//------------------------------// // Chapter 74 - Assault // Story: The Freelancers // by OverHeart //------------------------------// They’d been crawling through the vents for what felt like hours, and they were starting to get a little irritable from being trapped in such an enclosed space, and that was without having to crawl against the high-pressure airflow. Up ahead there was a break in the darkness, much to Star’s delight. Dim beams of sickly yellow light filtered through a small outlet into the room below, and Phantom, the only pony able to look through the grate at a decent angle, took it upon herself to see if it was a safe place to exit. It was some kind of utility corridor, lit with flickering fluorescent lamps. They were barely working and some had already failed, but they were nonetheless a welcome change from complete darkness. “Alright, we’ll exit here.” Phantom kicked the grate open and lowered herself though the small hole, barely wide enough for her, but with some effort she made her way out well enough. The corridor stretched in both directions for quite some distance, until they branched off at right angles, presumably into another corridor and more branch points. “Utility corridors.” Matterhorn grunted. “Any idea where to go next?” “Gotta find our bearings first.” Phantom replied. “It’s hard to know where to go if you don’t know where you are.” There were a number of faded markings on the walls of different colors. At one point, they might’ve told whoever worked in these tunnels where everything was, but now they were too illegible to make out for the most part. The most they could do was follow each set of colored lines until they led somewhere, but finding where each set went could take hours, perhaps longer. Star looked like she was staring off into space when Phantom went to check on her, and tried to get her attention a couple of times with a few taps on the poured concrete flooring. “Yes, yes, give me a moment.” she grumbled. “I’m trying to raise the others.” “We’re deep underground in a place I don’t think anyone’s been in quite some time.” Phantom replied. “If there are any relay stations for phones down here, I doubt they’re working.” “Can’t blame a mare for trying.” Phantom nodded in agreement and walked to one of the branching points to look down the other hallways, in hopes to see something of interest, however futile that might be. Both directions weren’t any worse that the one they were in already lighting wise, so it could be assumed that someone at least replaced burnt out lamps once in a while. “Doesn’t that look a little like the symbol used to denote maintenance areas?” Star remarked, pointing at one of the faded symbols on the wall. “The square one with half a spanner in it, I mean.” “Either than or a machine room, could easily be anything.” Phantom replied. “Let’s go see, gotta start somewhere.” Access looked at a battered Cyberdeck among a dusty pile of many others stacked up in the back of their van with disdain, perhaps even disgust. “ZebraTech, never again.” “You’re gonna have to pick a Cyberdeck eventually, why not that one?” Sheet Rock replied. “ZebraTech is a good enough choice.” “Except the neural interfaces aren’t calibrated for Equestrian nervous systems.” he grumbled in turn. “Last time I used one it nearly cooked my implants.” He cracked open the cases of a few of the Cyberdecks and started dismantling them into their constituent parts piece by piece and placed them into parts bins mounted in the van’s doors a lot gentler than his facial expression would imply. “One day I’ll understand what all the fuss is.” Snowy said to himself. “But she’s right, you’re going to have to settle on something eventually.” “Access is just being picky.” Sheet Rock replied from the front seat. “He’d sooner tear them all down into parts and cobble together something custom-made than use an off-the-shelf product.” “It’d be easier if you weren’t driving like a manic too.” Access replied bitterly. “If you can manage to do that, I’ll put together our new decks on the way there.” “Is it really necessary we drive there though?” Scarlet replied from the passenger seat. “If you nearly got cooked by their AI, what good will driving up to their doorstep be?” A good question, one deserving of a long and well thought out answer. Instead, Sheet Rock just smirked for a few moments. It took several moments more for Scarlet to cotton onto what Sheet Rock was getting at, and the realization made her scoff in abject disbelief. The Arcology was quite the trip to make on a whim, but if they took Canterlot’s high-speed expressway out of the city and there was minimal traffic, it could be done in maybe three or four hours if they ignored the speed limit when the badges weren’t around. “I don’t think they’d want us to leave them in the Arcology without backup.” Snowy added. “That said, what makes this attempt any different?” “By the time we pull up I’ll have replaced our Cyberdecks with something that’ll at least function well enough to do what we need to do.” Access remarked, soldering iron gripped in his magic. “My working idea is the glitching we were experiencing was due to high system load, from other Runners, rather than anything we did specifically.” “The border AI is scrutinizing any Cyberdeck signal that tries to cross into the Arcology from the outside, while local sysops do the same for internal signals.” Sheet Rock added. “In theory, we’ll have maybe an hour before they notice there’s a couple of signals more than there should be, but by then we’ll have done our thing.” “Be that as it may, that’s one hell of an assumption you’re making.” Scarlet said, unwilling to relent. “You’ll be way slower on the draw thanks to the neural feedback from being forcibly disconnected, and that isn’t gonna go away any time soon.” “I agree with that assessment.” Snowy said. “Someone’s obviously mounting a major offensive, something that the local screamsheets have noted, so all their SysOps and Runners will be on high alert.” Whenever there was any hint of hostile action between corps, actual or otherwise, the local screamsheets were always the first to distribute a report on it thanks to their on the hour publishing schedule. While they were often a good source of news for someone living a fast paced lifestyle, they often hid crucial details away in a long-winded article if it didn’t fit into their easily digestible headlines, but that was the price you paid for convenience. This was one of those times, so the screamsheet Snowy shared with them all told them with no doubt or room for error, that another corporate war was perhaps weeks from occurring. Of course, such an article surfaced on the regular, and it was often met with a good chuckle. The Big Four knew better than to pick a fight with other corporations of their size and power, so they kept their operations low-key enough to fall back on plausible deniability. Smaller corporations knew better too, at least in theory, as they would be the first to fall apart and the last to recover. Knowing this didn’t settle their nerves any though. “Take that off ramp coming up now.” Snowy pointed out. “You’re looking for a dirt road heading into a small clearing, we shouldn’t be visible from the road if you park up close to the treeline.” “Like anyone comes this far off the beaten path anyway.” Sheet Rock replied. “Are you done tinkering, Access?” “Just about.” he replied as he tossed his soldering iron onto the floor. “I’ve loaded a basic software package onto each. It’s probably enough to crack a few doors, mess with a few cameras, maybe fry a few brains in a pinch, but we’re at a pretty big disadvantage here.” “We wont need to jack in for long. So long as those cobbled together decks last long enough to signal the others and open a way out, that’s all that matters.”