Adam and some Merc in a purple hackjob Dragoon square off in the deserted plaza. A ghostly wind blows some newspapers and debris across the ground between them. A comms laser from the purple eyesore flickers across one of his optics modules, and despite itching for a fight, decides to accept the low-key comms request.
"So, I'm still a bit new in this body, and accidentally ended up here after a parkour run got out of hand. Any chance we can work something out where I walk away from this still ambulatory?" A young girl's voice asked with deep resignation in her tone.
Adam's newfound sense of excitement died an early death, this shitty merc in some prototype heavy borg chassis didn't even want to fight. Hell, it was barely armed! That HMG it had wasn't even modded properly to be held by a borg, it still had the pintle mount for fucks' sake! Before he could decide how best to show them his answer was 'hell no', the jockey with the little girl voice spoke again.
Motoko continued, leveraging all her imaginary stat points in Charisma to hopefully eke out a 'maybe' from the man. "So...uhhh, I know your contract says 'Civilian Casualties: Required' and 'Massive Collateral Damage: Yes', so what I was thinking is: I run away, you chase me, and if my route happens to go through a few different gang bars and clubs on my way to an ignoble defeat at your hands far from here, you can truthfully state that Kool-Aid manning through a wall and smearing the patrons across the remaining walls was in service of capturing me. If you want we can even have a Jackie Chan improv weapon showdown on the dance floor! If we make a good enough show of it, you could probably get them to drop a few heavier weapons off for you in an AV for a mid-pursuit resupply! Dramatic showdown on the docks! Massive explosion! I get thrown into the bay and we call it for the night".
Adam paused for a second. That actually did sound like a much better evening than a brief, disappointing fight would be. He was about to reply when something about her phrasing caught up with him. Kool-Aid? Jackie Chan? What the fuck? Even HE hadn't heard those names in decades, and she drops them like she knew he'd get the references. His respect for the merc went up from absolutely zero to something most closely resembling 'interesting bug I found'. And it had been a while since he was able to beat a borg to death with a flail made out of street meat.
Turning the orders 'find out who sent it and deal with it' over in his head, he settled on a course of action. "Two questions: Who are you, and who made that frame?"
Motoko absolutely did NOT want to answer either of those questions, but she'd do it if it got her out of this. "I'm Motoko Kusanagi, Solo, techie, and creator of this frame."
Adam knew a line when he was being fed one. "There's no way you created that frame, and unless you stole it, nobody would put a sixteen year old inside a frame that heavy. You die now." Right as he was about to close the channel and make with the murder, she responded.
"I did make it! Do you know how hard it was to source enough high yield myomer to duplicate that layering trick IEC came up with? How hard it was to get armor that wasn't hot garbage? This thing is made with reforged AV armor, and that's barely passable for a heavy frame! The endoskeleton isn't orbital crystal alloy, it's regular-ass 211 high yield maraging steel. I just finished the lidar and millimeter wave sensor integration! Not all of us have your budget for a body Smasher, some of us had to use what we could!" Motoko was pissed now! How dare he tell her she didn't make her latest baby! Sure, it wasn't done yet, but it was pretty good she thought!
"And I totally am Motoko! And I'll prove it!" His agent prompted him to accept or decline an incoming call request. His unlisted agent, which blocked any call not on his approved list. Almost begrudgingly, he hit accept. Several files were transferred in rapid succession, along with a payment from one 'Motoko Kusanagi' for a single eddie.
"Cryptographically signed merc card, cryptographically secured bank transfer from my personal account, and a list of fixers in town who can vouch that the only merc they know who could pull off that agent trick AND are stupid enough to stand in front of you in a lilac purple warborg frame is me! I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a liar!"
On careful review, the data looked genuine, the repeated ICE purges and internal checks showed no intrusion attempts at all, and only someone brilliant enough to design a borg frame like that would be simultaneously stupid enough to tell the truth and get prissy at him over it, especially in person. Good enough for him.
With a single, almost imperceptible nod Adam spoke out loud for the first time. "Alright, we'll do things your way."
In a sultry, smokey voice, the purple warborg replied. "Sounds like a date, handsome." Simultaneous to that, the laser link ended with Motoko stating "Executive motor pool is on the 4th floor, think you can throw me through that section of wall after a round of Sandy Patty Cake?"
Taking a stance, Motoko suddenly accelerated into dilated time, leading with a single straight palm thrust and praying to god tonight ended in anything other than her hoping the Gamer System had a continue game feature.
Adam matched it, curious why anyone would try a meat-punch on a warborg. With a thunderous clap delicate purple hands clashed with hardened chrome talons. The next strike was exactly the same, using the other arm. Adam met that one as well. The third strike was another palm strike, this time across the body. Again, he matched it, striking hand against hand, and doing almost no damage in the process. Snarling at the realization that Motoko had him playing that stupid clapping game, the fourth blow was turned into a brutal hip toss, flinging the purple borg across the plaza. Based on her ranting, Adam figured she wouldn't be durable enough to take the hit and keep the night interesting, so he helped her out a bit. Taking careful aim, he fired one of his micro missiles in dumbfire mode. If it hit her, then it wasn't meant to be, but if she dodged it, Adam figured he'd at least have an amusing evening ahead of him.
Four hours, twenty seven executive limos, three bars, half a dozen separate multi-car pileups, and enough pulped viscera to fill a Behemoth later, Motoko was on her last legs. Cornered at the edge of a dock, it was the end of the line, and Motoko had to face the reality that all her parkour skills couldn't let her escape from a man whose experience was only surpassed by his body count. Myomer overheating, frame bent, armor in tatters, down an arm, unable to call for help or quickhack anything after that EMP, and completely coated in at least three bar patrons, she figured she'd wake up dead or wishing for it. Slowly dripping steaming blood and gore, she turned around and faced her executioner, standing defiantly as the security AVs circled around, cutting off even the submarine escape Hail Mary.
Adam stalked down the dock, a slight hitch in his stride as his left knee caught on the only bit of serious damage Motoko caused to him in the entire night. A Tyger Claw with some above average mantis blades managed a one in a million shot by swiping at him as Motoko wielded him like a screaming club. He repaid that by ripping him in half and throwing the results back at her. All in all, this was the most fun he'd had since his time in the Night Parade. It was an absolute travesty that his handler was able to update his orders before a 'lucky strike' was able to 'temporarily disable' his comms equipment, otherwise he might have been able to do this again. Good thing those orders were just as vague as the last set.
Grinning like the blood soaked maniac he absolutely was, he stalked right up into melee range with the best thing to happen to him all year. "Alright girl, we've had our fun. Orders changed. You're Hired."
She's absolutely SURE that she misheard him, but at this point, the quantity of fucks left to give had finally reached zero. Eye contact. Confidence. Firm Grip. loaded and running. Motoko took one step forward, remaining hand thrust forward for a handshake seen on news around the world. With a voice that sounded like she was enjoying a post coital smoke, she replied "Looking forward to it. I know I'm positively spent." Oh no. Oh god no. The vocoder was stuck on the prototype 'Super Sexy Motoko' mode, and it was adding the inuendo! And she couldn't even fix it because her deck was completely fried. She'd be like this until they popped her out of the frame! Ok! Two choices Motoko, let them know what happened and look like a spaz in front of her new Corpo masters, or lean into it. Double down. Build a legend on a bed of lies. Thinking fast, she carefully weighed the pros and cons of her options. Bed of lies it is!
Adam turned and started walking towards a nearby Arasaka heavy AFV that pulled up. She followed along, two steps behind him. She adjusted her limp, adding some hip to it as she tried to saunter her walk of shame. Adam kicked out the squad that arrived, before telling the driver to take them back to HQ.
Motoko, in that instant before the doors closed, cemented her legend in Night City History, by moving to Adam's side of the AFV and snuggling up to him.
Before he could really respond, her fingers started tapping on his armor as fast as she could. ED. E. G.
Adam raised a single eyebrow, gazing into her panic filled eyes smoldering gaze. Eventually he grunted, then put his arm around her shoulders.
They sat that way all the way back to HQ in silence. It looked positively romantic. Two engines of destruction, titans of chrome and hate, coated in the bloody remains of their night on the town, cuddled up like lovers by a fire. By the time they arrived, the internal cabin footage had already leaked.
Three hours of debriefing and one temporary loyalty contract later, she was escorted down to the labs by Adam. After some incredibly cringe dialog that Adam 100% made worse, the techs were able to repair the damage to Motoko's external facing comms bridge, and was given supervised read only access to her agent. Immediately she was inundated with messages, with approximately 30 voicemails from Section 9, several from her brother and exactly one message from Adam. He had forwarded a very polite message from a young intern in the special assets division. It was from one Hiromi Matsunagi, asking to be given access to one of her registered external assets, along with the Arasaka registration paperwork and a merc card with the exact same crypto signature as the card Motoko had shown him.
She nodded to Adam, and he made a call. A few minutes of walking later, they entered a secure conference room. At the table was Adam's handler with the terrible hair, Hiromi and her father, V and Jenkins, and a few generic men in suits.
Introductions are made, and Adam and Motoko are seated across from the rest. Bold as brass and once again out of fucks to give, she grins like a loon at V, before swinging her gaze over to Jenkins. "Ahh, lovely lady V's mysterious boss. I would say that it's a pleasure to meet you, but I dislike lies. Instead I will tell you that I would be murderously upset if something happened to one of the very few women who can keep up with me."
Preempting what ugly hair was about to say, she turns and gives Hiromi her best mix of bedroom eyes and wild eyed yandere madness. "Adam says I need a handler. Well little cutie, think you can handle me?"
The meeting degenerated from there.