Seras

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 132

A/N For those wondering. Yes I am updating Pokemon Trainer Vicky again. That is just a side thing at the moment. I won't be altering GitC posting schedule which is still my main story. I'll just post PTV chapters randomly as I finish them or something. 

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*Ringing.*

*Ringing.*

*Ringing.*

*Ringing.*

I jerked awake, at the noise, confused and in quite a bit of pain. Then I realized what was going on.

I blinked away the blood from my ...

Ghost in the City: Early chapter 131

I shook it off, as I turned to look out the window. My eyes hadn’t been idle as I waited for V to get back to me. I had been scoping out entrances and weak points in the apartment.

But now I had some data to work on. Araska’s Counter Intel file on the guy was a lot more dense than anything Hiromi had. I walked back into the other room, finding everyone still gathered together, Hiromi was on a call, while Ichi and Malcolm both tried to seem calm and confident around the still twitchy...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 130

“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.”...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 129

Deal done I fled from Yoko’s physical domain and headed home to get to work. Jun was in his room getting ready for bed as I flopped onto the couch which was perfect, giving me time to get started.

I quickly started examining  the code for Short Circuit. I noticed its benefits and weaknesses pretty quickly.

The hack overloaded the microcircuits of anyone with chrome. Basically it tricked the safeties on the power supply to push everything into the system, which caused immedi...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 128

A/N! Just a reminder if you missed it. I posted a surprise extra chapter before this. If you haven't read it, make sure you go read Chapter 127 first!

Instead of huffing the drugs I was handed, I just took a Maxdoc, and then I did the smart thing and drove to Viks. I was already scheduled for a checkup for my chrome. I had been out of the city on the road for over a week after all.

But I stopped to see Misty first. Walking into her shop, and taking a moment to enjoy the...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 127 *Surprise!*

(A/N) So surprise! I know none of you were expecting this tonight! Neither was I! So I've said for a while I did want to add more chapter onto the Patreon, but I didn't feel comfortable doing so, as it would cut into my back log. Well, tonight I finally hit my big goal on my backlog of 200 extra pages. Well 190 now, after posting this.

But it's enough. For me to feel like I did it. Here is the now second chapter that will be posted on Patreon. I will continue to update at the 'normal' t...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 126

A belly full of good food that wasn’t XXL burritos or nomad chili was exactly what I needed. Sure I had killed some gonk for it, but he threatened me first! If he didn’t want to get shot, he shouldn’t threaten people! Duh!

I would have to ditch the vehicle soon though. I wasn’t sure what the rules for this kind of thing were here in Seattle. I mean in Night City I wouldn’t even worry about it, but this was a whole new place. People were… Different here.

The sharp suspi...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 125

Panam

“Sure could use a rocket launcher right about now, don’t you think?” The girl teased with a big smile that did not fit the circumstances.

“Oh shut up.” She snapped and grumbled even if Motoko was right… Sorta.

Half way through the morning a group of Raffen Shiv had started trailing them. Panam had hoped with how dangerous her baby looked to the average gonk that it would keep them away, but as the first hour passed being trailed more Raffen had joi...

Ghost in the City: Early chapter 124

We broke apart not long after that. Ichi had something that he was being evasive about that he wanted to do, and Hiromi had to go back to school.

Apparently her parents were fine with her missing some classes to complete a business deal, but not the whole day.

I decided to head to the range.

I had looked over the silencer on the Copperhead and it seemed fine, so I was going to fire more rounds through it and see what happened!

And of course try to level my reflex stat ...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 123

The second Silencer took about the same length of time to make as the first, although the Copperhead already had everything ready for the detachable Silencer. The Copperhead’s muzzle was already detachable. So I just unscrewed the old one, and made the silencer grooves the right length to screw right on.

When I was done. I pulled it into a shooting stance.. It was heavier than the old muzzle, but nothing excessive. It was getting late, but I didn’t feel like sleeping, so I grabbed m...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 122

*I found him!* Hiromi called out sounding delighted as I quickly accessed her data ping and the screens that surrounded me all shifted into one.

*Damn no wonder we didn’t see him. He hadn’t gone home the day before.* Malcolm muttered, and I nodded. Time stamp was from a whole day before the heist.

That made things complicated.

*Did we find out when he got back from the heist?*

*I don’t think he did.* Ichi offered *I’ve checked from when we lost track of him to ...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 121

“Akari, don’t. Motoko, it’s Tyger Claw business like I said. Sorry if I’ve been distracted. We’re just busy. Give me some time, we can go get dinner or something later.” He tried to play it off.

“No, it’s okay, sorry for bugging you. Need anything? Want me to bring you guys food, or something?” I offered, I had definitely stepped in it, and Akari’s words rung in my head. Five of her subordinates had died. I don’t know how, and Jun was right. TC business. Not mine.<...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 120

The wait for me to finish putting on the pads, seemed to do Hayato absolutely no favors. She was tapping her feet on the mats at a fast speed. Her hands kept twitching up like she was going to start pointing and yelling or something, but she would bring them down as soon as the urge hit, so it meant her hands were jerking around a bit every few seconds.

Yikes.

Once I had gloves and the cool kicky foot pads I stepped back onto the mats.

“Try to keep it to pure martial arts....

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 119

“Hey Jun… Hey Akari.” I mumbled the second half as I got home, and was surprised to see we had visitors. Akari and Jun were sitting around the couch but neither were watching TV.

Jun threw up a waving hand for a moment, but Akari didn’t say anything, which was… Odd.

“Okay what’s going on?” I demanded towards the two very distracted people. Oddly distracted.

“It’s nothing Motoko. Why don’t you go to your room for a bit.” Jun said, while he very obviou...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 118

“So this is the place? Doesn’t look like much… Why don’t we just go to Lizzies?” Ichi asked and I think all three of us stopped to look at him at that admittedly telling request.

“Ichi-” I started to explain, but the way his eyes widened at all of us looking at him showed that he realized what he had just admitted to.

“Nevermind! Always nice to check out new clubs! C’mon!” He called out as he quickly power walked ahead of us. Hiromi and I both broke into quiet ...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 117

Judy Alvarez

I let go of the wire at the exact moment it started flinging me up. Instead of being flung up into the ceiling of the pathway, it launched me across and I just managed to slam my boots into the floor to send me tumbling out the other end of the path, through the open window and into nothing.

Air.

Nothing but air.

Instantly Judy slammed the cancel code into the console and threw herself out of the BD.  Rolling off her chair and grabbing for th...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 116

I arrived at Lizzies not long after. The saved BD of my parkour performance should be pretty fun. Hopefully Nox would be able to sell it.

Or not. I mean the BD creation thing was more for me than anything.

Unfortunately I was stopped at the door by Rita. I waved a hand at her as I approached but was stopped instantly as she reached out and grabbed my shoulder.

“Mona take over for me?” She called out to another bouncer suddenly.

“Sure Rits.” The other bouncer ca...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 115

“Back again? Well you’re more consistent than your brother.” John offered as he noticed me working on a full punching bag. I was ducking and sliding making sure I was working my footing the best I could as I circled the bag. My legs getting a workout with how often I was shifting around and throwing hands.

“Jun’s lazy about exercise. Prefers to just chrome up.” I mentioned in short gasps as I backed off the bag, for a moment and then moved back in a few punches to the side a...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 114

I used Jun as a measuring stick. Switching to a new exercise whenever he did. Since despite all his chrome, my brother was a bit out of shape. Too many burritos.

My calves and thighs were burning but it felt good because I had gotten a few Body alerts as I exercised as well!

Then considering most of the stuff was already claimed I walked up to the punching speed bag. The small bag wasn’t my usual go to for exercises, but that actually worked to my benefit. I had done punching ma...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 113

“You guys don’t have to wait around. You could go check on Malcolm…” I offered as we entered the basement of the Straight Lane Apartments, where all my netrunning stuff was kept.

“Malcolm is asleep, and Dr. Vik doesn’t want us bothering him. Besides, we can help you like last time. Go through data while you keep up the hunt.” Ichi replied and I didn’t have a response for that.

I felt bad that my chooms would be hanging around me while I was basically sleeping, whil...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 112

The day had come and gone. Then the night. Jun hadn’t come home, and the sun was rising. I had taken a break after an hour of playing music, and gone out. Spending a couple grand on some additional security for the apartment. Then Installing it all. Of course it was just off the shelf junk.

It wouldn’t really stop anyone.

But I was currently programming out a bit of a trick. The thing with door locks is that they are never really going to stop someone. Instead I was going to k...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 111

Was it weird that the strangest part about waking up with Hiromi gripped around my waist was that we were in a bed and not on an old couch.

“Unfamiliar ceiling.” I mumbled looking at the white plastic of the beds roof section, this being one of the weird all in one Cyberpunk beds rather than the couch or my old bed at the apartment.

I blinked as I realized I hadn’t set myself an eight hours like usual, but something had actually woken up, and it wasn’t Hiromi’s snorting ...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 110

Second site of the night.

The first location hadn’t even been a real Scav Den. Just a small storage unit that three gonks that were definitely not official Scavs, just fuckers willing to do horrible things to people.

They were all dead now, and I had the XP to prove it.

*500 XP Gained.*

*500 XP Gained.*

*500 XP Gained.*

I don’t care if you were official Scavs, or just some assholes ripping people apart for eddies. They were all fucking trash in my opini...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 109

We went home to the apartment after and the whole time Jun was being insufferable.

“I told you you would like it!” he teased, smiling like the stupid gonk he is.

My desire to punch him was rising. Just because I had accepted that moving was what Jun wanted, and I shouldn’t hold him back didn’t mean I really wanted it.

But he was acting like I was super happy with it all.

“Jun shut up.” I told him simply as I walked around my room cleaning things up. Gatheri...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 108

I was sitting on the couch. Well laying on it more than anything. I probably should go kill those Scavs… Or play some music to let the hobby do what it was supposed to and soothe out these kinds of emotional issues, but I was just so done.

“Fuck today.” I reminded myself and that was good enough.

“Fuck today.” Jun called out from his room, obviously hearing me.

Then I got a call.

Fuck.

*Hey Hiromi.* I answered. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk t...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 107

I was all prepped. I had found the little Scav den that Padre sent me the info for, in the basement of an abandoned building on the west side of Heywood.

I had broken their security. Pinged into their network, tracked their movements in real time as I hung out in the abandoned backlot of the building.

The only signs of use were tire tracks and the fact the old gate had a long curving path through the dirt showing it was still opened from time to time.

I was stacked up on the...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 106

Stats decided for now it was time to make some calls, and get some contacts. Information was crucial if I was going to send a message to the Scavs.

First I sent a text to Regina.

*Motoko: Been a while. Looking for any information on Scav locations. I’ll do any gigs that require clearing out Scavs for free as well.*

I didn’t get a response back instantly so I moved on. Considering what I was going to do, I sent a text to Wakako.

*Motoko: Going to be reaching out to ...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 105

Freshly showered Motoko felt much better than blood coated Motoko. I did have to take a brush to my arms though. Vik was definitely going to give me that look next time I saw him if I let blood stains get stuck in my joints.

After spending a good while digging into nooks and crannies of my arms. I walked back into the apartment.

Of course nothing was how it should be. For one the windows were all broken. The metal guard was also ruined, a hole punched through a few blinds breaking...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 104

“Holy fuck.” I whispered. Staring as actual deja vu struck me.

I had gotten some deets from Wakako about this location. After I cleared out her gig location which was a waste of time. Only three Scavs working in a small cell, but she had at least started selling me more info.

Considering one of the places I hit had already been cleared out maybe an hour before me. I realized Wakako was being sneaky and selling me the locations the TC knew about.

Whatever. It didn’t mat...

Ghost in the City: Early Chapter 103

*Fixed it!*

I ended up taking Jun to his ripper, who was not Vik. Which irritated me.

But in the end he was patched up and we drove back to the apartment.

The horde of Tyger Claws around the apartment had thinned but not dispersed. In fact many of them were settling onto steps, or in shop fronts across the street or in the area and just hunkering down.

I doubt many of the normal people in the area were very comfortable with this.

In the end though I was too focus...