“Motoko don’t cause any- Motoko?” Jun asked as he had caught up to me but was surprised I was just standing there. He followed my gaze and I caught the way his face jerked back to me. “You want to try it?” He asked, trying to sound casual.

I hesitated, I wasn’t exactly big on singing in front of people… But on one hand, I was bored.

Like really bored.

On the other… It was a real piano. Don’t see many of those in Night City. A real antique.

“Yeah.” I nodded firmly, marching over to stand in front of the ancient thing. It was old, probably been here since before the TC took over the place. I hit a key and was surprised it was in key.

I tested a few more, with a little trill of notes and to my delight my fingers not only hit the right keys, it sounded fine.

Of course now I had the eyes of every man and woman in the bar on me. I just shrugged, bars were supposed to have music. If anyone complained I would just sic Jun on them.

So after testing out my fingers I nodded. I could definitely be better, but I could play.

Now I just needed to figure out what song to do.

“Nervous?”

“No. Just not sure what to play.” I offered as I considered it. Vocal and Piano only piece… I didn’t listen to many songs like that. And even less that I really enjoyed…

But there was that anime OP.

Fuck it, it probably didn’t exist in this world, so no one would know how much of a weeb I was. Plus I did love the composer, even if he did a lot of anime stuff.

I hummed a bit until I got my voice to the right tone. The vocal needed to be smooth, and I had to figure out what language to use…

I’ll just stick to english. It made a bit more sense that way, considering the original was a mix of multiple languages turned into almost gibberish at times. I loved it, but with an unfamiliar audience? Better to stick to one language.

I started the first notes letting the sound of the piano flow through the bar, but then I kept my eyes on the piano because the only thing I needed to do was focus on the song.

“I will rise in resistance.” I crooned out, beginning the intro for Hiroyuki Sawano’s aLIEz. I loved Sawano, and the fact his songs were heavily electronic, was actually workable this time since he did a lot of them on piano as well.

I remember watching a video of just him and the singer playing the song together, that memory is what guided my fingers. The sound of the haunting lyrics guiding my voice.

It wasn’t perfect. It did lose something without the additional sounds. I would have to fix that some day, recreate it in truth.

But it was fun! I loved this song!

I got lost in playing the notes and crooning along, my voice probably carrying the song more than my playing. Siren Song, and Perfect Musical Memory shoring up my pitfalls in playing, but none of that really mattered.

Because I was jamming out.

“Wake me from this nightmare.” I finished the song by the gentle crooning that it finished on as I played out the last notes letting the song come to its quiet end.

*100 Rockerboy XP Gained.*

It would have been even better if I had my music box. I really needed to fini-

The clapping behind me nearly startled me as I was looking at the alert. Jun was leaning against the wall beside me looking pleased, and there were a few at the bar clapping quietly, but it was the much closer noise that had startled me.

“Fujimura.”

“Kusanagi.” He greeted back, the man was bracketed by two people only one of them I recognized. Akari was clapping as enthusiastically as I expected, the other man nodded as my eyes ran over him.

“You’re late.” I inform him bluntly. “Owe!” I hissed as Jun tapped me on the back of my head.

“Don’t be rude.” Jun demanded and I just rolled my eyes.

“It’s fine Junichirou. Join me in the booth, we have something to speak about.” He stated with a deep grunt and started walking towards it expecting obedience.

“That was great!” Akari said suddenly right there as she grabbed me and shook a bit. “You never told me you could sing! Can you do-”

“If you say anything by the Us Cracks, I will kill you.” I inform her bluntly.

I still remember how Akari never seemed to mind Jun’s music taste when we were in the car together.

“Aww.”

“Akari c’mon.” Jun called, pulling me away from her grasp and gently pushing me towards the booths.

I guess it was business time.

I headed into the back booth, mostly ignoring the looks I was getting. Whether people actually liked the song or not, I wouldn’t find out, but that was fine.

This wasn’t my sort of place anyways.

I settled into the booth Jun and I had abandoned and was set next to Jun with Akari on my other side, with Fujimura across from me with his other guard there too.

“The trouble yesterday. Kotoniki has been disciplined harshly. Even if you were not one of us, to act in such a way dishonors us all.”

“I don’t really care. My fist already evened the debt.” I told him and to my surprise Fujimura actually chuckled.

“Kotoniki was with a ripper when we got to him. You broke his jaw.” The man offered nodding as if pleased.

“Well my fist is chrome.”

“Regardless. The man was disciplined, but there is a debt between us.” He offered using a finger to flow between me and him.

“You know I don’t really…”

“Yes. You have little interest in gang work. I’m aware.” He seemed to say flatly, but it came out like a grumble. “Junichirou has spoken on your behalf. To keep you out of our business until you are ready. Yet your own business has brought you into conflict with us. I’ve considered the best way to ensure there won’t be any further… issues like yesterday.”

“Okay? That doesn’t exactly sound comforting.”

From his side the guard I didn’t know reached into his jacket and pulled out something, putting it on the table.

“The card has my assistant's number on it. If you ever find yourself in a situation with the Tyger Claws like before, you may call for a mediation. I do not want to find out that some fools forced your hand, and created a loss for us. Or did something so foolish as to injure you, and potentially forcing Junichirou to overextend himself.”

I looked over the business card, It wasn’t paper, but a sort of plastic, but didn’t really look special. it was pretty standard and I shrugged putting the number into my agent with a shrug. Not like I needed the card really.

“There is one other thing. I have said before Kusanagi, that just because you do not wish to work with the gang it doesn’t mean that someday you won’t need to. That having friends in this city will one day be something you need.”

This time what was placed on the table was a mask. The assistant had hidden it within his jacket.

It was a mouth piece. Just like Jun’s. A Menpo if I remember the word right, although this one was very similar to the one Jun would wear while he was working. Eerily similar if I was honest. Telling.

“I don’t think I need it.”

“Take it anyways. If you never have a need of it, then it will be forgotten, but someday? Someday you may need the Tyger Claws on your side, that day? That mask will prove you are not just an outsider, or a hangeron.” Fujimura offered firmly, making it seem like the plastic mask was something more than just a piece of junk.

Jun wasn’t going to let me leave it though, I could feel him nudging me on the side.

“Fine.” I grumbled grabbing the stupid Oni mask. I ended up just holding it as I didn’t have a better place to tuck it away.

“Then that is that. Yesterday was a mistake, we have made arrangements now to ensure it does not happen again. Are you satisfied with our apology?” Fujimura asked, and I sorta took a second to process.

I suppose to the TC this would be a big dishonor thing. I had saved one of their bosses and almost got flatlined or worse by one of their henchmen.

“Yeah. It’s fine. Shit happens.” I offered and I could practically hear Jun’s eyes roll beside me, but Fujimura nodded seemingly satisfied.

“Then I must leave. I have other business to complete. Junichirou, take the afternoon off. Akari I will need you.” Fujimura demanded, causing Akari to pout as she put down the drink she was about halfway through.

“Also. Kusanagi… Your piano needs work, feel free to practice.” He told me suddenly then walked off.

Did… Did Fujimura just fucking burn me!?

Asshole!

—--

I did not in fact play more on the piano. Now that the meeting was over I glared at Jun until we headed home, and luckily for Jun I didn’t make him ride bitch, he hadn’t had much to drink so he was still good to drive.

“What are you going to do with your day off?” I asked him and he shrugged as he pulled into the parking space at the apartment.

“Take a nap?”

I snorted at my brother's decision, but I wasn’t going to tease him for it. Naps were amazing sometimes.

“I’ll be coding some more, so I’ll be quiet.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He said, patting me on the head while looking down towards the Menpo I had currently half out of one of my pouch pockets. Jun had one of those stupid proud looks on his face.

“Ugh, just because it’s the same as yours doesn’t mean I’m gonna wear it.”

“It means they think you are valuable. You are much safer now. If anything happens, I won’t have to push to rescue you again.” He smiled pleased and I just scoffed.

I wasn’t planning on getting kidnapped again!

Okay after yesterday I’m not planning on getting kidnapped again. I won’t be walking into a place of what should be nominal allies, with a VIP beside me again.

Next time It’ll be me alone, fully armed, and ready to start shooting if someone does something I don’t like.

In the end I followed Jun back inside the apartment, stopping only to grab a drink from a vending machine, and then a quick stop in my room to drop the Menpo off.

I didn’t exactly plan to use it. Kinda tacky the color wasn’t mine either. The snarling Oni face was set in a sort of neon green, yeah it was pretty ugly, maybe black?

No dummy, you aren’t wearing the fucking Menpo. I tapped my head to get that insidious thought out and put it away where it would collect dust.

Forever.

Then I flopped on the couch and pulled up my laptop. To my surprise Jun came out of his room a minute later wearing casual clothes, and a blanket, he settled onto the couch, put his feet up on the table and turned on the TV.

“Looks cozy.”

“Yep.”

“I’ll be quiet.”

“It’s fine.” He says with a shrug as he sort of just relaxes back.

This was nice.

Time to work on this program.

—--

Slowly it came together.

A program designed to do one simple thing. Stop someone from seeing. The loss of sight could cripple the strongest fighter. My own addition to it, made it just that much more difficult to stop.

A bit of aggressive design to make it insidious.

But the biggest thing holding it back was trying to make it multi-target.

The difference between a hack that can only hit one person, and one that can attack multiple people simultaneously was massive.

Whether it was the program attacking two separate people at once, or a program that hit one person and used their connection to jump to the next.

I had to figure them both out.

I wasn’t just making a cludged together program that would be good enough.

I was making…

A magnum opus. Well that was a bit much, but still.

I was trying to create the peak of the Reboot Optics I could design.

It was funny there was a version of the program stored on V3L’s server. The quality of it was much higher than the one I had bought from Yoko, but both programs were actually done by two different people. Mine was a copy of a copy of a copy, deteriorating each time, or purposefully weakened.

V3L’s was a copy of a much better program. The coding was different, the goal was the same, yet both had shown me what people considered Reboot Optics to be.

I was trying to surpass both. To create an entirely new version of the Quickhack, a new peer in the market.

It was hard.

It was time consuming.

It was exhilarating!

I was creating magic. Literally designing a digital spell that would blind my enemies.

I mean this wasn’t a wizards tower, but sitting on a couch in an apartment was probably more comfortable anyways.

I snorted at my own joke as I worked. The code coming together, slowly forming into something more than just code.

Something complete.

Finally long after Jun had fallen asleep. I finished typing.

I finished debugging.

I finished crafting a spell.

A spell designed to be both longer lasting than the original idea with the brightness trick, and much wider.

It was unfortunately going to be weaker against other netrunners. Any good ICE and defenses could stall the upload out, but in exchange I could rapid fire it out as it had a much lower RAM cost, plus I could always breach some arrogant Netrunner, and push it through that way.

It was also capable of jumping to other people. When it overrode the optics, it branched out and infested the communication systems. Anyone with an interior agent would have it hijacked, have it connect to others already in communication with them, or those in the system close by. If someone was hit by multiple attack vectors the difficulty in stopping it could spike. If it worked correctly, it could overwhelm even moderately good ICE.

A self duplicating viral code.

It was something really difficult to program. Sure there were plenty of hacks that had that aspect, but those were created by teams of corpo coders all working to get it to work, and most of the best duplicating hacks weren’t program, but hardware bonuses.

I still remembered the Tetratronic Rippler from the video game. That let the super ultimate quick hacks spread to an extra person. Yeah that was probably a bit unrealistic, but then again the rippler wasn’t on the market at the moment, so who knows? Maybe some corp will figure it out in the coming year.

Regardless, I created this program in just a few long sessions.

And it was entirely my own.

Sure I doubt it was unique, but it would still be different enough from anyone else's work that it should come as a nasty surprise.

I pushed the program into compiling, receiving the finished file and uploaded it into my Cyberdeck.

Two completed hacks.

I leaned back in the dim light of the apartment. The sun was setting, Jun was still napping, beside me on the couch, and I had completed one of my big goals.

Instead of working on another quick hack, or something I instead grabbed my little music box.

It had been a project I wanted to complete for a while.

It wasn’t productive. It wasn’t going to make me a better merc. A better Netrunner, or a better Edgerunner if I wanted to call myself that.

But it was a project I really wanted to finish.

So I settled in, and started working. The moment a new file was opened and I started coding my fingers picked up and blurred.

I was inspired.

I had a goal.

And I had the knowledge to complete it.

—--

“Morning Jun.” I muttered as I continued to build piece after piece of a very complex piece of equipment. I was really glad that Programming gave info dumps, because making a Quick Hack wasn’t the same thing as designing the function of a physical item. It was easier in a lot of ways, but more finicky.

“Morning.” He grumbled as he rose up rubbing his eyes. He stood and stretched, grumbling the whole way as he headed into the kitchen.

If Jun was up I should probably get moving too.

I closed the laptop, that project wasn’t going anywhere, and there was something I had been wanting to do.

“I’m heading out, gonna be netrunning for a while, so I might be hard to reach.” I called out to Jun who was drinking an entire energy drink can as he chugged it down.

“You need to show me this netrunning place you got set up.” He said as he wiped his mouth tossing the can into the trash.

“You want to come with me now? It’s not much to see though. The interesting part is the net itself.”

“No. I have stuff I need to do today… You’ll be careful?”

“Course! I’m gonna be hunting some info down today, so I should be pretty safe.”

Jun frowned but eventually nodded. I grinned as I headed out. Time to explore the net once again!