Freezing Shadows, Chapter 45

Have something to do tomorrow, so chapter now.

Chapter 45: Meeting

Soon enough, Basilisk slithered back into the room, followed a moment later by a drone pushing a cart with what had to be twenty kilos of plastic explosives, along with detonators, several spools of wire, and a trigger device. A quick look said that these were the baseline plastic explosives, with each kilo being roughly equal to a kilo of TNT, but easier to handle, thanks to them only going off when you hit them with the right amount of electricity.

The whole lot came out to just over 7500 nucred, since we negotiated it down to a bit over wholesale price. Berzerker picked up the tab for this one, and we set about loading the goods while Boomer went to get what gear she was going to be bringing with her. The ride back to our temporary base at the Taylor Inn was a bit cramped, since adding a big snake to the van took up some space, but thankfully she could coil about the explosives, so it wasn’t too bad.

We hadn’t taken too long, so Twilight was still busy probing the Nightelligence Solutions mainframe when we got back, but Babydoll was there to greet us. For convenience’s sake, we took over Sexkitten and Shadowgirl’s room for a brief ‘getting to know you’ meeting, while Twilight listened in from the tridscreen on the wall, projecting her avatar (which looked like a Magical Girl) so people had something other than a disembodied voice to talk to when they wanted to speak to her.

“Oh, wow, ssso you’re really doing the full harem thing?”

Boomer was as eager for gossip as anyone would be, in this situation, it seemed. I just shrugged, and said, “That’s just how things played out. The girls are fine with sharing, and I don’t have any reason to turn down an attractive woman who wants some fun. Everyone here’s an adult, and we all make sure to have open and honest communication. At least, we do now that Twilight admitted how she feels.”

“Master! Please stop telling the new person unnecessary things.”

I chuckled at that, but decided to let things drop and change the subject. “How far along are you, Twilight?”

“Give me a few more hours. Then, I’ll compile a Crack sprite and boost my Stealth complex form to help me do the initial login to the server. If that goes well, I should be able to set up someone to go in as a maintenance crew, to cut the hardwire link between the lab and main security. That will kill the intercom, and prevent the security office from getting alerts. I’ll also be ready to set up the spoofed feeds from fake biomonitors, so the system doesn’t realize the guards are down.”

Babydoll nodded. “I took the liberty of ordering a few burner commlinks while we were waiting. The kind you can just pick up off the shelf at Stuff Hut, and get delivered by app if you’re too lazy to go get it yourself. So, we’re covered there. And I’ve already wiped them down, so no fingerprints or anything.”

Shadowgirl was the next to chime in. “I’ll be the one to go and do the sneak work. Sexkitten is the only other one with some ‘thief’ training, and she’s way too noticeable for an uptight place like a corporate headquarters.”

“I have your sizes, Shadowgirl. Once I get looped in, I’ll have an ID and uniform made for you. Unfortunately, you’ll probably need to do a whole shift as a janitor, to avoid rousing suspicions. But it will allow you to go most places in the building.”

“That works for me. I haven’t gotten to do any real ‘social infiltration’ work, yet. The only other infiltration we’ve done was the studio, and that was full stealth, not going in with a disguise. So, removing as many problems as possible will help.”

“Well, sssince we’re moving into talking about the job, perhapsss I can know more about what we’re doing? Ssso far, I only know that we’re going to be blowing up a lab in a ssskyssscraper, and don’t want the whole thing to come down on top of usss. Sssome more information would be good. At leassst ssso I can make better plansss.”

“The big snake makes a point, boss,” Babydoll said with a grin. “Want to do the honors and tell her?”

I chuckled, and said, “Might as well.” So, I went into a timeline of what we were doing here, starting with the Monsanto job that turned into sending us against a dragon and then a corp strike team trying to kill us.

“Frag me, ssso those ssstoriesss on the forum, about sssomeone trying to take out a dragon in the Vancouver ssserver were because of you? I was sssure that sssomeone was jussst making thingsss up!”

“No, and it was a surprise to us, I can assure you. We didn’t go for the killing blow, or take trophies, for reasons I’m sure you can guess. After that, we did a job for Alisha to get an introduction to someone who could clear the air and make sure the dragon didn’t come after us, and they’re the ones sending us on this little trip to Detroit.”

“Don’t suppose you can tell me about the job for Alisha? ‘Aunt Basilisk’ told me a couple things about her, back when she was active, but I haven’t had a chance to really build networks, yet.”

“I would say that you’re better off not knowing, but I know that nagas are dual-natured, so you can see the astral and the real world at the same time, which means you’re going to see some things, whether you want to or not. We ran into some of the deep nasties, stuff that the admins definitely hid from us during the beta. Keep away from anyone or anything connected to the Brotherhood of Unity, and if you see someone that looks human in the meat but like a bug in the astral, keep way fucking clear, unless they’re a mantis.”

“Ssso, what, they’re ssspiritsss? Or sssome new twissst on the Infected, like ghoulsss?”

“Spirits. But from further… away than any you or I can call on, so they’re even more alien than most spirits, and they view people as nothing more than meat sacks to wear as a coat. Only somewhat decent ones are the mantids, because they eat the others. Means they might be good backup if you find a group of the other sort, and can convince the mantids to play ball. Otherwise, just stay away from all of them. And don’t spread the word too much, especially on the matrix. You were in the beta, so you know what it means if something that isn’t corporate or government has absolutely no negative mentions about it on the Matrix.”

“Aww, fuck. That’sss sssome heavy shit, then. Yesss, I sssaw a few things in the beta where sssomeone did a deep clean on sssomething, ssscrubbed everything from the Matrix. Lossst my first hacker character to one of those cleanersss. If it isss like that, I’ll keep clear.”

“Right. So, once we got done with that gig, Alisha got us an introduction with another dragon. Corpo snatch team grabbed one of the people under her protection, brought them to Nightelligence, and so she wants them back, or avenged, and the lab wrecked with the data burnt. Ideally, we do it all without getting the entire corporate security force after us, and get back to Seattle.”

“Wait, the corporation thought ssstealing from a dragon wass a good idea?”

“My reaction exactly. Especially since this dragon is one of the ‘known’ ones. Anyone with a connection to the area knows the dragon controls that part of Redmond, but whoever greenlit that op didn’t care. Or, they thought that they could avoid consequences, somehow. Either way, our job is to get the target back, and make sure the corp doesn’t profit from their actions.”

“All right,” Boomer nodded. “In that cassse, the bessst way to ssset up the charges isss probably to ssspread them around the labsss, focusssing on any important equipment. Enclosed ssspacesss will amplify the blassst, meaning that we won’t need as much boom to make thingsss happen. Do you have a ssstructural breakdown of the lab?”

“No. We have the rough shape, and the fact that it is in the basement, along with the fact that they’ve hardened it to be a faraday cage, blocking any signals in or out. So, we’re going in blind, unfortunately, which is part of the reason Basilisk recommended you to us.”

“Any ressstrictionsss on what you do or do not want blown up?”

“Just the bit about not bringing down the whole building. So, probably keep away from the structural supports for the building, but anything else is fine, I think. The client doesn’t care about collateral, but we are definitely not getting paid enough to get a AAA megacorp looking to take a skyscraper out of our hides, you know?”

“For sssure. Sssome thingsss are bessst left to the normal gamesss, not onesss like thisss.”

“You know, Boomer,” Sexkitten asked, “you mentioned before that being a snake was ‘ok’, but doesn’t that hissing thing you’re doing get annoying?”

“Oh! Thisss? It isss a filter put on my ssspeech automatically by the Sssyssstem. It sssoundsss and feelsss normal to me, you know? Like how your tail feelsss like it isss part of you, now? Or how thessse two,” she pointed to Shadowgirl and myself with her snout, don’t make a fussssss about their pointy earsss. It took sssome getting usssed to at the ssstart, but the sssyssstem did a pre-load area, like in the beta, for anyone who wasss far from ‘bassse ssstructure’, ssso that they would not trip over their feet and fall into traffic the moment they ssstepped into the world. Of course, after your firssst time in any new body type, you can alwaysss ssskip that part.”

“Oh, they brought that forward, then?” I asked. “Good, that was one of the things that really helped me, when I was first doing some of the beta tests. Relearning how to walk took a bit, the first time, but after I was adjusted, I skipped that, unless I was changing more than just that, like going troll, or having different equipment, and things like that.”

“Oh, yeah,” Boomer nodded. “I sssaw the interviewsss you did. I’m glad you found a way to cope. Mossst people would have been crushed if they’d lost their legsss in an accident.”

“Heh,” I chuckled. “Crushed is a good way to put it. But, that brought me to MetaTech’s attention, and is why I was made a tester for both the Beta, and the long-term pod. So, would you have been anyone I’d have heard about? I know character names got reset a few times during the beta, but everyone used the same forum handles throughout.”

“Yeah, actually, you might sssay that,” Boomer ducked her head in the way that I was quickly coming to realize was the naga version of blushing. “You actually gave me a shout-out during your interview, the one with HarryManGaming. Because I knew sssome game hissstory.”

“Oh, wow, FlickerKat?” She nodded, and I continued, looking at the rest of the team. “FlickerKat, here, is one of the ones who helped decide on the VRMMUSH title for Shadowmen and games like it.” Looking back at the serpent, I chuckled. “Weren’t you the one who made most of your character catgirls in the beta? Why change it up now?”

“Because I knew that a lot of people were going to be doing things like that, and I wanted to try something different. Going to a new city in real life, might as well try a new character type, too, right? I thought about doing one of the Infected, or a Shifter, but decided against it. Too troublesome, you know?”

Sexkitten grinned. “So, now we have two people from the beta in our circle? Looks like we’re really going places, now!”