Jessica Ashcroft stared up at the ceiling, humming softly and found herself happy. The steady breathing of Aden and her rock, Nat, relaxing her. Some of the few times silence felt peaceful rather than oppressive, unlike in the isolation room at the orphanage.
She shook her head. No, she was happy.
Gigs were going preem, she liked her new guns and loved her new blades. The small, cute little sword, she called it stinger, was the best. It looked so stumpy, but felt amazing slashing it through the air.
It brought a smile to her face imagining the slashing through bady gonks. Ot even better swishing it through Mrs Crowther's neck. The old bitch. All the staff had been terrible, but she was the worst. It seemed she great pleasure in punishing them.
Her sister and her had been at the orphanage as long as she could remember and couldn’t remember anything about her parents. According to the matrons, they were drug addicts who died from an overdose.
When she was younger, she liked to imagine they were lying and her father would come in and whisk them away to a castle where she was a princess. The crown princess of course, because she was the eldest. No matter what Nat claimed—the lying liar.
That dream had passed into a better one. They had rescued themselves and now she was training to be a ninja. She had to fight not to jump out of bed and do the karate chop of excitement. Nat and Aden would not be happy with her. It would be the third time…
Pouting to herself, she brushed it off.
Still, she shuddered to think what would have happened if she hadn't seen that sad, quiet boy that faithful day. She had just come back from the isolation rooms as punishment. She hated those rooms, the boredom, the silence… erg.
She shivered, burrowing deeper into Aden. He must have felt her since he moved slightly, pulling her in tighter. The steady thump of his heartbeat against her back calmed her once more. With Nat and Aden, everything would be okay. Nat would make things better and Aden would solve all problems.
A small smile flashed over her face. It was why she had even approached him in the first place. He had found a hole box of lollypop sticks and was using them to make a castle. She'd dragged Nat over straight away, she was a princess after all, and just like that they had a new member of their family.
It had been just them ever since.
She felt a slight twinge as she was reminded of Lilly, Nat's new friend. She liked her, but she had never had to compete against someone for Nats' attention. She'd come to the conclusion she didn’t like it. Not at all. But at the same time, she was happy for her.
It was confusing.
She had tons of friends in the gang and Forge who she could talk to, so it wasn’t bad, just different. Besides, Nat had noticed something was wrong immediately, as she always did and told her she would never leave, and Nat wouldn’t lie to her, so it was all okay.
---
I was just starting to doze off, cuddling Nat, with Jess acting as a comfy pillow, when Billy shouted for us all to gather. Grumbling to myself, I threw on some clothes. With summer in full swing, the tunnels were roasting, especially at home, so we usually slept near or completely naked. Modesty was a luxury I had long given up on. Not that it was really a thing anyway, not with what was in effect porn as advertisements everywhere. Or the slutty outfits that were commonplace.
There were even gangs of pissed-off dolls that went around naked. With their chrome, anyone who even so much as glanced in their direction got a beating.
A very hard thing not to do, what with the bouncing.
What I found especially funny was that the richer someone was, the worse this normally was. They wanted to show off their BioWare or cyberfasion.
The firm finished congregating, Jess leaning into me slightly. Billy stood on the table. "Yo. We've a big gig coming, mates. So no one leave, al'right."
Eli climbed up to stand next to Billy. "We, along with a few other gangs have taken a job to hit the Los Solidos. They have pushed too far and attracted the Firms attention."
Shiiit, they were poking the bear there, the Firm was the largest Gang in the UK. I didn’t know if it came before or after people started calling gangs, firms. But it wasn’t something I would joke about to their faces. It was better to view them as a large corporation, and they had a particular hatred of outsiders, so it was unfortunately easy to get their attention.
Hopefully not a problem for me, being born and raised in London.
They mainly focused on big-time gangs like the Cartels or Mafia, not small time booster gangs. Although the South American gang were not known for subtlety. They were normally violent and with no line they wouldn’t cross. From human trafficking to organ harvesting. They were a major part of the slave trade.
Clearing his throat, he continued. "There're multiple spots we can hit, as well as their main hangout. No one moves until we have the go-ahead from the fixer. Got it, yeah?" He said, glaring around the room, only seemingly happy when he got murmurs of agreement from everyone.
As the crowd started to disperse, I made our way to Billy and Eli, with Jess and Nat in tow. "I wanna go out and scout around a bit."
Before I got a chance to explain, Adrian scoffed, "Do you think you are special. No leaving."
Throwing him a frown, I focus back on the people I actually needed to convince. "I wanna look around their systems to see if I can find anything interesting."
Eli nods his head. "I can see that being useful as long as you don’t alert them to anything." Turning to Billy, he continued, "Nat, Jess and I will go with Alex and have a look around if that is alright, bub?"
----
The Los Solidos main hangout had seen better days. The uninspiring block of flats, its grey concrete walls coated in graffiti and gang symbols, stood as part of a group. In the centre of them were torn-up courtyards that had once been gardens or play areas. Not anymore. Now they stood empty except for gang members showing off. Each entrance had a Los Solidos posted up on it, their iron on full display. Turrets and cameras dotted all over the entrances, and some even on the lower-level balconies.
It was going to be a bloodbath when this place was stormed.
I could only guess at the number of people who would get caught in the crossfire.
I double-checked this was the place, before moving out of sight of the gates and into a concealed alley, filled with the rubbish and worse, which scrunches under our feet. The others moved into position as I breached. We were in our usual formation with Nat a way off, down the road as a lookout and overwatch with Jess and Eli next to me, to provide cover.
I was especially slow and careful with this hack. I did not want to imagine the shitstorm coming my way if I borked it. Both from Billy, but more importantly, the fixer, who was not Boxy, our normal low-level one. Luckily, and as I'd hoped, the net was shit and had no netrunner guarding the place.
So I took my time. Slow is steady, and steady is fast.
Just not too much time. This part of town was rough… very rough. Even now, I could hear gunfights not too far away. And we were out in the open.
So paradoxically, time was of the essence.
The net would take too long to control completely, and so I went straight for the data files, ignoring the turrets, cameras and other traps. If we ended up assaulting here, I could disable them then. With the data downloaded into a chip slotted into my neck that was for these exact sorts of circumstances, then logged out.
And not a moment too soon.
While the loading bar crept across the screen, Nat pinged our agents. She could see some wastemen wearing the Solios colours walking our way.
Adrenaline flooded my system. The low-level tension I'd been feeling, spiked. I took a few deep, steadying breaths. Forcing my hands to be as steady as possible and kept working.
Come on. Come on. Why did it always get stuck at 99%? Finally.
After a literal age, the download was done, and I disconnected.
I could feel Eli nervously tapping his foot a few metres away. Jess was steady, but ever so slightly bouncing on the balls of her feet, with her agent to her ear.
"10 metres from seeing us." Jess whispered, turning in the direction the gangoon was approaching.
I could hear him now. The heavy footsteps and rapid Spanish.
"Done. Let's delta." I whispered, already moving along the alley. "Like we talked about. Over the road and between those houses we scouted. Nat, keep an eye on them to see if they follow us, then meet us on the other side."
I flick the backpack over to my front so they won't see it as we walked away. I could feel myself speeding up, even though I tried to maintain a steady fast walk. By the time we reached the end of the alley, we were all running. Not even caring about being quiet anymore.
At the end of the alley, we cut right into a narrow path, barely wide enough for us to run through. Eli had to twist his body to fit, and then we were out onto the main street. I tried to slow down when we hit it. Fast movements drew attention. But when I kicked a glass beer bottle, it bouncing across the tarmac, clinking as it did, my reaction was immediate, as it was involuntary and made a break for it.
Over the pounding of blood in my ears and my heavy footsteps, I could still hear the bottle clinking along the floor. Sounding several times louder than it had any right to be and I heard the gangers turn down the alley to investigate.
"Break right." I panted, "And then left to get behind that shop."
--
All 4 of us sat on the sofas, joking and nattering, still on a high several hours later. Digging through the data was slow going. It had a weak encryption on it, so I'd made short work of that. I had more than enough practice by this point. There was just so much of it and. IT. WAS. COMPLETELY. DISORGANISED!
Why the fuck would you put accounting information in the same folder as snuff films? Who did that? I got some very odd looks when my laptop, resting in my lap, started to belt out hardcore sex. Although not that many odd looks, thinking about it.
Not that surprising, I suppose. The older teenagers of the gang were always hooking up with someone.
Reading through it, I broke out into a laugh but held up my finger to get the others to stop asking questions to double check.
Grinning, I look up, "Is Billy around?"
"Yeah he's inna room. I spoke to him earlier."
"Good, can you get him for me? I think he will want to hear this."
Jess bounced onto my lap, almost knocking the laptop onto the floor, and started to badger me to tell her. But I valiantly held her off until Nat wrapped her arms around her and pulled her into her lap. To which Jess pouted playfully.
Silly girl.
The creak of a door and stomping feet heralded Billy’s arrival. "What did you find?"
Spinning the laptop to Billy. "Take a look at this!"
We wait patiently while he reads before grunting, "Okay what am I reading here?"
"That," I said grinning, "is the list of their inventory." Billy gives me an unimpressed look, clearly still not connecting the dots. "If you notice, they are not in the main headquarters but in a warehouse a few blocks away. Normally more than close enough to reinforce, but…"
"But if they getin hit, it should be easy enough to take em!" Billy finishes, his eyes lighting up. "We would take a lesser cut of the eddies, but looking at this list, the stuff should more than make up for it. Some of this stuff is fucking ace!"
I nodded. "I also have some correspondence that we might be able to sell to the fixer as well."
Billy clapped me on the shoulder. "Preem! Eli, link the fixer and tell em we'll take the warehouse with the lesser payout. Oh yeah and also say we have some data we can sell to them as well."
As the girls and I stripped and got into bed, I said, "Can you grab the laptop Jess? I want to go through the list to see if there is anything that jumps out at us to grab." She was the only one still standing.
Jess passed it over before burrowing under the covers. Propping us up with pillows, I set the laptop on my lap before we slowly started to scour through the list. The list was impressive. From weapons to sex toys. We zoomed through the weapons and discounted most of them immediately.
They were flashy, but exactly what Avery warned us against. I still earmarked a few. Militech AMR was just preem, how could I say no to an anti-material sniper rifle? While Nat wanted the heavy and I mean heavy machine gun, the Cult Mauser M2X.
Again, completely impractical. But a guy or girl can dream.
Scrolling past the dross, we eventually came upon cyberware. Sighing as I knew what was coming, I slowly scrolled through them.
"Ohh, woo, cyberware. We should get some of that!!" Jess said, perking up.
"No." I said, not willing to start again, even if she was semi-joking and jabbed her in the side.
Jess flinched and then pouted. "Come on, please. I. WANT. MANTIS. BLADES!"
Laughing, I carried on, almost reaching the end before Nat waved her hand. "Wait go back up. I want to look at them."
"Not you too..." I said with a sigh, but dutifully scrolled back up.
I couldn’t blame them. Cyberware was ace. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on some. Hell, a dream of mine would be to actually make some. How realistic that was, I didn’t know. But if hacking paid off like I planned, it might be on the cards.
Not to mention I wasn’t sure I trusted anyone else to instal any big stuff on the girls.
Nat mock frowned, jabbing me in the side. "Let me finish. Cybereyes and preem ones as well. They should be alright. I read the same books as you did, don’t you forget. Look here, some recent generation EBMs. We know how good they are."
Huh, that was actually not a bad point. I had read the horror stories of cyberpsycho. People who chipped in too much too fast and snapped, going on rampages. Thankfully, we had never witnessed it, but there were several cases every month in the news. Cybereyes and cyberoptics should be alright though, right? Also, I wasn’t sure we could live without them.
There were just too many good uses for them.
Begrudgingly, I asked. "Which ones were you thinking of?"
Jess squeals, almost knocking the laptop over as she rolls over onto my chest, babbling in excitement.
Smiling, Nat, who had saved the laptop, pushes Jess off of me. "Gonk", she said fondly. "I think it is pretty clear that these 4 are the best of the bunch." Highlighting the 4 in question on the screen.
Jess, having rolled off down to my side and wriggled into a more comfortable position, replied being serious for a moment. "Naa ignore those last 2, while they are great, they are not very useful for us. But the 2 EBM mk2 Flash is just what we need. Looks its gen 3, and each would be 1000s of eddies if we could even find a supplier."
Reading the spec, I could see what she meant.
Cybereyes were just that. They might be better or worse than biological eyes, but otherwise, most of them were unremarkable. I mean, getting dust in your eye was a thing of the past, but it came with other problems. Like if it was shitty quality or poorly maintained, it might feel dry and itchy all the time.
I could only imagine how annoying that would be.
Better versions, particularly gen 3, which were the most advanced cybernetics on the market, having just started to come out before the Krash. The Krash put a halt to that as vast amounts of information was lost. Much of which people were still trying to reclaim.
It was cyberoptics that was important as it was the modules that elevated the eye. These could be anything from infrared to a compass. They were easy to do; most clinics could do it. Of course, each eye was limited, normally to 3. You could even mix and match, having different ones in each eye, but fuck that. That just sounded like it would make me nauseous.
These had 4 slots and already had built-in Anti-dazzle protection, which would stop us from being blinded by sudden changes in light. They also had hardened shielding against EMPs and waterproofing. Both of which I saw as a must-have.
As gen 3s, they would be better than a human eye ever could be, before even slotting any optics into them. More like 30 30 vision compared to the base 20 20.
"Hmm. Yeah, I agree, they are amazing. They'll also link to our agents. You can both take them. I will take one of the basic EBM 'Red eye' models, while not as good as yours, only having space for 3 add-ons, but it has the same shielding and waterproofing at least."
It was only a Gen 2, but of high quality so it would do. If I could, I wanted something that could be linked to my deck so I wouldn’t need my wreath.
But they had nothing like it. Other cybereyes were just as good as the EBM Flash, but that would probably be pushing it. Best quit while we were ahead. If we could get them, we would already be making out like bandits.
After a bit more back and forth, we agreed we would go for the cybereyes first and then made a list of other things we might want. To either sell or upgrade some of our other kit.
Nat sighed, leaning back and looked up at the ceiling. "What optics should we get for them? I think we should all get low light, and you Aden, should get anti-dazzle. That leaves you with one. Us 3.
"Yeah agreed. I'll also get Compass. We should all get time and date since it doesn’t take up a slot. You should get the Ultraviolet and Infrared. Jess?"
"Maybe. I'm thinking some of the others would be more useful. Like teleoptics would be preem. But then we can always get them changed out if we need to."
Frowning, I found myself agreeing. "You're right actually, one of you should get teleoptics for the 20x zoom. Yeah good point we can try a few to see how we link them."
---
2 days later, just as afternoon was approaching, we got the go-ahead. By the time we were in position, night was falling, and we were already soaked through due to the beautiful British weather. The pounding of the rain did mask our approach, so it might have been a blessing in disguise. The attacks were planned for 8pm, hitting all targets simultaneously. We had managed to sell the data for §500 as it had some info on other gangs and people they were connected to, so it was relatively valuable to the Firm.
Everyone was armed to the max as this was going to be a slugfest. We'd scouted the warehouse, and apart from some cameras, there wasn't much else. Well, apart from a shit ton of guards. But we planned to attack slightly after the attack on the HQ. Hopefully, that would pull them into the open as they moved to back it up.
We congregated down a back alley near the warehouse, out of sight.
"A'ight. Wait for my signal. Aden, do you still have access to the cameras? Ace. Tell me when they're movin out and we can hit em out in the open like we talked about. Eli, Jess and Nat you get on the roof as your our best shots."
The last half an hour wait was agonising. I thought I was a patient person, but as the minutes crawled by, I just wanted it to start. The cold rain dripping down my neck didn’t help matters. By the shifting and twitchy movements of the others, I wasn’t the only one. Even Billy, normally unflappable, shifted from foot to foot.
I was under a waterproof sheet, mostly to stop the rain fucking with my deck or goggles, only semi working.
At 7:43, heavy gunfire erupted into the night, shattering the tension that had been building all day.
So much for 8pm. Good thing we came early. Thank you, Eli.
Looking at the feeds, I saw a large portion of the guards start to head out after one of the boss's eyes flickered yellow. Normally an indication of receiving a call, although not always.
Warning Billy that they were moving, I waited. With Nat's help we'd formed a kill box so I had a mental image of when to give the signal. Too early and they would be able to retreat, too late and well… that was obvious. The first handful of the 20 guards started to enter our kill box.
Just a little more. Several more walked in. Then the worst happened. One of us opened fire. I had no idea who, and we would likely never find out, but the others joined in soon after.
It took longer than it should have before, Billy, who was hidden behind a metal dumpster, realised what had happened. I could picture the purple-red rage on his face, and he opened fire from the heavy machine gun he had lovingly called Big Ripper.
With him firing, the other spots sputtered to life and, with gathering ferocity, pounded the Solidos. Nat had made sure that with the good kill box set up we were not firing directly opposite each other, as had been the plan at first.
To give them their due, the Solidos gangers were obviously used to violence. None hesitated when the bullets started firing.
Within moments, they were chewed up like a meat grinder, blood and limbs scattering across the street, the blood mixing with the water trickling through the streets. The deafening sound of gunfire echoed up and down the street, muffled by the still pounding rain.
But the damage was done. Less than half of the Solidos were in the kill box and with our staggered firing, many of them were already diving into cover when the rest of the guns opened up. Several even had the right instincts and charged their position.
Some of the gangers were full-on chrome jocks. And charged forward fearlessly, with unreal speed and strength. Covering ground with great leaps. While the ambush wasn’t as effective as it should have been, it gave us a leg up. Without which the fight would have been very one-sided in their favour.
With nothing else I could do in the net, I disconnected. Ripping off the sheet covering me, I lined up my rifle on one of the more heavily armoured men.
Breathing in, I relaxed and just as I was taught, fired between breaths. I felt the powerful kick of the gun into my shoulder. The heavy round smashed into his chest, but only staggered him.
Fuck me. He must have some serious armour.
Aiming higher, I tried for the head. I felt the gun kick again into my shoulder. But the shot sailed past, a full foot from his head. The ganger zigzagged across the street, moving away from me.
"Come on, get it together." Taking a deep breath to settle my nerves, I fire again.
Ace! That one hit, sending fragments of brain and metal onto the pavement. Sighting in on the next and the next, I helped mop up the last of them. Several dropped even as I focused on them, having been croaked by one of the others on the rooftops.
Eli was the best of us somehow. I knew he didn’t do nearly as much practice as us but he just seemed to understand where to shoot. He had always been preem with a gun.
We were almost overwhelmed when a dozen other gangers burst from the warehouse but they were too late by then.
37 Los Sólidos for 19 of us. Good results by any metrics. It should have been less. If we'd stuck to the plan, I don’t think we would have lost anyone. Nat was fuming at the borked plan, even knowing that no plan survives contact with the enemy, as Avery liked to say.
I wasn’t particularly concerned. Life was cheap on the street. Billy would find many others willing to fill their spaces, especially with this win under our belts.
Jess, Nat and I were okay, and that was all that mattered to me. As a bonus, Eli and Billy were okay as well.
In total, almost 200 Los Sólidos died that night and the gang was completely destroyed, with their territory quickly gobbled up by the nearest street gangs over the next few days. The area became a warzone in the short term. With the gangs fighting to gain the territory, it was likely to be a short and brutal turf war.
In the end we could not take all of our loot back with us, so needed to sell it to the Firm when they came rolling in after the fighting had stopped.
We still took our pick and as much else we could carry but still managed to make over 10,000 eddies (dived out to all members equally) with what was left.
We managed to get the stuff we talked about and so much more, even though it damn near killed us getting it back. Seriously testing my no cyberlimbs rule when I saw some of the smaller members of the crew easily shifting weights me and the girls were struggling under.