\+/ Tales From Night City \+/ Chapter 46 - Time To Tinker
The heavy taps of black high-heels rapidly stomp one after the other across a linoleum floor. Various corpos throughout the halls doing various tasks and carrying on various conversations quickly realize who she is and move out of her way. Some bow their heads in respect while others offer a nervous smile with wavering eye contact. The woman makes her way through the long, wide PetroChem megabuilding halls to an elevator that scans her before opening. As the elevator rises with a gradual hum the woman takes the moment of privacy to hyperventilate; Catching her unstable fall by posting her hand on a wall in the elevator while struggling to catch her breath. She quickly gathers herself before taking a final deep breath and stabilizing the shaking in her hands by clenching them together tightly. You see the emotionless gaze in her eyes take over as the elevator dings open.. concluding what feels like her daily ordeal.
"What's the status on the site clean up." The waiting executive says while gazing out of the window.
"Finished sir. Its to be re-purposed into a parking lot for the new hires as requested."
"Good. and the paid informant?"
The woman pauses briefly before responding. "He's given us a lead on a truck he reportedly saw fleeing the area soon after the explosion. He had been just out range of the blast site and saw a black Colby Butte with 2 occupants drive past him in the direction he was driving in."
"Is that really it? Are you fucking kidding me?" The executive replies in a tone of frustration.
"Not quite. Out of curiosity he followed the Butte out to the city border. Said it took off into the East Badlands before he stopped following. Not really too many locations out there they could've scurried off to."
"Get a team out into the dirt to track it immediately. Have them hit all the locations of interest out there... If no one else in the city saw anything then that means everyone who did is going to be out in the wastes. Have research dig into the 'E.P.V' database. Not the common one.. the extreme personal vendetta database and return to me with a report on what names show up. We currently have scop for leads... no clear pattern, no clear lead up, no clear motive... may mean the lack of a pattern IS the answer." He concludes as he takes another drag of his cig.
"Yes sir." The woman says in response with a slight bow before a pause. She lives in the brief calm of silence for a while stood behind the executive before gulping. She strongly hesitates before speaking again as she tenses up. "There's... uhm.. another issue sir."
The executive glances over at her without saying anything.
"I've been informed through one of my points of contact that the board may have a 3rd party investigating the explosion." A dead silence takes back over the already quiet office.
"What." The executive says in a dead tone as he quickly looks over at the woman. The sudden snap startles her as she does her best to not show fear.
"Its... unconfirmed but there was a significant shift in street security detail. Several full units have been consolidated to one redacted entity for a 'black' project here in the city."
The executive clinches his fists tightly and slowly walks over to his desk as you hear the tapping of his dress shoes echo throughout the spacious office. He hunches forward while standing in front of his desk and rests his fists on it without saying anything. The woman nervously stands at the opposite end of the desk awaiting a response or whatever was coming next.
"I'll see you at the upcoming briefing...We'll discuss this then." The executive replies trying to remain calm. Feeling the weight and vague feelings of shifting tides and control slipping away, he grits his teeth and bares it in the moment.
"Yes sir." The woman says in slight relief before bowing and quickly rushing her way back to the elevator.
As the elevator closes and heads down you see the executive continuing to hunch over his desk breathing deeply in and out. As the anger builds, he slams his fist into the hardwood desk making a loud bang and leaving it crushed in half. The woman breathes a sigh of relief as the elevator gradually hums down.
Brian is next seen across the street and about a block away from the hideout smoking a cig, pacing back and forth occasionally glancing at their building and up every street. Zaunya silently watches him do so as its clear the two have had an intense conversation before this moment and are taking the time to gather themselves. The streets are cold and wet with scattered puddles and sparse street lighting as the occassional pair of headlights casually rolls by on a late night.
"Point is.. I trust her more than anyone I know... She'd never willfully put me in danger... put us in danger."
"And how can you be so sure Zaunya. huh? What if she just fucked up and made a mistake?"
"She's already saved your life once Brian... mine more times than i can even count... Lets just... see what they turn up in there." Zaunya says looking over at the hideout that blends in with the rest of the spattering of smashed together architecture.
The heat of the hideout has been recently turned on gradually warming the space as a cold breeze lightly pushes up against the windows from the outside. BugBear leans up against a wall in the hideout with her arms crossed and her eyes glowing red while casually running a jammer. She watches Netty plugged into one of Audrey's neuro sockets as she lays there unconscious on the couch of the living room.
"Its outdated code.. trust me.. back when i originally checked it out-"
"Its fuckin' not outdated code, I'm tellin' you. Its old but its still dormant. Easily triggerable if someone has a mind or reason to do so. The explosion wasn't long ago so they probably haven't started reachin' this far yet... but point is they can." Netty responds cutting her off.. "jesus..what the fuck even is this shit...?" He says to himself under his breath as his eyes glow and flicker blue while flowing with code.
"Honestly I can't even remember how many times I went in, tinkering around trying to find different ways to remove that shit. Did some digging into the source code used to operate a piece of tech like that. Info was all over the place with a flood of various specs... Couldn't find much in terms of installation let alone removal... and this ones clearly corporate grade... so its not gonna have specs just lying around to catalogue through." BugBear says before walking over to the coffee table to grab her pack of smokes.
"Yeah, that's what i'd assume you'd get with somethin' like this if you try to remove it... when they hardwire shit like this its done with the expectation that there'll never even be a removal... replacing it however.." Netty says in a tone of discovery causing BugBear to catch on to his point and look over at him impressed.