The Freelancers

by OverHeart

Chapter 67 - Entry

The net was a strange tangle of potential spaces, some of which took on the form of something that made sense, like a city, the inside of a building, a subterranean labyrinth of tunnels, or an idealized version of something like a boardroom or a home.

But then, there was whatever Access and Sheet Rock had stumbled into.

Someone had gone to a great deal of effort, maybe to an excessive degree, to make the subnet look as realistic as possible, and if it were not for the floating security programs flitting about you could mistake it for the real thing.

The vibe landed firmly between retro-futuristic and business-like in the most soulless and clinical manner possible. There were tables, chairs, and filing cabinets everywhere, but a cursory glance proved them to be completely cosmetic and non-functional.

“Doesn’t seem like they’re bothered by our presence, but we should still mask our signals just in case.” Access pointed out. “I’m willing to bet this is just a public access area.”

“Can’t saturate the place with scanners to check the place out, that sort of thing is like shouting in a library and expecting nobody to take any notice.” Sheet Rock said off-hoof. “Guess we’ll need to go room by room, carefully.”

“Really obvious and annoying?” Access inquired. “Yeah, true. Regular scans should be fine though?”

“No way to tell, just be careful.”

Access looked up at one of the security programs, a simple polyhedral sphere-like object with a central “eye”, and observed it as it went about its business. It seemed to be following a pattern, it scanned a few spots on each wall, waited, then moved onto the next until it took itself in a complete circuit around the room without deviation.

At no point did any of the programs scan them specifically, that is unless he stood in the way confusing the rigidly programmed construct to a point where it fizzled from existence, only to be replaced by another in short order.

“I wonder.” Access mumbled as he summoned a couple of his own programs. “Watch my back, just in case.”

“Alright.”

Two pyramid shaped programs assembled themselves out of neon wire in front of the Netrunner’s outstretched hoof. They were scan probes, a Runner’s bread and butter when it came to gathering intel.

They could be issued simple commands by their owner, which would then be carried out on their own, and when their orders were completed the report would be delivered to the Runner no matter where they were.

You could sprinkle programs like these all over a subnet and have them slowly map out an entire network, but with the drawback that you could be waiting weeks for an entire subnet map to arrive in your inbox without alerting anyone.

Needless to say, they did not have weeks.

One of the programs started scanning a section of wall where security had been previously, and moments later, it revealed a hidden door. Access directed his probes to scan the other walls too, which revealed two more doors for them to explore.

“Masked doorways, shame their own programs gave them away.” Access chuckled. “I’ll have this open in a flash.”

“I doubt it’ll take you long, subnets like this rarely have much thought put into them beyond how they look.” Sheet Rock grunted. “Bet you all the heavy security is on the other side and everything running here is just to make sure things work just well enough to keep the links stable.”

Access ran another one of his programs, a common tool that could try hundreds of common passwords a second. Quiet compared to forcing the door down, which was what most runners did, but it was not guaranteed to find the right password.

Hundreds of words in various formats streamed from Access’ horn, phasing into the doorway’s lock only to rebound off and break apart with each failed attempt.

“Looks like security is re-masking the other doors.”

“Easy enough to unmask them again, though we might not need to if we picked right.”

On cue, perhaps thousands of attempts later, one password attempt was correct and the door slid open to reveal a cavernous hall with a ceiling that seemed to stretch into infinity. The perimeter of the wall was stacked high with filing cabinets and criss-crossed with miles of tubes connecting it all, stretching up into the ceiling.

At the very end of each convergence of tubes were stylized terminal screens with a space for a single pony to sit office cube style. This was more than likely a representation of a regional office, perhaps for the company’s runners to use while jacked in.

Though as their eyes focused on the tubes in the ceiling, it became clear that there was an AI present, sorting little packets of data as they flew in and out of the central mass of tubes that constituted its presence in the subnet like some kind of office clerk with never ending stacks of paperwork to process.

It made sense why the subnet felt so small now, the majority of the activity arriving on this side of the link was overseen by this administrative AI, there was simply no need for extraneous detail when a Runner would only ever be present during emergencies.

“We have a problem.” Access shouted across the room. “But there’s good news and bad news.”

“What’s the good news?”

“The link to the Everfree Arcology is already open, but…”

“Let me guess, that AI will fry us if we try?”

“Yes, from what I can tell, it’s screening everything that goes in through those pipes there.” Access said, pointing at a particularly thick set of transparent piping. “It then goes to the central mass there, gets processed, then gets sent out the other side if it passes whatever criteria they’ve set. It’s kinda hard to track each of the packets visually, so I’m probably wrong but that’s all I have to go on right now.”

“I suppose that’s all the mail Phantom mentioned would be passing through, seems weird an environmental tech vendor would let them use their bandwidth.”

“They probably have a contract, you know to earn a bit more money.” Access rebutted. “I mean you’d probably want a direct connection to the company that’s keeping ponies breathing anyway, why not let them use your systems as a relay once in a while.”

“Fair point.”

“I’m going to do some digging. Hopefully we’ll find a way to cross the link without alerting that AI, I’m willing to bet the other two rooms are probably the link itself and security control.”

---

Star tapped nervously at the center console of Phantom’s car, rhythmically at first, but quickly she descended into tuneless nonsense. She’d kept in constant contact with the rest of the team ever since they left, and they were well on their way toward their respective objectives.

“How’re they doing, any issues?” Matterhorn asked, mostly to break the awkward silence that had fallen.

“Access and Sheet Rock hit a snag, but they’re dealing with it.” Star rattled off. “Scarlet and Bulwark are doubling back after hitting some resistance, they’re going to remain on standby in case we need the backup plan.”

“I could tell you stories upon stories about those two.” Phantom remarked. “The things they did when they were mere greenhorns would make your head spin.”

“Anything as dumb as what we’re about to do?”

“Dumber.”

“That does not inspire confidence.” Star chuckled nervously. “Time?”

“About ten minutes until the train arrives, let’s go, act normal.” Phantom replied. “We’re just a bunch of friends on a day out.”

That was a laughable statement given that Star knew nothing about Phantom. For all she knew, this could be some kind of set-up orchestrated by the mare she’d just met, where they would be the ones to take the fall and she would end up with all the reward.

Star didn’t expect to know who she was right away, that’d be ridiculous, but she expected her to talk at least a little bit about herself. Come to think of it, Phantom had actually remained pretty tight lipped since the moment they met, and only ever offered surface level statements, preferring to talk about others instead.

“What’s with that look?” Phantom remarked. “Got something on your mind, cold hooves maybe?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“She’s probably suspicious, that’s the look she gave me when we met.” Matterhorn chuckled. “Eyebrows furrowed, sour scowl, the works. Could either be suspicion or distaste, actually.”

“Good, she should be!” Phantom said, matter of fact. “If someone ever tells you to trust them, and I mean tells, not asks, then they’re probably either outright lieing to you or they’re hiding something.”

“That doesn’t-”

“Look, all I care about is getting the job done. I didn’t ask why they wanted the job done nor did I ask for an explanation or their life stories.” Phantom said with a degree of irritation. “I mean, aside from what I needed to know to get the job done, obviously.”

“I hope you two aren’t going to be at each other’s throats the entire journey.” Matterhorn stressed. “Maybe you should talk things out a little bit, I mean, you do at least have to get along or this job isn’t going to end well.”

To nobody’s surprise, Matterhorn was right. She didn’t know Phantom at all, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t being upfront about her intentions. But, Star had ways of getting the truth out of ponies, after all, she did work for a corporation until very recently.

Star discreetly sent a message to Snowy saying that if he had the time while looking after the rest of the team, he should see if he could uncover anything about Phantom via their contacts. She looked like the careful mare, but there had to have been times where she hadn’t been quite so careful, perhaps out of necessity rather than incompetence.

It was always best to have insurance, a plan, or failing that an escape route.

Comments

[Madmadmad123]

Great chapter

[OverHeart]

11608370
Glad you're enjoying, thanks again.