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This time, the usual trick of just hacking from an external access point wasn't working. Night-Road had been way more responsible with their security; the external connection was locked down with some seriously heavy ICE. Because of that, I had to get out of the Thorton and head to the building myself.
"I'm going in?"
"Yeah, go on. Be careful in there..."
Judy nodded at me, and the other girls watched me just as closely, their eyes following me with a hint of worry.
I moved quietly through a few courtyards, since the Thorton was parked a bit away from the corporate building. I did a quick check, spotted an open window, and activated my Sandevistan. Thankfully, I didn't need a grappling hook. The building next door was close enough, so I took a light leap, pushed off it, then off the Night-Road wall, then off the neighboring building again. Finally, I grabbed onto the open window and vaulted myself inside.
One of the corridor cameras was pointed right at me, but I was moving too fast for it to register my appearance yet. I quickly shifted to the side, out of the camera's sight, and then used my optics to get a better look.
One of the nearby offices was empty, so I quickly slipped inside. I plugged a shard into the nearest computer and deactivated my Sandevistan.
"Get to work... I need a map and maybe control of the cameras. And you've gotta clean the camera logs, 'cause I got spotted. It's not enough to set off an alarm, but if they review the footage, they could find me."
"On it..."
Minutes of waiting dragged on.
About thirty minutes of waiting... all that time, I was on edge, ready to turn on my Sandevistan and take out any corp who walked into the office. But luckily, I got lucky... again. How many times had it been now? Doesn't matter, what mattered was that I got lucky. When the girls finally got access to the cameras and the building's floor plan, I still hadn't been found, and I hadn't had to use force.
"Ghost, catch the map..."
A message popped up, which I immediately checked. I needed to get to another floor. The one I was on was meant for service staff—not cleaners, but the people who supported the server techs. Stuff like accountants and different building maintenance specialists, or the guys who drive out to fix broken cameras... But the floor I needed was the actual server room, and the security there was on a whole other level.
"Ghost, you'll need to use type-three shards there..."
"Got it..."
A type-three shard means it has a self-destruct program. Not a physical one, but a system to wipe its own software. We'd only use these if a job was going to take a long time, at least a day, which meant there was a high chance my presence would be compromised. To avoid that, I'd leave the building after I installed the shards.
The girls had put in a lot of work on these things, protecting them as best they could. Now, to analyze their software, someone would have to connect to them, and that's only possible if they haven't been plugged into a breach port before. Once they're in, the girls have full control and can wipe the software in an instant, or it'll be wiped if someone tries to pull the shard out.
"What about camera control?"
"It's a bust from here... we barely got access to the building map. But if you give the go-ahead, while you're moving, we could thin out the personal accounts of the corpo employees a little..."
"Regular people?"
I shook my head.
"Nah... that's not our style."
"Yeah... I guess you're right."
The girls agreed with me. I activated my Sandevistan and left the office, first pulling out the shard I'd used to give them access to the building's systems. I moved carefully down the hall, crossing the camera's fields of view as fast as I could.
It took just three minutes of my own time, and I was at the staircase. I started heading down, but my optics told me someone was coming up.
I froze on the landing and waited... two minutes of my own time, and a girl, staring at some kind of tablet, started climbing the stairs to the mid-floor landing that separated my floor from the one below. Why hadn't I moved forward yet?
I don't know...
But my gut screamed that I had to stop and not move. An irrational fear, of a fragile-looking girl...
Only when she reached the landing did I jump down at the maximum speed I could without hurting myself, instead of taking the stairs. I jumped and immediately pushed off the wall to hide under the staircase that would block her view.
I kept my eye on the girl until the last second and noticed her hand twitch... incredibly fast... only slightly slower than me. I followed the direction of her hand and saw a knife that was now literally stuck in the wall...
Fuck...
Another push and I flew down, hiding under the next staircase, and then again.
"What the hell was that?!"
My brain was working at max capacity. I soon reached the lower level where the servers were. At that point, my optics couldn't see the girl through the mass of stairs, but I didn't turn off my Sandevistan. No, I opened the door and immediately ducked into the massive room, where I had to turn off my optics because the server signatures were messing with them.
I hid between the tall server racks and finally turned off my Sandevistan.
"Ghost?"
"Shhh..."
I pressed myself against a server. The only thing that saved me was that I was already in acceleration mode, and the girl was acting on instinct rather than having actually spotted me. But even so... that speed of movement... that precision...
Knock-knock-knock...
The server room door opened very quietly, and I heard a female voice.
"Stranger-kun, are you in here?"
I flinched and quickly slotted a couple of shards into the servers, then quickly moved to the side, trying to get closer to her. Why closer? Because most people would try to get as far away from an opponent like this as possible. That's exactly why I got closer and froze... by my estimate, I was about one server away from her...
My Sandevistan kicked in on pure instinct. And maybe that's the only thing that let me stay put, just slightly crouching, as the girl's hand punched straight through the server ten centimeters from me and tried to grab my throat. And right after that, I turned off my Sandevistan.
"Huh?"
The girl's hand, with a slightly worn, fingerless glove, fumbled in the air, a little lost.
"Did I make a mistake?"
I very quietly shifted to the side and quickly hid behind the next server, continuing to listen to what she was doing. She yanked her hand out of the server and started moving in the opposite direction from me.
Fuck, who is she?!
Thinking about what I just saw, she has chrome instead of hands, with gloves over them... but that's not what matters. What matters is that I have no info on her! I'd gathered intel on all the more-or-less powerful corpos and solos, just to have an idea of who I might run into on a gig.
Fuck...
I kept moving, slotting shards, and literally prayed not to run into her again. It's not that I doubted my ability to handle her... but I really didn't want to fight her. That's not what I came here for.
"Hey, I know you're in here..."
I shifted again, listening intently to where she was going.
"...are you really that shy? I just want to say hi..."
I barely managed to keep from snorting. Did that ever actually work?
"Tch... why does that never work? I'm a looker..."
She wandered around the server room for another five minutes, and I kept moving, staying just a short distance from her.
"Tch... was it really just a glitch in my optics?"
She sighed. And she finally left the server room, but when I activated my optics, I saw that she hadn't left; she was just standing right outside the door.
Shit...
"Ladies, I think I've got a problem... look for old blueprints of the building."
"What happened?"
"There's this chick... and she's a gonk-strong choom. She noticed me, but I was moving at my current max speed, and it looks like her optics couldn't get a proper fix. But she hasn't left; she's still standing at the server room exit..."
"So maybe..."
"No."
Kiwi cut off Becca.
"We're not here to draw attention, and something like that would definitely attract the big bosses. It's better to wait and look for another way out."
"Exactly. That's why I need you to look for old plans. Maybe there are some old tunnels... that I could use to leave the building?"
"We'll look..."
I sighed and hid behind the servers, staying in a "zone" where I'd know if anyone entered the server room. It turned out to be a good idea, because about twenty minutes later, the door opened and some techs came in.
"Goddammit... that psycho chick's been at it again..."
"Quiet, you... she'll hear you!"
"Come on, the soundproofing here is insane... and what was she even doing here?"
"Said her optics glitched..."
"Well, at her age, she's not even human anymore, hasn't been for a long time. One of the first borgs..."
"One of the first? What about Smasher?"
"Well, he's more famous, but Mystic, she always worked quieter, so she's not as well-known, I mean, among regular people. But yeah, she was one of the first successful borgs."
"Alright, enough talk, let's just fix this server and delta outta here..."
After that, they didn't say anything like that, just the usual talk of techs bitching about who broke the equipment.
"Girls?"
I contacted my crew.
"How you doing?"
"Uh... strange... that's not what I was calling about. Look up Mystic... the techs mentioned that's the name of the chick who saw me."
"Alright... as for your request, no, there are no old tunnels, but there is a sewer. Interested?"
Kiwi's voice had a teasing tone.
"You know, considering I'd really rather not run into a legend—and she's obviously one of those legends—I don't really have a choice. So yeah, send me the sewer schematics..."
I sighed.
"And don't forget to find info on Peter Pan..."
"Already on it. There's a ton of data, of course, but knowing where and when he was caught, we can retrace his route pretty quickly. We just need to find the files themselves. I think in about forty minutes we'll know everything we need to..."
"Good, get to it..."
They'd just sent me the sewer data, and I let out a sigh as I walked through the room and stopped at the point where the sewer should be closest to the building. Luckily, the sewer tunnel was pretty big, and I could easily walk through it to get to the Night City river...
I sighed.
Ugh, do I really need this?
I looked around and, with another sigh, took out my knife. I wedged it under one of the floor tiles and lifted it just enough to slide my fingers underneath. Then, I carefully lifted the tile and moved it aside. That gave me access to the concrete floor, which I started to literally chip away at with my knife...
I wasn't just doing it blindly, of course. I was listening carefully to make sure I didn't attract any attention.
After forty minutes, the girls reported that they'd found the location of the info. I spent another thirty minutes breaking through the concrete and only then did I punch a hole into the sewer tunnel.
As I climbed inside, I pulled the tile I'd moved back with me and covered the hole. And only after I was in the foul-smelling tunnel, where the connection was terrible, did I finally let out a sigh of relief. Now, all I had to do was get to the exit... and hope the girls, who had found the data location, could still extract it carefully...
I didn't get out of the tunnel for another two hours...
"Girls?"
"Ghost, you okay?!"
"Live, healthy, and I stink... luckily those tunnels haven't been used in ages, but even so, the smell is just... something else."
I shook my head.
"...how are you guys doing?"
"Normal... we decided we could work from home, so we're on the first floor chilling and working."
"Good, I'll get home myself..."
"But maybe..."
"No, don't bother, or I'll reek up the Thorton, too... I'll just swing by some cheap motel on the way, get cleaned up, and then head home. You guys just focus on the job, but tell Bookworm to stay on her toes. Because if there's one incredible solo in there, there might be a legendary runner, too..."
"We got you... see you at home..."
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