[02/2034]
Supposedly there was a way to walk with confidence and momentum that made you look like you belonged. I had no idea if we pulled it off, but we certainly looked the part.
We had spruced up our wardrobe, and I for one, was actually liking the changes. I had already decided I would keep it after this.
Waistcoats were cool. No matter what the girls said. They just didn’t understand my genius.
Although the bright pink one might have been a bit much.
But it wasn’t my fault. The saleswoman was evil and too good at her biz. It made sense at the time. It might have been her low-cut top that persuaded me, but I would never tell anyone that.
Regardless, we needed to blend in. The gig from Darrel was in a much nicer part of London. They all had been, to be fair, which wasn’t too surprising considering his background, but this one in particular was the very posh part of town.
We had done maybe a dozen of jobs for him now. All small stuff, surveillance, theft, that sort of thing. Each only gave us 500ish eddies each but they were safe enough. Derrel was starting up so couldn't offer us great money and if he could, he would have better options, so for now we were all happy.
This one was a little more care of Kate's negotiations at 600 eddies.
In fact this was the first gig that she had handled completely by herself. She did the planning, negotiating and even the research to make sure the job was on the up and up. I was confident Derrel wouldn’t screw us by now, but it was still a good habit to get into. He could always change, or have an offer too good to pass up come along.
She had really come into her own and was now doing most of the admin. My God, it had saved me so much time.
All the jobs before kept to the southern parts of town. Not combat zone territory, where the gangs ran the streets and violence was commonplace. There, you wouldn’t be out of place carrying a large rifle out in the open. These areas were predominantly on the outskirts of London, to the very North, East and the largest area was in the south of London.
All of these had no police patrols and wouldn’t enter them unless they had a massive need, otherwise they were left to their own devices.
Just in from them was the turf that was a step back from this. While there were no Badge patrols, they would answer calls to the area or have operation within them. This kept violence down somewhat and people carried less overt guns, even if it wasn’t unheard of.
At the heart of London was the City of London. It was entirely corpo run. Badges went out in force there and scanned almost everyone. God help you if you didn’t belong; you had to actually be on a registry to be allowed to roam there. It had clean streets with posh and fancy parks, skyscrapers and high rises. It even had untrashed play areas.
Which I thought said a lot.
Around it were the well-patrolled boroughs and a new designation, only really just starting out, which we had taken to calling Tourist Traps. They were areas the Government and the tourist board were trying to clean up and make safe to draw in potential tourists.
Why they would want to come to London was anyone's guess. I certainly fucking wouldn’t.
Anyway, all these were located north of the Thames, with the only nice area south of it called the Clean Belt, which ran along the south side of the river. It had been cleaned up in preparation for the arcology becoming a new posh part of town.
It was where most of our gigs were. But not this one. We were moving into the land of high rollers with their fancy cars and… and other things rich people had. Whatever that was. Helicopters? Espresso coffee makers?
Either way, I had no interest in venturing into the truly ritzy roller's territory, with their private security and actual armoured tanks. Who needed one of them to guard an office anyway?
More than anything I didn’t think we were skilled enough for it, and even if we were, we definitely did not have the equipment.
That went for me most of all.
My cyberdeck was solid, but I had had it for 5 years by this point. And while the upgrades I had made over the years had helped, it was still severely lacking in power or memory to netrun in that area. Not to mention my programmes would be severely underpowered.
Cutting off the main street into a camera blind spot we had scouted the day before, we split up. Jess went to the entry point for the warehouse and Nat moved to have a clear line of sight for the alleyway. Kate stayed, helping me connect to my cyber deck and then covering me.
Diving in, I didn’t need to do much. Just disable the alarms to the windows on the roof and loop the cameras. That done I pinged Jess. Working with Jeff, even if it was only once or twice, had been preem. Even just being around him we had learned a lot. Nat had loved Jeff's system of sending codes over our agents. Even encrypted there was a risk and ours were most certainly not.
I had looked into ways to properly secure and encrypt them, but it wasn't worth the eddies quite yet. As we started doing bigger gigs, maybe it would be.
With my signal Jess sprang up onto the ventilation fans and up to a ledge, to shimmy up the rest of the building. She was fearless and far better than any of us. By a long shot. She had taken to parkour that Daniel had shown her in a big way.
While I could see the use of it, I was still dubious about how helpful it would truly be. But Jess loved it so that was enough for now.
Also, even discounting what Jess had just done, Daniel was only really teaching it to us for fighting. I hadn't understood at first, at least not until he had shown us a few DBs of what was possible in top-level cyber fights. Where people can jump, flip and dive around like they were one of Jess's anima characters she so loved.
That was where you needed to have an understanding of your surroundings and how to move through it.
This went doubly for Jess who wanted to be a close-range fighter. Watching her flow up the building, she truly made it look easy, which was the highest compliment from me, as it wasn’t. Nat was not too far behind her skill-wise, but Jess made it look effortless. To be fair, Kate was actually very good as well; if anything, she was more flowy than Jess, but had less skilled at navigating the terrain.
That reminded me to look at getting her dance lessons. I bet she would love them. They all might. Secretly I thought Nat might be best at it if she tried. She had a much better rhythm than the others, with a surprisingly good singing voice.
Anyway I had 2 left feet compared to them. I could get around but it did not look good. According to Daniel it looked like a wounded mule on ice. A colourful saying and one of my favourites of his.
As she reached the roof, she crouch-ran to the window. Pulling out a tool, she popped it open and wedged something to stop it from closing. Tying her thin rope to the bar we had spotted earlier, she gave us the signal and shimmied down.
Switching cameras I followed her through the dark warehouse to the box we were after. It was late but still light enough to see. Go light pollution. With the number of lights and advertising boards around, it was never truly dark. Although the warehouse windows were blacked out, limiting the light. The main patch of light was coming from the now propped-open window.
Still, her cybereyes were more than up to the task.
She slipped the box into her black rucksack and scurried back up the rope. Shutting the window behind her, she hid her entry as best she could before joining us.
Gig complete.
We dropped the package off at one of the secure drop-off points, let Darrel know, and headed home. It still seemed risky leaving it there but they were like Fort Knox. Or at least how I imagined Fort Knox to be like. Unsurprisingly, I had never seen what it was actually like. But maybe one day.
---
We got back to our little corner to celebrate. It was decidedly empty by this point.
Most of our stuff had been moved out by now and anything that remained we didn’t care about losing, including the lumpy mattress we had slept on for years.
You would not be missed, even if you served us well.
All the valuables had already been moved to our new home and sealed in the basement. There were still several months until construction of the house was done, and months more to furnish it.
But the place was secure now, with all the windows and doors on. They didn’t have the greatest locks but we would find some that were worth it. Those I looked at were just too expensive. The external façade had been put up so it looked like any other of the buildings around it. Daryl had even gone above and beyond in making the exterior look worn so it wouldn’t stand out. I mean, the locals would know, the plastic-coated scaffolding around the plot was a giveaway that some work had been done, but just driving past it, it wouldn’t be immediately obvious it was new.
And with the façade up, it no longer looked like an Egyptian fortress, what with the pyramid shape.
The main reason we hadn't yet moved in was the plumbing and electronics. They were still down and therefore had no working bathrooms. Surprisingly, none of us fancied that, not when we could stay at the relatively stable gang. Although ‘relatively’ was doing a lot of heavy lifting by this point.
Over the last year I'd kept expecting it to fall apart and yet Adrian was doing a champion job at holding it together. We were definitely on the outside of the gang now, and I think we were only reluctantly accepted. But we still paid our dues, kept out of the way and guarded Calum.
Most of the firm didn’t want to sit back and instead charge forward to gain glory or whatever. As far as I could see, the only thing they got was a quick death, but who am I to judge?
Our new home would be amazing. I couldn’t be more excited about it. Finally, a place of our own, away from the body odour of other people, their noise and just general clutter.
Our own bathroom and toilets. Ohh it was going to be ace.
As we entered I could feel Niel's eyes on us while we walked past. I wasn’t the only one; the twins stiffened. I did not like the way he looked at them. Not one bit. I understood to an extent. They were gorgeous and just growing into their own.
At 6,4 fully visible chromed arms, legs and face, Niel cut an intimidating sight. Him and his boys, almost a dozen in number, had quickly grown to be the largest group and dwarfed Adrian's faction. Most of the gang looked up to him by this point.
Never thought I would say it, but Adrian was most definitely preferable to him.
Adrian had the quality even if not the numbers, with most of his crew going to the Forge when they had time. But Niels people had the numbers, chrome and meanness on their side. Taking after Niel himself, who was an unpleasant violent thug. All of Billy's worst tendencies taken to the max.
He was a hammer and everything looked like a nail; as a result, casualties were a guarantee when he was fighting, not all of them came from the enemy. He had a nasty habit of friendly fire.
Yes, he was a chrome jock of the highest order and one I was disgusted by. If he wasn’t careful he would need to have a fatal accident. I still might when we left. It shouldn’t be too hard to organise. While he was heavily chipped in, they weren't quality products.
Besides, turnabout was fair play. Those who stood up to him seemed to have an accident in the next gig. We made sure to stay well out of his way.
Just a few more weeks and months. Almost there. Then we are free, although I might do Adrian a favour and kill Niel on the way out.
We were all tinkering with our own stuff, Nat cuddling up to me, reading an explosives manual she found somewhere and I was fine-tuning some ICE, when I had a thought. "Kate, any news on the last of the supplies we need for home? You mentioned you might have a lead, right? Or did I make that up?"
"No, you didn't. But it is still a maybe. It has taken a while to sort out, but I am hopeful." Kate said, the golden glow fading from her eyes as she turned to me.
"Really that’s preem news. Go on, spill the beans."
"Yeah!" Jess said, perking up. "Like, give us the deets." She sprang up and bounced over from where she had been doing her yoga.
A rather distracting sight.
Laughing and pushing her off, Kate said. "I had a tip off about a shipment coming in that would fit us to a T. But it is coming into port."
"Ohh." I said, sighing, so out of our reach then. I would not allow us to risk that. We could wait for the right opportunity to come to us.
Kate nodded understandingly at me. "That is what I thought as well. But it's not London City but Surrey Keys."
"Hmmm. That is more doable, but even so… "
"I don’t think it would be worth it." Nat said, rolling her eyes at Jess as she threw her a look of betrayal.
Kate ignored Jess and pulled up some deets on her agent, her eyes flickering blue as she did. "Agreed. However the fixer gave me a bit of information. The Los No Muertos are planning to hit it soon as well. That was what I was checking out, and it seems legit. The timings would work out perfectly for us."
I didn’t recognise the name, which was rare. I tried to stay on top of them all, at least the big ones and to hit any port in London implied that they were. "They are?"
"They're psychos. They're a dorph gang and use human wave tactics. Their favourite strategy is to kidnap people off the streets, drug them into a rage and then send them at the target. The actual members then mop up. It makes them very strong for such a small gang."
They're allowed to live? I would have expected them to step on someone's toes and get squished.
"And you want us to go near them?" I asked, eyebrow raised. I knew Kate wasn’t suicidal.
"Yes and no. I know where they are going to attack and have a good idea for when. They will hit the south entrance in a few weeks, which lines up with when the shipment we want will be there. It could be the perfect distractions."
"And how credible is this info?" Nat asked thoughtfully. I could see her mind already turning it over, planning.
"They've not been quiet about it. They've also been actively 'recruiting'."
"I'm still not sure it is worth it." I said. Hitting any of the ports would get major corpo attention. Even if it was a smaller port. I still didn’t want any attention on us. We weren't ready for that sort of heat. We still hadn't sorted out our fake identities.
"I think we should scope it out." Jess said.
Of course she did. I was about to refute her when Nat blinked, coming back to us and nodded.
"I agree. We should have a look. See if it is possible and what we would need to complete it."
"But how would we move it or even pay for it?" I asked again. It really seemed like a risk we didn’t need, not yet anyway. Better to do it the right way. Be patient and when we were ready, I was all for it. It would be pretty cool to do after all.
"What about the other shipments? We could use them as collateral. Take an extra one and use that as payment. Do we have the rest of the shipment?" Jess asked.
"Not yet. That will get sent over later today when I send him the last of the eddies."
I looked at the girls who were all looking at me expectantly and sighed.
"Okay. Once we have that we can look and scope the place. If the plan still isn't good enough, I am putting a plug in it tho."
"Wooo. Port heist!" Jess started to do a little jig, already celebrating. "Maybe we can steal a ship as well. Like Luffey!" she said, with stars in her eyes.
Wait, they were actual stars. Gonk. I shook my head at her, smiling. She grinned back, incredibly pleased with herself.
"How would we move it though. We can't use local Transit Rats."
"No, but I asked Jeff, and he put me in touch with the nomad fixer who might have some people able to do it. But they won't be cheap." Kate said, grimacing slightly.
"Hmm, hold off for now, let's scope the place out first and then maybe we could go with Jess's idea and pay them with a crate."
---
It was late afternoon a couple of days later by the time we got a chance to check the place out.
Kate had also set up a meeting with the mercs the fixer had recommended. We would see how they and the port looked before we committed to it. It had taken longer to get to looking the port over than I would have liked, but I had an op I wanted to be a part of.
It was a full arm conversion which was rarer and in all honesty, probably shouldn't have been done in Pete's place, but instead at a full hospital or at least a better ripperdoc. We almost lost the gonk 6 or 7 times before we finished. If I was being immodest, I would say he lived in large part because of me.
Any full conversion was complicated; just replacing a hand or part of the arm was easy, but the full arm, shoulder joint and all. Very delicate work. It also required strengthening the entire frame, particularly with strong cyberarms. Otherwise it would just rip itself off whenever it tried to exert itself. I had seen it happen a time or two. Not a pretty sight.
I had more or less gained everything I wanted from Pete and was pretty much waiting for our home to be done so we would have somewhere safe to store the equipment when we croaked him. To be fair, I probably should have stopped months, maybe even a year ago by this point. But it brought in some eddies and things were calm. Besides, I had a clever plan, so what was the harm in waiting?
Unlike London Port, located right next to the city airport, Surrey Keys was much smaller, both in scale and importance. So, and importantly for us, it had much weaker security.
Even so it was fucking massive, taking up most of the inner bend of the southern river bank. The north and west sides flush to the riverbank and with the turrets guarding it, that was completely out.
Around the docks were the huge loading cranes and a sea of warehouses and stacked up shipping containers, some piles reaching as high as 20/30m. Around the entire compound, even the side directly abutting the river, had 2 thick concrete walls with a further 2 wire fences around that. We couldn’t tell, but it was a safe bet the wire would be electrified and the walls reinforced, so you couldn’t just drive a truck through it.
Apart from the cameras and copious security turrets there was constant security. Luckily most defences were situated around the 2 main entrances of the facility. Although there were roving guards, who, according to our preliminary research, had set patrols. Each group seemed to move along the same paths anyway.
The two entrances were to the south and west of the port, leading onto several major roads that would take you to the major arteries of the city. That left most options pretty limited. There was a road that skirted the north bank, which we could use from the west. But that would require getting through said walls and fences.
From there, it would be entering into the maze of small roads that spread throughout the port.
Their net security was good… kind of. It was powerful if one-dimensional. It was exclusively geared to fight off large-scale assaults. Which was ideal if I was going in metaphysically guns blazing, but was much less effective to a stealthy assault.
So I was confident I could get in; if I was discovered I was in a world of hurt, but I knew I could do it.
The surrounding area west and south of the port were brick terraced houses or further warehouses, most of which were no longer in use. What with the world trade stalling from the corporate wars. The thing in the best condition were the roads.
Finding a hidey hole within range was easy and we ended up in a ditch next to the buzzing fence. My trousers were instantly soaked through as I crouched down. The steady drizzle made sneaking easier sure, but I was soaked through. My coat was not as waterproof as it once was.
When I was in, I whistled to myself. The first impressions of the net were impressive.
Gone were the tron-like grids that I normally dealt with. No, this net architecture had the power behind it to create something that lived up to the name of data fortress. That meant there were a lot of servers and power within it. That and they hadn't cheaped out and had bought one of the better quality architectures.
This allowed the designer to get creative and make it as they like. It went without saying that this also meant the datawalls protecting the fortress would be much stronger as well.
In times past, when the World Wide Net was still a thing, the region you were making your fortress in influenced the design. It was thought to be from some bleed-through from the data around it. For example, if I were setting up a fortress in the EEC region, so anywhere in Europe, the design would look far more medieval. Think castles, old towns, cathedrals and so on. Your design might be futuristic, but the aesthetics would still bleed through.
That was no longer a thing of course.
So the designer of this one was obviously a history nut and a bit of an edgelord.
Before me was a massive gothic citadel of black stone, covered in gargoyles. Searchlights dotted up on the walls were constantly moving around searching the floor for intruders and up on the walls, demons and other ICE patrolled.
As I said, incredibly resistant to assaults, but I should be able to slip in easily. With the architecture more realistic I would need to search the structure for the file I needed rather than just going down levels or cycling through nodes until I got what I wanted.
I made sure my programmes were rezed correctly and watched. The spotlights seemed to move randomly at first. But I knew there was no such thing as truly random for machines, I just had to spot the pattern. It took 5, maybe 10 minutes until I spotted it. Another few to make sure and then I took a deep breath in real space and shot forward.
Charging into a group of searchlights, which from the outside looked to be the worst place to move in from. But all the other areas that looked less covered didn't have a clear path to the wall. As I reached them, they separated, each moving in different directions and leaving me a path between them.
I didn’t stop until I slammed into the walls of the fortress. I could feel a bead of sweat trickle down my back. Now at the first data wall, I unleashed my breaching ICE. I could feel my heart pounding away as the ICE slowly worked its way in, but I couldn’t keep the grin of my face. A beep of the ICE and then I was in.
I found myself at a crossroads, with several corridors branching off in all directions.
With no nodes to drop to and not enough skill to step through the constraints of the corridors, I would need to follow them, searching each room I came across. This was the first time I had seen anything like it, even if I knew of it. It had pros and cons.
The pros were that if it wasn’t set up perfectly, I could slip all the way to the heart of the net without fighting anything. The cons were the opposite. I could stumble on a node I wasn’t prepared for. Like one moment I could be facing minor threats at the edge of the fortress, the next I could be facing several black ICE at the very heart of the net.
More advanced nets could even have ICE patrolling the corridors, although this didn’t seem to be one as I was alone. Still, I didn’t move and activated another ICE, [Smokescreen]. As the name suggested, it filled the node with smoke, so I waited patiently, allowing my ICE to fill the corridors and rooms before I moved forward. I temporarily had to pause now and again to allow the smoke to further propagate; it could only reach so far before it ran out of steam.
It would reduce the aggro of any ICE I came across; hopefully, combined with my Invisibility, it would stop me from being detected. It might have slowed me down but slow is fast and fast is smooth and all that. I couldn’t risk attracting attention in a place like this. There had to be a runner defending it, or if not actively nearby enough to hop on at a moment's notice.
With no real idea of where I was going, I started wandering aimlessly. Picking the right corridor because why not and then quickly changing my mind. It seemed like the fortress did have patrolling ICE. The left corridor it was.
I sculked along it, poking my head into the various nodes as I went. Most were uninteresting to me, or not worth the effort or risk in gaining control over them. For example the fire alarm system wasn’t worth my time, while the intruder alarm might have been, if it wasn’t for the dozen or so ICE guarding it.
The first node that showed promise was a node that had a looking glass within. Marching in front of it was a [Bulldog].
By the looking glass icon, it was the cameras which would be helpful to gain control over. With the [Bulldog] it might not have been worth it, but I could see it was an old model. Like any government, it cut corners where it could, so had clearly not updated the ICE.
That made it a relatively safe thing to defeat and it might help in our planning.
I crept into the room, keeping close to the wall. There wasn’t an obvious line in the ground where the ICE's detection range was, so I had to guess, as not all programmes were made equal. I got as close as I dared, then rezed my remaining programmes. The [Killer III] appeared next to me at the same time as the [Muffle] took effect.
The [Cerberus] passed clearly sensing something, but by then it was too late.
After a decidedly one-sided fight, my [Cystal Ball] took control over the terminal and I had access to the cameras. It was only some of them, unfortunately. Luckily it was the most important ones for me, giving me a good perspective over the entire shipyard.
I could clearly see cameras like those around the front gate that I didn’t have control over.
With them under control, I moved on.
As I walked the digital corridors, I started to record the cameras to my agent so we could review them later. Each time the file size grew too big, it was saved and went into my chip. The first few I sent to the girls so they could look while they waited.
A dozen or so rooms later and I still hadn't found what I was looking for. If I was assaulting the place they would have been, like the turrets. But for now I ignored them. Maybe I could take control of the mainframe? But first the data.
At traversing maybe 30% of the fortress, I ducked out of the path of a patrolling ICE and recoiled in surprise.
Well shit, let's hope the data we needed isn't in here. The room looked like a library, with scrolls stacked in groaning shelves. That would have been fine, if it wasn’t for the large number of ICE patrolling the room. A big problem.
Even a few of them were well outside my capabilities, let alone as a whole. At least stealthily at any rate.
Moving on, the next room made my blood freeze. At the back of the throne room was the throne and the control point for the mainframe, the heart of the net architecture. Curled up in front of it, almost face to face with me, was a [Cerberus]. A programme of similar danger as the [Hellhound], worse maybe. The programme twitched, detecting something was wrong, but thankfully the smoke was cloaking me.
I hastily backed up. Fuck tangling with that. It was one of the nastiest programmes around. Unlike many of the rooms ICE, this was pristine, clearly having recently been updated, with none of the weaknesses of older models.
Three nodes later, I struck hopeful gold. Another room stacked with scrolls, just far fewer of them and even better, poorly defended.
A few moments later the [Krash], a weak ICE that attacked a deck's CPU, was destroyed and the room was safe. Interacting with the scroll, I scanned through the data contained within. After the first few records it was clear why the room wasn’t particularly protected. It was only a part of the database. The data just contained the unique ID for the record and the location within the shipyard where it would be stored.
Anything that could be identified like the ship's name or contents weren't there.
I sighed, a bust. I would need to keep looking. Wait. Maybe I didn’t need to.
I focused back in meat space, my cybereyes flicked, showing the real world more clearly. In my left eye, I could still make out cyberspace, but it was no longer in sharp focus.
"Kate, did the information the fixer gave us contain any unique codes?"
"I think so. Let me look… Errrmmm… Yeah here."
I received a file from her. Opening it within my agent I saw exactly what I needed. "Perfect thanks."
Once more my eyes shifted and cyberspace came back into sharp focus. With the new information my [BackupTDM] made quick work of the gigabytes of data to find the shipping containers I was looking for. I didn’t have some important information like what they contained, arrival times or anything like that, just the location they would be moved to and when they were to be unloaded.
Not great, as I wanted to corroborate the fixer's information. It was part of the reason we were there.
But at least the 4 containers promised were there. They could be full of shit, but they were there. I didn’t expect them to be. A fixer that gave out bad info quickly lost rep and wasn’t long for that line of work.
Reputation was everything to them.
Unfortunately I spotted another issue. The containers would be stored right next to the main gates. Normally a good thing, but it would be far too close to the Los No Muertos for my liking.
Not to mention with half a dozen other crates stacked on top.
Still, I had some of the information I needed. I could change where they were moved to here, so that wasn’t a large problem. I didn’t fancy exploring much more of the net, already feeling like I was pushing my luck. So we would just have to trust the fixer at this point.
I stored what data I had on my datachip and then retreated from the net. Heaving a sigh of relief when I was out I checked with the girls and we moved out as one. As soon as I left the net we lost control over the cameras but that wasn’t an issue.
"Can we swing past our new place on the way back?" Jess asked.
"Good plan." I said.
"It had been a few weeks since we had last seen it."
---