The Freelancers

by OverHeart

Chapter 51 - Desperation

“Any word from your friends?” Gray said, unholstering his revolver. “We could really use their help right now.”

The fighting was getting closer by the moment, and when it seemed to die down even a little for the briefest of moments, new skirmishes broke out almost immediately as one had been resolved.

Scarlet nodded meekly, flinching at the sound of distant explosions. “They say they had some trouble with a dweller, but that support arrived just as they were about to get booted out.”

“Outside help? We’re isolated from the global net, how’d they pull that one off?”

“They must be around here somewhere then, I don’t know where and they don’t know either. Does it really matter though?”

“Yes it does. The Arcology is completely cut off from the global net, either they’re incredibly stupid to set up shop in what’s rapidly becoming a warzone, or they’re very powerful with equally powerful friends, no doubt the same friends your friends seem to have.”

Both Bulwark and Scarlet knew precisely who their friend’s backup was and precisely how unbelievable it was that they once again had their behinds pulled out the fire by it, but all that mattered was that their friends were safe and their part of the bargain fulfilled, whatever that meant.

Matterhorn was distracted by a buzz in his skull and an incoming message notification popped up in the corner of his vision, it was a message from X9 detailing that they’d found a recent communication from Riot in the system they had just breached, and it looked like he was on his way with a small contingent of his most loyal troopers toward their base to formulate a plan.

“We need to go, now!” Matterhorn barked to Lucky.

---

In the ensuing chaos, Riot had only managed to prevent a small portion of his forces from fleeing deeper into the south tunnels, inside which was his main base of operations, hidden away in the winding corridors and cavernous rooms of the old train stations that once linked each module and the main Arcology building.

Everyone else had either been been killed trying to get back to base, had ran into the depths and likely fled like cowards, or had been executed by the damnable Equi-Tech and their marines.

“Someone tell me precisely who these jokers are and where they came from, preferably before I lose my patience!”

“Equi-Tech marines, sir. They’ve breached their way in, and they’re currently making their way down to us from the north!”

“How did they manage to find us, let alone breach this far down?” Riot sighed as he stared up at the brand new hole in the ceiling. “Worse yet, I’m getting reports of more intruders that just walked in the back door without so much as a modicum of resistance! How incompetent are you ponies?”

“Sir, I…”

“I don’t want to hear it!” Riot barked angrily. “Gather together whoever we’ve got left who can hold a keyboard and remotely wipe everything from our internal systems, neither the Crown nor these intruders can be allowed to learn our secrets.”

---

“How’re you here, let alone like that?” Sheet Rock said, a little bewildered as her avatar’s limbs slowly regenerated thanks to a specialty program she had handy. “I thought this place was cut off?”

“It is.” X9 responded flatly. “However, I have the same powerful friends you do and they assisted me with constructing a body that is up to my standards. I simply could not assist you best without being as fully mobile in realspace as well as I am in net-space, you see.”

“That doesn’t explain much though, you might be software, but you still require a link to the net. The Arcology doesn’t have a physical link to the rest of the world as far as I’m aware.”

If the avatar representing X9’s new and improved form could smile, it certainly would be doing just that right about now.

“No, PUBLIC links.” it corrected. “The Arcology has a number of hardlines it uses to exchange data between itself and Rift City, for corporate purposes of course. The Director has seen it fit to how do I say it… procure access for me by less than legal means.”

“Where precisely though? Things are heating up pretty good around here and we’re probably going to need to bug out really quick soon.” Access said, his avatar also reconstructing itself little by little, albeit a little slower than he would’ve liked.

X9 paused for a moment. “I can’t say, the dweller that attacked you was just stunned by my attempts at frying his brain, it’s likely watching us right now through the system’s programs. Suffice it to say, it’s somewhere where my physical body is quite safe from harm but you should be more concerned about yourselves right now.”

Their avatars now repaired, the two runners clamber to their hooves and walked toward the huge gaping hole in the once proud fortress-like walls. Though the glitched avatar was gone for the moment, they knew that unless they fried the dweller’s brain or wrecked his deck, he’d likely be back eventually once it got to its senses.

They had to get what they came for and get out as quickly as they could.

Beyond the walls was a shimmering mass of light surrounded by many small cubes that slowly orbited around the central core. It was a relatively simple representation of the system’s core all things considered, but the way it looked was secondary to the information it contained.

This system seemed to be built purely for its ability to process a lot of information at once, hence its lack of advanced security beyond the dweller. Access recognized the cubes as data indexer programs when text rapidly appeared and vanished around them as the system processed the data it was fed.

“The system seems to be working overtime on something big, nearly all its resources are currently in use on one process alone.” Access said, reaching for one of the cubes. “Dunno what though, the level of activity is making the datastream difficult to keep up with, our decks are simply too weak.”

“I could always take a snapshot of it and give it to you later.” X9 remarked, though it will take some time for me to siphon enough to ensure I get something worth your time.”

“Could we leave this to you?” Access inquired. “From what Scarlet and the others have been sending us, things are starting to heat up out there.”

X9 walked over to the system core and looked up at the cubes for a moment. “I should be fine, you’re welcome to bail if you feel like you need to. Realistically, with my superior hardware it’d be faster if I handled this anyway and I will be sure to notify you of anything untoward.”

Access nodded as his avatar faded into nothingness when he issued his intent to return to realspace to his Cyberdeck, but just as Sheet Rock was about to do the same, X9 stopped her with what amounted to a worried gesture.

“You’re probably about to walk into a battlefield, one I don’t think all of you are going to walk out of the same as when you stepped into it.”

“That’s pretty obvious.” Sheet Rock said blankly. “Me and Access have been through worse, we’ll get through this like we always have. We’ll wash our hooves of everything once we’re done and go back to jobs that aren’t likely to get us killed.”

“You don’t just get to walk away.” X9 stated, seemingly annoyed. “Not after what you two have done and have yet to do.”

“What would that be, I wonder? We’ve spent most of the last few days being dragged around by your new buddies, most of what happened so far has been a result of their actions, not ours.”

“I’m not referring to what you’ve done recently, but more so what you specifically did a few years ago. Remember the time when Access came to you for help, around the time he was thrown out of his home by his father?”

Sheet Rock’s eyes narrowed in a hostile glare. “How do you know about that? We never reported anything that happened to the badges.”

“True.” X9 said in a tone that implied it was grinning ear to ear. “But Netwatch got wind of it as you would expect, and as an AI designed to index information, i sure took note of that little detail as well. That was how I knew you two were lieing about your names when we first met, and how I found you at all.”

“Look, does this speech have a point or are you intentionally acting cryptic for the sake of it?”

“You two have a larger part in this than you know, you can’t just walk away from this, not now. Just allow me some more time and I’ll be able to tell you everything.”

“No, just no. You dump corporate data on us, come and go when it suits you, tell us we’re pivotal to all of this but then keep us in the dark, dredge up old wounds we’d rather forget, and now you’re willing to tell us something because you FEEL like it?” Sheet Rock listed off, getting more angry with each word. “We’re done here whether you like it or not, once we collect our pay for services rendered you can just find some other ponies to help with this mysterious plan of yours. Access is sick of you, and I’m sick of you.”

“You can’t protect him forever, Sheet, no matter how fond you are of him he’ll have to know the truth eventually.” X9 pled desperately. “Someday soon, he’ll figure out it was YOU that pulled the trigger, not him.”

“I did what I had to. It was either Breach or Access, and I picked Access as any good friend should. I made a promise and I intend to keep it.” Sheet Rock growled as her avatar faded, her consciousness returning to realspace.

“I know.” X9 said sadly before it opened a comm-link to an unknown contact. “We might have a problem here, you’re going to need to step up your efforts at once.”

Comments

[Mix-up]

Finally managed to read all the chapters of the story so far, sorry not at my best at the moment. The intrigue starts to get interesting interesting with Matterhorn now in the group, with a lot more back story on what happened to Equestria and the crown. He might be getting a little too much attention but he is a fun character still. I do like that this 'Luna' isn't really a shining paragon of virtue that we usually associate with, probably had to lose it to become more cutthroat just to survive. This Theastral Dark zone is also very interesting too bieng isolated and getting all the garbage of the rest of Canterlot. Despite being very condense chapters, sacrificing a bit of Thrymr and atmosphere and character development it does still convey a lot of story. Keep it up.

[OverHeart]

10869952

As always your kind words are appreciated.

Chapter length has always been something I've struggled with in that they're either too long or way too short, but i can say as of the upcoming chapter (Next week's) they will get longer as the rest of this section of the story wraps up. After that, the intrigue will only get deeper and more interesting i assure you.

We're still a ways from the end of the story as a whole, so i hope the upcoming chapters and their developments continue to hold your interest!