"I'm in."
Inside an emergency stairwell of the Grand Empire Mall, Karl reported through team comms.
"Encountered two Animals—avoided both. Still no sign of where the target vehicle might be parked."
A few seconds later, Jack's voice crackled in.
"Same here. V and I haven't spotted anything either. T-BUG, Oliver—any visual from outside?"
"Nope. These Animals actually know what they're doing," T-BUG replied.
"They only restored a few key systems in this abandoned dump—stuff wired into isolated control rooms. I can't breach them all remotely."
She added, "If we want full surveillance access, I'll need to deploy Qiuqiu for a localized uplink."
"Risk assessment?" Karl asked.
"Not much. I just need backup. The two nearest control rooms I've mapped are close to your position."
"Then send Qiuqiu to me."
Karl switched focus.
"Oliver, any sighting of Wildwoman? Johnny Handjob handed off the stolen ride to her—vehicle should be nearby."
"No visual. Just like T-BUG said, they've got real structure. I can't tell if it's just chaos or someone's coordinating them, but their movement patterns aren't random. Hard to identify command nodes or key defenses."
Oliver paused.
"Still, based on how often their patrol routes rotate, I'd bet someone's actively managing their positions."
"T-BUG, can you intercept their comms?"
"Working on it, but it'll take time. I just started breaching their internal chatter."
T-BUG sounded genuinely puzzled.
"How the hell does a crew like the Animals pull off data security this tight? Do they actually have a competent netrunner?"
Animals with a legit netrunner… it felt like watching a roided-out bruiser recite philosophy. Like some gonk cosplaying Confucius.
Karl's thoughts drifted as he approached a stairwell camera. Just as he prepped to hack it, something felt off.
"Karl—careful. ICE sweep in your area. Recommend evasion if you don't wanna get flagged," T-BUG warned.
He stopped immediately and retreated. In the camera's blind spot, another device blinked red.
"Seriously? This level of security? I thought this place was freshly occupied—didn't think I was sneaking into their HQ."
Karl cursed over comms and suggested,
"What if we just go loud? Thirty targets, even elite—still manageable."
"Don't default to violence, Karl," T-BUG chided.
"Wildwoman runs this block for the Animals. No clue how strong she is. We charge in blind and she's the real deal—we're fucked. Their turf, their setup. Recklessness isn't smart merc work. Your own words, remember?"
Just then, a familiar black-and-white orb rolled quietly up to him.
"Let me handle this," T-BUG said.
"Any hack you attempt leaves a trace. Qiuqiu doesn't."
"All yours."
Qiuqiu shifted into its compact cyberdog form and—under T-BUG's guidance—leapt between overlapping scanner fields at their moment of deadzone convergence.
"Clean jump."
Karl couldn't help but be impressed.
Qiuqiu sprinted up the wall with mechanical paws.
"Added suction modules. It can run up glass now," T-BUG explained, activating its intrusion tools.
Two square ports opened on its shoulders, deploying interface tethers. Gripping them with its articulated paws, Qiuqiu jacked into the surveillance system.
Karl blinked.
"It can grip those cables?"
"Could've fired them in, sure. But this is cleaner. With those claws, Qiuqiu could sit in a chair, use chopsticks, and eat pizza if I told it to."
"Pizza with chopsticks. Nice."
The nearby camera flicked from red to green, then to blue—breach successful.
"That's done. T-BUG, where are those control rooms? Lead the way."
"Follow Qiuqiu. You'll handle anything inside."
The dog led Karl quickly through the corridors to a utility door by a stairwell.
"Seriously? Right next to the stairs? They weren't worried shoppers would just wander in?"
"It's makeshift. Construction got abandoned. Rerouting the wiring now would mean a full overhaul."
T-BUG added,
"Four seconds to crack the lock. You breach and subdue. Watch for tripwires."
"Understood."
Four seconds later, the lock clicked.
Karl opened the door—
and spotted a proximity alarm rigged beside the frame.
Good news: no mines.
Bad news: it was a wide-area acoustic trigger—one that could alert half the damn mall.
He dropped, crushed the casing, and extended his monowire.
He couldn't hack and boost at the same time yet, but monowire tethering while in acceleration mode? That he could manage.
Low strain. Direct line.
The trigger was neutralized in under a heartbeat.
He swept the room—ten square meters, single occupant. One Animals member sat at a terminal filled with security feeds. Young, jacked—probably Karl's age.
The guy had just started turning in his chair.
Karl retracted the monowire, stepped forward, and grabbed his head mid-turn.
His HUD flashed:
Bounty: 1,000 eddies
Crime: Fatal assault on NCPD officer (blunt force).
Understood.
Slight twist—
Crack.
The clear snap of vertebrae echoed faintly in the small space. Karl's voice came through comms, dead calm:
"Threat neutralized."
.
.
.
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