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"Bestia... (Rogue...)"
"David..."
The fixer nodded at me and got straight to the point, just like she always did when we talked.
"I have a job for you..."
"Listening."
"There's this guy, Dan. He's got a gambling problem, and not long ago, he lost his sports car. You know, he lost it, so what? He's got a ton of them, even though he's never earned a single eurodollar in his life..."
I raised a questioning eyebrow at such pointless details, and Rogue understood me perfectly.
"Anyway, you don't give a damn about those details. The problem is that inside the car was an old disc with a rare Samurai recording. And you need to find that disc and get it back. If you can get the car back, too, the client will be absolutely thrilled."
"Details in the message?"
"Uh-huh... and you're not even a little curious?"
"Hmm?"
"You're not curious who could afford to carry a rare recording like that in their car?"
"Nah..."
I shook my head.
"That doesn't concern me at all. It could be the son of someone in the band, or even Silverhand himself, who came back from the dead, although..."
I grinned.
"...that asshole didn't give a damn about his band, so he wouldn't have done anything himself, and he wouldn't have ordered a job from a solo. So I'm betting it's either a crazy collector or the son of someone in the band."
"You're right, it's Nancy's son..."
"I don't give a damn. Where should I start looking?"
"I'll send you the details in a message now... and you'd better hurry. The car is no big deal, but the recording..."
I shrugged.
"Alright, send me the details in a message, and we'll get started."
"Got it..."
She sent me a message, and I immediately opened it.
"Seriously?"
"What?"
"The entrance is through a sewer collector?"
"What do you expect? It's a Sixth Street underground casino. If they did everything officially, they would have to pay exorbitant taxes on gambling, but this way, they just have to pay off the cops, which is three times less than the tax..."
"I see... we're heading out. End of comms."
"Yeah, if this casino goes bankrupt, I don't think anyone would be sad about it..."
I grinned knowingly.
"Alright, end of comms."
Rogue ended the call. I forwarded the message to my girls and started getting ready myself. It would take a while to get to the city, or rather, we'd get to the city itself quickly, but getting to the destination point in the city... I could have used Delamain again, of course, but the job didn't specify that, which means no one would reimburse us for using it, unlike with Regina's jobs. And that means it would be stupid to pay out of my own pocket.
And the fact that we'd cover the expenses by simply robbing the underground casino wouldn't change the fact that it would be a very expensive endeavor. And we weren't in a hurry, anyway...
After we were ready, we got into our car, which Panam had just recently renamed Thorton 2 so that her callsign, Cherry, would once again become not only cute but also very relevant. After all, she was given the nickname Cherry, who's on the cake...
"Alright, ladies, I hope I don't have to tell anyone how careful you have to be when working with the systems of an underground casino?"
"You don't... we'll be careful and run all the transfers through dozens of shell corporations, which will take longer than we usually do, but we'll do it in a way that makes the funds impossible to trace."
"Perfect..."
On the way, we discussed the job, with Becca grumbling quietly the whole time, as she just couldn't accept that the job required quiet work again.
"And by the way, I've almost mastered the operative database with a focus on covert ops! And Panam has almost finished her operative training, too, so she can take on the responsibility of guarding the runners."
"And you're suggesting I take you with me?"
"Uh-huh..."
She showed me the bracelet on her arm.
"And what's that?"
"A stealth technology for quiet ops. It makes the wearer unnoticeable to others. I checked it in the clan's camp..."
"Uh..."
I scratched the back of my head, embarrassed.
"Is that when you were running around the whole camp in a swimsuit, making faces at everyone?"
"Huh?!"
She stared at me in shock.
"You saw?!"
"Well... yeah... and I wasn't the only one..."
The girls all nodded.
"But... I ordered it through a trusted person..."
She looked at the bracelet with hurt in her eyes.
"...and why didn't you say anything to me?!"
"Say what? That you're running around the camp in a swimsuit, and everyone's so used to some of your antics that they just decided to ignore you?"
"But I..."
"Becca..."
Panam joined the conversation.
"...you're a part of our family, but even so, we know what you're capable of when you're bored. Just remember that time half the camp woke up with stupid drawings on their faces... No, it was funny, just like that time when you slipped Saul and a few other idiots a laxative, and they spent the whole day in the toilet... But let's be honest... it gets old."
"But I was running around in a swimsuit... weren't you bothered that people were looking at your girlfriend?"
"Becca, you were the epitome of modesty... you've seen how some people in Night City walk around. Do you really think a swimsuit would bother me after that? Besides... there's a saying: a girl in her underwear is naked, a girl in a swimsuit is dressed..."
"Fuck..."
"Alright, don't be sad. I'll have to buy you a Sandevistan, and also make you a suit. After that, I'll start taking you with me on jobs."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah, seriously."
"Awesome!"
Becca was happy.
"How's the access to the casino's systems?"
I looked at the girls, and they shook their heads.
"Nah... no way from the outside. But once you put the shards in their computers, then yeah..."
I sighed, got out of the car, and, after climbing over a fence, I slid down the inclined part of a stone embankment. After that, I activated my Sandevistan and, in two steps, I changed my direction, finding myself on a small, horizontal section, along which I walked down a narrow path to the collector.
There were no guards, but there was a camera. It wasn't a danger to me now, though, as my suit's camo was on, and my Sandevistan, even though it was on minimum, still allowed me to slip past it.
I walked through the collector and, after reaching a large metal door that had no electronic locks, I just froze for a couple of minutes.
"Quiet Man?"
"Yeah, there are some unexpected Luddites here..."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, there's just a regular metal door. No electronic locks or anything like that..."
"And what are you going to do?"
"Well... why the hell did I make energy blades for my tonfas?"
"Hmm?"
"I'll just melt the lock and the hinges. I could, of course, just try to tear the door off, as my muscle strength should be enough for that..."
"Hold on, check a couple of the neighboring collectors first. Maybe there's another entrance there..."
I shrugged.
"Alright, let's check..."
And I did, but there was no other entrance. So I had to go back to the door, but this time, I got lucky, and it opened, letting out a completely beaten-up guy in a corpo-style suit. He looked like someone who had lost everything.
I activated my Sandevistan at fifty percent, and I managed to slip into the casino before the corpo left, and the door closed behind him.
"I'm inside..."
I lowered the Sandevistan's output again and calmly walked through the casino, looking around and slipping shards into the ports of the local Sixth Street guards who were bustling around, keeping an eye on the gamblers. If I only had my camo system, it would have been a lot harder, as with the amount of lights flashing around, it would have struggled to keep me hidden. And with just a Sandevistan, I would have had to work at a higher level of acceleration...
But this way... I accelerated as I went between the rows and froze in places where the camo system could easily hide me...
After I found the entrance to the casino's VIP section, I calmly went around the guard in the suit who was standing at the entrance, not forgetting to put a shard in him. After that, I looked around in that room, too. There were clearly not low-level corpos here, but people in the middle-tier... like V, before she was kicked out of the corporation.
Of course, I didn't cause any trouble here, even though I was itching to put a couple of shards in these people who were full of themselves because of a little bit of power, zeroing out their accounts and ruining their lives. Why did I want to do that?
Their faces were just too arrogant...
But I still held back and went to the part of the casino where its employees and security were. The staff-only section, so to speak.
And that's where I went crazy, slotting shards into everything. And when I had gone through all those rooms and made sure there were only two entrances, I also started knocking people out. Only after I had cleared everything out did I get out of the acceleration.
"Get to work, ladies. Just let me know if anyone decides to come into the staff rooms."
"Alright..."
I spent about twenty minutes in the rooms while the girls were plundering the casino and also looking for where the car and the disc with the rare Samurai recording were. And they found out that no one had found out about the recording, at least not while the car was under the care of this part of Sixth Street. After that, it was transferred to a special garage...
The girls also got the address of the garage. After that, I went through the casino again, collecting the shards. And after waiting for another loser to lose all their money, I left the casino with him. I wish I could say that...
But it wasn't that simple. Just as I was about to leave the casino, after collecting all the shards except for the ones that were responsible for the girls' work in the casino's systems, the girls warned me that a few guards were heading toward the staff rooms. I had to use my Sandevistan at full power to get to those guards and knock them out, dragging them into the rooms. After that, I went to the casino's exit at the same speed, where some rich-looking guy was coming in.
And only after I got to the embankment was I able to relax.
"Ladies?"
"We figured it all out... and yeah, they didn't just set up a casino here; no one ever wins. There's not a single machine that's set up to win. So we're asking for permission to completely delete all the data. So they can't rebuild their casino for as long as possible."
"Do it."
At that very moment, Thorton 2 drove up to where I was standing, and I dove inside, activating my Sandevistan, right through the open front passenger window.
"Alright, are we going to the garage?"
"Yeah..."
Panam nodded and pushed the gas pedal to the floor, increasing the car's speed. Although it wasn't moving slowly when I jumped in.
"Are we in a hurry?"
"Yeah, they want to get the car ready for resale quickly. It's been in the garage for a day already. They might have found the disc with the recording by now, so we have to get there as soon as possible."
"Oh, come on..."
I shrugged.
"...if they did, we'll just go to the third location and steal it from the buyer. But I really would like to deal with everything as quickly as possible and not make any unnecessary moves. By the way, how much did we get from that casino?"
"We can pay for the flight to the moon and still have some left over."
Kiwi answered me.
"And what about me?"
"You're not participating in the payment, or did you forget?"
Lucy joined the conversation.
"I was just hoping that you've all cooled down a little and would let me at least pay for the flight with you."
I was given an extremely suspicious look.
"With us?"
Becca also decided to join the conversation.
"Yeah."
"With us?"
Becca didn't let up, and the suspicion in her voice increased even more.
"Yeah."
"And you weren't planning on paying for the main part of the payment yourself?"
Panam asked this question.
"Well..."
I looked away.
"I see..."
Judy grinned.
"...if you want to, you can pay with us, but only under equal conditions."
"Alright..."
I sighed... putting pressure on them now wasn't the smartest thing to do, but a little later, I could try to shift their payment again, leaving the main part of the payment for the flight to me.
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