Michael 'Magos' Sobronov
The little cafe in Arroyo B@D had chosen for our meeting spot turned out to be a place so unnoticeable and out of the way my first thought as I parked my war machine was questioning how the hell the place was still afloat.
Then I walked in and saw the complete lack of lighting and guests, and the dust covered tables and shelves, and quickly concluded that it was very much so not afloat.
Logos reacted to my spike of doubt before I was done fully conceptualizing it [No danger detected.]
[Thank you.] I sent back, slowly letting my suspicion dissipate. Caution was good, paranoia was not.
Or so I tried convincing myself.
The only way B@D could have theoretically betrayed me without dying in the process was informing Netwatch about my companion and bolting as far and fast as they could.
But I had known them for years now, and they were not big fans of our new associates to boot.
Also they had days to do it and didn't. If that wasn't proof they weren't going to fuck me over I don't know what was.
I detected a ping from the room behind the bar counter and sending a quick one back walked on inside.
The metal doors squeaked as I pushed them open and I stepped into another dark room, the sole source of light being a large screen displaying a paused video game.
My Optics allowed me to see everything clearly though, and I immediately zeroed in on an oddly familiar sight. Namely a small hill of blankets covering the source of an Agent signal.
A thin, pale hand rose from the pile, followed by a quiet, almost inaudible "Yo."
"Good evening." I slowly pushed the door behind me closed.
"Already?" My Audioreceptors caught the whisper hiss.
"Yes, its like 8." I droned "Sun's already set."
They, or rather she, sighed "Figures." Her hand poked out again and she waved "Come on s-sit down. I g-got us some kibbles."
Mentally frowning at the slight stutter I did as I was asked, quickly deciding to forego the very fragile looking chair in favor of just folding my legs on and sitting on the floor, I took a handful of the stuff and quickly chewed it down "Dog food, yay."
"Fuck o-off." She flipped me off just as I finally looked up to see her face.
And I found myself somewhat thrown off by what I saw.
She looked to be some mix between Asian and Caucasian, with black hair (most of which I couldn't see due to all the blankets over her head) and deep bags under her dark brown Optics.
Interestingly, her Cyberware load appeared to be minimal, and aside from a very high quality Neuroport she lacked any other mind-interface implant, including an inbuilt Cyberdeck.
Logos wasted no time in displaying his scan of the nearby rooms, and the high grade external deck and runner chair combination.
Most notable of all however was the fact she kept fidgeting and refusing to look at me fully.
"Hope I'm not too scary." I said, momentarily questioning my choice of not putting my skin on for the day.
"N-nah." She shook her head "T-this is pr-probably b-better."
"If you say so." I said, sounding only half as unsure as I felt.
"Oh f-fuck it." She suddenly said, reaching for a nearby injector and shoving it into her neck with the ease of practiced familiarity.
A few things became apparent then. The multiple injection marks spread all along the same vein, and the fact the compound she just shoved down her veins was a very potent anxiolytic combined with a solid mental stimulant.
Knowing this city, that probably meant some deep seeded trauma induced anxiousness.
And I just forced her to invite me to her safe place 'Way to fucking go, Mike.'
She closed her eyes and inhaled "Fuuuck I hate that feeling."
"The usual reaction is quite the opposite." I point out.
Her eyes snapped open, now far more alive than moments prior "Not when I know it will leave me loopy as fuck later."
She shoved most of the blankets off, revealing a rather thin build, and gave me another wave "Cool to finally meet face to face though, you are one big motherfucker. Even bigger in person."
"Thank you, I built myself."
"Har har har." She rolled her eyes.
I made a point of slowly looking her over "But really, I didn't expect the famous Big B@D to be a shut in girlfailure. Truly, you live up to your hype."
Her face scrunched up "Go fuck yourself."
My response is an instant "No."
"Eh, worth a try." She shrugs "Name's Mary by the way."
"Michael." I return to her seeming surprise "So, this is where you live?"
"Whenever I'm not trying to hide out from whichever corp I pissed off this month." She smirks "Used to be my dad's before-" She pauses and shakes her head "Never mind."
"Well it certainly has... charm." I decide on, distracting her from whatever memory she was stuck in.
"Its a fucking cave, don't even pretend."
"You said it, not me." I shrug.
"So." She claps her hands and decides to move on "You wanted to meet up, and here we are. What now?"
And wasn't that the question of the day? What exactly was I trying to accomplish here?
Scare her into compliance? Satisfy my own doubts?
Looking my 'colleague' of multiple years over, and the state of her killed any desire I had for the former, and the latter was mine to deal with anyways.
It all felt so very pointless...
"Honestly?" I say after a full minute in my own head "This whole thing was a spur of the moment decision."
"Say what?" She slumps forward with an incredulous look on her face.
"Look, I was scared shitless about people finding out about Logos." I try to explain my thought process from back then "So I went for the thing that usually works, intimidation."
"...And when I folded like a little bitch you still didn't have time to cool down, is that it?"
"Yeah, that's pretty much it."
"Yeah that makes sense." She nods along, and just as I am about to relax she explodes "The fuck it does!"
"There it is." I nod to myself, having expected this.
"I've been scared shitless for a days, thinking my brain was gonna be turned into AI food, and now you're telling me I did that shit for nothing?!"
"You know the fact Logos didn't immediately turn you into a snack should have clued you in." I point out weakly.
"Shut up!" She looks like she wants to strangle me to death but knows better than to try "I've got enough shit to stress about without your gonk ass making it worse."
"Look." I raise my hands placatingly "You got some solid dirt on me and I panicked."
"And that makes everything fine, does it?!" She snaps.
"No." I say firmly "But it doesn't change the fact I was forced to trust you with far too much. I'm not the only one depending on me, and risking that for any reason isn't a particularly pleasant experience."
A long beat of silence passed between us.
"Well shit." All of the energy leaves her as she slumps back into her couch "Fucking hell, M. Now I feel like a bitch."
"And I feel like an asshole, welcome to the club." I huff.
A few seconds pass before she snorts "We're both fucking gonks, aren't we?"
"Yes, this whole people thing is still confusing." I chuckle.
She rolls her eyes "Says the rich ripper with a mainline."
"Just because it confuses me doesn't mean I'm not good at it." I shrug, earning a quick middle finger "Jealousy is not a good look."
"Yeah well-" Her eyes heat up briefly but she holds back whatever she was going to say "Fuck you, I'm rich too so there!" She huffs "You still got the scary doggo on you?"
"I do." I nod.
[Greetings.]
Every single audio device, up to and including Mary's Agent, rings out with the synthetic voice.
She shudders "Still terrifying."
"You get used to it." I shrug "Besides, Logos is very friendly."
[Fren.] We both get the mental equivalent of a nod.
"Yeah, sure, toootally makes sense." She says sarcastically, while slowly covering herself back in blankets to try and push away the discomfort "You sure you can keep that thing- Logos" She corrects herself "Under control?"
[Directive 1: Link To Creator.] Logos' message echoed in my mind alone.
"He's not the only AI in town who doesn't want to kill everything." I shrug "Don't worry, you aren't getting mind eaten or whatever whacky fantasy you've come up with-"
Her eyes narrow "You don't get to say that shit when I saw what it did to Brigitte."
"-Probably." I finish with a small grin.
She closes her eyes "Did anyone ever tell you you are an asshole?"
"I'm sure it happened once or twice." I hum "I tend to filter that stuff out."
"Gee, I'm so surprised." She says dryly "Well, I'm too drained to be scared anymore. Still got a good two hours on my boost though." She nudges her chin at the screen "Wanna play some games?"
"Really?" I tilt my head in surprise.
"Yeah." She smirks a bit "I've known you for over four whole ass years, and this is the first time you aren't trying to act all spooky and talking all rat like. About damn time we had some actual fun."
"Personally I find butchering a bunch of cultists perfectly entertaining." I say as I get up and reach for the spare controller "But I don't mind beating your ass in a game of your choosing for a bit."
"Oh you're screwed now." She grins and she switches the game she had on for one of those addictive clicker games that require both memorization and reaction time.
I did my best to hide the sheer wave of malicious glee as she started the first round, and my Keren was able to follow everything in slow motion.
Needless to say that by the time I left the odd little cafe, one going by the appropriate name of The Dead End as I've found, both of us had thoroughly moved on from the whole hidden AI situation, and fought over another thing entirely.
That being my natural superiority in gaming, of course.
Logos, being too curious to just observe, decided to appear in B@D's perception a couple of times, gauging her reactions and even accepting a terrified headscratch while in his metal doggo of death form.
His mimicking of an actual dog-like reaction, tail wagging included, probably made Mary more relaxed around him than anything I could have ever said.
Still, even while a part of me remained suspicious, I decided a bit of genuine companionship was a far better insurance than any potential blackmail I could have come up with.
Logos did leave a tracker daemon in her OS though. No amount of trust was worth risking my family.
And if it helped me save her ass from a stimulant OD, that was just a happy little accident.
-----
A day later I was busying myself assembling what remained of my combat drone selection for the trip. Some live testing would have been good but with all the meetings and planning I barely had the time to relax, much less perform some live testing on the local scum.
My self proclaimed 'apprentice' in netrunning could probably make good use of them, but I was quite done giving her handouts, especially after she tried getting Rebecca to convince me to keep tutoring her for free after her little rite of passage.
She refused, knowing how busy I was, but the attempt was still made and remembered.
The second option that came to mind surprised even myself, as our rocky start (or was it re-start?) seemed to encourage B@D into bothering me further instead of making her reasonably cautious of my attention.
Then again, anyone capable had their quirks, and anxious as she was, she was no coward.
But I quickly squashed that line of thinking. She was a bit more open now, yes. But that was nowhere near enough for me to entrust her with even more of my secrets.
A sudden message from Rogue marked as urgent stopped me from considering the issue further.
[Magos. We have a problem.]
We?
I didn't bother pausing my work as I processed that.
[Did you fail to get the permits from the Swiss?]
The Swiss were understandably rigorous when it came to enforcing security on their territory. Being one of the wealthiest places on Earth with an actual living standard for their people meant they had to keep the rest out at all costs.
So a fully armed fullborg visiting was obviously going to be under a lot of scrutiny, even if the reasoning and assumed length of stay reduced that massively.
I could almost respect them, if not for the fact they decided to replace the vast majority of their military and police forces with droids.
You know, the lethal war machines that could be hacked by a skilled netrunner.
And the small army of incomprehensibly potent AIs sequestered off in the old net.
It's like they were asking to get super murdered if a breakout ever happened!
But knowing our corporate overlords, they probably compared the risk projections against a cost-benefit analysis and still found it perfectly acceptable.
Not like they would ever be under any real risk, or at least so they liked to believe.
Rogue's quick response drew me back from my thoughts.
[No, those went perfectly fine. Its your VIP.]
For someone who was supposedly going to call me over, the man was really taking his time.
[Something happen to him?]
[He hasn't been answering my calls.]
[And?]
[I need you to go check in on him.]
My eyes narrowed in irritation and I finally stopped my tinkering.
[I didn't know I agreed to be the man's babysitter.]
[Yes you did.]
[Also I'll pay for this separately.]
Why did they never lead with that?
[Fine. Send me anything I might need to know, I'll head out now.]
[Good. Hurry and be ready for anything.]
A moment later, a data packet arrived alongside a special code that should allow me to approach Eurodyne's North Oaks mansion without immediately getting on the NCPD's shitlist.
The cops tended to get very testy when people tried approaching the private residences of that district without an invite.
Though as I drove up to the quite frankly resort-like palace (at least when compared to the rest of the city) the man lived in, I found myself scowling in deep disgust at what I found.
No security guards anywhere, merely a thin, see through perimeter wall and some cameras.
For one of the most famous people in the city, Eurodyne's security was insulting.
I was just about to approach the intercom when I caught muffled shouting in the distance, coming directly from within the home.
I had already leapt over the fence in one fluid movement, leaving any alarms to be dealt with by Logos, before I even started registering the words being said.
The first voice was a deeply frustrated plea "Listen to me, Kerry. I've already given my word, if we pull out now we'll be sued all the way to the streets."
"Then get the fuck back to the street where you belong you fat fuck!" It was the rockstar's familiar if ragged voice that did most of the shouting "What's next huh?! You going to sell my ass for the next fucking rat that asks?! Is that it Donny?!"
"No, of course not!" The increasingly panicked voice of what I presumed was the manager assured him "I'd never do something like that!"
"But selling my soul is fine then, is that it?!"
"Think about Ted and Kim, Kerry." The manager's voice turned low "This could affect them."
"Out."
"Kerry-"
"Get out."
"Look man, I'm-"
"Get the fuck out!"
"Holy shit!" The manager's voice turned panicked and I heard heavy steps start coming to meet me.
Just in time for a shot to go off.
I stepped aside as the rather corpulent manager practically stumbled out of the mansion, completely failing to notice me looming over his side as he ran for his life while clutching his arm.
Amusingly, there was no wound to be found but the panicked man would probably not realize that for quite some time.
Taking this as an invitation I slinked in through the closing doors and into the massive mansion, quickly finding the living room and the VIP slumped over a coffee table made from actual wood, holding a masterpiece of a revolver in his hands and muttering to himself.
"First the crew, then Louise, and now Donny." He whispers, shaking his head and downing a shot of whiskey before looking back at the gun again with something approaching longing in his eyes "Maybe I should just-"
And that's as far as I let it go as the gun disappeared from his grip, now gripped firmly in my Artifex, a good five feet away from the man.
A surprised yell ripped its way out of his throat as he stumbled back, rolling aside only to go completely and utterly still as he saw me looming over him.
"Apologies." I informed him "But Ms. Rogue paid me to keep you alive."
The world famous rockstar just kept staring at me for a good ten seconds before suddenly throwing his head back and laughing like a lunatic.
...I'm starting to think this job might be a bit more difficult than originally expected.
-------
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There is no escape.
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