Natalie Ashcroft placed the bore brush down. Her hand moved onto the next part of the process without thought, as she slowly ran through the process of cleaning her guns, her mind calming as she went through the ritual she had done thousands of times before.
She found the work relaxing. That steady, practised rhythm.
Or at least she normally did.
She glanced at the gonk across from her.
She was sitting by the sofas at home instead of at the Forge like she normally would be, and she was paying for it. At least they knew to leave her alone, but Harriet was boasting again. The same boast as she had been for the last 2 hours.
She didn’t like her in the first place, and this wasn’t helping matters.
Her face twitched as the girl started the story once again. Like everyone hadn't. Just. Heard. It. Why was she such a bitch? She stopped and took a breath, placing herself in Harriet's shoes to understand where she was coming from. With the sexually abusive father and the druggy for a mother who tried to sell her for another hit. She hadn't had a good life.
And yet… even with all that, she scrunched her nose in distaste. It didn’t excuse her laziness, and so, she dismissed the girl as someone not worth her time.
Inexperience, she could excuse if you were trying to change that. Calum, who just walked in, exemplified that. He was actually someone worth spending her time on. She had drilled the gonk for hours on end. On paper, the kid was fucking useless, and she could admit to herself he truly was.
Untalented too, at least at combat. He was always tripping over himself. Like, legitimately useless, an actual hazard for his allies. And yet, he had been willing to put in the work. Not willing to settle and much like her, he put in the time and effort alongside hours upon hours of training to grind himself until he was halfway competent.
Movement from the doorway pulled her attention. Her hand drifted to her pistol strapped to her thigh, before she realised it was her gonk of a sister, who was jumping in place, waving her arms at her.
Picking up her agent, she checked the time and nodded. Time to go. Excitement rushed through her. The maintenance of the guns having done its job to help time pass. They were finally getting their cybereyes. Her hand absentmindedly brushed against the chip socket in her neck.
She and Jess got them and the neural processor installed several weeks ago in preparation for the cybereyes. They'd left it the required time for the cyberware to fully settle and bond to them. No matter Jess's and at certain stages, hers, impatience, Aden refused to let them take shortcuts and cut corners.
He hated shortcuts. Much preferring to do it slowly but right the first time. At least in most things anyway. He seemed to jump all over the place when he was coding, making leaps of logic that made no sense to her, even after he explained it.
Shrugging, she got up and packed up her equipment, dumping it in their room. She threw on her gear, still putting on her first leather jacket that Aden had made her, resized and repaired countless times by now.
She brushed her hand against it comfortingly.
The jacket always grounded her and brought back fond memories, reminding her of the care he put into her and her sister. Shaking it off, she strode for the doorway, shunting the distraction deeper into her mind. She would think more about it later.
Now was the time for action and it needed her full attention as every gig or job did. If she could bear it, others wouldn’t have to, especially Aden, who already did so much for them. She wouldn't allow him to bear the weight or make the hard decisions alone.
As she marched for the door, she bumped her elbow into the backpack, making sure the 2 pairs of cybereyes were there. Adan already had his installed.
---
Nat jumped slightly, startled, having accidentally accessed the thermal imaging in her eyes, the room shifting into hues of blue and red of the heat map. She clicked her tongue in irritation and her eyes flicked up to one corner, deactivating the optics.
She was getting better, but still occasionally activated it by accident. She wasn’t the only one. A small smile crossed her face as she remembered Jess screaming about a giant spider and to run. Only to realise she had zoomed in on it and it was, in actual fact, a tiny spider that could fit on the palm of a finger.
If only she had a recording function in her eyes. Oh, the blackmail she would have had. Still, she would never let her forget it; she couldn’t allow her gonk of a sister to get too big headed. Aden hadn't been quite so dramatic, but still got a good laugh out of her.
Blinking, she squeezed her eyes shut. Even several weeks after the op, her eyes were still dry and scratchy. Reaching into her pocket, she tilted her head back and lubricated them with several eyedrops.
It had taken some getting used to having the cybereyes. Partly relearning how to do some things, like walking through the tunnels. The low light completely changed how they moved through them, for the better. But also, and it sounded stupid, even in her head, they weren't eyes but metal, which required maintenance. Something she was harshly reminded of when on the sparing mats, someone had caught her eye.
It barely gave her a black eye. Before she would have blinked it away and let time heal it. But now she needed to get her eyes checked out.
Very frustrating.
Either way, it was so worth it, even without the optic addons, the eyes were just so much better than her organic ones. It had taken some time to get used to, but by now she was in love with them. She didn’t think she would be able to do without the increased peripheral vision.
According to the manuals she borrowed off Aden, the eyes should settle in time and wouldn’t need the constant eyedrops, but it couldn't happen soon enough. The first few days were the worst. Constant itchiness that you couldn’t scratch, or if you did it only made it worse.
That could have been avoided with some other options, like those that replaced the full eye socket. She was very glad she didn’t get them. She would never tell anyone, but they just looked so ugly. She wouldn’t have wanted to equip them, purely from a vanity side. Again, she would never tell anyone; Jess or Aden would never let her live it down.
Besides, she loved the deep green flashing irises she now had. She'd spent hours in the mirror getting the colour just right.
Thankfully that was unlikely to happen. There was little chance of finding better cybereyes in the short term. She remembered the ripper doc's eyes widening when he saw the make and model. She was glad that they all stayed in the room, even if it was a bit gruesome. There was something deeply uncomfortable about watching your sisters and brothers' eyes getting popped or scooped out. Even if they were being replaced by something better.
---
I slowly woke up and fought back a yawn.
I desperately wanted to roll over and just go back to sleep. But there were jobs to do. Ones I couldn’t avoid. I suppose that is what I get for staying up late into the night to finish an ICE.
Thinking about it brought a grin to my face. It was my best yet. Leagues better than what I could buy.
I had a good chuckle the other day when I found some old, obsolete code from back when I started. I had come so far in a little over a year. From a rank amateur to now, where I felt competent. The biggest fish in my small pond.
I had no idea how skilled I was. But after only a year, I was happy with how far I had come. After all, I was still learning and improving.
The main thing holding me at this point was the cyberware and tech. Well, actually, it was experience. I still hadn't actually dived into the net on a gig. I don't think I could even call myself a netrunner at this stage. Merely a hacker.
The twins, curdling up to me on each side of me, started to stir, their breathing changing. Pushing their already developing bodies into me. Once again, I was grateful I hadn't hit puberty and therefore was not getting a hard-on. That was going to be an uncomfortable conversation, I just knew it.
Even with the amount of porn on the citinet.
As always, Nat was the first to move, getting up and stripping to change into her day/training gear. It gave me the chance to admire the changes in her. The increase in food quantity and training changed us all for the better. Gone was the starved look of skin and bones. We now had corded muscles and a healthy amount of fat as well as a healthy shine to her skin.
She'd also shot up, much to Jess's disgust, who was now shorter than her sister, an almost cardinal sin. Thankfully, I was still taller than them both… just. It helped me with my posture if nothing else. If I slouched, Nat was taller, which could not be allowed.
It was my job as the older brother to look down my nose at them.
Nudging Jess, Nat said. "Come on. Time to go, or we are going to be late."
"5 more mins." Jess mumbled almost unintelligibly as she burrowed deeper into the blankets.
I smile and poke her in the side. It was never just 5 minutes with her. I swear she was a sloth in a past life. She had 2 modes. A sloth or a caffeinated, hyperactive squirrel. "Come on, we need to leave now if we want to get there on time, particularly with how the tunnels are."
A rumour was circulating of another load of experiments escaping… or had been released into the tunnels and were causing chaos.
With much grumbling from Jess, we got ready and left for the Forge. I made sure their body armour was properly secured and hidden under a loose t-shirt before setting off, masks in place.
The pollution was still no better. No matter what the government said or promised.
We took a slightly different path than normal. The normal tunnels were a fucking warzone with a new gang trying to muscle in on the Armstrong's turf. It was going about as well as you'd expect, but even so, best to avoid the tunnels nearby for now. Several of our firm had already been flatlined when they weren't careful.
So we took several smaller ones, circumnavigating the area, skipping out the IM entirely. Just yesterday, 30 gonks died in a shootout along it. With the straight, well-lit tunnels, there was fuck all places to hide unless there was a tunnel that split off from it.
Luckily, no one we knew, but if we had been a couple of hours later leaving the Forge, that could well have been us.
Reaffirming my desire to get better protection and shaking my conviction on my minimal cyberware policy. Just a few more years. Just after puberty, then we could start. Just a few more years.
My agent buzzed, and a message flashed up over my eyes. 'Nat: Contacts 20m in front.'
The plan was to create helmets with coms in them, fully enclosed if I could pull it off, but that was a way off yet. But the cybereyes with our agents had been a huge step forward.
In the labyrinth, our agents' signals were spotty at best, and I planned to have a radio when I made the helmets, but with very few of our recent gigs taking place in the labyrinth, it had seemed less important. An agent could also connect to other nets if they were allowed. Like the Forge.
We sprang into well-practised action, moving into our default formation. I moved to the right side of the tunnel, with Jess kneeling in front and Nat just behind her, but further from the wall so we all had a clear line of sight. I was positioned such that I could keep an eye on the tunnels behind us.
While we moved through the tunnels, we made sure to stick to the centre, something Avery had drilled into us relentlessly. It still felt counterintuitive not to hug the wall, but I couldn’t argue with the results.
While I loved my cybereyes and couldn’t wait to upgrade them, they still weren't near the girls in quality. So I still relied on them for spotting dangers. I strained my eyes, activating the zoom I'd changed out for the compass, looking at where Nat had indicated. The end of the tunnel jumped forward. Once again cybereyes proved their worth.
They completely changed how we moved in the tunnels. Just not being blinded moving from one environment to the other was already such a massive advantage. Not to mention shooting in the tunnels. Something that would have blinded us and borked our night vision.
No longer—and with the Low Light optics tunnels were not nearly so dangerous.
Not safe by any means. But we were all more confident moving through them.
Not that I would tell Jess that, or the badgering for more cyberware would be endless.
Best of all, we no longer carried an active light, painting a target on our backs while we moved.
I flicked the safety of my pistol. "What are you seeing?"
"10ish heat signatures, looks like animals of some kind. They are too small to be human." Nat replied.
Their thermal vision coming in clutch once again.
"That’s probably good at least, as long as they are not some biguns."
"No, I think they are sqeekers." Nat said.
A mutant rat the size of a small dog with teeth and claws that can dig through steel. Their speed and agility (even jumping onto and off all sides of the tunnel) made them a killer for the unaware, but in large enough swarm they became a menace.
"Ear muffs in place?"
""Yes"" Jess and I answered.
We did not yet have any audio cyberware to protect our hearing, so we went old school. At first, we used cotton balls, something Avery made sure we did, not that he needed. You only needed to shoot a gun in an enclosed space once with no protection to never make that mistake again, let me tell you.
Now we used special earplugs that cancel out sudden loud noises without muffling everything else.
Finally, at 20 metres, they came into view. Yep, definitely squeekers.
The sharp, angular rat-like faces gave it away. Another aspect that made them dangerous in small numbers was their stealth, as even now, with them charging full speed, they barely made a whisper.
"3,2,1 firing." Nat said, opening fire simultaneously. Jess with her sub and Nat with the assault rifle. The rounds tore the monsters to shreds. This was not a situation to conserve ammo; even though they were prepared, they still made it within a few short metres of us.
I kept my pistol ready but didn’t fire, keeping half an eye on behind us.
As the last one fell, we stayed alert with an eerie silence descending on the tunnel. We kept a lookout for a few minutes with Nat checking behind us to make sure there were not more of them. With no movement, we set a brutal pace for the exit, stooping in places where the tunnels got shorter.
It was never a good idea to be in a tunnel where there was a lot of noise; it tended to draw the wrong sort of attention.
Luckily 20 mins of careful but speedy running, the tunnel sloped up, water trickling down it, and we made it back to some of the main tunnels. With their regular patrols and therefore some measure of safety. After that, it was a short walk to Avery's.
Stepping in, we spotted the usual 50ish people of various ages standing around in the atrium. Most of them adults or teens, but there are still a good number of kids as well, mostly with their parents.
It had taken 2 to 3 months before the training gym had become busy, but now it was, it was almost always rammed. Avery actually had waiting lists for his classes. I knew the Armstrongs came to shoot at the range several times a week. They even paid. Which was not a guarantee.
At first Avery needed to crack some skulls together, in several cases so hard the wastemen’s heads exploded, but now it was understood this was a safe area and to take your biz elsewhere.
The Armstrong support didn’t hurt either.
The well-fortified entrance (which had only increased as it became more popular) stopped any firms risking a raid. Even with the Armstrong clan protection, gonks still had the suicidal impulses to go big or go home.
Better to be remembered, even if briefly. Which was a fucking stupid idea if you asked me. I would keep my anomality and live a long life thank you very much. There was to much to see and experience to have it cut short.
Even as busy as the Forge was, it was not normally this packed. But today was special. We had to wait another 30 mins or so before the training room doors opened and Avery came out.
He chapped loudly a few times to quieten the room.
"Okay, listen up. You should all know the drill by this point, but for those who are new or have forgotten some ground rules for this tournament. There are no impressive prizes, so no stupid behaviour. We have an adult, teen and kid age brackets and you can only move up the levels, not down. This is a king of the hill tournament, so winner stays on. We have 4 rings for each age bracket."
Pausing here, he gave a glare around the room. "I expect you all to treat each other carefully, no maiming and try not to break any bones if it can be helped. We have Med-Gel as well as Easy-on for any injuries, but I want clean fights. Do I make myself clear!" He finishes as he sends his patented 'I will rip you in half if you fuck with me' glare.
The Med-Gel had been a surprise for the first tournament. It had been readily available several decades ago, but the 4th corporate war had not been kind to Sirta Foundation, the creators of the healing agent. They had been taken over by Biotechnica near the end of the war. Supposedly the head scientists still worked and maybe even had partial control over the company, but who knew how true that was.
Probably got some kickbacks to stay on.
Nowadays Med-Gel was hard to get hold of and expensive because of that. They blamed their supply lines, but how much of that was true who knows.
When injected, it released a bunch of biological nanites into the body, stabilising it, clotting blood and acting as an anaesthetic. It wasn’t a miracle cure, but it would give you enough time to get to a ripper doc. The diluted version, called Eazy-on, would give your body a slight boost, which allowed it to heal that much faster.
There were rumours of better versions that could straight up heal injuries when it is applied, but that was all they were. Rumours. At least at this stage. But it wouldn’t surprise me if there were better versions only available to executives and rollers.
Hearing the smatterings of a yes's he went on, "Well then, go get changed and into the rings."
As we followed the crowd, the training area came into view. It had been cordoned off into 12 separate, clearly marked arenas, equally spaced around the middle of the room. They weren't huge, but large enough for some basic footwork.
By the time we were ready, the rings already had a queue. You started at the lowest ring and fought your way up. If you won the fight, you moved up and if you lost, you stayed on for a few more fights before joining the queue to start again.
Unless you were at the top, and then the winner stayed on and the loser started again.
Jess went first and unsurprisingly stomped the gonk. A feint, takedown and submission. If you blinked, you missed it. Unfortunately, it did not get any easier for the kid, as Nat was next and he had a very similar experience.
My go.
I had an advantage over the girls, being slightly bigger than they were, so I went straight for a submission hold, which he quickly tapped out of. Far earlier than he needed to, but was probably conserving his strength, as it was pretty unlikely he could take any of us.
The next 2 rings were similar, with us clearly outclassing them. But finally, it was the top spot.
Taking a step out onto the ring and started to control my breathing, keeping myself calm and in control. Not allowing the bubbling excitement to distract me and stayed laser focused on Jess as Nat had not quite been able to take her down.
Mirroring Jess's grin, we started. She advanced rapidly, ducking and diving under my strikes to get in my guard for a take down. We both knew that was her best chance. So it was a game of cat and mouse, me keeping her at a distance and trying to land a propped hit.
I kept her off, breaking 2 takedown attempts and steadily fell back. Until she took a solid hit to close the distance. Striking her in the side, she managed to take my legs out and get into a dominant position on my back.
I valiantly broke her hold twice, but not the third and had to tap out.
We both jumped up, and I grinned, proud of her. "Nice work. See you soon." I said, pulling her into a sweaty hug.
And so the steady cycle of fights continued. All three of us almost always made it to the top, with me occasionally getting the win and holding the king of the hill. Otherwise, it was dominated by Jess and Nat, each seemingly taking turns on who would hold the king of the hill.
We were having a break, enjoying the vibe of the shouting supporters from the sidelines and the grunting as people went at each other. We had just finished getting some fluids and a bit of Eazy-on when Avery stomped over.
"Fancy moving up to the teenage section?"
I hesitated, worried about the chances of us getting injured. But Jess jumped in feet first, barely letting him finish asking.
With no choice, Nat and I agreed and made our way over. While we were still more skilled than most, if not all of the group, they started to have an overwhelming advantage over us, particularly the older ones.
Size, strength and cyberware.
I got to the final ring a few times but never won it. The 3rd ring was where I spent the most time, while Jess and Nat consistently made it to the top ring, but again couldn’t quite close it out.
Grinning, I sat back on a seat to watch the closing fights as Jess got a preem hit in. Both girls had really started to develop their own unique style. While they started similar, they were diverging.
Jess was always on the move, dodging and feinting, while Nat was much more methodical and steady on her feet. But that wasn’t surprising, having incorporated her love of boxing.
As we finished up, 1 of Avery's helpers for the day came over and let us know Avery wanted a word in his office.
While the others started to file out, we made our way over through the atrium and out the opposite side to Avery's small private office. The room was almost cosy, with a desk, chairs and several filing cabinets, as for some reason Avery preferred paper to digital records.
Although with the krash maybe he wasn’t crazy.
We settled into the chairs he indicated.
"Well done today." he said in his loud and deep, gruff voice.
Leaning back, he took a sip of water. "It has been great teaching you all, but unfortunately, you are already reaching the back end of what I can teach you. Only in some areas mind. But all the same. Mainly you Jess with blades. From here I can only offer you practice. But I have already had to upgrade some of my skill chips, and it's just not worth it to go any higher, even if I could find them."
He paused, looking at each of us contemplatively. "However… a buddy of mine from the army has recently retired from SPAR and needs to rest up for a few months. I've talked him into training you further if you can impress him."
"What would he be teaching us that you can't?" I asked, excited. As SPAR was some serious shit. They were the ones called in when things went to shit, commonly in dealing with cyberpsychos or borgs.
"Well he has several different fighting styles, or the evolution of them if you like." Seeing our confused look, he laughed. "He deals with the most enhanced individuals you will meet. The ones that can take a 50 cal to the face and not blink. That requires a whole different fighting style to combat, or if you're borged up, how to use your strength effectively. That is some of what he'll teach you. But to be honest, what I really want him to teach you is what he picked up in intelligence and counter-intelligence from his time in MI6 before the move over to SPAR."
Jess perked up, almost fully leaning over the table into Avery's face. "Like Ninja stuff!"
Laughing, he pushed her away. "Not fully, but there might be some of that. Mostly, he would teach you Intelligence gathering and counter-intelligence as well as information warfare, covert and special activities. Including a whole host of other things I have probably forgotten. I can make a small list and send it over to you. But either way, it would be good for you if you were interested?" We all nodded eagerly. "Excellent. He is arriving tomorrow, so Friday next week work for you? Perfect. Go on then, skedaddle."
---
We heard a large commotion, almost chanting or cheering, when we arrived home. A large crowd had gathered by Billy's room.
Probably football. Man United maybe. I personally didn’t understand it, even if I could see the skill with which they moved.
Each player was heavily chromed and could do some incredible displays of athleticism. It was also pretty dangerous to go watch for that reason. A poor chap had died last year when one of the players' shots went wide.
Crushed the gonk's skull.
Thankfully, the girls joined me in the confusion over the football culture. High-profile matches had turned the streets into bloodbaths as both sides' supporters went at each other. As if there weren’t enough stupid ways to die already. But I bet the corpos loved it.
Have something they want to hide, organise a big game at the same time.
Not paying it much thought, I went to our corner, catching Jess's stuff as she flung it at me to go see what was happening.
I settled down into a chair groaning, my poor body a sea of bruises. Even with the healing boost, I was still incredibly sore and battered. I was definitely going to feel it tomorrow; hell, I felt it right now. Luckily I nothing planned.
I was just starting to nod off with Nat in my lap when I got a call from Jess.
'Aden, you need to get over here now.'
'What's up?' I sat up straighter, still groggy, but the adrenaline helped cut through it.
'It's Billy, he wants to break into a government building.'
That woke me the fuck up. 'He's what! Has he gone mad? What is Elli saying, he normally calms him down?' I asked, shifting Nat off my lap.
'He's on his way back now but we need to stop Billy from committing to doing it. You know the meathead won't back down.'
Yeah, he never backed down from his word. He might call it honour, but we could see what it truly was. Pride and ego. 'Fuck, coming.' I turned to Nat, who was strapping her boots on, having overheard us. "Let's go. Billy's trying to get us croaked."
As we rushed over to the crowd, I furiously thought about how to calm it all down. With the shouting and the hyping of each other up, it was unlikely I was going to get them to calm down. I was almost halfway across the room when I saw it.
Grinning to myself, I told Nat to cover her ears, then I accessed the audio system that we liked to use for vid watching. Something Elli introduced to bring everyone a bit closer.
What to play?
I knew just the thing. The sound cut through the conversation, like a knife through liquid butter. It was an appalling sound: a combination of a cat being stepped on and the death throes of a pig. I let it play for another 10 seconds before cutting it off as I reached the edge of the crowd, who were all hunched up, hands on their ears. Except for 8, who looked fine.
Guess we know who had cyberaudio.
"Sorry! Sorry! I didn’t mean to turn that on. I'm such a gonk. Sorry! Anyway, what is all the noise about?" I started apologising incredibly insincerely as I pushed through the crowd.
"Was that you Aden, playing that god-awful racket?" Adrian demanded.
"Sorry. Was trying out a new alarm to wake up to and accidentally connected it to the speakers." I said, sending what I hoped was a sincere and apologetic smile at Adrian and Billy, having reached the centre of the circle. Nat and Jess flanking me. "Anyway, again what's all the excitement about?"
"We have a preem gig, bruv. It’s a big one with loads of eddies in't."
"Ace! What's the deets?"
"We gotta track down some mook and then hit his place to recover some kleped stuff."
Nodding along, I asked, "And how are we getting that info? Are we paying a fixer to obtain it or what?"
"No you gonk." Adrian cut in, sneering at me. "Why pay when we can do it ourselves? We are going to break into the Land Registry Office."
"That sounds logical. Walk me through the plan, how we're getting in and out of the security?" Nat asked.
"Who cares?" Billy said, taking over from Adrian, "We will just storm in and take the information we need."
"Preem, except how are you getting the deets you need?" I again asked, slowly trying to defuse the situation until Elli could come and slap some sense into him.
Billy shot me a confused look. "You, you gonk."
"Good plan, but have you thought about how long it will take for Aden to download the data?" Nat gently prodded again.
"No why do we need to? It is a simple snatch and grab." Adrian said, although he was starting to become uncertain.
I rolled my eyes. I knew it was his plan pushing Billy to take stupid risks. "And this Adrian is why I wince whenever—"
Nat cut me off. "Makes sense. The plan would have been ace then. How would the plan change if we needed 10 plus minutes to get the data?”
“Well, we can just hold them off while you get it.” Billy said. But I could hear the uncertainty in his voice. It was finally starting to dawn on him what that might mean.
Time to put an end to this.
"I have no idea how long it would take to get the deets. It could be 10 minutes or even 30. But I don’t know about you, I would not like to be around still when the gov's forces come in and flatlines us. This is a gov facility. They might even bring in the army. We're preem, but I don’t think we could hold that off."
Hearing the whispers around the room, I knew I was on the right track. Even if I was chatting shit. Once in I should just be able to download the data from a terminal, quick and easy.
I watched with amusement as Adrian's face started to turn an interesting putrid colour, but before he could explode. A voice cut in.
"Hey bub, what's going on?" Elli had arrived and not a moment too soon. The tension that had been building in Billy from being challenged in front of everyone drained. The crowd let Elli pass, who pulled Billy in for a cuddle. And just like that, I relaxed. With Elli here, he would be able to talk sense to him. He always did.
Not to say Billy was thick. Oh no, you could not get to where he is by being cluckware, but he always prefers a more direct plan, particularly as he got more chromed or when his blood was up.
It was quickly explained what was happening again, and then we paused as Elli thought a bit before glancing at me. "Would you be able to get the info on the down low?"
Thinking for a sec before glancing at Nat and Jess, seeing the nod, I turned back and agreed. "I should be able to. We will go tomorrow. And if we can't, we can break in like originally planned."
So much for my rest day.
-----
"Are we all set?" I asked, glancing them over. Sturdy, clean but well-worn cloths, an armoured jacket and a small bulge letting me know they had taken a concealable gun like we agreed to.
"Yep, let's roll. It is a 2ish-hour journey to the office, and I want to get this done before lunch." Jess said.
"Come on then."
Our job today was an odd one, as it was only us going. Although not surprising. Turning up to any government building dressed like us in a large group was a good way to get a lot of attention. Luckily this one was a very small office and was only a floor or 2 in the office block. We'd checked, and most of the other floors were either empty or leased out to small or insignificant companies, which hopefully meant the security would be less tight.
This worked to our advantage as there should be lots of corpos walking near or around the building, allowing us to blend in. Not something we might have done in other circumstances. Like during the night or in one of the more impressive corporate offices, where anyone not in a suit stood out like a sore thumb.
But if we couldn’t get in now, we would need to risk it later. Likely with the help of Billy… which I would prefer not to do if it can be helped. It would get violent and messy if he were involved.
As we settled into the tube seat. The London Underground had seen better days. I couldn't help but judge the grubby and tattered interior. Still, I supposed it was better than walking the whole way, or worse, taking the bus.
I knew the buses were mostly safe for the passengers, but even so. They wouldn’t cross over the river anyway. So it was a moot point.
The train started to move, a loud whistling and clattering sound filling the air. Loud enough to make me wince. I didn’t know how the drivers did it. Lack of options probably, but even so. The noise was torturous. At least it got the hot, muggy air moving, providing some small relief.
The tubes were a weird thing in London. It was fully funded by the government. During the MLA time, they nationalised it, fortifying stations and kicking out any corps that had even light control over them. The buses did not get the same treatment, unfortunately.
So when the monarchs were back in power, they kept them.
Since then, a lot of work had been put into them. However, this investment was not distributed evenly and really only focused on the train lines near the centre of London, for example Central, Circle and District lines.
These had been cleaned up and made safer with scanners and heavily armed security guards. The turrets in the station and on the trains also helped, and these were no cheap turrets. They were military-grade ones, packing some serious heat. The ones more on the outer edges of London had only seen a modicum of maintenance and a token security force, like small turrets on the station and trains.
But not enough to deter the real idiots or cybered-up borgs.
As seen in the Jubilee massacre from a few years back. I still remember the time with a slight shudder. A fight broke out on a station, just 2 rival firms, but with people caught in the crossfire. Normally not an issue, and it would have been a short paragraph in the news. However, 1 such individual was the daughter of a board member in the Hillard Corporation. It, along with Imperial Metropolitan Agriculture, were some of the largest corporations in the UK and had an incredible reach to match.
The shitstorm that followed was biblical. By the time Hillard's had finished their warpath, the 2 gangs and 7 more that were on friendly terms with them were all completely eradicated, with 1000s dead.
After that, the tube became an unspoken neutral zone, which had held to this day. No one wants that sort of attention again.
Luckily the trains were not too busy at this time of day. We'd missed the morning rush. Apart from costing more than I was happy paying, there were just soooo many cameras. Couldn’t turn a fucking corner and not bump into one of the bloody things.
But it was still better than the fucking buses.
The 20 tons metal bricks pelted around London like it was a race course. They were lucky that they mostly had their own lanes—one too many accidents had seen to that.
Not for loss of life of course, no, but because it affected the bottom line for a corpo executive.
It was their own fault. Or the bus companies anyway. They set it up so the drivers didn’t have a salary and their money was directly related to their numbers of passengers. I didn’t know if it was deliberate (it probably was—stop them getting ideas above their station), but it had turned every driver or group of drivers against each other.
Each directly competing for the passengers.
It was so competitive they had actual gunfights, on top of the demolition derby it already was.
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The park bench must have been purposely built to be uncomfortable. I bet to stop people from loitering, either way it was perfectly located, well within range of a camera but still out of sight from it. "Okay look like we are chatting while I work."
I ignored the girls as they leaned in chatting, coincidentally hiding what I was doing and I pulled up my deck. Making sure to keep it hidden in the rucksack and started to breach the network. Even with Jess and Nat covering me, I was painfully aware of the many security guards standing by the office doors encircling the square.
With this being a government office, even a small one, I expected a level of security I hadn't run into yet. But I hoped I could hack it. I ran my [detailed scan] and frowned. It couldn’t detect a netrunner, but also seemed to think the net was incredibly weak. That didn’t feel right to me.
But seeing it give me the all clear, I started to bypass the security and gained control of the cameras in a slow but steady fashion.
When I was in, I couldn’t help but grimace. Now I knew why the scan returned such a weak score. "That’s not great."
"What?" Nat asked.
Not looking up, she would have nudged me if anyone was too near or giving us too much attention. "So I have good and bad news. Good news, the security is actually pretty weak. Bad news, it's only going to give me control of the outer cameras, not the internal ones, since they are properly air gapped. So we will need to move closer to access the other systems."
"Front door, or is there a side door we can get in?"
"Let me have a look."
10 minutes later I had my answer and let out a small laugh at the irony of it. "We needed those new guys' lessons to come sooner."
"Why?"
"There is no way to access what we need from the ground floor, but I can see a good way up to the floor that is out of sight and is only covered by a camera which I can hide us from."
"Buuuuut?" Jess dragged out
"Buut it is on the outside of the building, 6 stories up. It should be fairly easy climbing, we can get to it from the car park." I said, pointing to a massive concrete car park that ran parallel to the office. Mostly disused as vehicles were rare in London unless you were a nomad or corpo. "But it is a long way up."
"What about inside?"
"Nadda, all the ways in are covered by a camera, which I can get, but there are several security guards and checkpoints. And I would rather not risk going inside if we can help it." Grumbling to myself. "Let's go and get this done."
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