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Judy climbed into the car and nodded at me and Panam.
"What, we didn't stay apart for long, huh?"
"Uh-huh. Regina gave us a job to steal something. We're supposed to be quiet and have no casualties on our targets' end."
"Alright, let's go…"
"So, the Mox let you go easily?"
"Where else were they going to go?"
"Got it…"
I nodded my head.
"Panam, drive!"
"On it…"
The Thorton engine roared, and the car headed for its destination.
"By the way, Judy needs a nickname, right?"
Panam shot me a look of interest when I said that, and nodded thoughtfully.
"Yeah, she needs a nickname…"
"Alright, we'll see how she works. Maybe we'll call her Cyber-girl."
"You think so?"
"Judy…"
I decided to ignore Panam and turned to our new partner.
"…did you look over the job details?"
"I did."
She nodded.
"Perfect. Now set up a connection for all of us."
"Uh-huh…"
She closed her eyes, and a couple of seconds later, I answered the call. Two images appeared in the corner of my screen: Panam and Judy.
"Testing… can you hear me?"
"Yeah…"
Panam and I answered at the same time and exchanged smiling glances.
"It's good to have a netrunner on the team."
"You guys didn't use comms before?"
"Uh-huh. Neither of us could set up a secure channel, so we preferred to work without comms."
"Good. I'll take care of that from now on…"
The Thorton jerked to the side.
"Watch where you're going!"
Panam stuck her fist out of the car and shook it, threatening the driver who had just cut us off.
"Panam, calm down…"
"If we weren't on a job, I would've shown him how to drive."
"Yeah, yeah. The Cherry should always be on the Thorton, and the Thorton should shine to show that the Cherry is the best. And if some gonk shows that's not the case, he deserves to be punished!"
Pff…
Judy couldn't help but laugh, and Panam and I were smiling too. We spent about fifteen minutes getting to a district where a small auto repair shop used to be, but was now a Maelstrom base. And as usual, Panam drove a little past it.
"Hey, isn't our target there…"
Judy gestured with her head at the building we had just passed.
"It is, but it's a little reckless to get out of the car directly in front of it. So we always either stop a little short or drive past it."
"Got it…"
Judy closed her eyes.
"Okay, David, I'm going with you."
"Hmm?"
I looked at Judy in surprise.
"Well, I don't have any specialized amps to punch through their ice from a distance. I wasn't ready for you to call me on a job so quickly. So this time, I'll only be able to work through a direct connection."
"And through me?"
"Um… are you sure? A job like this needs a deep comms link. I'll basically be seeing the world through your eyes…"
I frowned slightly, and Judy saw it, interpreting it her own way.
"See, so…"
"Will the Sandevistan affect you?"
"Huh?"
"I asked if the fact that I have a Sandevistan and I'm not afraid to use it if I need to will affect you in any way."
"Um… No, it won't affect me. If I put up a shield, the picture just won't get into the channel faster than a certain speed. It'll be a kind of still frame and a shift in the viewing angle."
"You sure?"
"Yeah…"
"Then set up a deep connection. I haven't taken girls with me on dangerous jobs yet."
"Hey!"
That came from Panam and Judy at the same time. They exchanged glances and looked back at me.
"I can handle myself!"
And again, in unison. They clearly cut me off from the comms and had a silent, womanly agreement.
"I never doubted your abilities, but I still don't want to risk you… Comms link?"
"Five minutes. Setting up a link like that isn't as fast as just activating a secure comms channel. And I still have to integrate it into the main comms channel…"
I closed my eyes and leaned back in the passenger seat.
A couple of minutes later, I got a feeling of a presence in my head. Of course, it wasn't really there; a deep connection just links, it doesn't let anyone inside. But the feeling was still unusual.
"You done?"
"Yeah…"
"Alright, then I'm going."
I got out of the car and quickly ran across the street, then disappeared into the back alleys.
"To the right…"
I followed Judy and turned right, then I followed her again and turned left, and so on a few more times. After that, I was at the back of the Maelstrom building.
"And what are you gonna do now?"
"Wait a minute…"
I took out my harpoon gun, aimed, and shot it at the railing of the roof. Then, avoiding all the windows, I climbed to the top.
"I see an access point."
Nodding, I walked up to it and connected through the port.
"Just wait there for a couple of minutes…"
Judy fell silent, but I could literally feel my chrome, which was unaccustomed to this kind of work, heating up. About ten minutes passed before I felt Judy finish, and she immediately confirmed it with words.
"I'm done. The security cameras have been taken over. I can now loop them while you're moving through the rooms and corridors and switch back to the normal data feed when I need to."
"Good work…"
I returned to the harpoon and detached it, then walked to the entrance of the building, or rather, the roof access, which was my way in.
"It's clear inside."
I opened the hatch, went down into one of the rooms, and after a quick look around, I confirmed that Judy hadn't missed anything. A couple of steps, and I was at the only door from this small room.
"It's clear. You have fifteen seconds before a Maelstromer shows up."
I bolted, and after closing the door behind me, I ran forward quickly but quietly.
"The second door on the left. It's empty."
I flew into the room and, after closing the door behind me, immediately moved to the side, hiding in a closet that was there.
"Wait…"
I spent about five minutes in the closet until I finally heard Judy's voice.
"It's clear."
I got out of the closet and went back into the main corridor. Slowly and carefully, I made my way through it, hiding from the Maelstrom gang members two more times.
"The server room is behind this door. There are three of them in there…"
Fuck. I won't be able to take out three guys.
"Judy, can you take them out?"
"No…"
"I'll have to kill them…"
"Wait…"
"What?"
"I can distract them. Say, they go into another room, and we'll have a couple of minutes to set up a wireless connection to the server, and then I'll pull everything out of it."
"Do it…"
"Go to the room next door. It's empty, and you can hide there."
"Got it."
I hid in the room she indicated, but it wasn't empty. There was a Maelstromer lying there in some kind of drug-induced daze. And that made me a little uneasy.
"Judy, you should warn me about things like that…"
"Got it. Sorry. I didn't think a drug addict who was passed out would be a problem."
"In general, I would agree, he wouldn't be, but neither you nor I know how long he's been in that state, so we can't predict when he'll come to."
"Hmm… didn't think of that."
"It happens."
I walked up to the addict and picked up the injector he had been using. I brought it to his mouth and activated it five times. The narcotic substance immediately entered his system, and a dozen seconds later, he went into convulsions.
"Was that necessary?"
"Yeah."
I wiped the injector and then carefully left a couple of dozen of the Maelstromer's fingerprints on it.
"We don't need witnesses, even accidental ones. So it's better to be careful and eliminate a potential problem before it happens."
About ten minutes passed before Judy gave me permission to go to the server room. I connected to the Maelstrom's systems, allowing Judy to get into their network through me.
"Hmm… they really put a lot of crap in here…"
And with that, she fell silent…
One minute…
Two…
Five…
And it was only after seven minutes that she spoke again.
"Okay, get out. I've set up a wireless connection. I can do everything remotely."
"From the room or the building?"
"For now, just from the room. Hide somewhere nearby while I work. I'll guide you, and then don't distract me."
And she guided me to one of the rooms on the floor, where I hid and waited…
I spent the next three hours in a state of nervous tension, expecting someone to come in, that I would have to take out some enemies, that an alarm would be raised. But everything was quiet.
"Ghost, I have a question…"
"I'm listening?"
"I have the chance to not only find the data you need but also to make a little extra cash and then wipe the server clean."
I bit my lip.
"No, not this time. Regina asked that no one find out about us, if possible. And emptied accounts are a sign that someone got into the servers. And a wiped server is practically a neon sign that someone was here and got something."
"Got it. Then I'll get you out of the building."
"Good."
Seven minutes later, I had left the building, and three minutes after that, I was back in the Thorton.
"Sending the data."
I nodded to Judy and immediately contacted Regina.
"Hey. I have the data. Sending it now."
"Uh-huh… did you work quietly?"
"They didn't even notice us… I had to take out one addict, but I used his own injector, so it'll look like an overdose. We didn't touch the money. We didn't leave any traces of our presence at all."
"Good. You have a certain reputation, so I won't check your words, but if it turns out that your presence there caused a commotion… you'll have to return the extra reward and pay compensation. You understand that, right?"
"I understand, and that's why I'm not asking you to transfer any extra bonuses right now. Check the data, and then you can decide."
"You're sure?"
"Regina, money likes to be counted and doesn't like to be treated lightly, so yes, I'm sure. The bonus can wait…"
"Good, I'm transferring the reward. The bonus will come later… for some reason, I don't doubt for a second that you did everything as quietly as possible…"
The connection was cut, and a couple of thousand eddies immediately landed in my account. I split the money among all of us and transferred the girls' shares.
"Wow!"
"Why so little?"
"What?!"
Judy looked at Panam in surprise, who understood that the amount was not at all impressive.
"Regina offered to transfer the bonus now, but I insisted she check first. Let her make sure everything was done according to the requirements. So within a week, she'll transfer the bonus, and that will be a really nice sum."
"Damn, why didn't I become a solo sooner?"
"Well, you're with us now… how was your first job?"
"Not bad…"
Judy nodded.
"…especially the earnings. If things keep going like this, I'll double the amount I send to my grandma and grandpa at the end of the month…"
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