Ghost in the City-Chapter 227

It took a minute before the others joined me, and the whole time I was looking around in disgust.

When Sasha’s avatar popped in I instantly turned to her. “How do you live like this?” I had to ask as the entire lobby was covered in pink and glittery cat stuff. The kitty pictures were cute, but the rest of it was just too much.

“Hehehe!” She replied back and that was the only answer I got!?

Thankfully Kiwi looked disturbed even though she still wore her mask mouth plate on the net, and Lucy shared my slightly disturbed look.

“Luce, let’s go. Game is already on.” Kiwi called out not hesitating at all before the two of them jumped off the lobby onto the net.

“Shit!” Sasha cursed and I quickly raced after her, as we were all thankfully heading for the same place.

It was a data fortress owned by some no name corp. I wasn't bothering to even learn the name of. It hardly mattered. Four elite (I was one too!) netrunners was enough to smash just about any data fortress not controlled by the big corps.

Sasha and I reached our own entry point and slipped inside, there was no discussion. Just like when we hit the No/Brainer server we already had our roles.

She rushed ahead straight for the access node, while I prepared for the defenses. The moment she started breaching in, the Daemons noticed the intrusion, but I was already on them a flurry of Flame Bullets roared out and crushed the Daemons into pixels.

*250 XP Gained.*

*250 XP Gained.*

*250 XP Gained.*

*250 XP Gained.*

“Through!” Sasha called out as she broke through a path and we both rushed forward.

This fortress was well put together, the neon pulsing lights of the interior created a pseudo 3D rendering of the hallways and rooms. It was clearer than some servers I’d been on which meant new. Which meant high security.

Again though I wasn’t that concerned.

One Elite Netrunner was dangerous. Two was usually overkill. Three? Four? This was an expensive gig. At least it should be but Faraday had managed to get four netrunners on a single gig for the price of one.

We burst into the next room, as I started tearing through defenses, almost mindlessly as Sasha broke through a firewall that rushed up.

It made me realize that Faraday could have planned this whole thing. Had Kiwi tried to set it up like this?

He couldn’t have known about me really, but three netrunners were more than enough to break through even a well secured data fort like this. It made me wonder if that wasn’t the plan?

Another set of Daemons destroyed as I protected Sasha, and burned defenses until the Firewall dropped.

We rushed forward, hitting the next defense, something similar to the Cyber Moat that was on the No/Brainer server. Sasha started breaking through when almost instantly it connected.

I blinked. Sasha blinked.

Kiwi and Lucy blinked.

“Huh good timing.” I muttered as the four of us all came together.

“You’re actually here?” Lucy asked in surprise.

“Yeah?”

“No time to waste Kitten-Chan!”

“Don’t call me. Whoa!” I called out. As suddenly that same data moat slammed back down. Lucy had started rushing forward at the same time as Sasha, and they both disappeared. 𝐑ΆN𝙤ꞖΕS

“Huh. I wasn’t expecting that.” I muttered as we got split off.

“Netrunner is on the server activating defenses.” Kiwi commented. Already looking like she was going to rush off, so I shrugged and followed her.

We made it through a new hallway before she stopped and turned to look at me.

“What?”

“What are you doing?”

“Backing you up?”

She sort of just stared at me for a bit before I rolled my eyes. “I don’t give a shit about this competition, I’m just here because I like Sasha a bit, despite her catty attitude.”

“Really?”

“Don’t start. I can make puns too.” I said before smiling. “Besides, what, are you going to run this solo, or are you really going to complain about some backup?”

She looked me over for a while, and shrugged. “Don’t slow me down.”

“Sure.” I said flatly, rolling my eyes. Then I pulled myself into position. “Any role preference?” I asked, and Kiwi made a snorting noise.

“Are you a kid or a netrunner? Do what you can.”

I wanted to say something but Kiwi could actually be right… Had Sasha been babying me in a way? That’s irritating. Fine.

I stayed with her as we hit the next access node, and we both went to work, where before it was a shared experience with Sasha Kiwi simply cleared her own path, guarded her own back. There was no real working together. We each burned Daemons down, we each started breaching.

Kiwi used an interesting quick hack. Instead of destroying the Daemons it caused them to lock up a CC hack. Nice. I might have to ask about that, or make my own.

I finished off a few of her dazed daemons as well, just for the extra XP.

Kiwi was fast. There was no doubt about that. She was better at breaching than I was, but I had tricks she didn’t.

We were already past stealth so it was time to go loud.

I switched from defending against the Daemons for a second and slammed into the security system like a freight train.

Strong Breach was one of my lesser used perks, but that was only because I preferred stealth. The security glitched as I overwhelmed it and even Kiwi looked away from her breach to me, for a moment as there was an obvious shift along the security walls data, an alert going out no doubt as I hit the defense so hard, and it spasmed once before falling opening the path.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

I turned and finished a few more Daemons that had restored themselves in the moments it had taken.

“Let’s go.” I told her and Kiwi for the first time didn’t look at me like some kid, but a peer of some sort.

“That was a bit much.”

“What, you unhappy I broke through?” I asked her as we raced down the newly opened data path.

“No.” Was all she said and that was enough. We hit the next room, and this time it didn’t feel like I was fighting alone, just with Kiwi in the room. She covered my back, as I covered hers. Unlike with Sasha, Kiwi would point out parts of a firewall for me to attack while she continued to slip through on her attack. I disrupted, while she slipped through.

It was teamwork of a sort, and soon I was even getting call outs from her, when she needed.

I think working with Kiwi was actually… Better than Sasha. Sasha I only now realized treated me sort of like a kid, or in other thoughts, how I treated Malcolm while on the gig. He could handle certain things, but anything more dangerous, and I’d take over, or not entirely trust him to perform.

Kiwi didn’t care, she expected me to keep up. And I did.

We broke through into another space, and I grinned as we ran into Lucy. She was throwing out a hand, and entire groups of Daemons were simply wiped out.

Now that was an interesting Daemon. Forget Kiwi’s CC hack. I wanted that.

She looked up to see us and blinked as Kiwi and I both arrived.

“Where’s Sasha?” I asked, looking around and Lucy just shrugged.

“It’s not like I stuck around her.” She replied instantly and I looked up as she glanced at Kiwi. “I don’t trust her, so I went solo.”

“Stupid.”

“Smart.” We both said at the same time. Kiwi and I looked at each other for a moment. “If you don’t trust someone at your back, leave them behind.”

“We’re all here for the same gig. Not trusting Sasha isn’t being cautious, it’s being paranoid.”

“Paranoia is a good trait.” Kiwi said back and I just made a face at her.

“The kid came with you?”

“She surprised me.” Kiwi replied with a shrug. “Let’s keep going.”

I just sighed there was no way to know if Sasha was ahead or behind. So I would stick with the group for now.

This felt odd again. Lucy and Kiwi didn’t so much work together, like I had with Sasha, but they both were just so overwhelming that any teamwork was mostly circumstantial than anything.

I did my best to assist, settling into a different role. I’d wipe out Daemons to ensure they could focus, I’d smash into some defenses to redirect focus, and let them slip through. That sort of thing. It was teamwork, but it did leave me feeling a little bit like a third wheel, and worse, Lucy wasn’t really impressed.

I could tell she was trying to pull ahead, sort of break free of me following.

Cold.

But I was more than capable of keeping up and so Lucy, if that was what she was doing, was still solidly in front of me.

Finally we reached the actual core we were trying to break into. This time we weren’t alone in a different way. A netrunner was here, his body was twice the size of normal, and he was surrounded by Daemons.

“Not a step further. You lot have caused enough trouble already, turn around.”

I kinda expected Kiwi, or Lucy to say anything, but instead they just went straight on the attack. Both of them slamming hacks forward in at the same time, causing the Runner to activate defenses. Firewalls, Massed Daemons, even his own hacks launched back, and the added server power gave him a hefty punch. I was continually throwing up my defense hacks to give Lucy and Kiwi extra cover, as I dodged or blocked attacks coming my way as well.

“We don’t need your help.” Lucy argued back, as I put up a solid wall between her and some Daemon barrages.

“Well you’ve got it anyways Moongazer.” I told her, and went all out on my own.

I might not be a childhood supersoldier netrunner like Lucy, or just a pure time and effort, and spite runner like Kiwi, but I was fucking Motoko Kusanagi, and on the net, I was not to be fucked with.

My sandy burned, my cyberdeck whirred up, and I started launching attacks like a woman possessed, not quite to the extent of burning myself out of course this wasn’t like that time in the netrunner arena.

This was just me wanting to show off a bit.

I cut out an entire wave of the Daemons from Lucy opening her up to entirely go on the offensive for the security runner.

This pushed him off focusing on Kiwi, letting her clear up her Daemons and suddenly it was two on one, and then as I kept the Daemons off them, it stayed like that.

This guy might be powered up by an entire data fortress, but Lucy and Kiwi weren’t street gonks.

They plowed through his defenses, until he crumpled.

“Shit! Fucking hell! Easy! Damn you win.” He cried out as his defenses crumbled as his ICE barriers wavered. “Jesus who the fuck did we piss off, you Arasaka or something?”

I calmed as he really did stop the assault realizing he was done, but..

I raised a hand and threw up my strongest ICE. Then double and tripled it, as Lucy lashed out with that weird hack of hers, that caused the data to simply self destruct.

Was that something she learned on the other side of the blackwall?

No, that wasn’t important. “Moongazer! What the fuck, chill! He already surrendered!” I called out as my defense hadn’t been to protect us. But to save the runners life.

Lucy had just tried to flatline him.

“Luce. Ease up.” Kiwi demanded, and that thankfully did it, causing Lucy to stop attacking although her face was still glaring.

The poor netrunner looked like he’d just filled his colostomy bag if he had one hooked in.

Looked like his life just flashed before his eyes.

I rushed over which startled him, but I held up my hands.

“Hey easy choom. Sorry about her, she’s a bit on a hair trigger. You unplug, and we will stop it here, yeah? I doubt this is a job you’re willing to get flatlined for.”

“Yeah fuck this.” He muttered and was already disconnecting but he sent me a look. “Thanks.” Then he disappeared.

Heh. I did a good deed for the day.

“You should have let me kill him. Now he’s going to start locking down the data physically.” Lucy muttered a bit harshly, and I shrugged.

“He’s just a gonk doing his job, and we’re all on the net together. Flatlining him for some data when no one's life is on the line is scop.”

“Let’s move-”

“Sasha is here!” Called out a new voice and I did feel some relief.

“Great.” Kiwi muttered, and I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit at that.

“W-wha! KITTEN-CHAN! NOoooo! Don’t give in to that spiders wiles! Let Neko-mama guide you-”

“Okay I’m going ahead.” I instantly said and turned to avoid whatever the fuck Sasha was on about.

“Yeah.” Kiwi agreed and we all rushed out, Sasha chasing us from behind.

Thankfully there wasn’t anything else. The next room was the archives, and while Sasha was trying to compete with grabbing it first. I just rolled my eyes and joined in on finding the data without turning it into a competition.

We found our data, and after a short download, we all disappeared.

—--

“F-ff-f-f-fuck!” I cried out the moment I came back to my body. I was probably yowling a bit as I climbed out and rolled onto the freezing floor as I tried to disconnect.

“Hey, you’re back.” Rebecca called out as she was tossing back a few-Disgusting things I was blocking out from my vision. Schwab Schwab wasn’t food!

“Y-y-yeah.” I chattered as I disconnected and stood up. My everything felt achey, and I was freezing, and this sucked. I was never using a stupid ice bath again. Whoever came up with this was stupid! Stupid and dumb!

I was just in the middle of looking for something when Rebecca chucked a towel at me.

“Damn strings, put those away before you kill us all. Fuckin’ ab gremlin.”

“What?” Look who's talking about being a Gremlin!

“Yeah.” Lucy offered as she slipped out of her own bath and was already trying to light a cigarette. “I don’t need to see that.”

“I’m jealous, honestly.” Kiwi muttered as she rose up joining Lucy in her smoking.

Oh. Every was naked! I felt myself flush a little and started drying off a bit. This was bullying!

“I don’t accept!” Sasha suddenly called out as she rose up, and wow. She was very- Looking away.

“Hmm?”

“Sasha and Motoko team should be the winner! Spider hag cheated!”

“Cheated?”

“You stole my Kitten!”

“She offered to help… She was useful.” Kiwi added and I sent her a smile in thanks for her words.

“Nooo! Don’t let the old evil spider suck you into her weeeeeb!” I was going to just ignore Sasha when she crashed into me. And I yelped.

“Sasha! Put s-some clothes on!” I demanded pushing my towel into her face so she wasn’t pressing up against me!

“I can’t believe she’s shy.” Rebecca whispered half giggling, and I turned on her.

“I’ll show you shy!” I hissed and it only took half a second to flip the towel a few times and snap.

“You little shit!” Rebecca shrieked as the towel got her and she roared as she rose up and charged.

“Rebecca! I’m naked!” I shrieked just as loud as she talked me.

“That’s your problem! You and your stupid perfect abs!”

“Kya!”

—--

“What’s go-”

“I ain’t asking, and I ain’t going down there.” Maine rumbled, refusing to look away from the TV. Pilar was, but he was also an idiot, but Rebecca had threatened him with a shotgun for trying to peek earlier.

—--

“Hi-yah!” I called as I flipped Rebecca around after she tackled me and now I was holding her by her stupid tiny little legs.

“Wha-Hey! You bitch, Motoko, put me down!”

“Oh you want to be put down do you?” I whispered sinisterly as I held Rebecca up night and high which let her see where I was aiming.

Her arms flailed out and grabbed the side of the ice bath that I was threatening her with. “Don’t you dare you bitch!”

“Mwahahaha!” was my only response for a minute until I heard some giggles and looked over.

Oh right, I’d lost my towel, and was holding up Rebecca…

I could feel the blood rushing up to my face. So I carefully got Rebecca back on normal ground and then ran after to go grab my towel and cover myself!

“Don’t worry Kitten! Your abs are nothing to be ashamed of.” Sasha offered with a big wink and a thumbs up.

I was definitely not crouching in the corner under the far too small towel and wanting to cry.

Why was everyone still naked! Exhibitionists! All of them! Were all Netrunners like this!? Was I the only sane one?

Then again I was basing my looks off the Major, and she had a bit of a thing about- Nope!

I wasn’t thinking about that right now!

“Put some clothes on!” I demanded as I crawled behind what I could and looked for my clothes.

“Pfft!”

This was awful. All these women were laughing at me!

—--

“So who won?” Maine rumbled as we all came sauntering up the stairs. It had taken a while but eventually all these far too comfortable in just their skin netrunners had gotten dressed.

“The real winner was the friends we made along the way!” I called out.

“We did.” Kiwi answered, back at the same time as Sasha.

“Us of course!”

Then the two older Netrunners started glaring.

Maine took one look at everyone and just popped the cap on a new beer and apparently decided he didn’t care.

Surprisingly smart for that guy.

“We got the data though.” I confirmed as I sat down. “Kiwi and Lucy are a solid duo.”

“Course they are. Faraday doesn’t hire small time.” Maine grumbled.

I hummed as I took in the reaction but in the end, not my gig, not my chickens.

“Well I’m heading out. This was… Interesting.”

“Wait Kitten! Tell the old spider that we won! It was totally us! She even cheated and stole you away from meeee!”

Yep. Time to go home.

Rebecca was cackling as I walked out ignoring Sasha trying to pull me back inside. But I would not be tricked. I stopped just before I climbed into my Quadra and turned to Sasha.

“Thanks, for inviting me. This was definitely an interesting experience.”

“Oh.” She stopped and looked a little embarrassed. “It’s… You don’t have to thank me Kitten. I'm the one that dragged you into my biz. You did great though. Totally proved those two wrong.”

I smiled warmly at her, not crazy Sasha was much easier to deal with. “It was useful for me too. If you ever need some back up again you can call me… I guess I’ll unblock your number in my agent.”

“Eh!? You blocked my number!” She whined and I laughed, I hadn’t really, just didn’t pick up.

“No.” I said teasing and she smiled back.

“Same goes for you too, Kitten. Sasha-Senpai owes her Kohai one yeah?” She baby-talked and I just sent her a flat look, this time she smirked at me in turn. “But if you ever need some help, you can call on me.”

“I appreciate that… Senpai.” I said, sighing as I did. Already knowing she’d overreact.

So I just slipped into my Quadra as she started gushing. Yep. Not bothering with that.

I drove off as I considered everything. That had been a breeze of a gig really, but if I had to solo that data fort? I’d have to either go full stealth, or maybe not be able to do it. Fact was, there were just too many defenses, for the netrunner Motoko Kusanagi was right now to be able to do it.

Shit now Sasha’s got me talking in the third person. I needed to escape that cat's evil clutches.