The Freelancers

by OverHeart

Chapter 5 - A Rare Moment Of Peace

Access having now got himself together and into a state where he could form a sentence without grunting, set about pulling the memory chips out of both of their Cyberdecks; A simple enough affair with steady and purposeful use of a screwdriver.

He sat at his small metal workbench and set both his and Sheet Rock’s Cyberdecks on it, the table itself was covered in tools with his personal Terminal off to one side.

“I just want to put it out there, I don’t trust that things word one bit.”

“I don’t either, it stinks of a corporate trap. I find it very hard to believe a machine would willingly rebel against its masters without a very good reason.”

“What does that stupid machine expect us to do with this data though.We don’t even know what it is we have!” Access said angrily as he threw his screwdriver across the room with a burst of magical force.

It embedded itself deeply into the wall like it was made of tissue, Sheet Rock stared at Access over his outburst with concern.

“Have you taken your medication today?” Sheet Rock stated sternly.

“Yes damnit!” Access spat. “Of course I have.”

Sheet Rock lit her own horn and pulled the screwdriver out the wall, she flipped it over so the handle faced Access. He gingerly took it from her and resumed his task.

He worked in silence and soon had both memory chips pried free from their Cyberdecks, he dropped both chips into a small plastic tray gently so as not to damage them.

“Now to take them to the hideout. Just anywhere but here.” he stated with a huff.

“You think the others can make sense of whats on them?”

Access shrugged. “Probably. I was thinking someone might buy them instead.”

“X9 told us to mine it, not sell it.”

“And you’re just going to do what the whacked out AI says?”

“No, I’m just saying we should keep a level head and see what it is we got first.”

“Fine. Fine.”

Sheet Rock smiled as she sat back in her seat. “Dinner?”

Access smiled at the thought of a hot meal. “Sure, may as well after the shit we just went through.”

Sheet Rock stood up with a small nod and stepped into the kitchen, she thought for a moment about Access’ mental state after the two got forcibly booted. His eyes, the breathlessness, the lack of energy all pointed to the fact he had lied about the medication.

She began to get angry as she placed two nondescript foil boxes into a barely working oven whose door she slammed closed in a poorly disguised attempt to remain calm.

It was important that Access take that medication regularly, even more so when she considered the implications of him not doing as he was told.

That discussion wasn’t one she wanted to have, not right now and certainly not when they had little money.

“About twenty minutes. Give or take.” she called out.

“Assuming the oven doesn’t blow out a breaker again.” Access joked.

Sheet Rock enjoyed the rare moments of peace the two got, she watched Access tap away on his terminal and noticed a chip inserted into a small set of reader hardware. Likely he was already trying to sift through what they got.

Dedication was one of Access’ strong suits but moderation wasn’t. She chalked that up to how chromed he was from horn to hoof, it was surprising just how strong his magic was even with all that cyberware he had.

Normally, ponies that had been highly augmented found their magic becoming progressively stunted the more chrome they were fitted with. Unicorns would find their spells failing or outright backfiring; Pegasi lost their ability to fly and Earth Ponies would become sick and weak.

Sheet Rock snapped out of her daydream as the oven beeped noisily, signifying their food was at least hot if not edible. She levitated the two containers out to the living room where Access was still typing away without a care.

“Is it me or does that smell delicious?” Access said as he sniffed the air.

“Could it be? Something in the sprawl that isn’t tasteless?”

Access peeled the lid of the foil container back to reveal what looked and smelt like Macaroni & Cheese.

“Since when can we afford actual food?”

Sheet Rock shrugged. “Gotta have a treat once in a while, right?”

Access stared at the food intently as he hungrily took a bite. “You know you’re my best friend right?”

“Don’t flatter me, Access, you know it doesn’t work. Besides, I’m your ONLY friend.” Sheet Rock said with a mirthful laugh as she dug into her own dinner.

Access put a fore-hoof to his chest with feigned offense. “Ouch.”

Sheet Rock stifled a laugh as she dug into her dinner, she knew Access was playing along with her but she found it adorable when he feigned offense.

“Make a copy of those chips while you’re at it.”

“Already way ahead of you there, boss.”

Sheet Rock glanced at Access’ terminal and at the tray beside it which had six of the small golden edged gray-cased chips in it.

“Why six chips?” she questioned.

“Two for me, Two for you. With two to take to the crew to deal with.”

“No duplicate files?”

Access shook his head and turned his terminal’s screen to face Sheet Rock, she saw hundreds if not thousands of files. All with scrambled filenames.

He pointed at the screen and at the available space on the chips. “Our deck’s individual storage wasn’t big enough for it all, so X9 split it up between us. Even then I don’t think we had enough space for what it intended to give us.”

Sheet Rock tapped at the screen gently. “I assume these are all encrypted?”

“Looks like it. We ain’t cracking this though, no way in hell. Not unless you have a spare supercomputer in your back pocket.”

“You’ve tried?”

“I wouldn’t even know where to start. Crypto isn’t my specialty.”

Sheet Rock sighed and set her hooves on Access’ shoulders. “Call it a day then, no point in staring at a problem and hoping it’ll vanish.”

He nodded and pushed himself away from the table. “Yeah you’re probably right. Those two could do a better job than I ever could when it comes to Crypto.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Access. Remember what the crew said to you?”

He thought for a moment, his eyes lit up with realization as he dug for the memory. “Weak alone, Strong together?”

“That’s right. Each of us has our own specialty. Alone we aren’t dangerous at all, together we kick ass and take names.”

Access laughed loudly. “That was cheesier than dinner was.”

Sheet Rock put on a fake smile. She knew that Access tried far too hard to do everything on his own far too often and at times it made the two break out into violent arguments.

Access’ partly chromed lower-jaw was evidence of her anger during a particularly bad time of their lives. She visibly winced at the memory but pushed it aside not wanting to entertain the thought.

“Euro for your thoughts, Sheet?”

“Nothing important.”

“If you say so.”

Author's Note:

Another short one.

A little moment of peace for our two dysfunctional netrunners.