"It too easy Billy! You really think there's no security? This wasteman burned a lot of people when he deltaed. He has the creds for serious security." Elli tried one last time.
We were around the corner of the target's house. I had already raked through the security and found nothing of note, which had set all of us on edge, even Adrian.
All but Billy, that was.
"Stop worrying. We've got this, bruh." Billy said confidently as he swaggered down the road surrounded by the rest of the gang. All of us were ready for war.
"No wait." Elli said as he grabbed Billy's shoulder to stop him.
"Naa! No more waiting, I could do this on my own, so let's GO!!" Billy said, hollering the last bit. Shrugging off Elis's hand, he called to Adrian to get everyone ready and then made the call. Charging through the main doors of the warehouse.
I took up my customary spot near the back, covered by Nat and Jess. Even armoured up, I couldn't settle the unease in my stomach.
The earlier talk with Jess didn’t help matters, as her senses were tingling; something wasn’t right. If it were just us, I likely would have called it off or at least changed our approach, but Billy was incredibly cocky. Months of aced gigs, hell, at this stage it was years. All going off without a hitch had ballooned his ego.
I got it. I might have felt the same. But training with Avery put things into perspective. There was always someone better. Something could go wrong and letting your guard down… well, I wasn’t planning to do that. His stories had made that crystal clear.
We approached the warehouse, I'd already deactivated the outside cameras and the 2 turrets covering the entrance, leaving us a clear run to the double doors.
Billy took the lead, breaking into a sprint and slammed into the doors, his cybernetically enhanced body crumpling them like cardboard.
The dimly lit interior, with boxes and metal crates littering the floor in piles, seemed quiet. That quickly changed. As soon as he had entered I could hear shouting from inside.
The rest of the gang flooded in after Billy, guns blazing.
I nodded and darted forward. I timed our entry to be at the back third of the gang. Let the others take the 'glory' and the bullets that went hand in hand with that.
We'd just entered, Jess a few meters in front of me and Nat a few behind, when I heard an unmistakable sound. The gentle whirring hum of 2 heavy turrets dropping from concealed vents in the ceiling.
"Turrets!" I screamed as I dived for cover, trusting and praying the girls would be doing the same.
The turrets were deafening, sending a spray of bullets across the room. A steady stream of brass plinked to the floor under them. The rounds shattered chips of the concrete from the floor puffing it up into the air, creating a thick cloud of dust that coated everything.
I was glad for my mask in that moment. That and my cybereyes.
Ignoring my shaking hands, I grabbed my deck and dived into the net to disable the turrets. Before cursing. My wreath wasn’t on my head. Fuck, where were they? Looking around wildly, I sighed. They were well within reach, just a little way off.
I waited for the turret to pan away before reaching out to grab them. Thank god they were not broken. Slipping them over my head, I tried again.
No stealth was needed here, luckily I had my deck configured for assaults with lots of attack, defence and boost programs.
Not wasting time, I loaded up all the programs like normal. My defence ICE spinning up. A shifting circular shield once more appeared in front of me, as well as a high-tech golden armour shimmered up to fully clad my body. That done, I used [Hammer] (a noisy but strong intrusion program) to smash through the data walls. It appeared in front of me. A large glowing red hammer zoomed forward to slam into the datawall.
The first strike sent cracks up the wall, with alarms sounding throughout the net. Another strike, further cracks.
All around me, the pounding of the turrets continued unabated.
Then it struck a 3rd time, smashing a hole through the datawall.
Stepping into the first node, the ICE already active thanks to my loud entry. Behind them was a control station, hopefully for the turrets, but I won't know that until I can access it.
Turning my attention to the ICE, there were 3: a pulsing ball of random neon showering sparks, a [cascade]. An anti-system program that would target my decks. In front of this was a large familiar cyborg man with 4 red glowing eyes, indicating it was a [Killer IV]. Finally, along the floor was a thin blue mist.
Taking it all in in a fraction of a second, I sprang to action. I activated [Flak], a cloud of glowing multicoloured lights springing up around me and my programmes, distracting and blinding the enemy.
Directing 1 of my own [Killer II]s to attack the glowing mist of the floor. The mist I recognised as a [hydra], an incredibly effective programme against demons, so not something I needed to worry about immediately, but I still wanted it gone. It could be disguised so I couldn't ignore it.
A shout in real space almost distracted me, but I was glad it did. "This is Jess, I'm okay!" quickly followed by Nat. "Same here!"
"Ditto. In net fighting, stay down—will get rid of turrets soon!"
Turning my attention fully back to cyberspace, I sent the other [Killer II] to attack the [Cascade] and the main threat to me. It stomped forward, katana at the ready.
That done, I focused on the final program. Moving forward, I gained its attention and I used my shield to keep it back. I could re-rez the shield as many times as I needed to, but each time took precious seconds. It slashed at me, its own katana a red blur in the air and cracking the [shield]. I fell back, giving my shield enough chance to heal over before the katana smacked into it again.
The flak was doing its job, constantly distracting the enemy ICE, causing them to pause or miss attacks.
After a few seconds, I jumped back a bit further and well out of its reach for a moment, to inspected the battle. Both the cascade and hydra were being smashed apart, with them both engaged by programs they were not meant to interact with, giving me a significant advantage.
In fact, the [Killer IV] that was following me was the most dangerous ICE and would be able to handle both of my [Killer II]s with ease. Thankfully, it wasn’t controlled, or it would be significantly more dangerous.
A flash of red and a crackle as my armour stopped the attack brought my attention back to the Killer IV.
I jumped back, hissing. A prickling sensation formed in the back of my neck and my neural port heated up—never a good sign.
With my focus on it once more, I kept it just out of reach.
Then it stopped. For a terrible moment, I thought the [Killer IV] had lost interest in me and was targeting my other ICE. But then I let out a relieved laugh. It was just confused and marched to the middle of nowhere.
Go [Flak] go.
Keeping an eye on it, I didn’t move to engage, letting it wander off. I was just in time to see a katana slash through the [Cascade] ICE, bisecting it.
Ace.
The [hydra] was on its last legs too.
Huge patches of the floor were now clear of the blue smoke. It wouldn't be long before it too, was destroyed. Instead of turning the now free [killer II] against the enemy's one, I sent it to help finish off the hydra.
I didn’t want to risk that it might be defeated before the hydra. Particularly as a glance showed it was now only just starting to make its way back to me.
The 2 cyborgs made short work of the [hydra] and stomped forward to engage their bigger brother together.
It should have been a close fight, but with the added help of the [Flak], they made short work of it. Hacking away at it until it too fell and dissolved into pixels.
As soon as it was fully engaged, I raced over to the node.
Reaching the icon (a bank of computers), I interfaced with them, smiling with relief when I did.
It was the turrets. Thank fuck.
I didn’t have time to fuck around and switched both turrets off. If I had time and had a [Dee-2] ICE in my deck it would have allowed me to take control and flip the turrets to target the enemy.
With the turrets dealt with, I disconnected to chaos. What had felt like ages in the net had actually only been a handful of seconds in real life.
Still a lifetime in battle.
Ignoring all that, I looked around, heart thundering in my chest.
I almost slumped bonelessly to the floor when I saw Nat and Jess safe behind cover. I knew they had told me, but seeing was believing.
We had been hit badly. Well over a dozen bodies were scattered across the floor. More hurt. Some might not make it if they didn’t get to a ripperdoc soon. Then I spotted a body a few paces away.
"Shit!" I said, scrambling up, I dashed over, sliding to my knees next to it. "Nat need help!"
Barely a second from my shout and Nat crouched next to me, pulling out our first aid kit. I felt for a pulse, my hands already slick with blood.
A sickening feeling settled into my stomach, "Nat I can't feel a pulse."
"Aden, it's too late." She said, pointing to something I hadn't seen from my angle. A huge chunk of Eli's torso was missing, torn away by a bullet from the turrets.
Kneeling back onto my heels, the blood started to seep into my trousers. "Shit!"
I was just getting up when I heard the unmistakable voice of Billy crowing happily. "Preem work gonks. Preem work. Did you see me launch that wasteman, fucking beautiful. Oi Aden, who's that then? Did Nat save their arses?"
By that point, he was close enough to see around my body.
Letting out a strangled cry, he dashed forward, shoving me aside. It almost launched me into a nearby crate in the process. Hugging the body, he started sobbing. "NO! Eli, come on, babe, wake up. Come on, don’t leave me! We were going to go all the way to the top!"
He broke down sobbing, clutching Eli to his chest.
I pulled the girls with me as we moved a respectful distance away. I checked them over more carefully. A few scrapes from the flying concrete shrapnel but otherwise okay. I would need to clean them and maybe use some of the Easy-on we had from Avery, just in case. Infection was just as dangerous as the wound itself.
Especially in the tunnels.
Before getting very far, Billy turned on us, pointing. "You! This is your fault! You had one job! Handle security! So why didn’t you huh?" Eli slid off his lap as he marched over to us. "Tell me!" He screamed into my face, grabbing me by my jacket and lifting me several feet off the floor.
He didn’t get any further.
Everyone froze at the unmistakable shich shuck sound of Nat pumping her shotgun. "Put. Him. Down. He didn’t cause this. You and your reckless charge did. You ignored all our warnings, and you want to blame us?" She said coldly, pointing it directly at his head.
Out the corner of my eye, I saw Jess do a very similar thing, but she pointed her pistol at Adrian, who was standing there staring at Eli with a horrified look on his face. As soon as he saw me looking, his face closed off into his normal smirk.
Billy froze there panting heavily, like he had just run the marathon moment before shoving me back. "Get out of my sight!" Before turning his back on us and stomped away.
Seeing there would be no more violence, people slowly started to drift away and the noise level picked up with people chattering. Breathing deeply, "Thanks Nat, let's go find the terminal so I can see if there is anything worth grabbing so we can get out of here. "
Even the great loot we had grabbed after finding it in a terminal didn’t raise our mood on the way home.
---
We were the first to make it back; a few others were around, not having gone, either too young or not yet trusted.
Seeing our faces they stuck well clear of us. Thank god. I was in no mood to talk.
Fucking Billy.
Shit, with Eli gone, what now? Do we even stay with the gang? I stayed because where else would we go? And I trusted Eli. With him gone…
Collapsing in our room, I moved a barricade across our entrance for the second time in our lives. I had made it when there was a serial killer who went into the tunnels and just emptied a machine gun into a room before making a run for it.
The heavily reinforced plating would stop even some of the heaviest calibres for a time. I activated the 3 turrets I had set up, 2 known to the gang, set up on Eli's say so and a final one near us that was hidden until I might need it.
So I was fairly confident we would be safe if Billy came back and still had not cooled off.
Stripping out of our clothes, leaving them dumped at the foot of the bed, we got cleaned as best we could before changing into our bedclothes and then all cuddled up.
"Well that went well." Nat said, throwing herself down.
What is going to happen now?" Jess asked in a subdued voice.
"I am not sure. I am just not sure." I admitted.
"Maybe Billy will forget about it and thank us? Nat said with a weak smile. "But seriously I think Billy will come round, you'll see. He just needs to cool off."
"We can hope, let's get some rest while we can and we will see what the future holds." I said. It was already late and with the event so of the day I was exhausted.
But sleep just didn’t come.
I lay there stuck in my head for hours.
Thinking of all the things I might have done differently didn’t help me sleep either. Long after the girls had drifted off and the commotion of Billy getting back, I finally drifted off.
The next morning, I woke up well before the girls. Still wiped but unable to sleep so lay there.
I couldn’t believe he was gone. Someone so important, someone I knew I could rely on, just gone. Many had left the gang. Most flatlined, but no one I cared for. I didn’t like the feeling. If it was like this with Eli… what about the girls?
Then and there. I reiterated the pact I'd made long ago. I would do whatever it took to protect my family. I wasn’t sure I would cope without them.
I shuddered just imagining it.
While I was sad by his loss. I couldn’t help but move on to the implications. The calming influence on Billy was gone.
How long could the gang last now? Or at least how safe it would be for us? We would likely need to stay for a few more years if possible. I'd always planned to leave, but intended to age out. Then instead of moving up to a larger gang go off on our own.
We were not ready. We didn’t have the scratch saved up. We'd been spending it almost as fast as we had been making it on improvements. I'd spent 1000s on my deck alone. While I hadn't found a better one, I had been improving it. Like beefing up the firewalls or, and most expensively, increasing the MU capacity up to 15.
We had some savings. In all honesty, we had good savings. Better than most of the gangoons around us.
Maybe we could rent somewhere. But that came with all sorts of problems. I had looked at that years ago and renters had 0 rights. The landlord could turf someone out at a moment's notice for any reason. They could walk in with no warning to inspect the place, and they obviously had their own keys.
That just didn’t feel safe. Especially not for my sisters.
And I did not fancy our chances on the streets.
We weren't even teenagers and the girls were pretty, making it doubly worse.
I would need to look into the fixer Eli mentioned. He might be a good source of income, and if he proved on the level, maybe become our main fixer we worked with. For a time at least.
I didn’t want to become locked into one. That sounded like giving someone too much leverage over us.
I kept thinking things through until I started to go round in circles. Pulling up my agent on my cybereyes, I checked the time.
That reminded me we still needed to go through our stuff we got last night, and I needed to get to a ripperdoc as I could finally change out my eyes with 'EBM mk2 Nrl'. It was gen 3 as well so a good set of eyes for me.
Not quite at the level the girls had, but its most important feature was that it was built for netrunning. It also had 3 other slots for optics as well, not to mention just the general improvements it had over my current pair.
"Come on, time to get up. Lots to do today." I said, gently nudging them until I finally got movement from Nat and squirming plus grumbling from Jess.
Over the next few hours, we sorted out our stuff, cleaning our clothes and generally taking stock.
"How much do you think Jess?" I asked, looking over her shoulder as she checked the goods we kelped on the terminal.
"As we thought, the Nrls are worth a lot, but we are clearly keeping them, so that just leaves the rest. Nothing super preem but I think overall maybe £50000s."
"Huh?" Nat had whipped round doing a double take. “How much?”
"I said pounds Nat, not eddies. So 5000 eddies. Not a bad hall, overall."
"Ace, get that all locked down and the rest of it put away. I am just setting the alarms up and then I think we should spend the day at the Forge, we should be meeting that gonk Avery mentioned later today as well."
By the time we stepped out of our corner, the rest of the gang had started to stir. And clearly Eli's death had gone around judging by the filthy looks I was getting.
A group of twats were lurking by the door. Their posture screamed trouble. Gareth was always looking for trouble. Nat and Jess felt it too as they shifted a bit, Nat dropping a step back, moving her hand nearer her pistol, while Jess moved a step in front of me, gripping her short sword.
She didn’t leave home without these days. She loved the damn thing.
I grimaced as the gonks spread out, blocking our way. I let none of it show. I kept my face carefully blank. Showing weakness was asking for troubled.
Gareth in the middle, the leader, squared up to us. "Yo, word is it's your fault Eli was zeroed an't it, bruv. I bet you planned it that way. Who's next, Billy?" He shouted at the end, having been getting progressively louder.
Before I could reply, a new voice called from deeper within the room. "What's this then, you starting something with our deckhead Gareth?" Adrian asked as he stepped into view off to the side.
Surprise briefly crossed Gareth's face "But he got Eli killed, not taking out the turret faster."
I tensed, expecting Adrian to agree, but I was surprised when he replied. "Naa gonk, Aden did what he could. Those turrets came out of nowhere. It could have been anyone, bruv. For fuck sake, nearly caught me too. I was next to Eli when the shooting started."
"But—"
"No Gareth, it sucks that Eli was flatlined, but Aden ain't to blame, now skeet." Adrian said, tilting his head to the door.
Gareth looked like he wanted to protest until Adrian gave him a look of 'Don’t make me fucking get violent on your ass, I will kill you'.
"Thanks Adrian." I said as all three of us turned to face him fully, relaxing a bit.
"Naa, was what happened, only giving them the true deets. Where you lot off to, anyway? Not running away, I hope." He broke into laughter after that, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
"The Forge." Nat grunted.
"Well okay then, be careful out there." Adrian said as he turned away and made his way back deeper in.
Was that a threat? His voice didn’t sound like it was. It sounded genuine.
We walked in silence, well away from any prying ears, before I asked. "What was that about? I thought Adrian was sure to spin it against us."
Hesitantly Jess said. "I don’t think he could. He's not stupid; he knows how important you are to all of our success. And he's never had a problem with us. Just didn’t like our influence with Billy."
"Yeah I agree, that was also why he wanted to know where we were going." Nat said. "I reckon he was waiting there all morning to make sure we were not just going to up and leave. He respects us. We are also level-headed, so we were always predictable. Another thing he liked."
Huh… had I read him wrong all this time? Naa, doubt it.
----
We had all relaxed a bit by the time we reached the Forge and were speaking about plans we might do going forward. We all agreed it was time to save and start looking to leave the gang.
Stepping into the yard, we saw a few of the regulars doing their thing. Some pumping weights, with one guy moving a ridiculous amount of weight on the squat rack. Counting the plates, it was over a ton.
Others were pounding on the bags or sparring in the ring. Fewer still were doing firing drills. Calling out to a blond beating the living shit out of a bag that I recognised. "Hey Edouard, where's Avery?"
"Bonjour Pote. Nat want to spar a bit later? All these other gongs can't box for shit. Avery should be in his office, last I heard."
"Thanks, don’t think I will have time today. Maybe tomorrow?"
"I'll hold you to that."
We trotted across the compound before I knocked once on the door.
Jess, seconds later, started pounding on it. "Avery you in there? Are you? Are you? Avery? Aveeeerrrrryyy?" Jess sang in her most annoying voice.
"Yes, yes, give me a minute to get the door, god damn brat." Avery said. Swinging the door open as he filled the doorway, before stepping aside to let us in.
All of our attention was taken up by the other person in the room.
Medium might describe him almost perfectly. Medium height, forgettable face and no identifiable marking. His black hair was cropped short and his casual slacks were tight against his skin, showing off an impressive swimmer's physique.
Standing up to greet us, even with a smile on his face, there was a sort of danger to him. Like he was on edge, waiting to spring into violence.
----
Daniel watched the kids Avery had recommended walk in.
At least he liked what he saw.
For how much of a meathead he looked, Avery had a surprisingly soft side, so he hadn't been sure what to expect. Snorting to himself, unless provoked, that was, as a twat named… what was his name, ahh yes, Tim. As Tim had found out what happened when you poked the bear 1 too many times.
Turning back to the kids, they could walk the walk at least. Each of them walked on the balls of their feet. He'd watched them through the cameras and they also moved well as a unit.
So there was something.
Time would tell how much.
The boy was clearly the leader and the way he talked to them, maybe even a good one. He was certainly watchful enough, quiet but always assessing, analysing—dissecting you with his eyes. It would have been unnerving if he couldn't squash him like a bug.
Nodding to himself, bearing them being shit when they spared, this could be fun. Moulding some newbies was one of his preferred jobs back in the force. It could be a good distraction for the next few years.
Or at least until his funds came in and he could do something else.
If nothing else, he was good at finding his feet. His career showed that.
Daniel had joined MI6 just before the MLA revolt, so he was junior enough to be kept on. He kept his head down and did his job. A surprisingly rare thing, which allowed him to progress rapidly. Maybe even to the top, that was until the MLA were kicked out and the Monarchists started to clean house.
Seeing the writing on the wall, he jumped ship to one of the few places not being purged, the Special Permanent Armed Responders. A slightly silly name, but it was correct; they were the last resort and if they were called in, the solution was permanent.
The skill sets were surprisingly similar, just a bit louder and more final. That was fine for a few years, but as time went on, Daneil could feel it weighing on him. The final straw happened almost 6 weeks ago when he snapped over something completely minor and almost killed a rookie.
He would not allow himself to go the same way he had seen many of his compatriots go before him. So he decided to get out. Unfortunately, SPAR was more of a 'leave in a body bag sort of thing'. So the way he left had burned a few bridges and he had little to no funds until they were released. Everyone knew the government's speed, so he could be waiting a while. But he left anyway and dropped at least 60% of his chrome to much more manageable levels.
He felt like he could breathe for the first time in years.
All this left him with nothing to do and nowhere to stay. He could have couch surfed, but he wanted something more permanent. So he had jumped at the chance when Avery said he could crash at his place until he got his feet under him.
It was far better than what some of his onetime compatriots did. Either joining or forming one gang or another. Some were doing well last he heard. But he had no interest in joining what he had been fighting against for the last few years.
No matter how good he would be at it.
Of course Avery had an ulterior motive. But come on, it was Avery; he was a giant teddy bear. Besides, his interest was piqued.
It’s a rare breed that waits to get chromed, and that hit him in a soft spot in light of recent events.
There had been no published research proving that early implementation of large amounts of cyberware had massive consequences, but that was mainly due to a lack of funding and blocking done by the cybernetics companies.
Funny enough, they did not want to screw themselves.
But in his experience, installing as little as possible before puberty was the way to go.
"Come on then, let's see what you’ve got. Can we use your private training room for this Avery?"
"Yeah, I assumed you would want to. It's all set up."
Having reached the rooms, they changed into their training gear, a tight rash vest and comfy trackies for him. "Alright, let's get your measure, Jess your up first."
Squaring up, he probed her, carefully analysing them and then matched their speed—putting them all through their paces, one after the other.
Daniel started to feel a budding excitement.
They were good—no great even.
Not perfect, and they would still need years to truly grow into their style—a bit of chrome wouldn't go amiss either. Particularly Nat.
She almost had a brawler style, but that vastly undersold how smooth she was. She in particular, was made for this. Well, not made, she needed a bit of height and some chrome, but with that, she would be a monster to fight, easily the scariest out of the 3.
Aden, as Avery had mentioned, was the lowest-skilled, but as a netrunner (he would have to test him later on that), that was not too surprising. He had a good foundation, very cautious and methodical. Maybe too defensive, Daniel had left a few gaps in his guard and Aden had ignored all but the safest ones.
Against some like him who completely outclassed them all, it was the best option, but in most other situations, it was not a winning strategy. But then, if he was in a battle like that, something had gone wrong anyway.
If they kept to the tactics he taught… might teach, let's not get ahead of ourselves, there would always be backup on the way. So he would only have to hold out.
But it was melee weapons where Daniel was truly blown away.
Again, Aden, with a longsword was consistent, defensive and the weakest. This time significantly so. Clearly, he had not spent much time focusing on it.
Chuckling at Nat, who, once again, was a barbarian stuck in a small girl's body, picking a weapon even larger than the longsword, a bastard sword and proceeded to try to browbeat him into submission.
Her simple, blunt style hid the skill behind it, and it would likely beat many less skilled opponents. Hell, maybe in a few years it might give him a run around.
Then there was Jess. Holy! The others were good for their ages, but Jess was a whole nother kettle of fish. She was good good, and not just for her age.
Selecting a short sword, she proceeded to put on one of the finest displays he had ever seen.
She flowed around him, testing, probing and always moving. Changing it up, leaving traps, feinting and a combination of them all. It was a beautiful display and given time, chrome and experience would be a terrifying force.
Hell, she had almost scored some hits on him! He was going significantly slower than he could, but he was a grown man at 5,11 and had the overwhelming advantage over her.
"And let's cut it there."
"Not going to check our gun handling?" Jess challenged.
Daniel laughed at that. "You’ve been trained by Avery. If he says you are good. You're good. Come, let's go sit down and we can go over what I will be teaching you, then we can finish off putting you through your paces."
----
"So what do you think?" Avery said as he settled down next to Daniel, passing him a beer.
"They have… potential."
"Potential, come on, you have more than that. I noticed the looks you were giving Jess."
Unable to keep it in any longer, Daniel excitedly said. "Okay, okay, they can be great. Even Aden given enough time. But Jess. Jess is something else. She was born to wield a blade; she was soaking up it all up like a sponge. For fuck sake, I could see her form change, improving before my eyes!"
Laughing, Avery said. "Told you they were special. But I don’t think you are giving Aden enough credit. Yes, he is the weakest in combat, but where he truly shines is in his netrunning. Mark my words, if they reach adulthood, they are going to be a force to be reckoned with."
"Hmm, is he that good? I assumed he was just reasonable for a low level ganger."
"Ha, no. You checked my system here right?" Daniel coughed, slightly embarrassed at being called out, making Avery laugh at him. "You’re a spook, I had no doubt you didn’t turn my place upside down before settling in."
"Yes, yes, laugh it up. Anyway, I did check it over, and it was good. Probably near the best you could get bang for your buck-wise. To truly do better, you would have needed to fork out significantly more."
"Good, I thought I had done a good job, but always nice to have that confirmed. Well, I have been allowing him to take runs at it. I removed the truly dangerous ICE, but even with them gone, it should still be a challenge."
"And what?"
"Daniel, he tore through it. I don’t think he realises how big a feat that is. I was speaking to Jess the other day, and she mentioned that they had hacked the Office of Land Ownership a week or so ago. Swore on it. No alarms, quiet in and out. Now I know it's not MLA HQ, but it's still a Government office."
Whistling, Daniel leaned back. That was good.
That left him wondering… how he would do against an actual netrunner?
Either way, it was impressive. Most of those places were pretty lax since the krash. There was not much call for hardened defences these days. Guards with guns could do most of the heavy lifting. Not like before the corporate war.
There had been a few breaches, but they would always be in the area, so when the alarm was sounded, it was a simple matter of finding them and tracking them. Either to neutralise or recruit. "Yeah, not the greatest security, but it should have been enough." Daneil fell into thought. Maybe he did need to raise his estimation of the kid.
---
I released a small sigh as we entered the final tunnel to home.
I couldn't wait to just ooze into our bed and rest my battered body. I have no idea how Jess was still so chipper. The training was as intense as Daniel promised. Daniel, such an ordinary name for a monster. As what else could he be?
A demon in human skin. That’s what.
When we stepped into the main room, my shoulders tensed slightly, the girls too, judging by the slight shift in posture from Jess as we saw Billy chatting with Adrian.
Briefly making eye contact with him, I saw none of the hate I expected. If anything, what I saw was dismissal. I did note the new cyberarm, a full limb replacement, so a big upgrade and not even a week since his last one.
Not a good sign.
Slightly confused but not punching a gift horse in the month, I moved on and entered our haven.
Same as yesterday, I set up the barrier while getting settled.
I needn't have bothered.
That interaction set the tone for the next few days.
Billy gave us the cold shoulder and interacted with us as little as possible. When he did it was in an incredibly dismissive way. Almost as if we were no longer important, like all the work we had done over the years hadn't happened.
Not that I cared. If anything, it was a relief. If we could keep our heads down and get out, then I didn’t care how he viewed us.
This did have a knock-on effect. Where Billy went, the gang followed, and many within the gang started to follow his lead, keeping their distance.
Not that I minded.
I kept to myself most of the time. It was Jess who was the most affected of all of us. She was the social butterfly of the group, and I think it hurt her that all her friends turned their backs on us so quickly. Even with Nat and I, she missed talking to others.
The Forge helped, but it wasn’t the same, and I could see her start to almost dim. Becoming sadder with time.
I spent as much time with her as possible, I even tried to build some cool stuff to cheer her up and it all worked for a time, but it wasn’t a long term solution.
At least there was no threat; the others were far too scared to ever do anything and lots of them owed us their lives. But I kept a careful eye out for anyone to make sure none of them needed to have an accident.
Nat still regularly chatted to Lilly, so she had no issues, particularly since we had some good news. The Steeles would be back in a few weeks. It might have been the first time I had ever seen Nat squeal.
I thought she'd been hurt at first.
One good thing that had happened was I got in contact with the fixer Eli mentioned, Darrel. I did a bit of research on him to make sure he was on the up and up. He seemed to be. As Eli mentioned, he was a vastly different person from Boxy, but then he had been an executive for Sirta Foundation before he got pushed out due to politics, or so the rumours said.
Either way, he had a solid no-nonsense reputation and an up-and-coming fixer. A professional. Very corpo like, which was to be expected.
This suited us just perfectly. Good enough to get some decent jobs, but new enough to take on some cheap new mercs for smaller jobs while he built his network.
He also had the inside scoop on many professional gigs, and not the busy work we mostly did with the gang.
Best of all, he had contacts with hospitals and pharmaceutical companies.
He gave me a list of what BioWare he could offer and their prices. A list!
I was still leery of having a huge amount of cyberware fitted, but bioware seemed to be a much better bet at this stage. It had many of the upsides and few of the downsides.
However, normally the price were an issue.
But with one of the largest Biotecnica compounds in London and having been a part of the EEC, it was actually a similar price to cybertech. And with the quality of cyberware what is was in the EEC, it was actually better in most cases.
It was an open secret that Europe was years behind its competitors like Arisaka. The only reason EBM (the largest EEC manufacturer) could stay on top was most of the executives were also high in the government—that or had far-reaching connections within the EEC. So they could block anything that would affect the EBM.
Case in point, the Netics group, a large number of small cybernetics companies that joined together and started to produce better quality chrome than the EBM.
What did EBM do? See they were being beaten and invest to create new stuff?
No, of course not. A whole host of new laws were introduced. Raids, fines, red tape and espionage did the rest. In a few short months, the group was crippled and then bankrupt, allowing EBM to buy it on the cheap. It was even held up as a sterling example of corporate manoeuvrings in the economics book I was reading.
Scum.
I would have retaliated in kind if someone tried to klep something of mine. Maybe burn down their offices? It would get the message across at least.
Shaking the rather pleasing vision of a burning corpo HQ, I went back to massaging my leg.
It was no easier, even with weeks having gone by.
We'd just got back from another hard day training with Deniel, or as I had taken to calling him—Satan, me munching on my evening meal while the Bioware lists printed out. I had tried many things over the years to make the kibble slightly more palatable. But by this point, I had conceded that they were just foul and there was no way to make them actually nice to eat.
Calling the girls, we all settled down to start looking through the list, picking out things we might want or need. The list was more extensive than I had been expecting. It even had gene modding, which was hard to get. Even getting the first step of DNA mapping needed some serious connections. Only corpos got a look in normally.
It was expensive but clearly worth the price. From reducing all risks of diseases, a general increase in capability and making us into the best we could be, even after the partial malnutrition we had experienced.
That alone made it worth it, but we could also tweak what we looked like. Who doesn’t want to look hot?
Then there was the extension of it, gene modding. With this, we could increase our baseline, making us faster, stronger and even smarter. It would vary by how much, and we would need to focus on one area to get the most out of it, but even so, just the thought that I could make myself smarter was wild.
It was also important to get them done as early as possible, before or during puberty was best. At least according to the guides. It didn’t say why, but I could only assume it was something to do with a child's growth hormone or something.
There were also normal things like skin weaves, providing a layer of protection, basically making your skin pistol and stab resistant. There were even greater levels, but they were well out of our price range.
After a time of flicking through pages, I asked. "What do you think girls?"
Nat answered first, "Well, we clearly need the skinweave. For 1000, it gives us a bit more protection. At the small calibre level, it won't even make our shin feel different."
"Yeah and I want the neural bridge. I mean, we should all get it, but I want it the most! Able to duel-wield swords!" Jess said with stars in her eyes.
I chuckled at her one-track mind. "Another for the list then. Anything else stand out?" We spent the rest of the evening going back and forth, planning out what we could afford.
It was getting late when Jess said, "When we next go to see Avery, we can get his opinion and maybe Ninja Sansai might have some tips."
Ninja Sansai? What was she on about? Before facepalming. "Why are you calling Daniel that?"
She gave me a pitying look as if I was too dumb to understand her brilliance "He is going to teach me to be a ninja, so clearly he is an amazing person! Owww!" she muttered, rubbing her head as Nat got there before me and slapped her over the head.
"Focus." she muttered distractedly. "But she is right, we should get their opinion, we can always ignore it if we don’t agree.
"Okay, we have a plan," I said, smiling at them both "I have the list on my agent so we can go over it with them, probably tomorrow.
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