“It actually compiled.” Sasha muttered in surprise as she watched her quick hack go from just a pile of noodle code to a working, functional hack.

I’ll be honest and admit that I was tempted to copy it myself. Cyberpsychosis was a pretty nasty quickhack, but now that I’ve worked on it, I could just make my own that didn’t have fucking kitten emojis throughout.

“So that mean she’s legit?” Maine asked, and Sasha shook her head.

“No, she is more than legit.” Sasha turned to me, none of the cute kitten persona on display. “Why have I only barely heard about you? If not for the laughing man hack. I wouldn’t know who you are.”

“I don’t really care about rep much.” I admit with a shrug. “I don’t really do the normal netrunner stuff either. Yoko is like my only contact on the net.”

“I’ve met a lot of fourteen year olds. Most of them are just script kiddies. Were you some secret corpo project or something?” She asked almost in disbelief, but I just snorted.

“My mother was a netrunner.” I explained which didn’t actually explain anything. The perfect answer. “And I like programming.”

“What’s so special?” Maine cut in. The big man had to my surprise mostly just hung back in the booth without a word. He had made a few calls from time to time, but had remained silent while I worked.

“Maine. I was planning on spending the next week working on that hack. She finished it in… Two hours?” She looked at me and then just started laughing. “Making me look bad kid!”

“You’re fine. You did most of the work. Just needed some fresh eyes.” I said with a shrug.

“Pfft. If your eyes were what did it, then please tell me what you chipped in, I want some.”

“Kiroshi Mk.1” I said but it was mostly sass and she giggled in delight at my words.

“Huh. The kids got talent then?” Maine asked, and Sasha just rolled her eyes and shot him a look.

“She’s a better programmer than I am Maine. As annoying as that is to admit.” She added with a sigh, then she pouted at me. “Not fair!”

“Sorry not sorry.” I gave her, but she had just opened up a chance for me, that I couldn’t help but take.

I wasn’t interested in working for Maine. But…

To save Sasha.

“You know. I am a freelancer for other things as well. Infiltration, netrunning, sniping. I do combat as well, but I think the big guy already has that covered for you guys.” I explained, but I could instantly tell Maine wasn’t interested.

Just giving me a pseudo grunt of acknowledgement. Even Sasha just looked at me like I was something cute.

There were times my age was pretty annoying.

I looked between the two and just shrugged. Stopping it from becoming an issue. “Well just something to keep in mind.”

Then I rose up. All the deals had been done. Eddies had been transferred and Sasha now had a copy of my Reboot Optics, and I had done some work on her Cyberpsychosis hack.

Would it be enough to save her life? I don’t know.

“I’ll call you when I finish the Short Circuit.” I told Sasha and before she could respond I had gathered up my stuff and walked off.

I couldn’t change the way she saw me as just a kid. Even if she now saw me as a kid with serious programming talent.

If that was the only connection I had, then I would use it.

I just had to create something that would give her the advantages she needed.

—--

I went home and set to work. Hammering the code with all the focus I could to try and finish it. I had no idea when the Biotechnica gig would happen. I just had to be ready before then.

Life didn’t let me bury myself into a hole though. An hour later the door to the apartment opened, and I glanced up to see Hiromi.

“Motoko!” She cheered out as she charged over and flopped onto the couch grabbing me in a hug as she snuggled in and whined from deep in her throat. “Uuuuugh. Motoko! I did something totally gonk brained… Don’t be mad? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have-”

“Hiromi.” I cut her off as she was sort of rambling into my side as she hugged me while laying flat. “What’s gotten into you? Tell me what’s up. It’s okay.”

“I accepted a gig… On your behalf?”

I blinked a little. “Well you are sort of my favorite fixer.”

“No I mean…” She sighed, “I screwed up. Sorry Motoko. I got a little heated and I said I had someone that could do a gig and I didn’t ask if you would before taking it. That’s… You don’t do that!” She berated herself.

I wanted to sigh. On one hand I had Sasha stuff that I was in the middle of, but on the other. Hiromi needed help. And maybe a rap on the top of her head.

“Okay.” I said reaching down and pulling her from the hug until we were both sitting and I could see her face. “Tell me everything.”

“I… I may have been bragging a bit… That I have this super cool solo that works with me? I mean I never gave names or anything, but like… Everyone talks about the bodyguards their family has, or the edgerunner they have on retainer to do their backstabbing stuff. So I mean… I got called out today. Everyone said I was making shit up.”

“So you defended yourself and accepted a gig?”

“Right. The gig. So, Asuka Kimigari, she’s in my class. Her ‘rents aren’t like managers, but agents. Not a huge deal, not everyone can be a Tanaka, right? But her parents apparently took out someone on a gig. Some nobody, but he was a nobody that had a brother who isn’t.” She sort of waved her arms a bit before collecting herself, and sending me a text.

Ah. She actually had put together a gig from the information she had.

Asuka Kimigari was a brunette. Almost a disappointment she wasn’t a redhead with twintails, but we can’t always get everything.

“Thomas Anderson, is dangerous. Like he’s got a rep and everything, and he is reportedly going to kill Asuka as the opening act to his revenge against her parents.” Hiromi explained and I was frowning.

The dossier on Anderson wasn’t exactly thick. The guy was a solo, but his skillset included netrunning. So sort of like my own abilities.

He sounded hella dangerous. Unification War veteran. The guy worked with NUSA, and had a rep even back then. Hiromi didn’t have a lot of direct details, what little she had sounded like word of mouth, but that was still not painting a pretty picture.

“Okay so you volunteered me for what exactly?”

“To resolve the issue… Whether that’s killing the threat, or bodyguarding?” She said wincing and I frowned at her a little.

“You must have been really worked up, you’re usually better at negotiating like that.” And I could feel from the tightness on her shoulders that she was not pleased with herself.

“They were making fun of me. Of my parents, just… Of everything. You met my dad, but like… We aren’t super high up in the food chain Motoko. The Mitsunashi name isn’t really respected, or feared. My Dad and Mom do good work so they aren’t really targeted by anyone, but that’s all we can really say.”

“So they were making fun of you, and you decided to prove you weren’t lying when you said you knew a solo. Accepted the gig on my behalf, and that’s where we are now?”

“Yeah.”

“Well… I’m not angry or anything. I’ll help out of course. Just next time let’s ask first.”

“I will! I’m sorry!” She said, hanging her head and still looking pretty upset.

“Okay so bodyguard or assassination. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to find this guy. So probably just bodyguard.”

“I, I can try to get more information on him. Contacts, and if he has any normal haunts!”

“That can help, but don’t go crazy, this guy sounds like a pro so let’s be super careful… Maybe we should call Ichi and Malcolm in too? Make it a full Section 9 gig?” My words seemed to have the right effect, just as I said it I could see the fire in Hiromi's eyes light up.

“I’ll call them, we could use transport for Asuka, and Malcolm can help me investigate!”

“Sounds like fun.” I tell her even as I itched to return to the laptop, to finish the quickhack. I shook it off. I would do what I could for Sasha but, while I wanted to save her because I felt for her.

She wasn’t my choom like Hiromi.

“Alright. Let’s get everyone together, we should have a meeting with Asuka as well.”

“I’ll call her!”

I nodded as I stood up to head into my room. Time to get suited up.

—--

When all of Section 9 gathered together in a high end garage under Asuka’s apartment, I was surprised to see changes in my chooms.

Malcolm did pull up in his Caliburn which still made me giggle at how over the top it was, but he stepped out of the car with a Militech Saratoga strapped to his chest.

I quirked an eyebrow at him, which he caught.

“I decided to upgrade my firepower. I got some better armor too.” He mentioned to my delight as he showed off the Section 9 jacket that I had originally bought for my chooms had been modified.

It was professionally done too. A few extra inserts into the tough material.

“He isn’t the only one to get an upgrade.” Ichi said huffing a little at Hiromi and I giving so much attention to Malcolm while ignoring him.

“Unlike Malcolm I didn’t spend all my eddies on an overpriced ride.” Ichi sniped at Malcolm with a smirk.

“It was a great deal!”

“So I did some extra work on my van.” He said with a smirk. He walked over to the back of his van and opened the back door.

I couldn’t help but whistle as I saw what he had installed into the rear of the van.

“You bought an HMG turret?”

“Well, bought is a strong word.” He admitted and I looked at him in surprise as he flashed me a grin.

“I helped.” Malcolm revealed as well both boys grinning.

“I’ve been doing some work for some guys I know. Transport mostly you know?” Ichi revealed despite his casual attitude he was definitely peacocking a bit.

“So we had this gig. They were saying someone was going to shoot at me, I told them no. They said they need me. I said not without some protection. They gave me a Saratoga…” He trailed off looking at Malcolm's new gun.

“Which was an excellent gift.” Malcolm added, but Ichi just waved him off as he continued.

“So I said haha no. Eventually they offered me some real protection. They had this thing tucked away somewhere. No real use for it. They didn’t have anything really capable of moving it without having to set it up before the gig. So they offered it to me. Malcolm and I bolted it down into the bed of my Van, and we took it to a shop. So I can open the rear doors from the cab now.”

“You turned your moving van into a pop up tank?” Hiromi asked, and while I wanted to argue that it wasn’t a tank…

But the MK.31 HMG was sorta a tank cannon. A small one, but it did fire explosive rounds…

“I love it.” I admit shamelessly.

“Me too.” Ichi said and we both shared a look of shared delight of HMG’s.

“So now I can set up the van somewhere and have a surprise set up. I still need to armor up the cab a bit more though.”

“That should really be a priority.” I added but Ichi shrugged.

“I only have so many eddies… Speaking of, how is the pay for this?” Ichi asked, turning to Hiromi, who didn’t look super happy.

“Nooot great.” Hiromi revealed. “It’ll pay the bills, but Asuka is paying for this out of pocket. Arasaka student or not, she isn’t…”

“It’ll be fine. We do a cheap gig now, and everyone will know you weren’t joking when you tell them you know a solo, and next time you can charge a lot more.” I spoke trying to calm the tension, and thankfully everyone shrugged.

I guess considering how well we had all been paid so far, it wasn’t a major concern.

“Right! I’ll take a pay cut on this one as well, since I sort of messed up.” Hiromi added, which I was going to argue against, but Ichi and Malcolm both nodded looking pleased.

“Alright. Let’s go see our client then.”

“Sure c’mon.” Hiromi offered, waving us all to follow as we piled into an elevator and she sent us up to the twentieth floor.

We stepped out of the elevator into a long hallway that was pretty nice. Not quite Hiromi’s own apartment level, but probably on par with my own.

Hiromi led us, I could practically see the change come over my choom as she switched from the teenager to the girl corpo.

She walked up to a door and pressed the security pad at the door.

I heard it and shifted. Glaring at the ceiling where an HMG turret had just activated. It wasn’t popping out, but it was there.

Not even giving it a chance I blitzed its defenses, skewering the ICE and forcing it to remain shut down.

“Asuka it’s Hiromi, and the mercs I told you about.”

“Hiromi? You’re actually here? Alright hold on. The security is in full lockdown mode.” The voice came from the security panel, and after a moment the door opened. The teenager looked fully corpo in a way even Hiromi never quite managed. Sure, she had some understated flash, EMP threading going over one eye that was a different color than the other. Although both were optics, so she was just showing off.

But I was most focused on the shotgun in her hand. Tacticians were good home defense weapons, but she really needed to stop sweeping the barrel over my chooms and I.

“Easy Asuka, it’s just me. Can we come in?” Hiromi said smiling as she tried to calm down the girl who was obviously not doing well.

The girl looked over the three of us as she ignored Hiromi, only after she seemed to decide we weren’t the man trying to kill her did she lower the gun. “Come in, quickly.” She demanded and backed up. Hiromi didn’t wait piling in, and the rest of us followed. Entering into an apartment entrance way that had an already active HMG turret.

I quickly shut that one down too. Which startled Asuka as the door had just closed and her HMG had closed up.

“Wha!”

“Easy, calm down. I just closed it down. I don’t like that thing pointing at me.”

“How did you even do that!?” She demanded coming up into my space.

Yeah the girl was freaking out, her entire body was shaking. So I did the only thing I could think of and gently reached out and left a hand on her arm. “It’s okay. We are here to protect you.”

My sincere words were instantly rebuffed with a scoff. “What the hell Hiromi. I thought you said you knew some mercs.”

“I do. Motoko takes work from Wakako the fixer, and has contacts all over. She can definitely help.” Hiromi offered with a shrug, but once again my young body fought against me, and Asuka didn’t look relieved.

“Fucking hell Hiromi, what is this shit! You’ve been talking up so much shit, and you bring a bunch of kids in on this?” She looked like she was about to start yelling, but her movements hadn’t kept track of everyone, and she bumped back into Ichi who gently grabbed her to keep her from jerking around.

“Hey, easy. We don’t look like much, but we are here.” Ichi offered, “Something is better than nothing right? Let us protect you.”

I wanted to point out to Ichi that I had literally just said that, when suddenly the girl's back stiffened and she even flushed a little.

She scoffed again, but this time her shotgun was only being held loosely as she stepped slowly out of Ichi’s hands. “Well at least I’ll give you a shot… Hiromi, this better not be a joke though.” She said turning from Ichi to look fully at Hiromi.

“Pfft. I’ve been telling you gonks, that I have an actual merc team!” Hiromi snarked, but seemed to take control of herself. “But we aren’t here for that. Section 9 here for bodyguard duty. Let me introduce everyone. Malcolm, Ichi, and Motoko. Motoko is in charge. She’s a solo, and knows what she is doing.”

“She doesn’t look like much.” Asuka muttered under her breath, but I didn’t take it personally. The girl was twitchy.

I guess knowing that a cyberpunk was after you for revenge would make any teenager a little jittery.

“Well she is. I’ll be taking Malcolm to do some investigating. Hopefully we can find your threat through our contacts. Ichi and Motoko will be staying with you. Ichi is a driver, he has a van ready if you need to run for any reason. Motoko?”“It’ll be fine. I’ll check out the security of the place, and maybe boost it a bit while I’m here… Is anyone from Arasaka looking into this? Other than your parents I mean?” I asked Asuka who just sort of sullenly looked at me before shrugging.

“My parents haven’t told me much.”

“Okay. I have a contact in Counter Intel, I’ll see if she has anything. Hiromi?”“Oh! That’s right that V woman you told me about! Good job Motoko. I’ll call Wakako and some others, see if anyone has something.” She said mostly to Asuka who looked a little surprised at the big names being thrown around.

I moved away from the group, looking around the upscale apartment as I went, and made the call.

Gonna have to do something about those windows. One entire side of the apartment was glass floor to ceiling.

At least the place had some automated defenses, but HMG turrets were just asking to get someone friendly fragged if a netrunner was involved.

*Ringing.*

*Ringing.*

*Ringing.*

I started to glare as V very obviously wasn’t answering, but finally after a minute the call went through.

*Kid. What do you want?* V didn’t quite snap, but she wasn’t sounding friendly either. Again I didn’t take it personally. That was just how V was, besides she had picked up. If she didn’t want to be my choom she would have just ignored the call, or blocked it.

*I’ve been hired to protect an Arasaka Academy Student. Asuka Kimigari. Apparently her parents are Arasaka grunts, killed someone's kid brother and now he is after their kid.*

*And I care, why?*

*Even if it didn't fall under your purview, this is a merc gunning for Arasaka personnel. You have any information on this guy? Thomas Anderson?*

The line went quiet for a minute before V just sighed into the line. *You know I can’t just give you anything. I shouldn’t even be talking to you.* V’s tone was pretty firm, and I almost opened my mouth to pull the choom card, but that wasn’t right.

V wasn’t in a job where something like that would just be ignored. I would be hurting her for my own benefit. Not exactly something I would do.

*You’re right. I’m just an outside agent on this. Unless of course a certain agent contracted me out to help handle this. Payment can be a private affair between us.* I trailed off, and the line remained quiet, before a single cut off scoffing laugh came through.

*I’ll send you what I have, the Kimigari issue isn’t my workload, but if you can stop him it’ll make me look good. If you fuck up we never talked and you never got data from me.*

*Of course.*

The line went silent again and when V came back she came back with a beep of a text coming through at the same time.

*Kid. I looked through this shit. Anderson? He isn’t some street punk with a gun. The guy is a pro. Don’t do anything stupid and get yourself killed. Jack will be pissed with me if you die like that.*

*Thanks V. I’ll keep you updated as well. If I get him you’ll be the first to know.*

*Good. I’ll be able to throw it in Carlsons face then.* Then because V too studied the art of Night City phone calls she just hung up on me.