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"Bookworm is in position…"
Becca's voice was full of anticipation.
"Miss Muscle is in position…"
Dorio's voice was full of annoyance. She wasn't thrilled at all about having to work with stupid call signs. But there was nothing she could do about it, just like her other crew members, because whoever pays the piper sets the rules. And in this case, I was paying the piper.
"Chrome Maniac is ready…"
Pilar's voice was just as displeased. But Becca, when she first heard the call sign I had chosen for her brother, laughed like a horse for five minutes straight. Well, I guess it's a good thing she was in a good mood…
"Big Guy is in position and ready to work… and if it weren't for these stupid names, I'd be completely happy to be working again. Even as a sniper."
"Smarty-Pants is ready. Reporting that Group A is fully ready to work."
I nodded, although only those who hadn't minimized their conference call avatars could see it. I assume no one in our expanded group made that mistake. At least, I really wanted to believe that.
"Alright, Ghost is ready to get to work…"
"Mentor is ready."
"Snowflake is ready."
"Group A, proceed."
I gave the order, and soon, shots rang out from the main entrance of one of the warehouses in the dock area. At first, they were sporadic, but with each passing minute, they became more and more frequent.
"We're on it…"
Judy reported that they had attracted enough attention from the Wraiths, and I could start working. So I headed for one of the less convenient entrances, through a broken window on the third level. Of course, there was nothing there to climb on, but that's what the harpoon was for…
The first shot from the harpoon, and I was calmly climbing up to the broken window. I carefully peeked in and confirmed that there were no enemies there.
After securing myself on the window, I pressed a button, detaching the cable from the harpoon, and then quickly attached a new harpoon to the cable. After that, another shot followed, this time into the warehouse, and I slowly descended. All the while, I was using my optics as much as I could. So I was certain that the enemies weren't even thinking about coming my way.
Once on the floor, I quickly walked toward one of the containers, which was open, and from which Wraiths were running out. That meant there was some kind of underground passage there.
I activated my Sandevistan and calmly moved through the warehouse, entered the container, and, seeing the ladder that led down, I went down it, all the while carefully dodging the Wraiths and inserting shards from the girls into them. That way, when they got to the front, Lucy and Kiwi could disable them, helping Judy. And of course, hacking their data and collecting side eddies from the Wraiths' personal accounts was a very important goal.
Once downstairs, I looked around and, after hiding in one of the tech passages, I turned off my Sandevistan.
"Ladies, how's the connection?"
"The connection's fine. The amplifier is working perfectly."
I smirked, then quickly made my way to the nearest access point that I had found with my optics. I immediately put a shard in there, then returned to my hiding spot and turned off my Sandevistan again.
"Get to work… I need a map of this place."
"Three minutes…"
Lucy was a woman of few words, but it was understandable. She and Kiwi had a lot of work ahead of them. However, a minute and a half later, I got a message with a map and a marker of my location. And I have to say, the Wraiths had set up a good base here… there were even two exits outside the warehouses! And that was bad…
"The doors to the emergency exits aren't under our control, but we have the cameras."
"Got it. How many Wraiths are left here?"
"About fifty people… but they've already called for reinforcements. They should be coming from two sides. One will come up behind Group A, and the others will arrive through those exits. Group A has been warned. Big Guy and Smarty-Pants will be keeping their eyes peeled."
I nodded and, activating my Sandevistan, quickly moved through the underground corridors. I reached the first room that had a computer marker. I only stayed there for a short time, just long enough to put a shard in. I had decided not to turn off my Sandevistan and just walked calmly through the corridors, putting shards into everything I came across. And it was only when I was at a door that led to a secret entrance/exit that I froze for a moment, then I just moved to the side and turned off my Sandevistan.
"Alright?"
"Don't distract me…"
Kiwi's voice was tense.
"Smarty-Pants, how are you guys doing?"
"We're holding on… just as you asked, we're barely not retreating. But it's hard to make it look convincing… they're just so untrained. Though there are some decent ones among them…"
"Got it. I'm waiting for the reinforcements to arrive. I need to put shards in them…"
"Go on… only Bookworm is having fun out here… she's giving herself little challenges, like: I'm going to hit the next five enemies with a ricochet off that barrel over there, and the wound has to be an inch below their right knee… and the most amazing thing is that she can do it!"
I snorted.
"Well, she's not a gun-maniac for nothing…"
"I beg your pardon! I'm a master sharpshooter, by the way!"
"Yeah, yeah…"
"You're all so annoying with the chatter! How can you even work in an atmosphere like this?"
"Big Guy, don't flex your muscles…"
Kiwi said that with a smirk.
"…Ghost, unlike you, does recon and plans missions meticulously. That's why we have such a calm atmosphere… so what if reinforcements arrive? So what? We know about them, so we're ready and watching our surroundings… What is there to worry about?"
"Mentor, don't get distracted…"
"Sorry, Snowflake."
And Kiwi disappeared from the conversation, as did Lucy, who had only been in it for a couple of seconds.
"Fucking hilarious…"
Maine wasn't going to calm down.
"…I always knew that Ki…"
"Big Guy, stick to the call signs…"
My voice cut Maine off.
"…if you try to break that rule again, your reward and share will be cut by fifty percent."
Tch…
Maine wasn't happy with what I said, but he kept quiet.
"Ghost, aren't you being too hard on Big Guy?"
"Miss Muscle, I'm paying for the music and the dancing, and I want this order, which I'm paying for, to be executed flawlessly. And if Big Guy can't handle a simple task like that, then what is he even doing as a solo?"
"Well… our crew had a slightly different profile…"
"Yeah, yeah…"
I nodded.
"…I know, meatheads on Faraday's leash. I've heard about it. Did you like it? How do Miss Muscle and Chrome Maniac feel about their reputation after that? How do other fixers see them?"
Grrr…
"They don't see us well. It's disgusting… Happy now?"
Pilar jumped into the conversation.
"Yeah, we fucked up working mostly for Faraday, but that's no reason to pick on Big Guy… you even gave him a call sign that sounds like a jab…"
"Well, you'll just have to deal with it… maybe you'll get some brains… after all, even after Big Guy was partially sidelined, you didn't think about changing your style of work. You were still the same meatheads, just working for a different fixer and in a smaller group. And by the way, what was stopping you from giving Big Guy a sniper rifle, like now, putting him in a spot, and having him cover you guys?"
I sighed theatrically.
"What was stopping Chrome Maniac, with his knowledge, from reaching out to Snowflake or Mentor and buying daemons from them and becoming a crew netrunner?"
Silence was my only answer…
"I have no complaints about Miss Muscle. She always acted in her role, which suits her perfectly, and it would have been difficult to find anything else for her to do."
"Thanks…"
Dorio sounded a little surprised and a little flustered.
"Or here's another option… Big Guy, you have some reputation, even if it's…"
I didn't repeat that his reputation was a little specific because of his work for Faraday. But it was still a reputation…
"…you could have become a fixer. A local one, of course, at first. You would have had to work under someone… but the money would have been stable. And in six months to a year, you could have reached a level just below Wakako's, and the money there should be pretty good…"
"I…"
"You, you…"
I shook my head.
"…oh, my reinforcements have arrived. Girls, get ready for a flood of intel."
"Copy that, Ghost… we're ready…"
As soon as the doors opened completely, I activated my Sandevistan, and then I went toward the enemies. And it was a good thing I cranked my speed up to the maximum immediately, because a couple of the new arrivals had military-grade Sandevistans. At least, I could tell they were military-grade by the visible parts of the Sandevistans; the ones that go to civilians are less bulky.
However, they didn't activate their Sandevistans, which meant they were easy targets for me, and I just knocked them out. So, at the exit, there was a pile of bodies with shards in their ports.
"Ladies?"
"We're on it… I've sent you a new map. It has markers on it for the ones we no longer need. You can disable them."
"Disable them?"
I smirked and calmly walked toward the marked targets.
"That's a very diplomatic way of saying 'terminate.'"
"Well, you don't talk about mass murders either…"
"I prefer to call it pest control…"
"I agree… you have to get rid of the rats before they settle in a new place, or you won't be able to get rid of them with any means later on…"
Panam joined the conversation, although she had been silent before.
"Alright, we're out of enemies…"
Becca's voice was very pleased.
"…Mentor, send the map to Bookworm. Let her go in the opposite direction from me and help with the pest control. It will take me longer to do it all by myself."
"Got the map…"
Together, we quickly cleared out all the Wraiths. In short, we cleared out everyone and left the Wraith base without leaving any living enemies behind. About twenty minutes later, Saul and his guys arrived and stripped the place of everything that was left. Guns, cars, everything.
And after that, we all gathered at the same place, the nomad camp next to the Behemoth.
"Alright… I want to welcome you all, my comrades…"
I transferred ten thousand eddies to Maine, Dorio, and Pilar, and then I looked at them thoughtfully.
"…this is your pay. And now, let's get to the bonus…"
I smirked. Saul had already transferred a portion of the clan's funds to me as payment for the items they got. And I was looking at an impressive sum of money. Not the biggest we had ever gotten, of course, but an extra twenty thousand for each of the people who created the distraction. I wasn't going to screw over the others, though, and I quickly distributed the bonus.
"This is…"
Dorio blinked in shock.
"This is the bonus I mentioned. And now you have a choice. You can either continue to be a distraction for the other Wraith bases, or you can say that you don't like working with me and you want to leave?"
"Um… if I'm allowed to speak…"
Pilar was very confused and a little shocked, but he was the first to find the strength to speak.
"…I have a question…"
I looked at him questioningly.
"…do you get bonuses like this every time?"
"Usually more…"
Becca shrugged and answered her brother before I could.
"…but usually, there are fewer of us, so I guess the total amount is about the same as usual…"
She looked at me as if she were suggesting that I continue.
"This isn't the biggest jackpot we've ever hit, but overall… yeah, we get bonuses like this all the time. And it's all thanks to the professional work of the netrunners and the fact that I give them a chance to work."
"And… do you always use shards?"
"No…"
Judy joined the conversation.
"…he used to prefer a direct connection and the netrunner working through his deck, but that required working quietly without attracting any attention. But after we started using shards, being quiet became optional. And today, since Lucy and Kiwi were in an ice bath, the noise shouldn't have bothered them at all."
"Well… they tried to counter us a little…"
Kiwi shrugged.
"But because their netrunners were working without forced system cooling, and we were working with him, we were able to push our chrome a little harder, and as a result, we worked more efficiently."
Lucy continued for her friend.
I was still waiting for an answer from Maine or the other members of his crew.
"I… I don't mind working with you a couple more times."
Those words were clearly not easy for Maine to say… but I didn't know what was going on in his head, so I couldn't tell what prompted him to make that decision. Maybe it was the hope of buying new chrome?
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