The Runners

by DungeonMiner

Chapter 3

Rarity sighed. Of all the places the corp mage had to go, she had to follow her home. Twilight Sparkle, the insufferable mare, had quickly realized that they didn’t have a “Runner Cave” to hide out in, and Rarity had, in a sadly misguided attempt to offer the olive branch, offered her a place to stay in her apartment that was just large enough for one, and beyond having some of the best Matrix Access this side of the sprawl, had nothing really impressive to speak of.

Miss Twilight then chose to let her know this. Frequently.

“What is there to eat?” Twilight asked.

Rarity looked up from her deck. “Whatever’s in the fridge,” she said, before turning back to her AR screen.

“You mean you don’t even have real food?” Twilight asked, disgusted. “You don’t expect me to eat that soy substitute, do you?”

Rarity suppressed both the urge to growl and a similarly strong urge to just make a full-body dive in the Matrix just so she could be left alone. “Dear, are you aware of how expensive real food is? I admit soy is not nearly as healthy as real food, but for the price it’s the best we have.”

Twilight, still dressed in her Corp robe stared at her. “Wow...that was the most plebeian thing I’ve heard someone say.”

Rarity’s jaws clenched, and if Twilight had not walked away at that exact moment, she might have just ‘accidentally’ shot her a few times.

Of course, killing a dragon’s pet project was perhaps the quickest way to ensure a long and painful death. Still, that didn’t stop her from thinking about frying everything electronic device on her. All it would take was a single keystroke too.

What? Of course she hacked the corp mage’s comm. She wasn’t going to let her waltz about her home with direct access to a fraggin’ dragon.

Then again, if the dragon found out she had hacked her comm, he may kill her.

Rarity sighed again.

This is what she deserved for breaking the third rule of Running: Never, never, make a deal with a dragon.

Just that was a headache to think of. Was the whole thing a setup and her team had been picked long before they were born for this job that they were just “hired” for? Or was it really a thing of convenience? Was this just a small step in a massive Dragon vs. Dragon shadow war?

There was no way of knowing.

She sighed again, before turning her attention back to her browsing. The Runner Boards that had been so buried in the Matrix that you needed to know it was there to find it offered some distraction from this situation that was going to make her an old mare if she kept thinking about it.

“Rarity!” Twilight called from the kitchen.

“Don’t call me by that name!” she yelled back. “I’ve told you, lives literally depend on it!”

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” she muttered. “I’m going to order some Bitalian. Is there a good food delivery service nearby?”

Rarity glared. “Not one that serves real food,” she said.

“You're kidding?” she asked. “Wow, ghetto life is awful.”

Rarity didn't say a word, but she certainly was typing into her deck a little hard.

A little notification showed up on her interface, showing that Twilight was making an outgoing call. A quick scan revealed that it was going to a Bitalian restaurant all the way across town.

She was seriously calling across town.

Rarity shook her head and debating strangling the mare, before getting back to work and checking her paydata bids. The one from the Sorraian Industries jobs from a few weeks ago was still up for grabs, but the current bids were looking good. Some 2k nubits was looking like the highest bid. Personally, she wondered why anypony wanted the deep, dark secrets of a company whose main product was construction items, but she wasn’t going to complain.

A new notification popped up in her view.

Twilight was calling Harmony Inc.

She was calling Harmony Inc.

Taking a short but deep breath to keep from panicking, she tapped into the call.

The first thing she heard was the dulcet, yet instantly recognizable, tones of on-hold music, before suddenly clicking. “Hello?” Spikarunz answered.

“What happened to my bank account, sir?” Twilight asked, a slight panic in her voice.

“Oh, that,” Spike said, and Rarity didn’t even need to see the facecam to see to know he was smiling. “Well, at it just so happens, you are quite visible and recognizable as a Harmony Inc. employee, and that, as you might imagine, is not conducive for the occupation of Running.”

“What does that have to do with my bank account, sir?” Twilight asked, worried.

“Well, certain sacrifices need to be made.”

“You emptied my bank account?” Twilight asked.

“No,” Spike said. “I took your SIN.”

Rarity’s mouth dropped.

“You...you what?”

“You are no longer Twilight Sparkle,” Spike explained. “You are nopony. Your assets, SIN, and general identity will be returned to you at the completion of your job. Until then, the mare formerly known as Twilight Sparkle will have access to your previous bank account at the behest of Harmony Inc. Am I understood?”

Twilight didn’t answer.

Spike waited a moment before continuing. “In the meantime, get some experience, go on a Run or two. I’m sure Miss Gem will gladly put you to work.”

The call ended, and Rarity stared at her AR screen, shocked by what she just heard.

The dragon had just erased Twilight Sparkle. Her Serial Identity Number was gone. Her credit, gone; her identity gone; her medical records, education, any and all records that ever mentioned Twilight Sparkle, was gone.

This was a tragedy for many. It had happened to more than a few ponies across Equestria during the Matrix Crash, and those few had no choice but to turn to Running. It was the only job they could do anymore. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Spike was the CEO of one of the biggest megacorps on the planet, it would have been lost forever.

She was suddenly very, very aware of how dangerous, and how powerful her new employer was.

“Rarity…” Twilight suddenly called from the next room over.

She didn’t answer.

“Rarity…I need your help.”

Rarity exhaled before she did her best to pretend like she hadn’t just heard that. “I told you not to call me that!”

“Rarity, I need a job!”

Rarity sighed, already making a call to Carte.

<><><|><><>

She had Candy pick them up and take them down to their favorite meet-up, a small bar in the Southern Sprawl, the Final Regret. While her Streetdart would have been her first choice, the fully encased, cockpit-like seat would have been a little crowded with Twilight sitting behind her.

The Final Regret was a tiny little thing, an honest-to-goodness bar that had been a bar since before the Awakening, passed down from generation to generation. Of course, that only made the fact that it was the only two-story building amongst proper office buildings and warehouses all the more obvious.

As they stepped out of the van, they were quickly hit by the sound of punk rave music booming down the street, where just around the corner, and just a block down sat Club 88, stealing power from every building nearby.

As they approached the small building, they were quickly met by a young, orange pegasus, maybe twenty years old. “Well, well! If it isn't Gem and Candy, who's the new meat?” she asked.

“Hiyah, Scootaloo!” Candy said as she bounced toward the building.

“Hello, Darling,” Rarity said, “this is the new team member, she doesn't have a street name yet, but we’ll work on it.”

Scootaloo nodded. “Alright, go on in, Wingmare and the others are waiting for you.”

“Thank you so much, dear,” Rarity said, before they stepped into the old building.

The Final Regret had tried to modernize over the years, a trid projector had been set up in the middle of the room, playing the hoofball game highlights from the night before, and there was an AR dancer in the corner, entertaining those with cybereyes and AR glasses. Still, the pub was musty in its traditionalism. Old wood, old taps, and old sports posters clashed with the chrome and steel.

Rarity paid it no mind, she simply walked in and found the table where the other three mares were sitting, and took a seat. “Hello girls.”

“Howdy, Gem,” Steel greeted. “So what's all this about?”

“It has to do with our newest member.”

Wingmare sneered.

“It's the hand we’ve been dealt,” Web reminded her.

“I know…” Wingmare replied. “Don’t mean I have to like it.”

“No one said you did,” Rarity replied as she sat down. “Now, to business.”

As the other two mares sat beside, another young unicorn, about the same age as the bouncer strolled up to them with a pitcher in her magical grasp. “Well, hello, Sis. I was wondering if you were going to show up.”

Rarity smiled as she saw her. “Hello, Sweetie, it’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you too, Sis,” the young mare said, pouring her a cup of synthol. Her eyes glanced over to Twilight before she spoke again. “Your friend looks a little rough, does she need some cheering up?”

Rarity grimaced. “Dear, first of all, I told you not to perform your business around me. I’ll let you do it, despite my better judgment, but I don’t want to see it.”

Sweetie smiled. “I know, I’m kidding,” she said.

Rarity sent her a glare.

Sweetie smiled. “I’ll get you some food.”

Sighing, the decker turned her attention back to the group. “Alright, so, this afternoon, Miss Twilight here makes a call to Harmony Inc and finds out that her funds are completely gone. So is her SIN, Spike the Dragon had it transferred to a nopony while she’s with us.”

“So you’re SINless now?” Web asked.

“Welcome to the club!” Candy chirped.

Twilight sulked.

“Well at least nopony’s going to know exactly who she is while she’s with us,” Steel said, looking at the positive side.

“There’s a slightly bigger problem than that, darlings,” Rarity continued. “Our rookie here doesn’t have a nubit to her name, and considering she needs to be here, we might need to look at finding a job for her.”

Wingmare snorted again. “Oh, I see how it is.”

The decker raised an eyebrow. “And what do you mean by that?”

“We never did special jobs for me,” she replied.

“We most certainly have,” Rarity said. “Or do I need to remind you of the time we stole those Wonderbolt tickets?”

Wingmare said nothing.

“Anyway,” Rarity said. “I contacted my fixer, tried to see if we can’t find a good job around town, but in the meantime, we need to consider what needs to be done with the rookie. I’m already transferring a couple of hundred to her account for food, but she’s going to need more than that.”

“Wait, what?” Twilight asked, suddenly engaging the conversation.

“Already done,” Rarity said, before sliding a little datachip her way. “This should let you access the account.”

“What’s this?” she said.

“I’d thought you’d know what a SIN chip looks like,” Rarity said.

“Well, yes, but…”

“It’s a fake,” Wingmare grunted, as she pulled out another four chips. “She’s made basic fake SINs for everypony.”

“She makes em for free too,” Steel said, pulling out three more.

“Yay! You’re now a criminal!” Candy said.

Twilight stared down at her chip.

“It won’t stand up to the Star, but it’ll let you buy things from the FeedBag,” Rarity said, before turning back to the others. “But the point still stands, how do we make the rookie a pony who can at least pretend to be a Runner?”

“I can put her up in my old garage!” Candy said. “It still has the little focus shrine that Web left.”

“The elementals there were mean,” the Shaman explained, as her tarantula crawled out from beneath her hood, as though to defend herself from some accusation.

“That might work,” Steel said. “I might have a few weapons she can borrow or lease from me.”

“I have a pistol,” she said.

“Let’s see it,” Wingmare said.

Twilight reached into her robe and pulled out a surprising heavy revolver. Rarity recognized it instantly, it was the Harmony Roc, a high-caliber revolver with an eight-shot cylinder that could turn the average ganger into half a ganger and red mist. She recognized it because both Web and Candy carried a couple themselves.

“Huh. Well at least you have good taste in guns,” Web said.

A buzz on Rarity’s comm broke the conversation, and Carte Blanche appeared in her vision. “Gem dear! Is now a good time?”

“It’s a perfect time, Blanche, dear. What can I do for you?” Rarity answered as everyone went silent.

“I have the perfect job for your rookie,” Blanche said. “Ever heard of Nokota Unlimited?”

“Yeah, they’re a small computing company aren’t they?”

“Not so small anymore,” Blanche said. “They recently released a new antivirus software that has taken the market by storm, but that’s neither here nor there. The important thing is, they’re trying to up their security to protect their code, and they’re willing to pay some runners to test their new system. It’ll be a milkrun for you, break into the place, deal with some non-lethal measures, take on one security team armed with paintball guns, and all for at least 1k each.”

“1k each? You already worked a price out?”

“I told them no less. After your last job went the way it did with that cheapskate, I made sure you guys get your pay this time around. So what do you say?”

Rarity smiled. “A training day, you say? Well that sounds right up our alley. When do we meet?”

<><><|><><>

A quick meet with their new Ringo, and they were walking away from this job with a comfortable 1.5K in their pockets. It wasn’t going to get much better than this.

As Candy’s van pulled up to Nokota’s new training facility, Rarity and the others were in the back seat, all talking over the plan.

“So if I know my corps they’re probably going to have us check our guns at the door,” Rarity said as they rode along. “So, if anything goes wrong, it’s up to Web, Steel, Wingmare, and Rookie here to deal with any actual threats.”

“Why do you think something’s going to go wrong?” Twilight asked, “and do you have to call me Rookie?”

“Well we’re not going to call you by your real name,” Wingmare said. “It could probably be traced back to your boss, and that wouldn’t go over well.”

Rarity nodded before she turned to the mage. “Always expect something to go wrong. It’s what keeps you alive in this business. Don’t worry, though, you only need to hold whatever’s out there with magic for a bit before Candy can have her drones move in to reinforce us.”

“It might take a second or two,” Candy’s voice said from the speaker only a foot away from her limp body as she drove the van with her mind alone. “But they’ll get here. By the way, pulling up now.”

“Alright,” Rarity said, collecting herself, “and remember Rookie, shoot straight, conserve ammo, and be calm, cool, and collected. You’re a Runner now.”

As the team stepped out of the van, they were quickly met by an armed security team. They wore big scowls on their faces, held big guns in their hooves, and had enough tactical armor to build a kevlar raft. They were tense and trusted the Runners about as far as they could throw them.

Rarity sauntered up to them, pheromones pouring from the emitter in her lower back, and smiled. “Oh, come now, boys. We won’t bite. Well, not unless you pay us to.”

The effect was instantaneous. They began to relax, slowly, bit by bit, and calm began to flood their senses. Of course, that just meant for a lot of them that fear and anxiousness was replaced with disgust. “Runner,” the leader sneered stepping forward.

“Oh, there’s no need for that dear,” Rarity said. “We’re all just here for a friendly game of tag, aren’t we? Here, let me start, you may call me Gem.”

The leader frowned, and pointed over at the van. “Leave your weapons in the van. We have some safer ones for you right here.”

The team looked over at Rarity.

“Well you heard the stallion, ladies,” she said, before lifting her submachine gun from off her waist, and passing it off to Steel.

They obediently packed their guns away, before they slowly approached the table the security team leader pointed out. As promised, it was covered in guns, each marked with a band of neon green tape to mark them as paintball guns.

“Pick your poison," the leader said, still glaring at the Runners.

Rarity smiled and winked at him before she pulled a submachine gun very similar to the one she just left behind.

The others slowly followed suit, slowly re-arming themselves with paint-flinging counterparts of their weapons. The entire time, the security team watched, just waiting for everything to blow up.

The decker understood. Really, she did. Runners were the boogeyman of the corps, they’re only your friend if you pay them, otherwise they’re here to kill, steal, and destroy. So, while still pumping the air with as many calming pheromones that she had, she slowly, carefully tired to get them to relax as she watched her team pick and choose their paintball guns.

Once armed, Rarity nudged Candy. “Give me an aerial view of the building, find the easiest way in.”

Candy smiled, before her Rotordrone popped out of the top of the van, and began sweeping the area. The security team watched it with distrust, but they didn’t raise their weapons at it.

“Well, chummers,” Rarity said, “how do you want to do this? What's our target?”

“There's a server block in the complex,” the security team leader said, “on it is a file labeled ‘test file.’ That's your target.”

She nodded. “Policy on stunning people?”

The security leader, who was actually a little on the short side, glared up at her. “I really, really prefer if you didn’t.”

“Easy, darling. We’re all chummers tonight.”

The short earth pony said nothing.

“What about your team? When do you come in?”

“Once you set off the alarms, we come in and shoot you,” he said.

“With paintballs, I hope?” Rarity asked in a joking smile.

He continued to glare.

She sighed. “I’ll get everypony ready then.”

As she walked away from the security team leader, she called a huddle. “Come here, girls.”

They all gathered together on her, and Rarity began her last-minute briefing. “Alright, these are a bunch of drek-heads. I say we crack this billion-nubit nut open so good, we’re in and out before they have a chance to respond.”

Wingmare smirked. “Sounds like a plan.”

Steel nodded. “So no mercy?”

“Absolutely none,” Rarity said with a smile.

Web nodded. “Rookie, can you cast invisibility?”

Twilight looked offended. “Of course I can.”

“Good, keep that in reserve. It’ll make a beautiful exit.”

“Exit? Shouldn't we be worrying about getting in first?” Twilight asked.

“Oh don’t you worry about a thing, Rookie,” Rarity said with a vicious smile. “Don’t worry about a thing. Candy, what's our way in?”

Candy smiled. “There's a vent in the back. PeeWee can slip in just fine, and he can carry your signal through.”

“Perfect,” Rarity said. “Everyone on my PAN?”

A set of nods.

“Good, let’s go.”

Rarity smiled before she approached the security team again. “Alright, chummers, we’re ready to start. What about you?”

The security ponies looked at each other. “Sure. We’re ready.”

“Great. We’ll see you inside.”

The security nodded, unimpressed, before Rarity joined her team, and began their work of art.

<><><|><><>

PeeWee carried Gem’s PAN inside, and with that, the decker was in. Less than five seconds passed before she came back out and smiled. “Alright, they have forty auto-turrets, with six maglock doors with biometric readers, and enough infrared cameras to fill a warehouse. Web, what’s your report?”

“There’s an elemental, just one, however,” she reported.

“Can you distract him?” Rarity asked.

“I could, but that would set off the alarm,” she said.

Rarity frowned. “Well that’s a shame. In the meantime, I’ve made us invisible to the cameras. As far as they’re concerned, we have clearance.”

“What about the maglocks?” Steel asked.

“I spoofed some clearance, and keyed it into to a fake SIN I have,” the decker answered, before loading a datachip into her comm. “They won’t be a problem.”

“Alright, so as long as we avoid the elemental, we’ll be wiz?” Wingmare asked.

Web nodded.

Rarity nodded as well.

Twilight shook her head. “But...it can’t be that easy?”

“It’s not a candy shop,” Steel said, “but this ain’t that tough.”

“But this is millions of bits of equipment. You can’t tell me it’s this easy?”

Rarity smiled. “You’d be surprised how easy it is to fool a machine, Darling. Our biggest problem right now is the elemental down the hall,” she said, showing the retinal scanner her eye. “Besides, if they really wanted to keep this secure they shouldn’t have spent a hundred nubits on that shoddy matrix system. It’s almost begging to be stolen from.”

The retinal scanner beeped, and the six mares walked through the front door.

“To be fair, Rookie,” Steel said, “it helps when you have one of the best deckers in the world on your team.”

“Oh, please, there’s no need for flattery,” Rarity said, grinning.

“It ain’t flattery. You’re just that damned good.”

“Well now it’s a walk in the park,” Wingmare interrupted, “why don’t we do this all the time?”

“It’s normally a little harder to get fake security clearance,” Rarity said. “Normally they run on a closed system that’s hard to get into the begin with, and then you’d have to file through hundreds of employees and steal an identity, or add one yourself. The problem with adding one is that those systems are monitored. Here, there’s no one monitoring that, so I can add and remove employees as I see fit.”

“Wait, so you can make it so that the security team out there aren’t clearance anymore?” Wingmare asked.

The decker smirked. “Already did that.”

The rainbow-haired pegasus cackled at the thought.

“Still, let’s be fair, the only reason we’re walking in here is because this is a simulation room,” Rarity said. “We should at least try and find another way in to report to the security team.”

“I have an EMP grenade,” Candy said, bouncing beside the others.

“That’d be a little obvious,” Steel said. “We need to make this as convincing as possible, and going in with explosion would be…”

She trailed off.

The entire team blinked.

Four ponies stood on the other side of the room, dressed in a mish-mash of clothing. Two of them gripped weapons, while the other two were elbow-deep in a panel of wires.

There was a moment, a single moment, where the two teams merely blinked at each other, before all Tartarus broke loose.

The two ponies on guard, raised their guns to shoot before Web unleashed a ball of pure magical energy. The ball of mana exploded, popping like a water balloon, and splashing the burning life-energy over all of them.

The team dove for cover, with Rarity cursing all the way. “Drek, drek, drek, drek, drek! Why does something always have to go wrong?”

“It’s alright!” Web said as she summoned a Beast elemental, “we planned for this!”

“I know,” Rarity complained, as spiders crawled on spiders to form a massive pony-spider according to Web’s magical orders. “I just want things to go smoothly for once!”

Wingmare sighed, closed her eyes and concentrated, focusing her own power through her body, before she shot forward at incredible speed, and landing a kick that cracked a jaw into pieces, before flying back into cover as a hail of bullets followed behind her. “To be fair this could be worse!”

Steel raised her left leg over her cover and fired from the mare’s leg hidden there. She had enough time to rack the extending lever and fire again before a spray of automatic fire forced her down. “What I want to know is why there’s another team of Runners here at all!”

Rarity took stock of the others. Candy was slumped against the wall, eyes moving under her eyelids like she was in REM sleep, already moving her drones in as fast as she could. Rarity only hoped that she was warning the security team to come in as backup, as well as warn them of the live-fire that was flying through the air. Twilight, meanwhile, was summoning her own elemental, using precise formulas and rituals to summon a creature of fire to the material plane. This beast had no theme like Web’s there were no spider legs or mandibles, there was only fire, heat, and magma. “Rookie, cover Candy!”

Twilight nodded before she ordered her spirit forward. It leaped, burning its way through the air, and only giving the beast elemental a passing glance.

Meanwhile, Rarity got to work. Poking her head out of cover to check the scene, she fired her submachine gun, while keeping an eye out for the all-important sign of a—there! One of the other Runners had a smartlink gun.

She pulled back around the corner and plugged into her deck.

Spinning across the Matrix, she quickly rushed to find the gun, found it, and began her work. It wasn’t on a PAN, which meant that the other team didn’t have a Decker. All the worse for them. A few keystrokes later, and she had full control of the smartlink weapon, and denied all fire.

He cursed across the way, and ducked out of the crossfire, out of the fight.

Rarity smiled, that’s why you bring a decker.

And that’s when an air elemental flew into the room. The whipping wind of the air spirit filled the room, and it took a quick look around before he passed back into the astral plane.

Rarity blinked. “I hope that belonged to our chummers outside,” she said.

The flame and beast Elementals were locked in combat with an earth pony that was landing thunderous blows, and a pegasus that was casting spells, while Steel continued to fire into the mess with her hidden leg weapon.

Blam! Click-click. Blam! Click-click. “Are we going to ignore my question again? Why are these guys even here? It makes no sense. I mean, I know this kinda question isn’t usually answered, but it’d certainly make me feel better!”

“Actually it does!” Twilight called.

“It does?” Steel asked.

“It does?” Wingmare repeated.

Web spared a glance in her direction.

Twilight was about to explain, only for a spray of bullets to whistle by her ear. She hit the dirt instead, cowering as her spirit went on a rampage.

“Tell us later. In the meantime keep an eye on your elemental, that’s the last thing we need is to fight him too,” Web said.

Steel shrugged. “Well, at least there’s a reason,” she said before she began unloading into the last two Runners on the other side.

The elementals, the Beast with its poisonous bites and the flame elemental with its fire, were ready to end the last two suckers, one of which was still trying to get his gun to work, when the door to the side opened, and another rain of automatic fire tore through the poor, flanked Runners.

The elementals froze, and eventually, Rarity heard a cry from around the corner. “Gem, right? Gem are you still alive?”

Rarity poked her head out of cover. “Yeah we’re here?”

“These elementals yours?”

“Yeah!”

“Can you have your mages dismiss them?”

Rarity nodded. “Rookie, Web, you heard him.”

Twilight nodded, and dismissed the monster of fire with a thought, while Web approached her own Elemental, and whispered her thanks to her own spirit before it dissolved into a mountain of spiders that disappeared across the floor.

“Are we clear?” The security leader asked.

“I think we’re clear,” Rarity responded.

“Alright then, what the frag was that?” The security chief said, turning the corner, and keeping his gun nearby, but notably not pointed at them.

“They were sabotaging your security measures,” Twilight said, slowly standing up.

“Why? What is there to get here? This whole place protects fake info!”

“Because the company has already spent millions if not billions in research on this setup,” Twilight explained. “Messing with this system would force your company to reevaluate, spend even more on researching your defense, and wastes time. This allows another company time to steal the still-vulnerable code, while also forcing your company to spend more, which can leave your company vulnerable to a buyout, especially considering that Nokota’s only investing in this because of a single economic turn. One more turn, and you could be bankrupt, bought out, and spent most of your money on a room that doesn’t work.”

Everyone blinked.

“What?” Twilight asked.

“Well,” Rarity said, coughing to get the attention of the security team leader. “It seems obvious to me that we’re both in a position where we can’t move forward. Your room’s broken, and we can’t break into it since it’s been tampered with. Nonetheless, we found a problem, fixed it, and have possibly saved your company millions. I’d say this was overall satisfactory, wouldn’t you?”

The security team leader sighed. “Just...take your pay and leave.”

Rarity nodded, smiled, and turned. “Come on, ladies, job well done.”

Steel and the others nodded, heading out to collect their weapons before Rarity stopped. “Oh, by the way, maybe a few extra elementals would do the trick. Living brains sometimes just work better.”

Comments

[law abiding pony]

Well I think we all know which etiquette Twilight has. Also, poor purple smart. Spike could have left her with enough cash for food at least.

[djthomp]

“You're kidding?” she asked. “Wow, ghetto life is awful.”

Wow indeed.

“What happened to my bank account, sir?” Twilight asked, a light panic in her voice.

Hahaha, harsh.

“Not so small anymore,” Blanche said. “They recently released a new antivirus software that has taken the market by storm, but that’s neither here nor there. The important thing is, they’re trying to up their security to protect their code, and they’re willing to pay some runners to test their new system. It’ll be a milkrun for you, break into the place, deal with some non-lethal measures, take on one security team armed with paintball guns, and all for at least 1k each.”

Assuming this isn't another trap, it sounds like a softball mission that Spike arranged so Twilight could get a soft intro to the life.

Never good when two different jobs collide, but at least it ended well for Rarity and Co.

[Xanni]

Was "formally known as" meant to be "formerly known as"?
Also, should "a bent in the back" be "a vent"?

[DungeonMiner]

9515783
Well caught, thank you.