Access looked at Sheet Rock as she closed the apartment door behind her.
”So, Sheet, What do you think?”
“I don’t like the idea of being there in person, but it isn’t like we can do it remotely. Not now we know what we’re up against.”
“I mean, one of us can. Someone could just run interference from Chilled Coffee’s place again.”
Sheet Rock shook her head. “Not this soon after the last job, if I’m honest I think we should just bin the idea of doing things entirely remotely.”
“We’d need a crew for that, a big one. Neither of us are fighters and you know it.”
“Who would you have join us then?”
Access sat back in his seat. “Well, we already have four members really. Depends if Bulwark and Scarlet are up for it.”
Sheet Rock hummed to herself for a moment. “Should we recruit Star? She’s already in too deep with us to really go against us now. In a way at least.”
“I dunno, maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m going soft but I think we can really trust her word.“
“We should reserve judgment until she delivers on her promise though. I don’t think she’s lieing either but things could still turn out badly.”
Access propped up his head with his fore-hooves as he lent forward. “Do you really think the breach Star mentioned was the one we caused?”
“Possibly, times roughly match up. Our actions likely led to events that got her put down here, at least partially. That’s what I think at least, a breach like that would have everyone asking questions.”
Access shrugged. “Seems too much of a stretch to me. But weirder things have happened.”
Sheet Rock let out a sigh and slumped into a seat. “Why can’t it just be easy for once, you know? Figured out in a day, in and out in moments, home in time for trashy television.”
“This time we don’t have X9 keeping the door open for us, so to speak. Life ain’t fair, Sheet.”
Now he was out of that dank cell, Chilled Coffee started to feel a little less stressed about his predicament, at least until he spotted Riot glaring at him from across the brightly lit room he’d been shoved into unceremoniously.
Riot gestured to the seat in front of him, and Chilled Coffee slowly walked to the table and sat down with an annoyed grunt.
“Just a few more questions for you, then you can go. Sound good?”
Chilled Coffee nodded and grimaced for a brief moment, he didn’t want to sell out Access and Sheet Rock but he didn’t have much choice, his family were more important to him than those two combined.
“Start with their names and Cutie marks. If you would.”
He paused for a moment and choked back his apprehension before he spoke up. “Their names are Access Granted and Sheet Rock. Access has a Terminal as a cutie mark, Sheet Rock has a Neural cable as hers.”
Riot nodded approvingly. “Are those their real names, or personas they’ve crafted?”
He put on an annoyed scowl. “As far as I know they’re real. I wouldn't put it past the more paranoid of the two to cook up fake names though.”
“Paranoia comes in all shapes and sizes, Mr Coffee. Can you be more specific?”
He thought for a moment, it wasn’t something he gave much thought to and he took a moment to think, it took several seconds before he spoke again.
“It’s hard to explain. One day they’ll be talking as if we were old friends and the next they vanish for weeks on end, I can’t quite put my hoof on why.”
Riot raised an eyebrow. “Do you record activity within your cafe’s sub-net? We’d like to know how they came to know what they did and who feeds them information.”
Chilled Coffee shook his head. “They don’t stick around on the sub-net for too long whenever they show up, they always made the jump to some virtual space called Haven. A popular spot on the Net so I’m told.”
“Is that a public access sub-net?”
“Nobody who went there using the pods ever made an attempt to mask it, so I would assume so.”
“Just one more question for you. Do you know any allies they might have?”
Chilled Coffee shrugged dismissively. “Pretty much everyone in the Haven sub-net if I had to guess, they have a lot of friends on the Net like most ponies their age. Though I don’t know any of their names or how many there are.”
Riot glanced toward the trooper who stood in front of the door closest to Chilled Coffee, the trooper tapped his wristwatch gently to which Riot smirked. His time was up it seemed, and the beige pony looked about at his limit from his time there.
He’d endured multiple questionings like this, some from Riot and some from his subordinates. They always asked the same questions in the hope he’d slip and contradict himself, though the one question he could never answer was where they were.
He truly didn’t know. But he could make a guess, though that’d likely result in a bloodbath if this maniac had his way.
Chilled Coffee spotted Riot’s smirk and quickly became irritated by his lack of tact. “Can I go now? That is if you’re satisfied.”
“You may. We appreciate your co-operation.”
“And you promise to leave me alone? That was the deal.”
Riot shook his head. “I never said I’d leave you alone, I said I’d leave your family alone. Besides, we still have business and more questions to ask, but that’s for a later date. I’ve got other things to attend to.”
He gestured to have the nearby troopers drag Chilled Coffee to his hooves and remove him from the room, he gulped nervously at the heavily armed trooper towering over him and complied with little argument.
“Remember our agreement, Mr Coffee. See you soon.” Riot called out as the door slid shut behind the bewildered pony.
He got up from his seat and left through a door at the opposite end of the room which led to a long steel lined hallway, it was artificially lit with harsh fluorescent lighting that buzzed angrily at times.
He walked for a short time up one of the hallways before he arrived at his office, it was marked with his name in gaudy golden lettering. An office that he’d been given as a token gesture as he rarely used it and few dared to disturb him whether he was in it or not.
He pushed open the glass door and gave a short grunt of annoyance as he stepped into the room and sat in his admittedly comfortable office chair; he looked around at the sparsely decorated corporate space and grimaced in disgust.
Swiftly, he picked up the receiver of his desk phone in his orange magic, put it to his ear and dialed a short number. It wasn’t long before Bright Sun picked up the phone and spoke without waiting for Riot to even greet him.
“Tell me you have something to report.” Bright Sun said in exasperation.
Riot grumbled to himself quietly before he spoke. “I do indeed. Names, cutie marks and a location where they met with their allies.”
Bright Sun snorted. “That’s something at least. Do you have a physical location?”
“Other than that they’re sprawl citizens, no. I could always just scour the place for them if you’d prefer?”
Bright Sun let out a long frustrated sigh. “As skilled as you are, Riot, that wouldn’t end very well for you. Chilled Coffee will act as a spy for us regardless, they’ll show up eventually and when they do, he’ll spring the trap on them.”
“I’ve already arranged for the new equipment to be moved in as well, along with a very generous stipend to buy his silence.”
“Good. But I need your attention focused elsewhere for now, however. An unrelated group has made moves against us and I need your expertise.“
“Shouldn’t the breach incident be our priority?”
Bright Sun let out a mirthful laugh. “More pressing matters now present themselves, Riot. This group who are as of yet nameless are far more dangerous to us than some data thieves.”
Riot sighed. “You’re the boss.”
“Sheet, please stop pacing. You heard what she said.”
She ignored him and continued to pace up and down the length of the apartment. “I’ll calm down once she delivers on her little plan, when did she said she’d have it to us by?”
Access shook his head and sighed loudly. “She said she’d have Snowy bring her plan on a chip to us by midnight. It’s barely eleven, sit down.”
“What, she isn’t going to fill us in herself? She lives across the hall for goodness sake!”
Access absentmindedly browsed the net on his terminal in an attempt to shut out Sheet Rock’s shrill paranoid shouts. “She’s nocturnal, midnight is like midday for her. Might I also remind you she has a job, just wait.”
“I hate the waiting part.”
A set of heavy hoof steps thumped up the hallway and stopped outside their door, the two held their breath as a series of short knocks rang out, which caught them by surprise despite their readiness.
Sheet Rock stopped pacing and gingerly opened the door, to find a less than impressed looking Snowy stood in the doorway with a chip grasped in one of its limbs.
“Delivery from Miss Starry Night. She has asked me to remain until you’ve thoroughly gone through the contents of this chip.”
She took the chip from Snowy and the synth stepped into the apartment after she stepped aside, it stood rigidly in the middle of the room but looked at them with a little more emotion than the two had been prepared for.
“If you two so much as screw this up and get her hurt or worse, killed, I’ll make sure you regret it.” it said venomously.