The Freelancers

by OverHeart

Chapter 6 - The Hideout

Sheet Rock yawned loudly as she awoke from her slumber to a still gloomy and dimly lit bedroom, her tank top hung loosely from her body as she sat up. Her ears flopped to her skull as she swayed from side to side; she wasn’t an early riser by any means.

“What time is it?” she grumbled as she stared over at her clock.

Through her bleary eyed stupor she saw that it was near on seven in the morning, not early at all to most ponies but for her it was an ungodly time to be awake; Not a sound could be heard in the apartment, outside the sound of rain hitting the windows could be heard and the shouts of passing ponies and angry motorists.

She sighed and dragged herself out of bed, throwing the covers aside into a messy heap on the floor and made her way out to the living room. It was empty and eerily quiet.

“The big idiot better not still be asleep.” she grumbled.

She then noticed the “New Message” in the corner of her vision pulsing slowly, indicating she had a message waiting and with another grumble she opened it wave a dismissive wave of her hoof and began to read.

“Sheet, I’ve just headed out on my own to our storage locker to pick a couple of things up. You’ll understand why when I get back and by the time you see this I wont be far.”

She frowned as she read the message but could appreciate Access’ efforts to keep them safe, it must be serious if he went out on his own.

All she could do for now was wait, she absentminded flipped on the vidscreen affixed to the wall and began to scroll through the various channels. It wasn’t long until she came to the local news channel after scrolling through a lot of dead air, the topic caught her attention and made her blood run cold.

A group of news reporters sat around a large round glass table and speculated among themselves about a recent incident.

“Looks like things are hotting up again, fillies and gentlecolts. Corporate police are out in force across Upper Canterlot for as of yet unknown reasons, we’ve reached out to them for comment but they weren’t overly fond of talking.” the first reporter said.

“It seems something has indeed happened, with the deployment of some heavily armed troops now flooding Upper Canterlot one has to wonder just what has them so riled.” another spoke.

Sheet’s eyes went wide as she attempted to reach Access, her raised hoof shook as she scrolled to his name in her contacts; She stared at the display in her vision as she waited for what felt like an eternity before the call connected.

“Saw the news then?” Access said as his voice finally met Sheet’s ears.

With a sharp inhale Sheet spoke. “Yeah, I did. What’s taking you so long?”

“I got delayed, corp police are everywhere. But I managed to stash our chips in the locker before they swarmed through.”

“Good. What about the other ones we were taking to the hideout? I don’t see them anywhere.”

“I’ve got them on me, I hid them in one of my cyberlimbs. You should think about heading to the hideout now, probably going to be safer than sticking around there.”

“Right. I shouldn’t be too long.”

“Cool. See you then.” Access said with relief as the call ended.

Sheet Rock ran to her bedroom and grabbed her Cyberdeck then hastily threw on a clean white tank top, cargo shorts and her harness, she roughly pulled the door open and broke into a gallop as soon as she got out the apartment.

---

Access watched as the call disconnected, he sat back in a ragged seat as the two other members of their crew peered over their screens at him.

“Alright. She’s on her way.” he called out.

“I bet she’s running here, just so she can break your other jawbone for making her worry.” a scarlet maned, pristine white coated mare giggled from behind a large set of screens.

“Very funny, Scarlet.”

“Ignore her Access, that’s what I usually do.” A silver maned stallion retorted gruffly.

“How do you manage it, Bulwark?”

“I’m mostly deaf these days, so it’s pretty easy to ignore her.” he said with a deep chuckle.

Scarlet Dawn and Adamantine Bulwark were two fellow Netrunners who Sheet Rock and Access frequently exchanged information with, among others.

It was almost unheard of for Netrunners to meet outside of Netspace for many reasons but sometimes bands of like-minded miscreants would join together to tackle a common goal.

“Anyway, I made a copy of the chips I told you about. Corporate. Encrypted though.”

Scarlet gestured at Access to come over, her head still buried in the cool blue glow of her terminal.

“Pass me the chip, I’ll have a look.” she said with marked interest.

---

Sheet Rock was close to the hideout. it was hidden under some disused buildings in one of the oldest areas of the Sprawl which was reduce to little more than a pile of smoking rubble after the last corporate wars.

It wasn’t deemed necessary for it to be rebuilt and likely wouldn’t ever be. This however meant that someone could easily hide in the tunnels and vaults underneath that part of the district, often with little chance of being found.

Much of the sprawl was run down and wasn’t far off of collapsing into rubble like these buildings had, much of the grime in the streets was brick dust, rust and various pieces of discarded trash that had clumped together in a kind of disgusting slurry.

It coated the streets Sheet had galloped through to get here and even these collapsed buildings were covered in it.

She kicked aside some fallen metal plating which revealed a small hatch that led into the tunnels below, with a grunt of exertion she pulled aside the cover and jumped down into the depths.

The gate to the hideout wasn’t far, she just hoped her keycard still worked.

---

“This isn’t going to be easy to crack. I don’t suppose you brought the key with you at all?” Scarlet joked.

“Technically, we didn’t steal it. It was given to us.”

Scarlet looked at Access incredulously. “By who?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know. All it gave us was its designation.”

“An AI? That’s pretty wild.”

“By the name of X9-01-A, ring any bells with either of you?”

Bulwark and Scarlet shake their heads vigorously.

“Didn’t think so. We need to focus on getting this data decrypted though, maybe it can tell us something useful.” Access said as he gestured dismissively.

“We’ll do it. For a fee that is.” Bulwark said with a sly smile.

Access smirked as he sat at one of the free desks within this cavernous space. “Decrypt it and we’ll see. Sorry to make you work for your paycheck, Bulwark.”

“Hard-ass.” Bulwark shot back with a smirk of his own.

A soft beep echoed it’s way from the entryway and the heavy steel door slid open noisily, Sheet Rock stepped through and scanned her eyes over at the group of desks on the far side.

She hadn’t been here in months but it still looked like a home away from home, graffiti covered the high and dark metal walls and the smell of snack foods and soda filled the air. It smelt like a Netrunner lair through and through.

“I see this place still looks and smells like a frat pad.” Sheet giggled as she walked in, her eyes slowly scanning the walls and ceiling.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way!” Scarlet shouted from across the room with a fizzing soda can in her hoof.

Sheet Rock spotted Access sat at a desk, while she was a little upset he didn’t leave her a more noticeable message she spoke calmly as she approached.

“You said you had to pick something up? What was it?”

He turned to Sheet with a calmer expression than she was used to. The news must’ve rattled him more than she first thought.

“I think we should think about arming ourselves from now on, to that end I picked up a couple of things we looted from way back when.”

“Normally I’d disagree but I can see your point, I saw the news.”

Access nodded as he gestured to a Plasteel case he’d placed on the desk. “Better to be safe than sorry. Do you remember how to use a gun though?“

Sheet Rock picked up a nine millimeter sub-machine gun from the Plasteel case in the glow of her magic and tilted her head slightly as she inspected it.

“Of course. I’m trusting you to watch my back, Access. I’d hate for us to get split up again like the last time.”

Access huffed. “Won’t happen this time around, you have my word.”

“Do you promise?”

“I promise.” he said as he picked up his own choice of weapon from the case, a simple ten millimeter sidearm.

Their conversation was cut short by Scarlet. She looked like she had something important to say, her hooves flailed wildly as if she was trying to desperately get their attention.

“I’d advise against going out right now though. Local nomads say we got a group of ponies sweeping through the Sprawl now. No corporate markings or IFF tags.”

The two looked to Scarlet with confusion as she turned her terminal screen to face the two. Images had been released by news agencies depicting ponies of unknown origin carrying out a particularly callous and violent search, many of the ponies they could see in the images were battered, bruised and bloodied.

Something caught Scarlet’s eye, an image of a pony of indeterminate race clad in heavy gray armor covered in hydraulics and glowing runes, stomping messily through a crowd of angry ponies.

Access tapped at the screen. “That isn’t a good sign.”

Bulwark looked up from his terminal with a raised eyebrow. “Looks like a regular suit of Power Armor to me.”

Access shook his head. “No it isn’t. Look at the runes around its midsection and helmet. That’s the product of cybernetics, magic and one hell of a lot of euro.”

All four present stare at the image with equal parts curiosity and worry. That Power Armor was built to take a beating and whoever these ponies were, they had some seriously powerful allies.

Author's Note:

Little bit of a longer one this time, wasn't worth splitting into two parts.

The shift in perspective felt a little janky but i think spending some time on describing how the Sprawl looked in general was worth the extra effort.