Chapter XV: Corporate Passing

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

Kind of a short one today. This is more of a transitional, scene-setting chapter than anything else. Get the plot and people in the right places to progress - which it should be doing rapidly in the next few chapters. Beginning of the run to the end.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

"Running low and quiet," The pilot reported. "All systems are normal." At my look, he clarified. "It's an SK craft we half-hacked at best. We should all just be impressed the technicians got the stealth systems working at all."

Then everything in the cockpit burst into alarm and light. I snorted, and braced myself against the wall. "Apparently it isn't."

A moment later, a call came through. I recognised the uniforms as the local security. One of them had a Proteus AG badge adorning his pocket. "Unidentified vessel…" the voice sounded just a little unsure, just for a moment. "Identify yourself."

Chloe covered a snicker.

The pilot looked back at us. "What do you want me to do?"

I leaned in and tapped the key to answer. "Emergency Transport code, 1883-271-3984. Transmitting the required paperwork."

After a moment, the voice responded "Paperwork acceptable. Enjoy your trip."

After we hung up, the pilot turned to me. "What was that?"

I shrugged. "The quarantine is really more of what you'd call guidelines than strict rules. Many corporations make arrangements with the security staff."

"And that code was… yours?" He seemed sceptical at the idea I had such a connection. The Queen really hadn't told him who I was, had she? That spoke well of the anthropophagous old lady.

I shook my head. "No. My ex-husband's."

"Ah. Do we have to worry about anyone following that?" He tilted his head in the way anyone trying to look one way and pay attention to another did. I'm not sure what the aerial equivalent of eyes on the road would be, but he managed it with credible aplomb.

I snorted. "Not with the program I mixed in with the bribe. Their sensors should be detecting our vessel making a rapid emergency descent in around three minutes, followed by crashing and exploding soon after. They'll see no life signs, and do the usual cover-up. Just keep us flying."

The pilot looked almost impressed, and a little horrified. "Yes ma'am. It'll be ten minutes."

—

We landed in the lab and left the pilot with the ship. The landing site was small, fenced in by ruined buildings and the wild plant life common to the SOX. All the years without constant inhabitation had left the place being reclaimed by nature.

And I noticed something else, very, very quickly. "There's no guards." No automated security, either. A place like this, I'd be able to pick up their signals from this short a distance. To block it would take more shielding than anything visible could have, too. There really was… nothing? This has the growing feeling of a drekstorm in the making.

Chloe immediately looked worried - an experienced Shadowrunner's instinct for a trap. "Shit. Do you think they knew we were coming?"

"They'd have to." I shrugged. "Or something else scared them all off. It'd be one hell of a coincidence."

I strode over to the one door leading out of the pad and quickly broke external security. Child's play. Prescotts, what were you thinking? There's security by obscurity and then just security by only obscurity. This was pathetic. I tapped open the door and the inside was still lit. And also empty. No receptionist, no guards.

We pushed in, a few steps up to the reception. Then a form coalesced. I almost felt glad. "Nath-" It wasn't him. Chloe made a shocked sound and pulled up her gun, two shots cracking through the quiet. And doing absolutely nothing to the damn hologram. I looked back at her and pointedly waved my hand through the hologram's forming form. She shrugged sheepishly and reholstered her gun.

The hologram formed into a young brunette woman. Human. She gave a slight wave and a cheesy corporate smile. Just an ad.

"Fuck." I shook my head. "That was…"

Even Chloe looked a little frazzled. The two of us looked at each other and wordlessly agreed never to speak of this again. Neither of us saw the look on Max's face that promised she absolutely would bring this up again. Damned little hipster.

We poked around the reception area a while - there were no maps, and many doors. Max and I were discussing two different options when Chloe suddenly called out, "Here. Administrator's office. We should check it out, right?"

"Probably. They should have some sort of infopacket we can use." I shoved open the door - or rather, I attempted to, then stepped back and let Chloe do it instead. Inside was a simple office with another door in the back marked 'Control'.

I downloaded any important data from the Administrator's computers and pulled up a sitemap. "We need to go through the Control Room to get to the lifts down. And honestly, it'd probably be useful for us to go through. There may be more data."

The 'Control' door lead to the Control Room. Funny how that worked. Banks of computers flashing numbers, scanners - I recognised a radar in the corner. It looked like they hadn't had time to disable any of this.

I strode around investigating the computers, checking codes and managing what I could without passcodes. "Okay. They definitely knew we were coming." I brought up the screen I'd found. "This is our telemetry data - they've marked it as suspicious. Judging by the time, they made us from the start. I bet they have someone in the guards reporting to them, or just a hack in the Proteus systems, and our lack of transmitted current code probably tipped them off."

I quickly bulk downloaded anything that looked even vaguely useful and left a back-door into the system just for good measure. "Good to know, but we need to keep moving." I checked the sitemap again. "This way."

The sitemap lead us through a maze of corridors, empty offices and workstations everywhere. It was oddly ghostly, even as a sight I was used to. The perils of working late in a corporate world.

"Next right."

We stepped out the next door and into a long corridor. To our right, almost bathed in shadow, sat an elevator. The left was brightly lit, showing a small commissary and rec area. We headed over to the elevator - the doors slid open slowly as we approached. Inside was lit by one thready little light. "Did they try to make this elevator creepy, or is it just broken?" Chloe asked.

I shrugged. "It's the Prescotts. And the SOX. It really could be either." I paused, thought. "Or both."

We stepped in. Down we go. The doors closed and the elevator jolted into action, descending immediately. There were no buttons. We were just along for the ride.