Chapter 24: Pursuit
Claire - Rollo Halls Associate
“Forget it then. Don’t risk exposing yourself and go back to the clinic first.” Rollo, her current boss, dryly commanded.
“What W—”
Before she could voice her complaint, he cut her off, “We’ll be fine. We can still keep in touch while you head back. There’s no point for you to be so close to danger anymore.” Then he hung up.
“Damn it!” She slammed her hand onto the dashboard.
She couldn’t believe this. She thought she could finally be useful and help him and Thorne out. That was why she had been working so hard on learning about cybersecurity.
Taking a deep breath, she started sorting out her thoughts. She knew it wasn’t Rollo or anyone else’s fault, and she blamed herself for being inadequate. She knew she was only a beginner, so she shouldn’t even find this surprising, but she couldn’t help but feel frustrated. She wanted to contribute and make it safer for those two and the current her wasn’t able to do that.
Searching through her contact list, she placed a call while the car drove her back.
“Hey Clairy, what’s up?”
She sighed before responding, “Lana, are you free? I could really go for a drink right now.”
“Woah, I thought you were a law-abiding citizen who won’t drink until you’re past twenty.”
“Yea? Who’s going to enforce the drinking age, the corpos?”
“Ha, they’d probably encourage you to drink more instead, to up their sales. I would know, I’ve worked for them. Anyway, sorry, I can’t come out tonight. We can do it tomorrow when you come over for lessons.”
“Okay...”
“So what happened, girl? Want to talk about it?”
She let out another sigh, ”...I got told to sit out because I couldn’t breach some dumb network.”
“Girl, you’ve been learning how to about cy-sec for how long? It’ll take a lot more learning before you’ll be able to consistently breach into most up-to-date civilian networks.”
A text came in from Thorne with an update, confirming the hideout was a harvester den and they got in safely.
“Ahhhh, how did scums like harvesters even get up-to-date security patches? Don’t tell me they pay for it like normal people.”
“You’d be surprised. Most groups past a certain size likely have a cy-sec specialist on hand. It takes a lot more brain than you think to run their shit. It’s not as simple as just randomly picking people up and chopping out their chrome and organs.”
“So I won’t be able to breach into any harvester network anytime soon...just great. Please tell me you have some way to help me learn faster. I can’t stand this.”
“Not unless you’ve got a high-end SAID model with a hypnopaedia feature. Then you’ll need the cassettes with the right knowledge on it, which are even harder to get. There’s a reason why most skilled cy-sec specialists are corpo or former corpo.”
She sighed for the third time, “Anyway, we can talk more when I come over tomorrow. Thank you for listening to me vent.” She watched as the car pulled into the parking lot in front of the clinic.
“...Okay... I might’ve acted too impulsively...Sorry.”
That was the first time I heard Thorne lash out, but understandably so.
I needed to start going over options to up our security after this. Right now it was just street gangs, but if more organized groups or mercenaries set their sights on us, we were grossly unprepared, not to even mention corporations.
We arrived and met up with Claire on the main street closest to the mansion she had tracked her pursuers to.
Claire wore a bashful smile as we approached, “Hey guys, here’s the receiver for the tracker. Take this as well. You guys haven’t eaten or drunk anything for some time right?” She handed us each a burger and a drink.
“Thank you,” I took a sip of the drink, my usual milkshake that was slightly melted, but the sugar helped energize my mind. “I’ll head in first to scout it out. You two stay here and wait.”
Thorne waited until he finished chewing to respond, “...Okay, you really need to get me one of those suits soon.”
“The suit’s really just to test the tech out. I’ll definitely get you one once the cybernetic version is done.”
I moved out as soon as I finished snacking. The entire place was fenced off with metal gates. There were cameras spaced out as well, but with my suit’s stealth system on, I could climb over and approach the building in the distance undetected.
There was a limit to how fast I could move as the camouflage system started being more wonky the faster I moved. It was something I planned to work on further before moving on to the implant version. This suit was destined to only be a prototype as it was just plainly inferior to a cybernetic version. Especially when the stealth system wasn’t active, it screamed out suspicious activity to anyone who saw you wearing one.
The three-story mansion soon came into view and had even more security around the premises, but thankfully, someone left a window open on the second floor.
Once I climbed up, I immediately tried to breach into their camera network while I hugged the walls to stay out of sight, allowing the suit to rest.
The security in place here was notches above everything I’ve tried to breach before. I knew Claire wasn’t better than me at hacking yet, so I had to be mindful of cameras from here on.
Moving cautiously, I cleared each corner and noted down spots where I could hide at while the suit needed a break. The rooms I had entered so far appeared to be simple bedrooms, storages, and bathrooms. It wasn’t until I reached further in that I heard the sound of people.
“---back?”
“Yeah, I led him to the boss, and he seemed pissed. Better to stay out of sight tonight lest he take it out on you.”
“If Larry can’t do a proper job, then the boss should use us. I don’t get why we’re being kept in the dark.”
“Shhh, stop complaining. Larry is his wife’s cousin, so of course, he trusts him and his group more. We don’t need to snoop where we shouldn’t.”
The two who were conversing soon came into view. They both had combat vests and rifles, decked out in red-themed clothes. They stood by the staircases that led further up.
They changed the topic to the girls they recently saw and other mundane topics. I slowly moved past them with the camouflage activated while their conversation distracted them.
On the third floor, my search for important people bore fruit when I spotted a pair of sentries who stood guard by a set of fancy double doors. With the door shut, it wasn’t feasible for me to walk by even if they couldn’t see me. Instead, I went into one of the adjacent secluded rooms and climbed out the window.
My boots clamped onto the outer wall as I made my way toward the guarded room. For some reason, the people in the mansion really liked their open windows, allowing me to peer into the study where two men sat on sofa chairs, having a conversation over a drink. In front of the two was a man and a woman who kneeled before them, staring straight into the ground.