Breathe in. Breathe out.
The crisp morning air helped my racing thoughts settle ever so slowly, the excitement and trepidation for what was to come eventually falling behind a focused calm.
I was prepared for this. I was ready. I would win.
My eyes snapped open as my anonymous payment was processed, and the doors of the rent-a-garage shut closed, my third escape route properly secured and ready to be used at a moment's notice.
I allowed myself one final moment of doubt, before squashing it and leaving the eerily silent nook of the Glen, sliding into a nearby alleyway that was my team's meeting point.
Or I would have if my detection systems didn't immediately start blaring warnings into my head and I turned utterly still, as a mere half step in front of me I could just barely see a tiny string of metal stretched out exactly where my throat would have been.
"Tch." The familiar voice of my female teammate came from just behind a nearby dumpster "So much for the elite netrunner."
'She never did let that one go.' I grumbled to myself before simply deciding to shut her up in the most poignant way possible.
I will give credit where it is due, her ICE lasted impressively long against my Cyberdeck's processing power but the outcome was inevitable as my [SoftReset.exe] program slipped past her protections in less than a second and her Monowire retracted into her left arm, the limb going momentarily limp before reactivating fully.
Of course, what I expected to be a perfectly logical way to prove I was in fact exactly what I claimed, seemed to only piss her off further "What the fuck?!"
"Now now." Thankfully, that was the exact moment the third and final member of the team decided to join us, sliding out of another alleyway dressed in a... was that Militech storage worker uniform?
"How about we keep that delightful energy for the corpo soldiers, hm?" The old man went on without skipping a beat.
Kimigawa's bafflement won over her annoyance "Why are you dressed like that?"
Sharpe grinned "Because my dear, Lady Fortune was on my side last night!" He rubbed his hands together "See I was just spending my night like I always do-"
"In the old folks home?" The Asian woman asked dryly.
He pretended like she said nothing "-and met a very eager fellow. We played a few games, had a few drinks, and one thing led to another..." He shrugged his shoulders 'helplessly' "And he decided to let me work his shift for him."
"And this shift..." I worked my jaw slightly in disbelief "Does it also just so happen to be in Complex N-16?"
"Odd how these things line up, no?" James Sharpe smirks, and then turns without a word, walking back the same way he came and expecting us to follow.
Kimigawa and I share a quick look, she clicks her tongue and looks away but despite that we both follow after the old man.
Still, something didn't quite add up. I lengthened my stride and a few seconds later I was walking side by side with Sharpe "Did it not occur to you to inform us of this change in plans earlier?"
His ensuing exhale came suspiciously close to a snort "My shoemaker* wasn't easy to convince to do the rush job so I didn't want to raise your hopes." He shrugged without a care and turned to me with a slight wink "Besides, our earlier plan was to fully hack our way to the same destination, and I prefer something more reliable to that."
Not feeling particularly insulted by his lack of belief in my ability, I simply offered a nod in agreement "Human error is much more reliable to that of the machine."
For whatever reason, that truth made the man finally lose a bit of composure and bark out a laugh.
Minutes later, we found ourselves standing in front of a sturdy looking orange forklift, a large metal box laid out before it.
A box that seemed to have been lined against scanners.
"So this is your master plan?" Kimigawa asked, still suspiciously rubbing the Neuroport at the side of her neck that now held my Net-Hobbler chip "Pretend we are corpo rats going to work?" She flashed me a sideways glance "Really?"
"Oh no, of course not." Sharpe immediately shook his head, and grinned "I will be pretending to be a worker, while you." He pointed at her and then at me "Will be getting into the box."
"...What?"
"Get in the box Yumiko."
---
The supremely irritated Asian woman huddled against the side of the box-filled box, glaring at our ride and then at me "Am I the only one who understands how ridiculous this is?" She hiss-whispered at me.
To which I just kept playing with my EMP grenade, tossing it up and down, and shrugged "The plan seems perfectly reasonable to me."
"Of course it does." She sighed.
James A. Sharpe
Schooling his features into the tired, soulless, gaze of an exhausted corpo worker, the old mercenary drove his forklift towards the gate of the walled Militech complex. He was noticed almost immediately by the guards, and judging by their postures he was sure they carried those same looks under their visored masks.
"ID." The one standing next to the entrance ramp droned.
"Here you go." James droned back, offering the plastic card "Know if the coffee machine is still fucked?"
The guard grunted in annoyance "Not until Murdoc gets off his ass."
"And until someone greases his gear that ain't happening." James pretend grumbled "Fucking asshole."
"Ain't that God's honest truth?" The guard passed the card through a reader and a moment later it beeped positive "Everything is in order, you can go-"
"Now hold on there a second." A distinctly non-dead voice cut him off, one that carried a distinctly non-Night City accent.
'Southern NUSA?' The British man pondered briefly.
James' eyes were drawn to another approaching guard, one that seemed to lack the subtle slouch of the others.
In fact he seemed almost eager, James cursed in his mind in realization.
Just what he needed. A corpo rat looking to impress.
"I haven't seen you here before." The guard said, his suspicious look evident despite his blackened visor.
"Fucks sake Jim." The first guard grumbled so quietly James nearly missed it, before turning to the other one with pure irritation in his posture "You can't know every single forklift operator in the complex, we have over three hundred employed."
"I dunno, Greg." The second guard spoke to the first with a far too familiar tone, judging by the other man's by now radiating annoyance "He seems suspicious to me."
'Greg' took a deep breath-
But that was all 'Jim' needed to take as confirmation, and he slowly walked over to the front of the forklift.
Greg gave James an apologetic look but shrugged and shook his had "His dad got into the middle ranks, best not piss him off."
James pretended to commiserate, but the hand not facing either of the guards was already thumbing the silenced Lexington at his hip.
Jim wasted no time in opening the metal box, revealing rows upon rows of boxes inside "What are you bringing in?" He asked.
"Fresh uniforms." James droned.
"Mhm." Jim hummed and then the eyes hidden behind his visor flashed blue.
James' breath caught as he realized the nepo hire had some actual equipment, and he prepared to call the gig off, but much to his relief and bafflement, a few seconds of staring later, the guard grunted in annoyance and shut the box closed "They are clean."
"Nosy little fucker." Greg muttered and waved James on "Get going before he gets any more ideas."
James plastered fake annoyance onto his face, and gave Greg a slow nod of thanks before firing up his engine and driving on exactly as quickly as a bored worker with too much experience would.
He felt Jim's glare on his back, and wondered.
Would the kid live long enough to tell the others 'I told you so.'
Michael 'Magos' Sobronov
The forklift stopped moving some five minutes later, and another passed before we heard the familiar rustling of boxes, and the path for our exit was cleared.
Yumiko, whom I realized halfway through the 'ride' was very mildly claustrophobic, quickly leapt out of the box, while I followed her more sedately.
Potentially a mistake as I caught her glaring daggers into a rather amused looking James, though the moment his eyes landed on me his look turned somewhat dour "How were you not detected?"
"I hacked his Optics." I answered simply, still a bit annoyed that we were nearly discovered on accident "They shouldn't notice a thing." As I talked I gave the area a quick lookover and held back a sigh of relief at finding no cameras facing us.
"Good." He nodded "I got us to a quiet corner of the construction area. There are some guards around but so long as we don't draw too much attention we should be able to approach the maintenance tunnel without raising an alarm."
'Say what you will about the old man, but he really knew what he was doing...' I couldn't help but rise my estimation of him.
The N-16 Complex was made up of a surface building that served mostly as an office space for Militech's NC operations, while the storage space below was said to mostly contain valuable components either meant for further production or direct sales in Night City.
The complex was thus not particularly important in the grand scheme of things, but it was still heavily guarded by Militech as it was one of the few spaces they could use to project their power in the Free City after their failure to conquer it five years back.
A fact that made it the perfect spot to keep some sensitive tech while it was waiting transportation without drawing the eyes of the other megacorps.
Naturally, they appear to have failed in that task and something told me it was exactly one of their rivals that was sponsoring our current excursion into their vaults.
But that was besides the point at the moment, because the source of the money ultimately did not matter, only the completion of the job. And that was made much easier by the fact some kind of hardware accident happened in the complex a month back, with something blowing up in the outer storage yards that damaged the foundations enough to warrant extensive repairs.
Repairs that, should we be able to reach the area without detection, would allow us to skip the first two levels of the complex with nothing but good timing and a bit of stealth.
And Sharpe just got us in while drawing the barest amount of attention possible.
The three of us wasted no time as the outlines of the Militech guards appeared in our Optics.
The localnet felt a lot more watched than usual, which was to be perfectly expected, and while I had no doubts it would have ripped apart a less sophisticated ping, I was confident my own scan drew no attention whatsoever.
We stepped out of the cover of our trusty forklift, and timing our passage perfectly, using the information my hacking provided to avoid detection as we stalked deeper into the construction area.
The place was pretty crowded, even this early in the morning, but thankfully all of us were equipped with some mobility enhancements and with some quick scurrying and scaling we were able to avoid the cameras.
No point in hacking them if we could just pass them by after all.
Our good fortune did not end there either, as the vast majority of the workers, and even some of the guards, were gathered around a heather, sharing drinks and grumbling to each other before they surrendered to their 12 hours of daily drudgery.
Which gave us the perfect opportunity to simply slip through, leaving not a shade out of place.
The maintenance tunnel entrance leading to Level 3 was pretty easy to find after that, what with all the warning and keep out signs that littered its surroundings.
And the two obviously cyberized guards standing to both sides of it, a camera slowly scanning the area just above them.
"Damn." James cursed to himself.
"We need to get them out of the way." Kimigawa whispered, looking up at me a moment later "Can you take care of the camera?"
Frowning momentarily I nodded "I can place it in a loop."
"Good." She nodded "Be ready to hide the bodies."
And waiting for neither myself nor James to answer, I saw her Optical Camo implant activate, and she disappeared from sight almost completely, save for a slight distorted outline invisible to the naked eye.
Most of my attention immediately turned to the localnet and I was almost relieved as I felt a Dweller's attention passing me by instead of a corporate AI.
Fooling a human, no matter how enhanced, would always be infinitely easier.
The camera began looping moments later, as if it had been purpose made to do just that.
Satisfied, I sent Kimigawa the signal.
Some instinct must have warned the guards because the two of them suddenly tensed, but it was too little too late, as their necks exploded in blood and static, their heads flying off into the air as their bodies fell like puppets with their strings cut.
Kimigawa reappeared, a small satisfied smirk on her face as she retracted her monowire.
Sharpe and I wasted no time as we rushed out of cover, dragging the two corpses away to a nearby nook hidden between stacks of cement bags.
"Did you really have to spray them all over the place?" Sharpe commented as we approached the now cleared entrance.
Well, as clear as a recently scrubbed butcher's shop I supposed.
She frowned but then looked at the large mess of blood she had left behind and visibly held back a wince "Shit!" She cursed "We need to get moving, only a matter of time before someone notices."
"Quite." Sharpe agreed dryly "Mr. Magos. If you would?"
The way forward opened with a satisfying hiss.
-
The maintenance tunnel did not go on for long and soon enough we entered the third level of the complex, exiting into what looked like some kind of tool storage area, one that quickly cleared of guards as the two unfortunates left to keep watch quickly found their cyberware dying on them, an act that was swiftly followed by rapid and deadly stabbing by Kimigawa.
The self professed combat assassin fell fully into her element as we descended into the narrow corridors of the compound, so much so I stopped bothering with my constant pinging and allowed myself to focus fully on the defenses.
It was only a matter of time before the Dweller got suspicious, and I couldn't have that happening before we were ready to bolt. So I started preparing, even if it cost us some speed.
The other two did not complain and adapted appropriately, their assault on any unsuspecting guard turning more methodical at the cost of speed as they purposefully evaded sensors I would in turn not need to disable and hid the bodies where they could.
The schematics Nix provided us steered us true, and soon we found the stairwell leading to the lower floors, the turrets and cameras overlooking the descent quickly and quietly shutting down as I turned my attention to them.
But with each hack, I could feel I was generating just a bit more noise than before.
"We need to slow down." I warned as we approached the fifth level, the heat building in the back of my head feeling more pronounced by the minute "I am making too much noise."
Kimigawa looked like she wanted to take a shot at my netrunning skills again but held herself back.
Sharpe frowned "Any way to make it easier on you?" He asked "We cannot spend too much time dawdling, before we are forced to blow our cover."
"I'm preparing for exactly that moment." I muttered absently, waving him off while most of my mind remained focused on the sea of ones and zeros.
"We need to reach this floor's mainframe." I said after a moment "I should be able to clear the rest of the way much more easily with direct access."
Part of me revolted at the idea of putting more weight on the two of them, and thus having to rely on them, but I quickly squashed it like the irrational bug it was.
"Consider it done." Sharpe said.
"Hm." Kimigawa sharply exhaled "Watch and learn."
The two of them took the lead once again, Sharpe stepping out of the cover of the stairwell with his usual confidence while Kimigawa turned invisible again.
The guards took a moment to react to the presence of a 'worker' in the lower levels, and that moment cost them as Sharpe finally used his own hacking abilities to hit all four of them with an optics reset, putting two bullets down in two heads each while the other pair found themselves heads shorter to the now visible Kimigawa.
Level five was almost eerily silent as we passed the entrance, no others remained in the large storage area save for a maintenance worker who was swiftly knocked out by Sharpe's pistol whip.
"We should probably kill him just in case." Kimigawa pointed out, but I was too busy staring at what was kept in storage to answer.
"No." Sharpe immediately shook his head "It is unnecessary."
Kimigawa frowned "You-"
"What caught your eye, Mr. Magos?" The old man promptly ignored her as he saw me staring at the sole stack of assembled robots.
The place was filled to the brim with sophisticated components and parts for what was definitely droid construction, but one palette seemed to be covered by the full and functional product, and I couldn't help but thank God that that was the case.
Because I was staring directly into a pile of Wasp suicide drones, a source of much PTSD in the Reunification War.
The moment I shared this information both Sharpe and Kimigawa hissed and took and took steps back away from the little horror shows.
Briefly I considered placing an EMP grenade with a manual trigger in the pile, but I quickly got a much better idea. The mainframe was nothing more than a small server stack in one of the corners of the room, and after scanning it for any immediate defenses I used my Personal Link cable to connect to the localnet physically.
And immediately got to work.
The direct connection in combination with my cyberdeck allowed me much finer control over what I was doing as I could bypass multiple firewalls and watch protocols without even needing to try.
Or more aptly, I had already passed them simply by being in the server.
That poor Dweller was completely blind to me now.
Hacks and daemons left me in the dozens and before two minutes were passed, I disconnected from the mainframe "We are ready."
Kimigawa was already marching back to the stairwell.
Sharpe gave the droids one final suspicious look, then shared one with me, and shook his head while chuckling darkly.
It felt almost like a blink to my focused mind, when we reached the sixth level.
Compared to the ones above it it was relatively tiny, and while its admittedly impressive surveillance suite and the accompanying dozen turrets would have posed a grand challenge if I had not already taken them all over.
All that was left were the hapless guards standing or sat around on storage boxes, completely relaxed and assured they would not be surprised in the deepest parts of the complex.
We were quick to dissuade them of that foolishness.
Sharpe and Kimigawa wasted no time in rushing inside, the latter ripping Militech soldiers apart with her Monowire before they could even register her presence, while the former calmly shot three in the head with his autopistol.
Double tap as a matter of course.
I myself was left with only one rat to deal with, as the irritant decided to waste his last breaths on trying to call for reinforcements. The look of terror I saw through his cracked visor almost made me sorry for shutting off his lungs.
Almost.
And just like that, we were standing in front of a stack of ten heavy metal suitcases, a scan quickly confirming they all held the Trojan Mk.4 droid we were here for.
I pointedly ignored the deactivated Arasaka sea mine standing in the other corner.
Eagerly, Sharpe reached for the drone box nearest to him, only to have his grubby wrinkled hand stopped in its tracks by the pincers of my mechadendrite.
The two mercenaries stilled as they saw my hidden appendage sticking out from my back, through a split opening in my coat previously held together by lines of highly magnetized metal.
Flashes of doubt passed in their eyes and it didn't take me long to realize how unfortunate my move looked.
"Boxes are rigged to blast the alarm the moment we so much as touch them." I explained quickly, letting his arm go "Whoever set them up knew what they were doing. It would take me at least five minutes to disable the protections."
"Of course." The old man sighed "Things were starting to feel too easy."
"Afraid to do some actual work, Sharpe?" Kimigawa rolled her eyes.
"My dear, you wound me." The man smirked and then looked at me "Think it is worth risking the extra time?"
"With the bloodbath we left behind us?" I asked rhetorically "Hell no."
"Well then, it seems our next move is rather simple, isn't it?" He smiled "On your mark."
Sharing a look with Kimigawa and getting her agreement, I began counting down with the fingers of my right hand, while my mind was once more almost fully on the net.
The moment I folded my thumb, I pressed a mental switch, and the dozens upon dozens of daemons I had uploaded directly into the Dweller's implants activated, setting the poor gonk on fire exactly as Sharpe picked up the first suitcase and a deafening alarm started blaring throughout Complex N-16.
'My hands were getting rather itchy.' I thought as I reached for my trusty Crusher, and prepared to turn the deathtrap that was this building against its owners.
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*someone who works with forging false identities and documents etc...
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