"The scribe is spot on..."
Becky's voice was full of anticipation.
"Ms. Muscle in place..."
Dorio's voice sounded rarefied. She was not happy about having to work with stupid call signs. But she couldn't do anything about it, and neither could the others, because who orders the music makes the rules, and in this case I was the one who ordered the music.
"Chrome Maniac is ready..."
Pilar's voice was no less displeased, but Becca, when she heard what call sign I'd decided to give her brother, laughed like a horse for about five minutes. Well, I guess it's not a bad thing that she got a burst of good cheer...
"The big guy's in place and ready to go... and if it weren't for those stupid nicknames, I'd be perfectly content to work again. Albeit as sniper backup."
"Good girl's ready. Reporting group A is fully operational."
I nodded my head, though only those who hadn't minimized the conference icons could see it. I guess no one in our sprawling group made that mistake. At least that's what I'd like to believe.
"All right, Tihonja is ready to get to work..."
"The mentor is ready."
"The snowflake is ready."
"Group A, here we go."
I gave the order, and soon gunshots rang out from the main entrance to one of the warehouses in the docking area. They were sparse at first, but they were getting more and more frequent by the minute.
"We're in..."
Judy reported that they'd attracted quite a bit of attention from the Stilettos and I could get to work. So I went to one of the less convenient entrances, through a broken window on the third tier. Of course there are no objects to climb on, but a harpoon will help me...
The first shot from the harpoon and I calmly walk up to the broken window. I carefully peer through it and make sure that there are no opponents in particular.
I pressed the button to detach the cable from the harpoon, and then quickly attached a new harpoon to the cable. After that I fired a new shot, now inside the warehouse, and already there I went down smoothly. At the same time I did not forget to use my optics as tightly as possible. So I was sure that the opponents were not even thinking of coming to me.
Once I was on the floor, I quickly walked towards one of the containers, which was open and where the Stilettos were running out of. So there was some kind of underground passage.
When I activated the sandy, I calmly walked through the warehouse, entered the container and saw the stairs that led down to the bottom of the stairs, dodging the Stilettos carefully, and putting chips from the girls into them. So that when they were on the front line Lucy and Kiwi could disable them, thus helping Judy. And of course, hacking into the data and collecting more money from the Stelettes' personal accounts was no small goal.
Once downstairs I looked around and hiding in one of the technological passageways disconnected the sandi.
"Ladies, how's the connection?"
"The connection is fine, the amp is working fine."
I grinned, and then quickly headed for the nearest access point, which I'd found with my optics. I immediately inserted the splinter, then returned to my hiding place and turned off the sandy again.
"Work. I need a map of this place."
"Three minutes..."
Lucy wasn't saying much, but it was understandable, because she and Kiwi had a lot of work to do. However, in a minute and a half I got a message with a map and my location. And I have to say, the Steelers were pretty well established here. even had two exits outside the warehouses! And that was the bad part...
"We don't control the emergency exit doors, but we've got the cameras under control."
"Roger that, how many more Stilettos are there?"
"About fifty people... but they've already called for reinforcements. They have to come from two directions, one to come at Group A from the rear, and the other to come through those very exits. Group A has been warned, Biggie and Smartypants will keep their eyes open."
I nodded and activated the sandi and walked quickly through the underground corridors, reaching the first room where the comp was marked. And there I stayed for a while, only to expose the chip. I basically decided not to turn off the sandi and quietly walked along the corridors inserting splinters into everything that came my way. And only when I was near one of the doors that led to the secret entrance and exit did I freeze for a moment, and then I just stepped aside and turned off the sandi.
"So?"
"Stay out of the way..."
Kiwi's voice was strained.
"Good girl, how are you?"
"We're hanging in there... as you asked, just barely barely keeping up with the retreat. But it's hard to demonstrate. because they're so untrained. Although there are some of them who are more or less adequate."
"I see, I'm waiting for help to arrive, I've got to put some splinters in them..."
"Come on. because Bookwoman's the only one having fun. I'm going to ricochet the next five enemies off that barrel, and the wound has to be a centimeter below the right knee... and the amazing thing is, she does it!"
I snorted.
"Well, she's a gun maniac for a reason..."
"I'd ask! I'm a master of small arms, by the way!"
"Yeah, yeah..."
"You're talking out of your ass! How do you even work in this atmosphere?"
"Big guy, you don't play with your muscles..."
Kiwi uttered this with a chuckle.
"...Tikhonya, unlike you, conducts reconnaissance and plans missions thoroughly. That's why our atmosphere is so calm. So reinforcements arrive? So what? We know about it, so we're ready and watching the neighborhood... Why worry?"
"Mentor, stay tuned..."
"I'm sorry, Snowflake."
And Kiwi disappeared from the conversation, as did Lucy, who had only appeared in it for a few seconds.
"Very fucking funny..."
Mayne wasn't going to calm down.
"...I always knew that Kee..."
"Big Guy, by Callsigns..."
My voice interrupted Mayne.
"...You try to violate this treaty again and your reward and share will be cut by fifty percent."
"Tz..."
Mayne was not very pleased with my words, but remained silent.
"Quiet, aren't you pushing the Big Guy a little too hard?"
"Ms. Muscle, I order music and dance and I want it done to perfection for my money. And if the big guy can't do something as simple as that, what's he doing solo?"
"Well... our group had a slightly different profile..."
"Yeah, yeah..."
I nodded my head.
"...I know, the dubolomites are on Faraday's leash. I heard that. Did you like it?"
"Grrr... Quiet, you watch your mouth..."
"Big guy, am I wrong about something? You've kind of worked for no one but Faraday, and how, Ms. Muscle and Chrome Maniac like their reputations after that? How are they perceived by other fixers?"
"Grr..."
"Not well-received. Disgusting. Happy?
Pilar intervened in the conversation.
"Yeah, we screwed up working mostly for Faraday, but that's no reason to make fun of Biggie... you even gave a call sign that sounds like bullying..."
"So bear with it. maybe you'll get a little more brains. after all, even after Zdorovyak was partially out of the game, you didn't think to change the style of work. Same old Dubolomas, just in the service of a different fixer and a smaller team. Meanwhile, who prevented you from giving Zdorovyak a sniper rifle like you do now, putting him on a point and having him cover you?"
I fake sighed.
"Who prevented that Chrome Maniac, with his knowledge, to go to Snowflake or Mentor and buy demons from them, and then become a squad ranger?"
Silence was my answer...
"There are no complaints about Ms. Muscle. She alone has always acted in her role, which is the best fit for her and picking something else for her would be problematic."
"Thank you..."
Dorio sounded slightly surprised and somewhat embarrassed.
"Or here's another way to look at it. Big guy, you seem to have some reputation, but--
I didn't repeat the fact that his turnip is very specific because of his work for Faraday. But it's there.
"...I could have been a fixer. You'd have to be a local, you'd have to go under someone. but the money would be stable. And in half a year or a year could have reached a level slightly below Wakako, and there should already be quite decent money..."
"I..."
"You, you..."
I shook my head.
"...oh, reinforcements from my side have arrived, girls, get ready for a flood of information."
"We understand you, Tihonja. Ready."
As soon as the doors were fully open, I activated the sandi, then headed toward the enemy. It was a good thing I'd cranked the speed up to maximum, because a couple of the new arrivals had military-style sandies. At least, I could tell from the visible parts of the sandi that they were military models, the ones that go to the "civilian" are less dimensional.
However, they didn't activate the sandi, so they were easy targets for me, which I just knocked out. So I ended up with a bunch of bodies with splinters in their connectors.
"Ladies?"
"We're working. I've sent you a new card with the ones we don't need anymore. We can disconnect them."
"Disconnect?"
I grinned with the corner of my lips and walked calmly towards the marked targets.
"How you tactfully labeled the elimination."
"Yeah you don't talk about mass murder either..."
"I prefer to think of it as deratization..."
"I agree... rats should be eliminated before they settle in a new place, or then they will not get rid of them by any means..."
Panam joined the conversation, though she had been silent before.
"Okay, we're out of opponents..."
Becky's voice was extremely satisfied.
"...Mentor, send the map to the Bookwoman and have her go in the direction I'm facing, help with the deratization efforts. It's gonna take me longer to do it alone."
"I got the card..."
The two of us quickly cleared out all the Stilettos. Well, we cleaned them all up and left the Stiletto base without leaving any of the living opponents there. And about twenty minutes after we arrived Sol and his guys came and cleaned up everything that was left there. Weapons, vehicles, everything.
And after that, we all gathered in the same place, at the nomad camp next to Hippo.
"So, uh. please, comrades."
I transferred ten each to Mayne, Dorio, and Pilar, then thoughtfully examined them with a careful eye.
"...that's your earnings. Now let's get to the bonus..."
I grinned. Saul had already transferred some of the clan funds to me in payment for the things they'd gotten. And I was looking at a sizable sum, not the largest we'd ever gotten, but twenty extra thousand for each of the distractions, and I wasn't going to hurt the others, either, so I quickly scattered the bonus.
"This is..."
Dorio blinked in shock.
"That's the bonus I mentioned. And now you have a choice, do you continue to fulfill the role of distraction while taking other Stilettos points, or are you not satisfied with cooperating with me and want to delta?"
"Uh... if I may be allowed to speak."
Pilar was very confused and somewhat shocked, but he was the one who first found the strength to start talking.
"...I have a question..."
I looked at him questioningly.
"...do you get bonuses like this every time?"
"Usually more..."
Becca shrugged and started to answer her brother before I did.
"...But there are usually fewer of us, so I think the total is about the same as usual..."
She looked at me as if to suggest that I continue.
"It's not the biggest score we've ever made, but overall... yeah, give or take, we get bonuses like this all the time. And it's all due to the professional work of the raters and the fact that I give them the opportunity to work."
"And... Do you always put splinters in?"
"No..."
Judy joined the conversation.
"...he used to prefer direct connection and running the runner through his deck, but then it was necessary to work quietly without attracting any attention. And after we started using the chips, silence was not necessary, and today, when Lucy and Kiwi were swimming in the ice bath, they didn't have to be disturbed by the noise."
"Well. they were trying to counteract some of our efforts..."
Kiwi shrugged.
"But due to the fact that their runners worked without forced cooling of the systems, and we with it, we could slightly overclock our chrome and as a consequence worked better."
Lucy continued after her friend.
I, on the other hand, kept waiting for a response from Mayne or other members of his group.
"I... wouldn't mind working with you a couple more times."
Maine was clearly having a hard time with those words. but I didn't know what was going through his head, so what made him decide to do it was a mystery to me. Unless he was hoping to buy some new chrome?