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 suspicious eyes as people kept an eye out all around them was gone. Instead there were more people hanging out on the streets. Fucking around, stopping and chatting. It wasn’t the constant get to where you need to be like it was in NC.

Also I had expected that arrogant fuck to be tougher. He had some chrome sure, but not enough protecting his skull. His goons were nearly pure meat. One of them had even tried to run once he realized his gun wasn’t working.

Which was kinda weird. Normally they would have dropped their weapons and attacked as one, or at least took cover and pulled a side gun.

Seattle was a really weird place.

*Ringing.*

I blinked at the call.

Huh?

*Hiromi?*

*Motokooooo! Are you in Seattle!? I’ve been calling for like two days! How was the trip! Panam didn’t do anything weird to you right?*

*Whoa slow down. It’s nice to hear from you! I’m in Seattle. I’m eating at a ramen joint over here. Food’s about the same, which is nice. We had to go around a big Raffen Shiv movement so it took a bit longer to get here, this is our first night.*

*You aren’t hurt?*

*Nah. I shot at them a few times and they took off. We were a bit too tough for them to bite into. How’s everything going over there?*

*Oh! Well Malcolm crashed his car. He’s okay, and the car is fine too. But you should have seen how mad he was. Don’t tell him, but it was honestly hilarious.*

*Oh no! That car is his baby. How bad?*

*Not too bad, he took a turn too hard from what I understand, he isn’t sharing the whole story of course. Just bashed in the rear end a bit, he hit a light pole. NCPD were not happy.*

*Pfft. I told him he needed to go slow for a while until he got used to her.*

*Yeah well. Everything else is okay. Quiet. I spoke to Jun! He’s doing okay, but Fujimura has got him on guard duty so I didn’t chat with him for long.*

*I’ll have to call him.*

*Yeah… But only after we are done! Tell me about your trip! How is Seattle? Are you taking pictures of everything?*

*The trip was mostly boring and dirty. Don’t recommend. Seattle is weird. People are way less worried about getting shot… I shot some punk gangster and his henchmen. It was kinda random.*

*Motoko, how long have you been in Seattle?*

*Umm… Like four hours? Maybe five?*

*Motoko we have to talk about your killing people thing.* Hiromi said with a sigh that came through the call. *You know Seattle isn’t Night City! What if SPD comes after you?*

*Wait… Is that even a thing?* I stopped myself because I almost just asked if the police tried to stop murders.

Wow. Is this the feeling you get when you realize your morals are super skewed?

*Hey Hiromi? I think I might be a little weird.*

The line went silent for a while as I slipped on some more noodles waiting for Hiromi to get back on the line. Did her parents bug her or something?

*Motoko. Just… Maybe stick to Panam, and come back… Soon.*

*Yeah, I think I’ll head back to the motel and go to sleep. I just wanted to explore a bit and get some chow, but Seattle is kinda wider than Night City, less stuff in walking distance.*

I finished the last of my Ramen slurping it up and headed out to my new car. As I started driving back to the Motel I was still chatting with Hiromi.

*So you have your meeting tomorrow? Are you ready?*

*Yeah, I have weapons and armor, and I’ll just be backing up Panam to make sure she gets out. She doesn’t think there will be trouble, but you-Oh my god. Is that an arcade!?* I gasped aloud as I did a rather dangerous U turn to find a spot near what I had just spotted.

*Motoko?*

*Hiromi! I just saw an old style arcade! I saw arcade machines!*

*Umm Okay?*

*I’ll talk to you later Hiromi!* I hung up as I ran across the street to enter into… Well it looked kinda like a bar, but it had a ton of old arcade machines! I didn’t recognize any of the games! Which honestly kind of made it better. Sure I didn’t see Street Fighter II, but I bet whatever these games were would be fun!

“Ah… I don’t have any quarters.” I muttered. None of the machines had updated payment. Just the old Quarter inputs.

“Hey kid! Get away from those! Those are antiques!” The man behind the bar called out pointing a dirty rag at me.

I looked away from where I had kneeled down to check the quarter tray. Desperate for any hope.

“Yeah I know! You got this thing on auto play or something? I need to kick some ass for a few hours!” I called back over the loud ambience of the bar. The stink of smoke and alcohol was heavy, but I could deal with that for some good old gaming.

“A kid like you wants to play the old stuff? Let’s see then.” The guy behind the bar said as he tossed down a rag and a glass nodding to another worker before coming around. He walked behind the machine and hit a switch and it turned onto free play. “Don’t want people to come in and trash my machines. These things are expensive.”

“Yeah I bet. This would be almost a hundred years old! Well. If it was original. It’s not.” The game I was talking about was some fighting game, but it literally looked like an arcade cabinet you would see in the eighties. Cartoonish characters on the side of old wood, with an actual CRT screen fizzing a little from age, but still clear.

“Heh. Interesting you can spot that.” He muttered. I looked over the machines, honestly it was mostly the condition. I had seen arcade machines after just a few decades. They tended to be burnt out, and rough.

But these were pristine.

No way you would see pristine machines after nearly a century.

“If you can give me a challenge, I’ll let you play on any of them that you want… As long as you don’t break anything.”

“Deal!”

—--

“Mwahaha!” I laughed evilly just like the character on the screen. Evil Chun-Li basically was my new favorite character.

“Damn kid!” The owner of the shop as it turned out, grumbled as I wrecked him. I hadn’t at first, it had taken me a while to remember the controls, but that was like… Two games? Before I was pushing him hard.

I wasn’t even really a fighting game lover. I did end up playing a lot, but more as someone to play against than because I was interested.

“Heh. Where did you even play this before? I don’t think anyone else in the city even still keeps cabinets.”

“Ah. I’m from Night City, so yeah.” I answer lying to hide where my knowledge came from.

“That explains it. Wonder if any other games survived over there. Can you tell me where you played? I wouldn’t mind finding some new data to make a few new machines.”

“Ah… Sorry, they don’t exist anymore.”

The man sighed, shaking his head. “That’s the way of things isn’t it. Time erodes it all down.”

I frowned. I mean sure, I could see how easy it would be for data to be lost considering how much was lost during the datakrash.

But the data wasn’t lost-lost…

“I mean, it’s not completely lost.”

“Huh?”

“I mean I’m a netrunner. There is tons of data out there on the net, or even on the old nets that would probably be someone's full collection of arcade games and stuff.”

“Heh. It’s been fifty years, kid. That data is long lost, either gobbled up by AI, or just had the old servers fail. Trust me, I spend a lot of time maintaining this equipment. Imagine a server out in the desert somewhere running 24/7 to keep an AI alive.” The man shook his head. “It’s why I keep this stuff running. A reminder of all we lost.”

Ouch. Old man! Don’t hit me with the decay of civilization so hard okay? “Yeah.” I muttered, no longer really wanting to play games.

Stupid apocalypse.

I sighed and moved to leave before stopping. Across the street there was an SPD car parked behind the Villefort Alvarado I had stolen.

Wow. That was fast. I popped the key shard out of my neck and tossed it into a trash can. “Well this was fun old man. If I ever get more game data, I’ll come see you.”

“Heh. Sure kid.” He offered as he rubbed down the machine and set it back to pay mode.

I walked out and down the street disappearing out of the cops view and getting the hell out of there. It would be a bit of a long walk back to Panam, but eh.

Better than getting arrested.

—--

“Okay Motoko you ready?”

“Honestly Panam, I’ve been waiting for hours for this.” I offered, we were coming up on the drop off point. The fact it was in an abandoned section of the docks, in an old industrial park that had long been overrun with trash from what little I’ve seen of it. Made me more suspicious than nervous.

“I’m going to get out early. I’ll be watching over you, so don’t worry about them doing something stupid. If they try to attack you, just get back to your truck, I’ll cover you.” I said as I opened the door moving to slip out before she pulled into the park.

“Wait! What do you mean watching over! I hired you to guard me!”

“Panam. Trust me, I’ll be way more effective if they don’t know I’m here.” I offered and only once she sighed and nodded did I jump out of the car as she slowed and then I raced over, Leaping over the barbed wire fencing and then into the industrial park.

I had my suspicions. This is the sort of place I would lure someone for a trap, not for a dropoff.

I quickly found a path up an old dock building. Climbing up a shed, then the window sills to make it up on the roof. Then I crawled forward. Only a little annoyed that it was broad daylight. If this was at night, I would have less difficulty keeping myself hidden..

My approach to the edge of the roof was silent despite the gravel roof. I looked over, and I was in luck. Panam hadn’t finished entering the park yet, but there were already two cars parked in a half circle with three men standing around.

Three? With two cars? Obviously there were more. I quickly pinged one of them. Watching as it slipped through. And then a web of connections opened up and I rolled my eyes.

Yep.

Super sus.

There was a sniper up on an old crane. I hefted the Nekomata and aimed it in.

The guy was using an Ashura. A smart sniper…

So the guy was a fucking gonk that didn’t know how to snipe.

I considered just one shotting his dumb head, but thanks to my Nekomata’s scope, and my Kiroshi, I quickly sent in a Weapon Glitch into his Ashura instead as he was in range.

Smart weapons were even more susceptible to hacks than most weapons.

Actually…

I wonder.

Since I was already glitching the weapon, I bet I could alter the targeting system.

Heh.

Panam pulled in, while I played with it, and only when I was absolutely sure it would work did I pull away.

Okay now to deal with the rest of these gonks. A quick repeat, and that settled it. The hack was in their system. Only one had any ICE defenses, but it wasn’t good enough to stop the hack.

Especially not my version.

With that done I sent a message to Panam as she was parking.

*Cleared out the danger. Don’t let them fuck with you.*

I didn’t want to send something too long as that would distract her, but hopefully that would be enough.

I watched through one eye, the other looking through the scope at the sniper fucker, as the deal went down.

Panam walked out looking a little irritated as she looked over at the men. She started talking, and one of the men responded, the one that didn’t have a weapon on him.

Then they argued. Something was going down, something Panam wasn’t happy to hear. Slowly my finger strayed closer to the trigger.

If the sniper fired, it would be the last thing he ever did.

Panam would probably need immediate assistance once bullets started flying.

Then to my surprise, it wasn’t the fuckers that moved first. Panam, suddenly slammed forward nearly ramming the guy into the car they had brought, and even had a fucking Nova pressed against his chin.

I mean, sure I had seen that she had a DR5 Nova, but I didn’t think she had the chrome to actually use the damn thing! Shotgun pistols are no joke.

But to my surprise a moment later the man was laughing, and everything calmed down, he waved his buddies down, and handed over a shard to Panam. She slotted it, nodded, and then stepped back, and to my surprise everything really did calm down.

Panam walked back to her truck and fiddled with something in the back seat, before coming out with a big square package wrapped in bubble wrap and handed it over.

The leader of the group nodded opened it up and I almost wanted to blink as I realized that this whole trip was for a fucking record.

A music record.

He checked it, nodded then turned away. Panam walked back to her truck, and they didn’t even shoot her. Sniper dude was packing up his rifle.

“Well I’ll be damned.”

—--

“That was preem.” I called out as I slid into the passenger side of Panam’s truck. “I didn’t expect you to draw on them.” She just shrugged.

“I know these types. They might push on weak transporters if they can, but show them you’re dangerous and suddenly they are all smiles and honey. Besides, The fixer wouldn’t be happy if the deal went bad. So there was pressure to keep things on the DL.”

“Huh. Well, I guess I didn’t need to disable that guy's sniper rifle after all.” I was barely finished with my comment before she nearly slammed the brake.

“Wait what sniper!?”

“The one up on the old shipping crane. Don’t worry, I hacked his Ashura, the first bullet would have gone right into his buddies head.” I offered, but that didn’t seem to reassure Panam.

“Fuck. That could have gone really bad.”

“I thought you said they just needed a push?”

“Yeah, but if they had a sniper on me, then they might have taken the risk if I pushed too far…” She offered nervously bringing up a hand to nibble at her thumb as she seemed to stew in the situation.

“Hey. It’s all good. I had your back. You took care of everything, and the deal was done right… You traded that record for the shard?”

“Saw that? Yeah I got what Rogue wanted.” She said with a shrug. “Information is already sent so we are all done.”

“Wait, Rogue?” I said in surprise although I shouldn’t be. Panam had worked with Rogue in 2077, I just hadn’t expected her to be so connected this early.

Panam looked a little uncomfortable as she sighed, and started driving again.

“Yeah Rogue has a thing with the Aldecaldos. Old friendships. We all know we can come talk to her for shit. She’s like that annoying aunt that makes fun of you and is rude, but will always be there.” She offered, and I blinked.

That’s right. Rogue had a thing with the OG Aldecaldo leader. Maybe even a son out of the whole thing if the lore was accurate. “That makes sense.” I said, earning a weird look from Panam, but then we were on the road.

We had both agreed to just get back to NC after the deal. No reason to stick around and potentially end up in trouble with the one trading stuff.

So we turned, hit a place to grab some food and go to the bathroom, and we were out of Seattle. The large buildings soon disappeared in our rear-view.

—--

It was the third night of traveling back to the city. We were somewhere out in the mountains. I don’t actually know if we were back in California or not.

Either way we would get back to Night City in the morning. Considering we were well past the Raffen territory Panam was confident we were in the clear.

I was still on watch, but even I had let slip some of my professionalism.

“So both boys ended up in the river?”

“Completely soaked head to toe, the bike at the very bottom. Saul cussed them out. I swear their ears were burning and they both had to keep diving to attach a harness to get the bike out. Saul made them both work on the bike until it was working again. Took months.”

I was chuckling at the thought. Trying to jump a river with a ramp on a ‘borrowed’ bike? Yeah that could only end in one way.

“They’re lucky they didn’t break anything.”“Oh yeah, but we have a good doc, so they’d have been alright. Lucky they didn’t crack their skulls open.”

I looked across the fire at her and caught the look on her face.

We hadn’t talked much on the trip once we left Night City. Mostly because despite the long days of driving, Panam was used to the long drives, and I was too busy keeping watch.

But that didn’t mean I hadn’t caught the stench of regret and homesickness all over Panam.

“We could stop at the camp on the way back.” I offered casually only for Panam to snap out a reply.

“No.”

I didn’t say anything, but I made sure my face told a whole story as she looked at me, and then looked away.

“You still love Saul. You still love the camp, and your family. You aren’t exiled, Raffen or anything.”

“If I go back I’ll be admitting I was wrong.” She denied instantly. With all the passion I expected.

“You think so? I don’t think seeing your family means you were wrong. Only that you miss your family.”

“Saul would see it that way! I would get some sermon about how I was wrong, and I should just shut up and do what he says even when he is being a fucking moron!”

“And when he tries that you tell him you weren’t wrong. That you still think that, but he can’t keep you from your family just because you both disagree. He loves you too.”

She glared over the fire, all the passion and fire flooding her. She didn’t say anything, just glared and looked away at her meal.

I didn’t say anything after. It was a shame to see someone run from their family. Especially when there was still love and care between them.

Panam was just angry and hurt, and Saul had too much on his shoulders to agree to a ceasefire. He was the leader. It was his way or the highway…

His way or the City I guess was more accurate.

Still, that shouldn’t mean she can’t go and see her people. But I also couldn’t force her. We didn’t talk any more that night. It was a shame, but Panam wasn’t in a good place. And spending a year or two working for Rogue wasn’t really going to help. Especially since she ends up working for that Raffen guy…

That’s right. That does happen. I would have to keep an eye on her, if he showed up? Well I had plenty of bullets.