Birds Of A Feather, Chapter 2.9

2.9

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The day continued to pass. Lunch came and went. The catgirl keeping an eye on my building moved only to stay out of the sun as it passed overhead, sticking to the shadows to try to avoid notice and sunburn both.

It was almost five when I started to feel a more malign attention fall upon the building. I sighed to myself, and opened the cameras.

It didn’t take me very long to find the source. A car, driving somewhat slowly, as it went past the street. Inside of the windows that were tinted illegally dark, somebody with a silver face stared out of it, at the front of the building.

These guys really did not know when to quit, did they? One thief, one attacker, and now they’re putting in the effort to investigate.

One would think that a gang would know better, but evidently, these guys either thought that they had a reputation to keep, or they were just morons. Possibly both.

The car continued down the street, before it went out of sight. A mental command dispatched a drone, one that was near the back of the building and out of direct line-of-sight to the catgirl. Off it went, staying low to the ground before going upwards near the side of a building, until it reached the roof and followed the edge of it to the corner.

Through its camera, I watched as the car continued for a little bit before eventually stopping at a moderately hidden area in the shade of a building. It pulled up, parked, and shortly afterwards, the back door on the driver’s side opened up.

A teenager stepped out. A boy, with not much more than cosmetic Cyberware on him. He looked... relatively normal, though there was such a comical amount of muscle on his frame that it looked more like he’d walked into a Bodysculpt clinic and had asked to be made to look intimidating, and hadn’t quite received a success.

He’d have been easily pegged as a YoGanger, and chances were, he probably had been one. Notably, however, that meant that he didn’t look like one of the Silver Faces.

He shut the door of the car, took a steadying breath, and then walked onto the street, heading towards my building.

Mmm.

I stood up, and walked out of the Clinic, closing and locking the door behind me. I left its glass opaque, with an orange glow on the status monitor that claimed, falsely, that somebody was already inside. Then, I moved into the back half of the hallway, before ducking into the staff room.

I took a moment to send a fabrication order to the Nanofactories at the same time, too.

The boy arrived before the order was finished, putting on a not-entirely-false awed look on his face as he walked into the Bodega and saw all the stuff that I had ready to go.

He stopped in the middle of the entrance, looking over the place and tasting the air as he did. His eyes, and head, went everywhere, lingering for a few seconds on each individual aisle, before he paused completely as he saw the two Autonnel that were manning the counter.

For nearly fifteen seconds, he just stood there, staring at them. One part curiosity, one part caution. Inevitably, he tore his gaze away, shaking his head as he moved on in.

He didn’t do an awful job of looking like a customer, and in other circumstances, he’d have been ignored completely. He went down an aisle, head on a swivel as he looked back and forth between both sides, eyes looking over the arrangement of products- and more. It was easy to see that he was looking out for cameras and sensors, because he had a tendency to focus on all the ones that he saw for a few seconds before continuing onwards with his examination.

My system informed me that the order I’d sent was finished, and I shifted my arm a little to allow an Autgent to emerge.

They were quieter than the rest of my drones, and much faster as well.

I created a new holoscreen for it, splitting my attention between the boy and the Autgent. The former continued to look around, but the latter quickly took off, heading to the stairwell and going down to grab what the Nanofactories had produced.

The Autgent was much faster than the boy, of course. The Autgent quickly floated over to a small section of darkly coloured, dull, and unreflective metal, and its outer plating shifted a little to pinch it and pick it up. I sent it upwards, flying up the centre of the stairwell to the middle floor. The garage door at the back opened just enough for it to fit through, and it flicked outside rapidly, moving low enough to the ground so that it stayed outside of the sight of the catgirl.

It picked up speed quickly, floating silently along as it headed towards where the car was parked.

The boy stopped in front of the candy section. His mouth opened slightly as he looked through them all, head bobbing up and down as he checked them all out.

The Autgent reached the car. It went low, approaching a combined blindspot and going underneath the car. It shifted, reorienting to push the edge of the metal section against the car’s undercarriage. After a moment, the section of metal shifted, twisting as it liquefied and started moving on its own, flowing up the undercarriage and fitting through the thin gaps.

The Autgent turned, and retreated just as quickly as it had come in the first place. It traced the same path backwards, and when it re-entered the building, the garage door closed quietly, without any sign that it had ever been open in the first place.

I shifted my robe open as it returned to me, and sat back to watch as the boy grabbed a single packet of confectioneries, and took it to the counter.

Blue greeted him with a typical “Hi, Hon!”, and quickly processed the sale. She sent him off with a “Bye, Hon!”.

Red acknowledged him, but steadfastly ignored his existence through the classical method of crossing arms and looking away.

The boy walked out.

He stood for a moment, before opening the packet, and trying out a raspberry sweet.

That look that crossed his face wasn’t fake at all.

It may very well have been the first time in his life that he’d ever had a confectionery, which... Well.

Either way, after a few seconds, he turned left, and headed towards the main door.

With only a plasma barrier in the way, he had no trouble walking in. The first thing he did was scan the hallway for cameras, of which none were visible. Apparently assured, he looked at the door to the clinic, noting the colours and the blocked, unclear glass.

He looked behind himself, at the entrance and outside of it, and, not seeing anyone in direct line of sight, leaned forward against the glass, bringing his hands up to try and block ambient light.

Unfortunately for him, it was just as opaque either way. He clearly noticed this, because he was scowling as he pulled back.

I watched as he moved on from there, heading in further along the hallway. His head turned left, first, still looking for cameras, and still not seeing any. With another glance behind him, he reached out and gave a slight push against the door to the staff area.

It didn’t respond, and so he ignored it to head left.

Of course, the only things waiting for him down there were the bathrooms. He clearly noticed, and didn’t bother wasting time after walking in and out of all of them.

With all of his scouting done, he turned and left, walking straight out the door and heading to the corner after that.

I hummed.

They were not going to give up. For now, it was scouting, an examination of what they were facing, but it would soon escalate even further than it already had..

I leaned back, closing my eyes as I concentrated upon my Sight.

The first man of the Silver Faces had been the brother of its current leader. They were not close, but the leader took a dim view of those who brought misfortune upon his brother, because he viewed it as an attack upon himself.

And the ganger’s failure to rob me wasn’t something the leader could accept. The fact that I’d just handed that guy over to the NCPD, especially, was something that he was undoubtedly viewing as an insult. That’s why he’d reacted so quickly by sending someone to cause even more problems.

Which I had then fed, unknowingly, even further by sending that guy off to the NCPD.

And now... Well.

Wounded pride. Lashing out in order to make examples for others, to show that they weren’t someone to be crossed, and assuage that pride in the process.

I had seen the results of that more times than I cared to count. It is a dangerous cycle, just not just for those who were caught up by it, but also by those who perpetuated it.

My eyes opened, and I released a breath of air.

Alright. It looks like I’ll be doing something about it, then. I hadn’t anticipated that I’d be heading out this early, but it wasn’t like I was somehow unprepared for it.

I stood up, sending a mental command to the door of the clinic. The orange shifted, fading into dimmer red, the glass shifting into a point that was about halfway towards transparent. Aside from that, though, it stayed locked.

It was close enough to six, after all.

Let’s See...

The shape of the future tonight is simple, and quiet. Tomorrow, though...

The tracker on their car leaves a blazing beacon for the path that I can take. It means that I do not have to search through an entire city’s worth of futures in order to narrow down theirs. They have already made their decisions, and there is not enough chaos to throw their choices off course.

My best opportunity is... unfortunately rather early in the morning. Four, to be specific. A very early meeting, where most of the leadership of the gang will be gathered in a single location. I could nip this in the bud, if I acted at the right moment and in the right manner.

It seems I’ll be going to bed early today.

Well. That means I’ll be skipping out on any personal stuff.

I made my way upstairs, and did a random, manual check on the garden. I felt the catgirl perk up, interested in finally seeing me... not quite in person, but at least with her own optics, if also through a pair of binoculars.

I didn’t acknowledge her, and nothing came of it, so I quickly ended up going back downstairs.

I wasted no time in fixing dinner for myself, before moving to the amethyst and settling in to get as much work done there as I could.

I still needed to build upon the basic concepts a bit more before I could start adding additional functions, so that’s what I did. I had to thread the concept of Control into every part of it that currently existed, and then I had to give that concept additional granularity. ‘Control’, after all, meant a lot of things. I would be making it much easier for myself if I defined what I was looking for now rather than later.

Another day, just chipping away at things.

It left me drained, of course, and that was the entire point. Rather than staying up and going to work on personal projects, I instead simply set my alarm a bit earlier and then went straight to sleep, turning in the early hour of just after seven at night.

I wanted my eight hours, after all, and this was the only way I was going to get it.

I’d be handling things when I woke up.