“So how do you two know each other?” Star asked awkwardly.
“Bit nosy aren’t we? Why the sudden interest in us?”
“What’s that supposed to mean, I was just asking a question.”
“Now isn’t really the time for our life story, okay?” Sheet Rock snapped.
Star, taken aback and a little offended thought about all the ways in which she could set this little upstart straight, but quickly caught herself before she fell back into some old habits that she’d very much like to forget.
She’d promised herself long ago that she’d unlearn Darkspace’s policy of profit over morality, not that you’d catch them admitting they held that mantra to anyone, but her involvement with these two might help absolve her in time.
He’d put some distance between himself and the Corporate Netrunners and found himself near a tall crystalline spire, it pulsed with the same purple light as everything else did but this one felt different.
He put his hoof to it and a computer interface opened in front of him identifying itself as a storage array, and a large one at that. He cursed to himself as he realized that he likely passed many more similar structures and the chance to probe them had now passed.
He scrolled down the interface for a moment and found the array to mostly contain operational data, but it was difficult to make sense of it all given its heavy usage of corporate jargon and code words, none of which made any particular sense assuming it ever made any at all.
One code word caught his eye, and that was “Demiurge”. This could mean any number of things, but given Darkspace’s well known penchant for Artificial Intelligence this could be incredibly valuable, and the very sort of information Star wanted them to find for her.
There were many hundreds of files regarding this code word, so he opted to funnel them all into his Cyberdeck’s storage, as many as would fit and when it finished, he’d disconnect and they could finally leave.
Now frantic, he sent a message to both Sheet Rock and Star. “I have something you two might be interested in, I think it’s highly likely it has something to do with our mysterious AI friend but I’ll continue my search.”
As the holographic envelope representing his message flew off and vanished, he took another look around and called upon a simple pinger program.
It took the form off a glowing white ring that encircled his horn and it rapidly expanded into a blinding dome of light that quickly shot across the entire Subnet; His interaction with this array had likely alerted any security programs nearby and it’d be helpful to know if he’d soon have them breathing down his neck.
A short moment later and the ping he sent out confirmed his suspicions and multiple programs had been alerted to his presence, and while he was pondering his next move the expected company flickered into existence around him which took him by surprise.
He rapidly issued disconnect commands to his Cyberdeck in a panic as the spherical programs neared, one fired a single bolt of white light which struck his and his avatar dissolved into nothingness.
Not the most elegant exit by any means.
The sound of alarms rang throughout the basement level, and the two mares sat patiently for their bumbling friend to wake up.
“I didn’t think this was going to be easy somehow.” Sheet Rock shouted over the noise.
“We might’ve kicked the hornets nest here. You two should make your exit as fast as you can.”
“Is that supposed to be comforting?”
Groggy from his rapid ejection from Cyberspace, a low groan escaped from Access’ mouth as he slowly came to. “That’s one way to get out I guess. What’s with all the noise?”
“Were you detected?” Sheet Rock half shouted, ignoring her friends complaints.
“Yes, obviously. My intrusion was noticed the moment I accessed that data I mentioned. I think I’m fine though.”
“Alright good. Star, we need to move, now!” Star stressed.
Access booted the utility room door open sending it careening into the steel plated wall, and Star attempted to use her keycard to call the elevator down to them, but it didn’t recognize it or even acknowledge one had been inserted.
“That can’t be good, my card isn’t working.”
“They’ve probably gotten wise to that, though Snowy did say we could use the stairwell. What’s the closest exit?”
“Closest is probably the parking garage on the sixth level, the stairwell will take us right to it but who knows how many are up there waiting for us. We should be careful.” she stammered out.
Everyone nodded in agreement and galloped toward the door on the other end of the hall, which when opened revealed a gray concrete block stairwell and as the three of them stepped onto the first set of stairs Star’s phone rang ominously.
She pulled it from her pocket and looked at the screen, the name of her boss, Grim Dawn, displayed itself mockingly on the screen and while she tried to ignore it at first as they climbed, it soon became hard to ignore.
“You might not want to answer that.” Sheet Rock recommended.
“Probably not, but I’m going to anyway. There's a fifty-fifty chance as to whether I’ll regret it, so I’ll take my chances.”
Star nervously answered the still ringing phone and put it to her ear, unsurprisingly her bosses always smug voice crackled through.
“Miss Starry Night, should I be worried about you?” a calm Grim Dawn stated flatly.
“N- No? I’m not sure what you mean.”
Grim Dawn sighed. “Well there’s the small matter of temporary access passes being approved in my name but without my knowledge. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that would you?”
Star went pale and stopped her climb, and while the others couldn’t hear the other end of the call they could still venture a guess as to what she was hearing.
“Ma’am…”
“I think you should choose your next words very carefully. I know you gave those passes to someone, since they were used more than a few times recently. I’d be impressed, if you weren’t squandering your second chance I so graciously granted you.“
“Second chance? You sent me to a hell hole because you FELT like it, you had no reason to strip me of everything I earned!” Star barked.
Grim Dawn chuckled maliciously. “If you were in my position you’d understand the sacrifices I’ve made in order to let insubordinate screw-ups like you stick around. You got ahead because I allowed it and now, I’m taking it away.”
Star gritted her teeth in rage, her expression turning fiery. “So what now? You going to have me killed?”
A tense silence followed but Grim Dawn issued a final warning in that same calm, and smug, voice.
“Tell you what, I’m feeling charitable. I’ve ordered the guards to perforate you and your new friends if they so much as smell you, If you can get out of the building I will concede defeat this time around, but don’t mistake my charity for complacency; If you so much as set a hoof anywhere near our offices or inside the Everfree Arcology, expect to be fired upon.”
The line went dead, and Star looked down at the now locked phone, dropped it onto the floor and sent a fore hoof into the screen, shattering it into multiple shards.
“Okay, so how screwed are we?” Access said, breaking the tense silence.
Star shoved past the two and continued on up the stairwell in silence. Her face was twisted into one of pure rage.
Grim Dawn slammed her desk phone down with a smirk and directed her attention to the troops gathered at her large black moon-shaped glass desk.
“Your orders? We can’t let them get away.” an earth pony mare with an orange and scarlet striped mane asked.
“Get yourself and a couple of other of your colleagues to cover the parking garage exit.” Grim Dawn said in a carefree way,
“With respect ma’am but wont they be expecting that? We aren’t exactly mobile.”
Grim Dawn nodded. “Just keep your wits about you, and bring the place down on top of them if you have to. Anyone who matters will have already left the building by now so I wouldn’t worry about harming anyone important.”
“Y- Yes ma’am. I’ll get it done.”
Grim Dawn closed her eyes and hummed in thought. “I trust in your abilities. Don’t screw this up, if they get away it’ll be your job on the line.”
Unlike the floors themselves, the stairwell was only lit by a few sickly looking lamps and they bathed the area in their dull orange light, and the industrial concrete slabs that made up the stairs looked out of place in a corporate office like this.
Though it took more than a few breaks on the way up, it didn’t take them long to reach the parking garage and they stopped at the heavy steel sliding door that led into the main area.
“Star! Don’t run off damnit! What the hell is happening?” Sheet Rock panted.
“All that matters is that I’ve made a mistake and they’re onto us. The sooner we get out of here the sooner we can relax.”
“Just what did you do that has them THIS mad?”
Star rubbed the back of her head in embarrassment. “I might or might not have spoofed my own boss’s signature to get you two access passes. Furthermore they know you two are among those that used them, though that's not the worst part.”
“Pray tell, what could be worse than having a corporation on your ass for data theft and fraud?”
The sound of gunfire rang out and the group dove down a few of the stairs and landed roughly on the landing below.
Above them the majority of the doorway, frame and much of the safety railing had been blown clean away by a very high caliber weapon and not much of anything where they had been standing was left, save for a small walk-able portion that’d survived the hail.
“They sent troops after us. I hope you two have a plan for getting us out of here.” Star said as she wiped some fallen dust and debris from her mane.