Shadows Of New York

by Cypher-SB

The continuing adventures of Cypher and Firefly, almost seven months after the events that happened in Denver. What starts as a simple run to the Rotten Apple turns into a much longer stay. Based on the Catalyst Game Labs mission modules. Results are in no way guaranteed to match cannon material, and the shadowrunners are characters of my own creation.

11. Run 10 : Spin Control

Run 10 : Spin Control (based on the mission written by Mike Wich; updated 2015/07/08)

Athena stared at the trideo image floating to her left. It was of Cypher and Firefly, taken from what her medusa drone had recorded from the Guggenheim last Saturday night. There was something about Cypher's expression she was still puzzling over, and even having sketched the pair from numerous angles several times was not helping.

She thought she knew part of the problem: his goggles. So much could be conveyed by the eyes alone, and trying to get a complete emotional picture was rather difficult.

Firefly was an easier read. There was a certain kind of adoration in her eyes when she looked at Cypher, something Athena knew first hand that it got couples in the shadows into a lot of trouble. Love was not a bad thing, but it could easily and often lead people to do irrational and stupid things.

Still, the image had been too much to pass up, and about a dozen various sketch AROs were floating to her right, and in front of her was an ARO with a 3D sculpting program where she had been trying to recreate the trideo in virtual white marble. Sure, any hack could have just as easily edited out the unwanted elements and retextured the two in stone, but Athena felt that was a cheap copout in trying to create real art. Even not working in real stone might also be a copout to some, but Athena did not feel that way.

But there was more to it than that, as Athena was attempting to replicate Cypher's expression without the goggles. In most of AROs she had created his eyes were blank, nonexistent. Of those that she had tried, each was a little different, and each one felt like she had completely fucked up the moment.

Sighing, Athena brought up the recorded trideo image once more to study.

---

Crouching down like a cat, Mina slowly crept to the crest of the hill. In her left hand was primitive looking longbow, simple and adorned with a few stone spikes above and below the grip.

The air was still, dead, making the midday sun's heat feel oppressive among the tall pines. Her armor was simple, from a mod called 'Jungle Girls,' and all she wore right now was a loincloth. Thanks to the game's preferences she could not feel the pain of walking barefoot, feeling the ground instead as if she had forever walked without shoes.

Peeking over the hill, Mina saw her targets. They were a trio of bandits wearing mismatched hides for armor, with stretched leather shields and stolen swords for weapons. One of them also has a longbow and a quiver of arrows.

Reaching back Mina drew an arrow of her own, feeling the quiver's rough leather strap rub against her chest. Like her bow and armor it too was primitive looking. She notched the arrow, and the game took over as she sighted in on the bandit archer, and loosed her shot.

Not waiting to see how good her marksmanship was, Mina was already scrambling back down the hill a little. She could hear the pre-recorded comments of shock and outrage from the bandits as she quietly moved along the hill's crest, already seeing her next spot to snipe them from.

Shadows shifted in the time accelerated environment, and one of the bandits looked straight at Mina as she tried to be stealthy. "You won't get away this time!" it yelled, raising its crude iron sword high.

Mina's bow vanished for a pair of primitive daggers made from the oversized canines of a saber cat. She leapt aside, easily dodging the iron sword as it clanked on the rocks. With a dagger in each hand she lunged for the closer bandit, hooking one in through the bandit's side just before its mate came in from the other. She spun with the bandit as it fell, making sure not to get caught underneath the dead body.

Hesitantly the other bandit approached, its sword held in both hands. "You'll be easier to rob when you're dead!" it yelled as it lunged at her the same way.

Keeping low, Mina lunged for the bandit, driving both of her saber cat fang daggers up through the bandit's stomach. She had plenty of time to pull her daggers free as the bandit fell to its knees before falling over dead.

Sheathing the daggers, which was really slipping them into the waist band of her loincloth, Mina tapped the bandits one by one, opening up their inventory menus to strip them of everything they had. Only their naked bodies remained, uncensored with another mod that Mina had found and installed.

Glancing up Mina looked to see which way the closest village was to sell off what she had collected, and took off at a sprint. Hopefully the merchants there had enough gold for all of the loot she had accumulated so far.

---

The weather was still shitty, cool, with varying gray clouds and off and on rain for several days straight now.

Skyler sat cross legged next to the hot tub, wearing only his swimsuit (he and Mina had been relaxing in the hot tub a little over an hour ago), and with a small electric guitar in his hands and an ARO guide in front of him. The guitar, like every modern electrical device, was wireless, connected to his PAN so only he could clearly hear the basic chords of his first lesson. The guitar itself was small, mostly neck with no headstock and the tuning pegs behind the bridge, and a small wedge shaped body of clear plastic so you could see the electronics within. There was barely enough room for a whammy bar, which was twisted a little more out of the way of Skyler's hand.

Mina, who still did not know about his lost abilities, lounged on a couch as she played a world immersive game in VR. She wore her black "Mercurial" shirt over her own swimsuit, with a new Bust-A-Move doll lying on her chest. At night, and she was still insistent in him not going back to coding the few programs he had left to finish, she had gone back to treating Skyler like an oversized teddy bear, holding him tight like she was afraid to wake and find him gone.

So instead of trying to return to the marathon of coding that Mina was completely against, Skyler opted to broaden his horizons and learn how to play a musical instrument. Still his mind occasionally wandered to what he had left to code. Still thoughts of code flitted about his mind, and what he needed to do to finish just a few more programs.

It was a little after noon when an ARO appeared to alert Skyler that someone was at the door. With a thought he toggled the 'Please Wait' option, placed his guitar on the floor and picked up his fake cybernetic arm to put on. Taking his time, and picking up his guitar, he stood and walked over to the door.

As he approached the door, a new ARO appeared. This one was large and like a window, showing Skyler two people on the other side of the door as if he were looking through a window.

There were two women standing at the door. Their commlinks were still set to broadcast their identities, though one of them he remembered seeing before.

The familiar looking woman was Doris Bohman, wearing the same dark orange business suit and skirt that Skyler had seen her wearing last Thursday.

The other woman was Gloria Berlin, and she wore a dark blue suit jacket and skirt.

With their names Skyler opened a new ARO to the building's registry to begin a search on them. Both were residents, and Gloria was an admissions administrator for the elementary grades at the building's school. Already he was dreading this encounter, and sent a quick text to Mina.

Skyler opened the door, but did not step aside to welcome the women in. "Mrs. Berlin, Ms. Bohman." he said curtly.

"Damien Gibson?" Gloria asked.

"Yes?" Skyler asked back.

"Since you know who I am, do you know why I'm here?" Gloria asked.

"Being nosey?" Skyler asked, looking straight at Doris. Really he expected that Gloria was there to try and get him and Mina enrolled in school for the next year. By the ages on their fake identities he would be enrolled in the sixth or seventh grade, and Mina a grade lower.

"No. Actually I'm here about you and Crystal enrolling in school for the next year." Gloria told him. "Since you're now residents here you…"

"Get a free pass into Lexington Park Academy downstairs." Skyler finished, "Lucky guess."

Gloria did not look convinced.

"Look, you're wasting your time." Skyler said, "We've both finished our education."

"That's fine." Gloria said, sounding a little chipper. "We've got virtual classrooms as well, so you don't have to leave home to attend…"

Did she even hear what he just said?

"Attend, what?" Mina asked as she walked up behind Skyler.

"This's Mrs. Gloria Berlin. She works in the school downstairs, and wants us to enroll." Skyler said.

"And make us waste our time?" Mina asked. "No way!"

"That's what I told her."

"Education and improving yourselves is never a waste of time." Gloria said.

"But this conversation is. I was in the middle of a music lesson when you came." Skyler countered.

"And we've got a stellar music program you can take part in as well." Gloria added.

Skyler held up his guitar. "You really think there's a place for this in a classical school band?" he asked sardonically. "Besides, we do better at our own pace."

Gloria scowled. "You know, I don't care how smart you two think you are, you're not getting out of this." She pulled a chip out of a pocket and held it out for Skyler to take. "Both of you will report to Lexington Park Academy tomorrow morning at eight A.M., sharp. And don't think you can use magic to get out of this, Miss Wilcox, as we do have magicians on staff and one will be checking up on you to make sure you come down."

Figuring there was little choice Skyler accepted the chip with his free hand, never taking his eyes off of Gloria.

With a plastic smile Gloria turned and walked back towards the elevator doors. Doris was right behind her. Skyler did not wait to close the door behind them.

"Fuck, school?" Mina asked. "I already did grade school! They can't teach me anything!"

"C'mon, let's try to figure this out." Skyler said, walking back to the entertainment area. Together they dropped onto the couch Mina was lounging on only minutes ago.

"So, what've we got?" Mina asked.

Skyler noticed she was looking at the chip, so he slotted it into his fake cybernetic arm and scanned the contents.

"A brochure for the academy with a list of the classes they offer, a list of the rules including a dress code…" Skyler said.

"Eww." Mina went, scrunching up her face.

"and of course our digital acceptance passes for their entrance exam Gloria was talking about." Skyler finished. He opened up a new ARO to start browsing the public face of the academy's node.

"So if we're gonna live here we've gotta go to school down there?" Mina asked. "I don't wanna have to go through that again, with hormonal boys and girls trying to figure their own shit out, and inept teachers not knowing what to tell 'em."

"And I think they're gonna do their best to try and force us." Skyler said, "And we can't just flunk it either, since they've got a remedial program for struggling students they can dump us into. Worse even, as I think they take extra time and care with those 'special' students."

Mina groaned, hands to her face as she rolled backwards to lie on her half of the couch.

"We've got another option, though." Skyler said.

"What?" Mina asked through her fingers.

"Well, they don't exactly have a gifted program," Skyler said as he skimmed through all of the available academic programs, "so what if we don't take it easy on the test?"

"What?" Mina asked again, pushing herself upright once more.

"You're seventeen, but you look ten, so you've gotten dumped into a fifth grade exam." Skyler said, "Don't think like a ten year old girl when you take the test. Think like a high school teenager. Don't take your time with it, but blast through it and don't wait for anyone. It's all multiple choice anyway."

A wicked gleam came to her eyes, and Skyler smiled.

"And you?" she asked him, "Weren't you like starting college or something before the shadows?"

"Yeah, well, was going to, for economics on some corp grant." Skyler said, "'Course, that was before my… emergence."

"So I guess you should really blow it away. 'Specially the math part." Mina said with a smile.

Skyler's commlink beeped with an incoming call. It was Athena, so he accepted it.

"Hope you don't mind me giving you a call like this." Athena said without preamble, "But I wanted to give you a heads up on an interview this evening."

"Already?" Skyler asked.

Mina groaned. He sympathized with her, since having to deal with the school a shadow job was the last thing either of them wanted to do as well. He also wanted to tell her about his lost technomancer abilities before their next job, but the hard part was not how to tell her but working up the nerve to do so. Those thoughts made him more nervous than trying to walk up to a cute girl to ask her on a date when he really was twelve years old.

"I know the last one was a quickie but we're still feelin' a bit burned out." he continued

"Yeah, those sudden trips can take a lot out of you." Athena said sympathetically. "But I'm told this one's from some editor type from NBCNN, so it's probably gonna be a data steal or something of the sort. Anyway, at least stop on by and see. It's at the Horizon Hyatt Hotel, near Times Square. Be there by seven. I've been there before, so leave the firepower behind. Trust me, you won't need it."

"I think we can at least manage that."

Deep down Skyler was hoping this would be an easy job. He was still trying to get more adjusted to no longer feeling anything of the resonance, and running hot sim with trodes had an edgy and artificial feeling to the AROs he saw in augmented reality and the entirety of the virtual worlds.

Skyler spent much of the afternoon digging through NBCNN's node, buzzing through their news stories and the directory of notable employees and updated his facial recognition software. Like most the news stories were diverse and quite current, among which was an announcement from Ares about its nanotech in space and a minor discovery of theirs, while Saeder-Krupp had issued a press release on a new breakthrough in using nanites for cybernetic implantation surgeries.

After he was feeling satisfied with researching NBCNN Skyler went to dig up some info on the Horizon Hyatt Hotel. After reading some of the customer reviews from a third party site he decided to leave any handguns he brought in the truck.

After getting cleaned up and dressed up (Mina in her less daring, silver dress from Zoé) the two headed out for their meeting with Mr. Johnson.

The weather reports for the evening were pretty spot on, with continued rain coming at the island via moisture ladened winds from the west and northwest. Still, it could have been worse, like having a mountain suddenly appear over the city.

The Time Square District was as popular a tourist destination as ever, and that was one of the things that helped keep this part of Manhattan as a red pass zone so the tourists would still come and spend money. It was also one of the places where one could see the expansive diversity of metahumanity in the sixth world. Elves and orks, trolls and dwarves, even changelings walked without fear of their radical appearances. Add some spirits and it very well could have been the Hub in Denver.

Despite being in a red district, the Horizon Hyatt Hotel was the kind of place that oozed money, screaming to the common wageslave, "You can barely afford to look at me." This did nothing to deter Skyler from having Ironhide drive into the "Customer's Only" area of the parking garage and pull into a dry and empty space.

Walking into the lobby was just as easy, side by side with Mina's arm hooked through his they walked up to the front desk.

"Can I help you?" the concierge asked, his voice sounding stuffed and nasally. He did not even look at them as he spoke.

"We have a meeting with Mr. Johnson at seven." Skyler said.

The concierge now turned to look at them, his brown eyes flanking his large aquiline nose. Skyler had to admit that he hated how the man looked like he had a smell under his nose.

"Do you have a reservation?" he asked them.

"Are you deaf?" Skyler asked back, "I said we have a meeting here with Mr. Johnson at seven."

Still the concierge looked at Skyler.

"Maybe you could try looking under Johnson?" Skyler suggested.

"And your reason for coming here?"

"Is this guy for real?" Mina asked.

"The reason's none of your business." Skyler answered, not liking how the concierge was looking the both of them over now. "Now either you can tell us where we need to go to our meeting with Mr. Johnson so we can be on our way, or I'll be calling the boys in blue about how you made a pass at my girlfriend."

"I can scream really loudly, if you like." Mina added, following his lead.

The concierge's eyes suddenly jumped from them and darted around to check on everyone else that might have happened to overhear their conversation.

"One moment please." the concierge said softly. Moments later an attendant walked up to them.

"Could you please escort these two to conference room A on the fortieth floor?" the concierge asked, not looking at Skyler or Mona.

"Yes sir." the attendant said.

"Thank you." Skyler said with a smile. "That wasn't so hard, now, was it?" he asked.

Not waiting for an answer, or the attendant, the two turned and walked off together towards the elevators.

"What was with that guy?" Mina silently asked. The elevator doors did not open for them until their escort got there.

"Perverted asshole." Skyler replied as he stepped into the elevator first.

"You know he'd lose that hand, right?"

"Not like he needed to know. 'Sides, got us in."

"True."

The attendant only looked at them a little nervously as the elevator continued to rise, but otherwise said nothing.

From the elevators it was not a far walk to the conference room, and standing at the double doors were two of the hotel's security staff.

"What's with the guards?" Mina asked.

"Standard procedure considering one of the others attending." one of the guards said, opening the doors for them. "If there's anything you need, food, drink, etcetera, you can access the hotel's menu. Everything will be covered by your host."

"Thank you." Skyler said.

"Thanks." Mina added.

The room's purpose was clearly for nothing but meetings and conferences. An oval table dominated the center of the room. The walls were a light gray reminiscent of the modular walls used in office cubicles, with discrete holographic projectors built into the ceiling and corners of the room, though the chairs much more luxurious and a deep burgundy in color.

Athena, Nocturne, and Roadblock were already there. They were also dressed up in the best that they had, with the men looking like they were a little uncomfortable.

"Hey, glad you could make it." Athena said when she spotted them. "Might wanna hit the menu and order something. Seems Mr. Johnson's gonna be a little late."

"Might as well. He's picking up the tab anyway." Skyler said.

"How long've you been waiting?" Skyler asked as he opened up a menu ARO to browse.

"Just a few minutes, but the message was waiting for us when we got here." Athena said.

"I don't like it." Mina said.

"Yeah, got a bad feeling already." Skyler added.

Athena walked over to the two of them, leaning in close to whisper, "Yeah, and I've already got a spirit of my own here just in case. Wouldn't be a bad idea if we had another."

Mina simply nodded.

Time ticked by, and the only thing that came through the doors was the food everyone had ordered.

About halfway through their meal a few of the holographic projectors came alive, projecting a three dimensional image of a middle-aged human male. He was slim of build, clean shaven with graying black hair, and green eyes. He wore a tailored black business suit with a red, orange, and yellow tie in a pattern that made Skyler think of Indian royalty.

He also recognized the man as Roger Willis, one of NBCNN's editors. With a thought hey keyed up some of his sensor programs. If their Mr. Johnson was going to play it this way, he would try to make sure he had whatever edge he could get a hold of.

"I apologize for not being able to attend in person." Mr. Willis said, "Something came up that requires my attention."

The voice stress analyzer from two of his programs noted some stress in his voice, and suggested he was not completely honest.

"I think I can say for all of us that we understand." Athena politely said.

"Good, because I need your help in tracking down a shadow project that I believe is being conducted somewhere in the Terminal district." Mr. Willis told them, "All of my sources in gathering info have dried up, and due to how dangerous Terminal is I really do not want to send in reporters to investigate."

Even Skyler did not need software to figure this was true. Any editor worth their rep would not want to send unskilled people into the worst parts of town, especially those where the trend was police don't go in without serious backup, or it being election season.

"So you want us to go in and poke our noses around, and dig up your scoop?" Athena asked.

"Yes." Mr. Willis answered, "I believe the project is somehow connected to a gang calling themselves the Switchblades. Once you've discovered the project's location I want you to infiltrate it and gather whatever intelligence you can, then report back to one of my representatives. Files, trideo, whatever you can get."

"Sounds easy enough." Skyler said. Deep down he was hoping it would be as easy as it sounded. He was considering the job, and easy would be nice after their extradimensional trip.

Mina nodded, looking like she was considering the job as well.

"Anything you can tell us now about this project?" Athena asked.

"I believe it's involving insect spirits." Mr. Willis told them.

No falsehoods were indicated.

"What?" Skyler asked, his voice half a pitch lower and even.

"Oh fuck me," groaned Nocturne, leaning back in his chair.

The others did not look too pleased either. Athena in particular looked quite worried.

Stories about Universal Brotherhood, insect spirits, and Chicago and the Containment Zone had been abound in the matrix for years, even before Crash 2.0 in 2064.

Universal Brotherhood, an organization much like the Salvation Army or Red Cross, first opened its doors in February of 2043 (almost exactly five years before Skyler was born) in California. Their goal was the betterment of all of metahumanity, to eliminate poverty, racism, hopelessness, and all sorts of other plagues of society. Over the years more camps and facilities opened up worldwide.

The grim and ugly truth behind Universal Brotherhood was revealed later, but still not all would be known for quite some time. Skyler was seven years old when it was announced in August of 2055 that a new strain of VITAS had struck Chicago. October 1 of that same year a tactical nuclear weapon was detonated at Cermak and Racine, and the stories of how it happened were varied and wild, but the truth was not revealed to the world until December 29, that all of the Universal Brotherhood chapterhouses had in fact been hives for insect spirits, a general type of spirit (it really was much more complicated, but most did not concern themselves with the details) from the deep metaplanes that were possessing people and taking over their lives, so named because of their insect-like appearance and nature. More reports worldwide started making the news in following years about more insect hives being discovered and subsequently destroyed.

Skyler even remembered his first encounter with insect spirits when he and his team stumbled upon a pack of wild dogs that had been possessed by cockroach spirits. They had managed to escape with their lives, anonymously tipping off Lone Star and Ares of the queen bitch. Only rumors were to be heard that the possessed pack had been wiped out.

Mina's first encounter had been Skyler's second (and his first again, as his amnesia at the time had blocked out the memories of the roach-hounds), and scarily enough it was Mina's very first job as a shadowrunner as well. Coming across an alligator in the sewers might be considered an urban myth by some, but for them it had been real. On the way back out that same dead alligator had been taken over by a beetle spirit, and while his sister's assault rifle had riddled the alligator's body before with ease, the exploding shotgun shell Skyler had managed to shoot might as well have been a spit wad for all the good it did against the possessed reptile. Ultimately it had taken two spirits, one of which was a fire elemental Mina had conjured, to defeat it.

And the nuke detonated in Chicago? For reasons yet to be fully explained or accepted the blast had not been as powerful as it should have been. And surprisingly it actually did not kill the insect spirits but put them into a state of torpor, the vast majority of them still that way even now.

"You think there's an insect connection to the Switchblades?" Athena asked.

"Yes. And I understand your apprehension, but the public has a right to know what is going on there." Mr. Willis said. "I am willing to pay you each nine thousand nuyen, with an additional thousand if you manage to make your infiltration without detection, and an additional thousand for exclusive rights to the story."

Mina pushed her plate of food away. "No deal." she declared. "Eleven's not enough for bugs, not by a long shot."

"A magician of your caliber certainly must have at least a bound spirit or two." Mr. Willis said with a condescending edge.

"Let's meet in person and I'll introduce you." Mina growled. Considering how angry Mina sounded, Skyler wondered if she would bring out all four of her bound spirits plus the unbound fire elemental she frequently summoned.

She had done that once before, calling all four of her elementals and guardian spirit, and the results had been spectacular to say the least. In that ensuing fight on the cargo ship they were on, her invoked guardian spirit Baradiel had appeared to casually backhand a pirate with its pentagonal headed war hammer.

Into a loaded cargo container.

Really, into a loaded cargo container, leaving a hole in the side Skyler might have been able to crawl through if he could reach high enough for it.

And in the process of backhanding said pirate into a loaded cargo container, said cargo container had slid at least a meter across the ship's deck.

Along with three more loaded cargo containers that were right beside it.

Athena held up a hand, gesturing for Mina to try and calm down. "You probably also know, Mr. Johnson, that binding spirits is neither cheap or easy, and since you seem to know her then you know those spirits of hers are stronger than most. If worse comes to worst then we have no idea just how many services are going to be used in dealing with any insect spirits, and we may have to spend more than our entire pay just to rebind those spirits."

"Eloquently put." Mr. Willis said.

"And it's not 'cause we're afraid of the bugs," Skyler added, "Not all of us are wet behind the ears dealing with them. No, nine grand ain't enough knowing bugs're involved."

"And if there's any kind of data servers or such there, you're going to want him with us." Athena said. "I'm good, but he's better."

"And I'm sure you know this, but we're a package deal." Skyler added, indicating to Mina. "If either of us ain't goin', both of us ain't goin'."

"I know you have the skills to get the job done." Mr. Willis said.

"And how about his?" Athena asked, "Maybe I could do it, but so can he. One of our big differences in skills isn't just getting in and getting the data, Mr. Johnson, but how much faster he can do it and how much data gets left behind. He's exceptionally good, and fast, at cleaning up his digital footprint."

Deep down Skyler wondered just how smooth such matrix work might be now.

"Now I know we can do an infiltration," Athena continued, "and with support I know these two can get in, get the data, and get out without a trace. They've done it before, and I'm sure the five of us can do it again."

"If you think bugs are involved, why not just notify Ares so they can send in Firewatch?" Nocturne asked.

Firewatch was Ares Macrotechnology's premier insect spirit fighting force, specializing in locating hives and eliminating all forms of bug spirits on the planet. It helped that they also had a toxin, called KE-IV or 'Kay-Ee-Four,' that was particularly lethal to any insect spirit made flesh. Firewatch was so dedicated in their appointed task of eliminating insect spirits that there were rumors they had trained magicians that actually dove to the deep metaplanes to assassinate hive queens on their native plane.

"'Cause they'll just go in and bury everything." Skyler answered, "The only 'official' story'll be a footnote on the ticker of something like a gang fight or gas explosion where people don't give a shit about what happens anyway."

"Kid's quite bright." Mr. Willis said, the image looking more intently at Skyler, and there was something that unnerved him about it.

"So you get good numbers rooting out a potential hive in Manhattan, and we get ten grand each?" Athena asked, "We know you're gonna make a killing in the ratings with this story, and that means really big bucks for you."

Mr. Willis smiled, and it made Skyler feel a little nervous. He had seen a smile like this before, from Don Casquilho when he was asking Skyler and his team to track down a wayward smuggler that had gone into hiding.

"Yes, quite true." Mr. Willis said, "Twelve thousand, five hundred, then, for the job with an exclusive on what you find, and an extra twenty-five hundred if you manage to get in and out without alerting them."

"Potentially fifteen thousand nuyen." Skyler said.

"I still don't know." Mina said softly.

"And I really hope you're not expecting us to do some extermination, too." Athena said.

"Not at all." Mr. Willis told them. "This is strictly fact finding. There's no need to risk your lives like that."

"I still don't know." Mina softly said.

"That is most unfortunate." Mr. Willis said.

Skyler looked at the others one by one, wondering if someone was going to say something. However something seemed a little odd. Athena, Nocturne, and Roadblock all looked like they were distracted.

"Fine." Athena said sharply. Her mood had changed quite dramatically.

Roadblock simply nodded, and Nocturne sighed.

"What's going on?" Mina silently asked.

"Not a clue. Something made them change their minds."

"No doubt you children are a bit confused." Mr. Willis said. "You might be a bit young to know this, but maybe you'll understand. You see, over time people will do things that they don't want others to know…"

"You dug up dirt on the others and now you're using it to blackmail them into taking the job." Skyler said.

Mina scowled.

"My, my, you really are a bright child."

"Wait," Nocturne said, "you're telling me that you didn't send them anything?"

"Their nubile careers seem to lack… discerning details." Mr. Willis replied. "Really, it is only a matter of time."

Skyler quickly stifled a smirk that was creeping up on his face. For whatever reason he could not explain, the digital version of the "discerning details" of his life seemed to just disappear. He wondered his relationship with Mina caused some of these bits of information about her to disappear as well.

"I think we should do it." Skyler silently told Mina, "I don't care how good they are, I don't think they'll be able to do it without us."

Mina wordlessly nodded.

"Fine, we're in too." Skyler said.

"Very good. Feel free to use the room to plan, and enjoy your meal." Mr. Willis told them before his image disappeared.

"Aren't you gonna ask?" Nocturne asked.

"You really wanna tell us?" Skyler asked back.

"I don't give a shit about whatever dirt he dug up on you." Mina said.

Athena was looking a bit uncomfortable, and seemed to be avoiding eye contact with either of them.

"We should get back home. We do have that exam and I don't wanna be burned out from using magic to keep us awake." Mina silently told him.

Nocturne said, "Right. So, genius, what've you got on the Switchblades?"

"Do I look like a psychic?" Skyler asked back. "And no, I ain't gonna do research from here." He pushed his chair back as he stood, and Mina was right beside him.

"Where do you two think you're going?" Athena asked.

"Home." Mina said.

"Hang on." Athena said, also standing, "I'm coming with you."

"So we're not gonna plan here?" Nocturne asked as Roadblock stood.

"We'll talk at the brownstone." Athena said as she followed Skyler and Mina out of the conference room. She said nothing as she followed them to the elevators.

After Skyler hit the call button for the elevator he turned to look at the others. He then noticed that the two that had been standing guard outside of the room were now flanking an indignant looking Nocturne.

Athena also turned around to look at them. "Could you guys give the three of us some alone time, please?" she asked.

"Yeah, I guess." Nocturne answered. He looked like he was anxious to leave the hotel as quickly as possible, and with two guards shadowing him Skyler could hardly blame him.

The elevator chimed as the doors began to open, and Skyler, Mina, and Athena stepped in. Athena pressed the button for the ground floor, and they began to descend.

"Alright you two," Athena said sternly, "no bullshit, what's going on?"

"Some bullshit we've gotta deal with." Mina said sourly.

"We've been roped into taking a school entrance exam." Skyler explained.

"Oh, great." Athena groaned. Unlike the others, she knew their true ages. "And you two are gonna go through with it?"

"Not exactly." Mina said.

Skyler leaned back against one of the elevator walls. "We're not gonna fuck around with the test." he said with grim determination.

"You sure that's a good idea?"

"We could fake being kids, get average scores, and spend ten hours a day in school." Mina said, "We'll be bored to tears dealing with shit we've already done, and you'll be out a kick ass hacker and magician."

"And there's no way you can get out of it?"

Skyler and Mina shared a look. Then finally Mina spoke. "We like the new place we're at. We'd have to bail on it to get out of the testing. Maybe if they think we don't need to be in school they'll leave us alone."

"I just hope whatever happens doesn't come back to bite you both in the ass." Athena sighed. "So what're we gonna do about the job?"

The elevator chimed as they reached the ground floor. Skyler and Mina walked together, arm in arm, ahead of Athena as they all headed towards the parking garage. All the while Skyler tried to think.

"These guys gotta have a place to squat, right?" Mina asked.

"Definitely." Skyler said.

"Maybe they could do the legwork while we deal with the school, and when they know where they squat we meet them there to, I don't know, stake the place out?"

Athena sighed. "Sounds better than what I've been trying to think of." she admitted. "Hopefully the guys will go for it."

"Go for what?" asked Nocturne as he and Roadblock caught up to them.

"We start looking into the gang while the kids deal with their life business," Athena said, "and once we know where the gang's at they meet us there."

"Gonna make us do all the work?" Nocturne asked.

"Hey, we didn't even have to agree to take the job." Mina said, "If you don't think we're a team, fine, you can tell Johnson we're out and do this all by yourselves."

"Or not, and then you can just split our share of the pay." Skyler added. "Not like we're super hurting for cred."

"We're gonna need their help, Nocturne." Athena said, "And don't forget about what happened last year when we were helping that skimmer and you needed some personal time with that elfin-wannabe girl."

Nocturne looked like he was about to say something, and instead turned to look away. "Fine." he said.

"We'll still meet up to hash out whatever we need to." Athena said, "You two," she pointed at Skyler and Mina, "take care of your problems. I'll text you regularly with details on what's going on."

"No guarantee we'll reply." Skyler said.

"I'm not expecting any until I tell you where we need to meet up. And any simple response will do just fine."

"Then we'll meet up with you… whenever." Skyler said, turning towards Ironhide.

It was a little after 20.00 when the rain broke. It was much later before they got back to their Upper Eastside penthouse, with Skyler watching the last crimson flickers of a passed sunset fading far to the west. He had not waited long to change out of his suit into something more comfortable for the evening hours.

"Sunset's pretty from up here, isn't it?" Mina asked, softly walking up to him. She leaned in against his left side, putting an arm around his waist and resting her head against his shoulder. She wore an oversized purple t-shirt with some kind of yellow flowers printed on the front and back.

"Sure is." he said, putting his own arm around her.

"Still wanna go through with it? The test, I mean?"

"If you wanna stay here a while longer, yeah."

Mina sighed, turning to face him, putting her other arm around him and resting her head against his chest to listen to his heartbeat. "I don't give a shit about it." she confessed as Skyler put his other arm around her, "In the clouds or in the dirt, even that cold office we lived in is fine, as long as it's with you."

"Guess we ought to do some refresher stuff, then. It's been a few years since you've been in the fifth grade."

"Few more for you." she returned, giving him a gentle squeeze.

---

Gabriel's was not much to look at from the outside. Like many of the buildings in Terminal it looked old and decrepit.

"You sure these guys are the best to talk to first?" Nocturne asked as Athena walked up to the front door.

"I do." Athena said, pushing the door open.

Soft retro music from the 2040's played in the background. Off to the right were a few real pool tables with a few more that were fully AR only. Along the wall to the left were arcade games that were likely older than any of them there. You could almost call the place a family-friendly establishment if it were not for some of the shadier looking figures, the extremely late hour (past when most bars stopped serving alcohol), and that this was the headquarters for the Kings, one of the more prominent gangs in Terminal. Many of the patrons in Gabriel's wore the purple and gold of the Kings.

Athena went straight to the bartender, a well toned and fit fomori that was a little on the short side, with dark chocolate brown hair trimmed into a narrow Mohawk.

"Can I get ya somethin'?" the bartender asked.

"I need some information." Athena said, leaning in close and speaking a little softly, and the fomori leaned in a little closer as well. "Who's got the download on the Switchblades?"

The bartender straightened up, his gaze leaving Athena and the intentionally good view of her cleavage. "Over at the Synesthesia III game."

Athena turned to look at the bank of arcade games, spying at the Synesthesia III game was a spiky haired human almost as tall as she was, his colors hooked over one corner of the arcade machine he was playing. Both ears had a variety of piercings, most notable being a four centimeter spike through both earlobes. He wore a tight chain of chrome steel links about his neck, and his obviously cybernetic right arm was larger than his natural left arm. She nodded her thanks to the bartender and walked on over to him.

The game made a drooping sound and said, "Game over." in a heavily digitized voice reminiscent of even older games from the previous century, and he slammed his hands at the control board.

"Having a hard time?" Athena sweetly asked.

"Naw, this game's always like this at the higher levels." he replied without looking at her, "Difficulty scales easy at first, but jumps exponentially squared once you hit level ten." Then he turned to look at Athena, and she saw another spike piercing below his lower lips. "Hey, you ain't from around here, ain't ya?"

"Naw, not this side of the island. Need some info, and I was told you could help."

"'Pends on what you need." he said, pulling his coat down and hooking it on one finger to drape over his left shoulder. Together they walked away from the arcade games and over to an empty booth.

Through the medusa drone in her hair, Athena could see Nocturne and Roadblock keeping an obvious eye on her, but also a respectable distance. She also noticed the bartender giving her more than one glance, and a few others in Kings colors also watching her.

"Got a name?" he asked as he sat down, sliding to the middle of the booth's bench and dropping his coat at his side.

"Athena." she replied, sliding in on the opposite side of the table.

"Crypt. So, what do you need?"

"Information on a gang called the Switchblades."

Crypt leaned back. "That's a serious download you want. It's not gonna be free."

"So what do you want for your intel?"

---

Both Gloria Berlin and Doris Bohman were impatiently waiting when Skyler and Mina finally came out. They had planned on making the women wait, but had ended up taking just a bit too long and were now dangerously close to being late.

"What took you so long?" Gloria asked, looking like she was resisting the urge to grab Skyler by the hand and drag him away somewhere. Instead she took out her frustrations on the elevator call button.

"Would you rather we didn't shower?" Skyler asked.

"You could have at least dressed properly." Doris commented as she gave the two of them a critical eye.

Skyler met her gaze with a steely eye of his own. He and Mina had gone over the dress code very carefully, and their casual clothes violated no rules. "I'd love you to show me what rules we're breaking."

"Your iContacts are expressly forbidden."

"Told you she'd think that." Skyler said to Mina.

"We don't have time for this." Gloria said just as the elevator chimed its arrival.

"We'll just see about getting you a loaner pair of AR glasses, then." Doris said as she followed Skyler and Mina into the elevator.

Skyler sighed and removed the contact lens from his right eye. "They're normal AR contacts. My eyes are solid blue."

"We'll discuss your disregard for the dress code later." Doris said.

Skyler kept his mouth shut as he put the contact lens back on. Did she not believe him about his eye color?

After a while the elevator stopped at the school's floor, and Gloria stepped out in quite a rush. Her fast paced walk forced Skyler and Mina to trot quickly just to keep up.

"Ms. Bohman will show you to the room for the fifth graders, Crystal, and I'll show you yours Damien." Gloria said as they walked through the school's main doors.

"Woof woof." Skyler replied sarcastically as he followed Gloria.

Gloria wisely chose to ignore Skyler for the moment as they walked down the hallway. They stopped at one door in particular where she rapped twice on it before opening.

"Mr. Robinson?" she asked as she stepped in. "I'm sorry to disturb you, but I've found your missing student."

"Go ahead and bring…" Mr. Robinson started to say. He was an elf of exceptional height, with short cut black hair.

Skyler walked in without waiting. There were about twenty students in the class, a mix of boys and girls, mostly human with a few elves, and all were wearing nice and expensive (and potentially tailor made) looking clothing. Some did not hide their grins of amusement at Skyler's common and off-the-rack street clothes, which included his worn Denver Ghosts t-shirt. The school's dress code was explicit about anything gang related, which he met, but it also was quite lacking in what was expected to be worn by the students, which he and Mina had decided to exploit to the fullest.

"… him in." Mr. Robinson said more slowly.

Scanning the room, Skyler found the desks were assigned, and there was one in fourth row with his name in an ARO floating above it. Without bothering to look at Mr. Robinson he started walking towards it.

"Mr. Gibson?" Mr. Robinson asked.

A seated student tried to trip Skyler by sticking his leg out. Not only did Skyler catch this with time to spare, he intentionally did catch his foot on the other student's ankle as he walked. Bracing himself as he strode, he pulled the other student out from his chair. He almost went tumbling himself, but managed to unhook his foot in time as he stumbled back to his feet.

"Mr. Gibson!" Mr. Robinson yelled.

"Hey! It wasn't my idea to try and go on a trip!" Skyler called back as he sat down at his assigned desk. Almost right away he slouched to try and recline in the hard chair.

"I told you he'd be trouble." he caught Gloria saying softly to Mr. Robinson.

"And I told you this'd be a waste of time." Skyler said, looking straight at Gloria. Some of the students turned to look at him, but he paid them no mind.

"Don't worry, I can handle him." Mr. Robinson said.

Gloria simply nodded and left, closing the door behind her.

"I presume you've read the dress code for this Academy, Mr. Gibson?" Mr. Robinson asked.

"Look, I've already got the tongue lashing about iContacts, and I ain't wearing any. These are my natural eyes." Skyler said.

"I presume you are wearing contacts?" Mr. Robinson asked, walking down the aisle towards Skyler.

"Yeah, and fine, I'll prove it to you too." Skyler returned.

iContacts were a fashionable contact lens that incorporated specialized sensors to detect eye movement and translated them into a generated AR image of whatever kind of eye the person wanted. Literally anything you could imagine was possible, but of course only worked if those around you could also see the augmented reality generated images (which was just about everyone anyway). The school's dress code had been explicit about any kind of AR overlay, which clearly made iContacts a banned accessory.

The look on Mr. Robinson's face was priceless when he saw the removed contact lens perched on Skyler's middle finger and the still blue-in-blue eyes blinking back at him (iContacts worked for only the eye they were worn upon). Glancing around he also saw the surprise of the other students that were looking at him. He noticed one girl looked practically horrified as she stared at him.

"Right, as I was saying…" Mr. Robinson said, ignoring Skyler and apparently picking up his lecture from where he left off.

Skyler simply sighed and replaced his contact. Only half listening to what Mr. Robinson had to say, he did pick up that this was not merely a placement exam for your classes, but an entrance exam as well.

Then finally came the opportunity to begin the tests. Like everything in the modern world, the test was done by ARO through a simple node in the desk.

Skyler did nothing to hide his boredom as he pegged one answer after another in the exam. English was first and it was all rather remedial to him at the start. As he pressed on he found the questions becoming a bit more challenging, but still nothing new to him, especially after the quick review he and Mina had done the night before. It did not take long for him to finish the test, answering a question that should have been impossible for a sixth grader to know.

Rather than do as he was told and wait for the rest of the class he loaded up the second test, which was on general science subjects, found the starting point for the sixth grade, and continued on. Like the English test everything started out very simple and grew in difficulty, and still he completed the last question.

Time was almost up for the rest of the class as they worked on their science test when Skyler tagged the last answer to the fourth and final test. He loosed a deep breath as he leaned back to relax.

Mr. Robinson was quick to notice Skyler's posture. "If you've got time to relax then you've got time to keep working."

"On what?" Skyler asked back, "I'm finished."

"Then move on to the next part of the test and start it."

"No, I mean I finished the last test." Skyler said, "I'm done. Finito. Nothing more to do. Can I go home now?"

"I can't let you go, so no."

"Told her it'd be a waste of time." Skyler muttered, "I finished everything and now I gotta waste my time sitting here doing nothing when I could be actually learning something." With a smirk he loaded up the augmented reality environment program that had come with his guitar and lesson program, created a virtual version of a Gibson Explorer Blackout electric guitar, set the audio to private (he felt the more considerate he was for the class, the more of an ass the teacher would be), and began a warm up practice routine. While the ARO guitar was truly insubstantial, there was a little bit of tactile feedback through his commlink's sim module, so he could at least feel the strings against his fingertips.

"Close that program, Mr. Gibson." Mr. Robinson ordered.

Skyler said nothing, glancing around as some of the other students gave him surreptitious looks but otherwise kept working on their own exams.

"Did you hear me Mr. Gibson!" Mr. Robinson yelled. He actually made the class jump from the volume of his own voice.

"I think the next classes over heard you." Skyler said calmly, his voice almost like a whisper compared to the irate teacher's.

Mr. Robinson stormed down the aisle at Skyler's left, grabbed what he believed was Skyler's cybernetic arm, and bodily hauled him out of the desk.

"Hey! Let go!" Skyler demanded as Mr. Robinson started pulling him back towards the front of the class. When Mr. Robinson did not release him he brought a heel down hard on one of the teacher's feet. The shock made Mr. Robinson release him, and Skyler hustled to the front of the class, taking up a martial artists' like stance with his right arm up for defense. All he really knew was from watching trideos and such, and anyone of real skill would know he did not know much, but it easily could work as a bluff to the uneducated that Skyler was skilled.

"You're coming with me to the Principal's office right now!" Mr. Robinson declared.

"You could've just asked." Skyler replied calmly, relaxing into a more casual stance. "Anything that gets me outa here faster."

Without waiting for Mr. Robinson, Skyler took the lead and walked out of the classroom door, closing the music lesson program with a thought as he walked.

Principals' offices seemed to be all alike, Skyler figured as he lounged in the hard, mustard yellow plastic chair just outside of Renee Plourde's office. If the building had not been rebuilt sometime after 2005 he would have sworn the chairs were intentionally a century old just so they could be incredibly uncomfortable.

"Damien, will you please join us?" the Principal asked. Mr. Robinson had gone in first to give his side of the story, and now it looked like it was now where the Principal was to lecture Skyler in what he did wrong.

"Sure." Skyler said, pushing himself up from the hard plastic chair to follower her in.

"Please, have a seat." Renee said, gesturing to a much more comfortable looking chair. She was human, with mouse brown hair that was tied back in the stereotypical teacher's bun. Next to Mr. Robinson stood Gloria, apparently already having been in the office when he got there.

Skyler dropped himself into the relatively plush office chair, grabbing the lock bar beneath him to pull it out so he could recline.

"Mr. Robinson says you were being disruptive while everyone was taking their entrance exam." Renee said, noticing his lackadaisical attitude, "Care to explain?"

"Well, I finished the test. Didn't feel like there was a point to sitting around for hours with nothing to do, so I asked if I could just go home. He," Skyler jabbed a thumb at Mr. Robinson, "didn't give me a good reason why I couldn't. So I thought I'd load up a music program to practice some guitar chords."

"Even though doing so would be disruptive to the rest of the class?" Renee asked.

"Hey, I coulda turned the volume up to eleven. And if anyone didn't wanna see they coulda just put me on ignore and went about their business." Skyler could have also ghosted his link so no one would have to put him on an ignore list in the first place, but ghosting was against school policy.

"Look, it wasn't my idea to do this in the first place." Skyler continued, "Hell, I even told Mrs. Berlin," he jabbed a thumb at Gloria, "yesterday that this would be a waste of time. I've done my education, and so has Crystal. Shoulda told her that it'd be 'cause you can't teach us anything we need to know and don't already know."

"Well, let's see about that." Renee said, "I'll pull your test file right now and grade the whole thing as is for your entrance placement."

Skyler reclined his head just a little, letting a smug smile of his own grow. "Go right ahead."

Renee was looking quite proud of herself as she pulled up his test and toggled it for grading, likely expecting it to be incomplete. A look that quickly turned into a frown.

"Well?" Mr. Robinson asked impatiently.

Renee said nothing, plugging away on an invisible ARO keyboard. "While we wait for a message back, maybe you can tell me how you cheated?"

"Cheated?" Skyler asked back, trying his best to sound quite offended. "Can't tell you how 'cause I didn't."

"What is it?" Gloria asked.

"He got a near perfect score for a high school senior." Renee said.

"What?" Gloria loudly asked.

"He finished the whole thing." Renee said, "It's right here. He completed the entire entrance exam, and I've got Mark running a security check right now to see how he cheated."

"How the hell'd he do it?" Mr. Robinson asked. "He didn't get a chance to start the last test, let alone the third!"

"Actually, I did." Skyler said, "All of the test files were unlocked once we started the first test, so when I finished one I just opened the next and continued on. It was that or sit around for an hour doing nothing and being bored outa my mind."

There was a knock at the door before it opened on its own. "Principal Plourde? I've got a problem child here."

With one foot Skyler lazily pushed his chair around, sitting up as the door came into view. There was another teacher standing there, and quietly behind her was Mina.

Skyler heard Gloria groan. He let a smirk creep up onto his face again.

"What is it, Miss Williams?" Renee asked.

"She says she's finished the test and is demanding to go home." Miss Williams said, "When I told her she had to sit patiently and wait for the others before we took the next test she became belligerent and said she had already finished the entire exam."

Renee sighed. "Fine, bring her in."

"How long?" Mina asked, looking at Skyler.

"Been here 'bout ten minutes."

"Quiet you two." Renee ordered, "So, Miss Wilcox, you think you're a smart girl?"

"If that test's what you call hard, then I'm a genius." Mina replied. Skyler figured there were a few choice words she intentionally left out. Maybe she already got scolded for cussing?

Renee's fingers danced as she accessed an ARO. "Then we'll just grade you right now."

"Fine." Mina said sharply, arms akimbo and leaning a little on her right foot as she tapped her left foot impatiently.

Renee hissed, though Skyler would have sworn she really cussed under her breath. Skyler spun back around to see a frustrated looking Principal.

"Well?" Mina asked.

"Almost the same as Damien's." Renee said. "More wrong answers, but she finished it all."

"Get ready to be accused of cheating." Skyler told Mina.

"Quiet." scolded Gloria.

"What? Just 'cause she's a girl she's not gonna get the same accusation I did?" Skyler asked. "What the hell happened to 'Equal Rights,' or is it 'Equal-Rights-As-Long-As-Men-Are-Less-Equal'?"

"What do you know about Equal Rights?" Miss Williams asked.

"That the whole 'Seventy-Seven cents on the dollar' been going on for the last seventy years without end," Skyler answered, "and while it might've been true in the last century, after ten years of the same rhetoric without solid proof I really gotta call bullshit."

"Back to the matter at hand, how did you do it?" Renee asked.

"Do what?" Mina asked.

"Cheat." Renee scowled. "Well?"

"I didn't cheat." Mina replied, sounding rather put out at the accusation.

"Oh please, spare us…" Gloria started to say, but stopped when Renee held up a hand.

"Just got a message from Mark." Renee said, "Says there's no security breaches, no tampering of the system."

Skyler smiled big, partly because they had been telling the truth and were vindicated. He certainly could have hacked into the school's network (he had at least checked, and their security was not all that good), but both he and Mina felt it would have cheapened everything they had said to Gloria about attending being a waste of their time. On top of that, if they were by chance actually caught it would have only vindicated Gloria's and Doris's persistence in getting them into school anyway.

"Can we go home now?" Mina asked in a chipper tone that had more added sweetener than a Buzz Cola.

Renee was fit to be tied, and looked hot enough under the collar to fry a real egg.

"It'll be easier on all of us if we just go and you don't bother us 'bout going to school at all." Skyler said. "If you do, we can guarantee you that we'll be down here like this, every… single… day."

"That supposed to be a threat?" Mr. Robinson asked.

"A warning." Skyler returned. "Seriously, I was in the middle of a music lesion when Mrs. Berlin came to disturb us yesterday. I'd be practicing more chords on my guitar today if we weren't down here dealing with this."

"And I'd've been checking the news about this new reconstructive nanotech surgery technique Saeder-Krupp announced yesterday." Mina added. "Seriously, your science test had nothing on nanotech anywhere. I really want to know how this new trick deals with cellular necrosis."

"Would you two please wait outside?" Renee asked. "There's something I'd like to discuss privately with the others here."

"Yeah, sure." Skyler said evenly as he stood, doing his best to put into his tone that he was choosing to be polite. At the same time he slipped a hand into his pocket to pluck a Fly-Spy. It was awake and ready by the time he deposited it by the door. The tiny drone was already somewhere hidden by the time the door was closed.

"We're gonna let it go just like that?" Mina asked in a hushed tone.

"Here." Skyler said, letting her connect to what the microdrone could see and hear.

"…they can do this every single day, I believe him." Renee said.

"How can you be so sure of that?" Gloria asked.

"Because they're both smart enough to have completed their placement exams. Not just the fifth or sixth grade requirement but the whole damn thing." Renee told them.

"And Mark's sure there weren't any security breaches?" Gloria asked.

"If they really did cheat, they paid off a very good hacker that covered his or her tracks very well," Renee said, "or…"

"Or?" Mr. Robinson asked.

"Or one of them did the hacking themselves, and still covered their tracks very well," Renee continued, "or everything's on the level."

"They can't be on the level." Gloria said, "There's just no way those two are that smart. They're not even teenagers!"

"They just might be that smart." Miss Williams said, finally saying something. "I was looking into what Crystal said about that nanotech surgery thing, and there's next to nothing I can find that's simple. I mean, it's looking like college level medical material at least."

Skyler glanced over to Mina. She simply looked down at her hands in her lap.

Renee sighed. "Pat, Donna, I think we've kept you from your classes too long. Go ahead and head back. I'll take it from here."

"Here's what I found." Donna Williams said, apparently forwarding information to Renee.

"I was studying pre-med before I ran for the shadows. Wanted to be a cybersurgeon." Mina finally told him.

Skyler and Mina barely regarded the two teachers when they left Principal Plourde's office.

"So tell me, why are you so adamant about those two attending school here?" Renee asked.

"Just trying to save ourselves some trouble." Gloria said, suddenly sounding quite tired.

"Who is it this time?"

"Doris Bohman."

Renee groaned.

"She that much of a bitch?" Mina silently asked.

"Doesn't surprise me. Sounds like they've got more than one resident bitch on their hands, though."

"She's gonna be livid when she hears about the test results for these two." Renee said. "And there's just no way they're gonna not cause problems if we put them in the middle grades."

"When I first met Damien I thought he was just being your typical smartass kid about going to school." Gloria sighed before adding, "He'll be bored to tears in the grade schools, and I'll bet he'll be browbeating the high schoolers if we put him in the twelfth grade."

"Assuming some seniors don't shove him in a locker first."

Gloria chuckled. "Crystal's already awakened, and if she's as smart as you think she is then she's already got her power under control. As close as those two look, she'll set whatever spirits she can conjure on whoever tries to shove him in a locker."

"Speaking of which, doesn't Doris have the opinion that her daughter's gonna awaken?"

"She does, but Becky's scored as low as you can on those tests."

"Shit, speak of the devil." Skyler silently said as Doris came walking up to them. An evil smirk of satisfaction came over her face when she noticed the two of them sitting just outside the Principal's office. She wisely said nothing as she rapped twice on the door before walking on in uninvited.

"Doris, I was wondering when you were going to show." Renee said. She did not sound the least bit surprised by the rude interruption. Of course she could have also been silently tipped off by someone else.

"So, what kind of trouble are those two in?" Doris asked without any preamble.

"Honestly? I'm not sure they're in any trouble at all." Renee told her.

Doris looked like she was about to blow a gasket, her smug face suddenly turning to a mix of shock, anger, and surprise.

Skyler and Mina shared a look of surprise. Principal Plourde had seemed to be on the warpath as much as any of the others until just now.

"Those two have already completed their entrance exams." Renee said, "And when I say 'completed' I mean that they finished their tests to the last question."

"Then they cheated." Doris declared with so little hesitation Skyler expected she was already expecting to use the line.

"Got proof?" Renee asked, "We've already done a network scan and a thorough review of both of their exams. Damien and Crystal both filled in their answers much faster than their peers, and all the way from their grade level up through senior year high school material."

"What about the boy? He's got a prosthetic, maybe he's got the answers…" Doris started. Skyler thought she was starting to grasp at straws for anything to incriminate him and Mina.

"The tests are dynamically created on the spot, you know that." Gloria interjected, "There are thousands of possible questions for each grade level. Maybe he could have a chip with the answers and a neural interface to do all the searches as fast as possible, but it'd likely take too long to just look up the answers than it'd be worth."

"And based on how fast they answered every one, they know the material." Renee added. "And she's got no implants and answered everything almost as quickly, so don't think you can accuse her, either."

"She's a magician. Maybe she used magic to read their minds?" Doris posed.

"In a classroom of awakened and potentials?" Renee asked back, "And don't forget that Dona's also an exceptional magician. If there was magic going on someone would've noticed."

"The teacher's spirit, sure, but I don't know about her." Mina silently remarked.

Renee took a deep breath. "I don't know what kind of grudge you seem to have against these two…"

"They're hoodlums." Doris said. "Damien answered the door yesterday half naked, claiming we interrupted a music lesson, and when Crystal came to the door she was just wearing a t-shirt. It doesn't take a genius to know what those two were really doing."

"It does take an idiot to jump to the wrong conclusion." Skyler silently commented.

Gloria groaned. Apparently she had not thought the same thing Doris had.

"So you are assuming that those two kids were fornicating when you and Gloria paid them a visit yesterday?" Renee asked.

"It would make sense when you think about how long it took for him to answer the door."

"Only 'cause I had to put my arm casing on." Skyler told Mina.

"Maybe we should bring them in." Gloria suggested, "At least we can get their side of this."

Renee said nothing, but nodded.

Gloria opened the door. "Could you two please come back in?" she asked.

Skyler and Mina said nothing as they stood and followed her back in.

"We've got a bit of a problem." Renee said as Gloria closed the door behind them. "Ms. Bohman has some serious accusations against you two."

"Bet she thinks we cheated on the exams." Skyler said.

"And that we wanna go home just so we can fuck around some more." Mina added. "Really, some people." She rolled her eyes.

Renee simply looked at them, eyebrows arched in surprise.

Skyler said, "Doesn't take a genius to figure she's got a personal vendetta on us. Bet she's also the kind of parent that thinks her kid's the exceptional one and the rest are as common as dirt."

"And your state of dress when you answered the door yesterday?" Renee asked.

"Should I've put on a formal suit?" Skyler asked back.

"So you're not denying that you answered the door half naked?" Renee asked.

"We had been in our hot tub earlier, relaxing after a workout. After lunch I went to practice my new guitar. So I didn't bother to change from my swimsuit because I never expected to be interrupted." Skyler glared at Doris.

"Not like we were streakin' down Central Park." Mina added.

"You have no right to talk, wearing just a shirt when you came to the door yesterday." Doris said.

"And my bikini underneath it." Mina corrected, "Seriously, I've seen skimpier crap at public beaches 'n pools than what I had on yesterday. It's like some women are trying to show off as much skin as possible without actually breaking the law."

"Hmph" Doris went.

"Not like she's got any right to tell us what we can and can't wear in the privacy of our own home." Skyler said.

"Public decency…" Doris started.

"Doesn't apply in the privacy of your own home." Skyler interrupted, "Or are you gonna try and convince us that you wear a swimsuit when you take a shower"

"Enough." Renee said forcefully. She lowered her head, putting a hand to the bridge of her nose.

"So, can we go now?" Mina asked.

"What?" Doris asked, eyes wide in surprise.

"Well, yeah. I mean, we finished your little test. Unless you wanna waste time and keep us here."

"Going to school isn't a waste of time!"

"Fine! Why don't we throw you in the fourth grade and see what you think!"

"Enough!" Renee loudly said, nearly yelling. After composing herself she said, "Damien, Crystal, you're free to go. But don't think this is over, because we cannot just let this go."

"Well, what if we had a G.E.D. or something?" Skyler asked.

"I'll let you know."

---

Athena slammed the palm of her hand to Vengeance's forehead, pressing her fingers to his skull. She whispered to the air elemental as she focused her power through her hand, envisioning a drill to punch through the Japanese man's skull.

Vengeance screamed as her spell bored into his mind, powerless to stop her.

She focused on what Vengeance knew about the Switchblades. The easiest thing she found first was an overwhelming desire not to cross the smaller gang, the elemental whispering to her about fear and power, and as she dug deeper to find out why she found a memory of a very substantial ammunition delivery. There were even more deliveries, ranging back for almost two years as they flitted past her.

One of those memories Athena found had a connection to Jordan Aerodynamics, and something felt significant to Vengeance. Like the shifting funnel of a tornado she started searching for what he knew about the building. Her green eyes bored into his own dark eyes as she extracted knowledge about the Switchblades rebuilding the interior of the building, the elemental whispering to her of rumors about concealing access to the basement and upper floors. One thing that Vengeance apparently did know was that a lot of money had been spent reconnecting the underground utilities just to that one building.

The vortex dug deeper as Athena focused on finding out what Vengeance knew about who was backing the Switchblades. The one vortex became two as she searched his memories, then four, and eight, and still she found nothing. The most she was able to piece together was that no crime syndicate was backing the Switchblades.

Figuring that she knew as much about the Switchblades as Vengeance knew Athena pulled back and ended her spell. To sate her outrage at having to rummage around in his mind Athena slammed Vengeance's head against the wall. It was far from enough to knock him out, even with the shocking touch Roadblock had already dealt, but she felt he would be seeing stars for a while. His three friends that had been in the back room with Vengeance were already unconscious, two of them looking like human throw pillows (compliments of Roadblock).

"Right, let's ditch this shithole." Athena said, fixing her jacket as she walked towards the private room door (which was half destroyed, half barely hanging by one hinge), dismissing her air elemental as she stepped through the ward that protected the room from outside magic.

Roadblock was just outside of the room standing guard. Several of the Tridents had to learn the hard way what his name meant (calling him rōdōburot-ku, among other things) when they tried to get into the private room to help their boss. The minotaur had managed to not kill anyone, but most had given up trying to get by when word got around about how implacable he had been at opening reinforced doors. Actually he had been a little overzealous with the last door to the private room Vengeance and three other Tridents had been in, backhanding it so hard as he was walking up to it that everything above the door's deadbolt had simply shattered.

Nocturne was in the middle of the bar, his blades extended like a razor sharp sixth finger between his twitching middle and ring fingers as he eyed the other patrons that wore the Trident's black and blue colors. Their colors were now tinted with deep crimson as they tended to their wounds. Nocturne had surprised the Tridents when he had displayed his skill in Arnis De Mano, Ars Cybernetica, and Capoeria, his cyber spurs being more an extension of his own body than simple stabbing implements. Most of those that were not too seriously cut up were tending to the injuries of those who were.

"You can put 'em away, I got what we came for." Athena said as she walked out into the bar towards the door.

"Was it worth all this?" he asked, his blades retracting back up into his arms.

"Maybe." She did not want to say too much, that they still had to go back to Gabriel's to talk to Crypt and see how much she had just learned matched up with what she had gotten out of Vengeance's mind.

Her commlink alerted her to a text from one of her contacts within the MDC. Now was certainly a good time to head back to Kings territory.

---

"I'z told you'z gots somethin' for me." a gruff voice said over the drizzling rain as heavy boots clunked on the concrete. That voice belonged to a hobgoblin with skin like a green olive and oily black hair. He had the typical dark beady eyes, prominent ears, and pointed chin common to most hobgoblins, and the only way to tell his tusks from the rest of his pointed teeth was their length. He wore the same red and black synthleather jacket they saw other members of the Slaughterhouse gang wearing.

Skyler looked the hobgoblin over, his eyes and goggles half hidden behind the hood of his jacket. The persistent rain was chilling him to the bone and already he was tired of hearing it splatter against his jacket and everything else.

Despite the poor lighting of the alley he could also see two others that had followed the hobgoblin from Nirvana, their otherwise unnamed images being positively identified by the facial recognition software Skyler had running. They were human, one with red hair and the other brunette, and might very well look intimidating to a real preteen. The two were trying to be sneaky, but had grossly underestimated who they believed were kids.

"If you're Chromedome, we do." Skyler said, kneeling down so he could slip his head out from under the duffle's shoulder strap, the relief from its weight almost made him feel lopsided now. "And you got something for us too?" he asked as Mina did the same with the matching duffle that she had been holding.

Chromedome's smile made Skyler think of a shark as the hobgoblin pulled out a gold colored credstick and handed it to him. Skyler accepted it and slotted it into the commlink at his arm. He saw Chromedome's expression suddenly sour, and when he saw the amount that was loaded on the credstick he knew why.

Several hours ago Skyler and Mina had gotten a little request from Ares after they had gone back to the brownstone for different identities and such before sneaking off into Terminal. It had seemed simple enough, take two duffle bags full of guns and ammo and deliver them to a Slaughterhouse ganger named Chromedome who'll exchange them for one or more credsticks totaling ¥60,000. If necessary, convince him to pay that full amount, send a confirmation message that you have the money and instructions will soon be forthcoming.

After spending some money for a skimmer to get them under the island and into Terminal they had managed to discretely get word to Chromedome about the delivery. Before the hobgoblin and his friends had finally bothered to show up Skyler and Mina were determined to finish this favor come Hell or high water.

"You know," Skyler said, pulling the credstick out and handing it back to Chromedome, "we were told how much you were going to pay for these." He drew one of his Predators and aimed it straight at the hobgoblin, saying, "Don't try to fuck with us, so pay up."

The other two Slaughterhouse members stepped from the shadows, Predators of their own in hand, which prompted Skyler to draw his other Predator and Mina her Sakura Fubuki. The one (which happened to be the redhead) that Mina aimed at did not seem too intimidated, though he certainly would have if he knew she had armor piercing rounds loaded in it.

With a thought Skyler also launched his custom scanner and exploit programs and set out to see just how geared up Chromedome's buddies were.

"Three to two, you lose." Chromedome said, showing off his sharp teeth as he smiled.

"You really think so?" Mina asked, sounding as sassy as she could.

Skyler saw it appear out of thin air, a humanoid figure made of granite and chiseled to look like it was in armor. It sounded like grinding gravel as it moved, and it drew the attention of one of Chromedome's friends.

"Shit!" the Slaughterhouse ganger cried, seeing Mina's earth elemental that stood taller than him.

Beside them the air became like ice as another of Mina's spirits materialized, fluid like a slushy and crackling like a breaking glacier the water elemental advanced on the Slaughterhouse trio. It was apparently so cold that the falling rain was beginning to freeze at its feet as it ran down its corporeal body.

"Five to three." Skyler said as his software isolated the Predators and commlinks the gangers were carrying. "Don't think that you'll scare the shit outa us, 'cause we've shot…"

"And burned." Mina interjected.

"… plenty of go-gangers and thrill gangers before." Skyler finished. Already he had one of their two Predators under his control, with a side thought of why they were running wirelessly if they didn't have the visual aids to make the use of them.

Chromedome lifted his head, looking down at Skyler with his beady eyes. The hobgoblin was easily thirty centimeters taller, and probably weighed two and a half times as much as Skyler.

Skyler himself was starting to feel a bit nervous about the Predator pointed at Mina, his exploit program working furiously against its firewall.

"What're you gonna do 'bout it, kid?" Chromedome asked.

Skyler sighed as he gained control of the other ganger's handgun, and Chromedome smiled. His emotive software gave high odds that the hobgoblin was feeling quite confident and superior in his position. He wondered if that would remain true of Chromedome knew his commlink was identified and now being hacked.

"Well, kinda depends on what you do. If you have your goons try to kill us we'll just kill you, hack your 'links and search your bodies for all your cred, and sell the guns 'n ammo to someone else. Or we'll leave you bleedin' in the gutter, broke, but you'll get the guns. Or you can take the credstick I gave back and up the other forty-eight on it, you get the guns, and we all walk away."

Chromedome smirked, drawing a Predator of his own and aimed it straight at Skyler's head. The hobgoblin might have thought he was being smart in slaving his Predator to his commlink, but even he did not have anything more to make the most of the smartgun system, and when Skyler was inside of Chromedome's PAN he also had control of the gun. Through the smartgun camera Skyler could see right where the hobgoblin was aiming. When he did not seem to be terrified at all, Chromedome sneered and twisted his pistol onto its side.

"Just maim them." Skyler silently told Mina. He then turned on the safeties on all three of the Slaughterhouse Predators.

"Oh pu-lease." Skyler said, completely unimpressed as he stared straight down the barrel of Chromedome's Predator.

Chromedome shot. Well, at least he wanted to but the trigger held firm, his expression changing to one of confusion as he tried again and again to shoot Skyler. Maybe Chromedome had thought that he and his buddies could shoot the two before the spirits did anything to them, that those spirits would just vanish back to whatever metaplane they came from if their conjurer was dead and they woudl be fine. Even Skyler had felt he would not have been so stupid with someone else's spirits ready to pounce on him.

Skyler did lower his Predators, and it was his turn to smile as he shot the hobgoblin and one of his friends in the knee, the EX-explosive slugs shattering their kneecaps. The two cried out in pain as they fell to the ground, water sloshing about as they tried to scramble back up.

The one Mina had been aiming at simply collapsed. She quickly stepped up and kicked the dropped Predator away.

Skyler stepped up to Chromedome, stepping on the hobgoblin's right hand with the Predator still in it and leveraged all forty kilograms of his weight onto it as he knelt down, making Chromedome grunt in pain as his hand was slowly crushed against the cold and wet concrete. With his other hand he kept his Predator aimed at the still conscious ganger. It was a bit of a moot point as that ganger was now more interested in trying to make himself a tourniquet for his bleeding leg.

"Guess your buddy's lucky she stunned him instead of shooting him." Skyler said menacingly. Through the ARO that was Chromedome's commlink he accessed his accounts and found that the ganger had less than a hundred nuyen to his name.

"Fuck." Skyler cussed through gritted teeth.

"What is it?" Mina asked.

"He's either trying to be smart or he's really stupid. He's got pocket change in his account."

"Think he's got another credstick on him?"

"Maybe."

Chromedome tried to chuckle, but renewed pressure on his hand, his fingers being pressed upon around the Predator's grip, quickly stifled the noise. His grin disappeared entirely when Skyler leveled his Predator in his face.

"Now tell me," Skyler growled, "are your three lives worth forty-eight grand?"

Gritting his teeth, Chromedome said nothing.

"Maybe they're okay with being ghoul kibble." Mina suggested as she holstered her pistol for her Cougar Fineblade. "We can cut 'em up into chunks, just in case one of 'em shoved it up their ass."

Skyler could not help but chuckle at what she had just said, especially thinking as if she really was the young girl she looked like.

"Should I cap 'em first?" Skyler asked.

"Naw. More blood means the ghouls'll get here faster." she said as she stepped up to Chromedome, brandishing her weapon. Her Cougar Fineblade was not exactly an off-the-shelf model, the 40cm blade was polished to a mirror finish with a hair-thin line of red in a stylized tongue of flame pattern, and the grip was personalized to her hand in red synthleather.

"A'ight! A'ight!" Chromedome cried out as Mina approached. "I'z got another in my back pocket!"

"I'm gonna get up off your hand," Skyler said to Chromedome, "and when I do you're gonna let go of your gun and roll over onto your stomach to kiss the sidewalk. Try anything funny and the alley gets decorated in brain matter gray."

Chromedome nodded, his face starting to turn an ugly shade of pale green. As soon as his hand was free he did just as Skyler said, and Skyler kicked the Predator aside.

Mina kept her Fineblade in her left hand as she felt around in Chromedome's back pockets. She pulled out three total credsticks, two of them gold in color.

"Go ahead and check it." Skyler said.

"Girl's got a nice touch." Chromedome said aloud.

Scowling, Mina jabbed her Fineblade straight into his right butt cheek, and Chromedome screamed quite loudly. She left the blade there as she checked the credsticks.

"I shoulda mentioned she likes to decorate in arterial red." Skyler said offhandedly.

"He's got the sixty on this one." Mina said, holding up one of the two gold colored credsticks, "And the other's got ten."

"Keep 'em all." Skyler said.

She pocketed them, then she stepped hard on Chromedome's backside, digging her heel down before wiggling the Fineblade a little to loosen it and pull it free. Chromedome groaned in pain.

"Guess we ain't leavin' ya piss broke, but we are leavin' ya bleedin' in the street."

"I give him fifteen minutes before he bleeds out." Mina commented, wiping the blood off of her Fineblade on the unconscious ganger's rain soaked jacket. "If you hurry he might not need a blood transfusion."

Together the two walked off, taking the first turn they could and switching their armored clothing to camouflage mode.

"Think it was a good idea to take those other credsticks?" Mina silently asked.

"The Ares handler said to convince Chromedome to pay the sixty thousand. Didn't really tell us how, so I think being out an extra twenty-two grand should be a good lesson."

It was mid afternoon by the time they had found the Jordan Aerodynamics building Athena had told them about. Getting through gang territory had not been all that easy, though Skyler thought Mina's approach of wanton destruction by earth elemental would have actually made things worse. Instead they had taken a wandering path through back alleys with an air elemental following to help conceal them from curious eyes. That and the adaptive camouflage of their clothing had let them get through virtually sight unseen.

Matrix coverage was about as bad as you could get short of going deep into the wilderness. Even despite the four kilometer maximum range Skyler's main commlink had Terminal's lack of wireless infrastructure and buildings slowed down just how fast he could actually look anything up in the matrix.

The five story tall Jordan Aerodynamics building sat at the corner of a four way intersection, with a four story parking garage to one side and an empty four story office building at the other. A mix of old and new gang graffiti decorated the buildings.

It was not too difficult for Skyler and Mina to choose where to hide. Gangers that they figured were the Switchblades seemed to be mostly milling about the parking garage, though several sat in front the only doors into the J.A. building, so into the adjacent office building they went. Once they had found themselves a nook to hide in Mina projected herself into the astral to check the area out. Skyler simply sat and watched the Switchblades as he did his best to do more research online.

The sun had long since set, but tonight the rain continued to fall, and Skyler wondered if it was even harder now than earlier that day. It certainly did not make things easier to see regardless of his natural eyes or the sensors he had available. Even in the astral the rain made its presence known as each falling drop of water had its shadow cast into that neighboring dimension. There was even more to it Mina had told him, the mana in the area made her feel dirty and itchy, that her magic would not be quite as potent as it usually was.

After many hours of watching the Switchblades, and researching the J.A. building, Skyler was starting to wonder about the whole mission in general. He opted to start researching their Johnson a little more deeply just before a voice distracted him.

"There you are." Athena said softly as she walked up to them with Nocturne and Roadblock behind her. Crouching down to look out the window, she asked, "So, how'd it go?"

"How'd what go?" asked Nocturne.

"I think they're still trying to figure out what hit them." Skyler said.

"Oh no, please don't tell me you were as belligerent as possible." Athena said.

"Well… sorta." Skyler said.

"Oh no." Athena groaned.

"I don't get it." Nocturne asked.

"Go ahead." Skyler said softly.

"These two got tangled up with a school entrance exam today." Athena explained, "And they decided not to hold anything back."

"Well, they shouldn't." Nocturne said, "Cypher probably could skip a few grades if he really applied himself."

"Skip a few grades?" Skyler asked, "You're talking like I wanna go back to school again."

He and Mina had discussed it between their observations of the Switchblades, and they had both figured they were now pretty well tired of pretending to be the children they looked like when it came to Roadblock and Nocturne. Of course, the more people that knew the harder it would become to be able to play up the child angle to others in the shadows. Besides, the longer they worked the shadows the more evident it would become that the two were not aging like proper human children.

"Again?" Nocturne asked, looking quite perplexed.

"First off, we're not as young as we look." Skyler said.

"I'm still younger than you, Nocturne, but not by much." Mina added.

"I wouldn't say five years is 'not by much.'" Athena said.

Nocturne looked more confused than ever, and his gloss black eyes made it nearly impossible to tell where he was looking.

"You know how your SURGE hit you? Turning your hair white and all?" Athena asked the razorboy, "Well, these two SURGEd and they're both stuck with prepubescent bodies."

Roadblock looked half surprised, his expression somewhere between surprise and knowing. Had he suspected something of the two since they met five months ago? Last year when he had come out to the team that he was a technomancer he had seen a similar look on his sister's face, like all of the puzzle pieces were there and had just suddenly fell into a complete picture all at once.

Nocturne looked like a gentle breeze could knock him over. "So he's not really twelve, but twenty-something?" he asked.

"Twenty-four." Skyler corrected.

"And your tests?" Athena asked.

"We straight up took the tests and tore through 'em like Ghostwalker through downtown Denver." Skyler finished.

"More like Aden in Tehran." Mina added.

"I think the Principal believes we're fuckin' geniuses, finishing the entire exam in half the time." Skyler said.

"Oh shit." groaned Athena, leaning against a wall to slide down and sit on the floor.

"Well, that was after I think they figured out we didn't cheat." Skyler added, "I mean, seriously, someone thought I had everything loaded up in here," he held up his left arm to emphasize the cybernetic casing he wore, "in some kind of massive crib file."

Roadblock cleared his throat.

"Right, we should get back to the job." Athena said. "So, what'd your research turn up?"

Skyler started off with what he had found in the matrix about Jordan Aerodynamics. J.A. had originally been an independent company specializing in manufacturing replacement parts for airliner hydraulic systems, that it had been bought out by Ares Macrotechnology a long time ago and then forgotten. No blueprints of any kind could be found anywhere, likely lost to the virus that caused Crash 2.0 many years ago. In fact the only little bit that Skyler could seem to find was an allusion that Ares still had a hardcopy title for the property, but there was virtually no digital footprint to be found.

Athena then added that what they had learned from the Tridents' leader that the Switchblades had spent roughly six months doing extensive remodeling of the J.A. building. Apparently so extensive that it not only involved making sure the outside did not look any different from any other abandoned building, but also that extensive utilities were connected directly to and specifically for just the J.A. building alone.

That was when Skyler brought up the utility records. The utilities were linked to a woman named Laura Grisham who had apparently been deceased for the last twelve years. Despite that, regular (and anonymous) deposits were being made to an account in her name on the first of every month like clockwork, with the bills for the utilities coming out of it regularly, and with an incredibly high electric bill.

Then Mina spoke up about what she had found during her few astral recons of the J.A. building and adjacent parking garage. Aside from the itchy and fuzzy feel the ambient mana gave her in the area (which affected the others as well, particularly Nocturne) there was next to nothing to suggest anything was out of the ordinary. Not even any of the Switchblades that patrolled outside were awakened in any way.

That was until she slipped into the J.A. building itself. As soon as she had passed through the wall everything changed, clearing to normal mana levels. She had made many quick forays in and out because there were several astrally projecting magicians patrolling inside. On top of that she found several rooms on the inside that were not only strongly warded but had other defenses as well, one that (in her words) felt slimy when she touched it. Athena figured it was some form of fluorescing astral bacteria, or FAB for short.

Nocturne then mentioned what he had heard Crypt, the leader of the Kings, tell Athena. Some time ago the Kings had attempted to hijack one of the supply shipments for the Switchblades, and one of them supposedly noticed a cage in the back of the truck that was holding a person in it. That member of the Kings swore the person in the cage had insect wings.

Overall the security also looked pretty tight. Every single member of the Switchblades was ghosting their commlink, and all signals disappeared as soon as they walked in through the only door on the ground level. The windows had been boarded over and there was not even the tiniest crack for any light to leak out. This kind of security might have been considered well into the realm of paranoia, until Athena mentioned the very good odds that all of the members were former military.

"Yeah, didn't figure any of 'em were real gangers." Skyler said.

"How'd you figure that?" Nocturne asked.

"They're too professional, none of 'em act cocky 'n arrogant, and they act like there's some kind of clear ranking structure." Skyler said. "Typical gangers are tryin' to find the one-up on everyone else, they strut about like they own the place." He looked at Nocturne and added, "Denver gangs, New York gangs, Seattle gangs, they all have their attitude in common."

Nocturne took a deep breath, exhaling through his nose. "So what's it all boil down to?" he asked aloud.

"Ares is experimenting on bugs where people won't give a shit to look, their Firewatch badly pretending to be a gang as a cover." Mina said.

"If we didn't have what we know, I'd've called that a conspiracy theory." Athena said.

"And Johnson wants to bust it wide open." Skyler said. "Now I'm wishing we hadn't taken this job."

"Not like we had a choice. He's got dirt on us we don't want people knowing."

"Yeah, that's something I don't get." Nocturne said, "If you two really are older than you look, how come he didn't have anything on you two?"

"I… started a little over a year ago." Mina said softly. "I was sixteen, still in high school… And I ran…"

Athena held up a hand to stop her. "We don't need what you're not comfortable with sharing. So, Firefly's got a relatively short career history. What about you?"

Skyler looked the others over before answering. "Few months before she started is when I took my current nom de plume."

"And looking like a kid likely lead Johnson to believe you didn't have much of a career to dig up." Athena reasoned. "Anyway, we do have a job to do. So, how do we get in?"

"There's always six at the door." Skyler said, "They rotate people regularly; two will come out and two go in. Others are patrolling regularly, always in groups of six."

"Yeah, that does sound like army or something." Nocturne commented. Gang members did patrol their territory, but most did not with the same discipline a team of military professionals.

"What about the roof?" Athena asked. "There's three ways in. Front door, roof, and underground from the parking garage."

"We haven't looked." Skyler said.

"I didn't see anyone up there whenever I've been about." Mina said.

"Guess I'll go take a look." Nocturne said. The light seemed to waver a little, like looking through a heat wave or mirage, as he walked back into the shadows.

Some time later, and after Athena and Roadblock had found spots of their own to be somewhat comfortable while they waited, Nocturne returned, soaking wet and dripping water. "There's not a single guard up there and it looks completely abandoned, but they're covering their ass alright. All over there's a mess of pressure pads so anyone walking on the roof's gonna trip an alarm. I also saw two really old looking security cameras up there, but I'll bet this job's pay it's just a cover."

"Then it's all hardwired. I barely get any signal from the gangers let alone anything else." Skyler said.

"So if you two can't hack it, how're we getting in?" Nocturne asked.

"Hang on." Skyler said as he started to push himself to his feet. Mina was a bit quicker to get up, and helped pull him upright. Then he reached into his pocket and withdrew one of his yokujin drones. "If you can, get this on one of the cameras I can see if it really is live and hack it."

"Then why the hell haven't you been flying it around already?" Nocturne asked as he accepted the minidrone.

The entire floor was briefly lit, everything crystal clear as if the sun itself was shining into the windows. Skyler immediately dove for the floor, and Mina was right beside him, just as a peal of thunder rolled over the neighborhood.

"Oh, right, the rain." Nocturne said softly as he too pushed himself up from the floor.

The others followed Nocturne up to the roof of the office building, which was a floor shorter than the J.A. building. They waited in the shelter of the doorway as Nocturne went out into the pouring rain, Skyler tracking his progress through Laserbeak.

Nocturne took a rather elaborate path, likely making sure to avoid the cameras, before making an impressive leap to the top of the J.A. building. He continued on along just as carefully on the parapet, and when he was sure he was clear of the cameras he leapt again for the little shack-like top. Through Laserbeak's camera he saw Nocturne carefully scuttle up to the edge to discretely deposit the drone next to one of the cameras.

Under good weather conditions Skyler would have had no problem simply flying the tiny yokujin out to sneak up on a camera. The current downpour likely would have meant the near destruction of the drone, however, the heavy raindrops would have been like meter wide boulders to commercial aircraft.

Now the little drone crept underneath the camera for shelter against the heavy rain, its cutting laser burning a small hole for its tapper gear to infiltrate and connect it to the camera and whatever network it was hardwired into.

All things considered, Skyler opted to analyze every icon every step of the way. The camera had a low grade firewall, no data bomb, and no encryption. It was easy enough to get in, and after checking everything out within the camera it was understandable why as the camera's wireless functionality had been physically disabled. Its only line of communication was by fiber optic cable.

The next node into the network was substantially better protected. The firewall was as powerful as any commercial grade software could be, as was the encryption program it was running. As limited as Skyler's commlink was with his software, his own programs would be running only slightly more efficiently. Double checking that his stealth and decryption programs were running, he began his attack on the network firewall. Because he was not running in VR it took longer to breach the firewall, ten seconds in total, and another ten for his decryption software to make sense of the network.

The network sculpting almost made Skyler think that his decryption had failed somehow. He stood in the middle of an underground labyrinth made of near featureless gray stone. There were no markings of any kind, unless you counted the occasional and regularly placed iron banded doors of brown wood. There were not even any torches or other sources of light, the very stone being visible because that was how the node was set in the first place.

Carefully Skyler walked his virtual self down one corridor at random, his analysis program straining under the limits of his commlink's processor as he checked each and every door without opening them, and for the first time he really wished he had gotten the chance to build something more powerful to use.

"How's it going?" Nocturne asked, having made his way back to the others.

"He should be in by now." Athena said.

"Trying to find my way around." Skyler said, paying more attention to the AROs in front of him that showed him the network.

"Taking it extra careful?" Nocturne asked.

"Stupid not to." Skyler softly replied as he analyzed yet another door, finally finding one that gave him a different result. Rechecking his running programs, and loading his armor program, he opened it.

A bit of luck was with him, as behind the virtual door was the security controls for the top two floors and the roof. Closing the door behind him first, he started to carefully examine the controls, and finding no undue security embedded within them began the careful editing necessary to shut down the pressure sensors in the roof as well as disable the listed biometric lock that apparently was built into the door handle.

"I got security good enough to get us in." Skyler finally announced.

"And the rest of it?" Nocturne asked.

"I'll have to do it as we go, but there are only two cameras I can access right now." Skyler answered. Despite having access to the security systems of the top two floors, there were no cameras that he knew of.

"No cameras?" Athena asked. She took a deep breath and said, "Guess we'll try to spot them on the way in."

Nocturne shook his head and sighed.

Skyler looked to Mina and nodded. Together they switched on the camouflage function of their color changing clothes, pulling up their holographic hoods so their heads would also be concealed.

Nocturne went first, leaping across the gap to the J.A. roof again and making it look incredibly easy.

For Skyler and Mina it was her levitation magic. Despite the weakening impact the area had on all of their magical abilities, Mina was still more than powerful enough to enact such a spell to carry the both of them across, much like she had done on their first job together in levitating up and down a cave.

Skyler remotely unlocked the door and he and Mina went on ahead of the others. They quietly walked down the stairs (which had also been restored with the rest of the interior), and after passing through another door found themselves in an old fashioned cube farm. Skyler also lost his connection to Laserbeak, but before that happened his link to the building's network had been able to jump to another path, keeping him logged in where he was at.

Compared to what Skyler was expecting, the place was actually built up rather nice. Despite lacking any obvious windows (they were not even boarded up, but completely covered over on the inside) it could have easily been mistaken for a regular office.

Despite the late hour there were still a handful of people working, each in rather nice business suits and working on various tasks and visible in the dim glow of their workstations. Looking around, particularly in the more obvious and logical places, no security cameras could be found. That still did not mean there were none.

"Newman, you get that upload from the Pentagon yet?" someone asked aloud.

"Not yet." a woman answered, "The pipe's still throttled."

"The Pentagon? That mean the FBI's in on this too?" Mina silently asked.

"Dang it! Perry's waiting for the plans to Black Sting…"

"Technically we're not in the UCAS, so the FBI doesn't have jurisdiction. It'd have to be the CIA."

"Shit."

"What is it?" Athena asked softly from behind them, and despite that hearing her voice suddenly like that made Skyler's heart leap into his throat. He managed to swallow it back down without making a noise.

"Wageslaves." Skyler whispered back, "And deep shit if we're caught."

"C. I. A." Mina whispered slowly.

Painful seconds ticked by before Athena said, "I'll let the others know. You two go ahead and see what you can find." She did not need to tell them to be careful.

Skyler led the way, quickly ducking into an empty cubicle when a patrolling guard suddenly came around the corner. He forced himself to breathe slow and deep, trying to slow his racing heart as the guard walked by. He counted to ten after the guard had passed before creeping back out again.

A few more cubicles down was Newman, who was working heavily in AR. Skyler loaded up his wireless sniffer program, scanned Newman's commlink for its access ID (and finding it was not some basic like a Sony Emperor or Renraku Sensei), and started "listening" in on what he was doing, and what he found started to frighten him.

Newman was working on the duty roster for the UCAS Army Rangers assigned to the J.A. building, with names and assignments stretching forward for the next month hovering in an ARO before him.

Skyler worked quickly to break into Newman's commlink, and after ten painful seconds he had managed to inject himself into it and discretely download copies of all that he had access to within the network. He did not bother to clean up after himself, logging off from Newman's commlink when he had everything.

Quietly moving about, and ducking into another cubicle when another guard appeared, Skyler snuck up another worker and repeated the process with the other three wageslaves working there. He was less concerned about the content of their work as he was about just getting what files he could.

Mina quietly caught up with Skyler just as he crept out of the last occupied cubicle. "I got to listen to someone talking about S-K 'n Lofwyr to someone. Scary, top level kinda shit."

"He's in on this too?" Skyler was starting to wonder just how clandestine this operation was, and the thought that two megas were in on it was starting to rack up the fear in him again. He did his best to push the fear aside before silently saying, "Alright, let's go down some more and see what we can find."

"I'm starting to doubt this."

"Me too."

Not knowing quite for sure where Athena, Roadblock, and Nocturne were, Skyler and Mina made for the stairs down. The steps they took from the roof stopped at this floor, so it meant risking discovery by running into someone as they worked their way down. After peaking at the fourth floor and seeing it was another cube farm they decided together to go down one more.

Things were quite different on the third floor. There were still guards patrolling, but one of them also had a German shepherd with him.

"It's not a normal dog. It's augmented with a lot of cyber." Mina advised.

They held their place near the stairwell as the guard and German shepherd drew closer. Just when Skyler thought the dog would actually sniff them out the guard stopped, listening to something through his own commlink. They turned around and rushed off the way that they had come.

"Let's go." Skyler said, taking the lead onto the floor.

This floor was substantially different and made Skyler think of the raid on a Doc Wagon hospital back in Denver, though security had obviously been a higher concern here. They made half a circle around a secured area before they even found a door to the central area of the floor, passing through several opened gates that had used an old fashioned key and tumbler system for security. All of these were opened, along with the one gate into the central area that Skyler and Mina now passed through. What they found was horrifying.

To their left and right were several holding cells, and each one held a person in the loosest sense of the word. Each cage held a person that had been taken over by an insect spirit, obvious by the variety of altered shapes. Wings, antenna, exoskeletal parts and extra limbs, it was like Dr. Frankenstein had a heyday putting the stuff of nightmares together in whatever insane fashion he wanted.

But that was not the worst of it by any means. Not only were these people a haphazard mix of metahuman and insect, but they were mutilated as well. One in particular Skyler noticed had had her antenna removed for a pair of chrome probes that now stuck out of her head, and the crazed look in her inhuman eyes (of which there were four) suggested to him that those probes were doing something directly to her brain.

What made matters worse was that each and every one of the insect spirits there started clamoring for their help! No amount of technology could hide Skyler and Mina from the bugs because as they were spirits they could see the glow of their auras through any form of camouflage. Some cried to be let go, some even begged for the mercy of death, and even a few simply raged ineffectively against their cages in an effort to do whatever their crazed states might allow.

Together they passed by the cages, staying well out of reach to enter what Skyler thought was a doctor's office. He was only half right.

An active terminal could be seen at the far end of the room, and Skyler barely registered the operating table he stepped around to get to that terminal. It was wireless, though secured, and right away he went to breaching the firewall. It took only six seconds to break through, and its lack of any encryption meant he had its access to the building's network. He wasted no time accessing data files, skimming them as they flashed by on an ARO to be copied to the commlink built into his fake cybernetic arm.

Locations of known hives throughout the UCAS, along with military preparations and buildup, alongside Ares's Firewatch teams.

Reports that hives were researching the merge process to reduce the time it took as well as allow greater control of the outcome.

There was intelligence on one hive near Chicago that was extracting insect spirits from the Zone, along with rumors of research into how they survived the nuclear explosion and clouds of FAB III.

Several reports in a row flashed by with the subject of insect spirits infiltrating the various media outlets in New York. Skyler pulled one aside, scanning for names and positions. He did not find Roger Willis explicitly listed, though there were several others that were noted to be Editors In Chief among other major news companies and the sort.

"Skyler." he heard Mina say, and it took a second for him to realize she sounded horrified. While the download continued he turned around to look at her.

Mina was indeed horrified, her face almost snow white as she stared intently at the table he had just skirted around. On that table was something that could only have been a woman once. Now she was a hybrid form insect spirit, with four chitin armored arms ending in three digit hands, her fleshy legs amputated at the knees and spread wide to allow an insect's thorax to rest on the table. Her torso and thorax both were splayed open like any corps on an autopsy table, though it was clear from the transparent segments at the end of the thorax that this had once been the body belonging to a firefly insect spirit.

Was that what was bothering Mina? His own sister had given her the street name "Firefly" after their first job together because of her flamethrower and levitation magic that she had used more than once. Even after having dealt with a beetle spirit in an alligator's body it had never really seemed to hit either of them that true fireflies were also insects, and as such there was a spirit counterpart to the otherwise innocuous species of insect.

But here now before them was a woman who was probably beautiful once, well before a firefly insect spirit had taken over, marring her face with multifaceted eyes and a set of mandibles that tore through her cheeks before merging to become part of its real world body.

"C'mon." Skyler said softly, gently placing a hand on her shoulder. "There's nothing we can do for her now."

Mina turned into him, burying her face against his chest as she broke down into tears. All he could do for her now was just hold her close and hope that she recovered before they were discovered.

"C'mon, we don't have much time!" they heard someone say, his voice muffled by a respirator. "We gotta spray 'em down before the whole place goes up!"

Mina did not react, but Skyler looked up to see four people walk in through the same door they had, each one with an unusual looking weapon. It became clear what it really was when two of them started spraying the captive insect spirits and those spirits started going crazy.

"Fuck!" Skyler muttered through clenched teeth. "Shit's hit the fan. We gotta get outa here fast!" he silently told Mina.

Without waiting for her to acknowledge what he told her, Skyler clamped down on one wrist and ran for it with her in tow. They busted past the four with the sprayers, making them cry out in confusion and alarm as they struggled to figure out what had hit them.

The fourth and fifth floors were already abandoned, workstations a smoldering mess as destructive programs worked not only the data but the hardware of the workstations at the same time. Still within the network itself, Skyler scanned the node he was in and found himself kicked out just as it crashed. Had he been in VR, or even between worlds as he had once been able to do with his technomancer abilities, he would have been dumpshocked. That kind of brain trauma could have been fatal, even if it did not kill him if Skyler's guess about what was happening was right.

By the time they had reached the stairs to the roof Mina had found her feet. "What about the others?" she asked aloud, panting from running and not concerned about stealth right now.

"No time! We gotta get outa here! Just go for that office building!"

Skyler busted through the last door, barely keeping his footing on the rain soaked roof. He stumbled some more as he called up his command program to call Laserbeak to him. He was not sure he got the order through as he regained his feet, watching as Mina had already overtaken him, stepping on the parapet on her long jump to the office building across the alley.

Legs pumped furiously to catch up with her, and he was two steps from the parapet himself when the world gave out from beneath his feet.