Birds Of A Feather, Chapter 2.10

2.10

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My alarm woke me at three thirty in the morning, and I sighed as I got up from bed.

It was a terrible time to be awake, after all.

Still, needs must.

I got dressed quickly, and grabbed a few fruits to eat so that my stomach wouldn’t be empty. I left the building ten minutes after I woke, slipping out through the back since I could still feel the weight of attention on it from the vague direction of where the catgirl had been last night.

It wasn’t... quite the same, though. It was likely that the original catgirl had been relieved by another member of Danger Gal.

Oh well. It didn’t really matter to me, but I didn’t particularly feel like being bothered this early, so I made sure to avoid attention as I headed off.

The tracking beacon that I had installed on the car had provided plenty of data for me to use. Mostly, it let me know how far my targets were ranging, and the answer, it turned out, was ‘not that much’. Overlaid on a map in the city, most of the activity was limited to a small section of Santo Domingo, though I noticed that there were a few spikes that took them out towards specific places that, after checking, turned out to mostly be either restaurants, Bodegas, or other small stores.

Evidently, people had favourites, and they were willing to go out of their way to get what they wanted.

Aside from that, however, the car had been parked at a specific location at nine last night, and it had stayed there ever since.

Obviously, that was where I made my way towards, ducking through the streets and avoiding attention through bursts of speed and agility. It didn’t take me very long to arrive at my destination, and I stopped for a moment to examine it from the shadows of an alleyway.

It was, technically, on the Arroyo side of the divide between the two districts. That meant that it fit fairly well into the buildings around it, tall and somewhat decrepit from age and a lack of maintenance. Nevertheless, there were art tags on the walls, showing stylised faces that were formed entirely of a metallic silver spray-paint. Hardly subtle, but what else would you expect from a group of people who went around with literal silver faces as their fashion statement?

It was certainly less obscenely obvious than some other groups of people around the city. The Bozos, for example.

Much like a lot of other buildings in Arroyo, though, it had a fair distance between it and its surrounding buildings, and there were cameras watching every direction along the streets. Active, and new, I noted.

Netrunner support, or just relatively well-equipped techies?

I suppose it didn’t matter at this point.

There were a few cars around, though I could sense enough people inside that there was a little over three and a half people per car, so it was fairly likely that a decent chunk of them lived either inside the building or close enough to it that they’d just walked.

I hummed.

Right. Well, I wouldn’t be coming in through the front door or any of the side entrances without alerting them, and I would prefer not to wake the neighbourhood with the sounds of gunshots this early in the morning. It would be inconsiderate.

Fortunately, the ground wasn’t the only way in.

I took a few steps back, before hunching slightly. My Lifeforce pulsed through my skin as I marshalled my power, and I waited for the opportunity I could sense coming.

Now.

I jumped.

I went far faster than such a small movement should have been able to produce, shooting directly up the side of the building that I was hiding next to. Three floors were cleared in a moment, and I reached out to grab the edge of the building’s roof as I came up to it. Physics spun me over the edge, and I landed in a crouch, taking a moment to look where I intended to go before I pushed off again.

This jump took me straight over the street, a simple, slight arc leading me to land on the roof of the building that served as the gang’s main base.

I landed and swept forwards, rising when I reached the wall of the rooftop stairwell and leaning against it.

A moment passed. A camera on the other corner of the door to the stairwell whirred, gently, as it swept back in the other direction, towards the door. It didn’t see me, and no alarms went off, and soon the camera turned away again.

I darted out quickly, reaching into my robe and withdrawing a trio of small nanomachine masses. I pressed two against the top and bottom of the door, and both quickly made their way towards the hinges on the opposite side. The third was pressed against the lock, before I quickly moved back to my original position.

The camera whirred as it moved this way. The camera whirred as it moved the other way.

I was utterly silent as I moved out again, using the back of my talon to push down on the handle of the door. It opened, with a noise that would have been barely audible to anyone listening, and was certainly much more quiet than it would have been without my nanomachines making sure that the hinges and locks were properly silent.

I ducked through, having to crouch significantly, and closed it behind me.

Infiltration, successful.

I turned, holding one hand out towards the lock and the other hand out towards the lower hinge. Silvery metal oozed from them, gathering in my palms before condensing into solid masses again, shortly rejoined by the third mass on the upper hinge.

There were no cameras or guards in the stairwell, but I could hear the low din of voices from further below. The second floor, I was fairly certain.

But I could still sense life on the third.

I moved down, silent, keeping an eye out for any surprises. There weren’t any, the interior just as rundown as the exterior, and it had evidently been excluded from whatever security updates the outside had gone through. There was a trio of wires going through the centre of the stairwell, leading downwards from the third floor. One power cable and two data cables.

I ignored them as I reached the third floor. The door wasn’t in a great condition, but just like the one upstairs, it opened inwards, so it was at least easier to put the nanomachine masses on the hinges and locks.

I opened it a few seconds later, and found myself greeted by an area that had probably been a series of offices at some point, but which had since been converted into a loft.

There was a big, open area to start with. A whole bunch of tables and couches were arranged all over the place, forming a bit of a messy, yet lived-in space. Old boxes of pizza, noodles, and other food had been piled up in a few places, showing that it didn’t get cleaned up nearly as much as it should have. A makeshift ‘kitchen’ was in the corner, though it consisted entirely of several microwaves and an oven that I doubted had been used in years judging from the layer of oil and dust that covered the control panel. There was a sink, though, and a couple dishes and plates that had been left on a drying rack next to it alongside a bunch of knives and forks.

On nearly the exact opposite side of the room was a setup that had clearly been intended for a Netrunner’s use. A raised table with inbuilt heat exchangers for helping to keep a Netrunner cool. Not quite an ice bath setup, but I’d wager it was a good deal more comfortable for day-to-day usage. It was connected to a series of servers pushed against the wall, their lights blinking steadily with activity. More wires connected to a router placed on top, and then fed into walls, ducked under carpets, and went under doors. One of those wires went into the stairwell.

On the couch next to the chair, a man whose silver face was sculpted in such a way that it came off looking very young was sprawled out, well and truly lost in the depths of sleep. The rather form-fitting suit that he was wearing, and the visible, extensive array of Interface Plugs on his neck made it fairly obvious that he was the Netrunner.

There was a door to a bedroom, left open. Nobody was inside.

My eyes went back to the Netrunner. Short. Hands dipped in red, but not as much as one might expect.

Hmm.

I moved towards the Netrunner, one of my Autgents floating out of my robes soundlessly. A scan initiated, and for once, I suppressed the light show that normally came with it.

A Cyberarm, with a Cyberdeck built into it. Not uncommon. More than that... A decent supply of internal Cyberware. Biomonitor, Internal Hardened Shielding -That was actually quite expensive, but a good investment-, and... an Autoinjector.

Something to help keep him alive if he ever ran into something particularly bad while Netrunning, no doubt. Still, a vulnerability if anybody happened to be able access his Cyberware. A few of the chemicals already prepared were fast-acting soporifics, which was perfect for me.

The Autgent floated closer, before connecting to one of the Interface Ports. The Netrunner jerked awake, and my hand clamped over his mouth before he could make any noise.

And with direct hardware access? Well...

He struggled, for a moment, but the Autoinjector had already activated. It didn’t take long before he went past dreamland and into a short coma.

I let him go, and he slumped back down onto the couch. He wasn’t going to wake up any time soon.

Major problem number one, out of the way.

And, more importantly, I still had access to his systems.

I brought up a hologram, and checked it out.

The local NET Architecture was clearly custom, but not particularly complicated, even by non-Chozo standards. It wouldn’t have been very difficult even if I didn’t have the administrator’s hardware and software. Cameras were connected, which was nice. There was one downstairs, watching over the gathering, and I took a peak through it.

Fifteen people. Silver faces, one and all. Twelve men, three women. The biggest man was the leader, and he had clearly gone through extensive cyberisation. All limbs, bones, skin that was mostly dark grey except for the face. Fully body Subdermal Plating... One of the women was like that, too, and she was notably larger than average in a way that spoke of deliberate choice.

On a table, a picture of my building was present, printed on several sheets that had been stapled together until it was large enough to cover most of the table. There was another picture, this one of me, and it looked like it had come from one of my public walks when I’d been acquiring my ID and bank account. In true Tough Guy fashion, there was a knife sticking through it, pinning it to the table.

Some people.

What else could I access?

I sent a ping through the network, and several things responded. Turrets, down on the first floor, currently inactive and without any line of sight to anyone. They’d be a rude surprise to anyone who came in through the front door uninvited, though. It took me only a few seconds to corrupt their operating systems beyond hope of recovery, leaving them permanently disabled.

I had access to lights and speakers, but all of the most dangerous people in the room likely weren’t going to be bothered by anything that they could do. Dazzle protection wasn’t uncommon for optics, nor low-light vision.

Some of the gangers had Agents, internal or otherwise, that had connected to this network automatically. This was... not extremely useful, honestly.

Conclusion?

There’d be no coup de grâce that would take them all out nice and simply. That... was fine, to be honest.

I stood up, and rolled my shoulders.

I had plenty of other options.