An hour later Kang Tao headed off having retrieved the data and everything was settled.

Just another night in Night City where the corps felt that killing anyone that had even touched their data was the better course than just trusting some mercs to have not read it.

I didn’t, but I was tempted to after they screwed us like this, but Regina had gotten paid and then some for all the trouble, so I was just going to let it go. I didn’t want to deal with Kang Tao right now.

Getting to Hiromi’s apartment I was let in quickly as Hiromi opened the door before I even got there.

“C’mon!” She urged me, grabbing my arm and pulling me inside. It was a bit tense in the apartment. It looks like Hiromi’s Mom was here, and she was giving the group a little bit of a stink eye as the group of teenagers splayed out on her fancy couch.

“Mother! Motoko is back.”

“Hello again.” I greeted the stern looking woman, who looked me over, and I noticed her optics locking in on my new chrome as well. But then she nodded seemingly pleased.

“This issue with Kang Tao is dealt with?” She asked and I nodded.

“Yep. They backed off, everything is settled.”

“Good. Hiromi, dear, be more careful.” She said in a tone that was actually a bit softer than I’d ever heard from her. “Yes Mother.” Hiromi said, without even a hint of irritation. Which surprised me, because we were careful.

Then Mama Hiromi walked out of the living room for her office, and the atmosphere calmed down.

“Whew.” Hiromi sighed a bit as she left.

“Be more careful?” I prodded quietly, and Hiromi just shook it off.

“She worries. But she lets me do this.” Hiromi argued back, almost snapping at me, and I nodded, raising my hands.

“Got it, sorry.”“It’s fine.” She whispered back, and then she turned to everyone. “Okay! Motoko got everything settled!”

“Finally!” Malcolm called out, but I realized he was teasing. “Gosh Motoko, taking so long.”“Yeah Motoko.” Ichi said distractedly as he was currently eating some food that was on a fancy plate and looking shocked at what he was eating.

“Oh fuck off!” I told Malcolm laughing, as I walked over and pushed his head. “I had to sneak past an entire team of Kang Tao to get that data drive dropped off.”

“Pfft. Just one team? Are you getting slow in your old age?” Malcolm teased, so I just flipped him off and Rebecca’s laugh made me laugh along with her.

“Funny as fuck chooms. But we’re good? Vik did good work, but I’m still feeling sore.” Rebecca said, pointing at her leg that was currently resting on the glass coffee table. That might have been why Mama Hiromi was hovering.

“Yeah, Kang Tao agreed to back off on this one. Regina brow beat them with the data.”

“Nova. Alright then. I’m out.” Rebecca said and groaned as she started to get up. I frowned.

“Want a hand?”

“Ehhh… Yeah.” She admitted as she winced a bit as she put weight on her leg.

I walked over and scooped her up gently, earning a yelp of surprise from Rebecca as I slowly made sure she was comfortable.

“Jeeze choom! I’m not that small!”

“You’re pretty light Rebecca!” I responded back with a laugh showing her how easy it was to lift her. Honestly the weight was mostly on my back thanks to my arms being chrome, and my core handled the rest just fine.

“Fuck. I forgot all those muscles you got Strings.”

I just laughed at Rebecca’s surprised sound.

“C’mon I’ll help you get home. Oh before I forget.” I mentioned stopping my turn towards the door. “We didn’t get to loot the place with everything that happened. But I’m amazed at how well everyone handled today. Ichi, your van okay?”He gave me a small grimace. “Repairs aren’t going to be cheap.”“It was during an OP, and it saved our ass, so Hiromi? Can we make sure that gets squared away? I can pull from my eddies if that would work.”“Don’t worry about it Motoko.” Hiromi said, although she was giving me a strange focused look. “We have the company account for that sort of thing.”

“Okay… Just let me know if there are any issues. Thanks everyone.”“Pfft. We all did what we could.” Malcolm said surprisingly blase about the whole thing. “I’m gonna head out too.”

And with that other than Hiromi giving me a strange look, and Rebecca giggling for some reason. Our first official gig day ended.

—--

“So Ash has been reaching out. She’s had a few people reach out to her, music people on the down low trying to get contact information.” Hiromi informed me the next morning.

I blinked at her as she had just walked into my bedroom as I was being a bit lazy and still in bed without a word and just flopped down and started talking.

“What? Hiromi!”She rolled her eyes but she was trying to keep from breaking out into a smile so she was definitely fucking with me. I just rolled my eyes back and waved my wrist for her to go on.

“Okay so. People are interested. Interest is good. It means we have leverage. I want to set up some meetings. Some DJ’s for different stations want your music, and some producers, I think they want to add you to their label!”

“Sounds horrible.”“It has its drawbacks.” She admitted a little too quickly. “But the eddies would be much better!”“Hiromi.”“Motoko.”

I sighed. Working with some corpo middleman music producer sounded like a horrible idea. I could tell Hiromi knew what I was thinking as she added.

“I’ll be with you the whole time. I’ve actually been studying. Arasaka does have a Music section, and I looked over their course load. I know what to look out for!”

I side eyed Hiromi because she probably didn’t realize how little that reassured me. I wasn’t worried about how good she was, I was worried about how evil whoever we were talking to was.

I shrugged it off. I could always just kill people.

That familiar mantra left me feeling more at ease. “Alright. I’ll leave it to you.”“Yeeees! Okay can you get ready? I want to set up a meeting!”Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.“Alright, sure. Tell me who you want us to meet.” I asked as I got up and stretched, groaning a bit as I let my muscles stretch out, with a hop I jumped off my bed and started grabbing clothes. Fighting my ass into my jeans I turned to Hiromi who seemed a little distracted. “Hiromi?”“Wha? Yes! Okay so. First meeting is with Richard Fox. He’s actually a DJ for Morro Rock.”“Yeah that name sounds familiar.” I muttered, I think I’d heard him on the radio? I did listen to Morro. It was where I had originally listened to Samurai and played along with.“He wants to play Pretender, at least mentioned it to Ash directly. So we are going down to the radio station to talk eddies.”

“Do they even do that? Just buy singles?”“Not usually, in fact I doubt we’ll get any eddies from this… Sort of the opposite.”“You want to pay him to play the song?”“Yes. More people listening to the song means more people interested. It’s advertising!”

I looked at Hiromi and she was firm about this.

“Okay.” I agreed. If Hiromi thought this was the best path, then I’d play along.

—--

The station wasn’t anything super fancy, a pretty normal building in City Center, near the Mayor's office.

We parked the Quadra and headed in through the armored glass doors with the Morro Rock Logo on it.

The inside didn’t even have a secretary. Instead Hiromi walked up to the computer at the desk and typed in some information before getting a guest pass.

I followed her into the elevator and then up we went.

We were both quiet as we went up. I could feel Hiromi getting a bit nervous, so she was shifting into her corpo mode. Her face smoothing out and getting an almost haughty tilt to her head.

Then the door opened and we walked out into a room that actually had a secretary.

“Hiromi Mitsunashi?”“Yes.”

“Mr. Fox will see you now. First door on your left.” She said, the secretary was lazing back practically with her feet on the desk, and I was shocked she wasn’t blowing bubbles with bubblegum.

Hiromi strode down the hall head high and I followed in her wake just enjoying the way Hiromi had shifted from nervousness to full confidence.

Inside was a personal office. A big desk, with a man sitting behind it. Lots of records on the walls, and a few pictures of famous musicians shaking the man’s hand.

“Ah excellent! Richard Fox, and you’d be?”“Hiromi Mitsunashi, Manager. This is Motoko Kusanagi, Ghost in the Shell.” Hiromi introduced us, and the mans smile was bright and wide. He was gregarious, happily shaking both our hands and offering us a drink as he settled us into the chairs across the desk.

“Well can I just say before we get to business? Pretender, absolutely banging track. That opening guitar pick? Really drew me in.” He offered and I blinked and couldn’t help but smile at his compliment.

“Thanks.”

“Well let’s get down to it yeah? I want your song on my station. The first time I heard it from Ash I thought it would do well here. I’ve already thrown out my first offer to Ms. Mitsunashi.”“I want the number of plays to go up. Ten isn’t enough.”“Ten is pretty reasonable for an unknown artist.” He replied back instantly, and suddenly I was ping ponging as I looked between the two.

“An unknown artist that came to you with their offer. You came to us. We know how things work, but in this case you want the song to be able to play it, so we want it played. Fifteen. Minimum.”“Hmm. Tell you what. I’ll agree to Thirteen, but three of them will be on the big midday show, and of course on that show call-ins happen, so if someone wants to hear it again I won’t count that against you.”Hiromi was silent for a moment as she seemed to have nothing to argue about.

“That’s… A surprisingly good offer.” She eventually said almost pointedly.

“Heh. Kid, you gotta realize I run a radio station. I’m not a record label. My greatest ability isn’t locking everyone into iron clad contracts that only benefit me, but by being the nice personable music connection for the up and coming artists. In twenty years Ghost in the Shell might just remember good old Fox on her favorite station.” And he stopped to throw me a wink. “And threw me an early track.”

Hiromi I noticed was actually starting to smile at the man. Her body language shifting from confident corpo, to a more relaxed position.

“Well I can’t promise anything, but I’ll make sure you are on the short list if things go well.”“Well that’s a deal I can get behind!” He said cheering and I couldn’t help but smile at the over the top energy of it. “But before we finish… You mind?” He asked me and pointed at a guitar in the corner. “It’s one of my things. I always like to do a little jam session with fresh artists.”

I barked out a laugh. I couldn’t help it. “Sure choom. What do you want to play?”“What do you know?”“Everything. Well if I’ve heard it before I can play it.”“Yeah?” He asked taking me seriously and I nodded, as I grabbed the guitar and he grabbed another. “How about this.”

He started playing a song I didn’t recognize but as he played through it, I just nodded after and mimicked him perfectly he broke into a laugh.

“Well I know for a fact you’re being honest Motoko, mind if I call you Motoko?”“That’s fine.” I shrugged it off, and he continued.

“I wrote that myself, it’s nothing special but it’s mine. How about this then?” He asked and started up something I did know. I immediately mimicked him, taking on the role of Johnny to his Eurodyne, as he started up Chippin In.

We jammed through the whole song. I even sang it along which surprised him and I could tell the guy might be a corporate Radio Host, but he did love the music.

When we finished he started laughing.

“Holy shit. You got the gift kid, you didn’t miss a single transition!”

“I’ve done my own covers of the Samurai songs.”

“Yeah?” He asked and then grinned. “You know I do amateur oldie hour Sunday Night at 3 am. Send your covers in, I’ll throw them on. No charge.” I grinned at the offer and Hiromi looked smug as well. We shook hands.

—--

The sound of gloves hitting gloves echoed out as I pushed. Left, left, low right, grapple. Activate Sandy. Step back as a blow skims my nose.

Fast as always. I had started trying to activate my Sandy in a flash while sparring, giving me a second that turned into a bit more whenever I expected a counter attack. I hopped back and Hayato glared at me, huffing in irritation.

I danced backwards a bit letting the feel of my Sandy cycling count me down before I rushed in again.

Hayato had great stamina thanks to her Synth lungs but I had discovered that she could be worn out as the rest of her didn’t all share the same endurance.

“You are so annoying.” She said, her cadence consistent which told me she had taken a moment to specifically share this information with me clearly.

“I aim to please.” I teased and then charged in and I wanted to laugh as her irritation shifted to surprise before focus all in a single moment as we once more began slamming into each other.

For a pampered princess she certainly knew how to fight. I guess that had been intentional. You couldn’t lead a Gang if you couldn’t fight

I shook off that thought as I didn’t want to really think too hard at the fact she was so important.

She’d always just be the weirdo with a Keren to me.

I blinked in surprise as instead of me initiating a grapple she did. Grabbing my wrist and shifting into a judo throw. I let her hip toss me, but shifted my arm so I landed on my feet and then yanked her off her feet as I had more mass than her…

Earning a momentary shocked look as she yelped as I slammed her into the mat.

“I think that’s my-”“Don’tsayit!” She demanded in a rush cutting me off and I just laughed as she threw me off her and regained her feet. Stiff backed and obviously frustrated.

“C’mon Hayato, don’t act like that.”

“I had you!” She grumbled and I laughed.

“We need to work on your grappling a bit more before you can take me with that. Nice throw though. You just forgot my arms are chrome.”“Oh trust me, that isn’t something I forgot.” She snapped back. “I have the bruises to prove it.” She muttered rubbing at her arms.

“Hehe!” I laughed at her pouting face and that shifted it into a glare.

“You are so annoying! I refuse to believe someone like you is an assassin!” She called out quite loudly, and I laughed even harder, because half the dojo had shifted to look at her.

Realizing she was the center of attention for yelling so hotly she huffed and purposefully sent a glare over the room that had everyone turning away. Must be nice being the future boss.

“Believe it or not.” I shrugged. “Now, you going to end this with me still in the lead?”

My words had the desired reaction as she turned and instantly leapt into a boxing pattern to try and bash my face in. I just laughed as we got back into it.

That’s right Hayato, keep fighting and let me get more and more of those lovely Street Brawling alerts.

—--

“Alright try it now?” I asked and Ichi nodded, the Minotaur stood up and I sighed in relief.

*100 Technical Ability XP Gained*

*Technical Ability Leveled up!*

Tech 8. Now just to hope my repairs had worked.

“Feels fine.” He offered and I felt myself relax.

“Looks like it’s holding. Stupid proprietary bullshit.” I grumbled. The Minotaur had needed some maintenance, and it had needed it badly. One of the leg joints had been getting stuck. Turns out the damn things were designed to wear out after only a few uses.

What a shock.

I had to pull apart the entire assembly, as using some gathered intel from a certain Kitsune I had been trying to repair the damn thing.

I glanced up and smiled as the door to the little rear garage opened up and Ichi’s Grandmother stepped in holding an actual jug of lemonade.

“You kids thirsty?” She asked softly. And I couldn’t help but cheer both hands in the air.

“Thanks Grandma.” Ichi said, as he took a second to pull off the headset for the Minotaur and went to grab the jug from her.

She was old. It was one of those things you don’t think about, but I could tell she was out of breath just by walking the jug across the back yard.

Ichi was a good grandson doing what he could to take care of her.

I walked over and pulled one of the chairs over. “Want a seat?” I asked and she laughed and waved me off. “No, thank you dear. I’ll head back inside.” She said and started sort of hobbling back out as Ichi found a place to put the lemonade and started pouring for the two of us.

“She’s nice.” I told him, and he nodded absentmindedly.

“I’ve been able to buy her medicine. She’s doing a lot better.” He said and I winced a bit at that. She was a bit… Absent minded, so the fact she was doing better?

I sighed. Man that sucked. I reached out and gave Ichi a ‘good job’ pat on his shoulder and then grabbed some lemonade.

It wasn’t real lemons but it tasted good.

“C’mon I want to finish going over this thing.” I plopped back down and grabbed my tools. This was great Tech XP.