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"Silent?"
"Hey. We got the body. The girls are hacking him now... You sure you don't need the body itself?"
"What the hell would I need it for?"
Regina's image shrugged.
"Zero him out. Just get me the data."
"Got it... then wait up. I figure my runners will crack everything in an hour or three, and I'll send you the data."
"Excellent... I take it you also cleaned out the Maelstrom base?"
"Of course..."
Now I was the one shrugging, and my image repeated the gesture.
"...they're gangers, and zeroing them out during a job doesn't clash with my idea of what's right."
"You're a strange one... You won't take clean-out jobs, but you zero out gangers during other gigs without a problem, as long as there's no specific instruction for non-lethal takeout."
"Well... those are just my quirks..."
I grinned.
"Alright... waiting for the data."
"Uh-huh..."
The call ended, and I immediately switched back to the girls' channel.
"Bookworm, how are you holding up?"
"Fine... I've almost cleared the basement. They have a stash of old chrome and weapons down here, so there aren't many people. According to the runners, just about ten gonks..."
"Yeah, and she's already zeroed out seven of them."
Lucy commented on Becca's actions, and I relaxed a little, realizing that this time, no problems had come up. So, I'll have to throw a little party to celebrate Becca's successful debut. After all, this was her first time working like this.
I nodded at my thoughts, sat down in the nearest chair, and waited...
I had to wait about fifteen minutes, after which Becca finally reported that she was done.
"Great, I'm coming to you..."
I got up from the chair, threw the target of our job over my shoulder, and calmly went down to the first floor. From there, with Kiwi's help, I found the way to the basement, where Becca was already waiting for me by the door.
"What's wrong?"
"I just want to check the chrome and weapons..."
"I can tell you right now the weapons are junk. Spare parts only. Though, even the parts from these weapons will be of disgusting quality."
I shrugged.
"Did you assess the chrome too?"
"Well... I don't know enough about it yet. I'll have to upgrade my optics to Kiroshis generation three. Their database is bigger, and you can download more info to it. Then I'll be able to tell about chrome. But for now, come take a look... maybe there's something decent..."
But it turned out there was nothing valuable in the chrome, just junk, old or broken. So, we went up from the basement to the first floor, and then we left the building through the back door so we wouldn't be seen by any outsiders.
We got to the car without any trouble. After that, I loaded the target's body into the trunk and sat down in my seat.
"Let's go to our spot... but we'll stop by the store for some good food on the way..."
"Is there a reason?"
"What about Becca's new role? Her new way of working? By the way, how did she do?"
"She did fine..."
Lucy shrugged.
"...although I have to say that with your more advanced Sandi, this kind of work is always easier for you. Where you just charge ahead, Becca had to be a little more cunning, showing off her skills and abilities."
I nodded in understanding.
"Good..."
The car was quietly rolling toward the nearest store where we planned to stock up. And just as we were about to arrive, Judy spoke up.
"Okay, we cracked that asshole... Regina was completely right. He was working for fixers from another city. And he started working for them right after he was fired from his last job. The deal was that he would become the fixer for Regina's district, while they would take over Padre's and Wakako's districts. That would be their starting point for taking over the city."
"Send the data to Regina... Panam, pull over by the dump. We're getting rid of the cargo."
"Copy that."
Forty minutes later, we pulled up to one of the abandoned roads at the dump. It wasn't even a road, just a path.
"They won't track him?"
"You wound me... the shard will be working for two more weeks after the body flatlines, consuming any energy left in the chrome. It will simulate life support, so all the chrome will be transmitting its remaining power to it. Although he might flatline in three hours if that idiot didn't bother..."
A flash of white appeared over the car, and a body appeared. A woman's body...
I was able to see her in great detail, as I automatically activated my Sandevistan at full power. And there I was, sitting in the car. The world around me was almost frozen, and I was looking at the girl's body... A white-haired girl in leather pants and a white shirt, with a sword sheath on her back, and the sword itself was there, too...
And something about this reminds me of something...
I sighed, carefully opened the car door, and got out. I climbed onto the hood, which is where the girl was supposed to land. Or rather, she was supposed to land on the windshield, but that doesn't matter. I looked at her face carefully...
She was clearly unconscious.
I carefully lifted her eyelid and confirmed that she was unconscious. Only after that did I gently pick her up and slowly reduce the Sandi's acceleration until I noticed no external changes and knew that the girl wouldn't be harmed by moving with me anymore.
I stepped aside and lowered myself to the ground, completely turning off my Sandevistan.
"Uh... what the hell?"
The girls focused their gaze on me. I, meanwhile, was thoughtfully examining the girl in my arms. I even activated my optics, but neither the police databases nor the others loaded into my chrome's memory found any data on this girl.
"I don't understand what's going on myself... she just appeared over the car and could have landed on our windshield. The glass wouldn't have been damaged, of course, but she would have..."
I carefully put the girl in my seat in the car and slapped her cheeks a couple of times. Not hard, just trying to bring her to her senses.
"M... shh... m... garbled speech"
The girl lost consciousness again, and I realized I didn't understand anything at all. My translator couldn't handle the language! How is that possible?!
"Did you understand anything?"
"No..."
I shook my head.
"...not a damn thing..."
"I see..."
I shook my head.
"Alright, fine, let's first deal with the job and zero out our target by burying him under garbage. While I'm doing that, you guys watch the girl."
"Got it..."
I walked to the trunk and, taking the body, I simply plunged a knife into a few vital points in any body, even a heavily chromed one. The first of those points was the brain, which I stabbed five times from different angles. But the brain wasn't the only point, and only after making absolutely sure that Hal was dead did I sigh and drag him off the road, and then buried him under garbage.
I was halfway back to the car when I froze and looked back at the spot I had come from.
Dex had already made a similar mistake... a single bullet to the brain, and that was it, but V survived. I definitely didn't need that kind of luck. And even though I knew I had killed him for good, I still went back and, using all my muscle strength, I ripped the guy's arms and legs off, and then his head, just throwing the body parts as far away as possible.
Only after that did I return to the car.
"Uh... what was all that flying around?"
"I just remembered V... and decided that a couple of knife wounds to the brain and other critical points weren't enough, so I just tore the body apart and scattered it."
"Hmm... if there's a beacon anywhere besides the head, it'll probably go off."
"I don't give a damn about that..."
I shook my head.
"But you wanted to..."
"Yeah, I wanted to hide his death so that people would find out as late as possible, but I seriously doubt there are beacons in every body part, and what I did to his brain..."
"Alright... home, or do you still want to relax at our spot?"
I glanced at the newcomer, whom the girls were watching carefully.
"I think it's better to go to our spot. There won't be any outsiders there, and the girl won't panic too much. Because judging by her looks and the sword on her back, she came to us from the Middle Ages."
The girls laughed.
"You're making that up!"
I shrugged.
"Well, either that, or she's a corporate representative who was testing teleportation and she's a huge fan of old-school style, and she even carries a sharply sharpened metal stick to work."
"Uh..."
The girls exchanged glances.
"If you look at it that way... but it still doesn't add up. How did she get here?"
"Teleportation..."
I shrugged.
"That's the only reasonably realistic explanation for her sudden appearance here."
"From the Middle Ages?"
I glanced at Judy.
"Do we know what things were like back then? Maybe the world was much more developed than ours, but there was a catastrophe and..."
I shook my head.
"...that was it. The world was thrown back, almost to the Stone Age, though more likely the Middle Ages, and people found some remnants of the previous civilization, and this girl accidentally activated a portal?"
"And it didn't lead to another spot in her world, but to ours?"
"Who knows what happened? Maybe some kind of defense mechanism went off that, in the absence of a corresponding destination point, makes a random jump so that the built-up energy doesn't cause an explosion."
"Well..."
The girls exchanged glances. When I opened the back door and laid the girl on their laps—but first, I took the sword off her—I got into the car myself, and it smoothly drove toward our little house.
We got there without any problems, though the thought that this girl was familiar to me was still bothering me...
No, not personally...
I just knew who she was... I knew, but I forgot...
How is that possible?!
When we got to our little house, we set up by the lake, and I started cooking. And that's when the girl woke up, roused by the smell of the cooking food.
I noticed she had woken up right away. I was standing in a way that I wouldn't lose sight of the girl, while still cooking, so my optics registered when the girl went from unconsciousness to alertness. But I didn't do anything; I just continued talking to my girls.
My Sandevistan activated very easily, and the girl, even though she somehow managed to accelerate to a very significant speed, and without harming her body! So, the girl was noticed by me, and I calmly went around her and put my foot out, redirecting her fall so that she wouldn't hit anything.
I reduced the Sandi's acceleration and noticed the girl roll across the ground, but she immediately jumped up and looked at me with fury.
" gibberish in an unknown language"
"I don't understand you..."
The girl, who was drilling me with an angry stare, froze and said something else, apparently in another, more guttural language, and she wasn't very good at it. But that didn't help me either.
"I don't understand you..."
And after saying that in English, I switched to French, Japanese, and German. Well, I didn't "switch," I just activated the translator in my optics and, with a terrible accent, read the transcription of the necessary phrases.
The girl just frowned now and, like me, said a few phrases in different languages, one of which was so... melodic, somehow...
"I don't understand you..."
I switched back to English, and then I remembered that I was a Russian in my past life, and so, with a terrible accent, since I hadn't spoken Russian in this world yet, I said the same phrase.
"I don't understand you."
The girl's eyes widened in shock.
"You... speak... this... language?"
"Yes. And you, I take it, do too..."
"Slower... fast... hard... to underst-and..."
I nodded in understanding.
"Allow me to introduce myself."
I pointed to myself.
"Name - David. Last name - Martinez."
Then I started pointing to the girls.
"Name - Lucyna, last name - Kushinada. Name - Kiwi. Name - Rebecca. Name - Judy, last name - Alvarez. Name - Panam, last name - Palmer. You?"
I pointed my finger at the girl, which made her grimace slightly.
"Ciri... Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon..."
Holy fu-u-u-u-u-u-uck...
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