“And that’s that.” I said having parked the Quadra-R right back into the same garage that I had put it in before. “Let me call Wakako.” I told my chooms, as everyone was distracted with Malcolms retelling of what happened.

*Ringing.*

*Ringing.*

*I see that you have completed the task successfully.* Wakako answered her phone without a moment's wait.

*Yeah, found it parked in a little garage. So now the real question. What do you want me to do with the gonks that stole from you? They are TC, so do you want me to handle it, or?*

*A show of force is needed. Kusanagi. You have succeeded in every task I have given you. So I give you another. I want them removed.*

*Well that is something I can do.* I assured her, already fingering the knife at my hip. Finally! XP!

*Good. Contact me when you are finished.*

With that Wakako hung up, although I had to admit that last bit almost sounded like a goodbye. Was I melting Wakako’s frozen heart?

Yeah. No, probably not.

“Alright guys! We got a second part of the gig!” I told my chooms making everyone perk up. It was time for some real ninja shit!

—--

The apartment complex was old, and rundown, and after checking the registry at the front desk which I didn’t even have to hide the fact I was jacking into as no one in the entrance cared what I was doing.

Michael Hideki. Room 303. He was the one that owned the garage in question, and with a bit of searching I confirmed he was the guy from just looking at the records they had.

“Got him.” I told my team, the four of us had walked into the lobby. The few bums that hung around quickly disappeared as everyone was armed. “Ichi, Hiromi, cover the entrance from the truck. Malcolm you’re with me.” I told them and I could feel Malcolms excitement at being pulled along.

We headed up to the floor as I explained what Malcolm should do on the way up. He stepped off, and then I went up to the floor above.

The exterior of these apartments all had balconies.

I walked a few apartments down and just walked into 403. The man hanging out on his couch jerked up at my sudden appearance but I just waved him off.

“Not here for you. Ignore me.” I told him very visibly flashing my Burya to make sure the man got the hint. His slow nod told me he would behave as I walked to the balcony. I took a moment to put away the Burya, and ready my Lexington, slipping on the silencer. Then I simply stepped over the edge, as casual as any stroll.

Catching myself on the balcony just below I slowly peaked over the edge.

These were my targets.

The three gonks. This time without masks, but I had already ID’ed them. I hupped up, climbing over the balcony and opening the outer door that had been locked, but only took a moment to pop open, and then I was there, Lexington raised.

“Wha-!”

The sharp sounds of my silenced Lexington opening fire into three men snapped out, the only noise coming from the bullets zinging through the air and then into flesh and upholstery.

They moved. Adrenaline gave them the ability to act. They shouted and screamed. Despite being shot up, they still moved. One made it to the door. Malcolm sent him back inside without a head. Malcolm followed him in, his arms opened up showing the bloody Mantis Blade he had just used to behead the gonk.

So preem!

“Wait… Malcolm! I totally forgot you had Mantis Blades! That’s so cool!” I called out as I finished reloading and walked over to the last two. One hadn’t made it off the couch, the other had, but only to leap behind it. I reached over and unloaded a few seconds into him, and any threat that he had was gone.

“What? Motoko, you’re the one that helped me get these!”

“I know! I just forgot you chipped them! How are they treating you?” I asked, honestly curious. I never had a chance to ask V what having them was like!

“Uh… I guess they’re okay… Are we done?”

“Oh yeah. We should loot up a bit and delta.” I said, searching all three gonks for their iron, and mostly just throwing it at Malcolm to hold as I scanned with my Kiroshi for anything of value.

“Let’s delta.” I confirmed, after a quick search and we hurried out of the apartment, back to the elevator, and then down, basically running as the adrenaline was hitting Malcolm making him twitchy and I was mostly just happy with all the XP.

*500 XP Gained.*

*500 XP Gained.*

Once we jumped into the back of the truck. Hiromi closed the doors, and Ichi pulled away.

Gig successful!

I sent the message to Wakako, and then smiled even brighter as we got our payment.

“Drinks are on me!”

—--

I flopped onto the bed tired from a night partying. We had ended up going to Lizzies because of Ichi, and Malcolms machinations, and Hiromi hadn’t managed to convince me to go to that one fancy TC bar we had visited so long ago.

So a fun few hours spent drinking and celebrating with my chooms.

I hadn’t had any alcohol so had been the designated driver to get everyone home after, now I was home and kinda sleepy.

I considered just closing my eyes and hitting my sleep button, but instead I rolled off my bed and walked over to my workbench.

So much stuff was going on.

Hiromi and I were still talking about who to hit for another massive loot run. She was actually doing fixer stuff to narrow down some locations we could hit and load up on gear.

I was still worried about Sasha, was forcing the perfect hack for the gig enough? Would she survive? I hope so. She deserved to live. Even if revealing the Securicine knowledge wouldn’t solve the problem entirely. Biotechnica had ridden out the issue without problem.

That’s what happens when you are the one corp that handles most of the food and medicine.

If she lived, maybe we could team up and do some cool netrunning attacks on them?

Then I had the stuff in front of me.

Technical Ability was still the weakest of my stats, and it was one I really needed to level. I knew I would get a lot of work after we loaded up on all the equipment for my chooms. We would all need modifications to armor and weapons.

Yet if my skill was only middling then why do it myself? Hiring someone would be better, since we were talking about my chooms safety!

So it was time to settle in and do some grinding.

First thing first. I needed a project I could just sit down and absolutely grind out on. The idea had been in my head for a while. Since Section 9 started doing investigative work we needed some equipment that would make our gigs easier. Well that and it worked for Batman.

I grabbed the laptop to open up the CAD program, and started designing. I didn’t need to make them look like little bats or anything. I just needed them small enough I could fit a few onto a belt for easy use and something to lock them onto things.

Tracking devices were pretty easy all told. Battery, signal repeater, chassis. Even better, I could make them connect through whatever local net they were close to, and then boom. I did consider attaching a camera or something onto them, because honestly micro cameras weren’t expensive, but I wanted to hold that off for the next project.

The CAD design came together over a few hours as I slowly adjusted everything until I had a small circular disc that would have a magnetic back and that was that.

I made a list of everything I would need for one, and headed out of the house. Ignoring Jun as he was camped out on the couch zoned out and watching some TV show he liked. I headed out and then into the maze of buildings and shops that made up Japantown.

I found the tech shop that was closest and stepped in barely even paying attention to what was going on, but of course I had plenty of skills stuffed into my brain that started blaring warnings.

I looked up and into the eyes of… Well they weren’t TC, at least they weren’t wearing TC colors. But they were definitely robbing the place.

“I said get up-”

“Sup gonks.” I introduced myself, and then drew my gun as the guy with a Unity that had approached me, didn’t actually have it aimed at me.

Total Gonk move.

He exploded away from me as Burya blew a hole the size of my fist in his chest, and I instantly dropped, as his choom across the way reacted with a scream of surprise and started blasting with his Carnage.

I aimed and fired.

Nothing between him and I was bulletproof. Especially not Burya proof. I fired the moment my shoulder had hit the floor and I had stopped bouncing and I instantly heard the gunfire stop.

It took me a few moments to peak out and I could see the second gonk on the ground bleeding out.

Whew!

I rose up, and wiped myself down, holstering my Burya as I checked the shop.

The guy behind the shop counter wasn’t there…

Not good. Peeking over the counter I saw brains splattered across the wall and a slumped cashier.

“Fuck. This means I’m not getting my supplies doesn’t it?”

Considering the circumstances. I did consider just taking what I wanted. I could easily destroy the camera evidence…

No. I shook it off with a sigh. As I walked over and pulled my Lexington.

Two rounds into the skulls of the gonk fuckers that tried to rob me along with my tech shop.

*500 XP Gained.*

*500 XP Gained.*

I guess I’ll call NCPD?

—--

“Like I told you. I got here after. I was coming to buy some supplies to tinker with, and I wasn’t even paying attention to notice the store was being robbed. Gonk fucker one, tried to hold me hostage, but he had the trigger discipline of a particularly high Scav, and I blew his ass away from me. And then shot gonk fucker two through the stacks. Cashier was already dead.”

The woman officer listened to my story with a look that gave me no context on whether she believed me, but told me she had better things to do than be here. I had of course waited after calling the NCPD to alert them to the murder.

Really the officers had looked more angry at the fact I was here to still give a statement than if I had just disappeared.

“Just sit down and don’t move.” She demanded after a moment and walked over to her partner. I just wiggled my cuffed hands at myself because I had been sitting on the counter the whole time.

Cops amiright?

Kicking my feet, I did my best to restrain my urge to whistle. NCPD were a bit twitchy. Eventually they both headed back over to me, after having checked out the bodies and talked to eachother quietly.

“We confirmed you didn’t kill the shopkeeper, and these two had bounties. Get lost.” She said walking behind me and with a bit of roughness unlocking the cuffs.

“Can I get my guns back?”

“Grab them and disappear.” The male demanded pointing to the other side of the counter where they had stripped my equipment. I hurried over and loaded up, checking and even if they didn’t like it, reloading my pistols before I was suited back up.

“Nice to meet you all! Have a nice night!” I smiled brightly at them, earning irritated looks in turn as I headed out into the night.

Now I needed to find a new tech store.

—--

Arms loaded with bags of goodies I finally made it back home.

The second store I had gone to wasn’t as well stocked as the first, but it was thankfully unmurdered so I was able to buy what I needed.

I hobbled into my room and dumped everything besides the workbench, and flopped in.

It was late, but I was actually feeling kinda excited now that I had everything in front of me.

I immediately threw in some of the aluminum into the printer to start processing the casing. While I grabbed the trackers' electronics and started putting it all together. My fingers were quite deft, as this wasn’t a complex task.

Batteries, a small chipset to connect to the net to send pings. Mostly it was just setting it all in a row so it would fit in the little disc.

The programming to get it to send me information only took a few minutes, my hands blurred across the laptop as I configured a very simple program that would send location data to me in an interval by text. Something I could easily just ignore if I need to, but would create a nice little history for each device as well.

The first one finished and I pulled it free checking the fit of all the parts, happy it worked. I threw another one into the printer, and attached the final bit to the casing. A magnet. It wouldn’t attach to everything, but it would be enough. With a moment to pull a shard out of the laptop and insert it into the chipset in the tracker it got its software updated, and then I was done.

I checked out my first completed tracker. Looking at it this way and that, then I flipped it on.

Instantly a location was sent to me by text.

Nice.

I marked it as Tracker 1. And set it on the table to check its interval, while I focused on the others.

One after another I started putting together trackers.

And quickly since I was making something new, something that needed multiple skills, alerts flooded in.

I had finally gained another Technical Ability point, and then it just flowed over with alerts.

*100 Technical Ability XP Gained*

*100 Technical Ability XP Gained*

*100 Technical Ability XP Gained*

*Technical Ability Leveled up!*

*100 Engineering XP Gained.*

*100 Engineering XP Gained.*

*100 Crafting XP Gained.*

*100 Crafting XP Gained.*

*100 Crafting XP Gained.*

*100 Crafting XP Gained.*

*100 Crafting XP Gained.*

—-

Eventually after I had a good dozen of the things I went to bed falling instantly asleep and waking up long after the afternoon was a distant memory feeling refreshed and happy.

The tracker was the exact kind of cool spy gadget I needed, but it wasn’t the only one.

I jumped up and hurried over to the workbench and sat down. What kind of investigator would I be without hidden cameras!

The CAD program was once again pulled up, and this time I pulled a lot deeper from my knowledge. A magnet wouldn’t work. I would need a lot more flexibility.

So I was actually going to use knowledge granted to me by one of my perks! Robotics Wizard gave me an incredibly firm baseline for robotics of any sort.

A small camera. Barely an inch across more than small enough to hide in shadows, but It would have three tiny robotic grabbers. At the end of each one, would be a spike, and a magnet.

If I needed to attach it to something metal, like say on top of a camera system already in place? Magnets would secure it just fine and give me some ability to adjust the angle.

If I had nothing metal? Then I could drive the spiked limbs into drywall, or other soft materials. And if nothing like that worked. The limbs could just grab onto something the old fashioned way. It wouldn't be as secure, but it would do.

Unfortunately, despite my skill set, I wasn’t really familiar with any material that could dampen scanning to try and make it more sneaky. I would just have to rely on placing it somewhere it wouldn’t be seen to get any use out of it.

Hours of work as I finangled the robotic limbs to be tiny enough, yet strong enough that it could handle everything I would need, and then I realized it was just a cube with a camera and limbs and that was gross…

So I tossed out the entire thing and started over. If I was going to make something, I should at least make it cute or cool.

One or the other.

This time though the idea didn’t come instantly. Something cute. Something cute. It was fighting me, and I ended up leaving the room grabbing some food and flopped onto the back of the couch letting my leg and arm hand down onto the cushions as I considered what to do.

“Ah.” I muttered half dreamily as I lay there staring at the adverts that always seemed to play around the entertainment system.

Gonna have to fix that some day. Fucking things were annoying.

But, I had an idea.

“I’ll have to design it eventually. Why not now?” I muttered, and let myself flop fully onto the couch as I bonelessly rose back to my feet and then leapt doing a fun front flip just because towards my room.

If I wanted them to be cute, I already had the cutest coolest thing in the whole world in mind.

“TachiCams?” I considered it before shaking my head. “No TachiCama!” I giggled in delight at the decision! So cute!. I could make them disks just like the trackers, but have a protruding adjustable camera orb inserted in it.

I would need to design it for the Tachikoma that I would make someday, so why not get started now? It would give the camera way more adjustability too. Plus it would still have little legs! Very cute!

I pulled up the CAD program and started to work. Making the camera move like how I wanted would be tough. I didn’t want to rely on a wireless approach. Too easy for a scanner to pick up on. So it would have to be hard wired which would limit the cameras range of motion before it needs to reset so it doesn’t twist the wire off or something.

The camera orb was designed first, and I could definitely do the three optic ‘eye’ for the camera. Maybe three pin cameras instead of a single large one?

Coming up with a cool design was fun!

I buried myself into design, slowly forming out a… Okay it looked like a flying saucer, like an old style one, it even had the funny little legs, but hell, it was cute, and it would definitely work.

I started putting the final touches on the design. This was going to be so cute!