513 Preem Chooms

To my surprise, Victor had a friend of his deliver a package to me early the next morning. Said friend was the same kid that I had bought the arm for and fixed the programming to make it last. He was a little skittish at first when I invited him in, then he saw how I was trussed up and couldn't move.

The kid pointed at me and started laughing. “You look like a gonk mummy!”

“That's what I've been telling everyone and no one believes me!” I exclaimed and he kept laughing.

After a short bit, he walked over and held out the package to me. A second later, he started laughing again and needed another minute, because I literally couldn't take it and open it. He popped the top open using a metallic finger and pulled out the updated clicker and handed it to me.

“Thanks, choom.” I said and pretended to use the other one in my left hand a few times and chose him as the recipient as I dumped the rest of the eddies from the old temp account into his.

He froze and stared at me like I was going to do something really bad to him. Instead of correcting his assumption, which for some reason he thought involved sexual favors, I held the old one up before I easily crushed it with my fingers.

“I had to empty it before that happened.” I said and sprinkled the pieces onto the couch out of sight and vanished them.

A look of understanding came over his face and he nodded. Wasting money like that was a gonk thing to do and giving it to him before it was lost was a smart move.

“Lemme just...” His eyes squeezed mostly shut as he tried to do something. “...send it back...”

“No, keep it as a delivery fee.” I said and he looked surprised. “I'm sure Vic's sent you out a few times and couldn't really do more than give you a few eddies or free software updates.”

He nodded and didn't say anything else.

“If you think it's too much for what you've done so far, just make sure you're available for Vic a lot more for the next month or so. You're the best judge of how much those eddies are worth for what you do.”

He gave me an odd look and then smiled. “Sure, mister. Whatever you say.”

By his thoughts, he wasn't going to tell Victor I gave him extra money and would get doubly paid or compensated for running his errands. It was a good hustle and I wouldn't ruin it for him.

“Great.” I said and nodded towards the kitchen. “Grab me a breakfast sandwich and a drink from the vendi and you can have one and a drink for yourself.”

His eyes widened and he stood there for exactly one second before he darted into the kitchen. I almost laughed out loud at him for that reaction and heard several thunks more than the two sandwiches and two drinks I asked for. He ran over, dropped a sandwich and a drink on the coffee table, and beat feet out of my apartment like his ass was on fire and many of his pockets were bulging.

I actually did laugh out loud after the door shut, because he knew I couldn't move and had left the food out of reach on purpose to give him enough time to escape. I had to give him props for that.

After a minute, I used the new and robust clicker to do some of the things I had been pretending to do with the old one and changed the viewscreen on the wall to the news channel and then brought up my contact list on the cyberdeck in my bedroom.

Now that I had the better clicker, I could do the homework I'd missed and was going to miss for the rest of the week. I just had to decide which of my friends from school I could either bribe or exchange favors with to get copies of the worksheets and assignments. I hemmed and hawed at the list and decided the most likely prospect that wouldn't immediately hang up on me, was Evelyn.

I made the call, routed to the vidscreen of course, since voice or text only wouldn't convey my circumstances in a believable way. If she saw how I was trussed up, it might get me enough sympathy for her to hear me out.

A tall stern looking girl, with a wide mouth and long curly black hair done up in a frizzy bun, appeared on the screen. She was nearly the spitting image of Taylor Hebert from Worm. “Drek, gonk! I thought you were flatlined!”

I chuckled and nodded. “They lost me a few times on the ripperdoc's table, according to Vic. I pulled through after having most of my chrome yanked.”

Evelyn's eyes dropped to my wrapped body and back to my face. “Did you?”

I made a snort sound and barked a laugh. “I'm already on the mend. Only a few days and I'll be preem again.”

Evelyn glanced at my shaved head. “Your nova hair bailed, though.”

“Yeah, the main casualty.” I agreed. “I'll either plant something new or carve out a good pattern to let it grow in after the bandages come off the back.”

Evelyn nodded and gave me a thoughtful look. “If you're looking for suggestions...”

“Send 'em on.” I said right away and she smiled. Her eyes went still for a moment and I detected the new files on the cyberdeck and 'looked' at them. “Oh, nice. You always were the best at geometric shape design.”

“Thanks, choom.” Evelyn said, her voice friendly, then seemed to freeze and her posture changed slightly, which meant someone contacted her or she had someone else on the line telling her something. “Veder, why did you call me?”

“I'm behind in my academy work, obviously.” I said, not wanting to beat around the bush. “I was hoping to get the deets from you about the what and the how.”

Evelyn opened her mouth to respond, stopped and her eyes darted from side to side, then she let out a sigh. “Sorry, Veder. I can't help you.”

I let my face show anger. “Tanaka's already making the rounds to keep me out?”

Evelyn clamped her mouth shut and didn't say anything. The expression on her face and in her eyes told me all I needed to know.

“I'd ask what he's got on you; but, it doesn't really matter, does it?” I asked.

“No, it doesn't.” Evelyn said. “Veder...”

“Yeah, yeah. I won't bother trying to call anyone else. I called you first because I thought you were my best chance.” I said and she winced. “I'd have offered a favor or two, at minimum, for your help.”

Evelyn looked really sad about that. “I might be able to...”

“No, if he's listening in, or one of his toadies are on the line coaching you, then yo can't offer to work behind the scenes to try and get me help. That'll only make things worse for you than merely talking to me will.” I said and she sighed. “I should get you to pass on a warning to him, though.”

Evelyn stiffened and her mouth worked silently for a few seconds, then she sighed again. “Go ahead, Veder. He'll get whatever message you have eventually.”

I smiled at the vidscreen's camera. “Hey, corpo brat. Guess who's ranked the number one design and construction student in the entire Arasaka Academy's history, who also has top marks in cyberware programming?”

Evelyn's eyes widened when I sent her a copy of the unlisted rankings that usually only the top brass of the company could get. What I didn't tell her was that it was part of my medical records, since my accident had happened on Arasaka property and they had to disclose all of my paperwork to the insurance company and the hospital, which I now had copies of, thanks to Vic.

Being the top student and paying my own way, made me quite important to the Arasaka company that ran the academy. It had also earned me the best care after my surgery. Only an idiot would mistreat me, which was why Syn had been berated for her unprofessional behavior. It didn't matter if I thought it was funny and an accident that could have happened to anyone. If I had complained about it, or reported it, she could have lost her job over it.

“The police are going to be quite interested in you interfering with their murder investigation.” I said and saw Evelyn flinch and then sag slightly. “They hung up?”

“Yeah.” Evelyn whispered and reached up to rub her temple. “Them yanking out so hard nearly blew my VR set.”

“Really? Give me a link. I'll see if they left any malware or spyware.”

Evelyn smiled. “Thanks, choom.”

I felt the mental poke that should have been her sending it to my non-existent net connection. I used my technomancy to accept and then followed it right into her VR set. The pain impulse was usually used to cover them dropping an unwanted data packet that had things in it they wanted to hide from the user.

A quick search netted me three extra data packets and not just one.

“Ohh, that's nasty. I'm copying those as evidence.” I said out loud and Evelyn groaned.

“How bad is it?” Evelyn asked.

“Three extra packets. One to implant a copy feed command to your optical nerve gear.” I said and her eyes widened. “One to take all the messages and vids that referenced Tanaka in any capacity, including his friends and his pawns.”

“That's like half my internal database, choom!” Evelyn exclaimed.

“And the last is to erase all traces of them and what it did to you before it deleted itself.” I finished.

Evelyn looked horrified. “I'd be half lobotomized!” She almost shouted. “All our meditation and learning sessions since school started are shared! If he erased all of that...”

“You need to call everyone not his friends and warn them to call me. If he can do this to you, a friend of a friend of his toadies, what'll he do to acquaintances or other people he barely knows or cares about?”

“R-r-right, I... okay, I need... wait, I better... who do I call first, choom?” Evelyn stammered.

I stored the info I needed, including Evelyn's access logs and call logs, as well as any conversations directly dealing with Tanaka or his friends. She gave me permission to, after all. I added that as well, just in case.

“Who first?” I asked with a smile. “Why choose? Start a Class Group Chat.”

Evelyn's face almost lit up with happiness. “You're a genius, choom! Hold on, I'm starting the call chain now!”

I set my vidscreen to split as each new person joined in and watched in fascination as Evelyn relayed what I had found being dumped into her head from Tanaka's VR connection. When a few asked why she was talking to him, she pointed right at me and everyone saw what I looked like. A few had sympathetic looks on their faces, more than a few let out laughs, and some looked indifferent.

I showed them all the deets on the info packets I had recovered and removed from Evelyn's VR gear and immediately received 15 requests to check their sets and to stop them if they were there and remove them if I could.

I did the same procedure with each person, male or female, as I did with Evelyn. I kept logs of everything, including their permission to do so, and copies of all the same brainhacks that Tanaka had given them all. Since none of them believed he was smart enough to do something like that on his own, everyone suspected he either hired someone to do it or his father paid someone to help him cover up the crime.

I added those speculations to the files and saved everything, copied it onto three different kinds of media for safe keeping, and cleaned up everyone's cyberware for them. Surprisingly, a few of them offered to give me the info I needed to do my classwork and my homework in exchange. The embarrassed look on Evelyn's face let them all know she had refused.

No one asked her why while on the group chat, though. By their thoughts, her friends were going to badger her as soon as the call ended. I thought about delaying that, then shrugged. I had to compile it and get a hold of Victor to see if he knew the police that were investigating the crime. Well, I assumed they were. No one had called to talk to me about it, I just guessed that they were. The threat was enough to scare Tanaka, anyway.

I told them all to be careful and to change their acceptance settings when talking to Tanaka and his friends, or his friends of friends. They were like viruses and would wipe those memories out if they caught them again. They all thanked me and ended the calls on their ends. The last to hang up was Evelyn and she had that same sad look on her face as when she refused my request.

“Later, choom.” I said and ended the call for her.

I sat there for a few minutes and prepared a proper file organization for everything, then called Victor. He said there actually was a police investigation and it was stymied, because it was an Arasaka Academy board member's son that committed the crime and his father was delaying it as much as possible, while the rest of the Arasaka Academy's board wanted the crime solved.

One of their best students had been severely hurt on Arasaka property. The longer it took to solve that crime and make an arrest, the longer it made the company look bad, because they couldn't protect their own kids inside their own buildings.

I sent a copy of the new crimes being committed by the same guy that tried to kill me, which were against a bunch of other students in our class. Victor let out a rare curse as he read through them in moments and he promised to pass it along after making a copy for himself. If he ever met any of Tanaka's friends in person, he would give them a taste of their own tactics.

I thanked him for both things and ended the call. I had some homework to get to... well, a whole heck of a lot of it to get through, actually. Did they ramp up classes while I was gone or something? The work was twice as much as the week before and all I could think was that most of it was in-class stuff that if you were there, you didn't have to do the extra research or the full reports.

Missing class really sucked and it was going to keep sucking, because I wouldn't be back inside the Arasaka Tower to attend classes again until next week. Damn me and my need to keep my self-healing to within reason.

The apartment door opened and in walked a sexy redheaded Latina woman that was my day nurse for this week. She slipped off her backpack and then took off her heavy EMT jacket to reveal a teal green sleeveless top that really made her red hair pop.

I withdraw my objection to staying home.I thought and smiled warmly at her. “Morning, choombatta! I've got a cold sandwich and a drink already, so help yourself to whatever you want.”

Gloria looked at the food sitting on the coffee table. “I feel like there's a story there.”

I grinned at her. “Guess what little devil Vic sent over with my new clicker?”

Since I had only told her about helping one kid, she knew who I was talking about. “The cyber-arm kid?”

“You got it.” I said and nodded towards the kitchen. “Grab some grub and I'll give you the deets of what he did when I said to get those for me.”

Gloria went to the vending machine to help herself to a few things. “You don't have to say it, choom. I know he looted as much as he could and ran for it.”

“It was like he pickpocketed a blind man, choombatta.” I joked.

Gloria laughed as she sat down, then she helped me with my sandwich as she ate hers. Drinks were shared liberally, as were bites of food. She really was quite bad at keeping our meals separate. I wasn't going to complain, though. It was moments like these with good company that made spending the day on the couch worth it.