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Freezing Shadows, Chapter 20
🕑 Added 2025-03-01 17:00:12 +0000 UTCChapter 20: Upgrades
It took about six weeks to finalize everything. Not just getting the building, that only took a couple weeks. There was also the whole deal of moving in, changing the locks and the door codes, updating the security system and putting new profiles in the drones keeping watch on the place, and so on. And that was just with our base.
The goal we’d given ourselves of finding a place was just part of what we were doing. We also wanted to make sure everyone had a ‘work’ vehicle and a ‘civilian’ vehicle. Even if most of us weren’t running around doing civilian stuff, as a general rule, it made sense to keep the work stuff separate, if we could. People didn’t need to see heavy artillery all the time, or they’d get suspicious in a hurry. And no one wanted to take a cab from their civvie home to their criminal base.
For myself, I’d decided to leave the motorcycle as my ‘civilian’ vehicle. It was mostly legal, aside from a couple minor things like the spoof chips (to change the vehicle’s ID in the matrix), vehicle tag eraser (to burn any tracking tags people slipped on it), and the morphing license plate. Things that wouldn’t be easily noticed, even up close.
My work car, on the other hand, was a Tsarina, like Twilight had. I put concealed armor on it, of course, along with chameleon coating to change paint jobs on the fly, the morphing license plate, and spoof chips. Considered doing the tag eraser as well, but decided to do a weapon mount in the nose of the cockpit-shaped vehicle and a road strip ejector in the tail. Basically, I had a machine gun loaded with armor-piercing ammo in front, and I could drop shock strips that would do a good job of frying a vehicle behind me, while also shocking everyone inside.
Berzerker’s work vehicle was her van, obviously. Of course, that’s not to say she hadn’t made a few modifications. A reinforced grill had been added to the front end, to make for better ramming, if we ever needed to go through something more solid than a chain-link fence, and, oh yeah, she’d found someone willing to put a concealed turret in the roof of the thing, which could pop up while she was driving and lay waste to people with a heavy machinegun that she had snapped up off a fence who was looking to move product in a hurry after one of their customers (likely a player) got a terminal case of stupid, and brought too much heat for their comfort.
Her everyday driver was a little subcompact car, the Honda Spirit. Nice little three-wheeled two-seater, with a bubble hood for bad weather. Only had a little in the way of armor, but it was literally one of hundreds, if not thousands of similar vehicles in the sprawl, and she’d made sure to get spoof chips, a morphing plate, and chameleon coating on it, for insurance.
Twilight decided that her Tsarina would be her ‘work’ vehicle. She upped the armor a bit, still concealed, and got it hooked up with Streetlink, which was a system in most sprawls that let electric cars charge while on the road, essentially giving them infinite runtime in covered areas, but meant that the vehicle could be tracked, and couldn’t go above the speed limit. To get around that, she also installed the Streetlink Override mod, which disabled the tracking and speed limit bit. Add in an improved economy mod to keep it moving even longer when outside Streetlink areas, and Satellite Communications, and that car would let her interface with the Matrix pretty much anywhere.
Her play, vehicle, was just as flashy as the Tsarina, but in a different way. The New Horizons Doble Revolution was an enclosed monocycle, with the rider inside the giant wheel. Only after-market mods she put on that were what the girls were basically calling the ‘company standard’ of Chameleon Coating, Morphing License Plate, and Spoof Chips. Apparently, I’d done a good job on selling them on why those things were damn useful.
Babydoll’s work van was pretty much maxed out already with her drone racks, satellite coms, and all that, but that didn’t mean she’d skimped out on things to buy. The ‘garage’ section of the base sported several new drones. Two were ‘mechanic’ drones, which could be used to repair vehicles and drones, so long as they were the land or air type. She’d new toolkits and software for them to work on watercraft. The other two new drones hanging out in the base were a pair of blimp drones. One had a turret on the bottom, and sported a sniper rifle that was rated to take out truck engines on it, and the other had enhanced electronic warfare abilities, satellite coms, a chameleon coating, and a ‘retrans unit’, basically allowing it to act as a signal extender for when she was controlling her drones, or for keeping everyone in the group network.
Somewhat boringly after all that, her civilian car was a Mercury Comet, one of the most common four-dour sedans in North America. Only modifications were the company standard, plus the Streetlink and Streetlink overrides. Well, that, and setting it up so that she could jump into the vehicle and drive it remotely like it was her own body. But all riggers tended to do that with any ride they were in charge of.
Sexkitten’s work car was a Honda Spirit, like Berzerker’s ‘play’ car. Only, Sexkitten had hers loaded with concealed armor, the company standard, and a light machine gun that popped out of the front when needed, capable of shredding anything in front of her. Not the best vehicle for a running gunfight, but for a sneak attack, you could do far worse.
The little Volkswagen Elektro was her civvie ride. Company special, and a combo of Streetlink and the Override, to compensate for its less than stellar battery size. Good for an everyday driver, but not something to take on a job, unless you had no choice.
Shadowgirl, on the other hand, kept things simple. Both work and play vehicles were bikes like mine, and the only difference between the two was that one had a six-barreled assault rifle concealed within it. So, that was a nasty surprise in waiting for anyone who thought the adept was helpless.
I also got a small upgrade to my arsenal. First, I spent the karma I had saved from the first two jobs to bind the Spellcasting Focus I’d stolen from the guard. Basically, it added the Force of the focus to my combat spells when I was using it. So, that meant I could probably afford to throw those around a bit more. You had to be careful with magic, though. It was really easy for a mage to overextend themselves, and end up knocking themselves out for most of a run, which is why I tended to use weapons against weaker foes.
The other addition I picked up was a bit of an impulse buy. I’d been accompanying Berzerker when she went shopping for the big gun on her van, and picked up a little something for myself, as well. Outfit named Nemesis Arms had a new toy on the market, a heavy pistol that had been toughened up to survive melee combat, and had a blade attached between the grip and the barrel, basically turning the underside of the gun into a cleaver. They called it the Praetorian, but I called it a thing of beauty. So, of course I bought it, once I’d gotten the grip personalized, and picked up some armor-piercing ammo for it.
“Hey boss. Came to check out the new digs?”
Looking up from where I’d just parked my Tsarina, I grinned as I saw our resident rigger. However, I was a bit surprised to see her here, since she’d been on bed rest for the past couple weeks. “Hey there, Babydoll. You’re out of bed? I thought you were still recovering from that surgery.”
She grinned at me as she walked over from the living area of the warehouse. “Nope, clean bill of health, now.”
“So, what changes did you get made? I don’t see any new chrome.”
“You wouldn’t. It is all on the inside. I had a friend of a friend hook me up with some upgrades. Upgraded the cyberware suite that I’d gotten back when I was a newscaster to the Alphaware version, which is lighter on the Essence. Gave me the room to trade in the Wired Reflexes for a Move-By-Wire system with the Skillwire Expert System on top of it. Also picked up a couple Skillsoft bundles.”
“Move-By-Wire, huh? That’s the version that combines the wired reflexes and the skillwires, right? So, you’re basically able to use any skills you can download now, yeah? That’ll be useful down the line. Can’t use too many skillsofts at the same time, but that’s very helpful. What packages did you get?”
“A mechanic package and a medic package. Basically, with the help of the drones I picked up, I should be able to maintain all the vehicles we have here, and then help patch everyone up if they get shot up on the run. What about you? Any upgrades, besides that focus you snagged?”
“Just a new pistol. Saw it while I was backing up Berzerker when she went gun shopping.”
“Such a good Master for her,” Babydoll grinned. She bit her lip, and said, “You know, since I’m all healed up, and you’re here, you want to go break in one of the beds in the living area? I have a brand new personafix I downloaded. The ‘naughty schoolgirl’ one that Sally used last time. Or did Sonya and Selina wear you out already?”
Noting that Mary had used Berzerker and Shadowgirl’s off-the-clock names, I smiled, and said, “Well, I did have a nice early-morning romp with Sonya, but I haven’t stopped by to see Selina so far today. So, you want me to give you detention, Mary?”
Mary practically purred as I advanced on her, one hand wrapping around her waist. “Oh, please, Mr. Mollen. I’ll do anything, so long as you don’t tell my parents!”
“Anything?”
“You have a room. At least go there before starting this, will you?”
The two of us looked over to the living quarters, where Twilight was standing with a semi-disgusted look on her face. “I know you all love doing… that, but could you at least go and do it in private?”
Mary smirked as she separated from me, turning to look at the technomancer. “I don’t know, Ricki. I just so happened to turn on the trid in the living room this morning, and found the most interesting movie that had been stopped in the middle. A romance movie about an elven nobleman and his low-born human maid. A very, VERY steamy movie, as well. In fact, when I checked, it had just stopped after one of the steamiest scenes, when the maid had been thoroughly ravished by her Master.”
“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Mary held up a data chip that could fit in any commlink. “Then you wouldn’t know anything about what the internal security cameras picked up? Well, fortunately I downloaded it to an offline drive.” The rigger turned her gaze to me, and grinned. “The recording picked up the most interesting scene. Want to see it?”
“WAIT! There’s no need to go showing random things!” Ricki practically screamed as she ran towards us, eyes wide.
Mary grinned at the panicking technomancer. “But you were moaning so nicely, Ricki. And do you remember what name you were saying?”
I put my hand between the two women. “Now, now, Mary. Don’t tease Ricki too badly. Not everyone is as comfortable with such things as we are.” I glanced over at Ricki, and said, “But perhaps you ought to work through things, Ricki, before it sours the team’s working dynamic. Perhaps talking to an elven nobleman would help?”
The technomancer’s face went beet red. I could hear the smirk in Mary’s voice as she said, “I thought we were done teasing her?”
“I said not to tease her too badly. Not that we shouldn’t tease her at all. Especially when her actions and words don’t match.”
“Fine, I get it,” Ricki muttered, face still red. “I’ll try not to act like a jealous bitch.”
“You know, Ricki,” Mary grinned, “if you’re jealous, you could always just join us.”
“Sh-shut up! Baka!”
I commended myself on only grinning, and not laughing at the textbook tsundere response. Yeah, this team was a bunch of fun. In more ways than one.
Comments
Sanginius
Also i believe this sentence is missing the word need between She'd and new. 'She’d new toolkits and software for them to work on watercraft.'
SamHawke
i have a question about Lewd Dungeon, wouldnt Santa be real there?
Chris M.
😍💗 👍very nice chapter. thank you💕💗😍
Robert Gardner
TFTC.
Kai Elanzo
Ty for the chapter. One point of notice, you have a sentence that reads "common four-dour sedans " I believe you meant "four-door", unless "dour" is a French spelling or something of the like.
