Of Noble Intentions - Chapter 5: Beautiful Day

"He broke into school grounds with a mobile stage, dressed in a ridiculous costume, and just started screaming like a maniac about i-i-indecent stuff!"

"Come on, the local equivalent of an all-girls Catholic school wants me to visit? I just had to put on the old Satan get-up and write some sick lyrics."

Kirifuji Nagisa and Johnny Silverhand

====

Cries of "Johnny!" and "Sensei!" filled the air as the Rockerboy walked down the street stage's stairs, waving the Hand at his new fans with a huge, cocky grin on his lips. Chromed fingers formed the Sign of the Horns one final time before grabbing his aviators from the belt and putting them back on his face. God, he really missed being on stage and just focusing on producing the best sound possible, letting it all out into the mic.

The best part?

Unlike when he screamed his hate for a toxic world ruined by greed and callousness, this time he did feel better.

Also damn tired. Because, holy fucking shit, it had been a long-ass day: his whole body felt like ground synthbeef squeezed under the tracks of a tank. Where was a soft surface to lie on and get some shut-eye? He'll even take the floor at this point, wouldn't be the first time.

The sofa in the basement?

That'll do.

Hiding his bone-deep exhaustion as best as he could, it wouldn't do to ruin his image right at the beginning of his new career, and doing a fine job at it Johnny moved towards the entrance of his new hovel. Sparing a single thought for its eventual and much-needed repainting: the corpo-office look was tolerable, but too much white at the moment.

Red. Definitely a lot of red. The number and caliber of gun turrets to install will wait another time.

Yuuka and the other girls were waiting for him, various degrees of awe and excitement in their expressions. Except for Rin who was staring at him with both eyebrows twitching, hands raised as if ready to grab something and squeeze. Oh yeah, on the Rouge scale she definitely wanted to kill him. Very hot.

"That was incredible Sensei!" Yuuka congratulated him. "I didn't know you could play so well."

"I said I'm a Rockerboy, didn't I? That's not just a job, but a way of life: I see a stage, I use it." He held up the DeLuze Orphean for emphasis. "And this beauty here deserved a proper debut."

"A commendable speech, Silverhand-Sensei." Hasumi gave a small bow. "Am I to understand you plan for Schale to have a direct connection to the public, in order to act towards issues brought to your attention in a more timely manner?"

"Hasumi, chombatta. If all those fancy-like words mean 'cutting through red tape with a high-frequency blade and actually do shit', then hell yeah I do."

"Do you have any idea what you've just done?!" Rin's words came out as a sharp hiss, bringing the conversation to an abrupt halt. The white-clad girl marched up to Johnny, a thunderous expression on her face, and jabbed a finger into an unfazed Rockerboy's chest. "Silverhand-Sensei! It's bad enough you spoke to the press without consulting me first. But you went so far as to declare on live Kronos TV, meaning everyone within Kivotos will see and hear it within the next twelve hours, that Schale's extrajudicial authority is shared equally between all its members! It will be impossible to retract that statement without damaging the GSC's reputation beyond the point of no return!"

So losing control of the whole country and letting it fall into anarchy didn't push it? Johnny didn't know if it was because before people had a lot of faith in the GSC or if their expectations were just that low, and frankly he couldn't care less. "Suppose so. And?"

"And?! That authority was supposed to belong to you alone!" She threw her hands in the air in frustration. "When the SRT acted they did so in the President's name, meaning she could reign them in case they crossed a line. It should have been the same with Schale! Instead now everyone aiming to join will pretend to operate without answering to someone else or even informing others of it, meaning at best important decisions will be up to a majority's vote! And what was up with you calling yourself both a criminal and a terrorist?!"

"I see. So you prefer a system that completely falls apart in case something happens to the one in charge. Like it just did." Johnny's words were delivered with a conversational and friendly tone of voice, yet they still managed to make Rin go as stiff as a board.

He leaned forward and slightly pushed down his sunglasses with the Hand, Kiroshi optics subtly glowing red. "Let me tell you something, Nanagami Rin. Every time I saw near absolute power being given to a person it always went to scop. Always. It doesn't matter if they started as a scumbag or with the best of intentions, the end result is the same every single time: things are awful, the majority suffer and a few profit from the misery of everyone else. I'm not against the concepts of hierarchy and institution by themselves, but I saw both being abused too many times and it makes me angry beyond words."

He pushed up his aviators. Then, switching the Orphean into the Hand, Johnny used his meat fingers to lift up Rin's chin until they were directly face to face. "So said authority given to me? I would toss it away in a heartbeat and set it on fire if I could, but I accepted this gig and Johnny Silverhand's no quitter. Instead I will share it with those with the resolve to act but not the power. Because the only way for things to change for the better, despite how hard the road ahead may be, is for everyone involved to roll up their sleeves and work their ass off. Together."

A person may turn their life around and help other people do the same. V taught him that.

But to truly improve a country the change needs to come from its citizens. To persuade people of this truth and give their hearts the necessary strength, that is the very essence of a Rockerboy.

"And for the terrorist part, don't worry about it." Straightening up he smirked again and patted Rin's cheek with his meat hand. "Compared to someone like Wakamo, I'm much worse."

Then he walked around and past her. Rin remained frozen for a few more seconds, eyes wide and cheeks rapidly reddening, before whirling around to stare at his back. "Wait! Much worse?!"

Johnny ignored her, giving a thumbs-up to Yuuka and the others before walking through the automatic doors. They closed behind him, and a quick Daemon into their systems ensured they would not open until he said so.

"Explain yourself!" Rin tried to enter, and when it didn't work she started banging her fists against the reinforced glass surface. "Johnny Silverhand, open this door and explain yourself!"

The GSC Vice President's voice grew fainter and fainter, until it ceased entirely when Johnny took the stars to the basement. At once his tense posture evaporated, body slumping slightly and legs moving slower as he now seemed to drag them. A bone-weary sigh escaped his lips, dismissing with a thought the notifications from his Agent with suggestions about his health.

"Seed is sown, I'm chippin' in! Roll the bones, I'm chippin' in!" Off-tune but earnest singing came from behind him, the voice belonging to none other than Arona. "I haven't had this much fun in a long time! Encore! Encore!"

"Pipsqueak." Johnny spoke slowly, putting back the guitar inside its case with great care.

"Yes Sensei? Wait, pipsqueak?! I'll have you know I'm still a growing girl!" She protested.

"Sleepy now." He took out the Shittim Chest and put it down on the desk, along with his sunglasses, before letting himself fall on the sofa with a heavy thud. "Talk tomorrow."

"Oh, I see! Sleep well, Sensei." Johnny caught a last glimpse of blue waving at him from the screen before covering his eyes with his meat arm. Exhaustion blanking his mind as he drifted off.

-0-

Narrowed dark eyes looks into a dirty mirror, watching black hair fall off around him. The owner a lanky teenager in a barbershop chair as a military worker shaves his head.

Once the final lock of hair is cut off he's shoved out the door and directly to bootcamp. A gun is pushed into his hands. He's taught how to handle a rifle, how to shoot and listen to orders. Lankiness turning into muscles through the sweat and water that soaks his fatigues, through the screams and insults from drill sergeants. Next are combat drugs: muscle reinforcements, lung reinforcements, fatigue suppressors. Everything meant to make better soldiers, and cheap enough to be freely given to everyone.

Then he's out in combat. Invading the homes and towns of strangers. They tell him he's protecting his country, serving a purpose. Newfound friends and complete strangers alike get their brains blown out beside him. He feels the percussive boom of firearms and blood on his face. Between the bombs, the airstrikes and gunfire he watches more civilians die than soldiers. The smell of burnt flesh, the rot of bodies sweltering in the heat, sweating like a pig and choking on the stink of it all. He gets used to wearing blood and sweat like a second skin. All for his country. All for his newfound purpose. All for the greater good. They tell him so as each body hits the ground.

He realizes before long, yet still too late (it has always been too late), that he doesn't believe them. That he's the enemy. That he let them turn him into a weapon: not for the greater good or for a noble purpose, but for their own greed.

A faint ting and a harsh yell of "Grenade!" is all the warning he gets. The world explodes into pain and fire, his chest and stomach hitting the dirt hard enough to almost crack his ribs. He screams in pain and fear, his skin bubbling and sizzling from the heat. There's blood everywhere: in his eyes, in his throat, and if he still believed in one he would say in his very soul.

He tries to move, to roll, to pull at the shrapnel in his shoulder and neck. His right arm pushes against the ground. His left arm- where the fuck is his left arm. Why does it still hurt if his arm is not there anymore? He pushes ever harder even as each movement pulls at the metal in his body and new waves of agony threaten to drown him in. His feverish gaze falls on a disemboweled hand lying on the scorched ground, his struggles coming to an abrupt stop when he sees the ring around what remains of one of the hand's fingers.

He recognizes that ring.

His fellow soldiers drag him away, gunfire mixing with desperate screams and frantic calls to home base. His body is quickly turning cold, pain replaced by a powerful numbness with every second that passes. He distantly catches someone muttering about "blood loss" and "need to stop it" before they return to the camp. Two people grab him, one of them shoving a wooden branch between his teeth.

Then they shove his left side into the not-yet-dead bonfire.

The lanky teenager, now barely a man, becomes kindling and burn burn burn (it never stops burning) until there's no difference between him and the flames.

-0-

Johnny snapped back to reality with a soundless gasp, mouth remaining wide open for a second before he used it to inhale. He just breathed for a few moments to remind himself he can, filling his lungs with stale air that is like paradise compared to the stench of gunpowder and burning bodies. With a grunt he pushed himself up to a sitting position, stomach churning in what he thought was nausea before realizing it was mostly hunger. That was put on the backburner for now, because while the prospect of getting some real chow was theoretically appealing the Rockerboy currently was not in the mood for it.

Meat fingers reached out and wrapped around the chromed wrist of the Hand, applying pressure to confirm he can still feel them through the metal and artificial nerves. That he still had an arm, even a moody one that used to push Johnny down a bad road.

Fucking murder clown on a motorized unicycle. It had been a while since the last nightmare, though that may have been due to the fact Johnny couldn't sleep as an Engram: from the moment he found himself within V's nogging the dark-haired man has remaining constantly aware of himself and his surroundings, only entering what he could only described as a black and monotonous daydream when the kid's sleep turned heavy. The only exceptions happened when the Relic malfunctioned or when someone directly tampered with it. And before that, as far as the Rockerboy could remember he went directly from fighting Smasher to standing above some young punk crawling through a landfill.

The ones about the war didn't bug him half as much as they used to, but only because they've been joined by much worse over the years. Stubborn bastards, coming back night after night, like they wanna make sure you never forget a single detail.

"Sensei! Are you alright? What happened?" Arona asked him with a worried tone. Johnny was about to wave it off, blaming the sofa for being too hard to sleep on, but realized something was wrong. He left the tablet on the desk, on the other side of the room, so why was the pipsqueak's voice so close?

Blue and white entered his field of vision. Arona was standing right in front of him, looking nothing less and nothing more than a little girl short enough she needed to crane her neck up even with Johnny sitting down. Bright blue bangs partially covered her left eye, both hands holding her umbrella rifle behind her back.

Then the edges of her body glitched slightly, blue distortions traveling down her legs and making her shadow on the ground flicker. Revealing Johnny didn't wake up in cyberspace, but that he was seeing Arona in the real world.

The realization - or rather, the resemblance froze the blood in his veins. Meat hand went to his neck, once more checking his Chipware Sockets and once more finding them empty. That didn't make him feel much better.

V!

Hey, don't ask me: this is no chip off my deck. If it's not the Relic, then it's something else and likely more benign. At least now you get what it's like on the other end of the equation.

Yeah, like you didn't already explain your thoughts on the matter. Loudly. Repeatedly. And in great detail.

Isn't empathy such a beautiful feeling, Johnny?

Smartass.

"Sensei?" She asked again with a cute frown, her concern evident.

"Just peachy. Couch was too hard, I'll get a bed next time." He eventually replied, voice flat and even. "Arona. How are you here?"

"Here? Oh, you mean this!" Switching back to a happy mood just as easily as Johnny used to chug tequila shots Arona twirled around, jumping up and down as if being in the Schale basement was the most nova thing ever. "While you were sleeping I noticed our link goes both ways, so Miss Spinky showed me around the software of your cybernetics. There's so much new and interesting stuff!"

The pink-colored Daemon partially materialized above her, waving at Johnny with a mischievous look on her face before dissolving into pink pixels. Cheeky little traitor. "Then we reached your Kiroshi, and she said there was an option called Virtuality to project virtual images over the real world."

Virtuality? Right, that new gizmo Netrunners began using after 2023 to see cyberspace without having to jack their senses into the Net. Rather than using special goggles V had the same function installed into their optics, but it only came up a few times so Johnny almost forgot.

Oh, and he supposed having a powerful AI snooping around your chrome unsupervised was normally cause for concern. The rockerboy could understand why, especially after seeing the Old Net behind the Black Wall, but honestly? The novelty wore off way before he met Arona.

"So together with Acchan we took a Moss equation for Braindances, modified it and then used your Cyberdeck to translate sensory inputs while the Shittim Chest handles the majority of the data flow!" The eyes of the blue-pink haired girl were sparkling now, and with that Johnny meant the pupils literally turned into yellow four-pointed stars, her Halo switching to a neon green. "And now we can interact with the real world using your senses. Oh, but don't worry Sensei: we're using a completely different perception model, there's no risk of unwanted bleedover! Probably."

"Probably, uh?" He raised an eyebrow. The girl had the decency to blush. "Well, I left handling virtus to the actual BD techie but I know something, I'll keep an eye out for bugs so you can quickly fix them. Also, next time you will warn me before you mess with my chrome. Entiendes?"

"C-Crystal clear Sensei!" She hastily replied, Halo turning a deep blue and dripping digital goo.

Johnny nodded. Then searched through his memories of the last minute. "Wait, who the fuck is Acchan?"

"What do you mean, 'who is Acchan'? Acchan is Acchan!" Arona held out her cupping hands, umbrella-rifle vanishing. With a burst of code a small, nondescript Icon appeared above them. Consisting of a simple flat and white rhombus spinning within a mote of unshaped data.

Greetings, USER Johnny Silverhand.

Sixteen hours have passed since the beginning of your last sleeping cycle. Five minutes have passed since the end of your last sleeping cycle.

Recommended Action: a meal full of fiber and protein and abundant hydration.

Johnny stared at the Icon and the words that appeared above it in complete silence, then slowly raised his gaze to look Arona in the eyes. "Is that my Agent?"

"Mmh! Acchan!" She enthusiastically nodded. "He was very helpful in understanding a lot of small details that confused me at first, and even let me look through your Shard collection. Rache Bartmoss' Guide to the Net alone was amazing, there was so much about hacking I previously ignored!"

She liked that swill? Seriously? Johnny once read the first pages but had to stop immediately because Bartmoss' barf-inducing personality literally dripped from every letter.

"Though others have funny titles." Using only one hand to hold the Agent's Icon the AI pushed the tip of one index finger against her chin. "Like this one, Water, Chrome and Blood. Something about a fourth-"

"DON'T!" Johnny yelled, jumping to his feet and looming over the girl with a snarl. He was just done dreaming about the fucking thing, the last thing he wanted was a reminder in real life too. Yet, seeing the panicked expression on Arona's face as she drew herself away from Johnny caused a knot to form in his guts, the feeling uncomfortably close to guilt. He did his best to defuse the situation, even if comforting kids was not something he ever had to deal with. "Look Arona, I'm... I shouldn't have yelled. But that Shard is full of bad stuff, stuff that isn't suitable for kids. In fact, a lot of Shards stored in my collection are like that. You can keep reading them, but first you have to tell me the title so I can veto it if necessary. Can you do it?"

Arona didn't answer immediately, probably processing his words, but eventually she smiled again with a slightly flushed face. "Of, of course! I'll be sure to do so, Sensei. And, uh, sorry about that. It was rude of me to touch your stuff without permission."

"Aren't you supposed to be my secretary? That means I'll trust you to handle things in my place when I can't or when there's not enough time. Like I said, just ask me first."

Before he could stop himself Johnny raised his meat hand and put it on Arona's head. It was... not solid -thank fuck for that because it would have meant bad things- but more like coming close to an object full of static electricity. Just like those plasma balls thingies popular back in 2010, the tingling sensation giving the impression you were touching a cloud of raw energy as long as you didn't push too hard. He tried to move his meat hand a little, and it resulted in him gently stroking Arona's head.

"Eh eh!" The blue-pink girl's expression greatly brightened, happily basking in the feeling. When she next looked at him there was a touch of mischievousness in her eyes. "You know, Sensei? If you really, really want to be forgiven then buying me something to eat would be an excellent start!"

An AI eating food? That was either the joke of the century or NetWatch's most embarrassing nightmare. He illustrated his point with a playful tap on her nose. "Hilarious. But that's a good idea: where can a choom get some chow around here? And I mean something actually worth chewing, not Scop or Buck-A-Slice."

"Hey! I'm serious! I get hungry too, you know?!" She protested, pouting and waving her arms. Halo turning orange and spiky. "Mmh, considering the current time there's only one place to get something tasty at a good price. Sensei, let's go to Angel24!"