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***
This time it wasn't so easy to act on an external access point. Knight Road had a much more responsible approach and the connection to the external access point had some very serious ice as a defence. Consequently, I had to get out of the car and head towards the building.
- Am I going?
- Come on, be careful out there....
Judy nodded at me, but the other girls looked at me with the same scrutinising gaze. And in their gazes I could see a slight excitement.
I walked quietly through a few yards, as Tortik parked some distance from the corporation building, and then quickly looked around and noticed an open window and activated the sandi. Fortunately I didn't have to use a harpoon here, as the neighbouring building was close enough for me to jump off it, then off the Knight Road wall, then off it again, and finally catching my hand on the open window I threw myself inside the building.
One of the corridor cameras was aimed directly at me, but I was moving very fast and my appearance had not yet been detected, so I quickly moved to the side so that I was out of the camera's line of sight, and then I looked around with my optics.
There was no one in one of the neighbouring offices and I quickly slipped into it before slipping a chip into the nearest computer and shutting down the sandi.
- Get to work... I need a map and possibly camera monitoring. I also need to clean up the camera footage since I've been spotted. It's not enough to trigger an alarm, but if the tapes are checked, I might be detected.
- Let's get to work.
The minutes of waiting dragged on.
About thirty minutes of waiting... all this time I was on pins and needles, ready at any second to switch on the sandi and knock out the corporative who entered the office, but luckily I was lucky... which time? Anyway, it doesn't matter, what matters is that I was lucky and when the girls finally got access to the cameras and the building plan I wasn't detected and I wasn't forced to use force.
- Quiet, get the map.
And I got a message, which I immediately studied. And I needed to get to another floor of the building. Only if the floor I was on was supposed to be for maintenance staff. Not cleaning staff, but staff who cater to the needs of those who run the servers. This includes accountants and various representatives of technicians who maintain the building itself, and specialists who go to the locations of cameras in case of their failure... The floor I needed was the server room, and there the security was on a completely different level....
- Tihonja, you'll have to use type 3 chips...
- Got it.
The third type of chip means that the chip has a self-destruct programme. Not physical, but a system to destroy its software. And it was supposed to be used only if the work was going to be extremely long, not less than a day, which means that my presence in the place of work will be compromised with a huge probability. And to avoid that, I would leave the building after installing these chips.
The girls have done a very good job with these chips and protected them as best they can and now, in order to study their software you have to connect to them, and this is only possible if they have not been inserted into the hacking socket before. And after that, the girls have full control over the chip and can destroy its software in one second, or it will be destroyed if the chip is attempted to be removed.
- What about camera control?
- It's a dead end from here... we've barely accessed the map of the building, however, if you give the okay, while you're sneaking around, we'll thin out the personal accounts of the corporation's employees a bit....
- Regular people?
I shook my head.
- That's not our style.
- Well... on the whole, yes....
The girls agreed with me, and I activated the sandi and left the office I was in, before retrieving the splinter I'd used to give the girls access to the building's systems. Carefully I made my way down the corridor, while crossing the camera view sectors as quickly as possible.
Literally three minutes of personal time and I'm already near the stairs I'm descending, but my optics tell me that I'm being met by some intelligent...
I freeze on the landing and wait... two minutes of personal time and the girl, who is looking at some tablet, starts climbing the stairs to the interfloor landing that separates the floor I'm on from the one below. Why haven't I moved forward yet?
I don't know.
But my gut was just screaming that I should freeze and not move. Irrational fear, in front of a fragile girl.....
And only when she climbed up to the interfloor landing I jumped down at the maximum acceleration available to me without injury, without moving on the stairs themselves. I jumped down and immediately pushed off the wall to hide under the stairs, which was to block the girl's view.
Until the last moment I kept following the girl and noticed her arm twitching... very fast... only a little slower than I was moving. And as I followed the direction of her hand, I noticed a knife that was literally digging into the wall....
Fuck.
Another jolt and I'm flying lower, hiding under the next staircase and then another...
- What the fuck was that?!
My brain went into overdrive and soon I reached the lower level where the servers were located. At this point my optics could no longer distinguish the girl through the mass of stairs, but I didn't switch off the sandi. No, I opened the door and immediately disappeared into a vast room in which I had to switch off the optics because the signatures of the servers prevented it from working.
Hiding between the tall server cabinets I finally switched off the sandi.
- Quiet?
- Shh...
I huddled against the server. The only thing that saved me was that I was already in acceleration, and the girl was acting more on instinct than actually noticing me. But even so... such speed of movement... such precision....
- Knock, knock, knock...
The server room door opened very quietly and I heard a woman's voice.
- Stranger-kun, are you in here?
I flinched and quickly put a couple of slivers into the servers, then quickly moved to the side trying to get closer to her. Why get closer? Well, because most of the time everyone would try to get as far away from such an opponent as possible. That's why I got closer, and froze... by my estimation I was about one server away from her....
Sandy went on instinct. And that's probably the only thing that allowed me to freeze in place, only to crouch slightly when the girl's hand went through the server ten centimetres away from me and tried to grab me by the throat. And right after that, I switched off the sandi.
- А?
The girl's hand with a slightly worn glove with no fingers somewhat lost fumbled in the air.
- Had she made a mistake?
I very quietly moved to the side and quickly hid behind a neighbouring server, continuing to listen to what the girl was doing. And she abruptly pulled her hand out of the server and started shifting in the opposite direction from me.
Who the fuck is she?!
Now realising what I've seen, she has chrome instead of hands with gloves on... but that's not important, what's important is that I don't have any information about her! I've been collecting information on all the less powerful corporates and solos, just to get an idea of who I might run into when I'm doing my next job.
Fuck.
I shifted sideways into splinters and literally prayed I wouldn't run into her. Not that I doubted my ability to handle her... but I really didn't want to fight her. That's not why I came here.
- Hey, I know you're in here...
I shifted again, listening fiercely to where she was going.
- ...are you really that shy? I just want to meet...
I could barely keep from snorting. Does that ever work?
- Tsk... well, why doesn't it ever work? I'm a pretty girl...
For another five minutes, she walked around the server room and I shifted so that I was always a short distance away from her.
- Tz... is it really an optics glitch?
She sighed. And still left the server room, except when I activated the optics I saw that she didn't leave, but froze in front of the entrance.
Oh, fuck.
- Ladies, I seem to be in trouble... look for the old blueprints of the building.
- What's wrong?
- There's some lady here... and she's fucking strong. She spotted me, but I was operating at my current maximum speed and it seems her optics couldn't lock on to me accurately. But she hasn't gone anywhere and continues to stand at the exit of the server room...
- So maybe...
- No...
Becca was interrupted by Kiwi.
- We're not here to attract attention, and something like this would definitely attract the attention of the bigwigs. So it's better to wait and find another way out...
- That's why I need you to look for old plans, maybe there are some old tunnels around here somewhere... that I could use to get out of the building?
- We'll look...
I sighed and hid behind the servers, still in the 'zone' where I would realise someone had entered the server room. And it turned out to be for good reason, as just twenty minutes later the door opened and workers came in.
- Fuck... that crazy woman did it again....
- Quiet, she'll hear you!
- Come on, it's so soundproofed... and what's she doing here anyway?
- She said the optics were malfunctioning.
- Well, at her age, she's not human, she's long gone, one of the original Borg.
- One of the first? What about Smasher?
- Well, he's more famous, but Mystique, she's always been quieter, so she's not as famous, you know, among the common folk. But she was one of the first successful Borg.
- All right, enough chitchat, let's get this server repaired and get out of here...
They didn't say anything else like that, the usual talk of technicians swearing at those who broke the equipment.
- Girls?
I've been in touch with my girls.
- How are you doing?
- Um... weird... that's not really what I mean, look for information on Mystique... the techs mentioned that the lady who spotted me is called that.
- Okay... as for your request, no, there aren't any old tunnels, but there are sewers, interested?
Kiwi's voice was mocking.
- You know, considering that I don't really want to meet a legend, and she's probably one of those legends, I don't really have a choice. So, yeah, tell me where the sewer runs...
I sighed.
- And don't forget to find the info on Peter Pan.
- It's a work in progress. There's a lot of data, but knowing where and when he was caught we'll be able to reconstruct his route very quickly, we just need to find the location of the files. In about 40 minutes, we'll know everything we need to know.
- All right, get to work.
I just got the sewer data and with a sigh I walked around the room and measured at the point where the sewer should be closest to the building. The sewer tunnel is quite large and I can walk through it and get to the Knight City River....
I sighed.
Why would I want to do that?
I looked around and pulled out a knife, then I picked up one of the slabs that covered the floor and lifted it slightly with the tip of the knife so that I could slip my fingers through. After that, I carefully lifted and pushed the slab aside. This allowed me to reach the concrete floor, which I began to literally chisel with my knife ...
Naturally not just like that, but listening, so as not to attract anyone's attention ...
After forty minutes the girls reported that they had already got to the location of the information, I struggled with breaking through the concrete for about thirty more minutes and only then broke through the hole in the sewer tunnel.
When I was already inside, I pulled the slab that I had pushed back initially and closed the hole behind me. It was only when I was in the stinking tunnel, where communication was very poor, that I breathed a sigh of relief. Now it was just a matter of getting to the tunnel exit... and also counting on the girls, who had found the location of the data, but it still had to be carefully extracted....
I didn't get out of the tunnel until two hours later....
- Girls?
- Tihonja, are you okay?!
- Alive, well, stinking... of course it's lucky that these tunnels are not used for a long time, but even so, there is such an amber....
I shook my head.
- How are you?
- Well... fine, we decided that we can work from home, so now we're sitting on the ground floor and working quietly.
- Well, I'll get home myself.
- Or maybe--
- No, don't, or I'll stink up Cake... so I'll go to some cheap motel on the way, wash up there and then go home, and you work quietly, but don't let the Bookwoman let her guard down. Because if there's one incredible solo, there could be a legendary runner.
- Roger that... waiting for you at home.....