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The girls and I were sitting in the Afterlife.
Another job, still a tech one, but this time related to the Afterlife itself, was done. We were updating the Afterlife's hardware; well, to be more precise, I was updating the hardware with Becca and Panam, while the other girls were dealing with the ICE. This was the last non-combat mission. Or, to be more accurate, it was the last job before I would start taking combat missions again. Vik had just given me the all-clear yesterday to use my Sandevistan at one hundred percent. But we decided to finish the week calmly and start working in the field again the next one...
"Oh, David, so you decided to show your face to me?"
Dex stopped next to our table. Standing with him was a dark-skinned girl in a runner suit.
"Go on, get lost..."
I waved my hand as if I were shooing away an annoying fly.
"Come on, all I have to do is say I'm not working with you and you'll be kicked out of here, since you're probably..."
"David, should I repeat myself?"
The Afterlife's ever-present bartender came up to us. She'd recently gone through a tragedy. To be more precise, her husband had died during a race. And right now, she was literally drowning herself in work.
"Yeah, Claire, thanks..."
I nodded to her, as did the other girls.
"Claire, this guy is clearly here by mistake and..."
"Dex, he was working here, and this job has nothing to do with you..."
She gave me a questioning look, and I, understanding that Claire was asking for permission, nodded at her, letting her know I was fine with it.
"...David is here regularly anyway. He and his crew are pretty successful workers with a decent reputation. So not everything revolves around you."
"And who does he work with?"
A sarcastic smirk appeared on Dex's lips.
"Only with Rogue, and no one else."
Dex flinched and shot an angry look at his companion. The dark-skinned runner girl clearly looked shocked. This meant she was probably the one who had been gathering intel on me, and for some reason, she hadn't found this info...
"And for how long?"
"A long time..."
"Come on, I'm a regular member of the Afterlife, too... I should know... because maybe we'll work together someday."
"You can, if David wants to."
Claire turned and went back to the bar.
"And I don't want to."
"Tch... you're not good at choosing friends, are you?"
"Dex, go on, get lost... don't bother me and my crew; we're trying to enjoy the evening..."
Surprisingly, he listened to me and went to the private booths. We'd actually been upgrading one of them today. It would be funny if he ended up in that one. And no, we didn't leave any spy programs there; we weren't idiots who'd ruin our reputation like that. After all, after we hand in a job, it's checked by the Afterlife's runners and techs.
We sat with the girls for another twenty minutes and were about to leave when I saw V and Jackie walk into the club. While V was reserved, Jackie was practically overflowing with energy. And the first place they went was the bar.
Jackie, a guy with his heart on his sleeve, was able to win Claire over quickly. That's the only way I can explain why she started to smile a little more genuinely than she had recently.
"Hmm, Misty's guy is showing off..."
Judy said this in a disapproving tone.
"Well... he hasn't done anything wrong yet, and as for chatting with a girl, well, you guys don't forbid me from doing it, so he feels more than free."
"Oh, looks like they finally got a call... I wonder if they'll be in the booth we upgraded or..."
"I'll tell you what... it would be a bit funny, but it's not our problem."
"Yeah..."
Lucy joined the conversation and nodded in agreement.
After sitting for a little while longer, we finally headed to the Afterlife's exit.
"Hold it..."
A security guard stopped me at the exit.
"Yeah?"
"There's some unhealthy commotion out there... be careful..."
"Thanks."
He nodded and lost all interest in me. I turned my Sandevistan to its absolute minimum, and the girls and I continued toward the exit.
"It's him!"
"Take him down!"
A few people with their Sandevistans on rushed at me at once. And if mine hadn't been on, at least on minimum, I might have been too late to activate it. But this way...
I made it. In fact, I managed to take a couple of steps forward and pull the still-ordinary tonfas from my belt. They took the hit from a bat and a katana. And that was just the beginning. I could hear the slow sounds of gunshots, and after I pushed my opponents' weapons away, I grabbed one of them by the arm and yanked him to the side, so his body would block the line of fire to my girls.
Another step, and two strikes landed on the second opponent. And only now did I realize that even though I was using the same minimal acceleration, thanks to my more advanced skeleton and muscles, I was still better. Although...
No...
It wasn't just the skeleton and muscles; it was the synchronization of my chrome. I took another step to hide behind the opponent and, grabbing him, I quickly headed toward the shooters...
Taking them down until they were unconscious wasn't hard.
All in all, it took less than a minute of real time... and I had already slotted the shards and was waiting for my girls to get all the info from these guys, when I heard a familiar voice from the direction of the stairs.
"What happened here?"
"Nothing..."
I shook my head, looking at Rogue, who had stopped just a couple of steps from the bottom of the stairs. Her bodyguard was standing slightly in front of her, and his eyes were glowing dangerously. Could I take him?
I looked at him, sizing him up.
"Hey, you need a couple of Sandevistans, by any chance?"
I nodded to the bodies of the solos who had attacked me at the start.
"So, they attacked?"
"Yeah..."
"And you're offering to let me dismantle them for parts?"
"Well..."
I shrugged.
"These guys are already dead anyway. I'll finish the rest of them, too. So why let good stuff go to waste?"
"Hmm..."
She nodded at her bodyguard, and he quickly stepped forward, grabbed the first corpse by the leg, and with one yank, tossed it down the stairs. Then he quickly went to the second one and did the same, after which he returned to his place, and his eyes glowed.
"Girls?"
"Finishing up... But overall, it's the same as last time."
Judy answered me.
"Yeah... Faraday, solos that aren't the best, but they're pretty cocky, and they were recruited from different places."
"Got it..."
When the girls signaled that they were finished, I pulled out all the shards and finished off the opponents. After that, we went to our new car, in which our group was comfortably settled, unlike in the Thorton. And in that same comfort, we drove to the clan's camp.
Why there, you ask?
"Well, with all the trouble with Faraday, it would be stupid to go to the apartment, where we could get surrounded. But in the clan's camp, we'll be relatively safe. Unfortunately, neither Rogue nor Regina has found anyone who would want to arrange an interesting, but short, life for Faraday. I mean, there were people who wanted it, but there was no one who could express that wish out loud."
And I should probably start thinking about solving this problem without getting an extra reward from an interested party.
"Faraday's calling me..."
Kiwi's eyes lit up, which told me that she had answered the call. And almost immediately, her face twisted into a look of contempt.
"David, how would you feel about taking down Faraday?"
"Did something happen?"
"He's offering to wipe my debt..."
"And what do you have to do?"
"Well, guess on the first try..."
"There's nothing to guess..."
Panam joined the conversation.
"...he wants her to betray us."
"Exactly..."
I closed my eyes.
"You know, I'd love to, but..."
"But?"
Kiwi's voice was extremely tense.
"But are you sure he hasn't thought of a scenario where you stay on our side?"
"Well... you guys wouldn't abandon me in a tough spot, would you?"
"Kiwi, we'd never abandon you, but you need to think about whether you want this or not. I think in another week or two, if Regina and Rogue don't find a contract and the attacks happen again, I'll deal with him anyway..."
I swallowed a curse, not wanting to swear in front of the girls.
"Just tell it like it is..."
All the girls agreed with Kiwi's words.
"Telling it like it is... don't get involved. It's better to 'stay on the sidelines' and not give him any extra leverage."
"But he's going to start plotting something anyway... he's going to plot something if I stay on your side and feed him false info, and he's going to plot something if I refuse to help him..."
I sighed.
"Well, then 'agree'... let's see what he comes up with and how we can twist it to our advantage."
"Yeah..."
Kiwi's eyes were still glowing, but I was confident in her. Of course, in the anime, she betrayed the main character, but here... we're all too intertwined, and I care about her no less than the other girls. Even my beloved Panam and Judy can only boast that I sleep with them. The other benefits, all the girls share equally.
About five minutes later, Kiwi's eyes went out.
"So?"
"Well, he was mostly trying to buy info on you and the girls... I sold him a lot of it, the truth, of course, but not all of it. For example, I told him that you showed about ninety percent of your Sandevistan's speed. So we can be sure that he'll prepare for what you showed, at least sixty percent... and it's the same for the others. He said he'd call me later and tell me what to do."
"So he wants to set up a trap?"
"Yeah..."
I closed my eyes.
"He'll probably try to act during a job from another fixer. He'll call you and demand that you tell him where and when."
"And I'll tell him..."
"Naturally, but we need to find out where Faraday is hiding before that. Because instead of going to the job, we'll go to him. You'll have to call him and tell him, with panic in your voice, that I got an urgent job and that I've postponed the one you told him about for two days."
"Hmm... that might work..."
"Lucy, Judy, and you too, Kiwi, find out where that bastard is holed up."
"Alright..."
The girls nodded.
"...by the way, we're almost done with cracking the shards."
"Leave that for now... Faraday is the priority... although..."
I closed my eyes again.
"...no, he's still the priority. I don't want to take an unnecessary risk, of course, but in this case, delaying a solution will be a bigger risk than delaying it in the hope that we'll manage to crack the shards and get trained before he sends someone who'll zero us out."
"Well, I agree with that..."
Kiwi sighed sadly.
"...waiting for Faraday to make his move is dangerous. We have to act now, preferably even before he puts together a crew and sets a trap."
"Well, as soon as you find his location, we'll start working..."
"We'll find him... we'll get to the clan's camp, get in the baths, and use a deep dive to find him in the network."
"You do that... and I'll make sure you have some treats to make your brains work better..."
"And what are you going to make us?"
Becca butted in.
"For you? For you, I'll make a big old nothing..."
I grinned.
"...but for the other girls, I'll make eclairs with pastry cream."
"Eclairs?"
Lucy, and the other runners too, looked at me with great interest.
"Yeah... and if you find him without getting spotted, then after we eliminate him, I'll make you guys three cakes each."
"Three cakes each?"
"Yeah."
"Girls..."
Judy looked at her fellow runners, her eyes burning with anticipation.
"It's a challenge, and we accept..."
Kiwi nodded.
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