I was searching through the borg I had flatlined for any goodies he might have in his pocket when I heard it.

The elevator.

It left a quiet rumble through the floor as it settled. The elevator that was locked down so only Scavs could use it. Hiromi and Ichi’s crew wouldn’t be here yet.

“Here I go murdering again.” I whispered as everything went cold.

Instantly my mind had a thought and every part of me was nodding along.

I ran. Sprinted through the different rooms over the dead bodies and through broken walls before I returned to that little Bunker they had set up near the elevator. I crept up and unfortunately whoever had come up had already walked out of the elevator.

But that was fine. I slipped out through the hole as quickly and quietly as I could until I was once more on the Megabuildings outer walkway.

Then I pulled the HMG through the hole.

I wheezed a little at how heavy it was as it caused a twinge in my left arm that made me wince, but I fought through it anyways. How did Becca handle this thing!? Oh right. Cyber arms.

Gonna have to get me some cyber arms.

Because as I walked down the hall I caught the sight of the scav walking into their little den. That room led to the first Ripper room.

Which meant I had about thirty seconds before they realized something was up.

So I hurried down the hall. Not caring too much about making noise. This was their home base. They expected people here.

I crept through the ripper room, my face turning into a gentle smirk as I stopped just before entering the big room.

I took a breath.

Then I walked out around the doorway.

Three men. One was carrying a man over his shoulder.

Fuck. They had a victim…

Fine. I just wouldn’t shoot at that one, I adjusted my aim.

And pulled the trigger.

You know in the game the HMG was used every once in a while. It was an okay thing. A heavy weapon you could pick up and carry around for a bit until it ran out of ammo, or you had to do anything else.

It was okay. Not great. Not amazing. Just okay. Fun though.

This? This wasn’t a video game.

This was a fucking HMG fired from the hip by a fourteen year old unaugmented girl. I only weighed a tad over a hundred pounds.

Did I forget my broken left arm? Yes. Yes, I did forget my broken left arm. That is until about half a second after I started firing.

Then I remembered it. Oh did I remember it.

So yeah. Firing the HMG instantly fucked me up. Kicking me back and forcing me to push myself into a wall to keep from falling on my ass.

Too bad for the poor Scav that I had been aiming at though.

He turned into fucking hamburger. Turns out these HMG’s fired explosive rounds.

*500 XP Gained.*

The other two leapt for cover.

Which didn’t help when I manhandled the HMG arcing over towards the scav that wasn’t carrying an innocent.

Explosive ammunition doesn’t care about light cover.

I kept firing. The wall I was pushing the gun against to find any sort of stabilization practically crumbled from the treatment but it did let me arc the fire straight through the second Scav attempt to hide behind an overturned table.

*500 XP Gained.*

I dropped the HMG. I couldn’t shoot the third Scav without hitting the victim, and I didn’t think I could have held it for much longer anyways.

I drew my Unity with my good arm and rushed him.

The Scav was still screaming something in Russian as I leapt over the couch he had been hiding behind.

The poor victim looked like shit on the floor beside him obviously having been dropped like a sack when the firing started. But the Scav? He was cowering.

Four rounds into him before he realized I was there and he stopped moving.

*500 XP Gained.*

I breathed. Just breathed catching my breath before I rolled forward and grabbed my arm.

“Fuuuuu-!”

—---

The Victim was still unconscious. I checked them out and they didn’t have any shards in their system or anything. Probably just drugged or beaten unconscious. So I hauled them up and put them on one of the newly destroyed couches before settling in myself.

My arm twinged a bit whenever I moved it.

I think I broke, broke it. I needed a nap, but needed to get the crates full of cyberware out first. I sighed hoping Hiromi hurried up.

The bodies were starting to smell… Worse than the room already smelled. While I waited I checked over my stats since I had nothing else to do.

Considering how much shooting I had just done, I wasn’t surprised to see my stats had gone up.

A lot.

*Annihilation skill level up!*

*Annihilation skill level up!*

*1 Perk Point Gained.*

*Annihilation skill level up!*

I blinked at that one. Guess firing an HMG had leveled me up quick.

I stopped to check out the perks for a moment. This time there was a pretty quick delineation between shotgun perks and Machine gun perks. Luckily just a few options from the top was what I wanted. I picked it immediately.

Recoil Reduction. Know how to best reduce the effect of recoil on aim and your body.

That would hopefully mean when I shot the Burya my arm stopped breaking. I would have to test that though. I winced at that idea. So I moved on.

*Reflex Leveled up!*

This was a relief. Reflex was so determined by my skills since I didn’t have a direct way to level it. Now I was at Reflex 4. That meant I had even more Reflex skills to level.

Well those that hadn’t already.

*Blades skill level up!*

*Handguns skill level up!*

*Assault skill level up!*

Handguns was once more maxed out at Handguns 4. Blades was at 3, and Assault 3. So I still had some grinding to do with those.

Then I looked down a bit more on the list.

*Cool Leveled up!*

*Cool Leveled up!*

Cool 6. I guess killing all these scavs was pretty cool. I sighed. No wonder I was still calm and collected. Sitting around the dead bodies of the Scavs wasn’t even ruffling me. I shook that away looking at the last two skills.

*Ninjutsu skill level up!*

*1 Perk Point Gained.*

I had only gained one level of Ninjutsu. I guess Cool had leveled up once early on when I was still sneaking around, but since I had stopped using stealth mid fight it didn’t have a chance to level along with Cool.

Cold Blood though?

*Cold Blood skill level up!*

*Cold Blood skill level up!*

*Cold Blood skill level up!*

*1 Perk Point Gained.*

*Cold Blood skill level up!*

Four levels. Cold blood 6.

It was now my highest stat and skill. I rubbed my eyes a bit before opening the perks menu.

Ninjutsu first.

The list hadn’t changed much. One or two additional perks that seemed to have unlocked due to other skill trees.

Scrolling through the list I ended up finally deciding to keep focusing on the stealth aspect of Ninjutsu instead of the combat angle.

Which is why I kept circling around to this perk.

Cyber Ninja. After Breaching a system automatically upload a daemon that makes you more difficult to see for members of the network. Increases based on skill level of Breaching.

A combo perk. Breach and Ninjutsu. A perk I hadn’t had before. Being able to sneak past people after using Breach on them? That was already something I wanted to do!

But it also meant I really needed to level my Breach and Quick Hack. So I could hack and Breach on the run. I looked around at the room full of Cyberware. I wondered if they had anything here I could use? But I shook that off to refocus.

Because I still had one more perk to choose.

Cold Blood.

I started looking down the list. It didn’t take me long to find what I wanted.

Fearless Chill. Fear is a powerful enemy. Good thing your enemies realize you have none. Fear is your ally.

From the description it read more like a diplomacy skill. If while under Cold Blood people realized I wasn’t afraid… that might be a pretty strong advantage.

Fearless people were scary after all. You never knew what they would be willing to do.

I picked it, I had already taken a perk to keep my body calm in terrible situations, maybe one to keep my mind calm would be a good combination too.

I looked at my skill points. The desire to spend them was there. But I held off for now. After this I would probably do some normal grinding for a while. I might even have the eddies to try working on my Technical Skill. That would be a nice thing to level. So I would hold off for a bit, figure out what I wanted to raise. Intelligence, or maybe more Cool and Stealth?

*Ringing*

I smiled as Hiromi finally called me back.

*Hiromi. You here?*

*Well I’m at the ground floor in the garage. You said the south side right?*

*Yeah the south elevator. You near it?*

*It’s right here, but the damn thing is broken, choom.*

*Yeah they had it locked down. Give me a minute, should be able to send it down from here.* I quickly rose, noticing the victim was still out. And hurried to the elevator. Just like I expected, the control panel on the elevator was completely destroyed having been pulled off and modified.

An absolute mess of wires and connections.

Unfortunately my tech knowledge was zilch.

It was the back of an elevator control panel. I had no idea how or what they had done.

It took a minute of going over the wires trying to find what everything was connected to.

*Crafting Experience Gained.*

*Skill not unlocked, no XP gained.*

*Crafting Unlocked.*

I blinked mid way through as I got the alert.

“Nice but useless right now.” I muttered as I continued following the wires until I finally found something strange. A box that wasn’t supposed to be there.

It even had buttons. I pushed one of them and nothing happened. Then the other.

The elevator started going down.

“Finally.” I grunted as I waited for it to hit the bottom.

*Ringing.* Hiromi was calling again.

*Hey choom! You sent it down!*

*Yeah go ahead and get on, and let me know when you are ready I can bring it up.*

*Hah! Our own personal elevator. Hear that Ichi? We got our own ride… What? No shut up Malcolm you gonk!*

The call turned into arguing for a minute before I sighed.

*You ready for a lift Hiromi?*

*Huh? Oh yeah we are all on.*

I rolled my eyes as I ended the call and pushed the other button, feeling the elevator start traveling upwards right after.

I stepped back as I waited, before quickly looking myself over. I was mostly clean of blood, and the bullet holes in my Netrunner Leotard hopefully wouldn’t draw too much attention. I wiped a hand through my purple hair one last time before standing casually putting on a bit of coolness as the elevator finally made it to the top.

“Hi hi!” Hiromi called as the Elevator opened looking around at the destroyed section of the building.

I imagine it looked like one hell of a scene. Garbage barriers. Holes in the walls. Lights flickering in and out. I realized then that there were some bloody footprints from my surprise attack on the second group of scavs walking away from the hole in the wall and then back into the apartment… I must have stepped into a bloody pool when I ran.

Just fly casual Motoko.

“Glad you all could make it. I could use the extra hands.” I offered as I flicked my head back towards the apartment.

“What the hell did I just walk into?” Omaeda asked, looking very uncomfortable as he looked over the area. He was even fingering his pistol on his hip as he looked around.

“Don’t worry. There are no more threats here. It’s safe.” I told him directly, trying to sound reassuring.

I don’t think it was though.

“Motoko. Choom. Choomer. Choomiest? What’s going on?” Hiromi asked, looking around nervously as well.

“Scav den.” I answered back. “You are the clean up team.” I told her, which to my surprise caused all four of them to tense up and draw their weapons like scavs were going to come out of the walls.

“Fuck Motoko, you can’t ask us to his a scav den without letting us know first!” Ichi hissed with a whisper as he started checking the corners nervously. And even Hiromi was looking a little freaked out.

“Clean up. Not extermination.” I said after a few moments trying to cut through their freakout. “Place is already cleared. Just needed some hands to move the loot.” I explain and while that at least causes them to stop freaking out so much, they were still looking around.

“Who helped you clean the place out Motoko?” Ichi asked, and even Hiromi jumped on me after resheathing her katana that she had drawn.

“Yeah I thought we were a crew! You went and got some other mercs to help out? Or did you join a new crew? You can’t betray us like that Motokooooo!” Hiromi whined.

“It was just me though?” I answered calmly. “That’s why I called you all in, I needed help looting everything.” I told them as I gestured down the hall. “C’mon stop playing around.” I said calmly as I turned and walked down the hall.

The door was already open as I entered ignoring the first Ripper room with the dead woman still on the table.

Once we were out of here I would alert the NCPD. I don’t know if they would actually do anything or not, but maybe they would.

Either way I had no idea what to do with a body.

I could hear gasps of shock at the sight and whispers breaking out among the group as they noticed the already dead woman.

I wondered what they would think when they saw the main room. I walked in and looked around. It was a bit of a mess. The three dead Scavs were one thing, well they weren’t one thing anymore, more a few different chunks… Anyway, you could see the other two in the computer room from where I stopped too.

I turned around only to blink.

No one was there. I looked down at the victim who was still unconscious. “My chooms are a bit… unreliable.” I admitted to him before turning around and going back into the ripper room.

The crew was all looking around the room in horror.

“Guys? The stuff is in here.” I pointed out my re-appearance causing Malcolm to jerk back from the womans corpse that he had been morbidly looking into her open chest.

“This is crazy.” He muttered but he finally followed me and everyone else put down whatever junk they were playing with.

Seriously Ichi, I don’t think we need a pair of surgical clamps.

The group followed me into the main room and instantly I could hear Malcolm start cussing.

“Son of a bitch. That’s a dead scav!” He called out hurrying over to the legs of the scav I had caught with the HMG. Only to stutter to a quick stop “Err. I mean It’s half a dead scav.”

“The other half of him is over there.” I pointed to the other side of the couch they were standing next to. “Also Omaeda don’t touch that. It’s mine.” I tell him looking over my shoulder to see Omaeda checking out my HMG.

That was going with me.

Omaeda looked up his hand inches from touching the gun before back to the gun and back to me before raising his hands off it and standing up.

“Wait. Is this one alive?” Hiromi asked, having been looking around as well.

“Yeah, that was a victim. They were carrying him up. I think he is drugged up. When we get out of here we need to call the NCPD let them take care of it.”

“Damn Motoko. You seriously assaulted a Scav den and took out three Scavs? You got lucky there weren't any more.” Ichi mentioned having looked over the couch to see the second Scav I had mowed down with the HMG.

“There were more than three. One in the first ripper room. Two in this room, along with a Borg. One in the last room I think was their boss.. The two that were in the other ripper room… Then these three showed up after… I think that’s it? Oh no wait, the two gonks that were scrolling a BD. One in the front, and another down that way.” I told them counting on my fingers as I tried to remember all of them. I had been more focused on making sure I got them all at the time than counting.

Besides they were scavs. It took me a moment to actually remember all of them.

The room was quiet as I looked up from my fingers and noticed everyone staring at me.

“What?” They all jerked like they had stuck a fork in a power socket.

“Nothing.”

“Yeah, is cool is all.”

“Preem.” Hiromi offered with a big smile that looked a little off.

I gave them all a flat look but I could see Ichi’s group kind of closing off as they stepped away a bit and clumped together. I could hear them whispering to themselves for a while, but I gave them their space. I did sort of drag them into a charnel house.

They deserved a few minutes to sort things out. Hiromi was also distracted, poking her head around a bit checking the room over, looking through some of the crates with a wrinkled nose.

Finally I noticed they were all splitting up a bit to look around and I called out.

“Anyways. Let’s move these crates first! I don’t want something to happen like the NCPD showing up and not letting us loot them. Crates first. And then we can go around at our leisure to see if there is anything you want. Should be lots of weapons and stuff lying around.” I told the group as I walked over to the crate nearest me.

That caused everyone to gather back up, and Ichi’s crew seemed more at ease.

“What’s in the crates?” Malcolm asked curious and I could tell the others had probably a good idea already but I shrugged and lifted the lid.

“Oh that’s a lot of legs.”

“The crates are full of the Scavs loot. We are taking it for ourselves.” I tell them. Thankfully it wasn’t like full hacked off legs, but all the interior cyberware packaged in plastic ready for resale.

“Oh that’s why you said bring vehicles with space.” Malcolm responded. “I’m surprised you even brought us in. This is a huge payday Choom.”

“My arm is a little messed up. So I can’t really move the crates myself.” I told him, causing Hiromi to squawk as she ran over to me looking me over as if she could see the injury.

“What happened? Did the gonks shoot you or something!?” She talked quickly looking me over but I just raised my left arm.

“I had to shoot my Burya to flatline their Borg. It messed up my arm. It’s fine, just stings.” Which was the truth from a certain point of view.

“Burya?” She asked suddenly. “What’s a Burya and why would it mess up your arm? Jeez Moootooookooooo You are a worse storyteller than Ichi!”

“Hey!”

“Burya is a pistol Hiromi. It has a strong kick. Feels like it’s breaking my arm every time I shoot it, but it’s good for killing borgs. It punches right through their armor.” I explained simply as I finally pushed her hands from my arm to the crate. “Let’s get this stuff moved okay? I really don’t want to lose all this chrome. Some of it might be usable by us.”

“Wait. You mean we can use this?” Malcolm asked, suddenly perking up from where he had been poking around in another crate his face split into an eager look towards me.

“Help me get it out of here and secured, and we can figure it out. I’ll get first dibs, but otherwise I don’t mind. Just don’t go crazy.” I told him, and suddenly the three boys looked a lot more eager. Not just eddies on the mind but chrome.

“Pshh most of this is junk. I doubt we will want any of this chrome.” Hiromi muttered but I shrugged.

“Still worth eddies somewhere… Maybe? What’s the best way to sell Chrome like this?” I asked Hiromi quietly who looked at me like..

Well like I was a gonk.

“Wait, you cleared this den and you wanted us to grab all this junk, and you have no idea what to do with it?”

“I hadn’t thought that far ahead… Yet. I’m thinking about it now though!”

“You are such a gonk.” She scoffed, “I have some ideas let’s talk to Ichi though he has more connections that might help than I do.”

“Cool… Wanna help move the crates?”

“Nah. I’ll stick with you, let the boys earn their eddies.” Hiromi offered me with a fox grin that I couldn’t help but chuckle at. We both took a moment watching the boys who were already grabbing crates and hauling them over to the elevator. The three were practically drooling at all the chrome.

But Hiromi stopped paying attention to them once they were far enough away.

“Hiromi?” I asked as she turned to look at me with a serious face.

“Motoko, what happened here? Did you take a job to hunt the scavs? Who even gave you the information. They were probably sending you to die, you know?”

“No one. It wasn’t a gig Hiromi. I just… Learned there were some scavs here, and came to clear them out.”

“That is crazy.” She said slowly before going silent as she looked like she was trying to figure out what to say. “Doing something like this is real Edgerunner stuff Motoko, it’s stuff people do that don’t care if they die or not. You… You aren’t… You’ve never been able to do something like this. I know you’ve been practicing with your guns a lot, but this is on a different level than going to the shooting range a couple times.”

Hiromi. She was super serious. Looking honestly concerned about what I had done.

“I knew I could do it. So I did. Jun has been doing crazy stuff so I knew I needed more… More experience, more chrome, more eddies. I need to be strong enough to help him when he finally bites off more than he can handle.” I answered truthfully.

“That’s what the other Tyger Claws are for Motoko! It’s what Ichi and his crew are useful for. It’s what I am for! That is what chooms do. They do crazy dangerous things together. You shouldn’t be rushing into something like this! Especially not alone.” She shook her head looking so confused. “Why are you making me be the voice of reason? I’m supposed to be the rich girl slumming it.” She said almost growling at the end as she poked my side a bit.

But I wasn’t ticklish. Instead I just huffed a bit at her probing finger.

“I don’t trust them to keep Jun safe, over whatever goal they have. To the Tyger Claws Jun is just.. Muscle. To me Jun is my irreplaceable brother. I owe him a lot.”

“You have to be alive to pay him back.” Hiromi retorted, looking at the corpses in the room. “Even if you are somehow really good at this.” She looked around seeing the one scav that was literally in two pieces from being cut in half by the HMG. “Seriously good.”

“I’ll be careful… More careful.” I quickly changed what I said as Hiromi looked like she was going to argue.

“I still don’t understand how you did this.” She muttered and I didn’t shrug, or make any notice. I couldn’t explain so instead I just stayed quiet, face firm.

“Hey! You gonna help or what?” Malcolm called out suddenly, pulling us from our conversation as we looked. He was looking at Hiromi, irritated. “C’mon Hiromi help out. This thing is heavy!”

“Just move it yourself! Don’t worry if you break your back, we will just give you a chrome one!” Hiromi called out joking, earning a rude gesture from the boy as he tugged and pulled the heavy crate across the floor.

This was gonna take a while.

I looked around myself seeing the Scavs on the ground and the idea did reach my brain but I shivered and put it away.

Stripping bodies for chrome was a step too far.