A Hard Knock Life: Black Hole Sun (ch. 17) (Patreon)

Should probably start this one off with a disclaimer -- A Hard Knock Life is not back. I’ve been playing Phantom Liberty and I’ve been on bit of a Worm kick, so I got the itch to write up another chapter. I figured it was worth posting to see if there’s any interest in a return to the story, and if there is, A Hard Knock Life will go on the next story poll to decide what replaces the next story of mine that ends.

So, let me know what you think.

…

Encryption was a funny thing to work with. To put it simply -- it was a puzzle. ICE was basically a multilayered puzzle where if you wanted to breach it, you had to complete the previous level's puzzle. The more complicated the design, the harder it was to breach. And the more mines and tripwires and red flags you throw in, the more dangerous it became to breach. Throw enough of them into the equation, make the consequences for failure various flavors of fatal, and you ended up with Black ICE. So, in theory, any ICE could become Black ICE with the right number of landmines.

To boil it down -- civilian grade ICE was basically a hundred piece puzzle. Good enough to get the job done, but it was so common that the only real protection that you had was the fact that there were twenty million people living in Night City so the odds of you getting hacked were comparatively small. For anyone with a talent for netrunning, it was the easiest type of ICE to deal with.

Above that was specialty ICE. That's where you found the tailor-made stuff. Similar to what I had before triggering. Of all the categories, this was probably the broadest. It was more situational, and the thickness was determined by need. In general, while it was a major step up, a talented netrunner could usually crack it in no time at all. Basically, it just meant that things went from ‘anyone and their mother can slip in your systems’ to ‘someone has to be out to get you to do it.’ And, for ninety nine percent of the population, that was plenty.

Beyond that was Corpo-grade ICE. For the longest time, it had been the highest tier. As a standard, Corpo-grade ICE was highly complex, thick, and usually involved a great deal of Black ICE. That quality and danger of ICE only grew the deeper you went. Even for gifted Netrunners, it was difficult to breach through. There was a damn good reason that company secrets sold for millions of eddies, because only a handful of ‘runners had the talent to get them. Enough so that managing to hack into a corporation like Arasaka meant that as far as Netrunners went, you were amongst the best. Hands down, undeniable, hall of fame best.

However, thirty years ago, powers began to appear in the world and the Net saw the invention of Tinker-grade ICE. The previous levels all used the same shapes of puzzle pieces. Tinker-grade ICE did not. If normal ICE was playing chess, then Tinker-ICE was playing poker -- was that code a normal function? Or was it Black ICE that would fry your nervous system and make your eyes explode from your meat cooking? Or maybe it was both. Or maybe it was neither, and it was merely a distraction. Or maybe that distraction was the first of a three bajillion step sequence necessary to unlock the files you were looking for.

Naturally, that's why Tinker-grade code was so desired. It's why every Megacorporation used it so extensively to protect their data. The miles of Black ICE to get to the Tinker-grade ICE was just the warm-up, comparatively speaking. It's also why corporations desired Tinker-grade ICEbreakers, ciphers and decoders. To say nothing of AIs, even if they were illegal. It was impossible for a human to get through the ICE, but a parahuman? Depending on their specialty, it would be simple.

So, that's why I figured the script I was looking at was probably worth… a couple million dollars, at the very least. The text box was filled with code that would have stretched on for miles if it had been printed out. To anyone but a Tinker, the code would look like I had repeatedly slammed my head against the keyboard for the past two weeks. There were no numbers or letters, but almost hieroglyphic-like symbols whose meaning were only understood by me.

After nearly a month, the foundation for my code language had been set -- the alphabet that I would use. From there, it would be further refined. Letters would become words, words would become sentences. Rules would be established to create proper grammar. Only then it would actually be complete. But, for now, it was more than enough to serve my current needs.

I was selling a Tinker-grade ICEbreaker to an unknown Fixer who had a team of capes in their back pocket. So, I had to do two things. Firstly, I had to beef up my own ICE to prevent my own Breach from being used on me. It had taken a week on its own, but I had accomplished the task. It was as perfect as it could be -- rather than just blurring out my face, my features would be tweaked so I would look like a different person that almost looked like me. It also had a false layer of ICE that would feed whoever breached that far false information about me and my implants.

The next thing I did was further improve Breach. After all, it wouldn't do to sell someone an ICEbreaker that was as good as mine.

My only issue with both programs was that they ate up a shit ton of space. A side effect I hadn’t really realized until I was putting on the finishing touches, but as elegant and sophisticated as my new code base was… it absolutely devoured space. To a frankly ridiculous degree. My cyberdeck had about a hundred terabytes worth of storage -- which was a fair bit. My ICE ate up about ninety of those terabytes.

Eight of those terabytes went to operating my soft -- maintaining the connection to my optics, trajectory prediction, etc. Which left me with a measly two terabytes for my spells.

It was becoming increasingly clear that I was starting to hit a wall. The 3D printer was a decent start, but it wasn’t enough. I could feel it like a tickle in the back of my brain, ideas stewing that were being limited by what I had available. My wishlist? A zero-G environment since I doubted I could hitch a ride to space to tinker, industrial chemical vats to synthesize gasses and heavy solutions -- things that I needed to make better tools, which would allow me to make better things.

It was frustrating, but not unexpected. I would just have to deal with it for now, slow my roll, and take it one step at a time.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement. Looking up, I saw Lisa walking up the steps inside the Coyote Bar. Her face was bare and she wasn't dressed like herself. A loose tank top shirt with the head hole draped over one shoulder and cut off at an angle just under her breasts, black and hot pink that boldly said the word BITCH. Underneath was a form-fitting unitard thing that dipped into a V at her waist, leaving her hips exposed, leading to the right fitting pants she wore.

In her hands was a backpack. A cover for a case that had the Dense Marrow.

She squinted at me, and I smirked before I waved her down with my prosthetic. Since both of her eyes were prosthetics, she would be vulnerable to my ICE. When I brought my hand down, I closed my laptop as I waited for her to walk over to me.

"Like what you see?" Lisa taunted as she took a seat in the booth across from me. Her voice was low, getting lost in the festive music below as the patrons celebrated happy hour. She had definitely caught me checking her out. "Sorry to say, V, but I'm not interested."

"How ever will I survive?" I questioned dully, leaning forward, and propping my head up with my left hand. "In place of your affection, I'll just have to sleep naked as I roll around in piles of money." Lisa narrowed her eyes before she closed them for a second. I smirked, "You're welcome for the mental image."

"You're crazy if you think anyone wants to see you naked," Lisa shot back, her tone light. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that she was enjoying the banter. "Do you have the other half of the ICEbreaker?" She questioned as she set the backpack onto the table. It made a noticeable thunk.

I nodded before I pulled out a datashard from my pocket. The previous version of my Breach was on it. "Here it is. And, to speed things along -- no, I didn't install any kind of backdoor, malware, or tracking hook into the code. Yes, I was tempted but decided it wasn't worth it because I predicted that you would be here, ask these questions and I've learned better than to think I can hide things from you," I said, holding the datashard out for her to take.

I hadn't managed to annoy her, I thought as she accepted the shard with a cheeky smile. "Maybe you aren't as slow as I thought," she remarked, tucking the datashard into a case which she then deposited in her cleavage. I still didn't get that. There was no way that was comfortable. "Before you install the Dense Marrow, be sure to save some of your natural marrow. Just in case it doesn't take. You can clone it quickly and there won't be a rejection risk." She warned, her tone serious as she shoved the case to me.

"Will do," I said, unzipping the bag and popping open the case. Inside were three canisters, each about the size of a soda can, filled with a dark red artificial marrow. "And will I find any kind of tracking device or nanite bombs when I filter through this?"

Lisa sighed, "No, you will not. Normal top of the line Dense Marrow from Biotechnica. Most people only replace the marrow in a couple of bones, which is why it took a minute to get our hands on this. Would it kill you to trust us a little?"

"Probably," I answered without hesitation. "Lisa -- we've done one job together, and you lied to me about what the job was really about until we were in the vault. You want trust? Earn it," I told her bluntly, making her lips thin, because she didn't have a way to argue that.

Slowly, she offered a nod, "I suppose that's fair. So, how about I start earning some trust, hm? Outside of our boss, you don't have any other contacts, do you?" She questioned, phrasing it as a question so my reaction would tell her that I didn't. There was Padre, sorta, but he was more Jackie's contact. In the past week, Jackie had gone on some jobs. Solo. Said it was nothing he needed help with and that I was better off tinkering.

He was right. The jobs he had were fairly smalltime, stealing something or ripping off a few gangbangers. My time was better spent tinkering, but that didn't make it less weird.

"I'm guessing you're about to change that?" I questioned, and Lisa offered a nod.

"I am. Regina Jones has a job -- some data needs to be klept. She's a big name Fixer, might not be as prestigious as Rogue or Coil, but no one in this city handles more jobs than her. Complete the job, pop by her office, and introduce yourself with some good news.” Lisa explained, an edge of smugness in her tone. That was… fair. She had managed to predict exactly how this conversation would go and had, allegedly, lined up a job for me.

I didn’t trust it. But that was the point of the job. Lisa was giving me more options to work with. More chances to make my name as a merc. I never got any calls from anyone after my stunt at school, so I guess people just didn’t bite. Fair, I guess -- a high school fight wasn’t exactly the stuff of legends. However, I saw it for the trap that it was. Her boss, whoever he was, was trying to make me drop my guard so he could chip me like he had Lisa.

“What’s the job?” I questioned, leaning back as I stuffed everything back into the bag. I didn’t bother to hide my suspicion. There wasn’t a point anymore.

Lisa tapped a finger onto the table, seeming to study me for a moment, “The job is a corpo one. James Fleischer is a Medhall pharmaceutical executive, one of the higher-up ones too, and he’s recently klept a prototype drug and some relevant files. My take is that he was getting pressed by someone, but there's no proof and it’s not relevant. Point is, your job is to steal it before whoever he stole it for gets it. And no, I have no idea who the client is -- probably Biotechnica, if I had to guess. They’ve been trying to sweep the feet from underneath Medhall for years now.”

“So, find out where he lives, hack his accounts and computers, learn where he put the drug and files, then deliver the data to Regina?” I hazarded a guess and earned a nod from Lisa. I mulled it over for a moment. It was a good opportunity, I decided. I just could also see where the strings were attached. It wasn’t an easy job to build good faith. It was a test to see what I could do. “The pay?”

“That’s between you and Regina,” Lisa answered. She flicked me a data packet, and after a quick scan, I saw that it wasn’t a virus. It was contact information. “And no, you won’t be getting a bonus for the job.” Shame, I could have used one. “That being said, provided that you don’t make the news this time, then we have another job lined up with you as the centerpiece.”

“And is that job going to suddenly change midway?” I questioned, cocking an eyebrow at her. If she rolled her optics any harder then they could have fallen right out of her head.

“You’ll get the full disclosure,” Lisa responded patiently. “That was because we were seeing how trustworthy you were, V. A team of capes? That’s a secret where we’re all better off if it stays a secret. If I thought you were a plant? Then… yeah, we would have killed you and Jackie. That’s the nature of the biz, V. Don’t like it? Then don’t play.” She visibly swallowed a sigh before she stood up.

“Good luck on the job,” she said, offering a wave goodbye before she walked away. I watched her go for a moment, her head disappearing below the railing. I let out a small sigh as I leaned back in the booth.

I wonder if she knew? If she knew that I knew about the implant? About the man behind the curtain pulling her strings? She didn’t act like it, but that didn’t mean anything. For all I knew, she was telling him right now and a trap was being arranged for me to fall head first into. I thought I hid it well by openly displaying my suspicion, and hoping that she wouldn’t dig deeper than that to find out why I was so suspicious.

I had looked more into how doll implants functioned, and fuck me. Was Lisa in there? Screaming without a mouth? Watching as her body was puppeted by some unseen puppetmaster?

Regina Jones… was that the Fixer pulling the strings? Lisa had referred to her boss as ‘he’ before, but she said that was a more general thing. And I especially didn’t trust that. Or was it just a false clue?

“Mind games,” I decided, grabbing my laptop, “fucking suck.” In the end, I was thinking myself in circles. Looking for something in every shadow, double and triple guessing every action and word… it was exhausting. So, I wouldn’t do it. Too much wasted energy with nothing to gain from it. Butting my head against the problem wasn’t going to magically put me in a better position to deal with it. If I wanted to deal with it, then I had to take action.

Like giving my Flathead a test run before attempting to sneak it into Lisa’s apartment, jacking into her head and finding out who exactly her mysterious Fixer was.

Getting up, I shot Jackie a text as I grabbed the bag with my Dense Marrow. I would take it to Vik’s before I did anything with it. Just in case. Mama Welles offered a nod as I left, and I waved goodbye as I walked out. The apartment was right down the street, so I just popped into the garage and tossed the bag onto my workbench. My bike was the only one in the garage, so Jackie was out and about.

Walking to some shelving I grabbed the case that I kept the Flathead in and secured it to my bike. Patting my revolver at my side, and strapping my shotgun to my ribs -- I rolled my shoulders and swung my leg over my bike. After a few weeks, I got used to their weight. And with my arm, I had a hidden long range weapon, so that’s all I needed. As I closed the garage door, I got a text from Jackie.

“I’m on a gig with Padre. We should have a buyer for the gear soon,” I read aloud. I hadn’t known he was on a gig. I swallowed a sigh as I shook my head, “Is he avoiding me, or something?” I wondered as I picked another number. Jackie had been scarce all week. It was good that he was making himself busy… I don’t know. I should probably talk to him whenever I get a chance to see if everything is cool.

Honestly, he could be pissed at me more or less taking over the garage. It’d be fair. Maybe I should look into getting a place of my own. I still had some time left on my apartment, so it wasn’t like I would be on the streets or anything.

With a shake of my head, I drove off. A quick search on James Fleischer gave me a fair bit of info about him. He was a former CEO of a minor pharmaceutical chain that was a subsidiary of Medhall -- I knew the place. First AID, a fairly common pop in and out, over the counter kind of place. He got bought out, and was given a position on the board of directors, where as far as I could tell, he kicked his feet up and racked in eddies. The guy must be rolling in money. Where he lived proved as much. A penthouse in downtown that he had all on his lonesome -- recent divorce with his ex-wife getting the rugrats… all in his late eighties.

Nothing really stood out about him. But, I guess that was the point. The guy looked squeaky clean on paper. A friendly, handsome face that made him look like he was in his early thirties at his very oldest. But, if he was a member of a corporation, then he had to have a few skeletons in his closet. Probably more than a few. You don’t get that kind of rich without being an asshole to someone.

Sending Skitter a text to see if she was interested, I drove through the streets. It was a sunny day, for once. No acid rain pouring down, and even the smog that usually covered Night City like a blanket was gone, revealing a blue sky above. Because of that, certain adverts were blindingly bright to make up for the lack of contrast. I felt sorry for anyone that didn’t have any optics.

I heard sirens in the distance, bringing my attention up above just in time to see a flying car round the corner of a building. My optics instantly zeroed in on the anti-grave propulsion tech. Thick armored plating colored dark gray, about the size of a humvee with laser guns running point defense. Tinker-tech, I realized, following the flying car with my eyes. A split second later, three police drone- no, Militech drones rounded the corner, quickly followed by another flying car.

A deep green blast slammed into a drone, making it sputter out while the remaining two opened fire on the tinker-tech AV. The drone crashed down to the street below, impacting on the hood of a car parked on the side of the street. There was shouting, but it was drowned out by the sound of the drones firing their 50mm guns at the tinker-tech vehicle, shells raining down but the bullets just sparked against the back of the tinker-car.

The rogue AV flew upward, pivoting almost ninety degrees on a dime, while its guns fired down at the remaining drones. A few shots missed, sparking up upon impact, but I saw that they did no damage to the ground below beyond a small burn mark. Though, the drones that fell to the ground sure did. The tinker-tech car rounded the corner out of sight, and the Miltech car gave chase.

“Huh,” I muttered, turning my attention over the scene before the light turned green. The tinker-tech flying car was giving me ideas. An anti-gravity field propulsion system -- I could have tweaked it to enhance the handling. Made the cornering tighter. The overall design was kind of lame too, not that much different than the average flying car. “Wonder what that was about?”

Not really the time to figure it out. I’m sure I would see something about it on the news if I remembered to check. Instead, I focused on the task at hand -- klepping that data and prototype. Shaking my head of stray thoughts, I continued onward to my destination, heading downtown and I found that the car chase didn’t exactly help out the traffic. So, I might have hopped on the sidewalk to speed things along. A few times.

Some minutes later, I found myself approaching a tall building in the downtown plaza. Every time I came this way, I couldn’t help but marvel at it. Hard to call the streets clean, but they were cleaner. Way back in the day, when that Richard Night guy was still kicking… it felt like I was catching a glimpse of what he envisioned. A utopian city.

Maybe it was good that he died when he did. Seemed like an alright guy with some lofty goals -- I imagine seeing his dream twisted into the hellscape that it was would've been… well, I’d imagine it’d kill him. Shaking my head at the errant thought, I turned my attention to the spiderbot. “Ready for your first mission?” I asked the Flathead, and to everyone else, I was speaking to empty air as its active camo was on.

I didn’t need the Flathead for this, but I needed a dry run. To get familiar with it before I committed to doing something monumentally stupid. Even by my standards. My vision blurred for a moment as I made a connection with the Flathead, making it come to life while I stepped away to find a nice hole to post up in while the job was done. A little coffee spot across the road was my choice, even got me a coffee as the Flathead started scurrying towards an access point.

Milk and sugar. If life has to be short and bitter then coffee should at least be sweet.

The building was impressive -- swanky lobby, white marble and gold trimmings, just to make sure everyone who passed by it, locked out from even stepping through the front door, knew this was a place solely for the upper crust. However, its ICE was a far cry from what I brushed against at Lisa’s place. It took almost no effort for me to snag the building’s blueprints, and just like that, I had a straight shot up to the… well, penthouse was a bit of an understatement when every ‘apartment’ was equivalent to a penthouse.

My Flathead scurried about, opening up a ventilation tunnel as I piggybacked off of it to disable the sensors.

“Preem,” I muttered, finding the ride smoother than I thought. The Flathead was a solid bit of tech. I had ideas for improvements, however. The optical camo could be better, the gait of the legs could use more verticality. Weight balance was also an issue. The signal receiver… was fine, but it needed to be great. Grabbing my coffee, I took a sip of it as I distantly became aware of a girl taking a seat near me.

Late teens to early twenties at the oldest, primarily white hair that showed shades of every color of the rainbow as it went down, with faint purple optics with orange triangle makeup beneath her eyes. Half jacket and another one of those V shaped unitards that went over a pair of half shorts while leggings-slash-boots went up her thighs. She was pretty, but I was focused on the task at hand.

She was joined by a guy. Dark brown shaggy hair, dark eyes, but he was rocking an old timey handlebar mustache that I only saw on 6th Street gangoons and pictures of presidents of the old USA. He, I noticed, was sporting a metallic arm that was reminiscent of the same models that Vik had chipped me with after I shot mine off. Meaning that unless he had done some modding, it wasn’t anything to worry about.

They took a seat and I put them out of my mind.

The Flathead reached the apartment in question, and I gave it a look around. It was expansive and rather wide open, but the guy seemed to be a collector. Lining the walls was some vintage stuff -- guitars, posters, and even saw some comic books. My gaze lingered on a few displays, one of them being a pair of old-school Converse hightops. The style was familiar to me, but mine sure weren’t made of cloth. There was some general clutter, telling me that despite all of his money, he hadn’t hired a maid.

A quick ping off the systems led me to a number of computers. Finding the main monitor, I had the Flathead jack into it while I started scrolling for anything that would give me a clue on where the goods were.

As I did, my finger in the system told me that the elevator had been activated. I didn’t pay it much mind as I continued combing through the data. A lot of angry messages to his ex-wife. Lots of corporate emails that didn’t really make much sense to me. Max Anders, the CEO of Medhall, chewing the guy out in Corpo speak while floating the idea of buying him out of the company. It wasn’t particularly interesting, to be honest.

What I did find was an email from the building itself. “A combination lock?” I muttered, not even sure what in the hell that was. Apparently, it was a safe that wasn’t connected to the net, and it could only be opened by inputting a combination in a certain order. But then what the hell was-

Oh. He wrote it down on a note. Convenient.

Jacking out of the computer, the Flathead scanned the apartment with X-ray vision before finding the mentioned safe behind a false wall. It, however, was connected to the net, and with a simple probe, it slid open. Climbing up the wall-

“I’m in,” I heard the rainbow-haired girl remark to the guy next to her, who leaned forward as they were apparently engrossed in their own conversation. I tried to pay no mind to them, but… wow. She was pretty. And that was a pretty sweet mustache. Maybe I could grow one like that? Biotechnica had to have something- no. No, I’m getting too distracted.

The dial had a bunch of numbers on it. Left, right, left. Only I currently only had some spider arms at the moment and no fingers. Another thing that needed to be rectified. Little hands? Eh, I’d think of something. Climbing on the wall, I used the forelegs to the best of my ability, but this wasn’t exactly what the designers had in mind for the bot. All the same, I managed to get the dial to start spinning, even if it was clumsy and tedious.

My finger in the system detected that the elevator was moving again. Going up this time.

To my floor.

“Oh, fuck,” I muttered into my coffee, feeling panic start to rise. That wasn’t good. I reached deeper with Breach, melting the otherwise unremarkable ICE to tap into the elevator controls. The camera displayed two people in the elevator -- both of them having optic camo. Meaning that I couldn’t see their faces. One was built like a brick shit house, though. Dark skinned, biker jacket with the sleeves missing so he could stick his massive arms through. The other was a girl. Also dark-skinned, wearing a purple hoodie and a shirt with a skull and crossbones. I could crack the ICE, but it was hardly worth the effort.

I didn’t need to know who they were. I just needed to know where they were going.

They were coming to my floor. Double fuck -- they were coming to my room.

Feeling the pressure, I rapidly sped up my attempts to crack the safe as with every second that past, the elevator got closer. Splitting my attention, I hit the emergency brake on the elevator, trying to buy myself more time. The elevator lurched for a moment, alarming the two inside. Both of them looked up at the camera, and I saw enough blue in the camo to see that they were on a call.

I had bought myself a minute- no. No, I had bought myself about ten seconds. The emergency breaks were unpulled and I suddenly found myself unable to touch them.

It was almost enough to break my concentration. I wasn’t entirely sure how to describe it beyond that it was like someone covered my eyes when I tried to look at the emergency break. I had never seen anything like it before and, for the briefest of moments, I wondered if I had severely underestimated the Corpo ICE.

And, if I had so much as a moment to spare, I would have freaked out about that, but I really didn’t have the time. But, my focus was rewarded as the safe door swung open, and inside I saw a number of things.

A gun, first and foremost. A few bundles of money too. But, what really drew my attention was a nondescript-looking bottle of pills and a datashard case.

Just as I got the safe open, I heard the elevator arrive. Through the cameras in the apartment, I heard a deep brassy voice. “What are we lookin’ for, Lucy?” The guy asked, and I watched them with my heart in my throat.

I made a snap decision. Tapping the datashard case, the datashard was ejected, and using the foreleg, I managed to guide it into a slot in the Flathead’s chassis. The data was fed back to me, and I copied it in short order. I didn’t have the time to analyze it further because something else completely stole my attention.

“Preem,” I heard the girl say before her hand became whisps of shadow before she reached into the case that housed the sneakers that I had been eyeing. In a single smooth motion, she grabbed them both and held them up for inspection. A cape, I instantly understood. Intangibility? Useful for a thief, I would imagine.

That made things a lot more complicated.

“The gig was only for the drugs and the shard,” the older man scolded without any real heat in his voice.

“S’not like the guy won’t realize that he’s been robbed,” came the girl's flippant reply. That voice… it sounded vaguely familiar. Almost like I had heard it before, but I couldn’t place where.

Meanwhile, I used the time to snatch the bottle of pills with the Flathead’s forearm, making an awkward carry, before I started to make a mad scramble to the exit. The shard… fuck. The shard. Making a snap decision, I scrambled the data on the shard. I had the data on it, so it was less important. Just wasn’t as clean as I would otherwise like.

Climbing up the wall, I made my way to the ceiling. While the bot was invisible, the pill bottle wouldn’t be. Almost as soon as the Flathead reached the ceiling, the big guy stepped into the bedroom. I heard him curse, “The safe is open, Lucy.”

There was enough time for a reply that I didn’t hear as I looked for my chance to slip out of the room through the door. The guy continued, “I’m looking at it. It’s wide open and there’s nothing there. Are you sure you saw him put it in there?” The guy asked, his voice low and with growing frustration.

“What’s goin’ on?” The girl asked, stepping into the room- there. I took the chance and crawled over the doorway, still clinging to the ceiling as I slowly made my escape. Through the cameras, I looked at the two, making sure that they didn’t suddenly turn around. I was inching towards my escape…

And then I saw it. Out of the corner of the camera’s frame, I saw a woman step into view. She was naked, though her body lacked any identifying features beyond her curves. The only identifying feature I did see was multicolored hair that hit every color of the rainbow. She simply appeared in the frame before she looked at the camera and my heart lurched in my throat. It felt like she was looking at me.

I flinched.

My control slipped.

And, right at the gate, the pill bottle fell.

It hit the ground with a terrible clatter and I wanted to punch myself. Any hope that they somehow hadn’t heard the noise died a scav’s death when both of the thieves turned around. The girl simply phased through the wall in a dash, becoming entirely smoke, for the briefest of moments. Their gazes fell on the pill bottle before they started looking around for the source.

I almost would have thought that I simply imagined the woman in the frame. That was until both of the thieves glanced at something in the empty air, as if someone was standing there, then they looked directly up at the Flathead. As if someone had pointed it out. Right.

Taking that as my cue, I immediately began to beat feet and abandoned all pretenses of stealth for a mad scramble towards the air vent. I was forced to run backward, keeping an eye on the two, and forced to dodge out of the way of an attempt to swipe me off of the roof by the guy. It was as I was an inch away from freedom, the optics stuttered. My vision blurred.

Without any warning, the girl filled my vision and I felt… something. It wasn’t a hacking attempt. If it was a hacking attempt, I would at least know what to do. This was something else entirely. I felt my connection to the Flathead start to slip almost as if someone was physically taking it out of my hand. Then, with her gaze zeroed in on the camera, she simply… shoved me out of the Flathead entirely.

I flinched back so badly I nearly landed on my ass, my optics reading ‘Connection Lost.’ I had lost the Flathead.

“What the fuck?!” I exclaimed, drawing everyone’s attention to me. There was quite a crowd of people since it was a busy spot… but my gaze was drawn to one figure in particular, who was looking back at me with eyes equally as wide as my own.

Her. The ghost in the machine.

Well. This was certainly awkward.