watching this match. And Sasha knew that people would not be happy with her after this.

Motoko… Did Motoko think she was actually dead?

She had explained it right! That people don’t die in this?

Shit. She had thought it would be cute to drag Motoko in while she was arguing against gambling, but now?

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Motoko didn’t know what was going on. No wonder she had disappeared for so long in the match.

Fuck.

The atmosphere in the arena shifted, as Motoko turned her eyes, once so full of life and delight and now? Now they were a glare of pure hatred.

Becca had told her that Motoko was a killer. Motoko being welcomed to the Afterlife, should have confirmed that.

But it was only now as Sasha looked into Motoko’s eyes. Through the screen. Where Motoko couldn’t see her back, she was sure.

Motoko was a killer, just like she was.

Then Sasha gasped, as Motoko blurred. Speedware!

The kid had activated speedware online. Not unusual, but it left a noticeable effect. Her body distorted, as the server was forced to try and keep up with micro movement of the sent data.

Then Motoko moved.

Sasha blinked in shock and then gasped, because in just a split moment, she had appeared behind the other netrunners.

That was high end breaching! Good shit! Right, Motoko had even breached the server on her own! Not something she would have expected.

A common strategy was to send out Daemons as a distraction, and Breach into the system to get the Minimap first, so you could hide your position from the opposing side. But that wasn’t an easy task for anyone without a lot of experience.

Sasha herself didn’t bother with it, as it took too long. Better to just blast the enemies into bytes and win!

But Motoko had done it solo, without ever seeing the server before. Which now that Sasha was able to think was… Impressive.

The girl didn’t stop, her body glitching, she turned and Sasha flinched.

[HELL FLAME Anh. 2.132]

She had recognized the program. It wasn’t bad, a bit out of date, but its ability to eat into data servers was well liked by runners that had to do anything against AI. Sasha had never done a Blackwall dive, but she knew how it worked. Often throwing up something that could cause server damage would distract the AI for a time letting the runner escape.

But she also knew the hack was pretty RAM intensive.

Around Motoko, in an instant multiple orbs appeared, right after a server jump?

The rezzers reacted, shields were brought up, but it hardly mattered.

A moment later Motoko buzzed around them. Multiple Breach jumps in a row? That was a high end trick, and it left Sasha burned out when she had to do it.

Doing that while also summoning in hacks, as fireballs slammed into each side of the runners shield.

Then before it was even done, she summoned more.

Hell Flame was already eating away at their shields, causing the runners to realize they were in trouble, but the kid wasn’t done. More and more of the Hell Flame built up.

Finally they realized she had them properly pinned and did the smart thing.

They vanished, Breach jumping themselves to escape the flame filled zone.

Well at least Motoko had gotten them to split up, maybe she could-and Sasha gasped, as Suddenly Motoko was just there.

Both of them split up when they jumped, one ended up on the other side of the junk data terrain, while the other split farther off.

But it didn’t matter, before the poor kid had a chance to breathe, Motoko was already there.

A modified Hell Flame, configured into a blade slamming through his defenseless form.

His body distorted.

*D3viant out!*

Fuck. That was fast!

Then Motoko was gone again. Breach jumping over and over until she ran straight towards the second runner.

Sasha was starting to feel more than a little worried. Motoko didn’t have a deck capable of this sort of output. That meant she was overloading. The heat output would be intense… Fuck. Even as she watched she sent a message to Becca.

The second runner had used his moments to prepare, obviously spooked that his choom was taken out so quickly after the breach jump.

Then, Motoko was there.

Skidding to a halt, digital detritus kicked up at her feet as she appeared, already Hell Flame orbs spawned and ready.

He defended, Sasha recognized the shield hack. Some Militech piece of tech, it was alright. Solid defense, but it locked itself in place, no movement in it. It made sense why the rezzer used it. Between him and his choom they had a solid combo. Which is why they were giving her so much grief before.

Unfortunately Motoko had already found a method of cracking it.

Four explosions of fire arced up over it nearly instantly as Motoko breach jumped to each side of the shield, and then even as it burned down she readied a fifth.

“That won’t work twice!” The rezzer yelled, and activated that missile strike attack.

It shot off.

Sasha felt herself stepping closer to the screen. At long range those missiles were just dumbfire data bursts, but with the rezzer right there they locked on.

Yet Motoko didn’t seem to care. Even as the missiles fired off, she stepped back and despite the digital constructs aiming for her, she simply breach jumped through them. Blurring through the barrage of missiles as if dodging rain drops.

Fuck.

Fuck that was… Okay. So maybe Motoko might be a noob, but she certainly wasn’t a rezzer.

That took skill, and Sasha knew for a fact she couldn’t copy that.

She also knew that Motoko shouldn’t be able to keep it up either.

Breach Jumps took a lot of hardware to pull off. Script kiddies couldn’t hope to do it, and most high enders could only do it a few times.

Motoko was burning herself out.

Fuck. Fuck!

Rebecca you better have got her message!

And then it was over.

The barrage ended, and the Hell Flames continued burning down. The Rezzer tried to run for it, and before he could take a step after a Breach Jump that took a long few seconds for him to even activate, she was there cutting him down.

*Mod3d out!*

*Ghost wins!*

And then Sasha was moved. Both Motoko and her were back in the locker room.

“Motoko! Hey! Kid! Fuck!” She charged over, but Motoko took one look at her, and stopped Sasha flat.

She swallowed because…

And then Motoko logged out. The burst of digital static indicating a pretty nasty forced disconnect.

Motoko would have a nasty headache…

If she was even still alive.

Sasha jumped out herself, ignoring the fact she had eddies to collect for a victory. The only person who was supposed to be risking themselves was her! She had to make sure her kohai hadn’t just burned herself alive.

—--

“Fugle.” I cursed as I finally jumped out.

I felt melted, and I could smell burning pork, and I felt bad. Like heat stroke but worse.

I fumbled at my pockets, fingers feeling dumb and useless until I managed to get one into my mouth and huffed it down.

Instantly I felt better. Despite wincing at the heat coming off my neck. Flinching as the heat seemed to surge, but it was actually just my nerves coming back alive.

Weakly I flopped down. The coolant running through my suit was helping, but it was barely enough, I could feel myself still practically sizzling.

Dammit. I had probably damaged my Cyberdeck, and my new neural link.

Fuck, Vik was going to kill me. With that realization I stood up disengaging and hurrying across the room wincing with every step as I turned on the faucet to the sink and instantly just jumping up onto the counter and dunking my head under it.

The near sizzling of the water touching my chrome was really not a good sign.

Double fuck.

That was stupid Motoko, you gonk! You knew she wasn’t dead. You knew she was fine…

I sighed just pressing my head against the cool metal almost wincing at how cold it felt to my definitely overheated brain.

Thinking was hard. Just cool down. I grabbed another MaxDoc, the last one I had on me, and only once I was sure the chrome had cooled off, did I pop it.

The brain fog cleared and I sighed in relief.

I needed to make a call.

*Ringing.*

*Ringing.*

*Ringing.*

*Kid? You alright?*

*Vik, I’m okay-ish. But I need a check up… I definitely overdid it with my cyberdeck. I overheated… It’s bad.*

*Shit. Where are you? Do you need a ride?*

*No, I’m… Feeling better now. And I cooled down already, but I’m worried about my chrome… You in the shop?*

*I will be, meet me there, as soon as you can. Dammit kid.* Vik suddenly hung up, and I sighed partly in relief, and partly for knowing the Vik was going to chew my ass out.

Poking at the back of my neck I could feel the heat still there in my chrome, but it had cooled, now it just felt like I was using it too much.

Dammit. Now my neck felt stiff too, I tried to pop it and got nowhere, which only made the whole situation worse.

Rising up I nearly broke the sink with how quickly I slammed it off.

“Stupid. Fucking stupid.” I cursed myself. I should have just given up. What fucking gonk does that sort of stupid shit!

I rose up and realized I didn’t have a towel here. Sighing at how wet I now was, I just walked out. This day literally couldn’t get any worse.

*Ringing.*

Hmm? Jun?

*Ringing.*

*Jun? What’s up?* I asked as the elevator closed in front of me with a clatter.

*ARE YOU ALIVE!? MOTOKO!* Jun’s voice came through making me flinch, luckily my own agent kept the noise down to a reasonable level, so instead of blasting out my ears, it just startled me.

*What? Jun, what’s going on?*

*You’re okay!?*

*Yeeees… Ish.*

*Motoko!*

*What is going on, who told you I was hurt?*

*I got a call from your choom, the little one Rebecca. She told me you were netrunning and to check on you right now!*

*Sasha is such a fucking tattle-tale… Yeah I overheated. I just spent a few minutes under a faucet cooling off, and I’m heading to-*

*Go to your ripper! Now!*

*That’s where I’m going. I already called Vik and I’m on my way.* I assured him as I stepped out of the elevator ignoring the looks of some of the SLS kids hanging around and walked out. I didn’t want to walk to my car. So I just called it.

*Fucking hell. Motoko! If you are going to do netrunner stuff, make sure you tell me! Or call one of your chooms! Someone that can cool you off or pull you out!* Jun ranted at me, and I nodded to myself, that was a good idea. If someone had been around to dunk water over my head or something I would have felt a lot better.

I didn’t respond, instead just letting Jun rant as I waited for my Quadra to drive over from the parking space down the street.

It arrived and beeped before Jun had finished ranting at me.

*-this, you could just think a little before-”

*Jun!* I said loudly, cutting him off. *I’m climbing into my car to drive to Viks. If Rebecca calls again, just let her know I’m with my ripper. Don’t say anything else for me okay? Lot of stuff is going on, and I’ll talk to her soon to calm everything down.*

The line was quiet before Jun sighed. *Okay fine. But I want to see you once you finish up with your ripper.*

*Okay I’ll head home after.* I promised, and we ended the call with some I love you’s and then the Quadra throttled up.

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