A Motive with a Universal Adapter 01

I should have had Carl kill Abby along with Rook. Dammit!

I rolled over onto my back on top of myself, the interface jack hidden inside my finger still plugged into my neural processor. The genital implant switched to maximum and the vibrating pulses surged up my cock through my pussy sending chills up my spine as I rode myself harder and harder, driving myself toward the reckless orgasm that my body demanded.

Joe was clutching his knee, keeping his cool, smiling at me from the bar stool in Talsorian's as Robertson sat in my office and handed me the cellular phone. I switched the cyber-cock back to restraint, back to maximum, I needed to cum so badly but I had to hold back, not yet, not yet. Switch to restraint. Joe was kissing me and Lee was kissing me. His cock was in my mouth, in my ass. I wanted him to fuck me again and make me cum but I couldn't. Not yet.

It was Lee I wanted. It was Joe. It was Carl.

"You're the best, Ritz," Joe told me as I wrapped my legs around my back and pulled my pulsating cock deeper into my velvety slick cunt.

"The kid's expendable." Lee winked and my loose balls slapped against my ass with every thrust. "That's why I keep him around."

"Kill Carmichael for us, and your debt is cancelled," Robertson smiled as my breasts heaved back and forth on my chest. "Call me when it's done."

The feral sound of my desperate grunts filled my ears and I reached for the pistol but I knew what I was doing and rolled myself back the other way and switched the implant to maximum.

The shotgun rolled out of my cyber-leg like a surging erection but the barrels were empty and it closed down impotent and flaccid.

An overwhelming need for release consumed me as I fucked myself desperately. I needed to make me cum before I came. If I came first, I'd grab the gun and I'd kill me and I couldn't let that happen. I needed that moment of postcoital confusion and so I fucked myself for all I was worth and fought back the orgasm that threatened to explode through my conjoined nervous system.

This was a bad idea. Reckless. Desperate. The Jezie screwed everything up.

I needed to know what I knew about Joe and what Abby knows and how Robertson knows and did I even know if I knew?

I grabbed at my throat and I grabbed at my throat and my fingers squeezed as I fucked myself harder. Faster. Harder. I could have ripped my trachea out with my cyber-hand, but I had to keep the jack plugged in. I couldn't let me go that easily and so I squeezed my throat and I squeezed my throat, meat on meat, and I tried to choke the life out of me as I rode my cock, my cyber-leg driving my hips together even as my muscles burned and cramped and rebelled at the effort.

The world was getting fuzzy around the edges. I couldn't breathe. My vision was starting to tunnel and still the erotic tension swelled like a storm surge behind a seawall on the verge of collapse.

Then roaring, I came.

I came deep inside myself and the molten deluge filled me. It was an orgasm like nothing I'd ever known before. A cascade of euphoria flooded my body back and forth from one brain to the other and I came in a screaming, trembling, violent fit of ecstatic release collapsing on top of myself even as I tried to force my languishing flesh to move toward the holster.

The interface jack popped out of my skull as Okami's dripping cock slipped from my cunt.

We were both panting, craving oxygen, drenched in sweat with lank hair in our faces. He was above me and lunged off the table toward my sidearm.

I pushed myself after him on trembling legs, fell forwards, and tripped him. I got an arm around his knees, but it wasn't enough. He stretched out on his stomach for my jacket, pulled it toward him and the holster with it.

"Who is Robertson!?" I demanded, grabbing at Okami's arms and shoulders, trying to claw him back away from the pistol.

He ignored me, kicking at me, trying to force me off him. I pushed myself to my knees, preparing to lunge forward and wrestle the weapon from his grip, but it was too late. He had the pistol out of the holster, safety off. All he had to do was turn, and shoot.

I had maybe a second.

My meat leg was still tangled in my torn-off pants. I pushed myself to my feet and swung Uncle Sam's leg up then down, landing my foot just beneath his shoulder blades.

I heard the crack of bone as the hardened steel shims in my heel pierced through his skin next to his spine.

Okami screamed and dropped the pistol, flailing impotently on the floor like a speared fish.

"Who the fuck is Robertson?" I demanded again, retracting my foot so I could drive the spreader wedge deeper into his flesh. "Why did Joe Carmichael have to die?"

"Robertson's been hunting him for years. You really don't know, do you?" he asked, wincing in agony.

"I really don't."

I leaned all of my weight onto his back as the dull thump of music reverberated through the room. We were far enough back from the window now that no one on the floor below could see the naked bitch impaling the boss. There was a crimson sputtering as my heel pierced his lung.

This jack-raping piece of shit had Joe killed on Robertson's orders and then manipulated me into cleaning up his mess. Whoever Lee was, he had set Rook up to take the fall. Rook had been expendable, but that wasn't enough. Okami had taken out his entire gang for good measure.

It sickened me to think of the role I'd played in this. Rook was as much a victim as Joe. Every booster-scum life I'd snuffed out tonight had been set up, and they didn't even know why. Forcing me to admit that to myself was more unforgivable than jacking my brain.

"Alright... alright, I'll tell you," Okami gasped. "But not here. Arasaka will be coming to finish the job. We have to be gone before they get here."

"That phone that Robertson gave you... Where is it?" I twisted the shims between his ribs.

"Desk drawer," he groaned. "But please... we have to go. I'll tell you everything when we're safe."

I didn't buy it.

"You know what? I don't care anymore."

I pressurized the hydraulics in my leg and tore Okami's back open, separating vertebrae, splintering ribs, ripping skin and muscle. The noise dampeners built into my ears muffled the scream as his viscera sluffed out onto the floor in a stinking heap.

I was shaking as I pulled the bloody spreader from his corpse and fell to the floor.

It was a luxury I couldn't afford, but I let myself cry. Or at least, the closest sniveling bawl I could manage without tear ducts. Grief, rage, humiliation, regret—I'd earned a good cry. But there were too many reasons not to stick around.

The first reason ducked out of the elevator a minute later, his hand-held howitzer jacked in and pointed right at me.

"Jesus Christ, what did you do!?" Carl demanded. His complexion paled with horror as he tightened his grip on the pistol.

"He deserved it!" I sobbed, sitting up and jabbing a finger at the mess on the floor. "He killed Joe! He killed Hoshi, too! He used you to kill Rook and he tricked me into helping. I have the blood of a dozen others on my hands because of him, and when I came to him for help, that son of a drooling whore fucking violated me!"

I didn't have the will to fight anymore. If Carl didn't want to believe me, fine. Let him blast my guts out. I deserved it too.

"It didn't look much like rape to anybody out there," he said with a sneer and a skeptical gesture to the window.

"Not that," I glared. "You know I wanted that. But then he shoved that hidden jack into my processor and fucked my skull. He raped my brain, not my body."

Carl stared at me down the barrel of his pistol, furrowed his brow, and then lowered the weapon and holstered it.

"Yeah ok, that sounds like him," he admitted. "I should have guessed something was up... Mr. Okami is gay... Or he was, I guess."

Well, that sort of explained his lack of enthusiasm and the memory of kissing that Lee guy. But it didn't make me feel any better knowing how thoroughly I'd been played.

Carl ran a meaty hand across the back of his skull with a vacant stare. "That happened to me once... Nobody really understands how abusive it is... Get dressed and get out of here. I'll deal with the cops."

"Can't."

With a weak smile, I held up what was left of my pants and gestured to the other rags scattered around the room. I swear Carl blushed just a little.

"Wait here," he told me, ducking back into the elevator. "I'll find you something."

When I finally forced myself back to my feet, a thick stream of Okami's seed ran down Uncle Sam's leg into the servos and actuators. That was going to be a bitch to clean out. My clothes really were a total write-off, so I just cut away what was left of my pants and walked around the office naked in one boot.

Robertson's cellular phone was right where Okami said it would be. Okami's output Lee was mixed up in it too somehow, but I wasn't clear how and I didn't know how to find him. The phone was my most solid lead to the ghosts from Joe's past. I wasn't quite sure how to use it yet, but Abby might know.

She was right. This story was a lot more complicated than I thought.

My jacket was still wearable, so I wrapped Robertson's phone in Okami's handkerchief and stuffed it in one pocket. I was tucking up my pistol in the other when Carl returned with a clean chef's uniform.

"This should get you home at least."

"Haven't got one, but thanks." I shook out the pants and he averted his gaze as I stepped into them. "I'm a bad person, Carl... I've done terrible things... Why are you being so nice to me?"

"I'm a bad person, too," he shrugged. "Lots of bad people around these days."

"Yeah, I guess."

"One less now," he gestured at Okami. "Aristotle wrote that knowing the difference between good and evil is what makes us human, and that it's intrinsically human to return evil for evil. The way I see it, bad people like us keep bad people like him in check. And we have to stick together, because without us, the few good people who are left don't really stand a chance."

I wanted to believe him—to believe that there was maybe some little shred of humanity left inside me that wasn't totally reprehensible. I think Joe had seen it once.

I pulled my jacket over the chef's smock and I looked ridiculous, but that wasn't the worst of my immediate problems. On top of the returning Lucidrine shakes, I was bruised and sore all over. I ached to my bones. And the first signs of a Jezie hangover were starting to appear—headache, dizziness, nausea.

Carl didn't say anything as I dug the cigarette case out of Okami's discarded jacket. He flipped open a chrome Zippo that was comically tiny between his fingers and offered me a light.

"I don't think I can repay you anytime soon."

"This one's on the house," Carl winked. "But if you want to start a tab, you'll have to tell me your name."

"I'm Ritz," I told him, offering my hand.

"Ritz," he repeated, shaking it. "Pretty name."

The Kiroshi's chrono read 03:16 by the time I finally staggered back to the hotrod. There was actually a chance I could get back to work and avoid losing my job. I'd have to fake a few log entries. As long as nothing happened while I was gone and nobody checked up on me, I might just get away with it.

My hands trembled on the wheel as I drove back to Old Downtown. I chain smoked Okami's entire supply of cigarettes to keep the shakes at bay, but it didn't really work. When I pulled up to the warehouse, Abby was sitting on the steps up to the back door. Doesn't that girl sleep?

"I was hoping you'd make it back tonight," she called as I climbed out of the car. Then followed that with a more perplexed "What are you wearing!?"

"Long story," I sighed, pulling the Ronin, the M/P, and Kurabu's arm out of the back seat. "You go first."

As I stumbled toward the door, she rushed over to help me carry everything.

"The withdrawal symptoms are back, huh?" she grimaced, but a moment later her attitude turned gleefully salacious. "Well, at least you got the Jezie out of your system. Did you and Okami do the deed? Or was it Carl the bouncer?"

"Long story," I repeated, mounting each step carefully and clinging to the handrail as I unlocked the door. "You go first."

"Okay, so remember how Rook kept saying that 'He' arranged the hit on Joe?" she started as I collapsed into a chair in the security office. She took the other chair and sat across from me. "'He' said Rook was ready? 'He' said Rook was a natural?"

"Vaguely. I wasn't really paying attention." I reached into a drawer below the desk without too much of a groan and pulled out the gun cleaning kit. "Hand me the rifle, would you?"

She passed the Ronin over to me before continuing. "Well, when I played back the tape and cleaned out some of the background noise, I realized that Rook wasn't saying 'He'. He was saying 'Lee'. Someone named Lee set up the hit and told Rook he was ready to be the trigger man."

"Huh."

Abby had managed to find that connection a lot easier than I had.

"But there's more. Do you remember, there were two other victims in Talsorian's besides Joe and Hoshi?"

"Yeah," I laid the Ronin across the desk and started field stripping it. "One of them managed to get off a shot, right?"

"That's right. I went back to the interview with the cop," Abby started, but then paused and veered off topic. "Ritz, do you really need to do that now? You look like hell. Maybe you should get some rest first."

"A weapon is only as good as the person who maintains it," I told her. "Militech always took care of me, so I always take care of my Militechs."

"You're like a poster child for brand loyalty. You know that right?"

"I've been called worse. So, the police report..."

"Right, the other two victims. One of them was named Wallace Smith." She paused for dramatic affect. "The guy who shot back was named John Lee."

That was the piece I was missing.

I knew that Robertson hired Okami. I assumed that Okami and Lee were partners or something. And apparently Rook had told us that Lee had hired him. But the trail had skipped from Rook straight to Okami. Where was Lee in all of this?

Abby had found the answer. Rook was disposable and Lee was supposed to clean up that loose end. But Rook got the drop on him.

From his foolish bravado at the club, I guessed Rook had planned to crease Lee and take over his business all along. I can just imagine Okami's surprise when Rook showed up at Chatsubo with a whole gang of loose ends in tow. No wonder he'd called in Arasaka to clean up. And then a nosey reporter and her horny bodyguard tangled things up for him even more.

It was just not Okami's night.

"So what we need to do next is figure out who hired Lee," Abby rambled on and I let her. "Rook said something about a bookie, but that seems a little too simple. I'm pretty sure that's just a lie Lee told Rook, but maybe not. Anyway, Lee's dead. We can't ask him who hired him, so our best bet is to hope he left behind some kind of clue.

"Tomorrow I'm going to check with the morgue to see if Lee had an address book on him or something like that. If that doesn't pan out, I'll start a public records search and see if we can piece together who John Lee was. Maybe Wallace Smith, too. Maybe they had friends or family who knew something. Oh, and I'll need to find a picture, since we don't even know what Lee looked li--"

"I know what he looked like," I finally interrupted her. "I know who hired him."

"What!? How?"

I set the Ronin aside and I told her everything. I told her how Okami had jack-raped me and how he had paid for it. I told her about everything I had experienced in his memory, about Lee and Robertson and cleaning up loose ends. I told her how Joe had been on the run when I met him, but I never asked from who. I told her how I figured it went down between Rook and Lee and how they both tried to double-cross each other and Rook came out on top.

I told her about Robertson's phone and the instruction to call him when it was done.

"And you have the phone now?" she asked when I finished.

"Yeah, I figured maybe your friend Whistler could do something with it. Or maybe there are fingerprints."

"Probably. Can I see it?'

I reached in the wrong pocket and pulled out my pistol. "Oh, here. As long as I'm thinking about it, here's your mini-cam back."

I detached it from under the barrel and she took it back noting the red light on the front.

"Hey, how long has this been recording?"

"I don't know," I frowned. "I didn't turn it on on purpose."

"I'll check it later. Let's see the phone."

I dug it out of my pocket, handed it over to her still wrapped in Okami's handkerchief, and went back to cleaning my rifle.

"Ritz, there's only one number programmed into this phone," she told me. "It's not labeled, but it has to be Robertson."

"Do you think Whistler could trace it?"

"Probably... Or we could call it and see who answers."

"That seems like a monumentally bad idea," I told her as I started reassembly.

"Robertson is expecting a call," Abby countered. "If he doesn't get it, the number may go dark and we could lose him. The call is already late. I don't think we can wait for Whistler."

She had a point. Following up leads and tracking down clues isn't really anything I was ever trained for. I can hold my own at extracting information from someone who doesn't want to share it, but not over the phone. We were in Abby's wheelhouse now. While it may have been my revenge, it was just as much her story.

"Okay," I agreed. "If that's what you think is best."

Abby folded the silk handkerchief over the keypad and pressed the speed dial button. A long series of interchange tones beeped over the speaker as we both leaned in close to hear who answered.

There was a ring on the other end.

There was another ring, then a click, and a feminine voice that said "Militech Corporate Embassy, Washington D.C. Director Robertson's office. How may I help you?"

"Sorry," Abby whispered. "Wrong number."

To be continued... - Click here for Part 2

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This story is based on the Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. role playing game published by R. Talsorian Games Inc. It also includes several minor tributes, references, and tips of the hat to other cyberpunk genre classics. I consider this a derivative work and no copyright infringement is intended.

Special thanks to astuffedshirt_perv, blind_justice, Jedits, and WAT456.