It took the entire day to finally break the server's system from within. Literally sneaking past all the ICE and security.

It was awesome.

And I am glad that I waited, because as I looked through the security, if I had tried to break through it definitely would have deleted everything.

Instead, since I had gone slow, careful, I had access to all of the files. His netrunning information. His programs!

He wasn’t a programmer himself, but he had bought plenty of stuff. An array of daemons, and netrunning hacks were all there collected on the server for me to play with.

So I went to work, first copying everything over to drives, and then doing a complete wipe of all the data on the server.

I even went over the hardware itself just to make sure there wasn’t a physical trap involved. Only once I was sure it was all clear did I move on. Checking his chair, and the setups there. I couldn’t use most of the Biosystems he had installed as they were made for a borg.

A borg blood injector wasn’t going to do much for me after all.

But the actual monitoring systems were great, and I happily reconfigured them to fit me instead. Then I went through the hardware that was laying around, it had basically everything I would need, I already pulled out the Netrunner suit and hooked it into the chairs systems, it would draw power and keep me cool as I ran.

But as much as I wanted to jump in and get started, the basement still had plenty of other things I needed to go through.

I dug into the security system, taking it over, checking the ICE and using a bit of knowledge I had seen from systems that gave me trouble, actually separated out each camera into its own partition. It took hours of work, but if someone pinged the network, it would only show the camera they pinged, and the security terminal, instead of everything connected to the system.

Unless they were extremely skilled, or their Ping was far superior to my own.

Specifically I wanted to cut off the rear hatch from the network entirely as well.

I didn’t exactly want someone sneaking in from the back door and killing me as I was netrunning, but it was also too useful to close off entirely.

So instead I had removed it from the security hub, setting up my spare laptop across the room near the tunnel and setting it up.

It would act as the security hub for just that door, cutting it completely off from the system.

No one would be able to ping the system and find out about it. V3L0CITY for all of his skill had been kinda dumb about actual physical security. He was probably a terror on the net, but in real life his skills didn’t quite equal out.

I went through the elevator security protocols as well completely coopting them and even setting up some ways to activate the elevator if I wasn’t around.

I wasn’t a shut in like V3L had been, and my chooms might need to come down here for some reason. So I had sent them a security key that would send the elevator down to the basement.

I wasn’t going to give it to Richard though.

It wasn’t that I thought he would kill me or something, but he could come down here to steal something.

It’s not like we were chooms or anything, despite the agreement he had made with Hiromi.

Then finally after going over all the equipment. I was ready to netrun!

Which is when a beep distracted me. I had just gotten a text.

Well…

I would be ready if Jun hadn’t just asked where I was.

So I locked everything down, headed upstairs and drove home.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I would netrun.

—--

Jun had listened to my story about what I had been up to with wide eyes.

“Motoko. You took over a gang?!”

“No! I just beat a gang, and then Hiromi made a deal so they don’t mess with my stuff… And I’ll give them some gigs if I find anything while netrunning. Not the same thing.”

“Motoko you took over a gang.”

“I really didn’t!” I denied but to my surprise Jun reached over and pulled me into a hug.

“Look at you! Leading a gang and everything! Oh! You should talk to Fujimura-sama, he might be able to help keep the gang in business, maybe set them up as a TC offshoot. It happens sometimes.”

“I don’t want to!” I denied almost yowling but Jun just laughed and swung me around.

I was gonna claw his fucking eyes out!

Jun must have sensed my irritation as he put me back down and patted me on the head which I took a swipe at his arm that he pulled back hurriedly.

“It’s preem Motoko. You should be proud. That doesn’t happen a lot you know? It’ll be a good experience, and with so many people working for you, you’ll be able to do some really big gigs.”

“I don’t want to. It’s annoying, and I don’t want to be responsible for a bunch of kids getting flatlined.”

“Kids get flatlined everyday ‘Toko, you can’t do anything about it. Just-”

“I absolutely can do something about it. Not be responsible. I can’t help every street kid in the city, but I can certainly help a few around me sometimes, but I’m not taking on responsibility for forty gonk kids that want to get themselves killed to make a few eddies.” I grumbled and Jun just shook his head.

“Everyone is willing to get themselves killed for a few eddies Motoko. It’s why there is always a need for more gonks.” He said, shrugging. Which only made me more irritated.

The lack of respect for life everyone in Night CIty had was super annoying, and doubly annoying because usually I’m worse than the average person.

But I don’t like the idea of killing kids, especially just being blase about it.

“Yeah I guess.” I grumbled, but the argument was over. Jun obviously did not want to argue with me about it. He instead raised up the remote and turned on the TV.

Another one of his annoying shows was put on, but I decided to sit with him for a while and watch it. Sure I didn’t really like it, but Jun was family, and sometimes you have to do stupid boring things with family so they knew that you loved them.

—--

I considered waiting until morning to head out, but honestly, it wasn’t like I needed to sleep, so I ended up just tinkering with some of the program data I had pulled from V3L’s server loading a few of the quickhacks, and Netrunning programs and daemons into my Cyberdeck after thoroughly checking them out.

I looked through my Cyberdecks status to make sure I was set up.

[ICE Shield. Matt Mk.3]

[HELL FLAME Anh. 2.132]

[Ping]

[Barrier Dataload Militech 9.4.2.111.2]

And then that night I left the apartment and drove over to the new complex.

The basement was just how I left it. I took a moment to strip and suit up into the full Netrunner suit, turning it on and shivering as the cooling unit kicked on and balanced out. Then I sat in the Netrunner chair and clipped everything in. The biomonitor activated and I sighed as I closed my eyes, and then when I opened them?

I wasn’t in reality anymore.

It was dark.

I was on a spire with a small flat area to stand on. And nothing else.

This was my lobby. The starting zone. Basically I was on my web browser's home page, only it was just a blank page, because I had never set it up.

Now it was time to start running. I sent out a ping through the system, connecting to the citynet and basically opening up my view to the true net.

Above and below me a city grew from nothing spreading out as my ping ran through filling out the world.

The city grew both from the ground and the sky, making me realize first that the rules of the net didn’t follow the rules of reality.

More and more it grew to the horizon until I couldn’t see anything but the visual manifestation of the net. There far out of my sight something bright and furious red glowed, clashing with the aesthetic blue of the city scape.

The Black Wall.

I took a step and left my little pillar, instantly I was within the net, Slipping through modem lines, and old infrastructure. I walked through the security that V3L had set up to protect the apartment complexes local net.

It was less leaving a space, and more walking out of the castle walls. Onto the streets of the net. Information flew past at a rapid pace.

And yet. As I looked at the almost video game-like visuals all around me showed me I wasn’t alone.

Every once in a while I would see a splash of foreign color, and it would be another netrunner. Their blank bodies only had the face visible, everything else was a sort of faded human shape.

They were running down the streets although they rarely looked like they were physically moving. Many ran around with futuristic vehicles, or on the backs of exotic animals. But they paid me no mind.

I didn’t have any sort of movement program. Relying instead of handshaking through different servers and systems as I moved along.

They could skip the ques on the back of their mounts, I was the peasant on foot needing to greet each gate guard to get passage.

It was… Fascinating. A different world entirely.

As I looked around I realized what it meant to be a netrunner. Each server, or network was a building, hidden things were literally hidden, Potentially under the ground, or in out of the way spots.

It was like a massive virtual dungeon, with safe rooms, traps, monsters and loot.

I understood entirely why so many people became obsessed with it.

It was also dangerous.

As I walked along I could see alleyways that glowed in more sinister colors of secure areas. Plenty of places had powerful ICE with big warnings to stay away unless you had a passcode. The warnings were often fences, or walls. ‘Physical’ barriers to entry.

But they weren’t physical. It was all a representation of the net given form and shape.

It was all so very very interesting.

I couldn’t help but feel like exploring so I headed towards one of the big buildings I could see that was open. A local net not super secured. As I both walked into the building up the stairs, and slipped into the server, I quickly discovered it was a server for Megabuilding, H4 to be precise. I slipped into the local net as easily as stepping into the server. It had no security blocking anyone out.

But inside was a riot of noise. Ads, and information everywhere. I looked up, just like the megabuildings this representation was a hollow building. A massive open space in the middle and as I looked upwards there was simply nothing but more megabuilding, going up and up and up practically infinitely. Every person that had ever lived in the building, every account, every person that had ever spoken to the corporation in charge to potentially rent every lick of data stored here.

Data that was made for them and stacked up higher and higher.

“The fuck you doing?” A voice called out surprising me, and as I turned, I found a netrunner. The man looked a little staticy, He was obviously using lower end parts but he was here. Like all netrunners his body was a weird sort of colorless body shape, the only detail their head stood out.

A netrunner here. And this was probably his home turf.

“Just looking around. Never been into a megabuilding server before.”

“Well fuck off. This is my netspace, and I know you don’t live here.”

“No I don’t. I’ll be gone as soon as I’m done.” I offered, but that was the wrong thing to say, because a moment later, he raised his hand, it distorted in static and data and turned into a gun.

It wasn’t a gun though. It was a representation of a program, a hack, a weapon. The fact he formed it like that meant it was a threat.

My normal Quickhacks wouldn’t have done much here. Maybe shutting down his optics, but I bet it would be really hard to get it working on him here, but luckily I had come prepared. I accessed the new programs I had installed from V3L.

The assault was sudden, but unlike when I had been nearly instantly hacked even through my defenses by V3L, this guy wasn’t on his level.

In fact he fired and instantly it was like his bullet was in slow motion as his assault hit my firewall and began trying to breach through. I reacted using a small trick that Cyber Security had taught me and redirected it through other systems elongating his access port by spoofing my location. I hadn’t done much to visualize the defense, but something about this space…

I started basically teleporting around, even as the bullet continued to give chase hitting the different locations I had been following me.

He didn’t send any other hack, too busy trying to breach through the mess of port access information I was throwing up between the two of us, but this was just a way to give myself more time.

I wanted the attack to stop. So I did a trick.

I spoofed my location again, but this time used a port connected to the Megabuilding we were in. A redirect to a piece of the Megabuilding server that was absolutely lagging, moving at a crawl due to some kid downloading an absolute metric ton of porn.

My move might have lagged his download even more, but it also caused the netrunners assault to stutter to an absolute stop, unable to send the data through the server channel. The ‘bullet’ basically freezing in space.

But that wasn’t going to be the end. Once he realized his hack had stalled he turned and attacked me again.

This time though I was more than just ready.

As his assault came up it ran into a wall.

I was testing out one of V3L’s quickhacks.

ICE shield.

Instantly neon octagons appeared in the air rippling and shifting as the bullet traveled through one, Instantly the bullet seemed to lose most of its form, and then it passed through another shield, and then it stopped on the third. Literally turning to dust as it hit the shield.

“Now fuck off.” He demanded as if his little assault had actually done anything.

As if attacking me wasn’t going to have repercussions. Besides I now knew this guy wasn’t good enough to harm me. So I sent my own assault. A barrier system, the attack was similar to a DDos attack. I would flood his originating connection point with a few million requests, and quite literally ‘bar’ him from being able to access the net as his connection was walled off by junk data.

The visualization turned the attack into a kaleidoscope of colors as the same shields that were my defense now multiplied and shot out, looking to surround the Netrunner.

He grimaced, and motioned like throwing something out of his pocket, and my shields slowed, literally frosting over.

Personal ICE. He was creating a barrier around his access point making the junk data bounce off, unable to flood the connection.

I frowned instantly looking over the ICE that was on one hand visually growing out of the floor, and on another just a sequence of code.

The dichotomy was… Interesting.

I would need to breach it to let my attack go through. So I did. I slammed into his system in a barrage of code, and it wasn’t even a contest. Just to prove my point I waved my hand and fire swirled around. The ICE shattered in moments causing my barriers to speed up and then lock into place.

HELL FLAME. A completely pretentious name for a breaching program that devoured data trying to annihilate it into a gibberish mush. His ICE hadn’t been strong enough. It shattered under the dual assault.

“YOU BI-” The netrunner was cut off as his avatar distorted and sparked out. He had disconnected before the Barrier could kick him out of the Megabuilding lobby. Probably worried that I would have pushed something dangerous through with my advantage.

Lucky for him though I didn’t add that sort of attack program in. If I had, I could have sent a Quickhack to short circuit his system, or used the barrier to attack his Cyberdeck, potentially blocking him into a blank space without a way to wake up.

Netrunning was dangerous.

*250 XP Gained.*

I blinked because the alert had come in, as a golden engraved neon screen in front of my face.

Oh.

OOOOH!

I could get XP in the net!? I was motionless for a while as I processed this. If I could find something to fight here, I could get more actual levels!

“Hey you gonna clean up your mess? I know Aaron was being a digital bag of dicks claiming the lobby again, but you are filling the server with a ton of junk.” A voice called out startling me and I looked around.

Another netrunner was on a floor above me, standing sideways on the wall as he had his arms crossed over his chest.

I looked around wondering what he meant before wincing.

The effects of our little fight still remained. The ice and fire seemingly laying around melted and still burning nothing respectively.

I get it. If a Netrunner ran around bashing shit down, it would damage the servers.

“Ah yeah sure. I’ll do that.” I muttered, looking around at the code, it wasn’t too hard, the fire was mine, so I simply put a stop to the program, causing the fire to end. The ICE was more interesting, as I had to think about it from two perspectives. On one hand, it was just the remains of an ICE program on some computer that I had broken through.

On the other it was digital clutter.

In the end, I just sent the remains of the program to my own recycle bin.

The reason I had been able to break it so easily was because it was an old ICE version, so I didn’t really need to look into it, but it was interesting that I had basically stolen the program.

Well… Copied it… Sorta. I had technically caused the original program to eat itself which had broken it but I could still copy data from the net into my own system.

Actually I could do that a lot. The server that V3L had was exactly that. A repository for data I found while netrunning.

“Thanks. Now unless you are here to do something, can you get out. You are claiming a lot of server resources with how active your connection is.” The netrunner said to my surprise as he sort of pointed at the exit.

“Ah. I’ll lower my bandwidth, I’m just looking around.” I told him, as I did just that. Reducing my upload to the megabuilding server. Sure everything got a bit laggier, but in exchange, I wasn’t using up much on the server anymore.

“Sure do what ya want.” He mumbled and then started walking sideways along the wall.

“Weird place.”

—---

I left not long after. The Megabuilding server had a lot of pretty boring data. Although I did check in on David Martinez, this was his apartment building after all.

Their rent was a bit past due, but otherwise they were good as far as their data said the management didn’t have any issues with them. David’s position as an Arasaka student actually gave the family a good bit of leeway.

No apartment manager wanted to piss off a future Arasaka officer.

Then I was out in the wilds and there was only one more place I could think of to go see.

It took a few moments to handshake through a few servers before I reached the Kabuki Roundabout server.

As I entered, I couldn’t help but smile because it looked almost identical to the real life place. As I looked around I noticed it was actually really busy on the net, and not just through normal traffic.

Netrunners were hanging around.

I guess I had been right. With the Dewdrop Inn being in the area, obviously this would be a netrunner hangout.

I walked around enjoying the aesthetic setup. Since this was a netrunner hangout it had actually been setup for them. Places to sit, private rooms, booths selling and hawking gear, which was just data.

I realized that what I had seen of Yoko’s Dewdrop Inn had only been a far lesser half of the truth.

This was the real Dewdrop Inn. An entire server architecture taken over to be a Netrunner hangout.

I noticed an array of Netrunners hanging out around a table. In the real world it had been an eatery, a place to eat after buying some food, but here, it was covered in a jumble of objects representing programs and code that the Netrunners were each seemingly bartering for.

But to my surprise they were definitely more my age, maybe a few years older, but still teenagers. Their faces weren’t high definition. Some moved as if there were only a few points of control, meaning they were using old net goggles, and gloves to interact with the net instead of a full dive.

The fact they weren’t elites was perfect. It meant that it wasn’t as awkward as I approached, stopping far enough away not to feel like I’m intruding.

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah?” The first one that responded was a girl turning to look me over with a very awkward movement, her entire Avatar seemingly shifting along with her head, going from sitting at the table to literally turning an entire 180 to face me.

“Whoa, look at the fidelity. What are you running?” Another of the teens asked, but I ignored him for a moment.

“I’m new in the area. Was wondering what everything is.” I asked and the table had a flurry of quiet messages sent between the teens.

It was funny, watching them communicate like that, was very similar to watching someone whisper between each other in the real world.

Only I could see the lines of communication opening up and connecting the group together.

“We’ll help out, but not for free.” The first girl uttered, but the boy sitting beside her suddenly sent a program that…

Well it was like a nudge. He even made a motion with his avatar just to stop her.

“First rule of the Kabuki Round Server. We offer advice, for free, but help costs info.” He offered, cutting off the girl who huffed but nodded at his words.

“Oh great. I’m just wondering where everything is I guess. I’m mostly just looking around.”

“Well, that I can do.” He said and I got a quick file offer. After checking it over, I opened it to see basically a list of different IP addresses each with a name right next to it. “That’s everything public here on the server. There are hidden areas, but that isn’t an offer to try and find them, if someone wants you to access the sub servers, they will invite you. Otherwise be respectful, no attacking other runners here, and you’ll be fine. That is a real warning by the way. Yoko keeps a horde of Security Daemons hanging around.” He mentioned pointing up, and I noticed them.

Daemons. Monsters, mostly looking like demons, hung around the roof of the Roundabout, like gargoyles, waiting to protect the server, and I suppose anyone that was attacked.

“Cool.”

“Cool? Jeez, are you like some grandma running a kiddy avatar?” The girl asked and I couldn’t help but pout at that.

“No. Cool is just cool. I’m bringing it back.” I argued only to be instantly laughed at.

“Sure ya are.”

“Anyways, hey I appreciate the help.” I told the boy who just nodded, and I hurried away. Not wanting to talk to the bunch of teenagers anymore.

Now that I had the IP and description of what everything was, I could look over the building and see what rooms attached to what IP.

Man this was so cool.

Obviously the first place I went was the one I was most familiar with in the real world.

The Dewdrop Inn.

I didn’t use the IP to sort of travel to the Inn, instead I wandered the Roundabout walking up the stairs and around until I reached the door.

As I touched the door it accepted my handshake protocol, and I was in.

But it wasn’t the Dewdrop Inn that I knew from the real world.

A technological Rave of music sound and netrunners was everywhere.

The Dewdrop Inn, was a fucking Netrunner Club!

I stepped down the steps leading to the dance floor and noticed that a few netrunners were actually dancing together, a few were even ‘connected’ bridging their avatars together into a private connection.

Oh my.

I looked away, even if the Avatars were simply dancing to the music together, more than likely going through an automated dance routine as their actual consciousness did… Other things.

The place wasn’t packed, but it was full. A few of the booths around the edge had small groups, or even a few solo netrunners just hanging around.

This whole place was so surreal. A mixture of the normal and the digital mixed together. I slipped onto a table to just take it all in for a while.