Faelan returned to Naturtal&Co's headquarters in a good mood after decisively—quite literally—finishing another of SAV's tasks, only to find Kiwi collapsed in the server room, sweating profusely while Dorio held a bottle of water beside her.
Right at the entrance, Misty was crouched down, turning the running tap water—collected in basins—into blocks of ice with visible effort. Maine took those blocks, smashed them into chunks with a few strikes, and dumped them over the servers, which were nearly red-hot and humming like an angry beehive.
The place felt like a damn sauna, even with the windows open and the ventilation system running.
"What happened here?" he asked, looking around in confusion.
He was sure no one had attacked the place—everything had been fine on his way back.
"It was the Voodoo Boys," Dorio said as she saw him enter, secretly relieved.
She knew Smasher's quasi-machine condition made him especially vulnerable to Faelan's mystical nonsense, and there was still the fact that Faelan was backed by the lives of many people in the city—but even so, part of her couldn't help feeling a bit worried about him.
Friendship had these illogical inconveniences.
"They took advantage of what they thought was your undoubtedly 'imminent death' to launch a full-scale attack on the company's servers and steal all the data," Kiwi said, taking the towel Dorio handed her and wiping away the sweat. "I couldn't stop them—not even with your brew," she admitted, her voice tinged with frustration.
The sweat wasn't even from pushing her cyberware to the limit—it was from the heat radiating off the servers around her.
"To be fair, a single netrunner—no matter how good—against an entire gang isn't exactly a fair fight," Maine added as he broke another chunk of ice and tossed it onto a server. It had been a good call to make them waterproof. "Anyone else in her place would've been fried the moment the attack started."
"Are you okay?" Faelan walked up to his girlfriend and examined her from head to toe. "You look uncomfortable."
"Setting aside my bruised ego and the fact that I feel like I'm being steamed alive, I've got a bit of a migraine," Kiwi admitted, shaking her head as she rubbed her right temple with two fingers. "I only managed to stop them from overloading the servers into physical destruction—and barely," she added, gesturing toward Maine and the ice.
Servers of this level weren't cheap.
They were the optimized versions Faelan had worked on, and Kiwi had stripped them of spyware. Losing them would mean spending far too much time and money on replacements.
"You know there's nothing truly important on those servers," Faelan said, realizing this had been more of a self-imposed challenge of skill for Kiwi. "Misty, come here and pay attention."
Misty stopped freezing water and approached curiously.
"Don't move," Faelan said, placing his hand on Kiwi's blonde hair. A greenish light began to emanate from his palm, turning into vapor that spread around them.
"Oh, that always feels nice…" Kiwi sighed in relief as she inhaled the vapor and felt her migraine fade within seconds.
As for when Kiwi had been exposed to this before, there was no need to ask.
"Misty," Faelan called, "tell me what you feel."
Misty suddenly wished she could go back to the ice.
A test? Right now?!
"Uh… mint, lavender, and chamomile?" she said after taking a moment to focus on the scent intertwined with the life force. "I'm not sure, but I'd say there's basil too…"
"Mostly correct, but you didn't catch the white willow," Faelan nodded, satisfied with her answers. "Barely passed."
"So… does that mean my punishment is over?" she asked hopefully.
"No."
"Aww…"
Teaching Misty hadn't been difficult—the hard part was that he had to create every plant component from scratch for her to learn. Even so, she still had more talent in other areas.
"Please don't use me as a guinea pig for your lessons," Kiwi said, feeling the urge to throw the towel in her boyfriend's face.
"I would never do such a thing," Faelan replied, finishing the treatment. "So, the Voodoo Boys drained the servers and took everything?"
That would be annoying.
Even if there was nothing truly important—since Kiwi had already moved critical data to an isolated physical server—there were still details like transaction records that could reveal Hanako Arasaka as a collaborator…
"No, they didn't take anything," Kiwi said, shaking her head as she stood up and stretched, trying to shake off the lingering stiffness.
"But you said you could barely stop them from—oh, did Sasha notice something was wrong with the servers and help? Or was it that person who was teaching you, Cynta?" Faelan thought he had figured it out.
Even then, three against an entire gang still sounded a bit surreal to him.
"No, it wasn't either of them." Kiwi looked at Faelan with an odd expression. "I think… we need to talk. Alone."
Dorio and Maine exchanged glances while Misty tried to make herself as small as possible.
Faelan frowned slightly in confusion but nodded, gesturing for them to give them space.
"Finish cooling the servers," he told the others.
They moved to a spot with a tall tree casting enough shade, its base covered in soft moss—a pleasant place to sit.
Kiwi didn't speak immediately. She took Faelan's hand, thinking about how to express the strangest and most surreal part of what had happened without sounding insane.
Faelan waited. A moment of calm would do them both good right now.
"Fae…" she whispered.
"Hmm?" He turned to look into her eyes.
"I… I think… I think I met your mother," she said, her throat feeling dry. "I think I saw Motoko Kusanagi."
Faelan: Σ(°ロ°) !!