Rockerboy

Hiromi and Scorpion conspire to push Motoko on stage at a Badlands campfire. She sings Chippin' In in front of the whole camp, deeply embarrassed — and immediately receives a 'Rockerboy Skill Unlocked' notification. The skill had been sitting dormant the entire time. She decides music is the exact non-combat spiritual hobby Rita was pushing her toward, and buys a guitar with a neural jack port on the drive home that same night.

Hiromi comes home for a slumber party and demands a live performance. Motoko reluctantly sets up the music box with speakers and holographic displays — holograms of herself playing drums and keyboards frame her on guitar. Hiromi tackles her afterward in delight. Jun approves with a headpat. Motoko realizes she accidentally made her 'relaxing hobby' into another murder-themed thing.

After apologizing to Rita at Lizzie's for a drunk table-singing incident, Motoko brings her home for a private performance of Smells Like Teen Spirit with the full holographic display. Jun comes home mid-performance — TC enforcer meets Mox bouncer, tense, then normalized. Afterward Motoko catches Jun and Rita quietly exchanging numbers and immediately pounces on him.

Motoko visits Malcolm at Vik's clinic and plays for him and Hiromi. Vik is quietly impressed. She also works on Lithium Flower during the same session.

Hiromi demands Motoko perform a real gig for her birthday — Motoko agrees, calling it an irrational fear she should face. Hiromi immediately books the Red Dirt Bar and uses the Tank contract's studio access. Hours-long session: Motoko records all five songs with full proper instruments (guitar, drums, cello, sax, vocals). Malcolm, Ichi, and Hiromi watch from the booth, awestruck. Malcolm and Ichi both suppress feelings — Hiromi's crush on Motoko is visible enough that they silently agree not to mention it.

Motoko's first public solo performance — arranged by Hiromi as a birthday surprise, held at the location of Samurai's very first gig. Rita arrives with Nox and Mox members; Rita flirts openly with Jun in front of Alice, creating a triangle Jun completely misses. Set performed in a deliberate arc: teenage rebellion → rising → burning heart → betrayal → the final blaze. Cool stat hits level 10 mid-set. The bar owner praises the performance and recommends she get a full band. Hiromi is paid. The BD recording (BD-009) is later signed by Motoko for Judy, who keeps a personal copy. Rebecca nicknames her 'Strings.'

First meeting with DJ Richard Fox. He negotiates 13 plays of The Pretender on his station and throws in a Sunday late-night amateur slot for Motoko's Samurai covers. The meeting turns into a jam session — they play Chippin' In together, Motoko sings the whole track, and Fox is genuinely delighted.

Violent Hemorrhage plays a dive bar gig with Motoko filling in as temp guitarist; she performs competently but feels nothing — Alice's songs have no soul. Post-gig, Motoko hears her own Smells Like Teen Spirit cover playing on the bar radio, hacks it off in horror, then impulse-walks onto the empty stage with her TachiGuitar and music box. Solo set follows. The crowd erupts at the Everlong encore — her first public performance of the song — and Motoko exits declaring 'this isn't the last you heard of me.'

Stand Alone Complex's first proper ticketed club gig. Set opens with Smells Like Teen Spirit (Motoko duets the final denial with Alice), then Rise (crowd physically roars the chorus back), then Heathens — Motoko casually produces an unloaded Carnage shotgun mid-song, cocks it through the mic for the percussion drop, and throws live shells into the crowd; the final shell goes to a woman in glowing eyeliner who ends up clutching the shotgun like a trophy. This Fffire keeps the energy. The Pretender hits peak crowd. Faint closes the set hard.

Stand Alone Complex plays a much larger, more corporate crowd with three music producers watching. During the VIP aftershow, instead of working the groupies, Motoko pulls a chair against the back wall and begins playing an acoustic Everlong — quietly enthralling the entire VIP floor, half the main crowd pushing upstairs to listen. Hiromi uses this moment to close the deal: MSM Records exec Ian Carver, watching the packed VIP room generate eddies, declares MSM is signing Stand Alone Complex on the spot, edging out CCT Records.

MSM holds a launch party for The Pretender single at a high-end skybar, presenting Stand Alone Complex as a showpiece to the city's rich and connected. Motoko channels her genuine frustration at being pulled away from real food (cloned Beef Wellington and an actual baked potato) into authentic performance energy. Post-show, Kitty Thunder — lead actress of Watson Whore — passes Motoko a quiet message.