JohnnyZ
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[Demons of NC] Chapter 44
🕑 Added 2024-11-26 17:25:40 +0000 UTCThe long, painstaking, and expensive prep began.
Every day brought new challenges that dragged us further away from the end goal.
A day after our brainstorming session, Lucy and I dove into the Net. Full immersion. It was our first deep dive together. A bit nerve-wracking, considering my... peculiarities.
In our cramped apartment, two open plastic tubs stood near the shower—basically coffins without lids. I used a hose to fill them with cold water, mixed in a special solution, and started dumping in trays of ice from the freezer. Meanwhile, Lucy prepped the gear, fine-tuning protective protocols to keep us alive in the Net and off NetWatch’s radar in the real world.
A modest van sat parked near Union Street, housing the gear that would serve as our jump point and signal booster.
"When’s the last time you went deep?" Lucy asked, her eyes scanning the interface.
"A while back. Still in Arasaka. We were planting a worm in the Crystal Palace’s systems. Jacked in through an illegal satellite. Me and another runner."
"Sounds like a solid plan," Lucy smirked, "for a double suicide."
"We pulled it off, believe it or not. Though the other runner didn’t last long."
"AI traps? Neural shock?"
"Two bullets to the head. I shot him after he tried to off me twice. And yeah, Abernathy’s shadow was already looming back then."
"You know, with corps, you don’t even have to fight them. Just lock their office doors for a day or two, then haul out the bodies. It’d work better than a nuke."
"And way more eco-friendly," I grinned, peeling off my shirt.
My runner suit lay ready beside me. Lucy, on the other hand, decided to skip hers entirely. She just kept undressing.
"Cold-resistant?" I asked, not hiding my appreciation for the way the light played across her skin.
Ice water glistened under the room’s soft glow, creating mesmerizing patterns on her body.
"I’ve got a sensory mod that transforms extreme cold into a pleasant chill," she replied, sliding into her makeshift tub. "And I’ve tuned my heat levels so I won’t catch a cold."
"A sensory transformer? Never heard of those for runners."
"It’s not a runner implant. It’s from the Midnight Lady line."
Damn. A sex implant. The female equivalent of Mister Studd.
"Works better than a pain regulator in some cases," she continued. "Doesn’t dull the sensations, just flips them from negative to positive. Won’t help with major trauma, but it’ll cancel out most discomfort. Just gotta be careful not to get... too excited in a firefight."
"If you do," I quipped, plugging the cable into my neural port and adjusting my visor, "let me know. I’ll do what I can to help."
Moments later, the weight of my body disappeared entirely. My consciousness floated free, soaring into the boundless realm of cyberspace. There, amidst shimmering streams of blue data, Lucy waited for me. Our last meeting in the Net had been years ago. She’d been ten. I’d been dead, trying to kill her.
"Let’s go," she beckoned, her voice resonating like a soft chime—hauntingly melodic.
I moved toward the virtual transfer device, a pale-blue sphere. Touching it, we instantly reappeared in a similar construct housed in the van. Here, Lucy had set up a small digital fortress. From this secure hub, we began scanning the turbulent cybersea of Night City’s corporate district.
"Let’s not linger too long," Lucy warned. "This place is riddled with corpo traps."
"Got it."
For now, I kept my structure entirely human. If Lucy noticed anything odd, she didn’t let it show.
We slipped beyond the safety of our shields and masking protocols. The Union Street skyscraper loomed ahead, a fortress of shimmering ice layers. Sharp angles, precise geometry, and fortified bulkheads.
"What do you think?"
"Nothing good, V. Let’s get closer."
We crossed a digital roadway, barely visible contours of cars marked by glowing lights from onboard systems and driver implants. Then, the street vanished behind us. We entered the skyscraper’s subspace, passing through its initial isolating contours—not even proper defenses yet, just noise suppression.
Here, the first barriers came into view, likely protecting the lower utility levels. Corporate-grade ice—decent, but not impossible. But the upper floors? Even a cursory scan revealed layers of constantly shifting, dynamic isolating ice. The kind of tech you’d find on Cynosure—maybe a step down, but still deadly expensive and annoyingly efficient.
"What’s the call?"
"Nothing good, Lucy. Let’s press on."
As soon as we tried to push deeper, the ice layer next to us suddenly flared up. Out of it emerged three data constructs, taking the form of schematic pillars of flame. Dim fire danced a deathly waltz.
“Get back!” Lucy warned, throwing up a cloud of interference.
Killer programs—designed to track intruders. These things sneak into the power management systems of a runner’s gear and hit the circuits with a megawatt surge. That kind of voltage makes wires burn, fries circuits, and cooks the netrunner alive like they’re strapped to an electric chair. Nasty stuff.
There was no point in fighting. They’d already spotted us. If we took out these programs, the runners holed up in their fortress would just deploy more—and probably call in the Watch while they were at it.
We retreated under cover of interference, falling back to the van. There, we initiated a self-destruct on its virtual fortress and jumped back to the apartment, cloaked by masking software.
Moments later, I was hauling myself out of an ice bath. The recon hadn’t exactly been a success.
“They’re straight-up using black ice, no hesitation,” Lucy muttered, deep in thought. “Someone from the Watch is sitting there with orders to burn anything that gets too close.”
“Damn. Guess it’s back to Plan B: brute force with AV support and sniper fire.”
Even if I went in solo, using every demonic skill I had, I’d risk getting burned—or worse, trapped in dynamic ICE like the rogue AIs from Cynosure.
No, rushing this thing wasn’t going to cut it.
Still, a net attack couldn’t be ruled out entirely. There were ways to soften up that building’s defenses: preloading the system with viruses, taking out one of the data center’s runners at the right moment, or causing power surges to fry some of their hardware. Sure, they’d have breakers to protect the system, but a good virus could mess with those too. That sounded a lot more promising. Even if I couldn’t crack through the dynamic defenses entirely, I could still take control of a few floors, maybe force Abernathy to evacuate under the threat of fire or bombs.
The next step in prep was securing an AV. Buying one? Out of the question—prices started at 600,000 eddies. Using something that expensive as a one-and-done projectile went against every fiber of my cheapskate soul. The plan? Borrow it, then "borrow it permanently."
We went for a middle ground. A broke corpo, using fake credentials, rented an AV with autopilot for what was supposed to be a romantic date. Naturally, he never saw our faces. When the AV reached the dam’s overlook point, I hopped in wearing a mask.
The corpo bailed, taking a 4,500-ed payout for his trouble, while I waited for Lucy. Once she arrived, we scrubbed the AV clean of tracking hardware and software. Then, we took a night flight over the city, lighting up virtual screens to bask in the glow of the towering skyscrapers and holograms stretching skyward.
“Feeling on top of the world?” I asked with a smirk.
“I’d fly even higher,” Lucy replied, pacing the cabin.
At my request, a tray with glasses slid out of the wall, and sultry music filled the cabin.
“Shame we can’t keep this beauty,” I said. “They’ll track it down. Stolen AVs don’t stay hidden for long. We’ll have to stash it in that rented hangar outside the city and then… one last flight. Short but explosive.”
All in all, the prep took about a month and chewed through 200k eddies—double what Yago had provided. We agreed to split the extra costs between us if the mission succeeded. In the meantime, my wallet took the hit. My inner miser wasn’t happy, but it had to deal with it.
AV, netrunner gear, hired mercs, getting rentals, and explosives. A lot of explosives. After a month, the plan was ready to roll.
Every cog had been polished, the mechanism nearly assembled. Now, all that was left was to turn the key.
We gathered again at the apartment Lucy and I shared, activated the anti-surveillance gear, and cracked open a ton of beer. Before anyone touched their drink, though, I stood in the center of the largest room, starting a presentation titled “How We’re Going to Take Down Abernathy—or, One Less Corpo Bitch in the World.”
“Apart from us, the operation includes: Maelstrom, the Animals, and a solo merc by the name of Jack Mausser,” I began.
“Hold up, V,” Panam interrupted. “Time to ask: what the fuck? Two gangs and a merc?”
I gestured for her to hold off on the critique. “I get it. It’s sudden. But they’ll be working blind. No direct contact with us. Maelstrom and the Animals are just there to sow chaos and keep attention off us.
“Maelstrom got intel from us about a shipment of high-value chips supposedly being delivered to a nearby building. The Animals, on the other hand, got hired to take out an Arasaka guard on the lower floors. Mausser’s job is to zero three netrunners in the enemy data center on the tenth floor and plant our virus there.”
“That asshole cost me fifty grand,” I grumbled. “Really hope he does his job because we’re planning to recoup some of that by taking him out afterward.”
“If Mausser has a shot at getting in and out quietly, the gangers? They’re cannon fodder. Their job is to soak up attention. Now, let’s move to the broader mission plan.”
I activated the projector, and a hologram of a high-rise on Union Street appeared in the center of the room. A corporate fortress in the heart of the business district. The place was already locked down tight, but with Abernathy holed up there, it was practically a castle—complete with missile systems on the roof, ready to blast anything airborne.
“Alright, here we go. Zero hour: Saturday night, 11 PM. We take our positions. Panam, you’re our sniper. You’ll be on a rooftop three hundred meters from the tower. Don’t show yourself right away to avoid attracting drone patrols.”
“No shit. A sniper waits. I’ll bring a thermos, cookies, and a thermal blanket.”
“The rest of us will be in a rented building on the outskirts of Northside, setting up a mobile data center to wreak havoc in the Net. Becca, you’re on security.”
Becca nodded with a sigh.
“23:10. Phase One: The distraction begins. Maelstrom pulls a heist. Mausser infiltrates the building. I launch an initial Net assault on the lower floors, while Lucy, using a prearranged backdoor, takes over part of the district’s power grid. You guys wait for the signal.”
“Waiting. Got it,” Becca replied, with a bored look.
"23:20. If everything’s gone to plan, Mausser is taking out the enemy netrunners at their data center. Dynamic ice is gonna block any direct net attack on Abernathy, but we don’t need that anyway. Lucy’s overloading the lines into the building while I destabilize the transformers and breakers. Power surges, sparks—most of the building loses electricity. But, unfortunately, the upper floors have backup generators, so their defenses stay intact. What we do get is access to the locked garage, where I’ll start a smokeout. At the same time, Lucy sends an email to the building admin and Arasaka HQ, posing as terrorists from the ‘Crimson Harvest.’ The message threatens to blow up multiple Arasaka properties unless they cancel their recent deal with Biotechnica and return farmland they bought off the California coast. First on the list of targets? This very building. That should trigger Abernathy’s evacuation."
"And if Mausser fucks up?" Panam asked.
"Same plan," I replied. "Except I’ll also have to deal with the netrunners stationed in the tower, prepped with a shit-ton of combat software. Moving on. 23:25. Lucy’s disabling the drones patrolling the penthouse area. From there, two options: Abernathy tries to escape through the locked garage or the roof. Hell, maybe they’ll even land an AV right on the street. If it’s the garage, I’ll take her out with a cyber attack, and our rigged AV will finish the job. If it’s the street? Even easier—same plan. Now, the roof or penthouse balcony..."
"I’ll grab a swanky sniper rifle from the Aldecaldos tonight," Panam promised.
"Perfect. From the balcony or roof, Sue can be dropped with a couple of shots. To back you up and keep her guards busy, we’ve got eight drones prepped—four standard Wyverns and four kamikaze packed with explosives. All of them will be aimed right at Abernathy. There’s AA on the roof, but it struggles with small targets. Plus, Lucy will hack a few Arasaka drones, grab their IFF keys, and use them to shield ours."
Those drones set me back another 30 grand. Picked them up in Dogtown, but even there, the prices stung.
"One more thing," I added, addressing Panam. "By then, enemy reinforcements will have arrived. So after you shoot, you bolt. Fast."
"Got it. But what if the bitch escapes on the ground? Car or tunnel?"
"The second she leaves her ice fortress, I’ll track her and finish the job. Only way she walks away clean is in an AV with military-grade ice," I assured her. "23:30. If Abernathy somehow manages to fly out, we’ll use our own AV. Lucy will guide it remotely, target Sue’s transport, and—boom."
"Ever flown an AV before?" Panam asked.
"I program autopilots. Code’s already done. That thing’ll lock on like a missile, and it’s packed with nearly a ton of explosives."
"That’ll be one hell of a fireworks show," Panam smirked. "Might wanna invest in glass repair stock, but even that’d look suspicious."
"23:40," I continued. "By then, everyone should be in safe zones. The three of us? We’re slipping out through a maintenance tunnel while the building burns to the ground, covering our tracks. Panam, I’ve mapped out your escape routes and sent you the district’s comms layout. But I can’t predict the clusterfuck the streets will turn into, so play it by ear. Two blocks out, my buddy Jackie will be waiting with a couple of bikes. He’s not in the loop—just hired him for evac. If it all goes to shit, aim for him."
"I’ll manage," the nomad assured me.
"That’s the plan. A few more backup details for the three of us, but I’ll get to that later. Any questions?"
"On paper, it all sounds so simple," Lucy muttered, lighting a cigarette. "Reality? We’re kicking a damn Arasaka hive and stepping on the NCPD’s toes."
"Exactly," I nodded. "For a couple hours, every cop in the city’ll wanna bag us, and every Arasaka agent’ll wanna shoot us."
"Sounds…" Becca sighed dreamily. "Fucking epic!"
"Epic to tell around a campfire," Panam remarked. "Living through it? Might not be as fun."
"I’ll deal with the discomfort," I smirked. "Main thing is surviving the op. Lucy and I’ll be scrambling through the Net, pulling off diversion after diversion, while in meatspace, they’re tracking us and sending squads of executioners the second they get a lock. It’s gonna be a goddamn warzone downtown—gunfights, burning cars, combat AVs, drones, netrunner trackers everywhere. Not quite Silverhand’s scale, but front-page news for sure," I finished, cracking open a beer. "Let’s drink to the headline: ‘Top Arasaka exec assassinated. Perps vanish without a trace.’ And 99% of this goddamn city will think, ‘Good riddance. She had it coming.’"
