Chapter 5: It’s /*/*/*g Payday Mother/*/*/*s

Oogh. Well, it was nice to know that Valor was still doing okay! Still, if I had any more instances of my eyes darting around (or doing odd hand signals at the window), Alice probably would notice. Hell. She probably had already noticed — I'd changed my hair back to pink for the recording — but was ignoring it to play with her dog ears. Hmph. I wish I had cat ears...

Wait, shit. I totally could have cat ears. It just would be way too high-profile for two, uh... in the absence of a proper term, "beastkin" to be rolling up to a Keizen shell corporation. But theoretically speaking, I could just add cat ears to my hologram. Oh my god I totally had to do that at some point. Pff. I could join Alice the Catgirl and Pidgin user catgirlBrave in the ranks of "hokey bullshit anime fanservice character."

Well, getting back to business, Alice had finished her drink and food. As had I. I really wasn't sure where it went, but... eh. No errors yet, so that was pretty okay. Hair back to blue and red, outfits on both of us normal-looking as they could get. And it was nearly opening time for the business. Showtime. She nodded to me, and we got up. Alice flipped some tokens onto the counter as we made our way out. It was drizzling a bit still, but not nearly as much as it had been a few hours ago. It seemed like it was always cloudy here...

Ah, well. Alice impatiently tugged me along until I was paying enough attention to keep up with her, and we quickly made our way to the front of a slightly-bigger building, still as brutalist as the rest of the towns we'd walked through thus far. The gray skies anti-contrasted the gray concrete perfectly, making it seem as though the rest of the world was just as tired and dim as the sky seemed to constantly be. We passed a few tired pedestrians, slogging along under umbrellas, but it seemed a lot of people worked elsewhere — commuting by a poorly-maintained subway system which worked shit when you weren't at one of the city centers or financial districts which held political sway. Fun. I absently thanked whatever god was looking out for me that I'd experienced the joys of public transportation, because most of these sorry sods probably didn't own cars and thus couldn't fucking go anywhere.

The building was for something called Lastech Pharmaceuticals and Weapons, which was emblazoned on the side of the drab concrete in something close enough to Arial Black for it to be annoying. Even here, shit corporate logos reigned supreme. But we weren't here to make fun of their poor graphic design. We were here to hack their systems, steal their weapons, and get out without anyone noticing.

Alice tugged on the arm of my t-shirt. Go time.

We walked into the foyer of the building, where a vaguely-humanoid robot with what looked to be a flatscreen and change for a head greeted us. Alice cut them off, just saying that we were "here for a job interview" while looking suitably irritated at the formalities. I felt kinda bad for the receptionist-bot, but they simply nodded and motioned towards a hallway behind them. Honestly, the foyer was kind of boring. Desk, two hallways on either sides of the desk, a small lamp and the company logo. I was glad to get out of there.

Once we were out of view from the receptionist, Alice and I started to hurry. We'd have a limited amount of time before they started suspecting things, and any time wasted was more time when we'd be hunted later. What Alice was looking for was a door to their labs — or at least further into the facility — and I was looking out for cameras, which I'd need to loop holographic footage in front of to make sure we weren't seen. Thankfully, I already had extremely detailed 3d models of our disguises already on hand (since I'd, uh, projected them and all), so it wasn't gonna be hard to loopback any cameras we'd need to stay hidden from.

Eventually, we found a door. It was a keycard-reader, but Alice had previously assured me she'd be able to handle the hacking, so I simply nodded to her while starting the camera loops. It was a little nerve-wracking and hard to maintain focus, but after doing some horseshit with magnets and a few rewires, Alice was able to get through the door.

From now on, we'd be going undercover. Disguising ourselves as some janitors and just in case, using my holograms as a stealth blanket so that nobody could see us. This was the worst part. We get found out here, and I get disassembled while Alice gets...

Well, I didn't know for sure. I was making the possible punishments up, but when I'd asked Alice she looked at me with a touch of genuine fear in her eyes and refused to comment. So. Probably bad.

Our next destination was an elevator. A lot of this was gonna be social engineering, unfortunately. I'd love to have crawled through vents, but that just wasn't as efficient as waltzing around like you owned the place and relying on false security in social contracts to get in and out without anyone noticing. At least on a smaller job like this, Alice had assured me.

It was quiet. Just after opening, and all. But that meant less trouble for us, until we got to the labs and armory. It wasn't complicated to find an elevator, but what was a little more complicated was finding a keycard — it needed more than just a simple magnetic trick to unlock, this was actual code. So while Alice started trying override codes for the elevator system (hoping that the administrators had been lazy and not actually coded out the overrides), I stood guard outside.

Minutes ticked by. I was disguised as a female maintenance worker, just hanging outside the elevator's open doors. This would have worked better if I'd been able to procure a wet floor sign, but noooo. I had to "stay here" and "not leave Alice alone, dammit". No wonder heist movies were so hammed up, I sighed. This sucked.

A loud ahem came from entirely too close to my right. I jumped, losing my balance and barely not falling over by windmilling my arms. There was a guard there — like, a security guard — and they started asking me questions. "So. What's going on with the elevator?"

I coughed. "A-Ah! Um, well, we'll be honest, it's really nothing much. Routine maintenance! Also it stopped accepting our cards, soooooo... we figured it'd be best to get down to the labs rather than get fired! Haha!" Shit! There was no way — wait, no, this is totally something that'd happened to me a couple times. It'd totally work. I blushed, scratching the back of my neck and looking away. Had to play it up a little.

The security guard snorted, nodding. "Yeah, been there. I'll bring you down, but only this once. Get your ID sorted out, ladies." With that, they sidled into the elevator (dragging me in alongside, as I internally fought over being called a lady.) They took out their ID and swiped it, pressing the button at the bottom of the elevator's panel. Ooh, I could probably model our ID off theirs... right, yes. Monochrome, with just a picture on the front and some information. Just in case I needed to bullshit.

It was maybe thirty seconds of elevator before we got to the bottom, and the guard motioned for us to get out. We both thanked them profusely and made off to the labs, hoping beyond hope that there was nobody there.

Beyond hope was apparently the right place to hope to, because there actually wasn't. Most of the more standard tech was kept in lockers or storage crates (of which we quickly availed ourselves to, storing things in some bags we'd found along the way), and since the prototype tech wasn't necessary or interesting we kept away from it a good deal.

Mostly. I kept getting drawn to this sort of... gun-looking thing. Well, it was a gun. It's just... it looked different. Felt different. There were not any ammo clips for the odd-looking revolver, but I sneaked it into my duffle bag anyways, just. Because. At least I took a look at the proposed ammunition.

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This was evidently the wrong idea, as an assault of static immediately set upon my ears — I'd been told about this, their silent alarm systems were apparently loud enough for some advanced androids to hear them. Which meant I'd just taken something that someone had bothered to alarm. Which meant we were in for a world of trouble without any weapons or true stealth gear.

I rushed over to where Alice was stealing whole rolls of what looked to be dark coins, outwardly shaking a little from what felt like adrenaline. "I- Alice, I fucked up, the silent alarm — we have to go, it's not safe — I'm sorry, I, uh, I didn't — Ow!"

She'd flicked me on the forehead. "You were panicking and that's a reliable method for anyone to stop. Anyways, that's fine. You wanted to go in the vents, right?" I tentatively nodded my head. That was what people did in movies. "Cool. We're gonna go through the vents to the armory and get some break-out tools. I picked up a hovercycle printer rod, so we'll be good once we're out. Got it?"

I nodded again, this time with a little more conviction. "Got it. Wanna get in the vent above your head?"

Alice looked up, ears flopping backwards, and then nodded. It was a good twelve feet or so, but I could totally throw her up that high and jump up there myself. I felt it in me. My, uh, bones? I guessed?

In any case, I quickly gave Alice a platform to stand on my hands with (which she stood on perfectly still, like a fucking trained dancer. Or a cat?) and then threw her as hard as I could at the vent. She nearly missed, letting out a loud yowl, but one of her fingers clipped the vent's cover and held on tight. It was only one finger, though, wasn't —

Oh wow. Alice pulled herself up by the one finger, grabbing onto the vent and pulling it down while slipping a hand into the vent and bracing herself against it. She slowly climbed up, using only her strength and leverage to somehow shenanigan her way into the vent system. That was cool. And, uh, also the antithesis of the cold. I caught the vent cover, still a little flabbergasted at what I'd seen, and placed it quietly under a table.

Shouts emanated from the hallways. Agh. Distracted. I shook my head, then jumped up as well — I didn't scramble into there nearly as gracefully, but I at least got up there (with a little help from Alice.) We both had our heavy duffel bags, and Alice quickly hit me with a map of the vent system that she'd downloaded onto a stolen datapad, so we were quickly gaining ground on the thugs out to get us. In the meantime, I analyzed the revolver that I'd stole and its schematics.

Apparently, it manufactured its own ammunition. And what ammunition was that, you may ask? Chemical-electrical bullet-rails, and also fireworks.

Fucking fireworks, the thing that killed me. Of course. I mean, I had nothing against them! But god, what a twist of fate. At least the fireworks were useful — apparently, the point of the fireworks was to magnify the bullet-rails velocity or something — but seriously?

Agh, anyways.

We were nearly to the armory when Alice stopped, making me accidentally bump into her backside in my schematics studying — and nothing else. It was a mistake which left a blush on my cheeks but it was a mistake.

Anyways, she motioned for me to squeeze up next to her and look. It was tight, but we were both able to get a good view of the armory (well, as best you can get through a vent grate.) There were security cameras, as well as what looked like at least one deactivated android. "Those'll activate if we get spotted," Alice whispered. "Cloak us."

I did as she asked, though it was gonna be nerve-wracking if anyone spotted us. We'd be at a pretty big disadvantage. However, there really wasn't any other option. And I was already way too warm right next to Alice in the vents, so at least if we got caught I'd be able to blame my red cheeks on guilt instead of something else.

Alice cracked the vent open, and we dropped down in synchronicity. My stealth holograph went up immediately, and it seemed nobody had noticed — so I quickly put stealth fields over all the cameras, then lowered our stealth hologram with some caution. As my partner-in-crime went to go get weapons (guns, batons, and a few odd-looking swords), I fiddled with my new revolver. I had all the schematics, but it still didn't explain why I felt attracted to it. 

My tinkering was stopped by a robotic voice making itself known in our cautious silence. "HALT, INTRUDERS!" it said, in the worst, most robotic voice imaginable, and I whipped around with my finger on the trigger.

I was met with a gun pointed at mine and Alice's heads, along with the digitized equivalent of a smug grin on the LCD face of the AI that had confronted us.

Seeing Alice's trepidation, I cleared my throat. "...don't suppose we can solve this through diplomacy?"