New day new assignment...
This time the order was sent to me by Bestia. And not just any order, only when I heard about it I realized that it was an important order for her. Important because it was necessary to steal one thing that used to belong to Kerry Eurodin. But that wasn't what was important about the item, what was important was the gift inscription... a gift inscription from Silverhand.
And that was what mattered most to Bestia.
So now I'm going to a very respectable hotel that houses the French diplomat who paid for the theft of this guitar. This idiot didn't even bother to hide it from people when he was holding receptions in his suite, which was a huge space on one of the upper floors.
As Bestia explained to me, she wouldn't have known about all this, but she was approached by Kerry himself, who attended one of these receptions as a guest star. And the politician himself was looking at him very cheekily when he was telling the false story of how this guitar came to him a couple of years ago.
"Ladies?"
"The hotel has good ice, we're certainly not suckers, but there's not much we can do without a chip in the security server. All we have so far is a map of the first floor. There's a security room, if the chip is in there, in one of the computers, it'll be easier for us..."
I hummed understandingly. The hotel wasn't owned by any corporation, which was rare, just a very successful businessman whose great-grandfather had managed to work his way to the top of the business. And what was even more amazing than the fact that someone had made it to the top was that the hotel was still not owned by any corporation.
In general, the girls received a direct order from me not to rob the owners of the hotel, but the diplomat himself should be cleaned out... and that's not so much our wish as Bestia's request.
I dodged a couple of passersby, since I was wearing my work suit, some of the outer armor of which I had reworked to be more resistant to heat from friction, and the cloaking system was active on the suit. And all because there were no places near the hotel where I could activate it covertly, so I had to walk with the system on through the human traffic, deftly maneuvering between people.
"So I'm at the staff entrance."
"One second, we're checking the situation. you can come in now."
When I heard the authorization, I grinned, because I had to pick the lock, and it was the girls who had to do it. So I inserted the splinter into a small technical slot in the lock, and waited for them to break the lock.
However, for my girls it was not a difficult task and after a minute the lock quietly beeped signaling that the door was open.
I stepped inside the building and activated the sandi, heading toward the guard room. The room itself was close enough that I carefully opened the door and stepped inside. There were a couple of guards there, but they didn't even notice how I appeared, I left a couple of whispers and left them.
Leaving the wood chips behind I shifted to the most important office on the first floor, namely the staff restroom, where I occupied one of the stalls turned off the sandi and waited...
"You ladies get to work and I'll wait for a while..."
"What would you do without us?"
Kiwi decided to be quiet for a while.
"Honestly?"
"Come on..."
Lucy joined the conversation. Apparently she was really curious about what exactly I was doing if I didn't have such wonderful runners.
"I'd probably just break in, make my way to the stairs and go up... if I was lucky, I'd break in quietly and get in without incident, if I was unlucky, I'd get in with dead bodies..."
"I see. a rude bumpkin who can't do anything without us..."
Judy said it with a sneer, but the other girls confirmed that characterization of my abilities. I was lying a little bit, though. I wouldn't have done this job without them...
"That's right, my beautiful Smarty-pants. Although I must say that without you, I wouldn't have taken on such orders...
I decided to voice my thoughts to the girls.
"My ceiling so far would be to cleanse the city of Scavengers. Probably would plug Animals and Malström into the cleanup list..."
I shrugged.
"I wouldn't be poor, but I wouldn't have to think about my current income."
"Uh... Girls, this idiot seems pretty serious..."
Becca was clearly a little shocked by my words.
"Well. in his defense, he's probably telling the truth. I've known him longer than any of you-- except Judy, but I've worked with him longer than you. He really wasn't planning anything bigger before we had a roner on the team. He was just working. Well, if you look at what he's doing now, we're just working. We are not looking for the big league, although we face it and just fulfill orders. A lot of orders...
"Well..."
"So he'd probably just be killing bandits without going anywhere else. But he'd be no worse off than he is now. Except he'd belong to me."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! I don't have anything to do with runners either!"
Becca decided to try to squeeze into the family that Panam hypothetically cut.
"Yeah, but you and I met because the Ranchers needed protection, and without it, your services would be unnecessary. So, uh."
There was a sneer in Panam's voice.
"Well...to my regret I have to agree with Panam... But that doesn't mean I'll forgive her for cutting me out of the family..."
Judy decided to give her opinion on the matter.
"...so the first chance I get, I'll take vicious revenge ..."
The girls had hacked into the hotel security system, though not all of it, but a lot of it, which was enough to steal the guitar and leave undetected. So I quietly left the restroom and activated the sandi and got to the stairs, where I went upstairs.
Thirty-fifth floor...
It's not so much when you have synthetic muscles, more like mentally exhausting. But I did get up to this floor. The stairs weren't very popular. Everyone preferred elevators, leaving the stairs as emergency escape routes. I opened the door to the floor with the help of the girls and found myself in a rather large foyer...
Okay, number thirty-five-two.
I looked around quickly and came to the door of the room, the lock of which was already open, so I just pushed it open, which I did, finding myself inside one of the most luxurious rooms in the hotel. And here I had to be careful, because the owner of the room was here and I had to knock him out carefully to teach him a lesson for taking what was dear to Bestia.
Not that Bestia was going to take the guitar for herself, not at all, but she wasn't going to put up with the fact that it wasn't in the hands of the person it was meant for.
Slowly...
I walked around the room and finally found the owner of the room. He was sitting in the bathroom, pensively looking at a page on his tablet of elite escorts who do not shy away from providing intimate services.
A light, almost weightless for any, even quite weak solo blow and the politician passes out, and his tablet is about to fall right into the bathtub, but I slightly correct its route by shifting the hand of this man. And now the tablet is already falling on the floor, and there is a big crack on its screen. However, it's not broken yet, so a chip was immediately inserted into it, as well as into the politician's personal port.
After I turned off Sandi, I went around the room putting splinters in everything I could reach. The girls were working hard, and I didn't want to distract them. I'd already found the main target of my visit, Krri Eurodin's guitar. But it was necessary to confirm that it was it. Or they could have left a fake in a prominent place ...
"Quiet?"
"Catch the tape in high quality. Send it to the customer, let him look at it and tell him if it's the right guitar."
"Roger that, I'm accepting the file... Stand by."
The call was dropped, and I walked around the room again, noting its excessively rich decoration. I felt as if the room had been created especially for those who had no taste and who liked to show everyone that they had a lot of money.
As I was walking through the room, I noticed a briefcase, and when I opened it, I found that it was just full of money. Having quickly checked all the money with the help of optics I made sure that there were no tracking devices in it or in the case itself, so I decided to take it with me.
And then came the challenge from Bestia.
"I'm listening."
"Yes, the customer has confirmed, that is the purpose of the order."
"Okay, then I'll take her and go..."
"Will you deliver the guitar to the customer?"
I shrugged.
"I can if he doesn't mind autographing my female partners, some of them are fans. Personally, I liked his style better in Samurai."
"I don't think he'll mind. Sending you the address."
The connection was interrupted and immediately I got the address where the guitar was to be delivered, which I calmly, without any piety, took in my hands. Then, having heard from the girls that they had broken in, which happened about fifteen minutes later, I collected the chips and went down the stairs to the first floor, where I took the chips from the security room and then left the hotel.
"So, ladies."
I looked at the girls after I got in the car.
"What's wrong?"
"Today only, you have a chance to get Kerry Eurodine's autograph."
"А?!"
The girls stared at me shocked.
"The customer wanted us to deliver the guitar in person and Bestia said he might not mind a couple autographs, and I plan to get a little cocky and ask him to play a song on it..."
"We need to stop by a musical instrument store..."
Panam said it in such a way that it was immediately clear that such a decision was not negotiable.
"What?"
I looked at her in surprise.
"We clans won't understand if we didn't get an autograph from Eurodin on the guitar! He's one of the few artists who can pluck his own strings."
"Well..."
I shrugged.
"...I don't mind, we can buy a couple of his CDs for you to autograph."
The girls nodded their heads, and our next destination was a music store where we bought a guitar. Here I had to ask the counselor for help. I said that my friend can and very much likes to play the guitar, as well as understands them, and I would like to make him a present...
And I was immediately taken to a special department, where I bought a good, but unpretentious guitar, which life in the wastelands and low maintenance will not hurt much. The girls chose Kerry's CDs, and only after shopping we went to Eurodin's mansion.
It took us about an hour to get to our destination, which was outside of town, mostly because we had to travel part of the way through city traffic.
"Fucking hell."
"I don't tend to express my emotions in such a vulgar way, but I have to agree with Becca here."
Kiwi commented on the mansion we'd arrived at. It was really huge, though it didn't look particularly disgusting in any way, but the size of it...
When the car stopped in front of the gate, I calmly got out of the car being in which, even before visiting the music store, I managed to take off my helmet and cover myself with a cloak, which hid my armor.
"Who's there?"
The intercom was answered a dozen minutes after I pressed the button.
"Quiet by Bestia. Brought the order."
"Hmm. come on in, but no tricks, I've got my security system set to paranoid mode after that guitar was stolen."
"Got it."
I nodded and got back into the car, and when the gate opened we drove into the courtyard and along the path we reached the main entrance to the mansion, in front of which a famous musician and singer was already waiting for us.
"Good afternoon, this seems to be your..."
I got right down to business and handed Kerry his guitar, which he examined, almost sniffed, picked up a couple chords and wrinkled his nose a little.
"Bastards. They don't know how to play, and they upset the instrument..."
"I apologize..."
"Uh-huh?
Kerry looked up at me.
"The thing is, when Bestia told us who we should pass the guitar to, we did a little preparation... could you autograph it for me and my crew?"
"Sure..."
Kerry grinned good-naturedly and quickly signed the girls' CDs, leaving some rather nice inscriptions of wishes, and then it was time for the guitar I'd bought.
"Hmmm..."
"Is something wrong?"
"No. just brings back memories. A good workhorse with a good sound. Unpretentious."
He tapped the guitar with the palm of his hand and even picked up a couple chords then signed it.
"When I started in Samurai we had all instruments like this, now we have to buy normal guitars and turn them into a painted something that will be considered stylish... because if you buy something like that right away, it's either too expensive, or it's total crap... But you probably haven't heard of Samurai..."
I got my guitar back.
"Do you have an instrument?"
"No..."
I made no secret of the fact that I don't own a guitar.
"But I live in a clan, and I think there are a lot of good guitar players who would be very careful with an instrument that has been in the hands of Kerry Eurodin himself. And you're wrong, we've heard of Samurai. Judy's a fan of the breaks and writes them herself..."
We all introduced ourselves when Kerry signed autographs so I didn't see the point in calling the girls by their call signs.
"And she has a whole selection of Samurai concert brans, and in very high quality!"
"Is that right?"
"Yeah..."
Judy smiled embarrassedly.
"...it was not easy to find the videos, but I am proud to say that I have the brains of all the Samurai concentrations, although of course I had to work hard to restore the recordings and improve their quality..."
"Can you send it to me?"
Kerry looked at Judy interestedly.
"Sure..."
"That's good."
"I apologize, can you play something from Samurai?"
"Hmmm..."
We were given a thoughtful look, then Kerry nodded and grabbed his guitar and quickly began to play... and it was amazing. A pro who doesn't just play, who puts his soul into the game... You don't see that very often nowadays...
"Delightful..."
Lucy voiced our thoughts aloud as Kerry finished playing.
"Well, uh. I should really get going."
Carey cast a glance at his mansion.
"I apologize for the distraction... and by the way."
"Uh-huh?
I was looked at with a drop of irritation in my gaze.
"I hear you're having a creative crisis. I don't know if that's true or if you tried to end your life... But if that's true, have you thought about getting the Samurai back together? Of course with a slightly revamped lineup, and not forever, just for a couple gigs... just play a couple of gigs in a couple of godforsaken clubs, reminisce about what it was like in your youth..."
Kerry was already looking me over thoughtfully from head to toe.
"You know... and this is definitely something to think about..."
That's where we parted ways...