Anonymity

"Or is it too much trouble for someone as 'busy' as you?"

"Unfortunately, my family's power has waned over the years. The board of directors are in control now, despite my father's best efforts to recenter the company. I am trying, but my efforts are countered at every turn."

"If you really wanna help, tell those AVs to fuck off." Rebecca states.

"That is not in my power, you will have to endure alone." the Italian man regretfully informs.

"Guys, I've cracked it. Let's go." Sasha states, ignoring the Corpo and retrieving her Interface port.

"I will endeavour to contact you at a later date. Godspeed."

Ori shrugs and picks Sasha up again, "Whatever."

-------------

"Think he can be trusted?" Rebecca questions.

"No. The things inside this place drew inspiration from his father's research. Without Nicolo Loggagia this facility wouldn't exist." she scowls.

"Just what did you find anyway?" Ori inquires.

"You don't want to know." Sasha says before closing her eyes as they approach a heavily armoured door. She hacks and opens it, allowing them to run into the depot.

A few engineers and mechanics were milling around, but Rebecca shoots them all dead, uncaring of who they are or where they're from. Ori runs to the AV and straps Sasha into the rear cabin with Rebecca as he climbs into the cockpit...

"Alright, I'm pretty sure it's just a more complicated car so," he remarks to his companions behind him, pressing the ignition button which fires up the jets. Sasha has the depot doors open up, revealing an entrance to a tunnel leading outside.

Ori pushes the peculiar steering wheel forwards, causing the AV to tilt and start moving. It's wobbly, but he sporadically reorients it as he begins increasing the speed... Of course, things didn't go quite as smoothly as he hoped, a loud scraping sounding out as he accidentally crashes into the wall.

Eventually they do leave the tunnel, rising high into the sky and into view of the three or four other AVs flying towards them from the distance. "Er, does this thing have a gun!?"

"No!" Rebecca shouts back, having already searched for one.

"This is gonna be rough this!" he says, switching the vehicle out of 'hover mode' after pressing nearly every other switch first. He zooms higher towards North East, attempting to go around the approaching Biotechnica AVs.

They change their trajectory and follow though, faster than the stolen AV... By the time Ori had reached Sierra Sonora they'd gotten close enough to open their cabins and start firing, unloading large Gatling guns into the aerodyne.

Most of their bullets just ping and deflect right off of the AV's armour however, the carrier is luckily designed for defence rather than offence. In light of this, Ori turns and heads right towards the city, trying to reach it before the AV became unusable.

They take more fire as they fly over the municipal landfill, until one stray bullet hits one of the jets, rocking the AV with a small explosion and sending it sideways. He forces it back but it was a losing battle and they were quickly losing altitude.

"WE'RE CRASH LANDING! STRAP IN!" he shouts just as the AV crashes into the road north of Tama's Viewpoint, rolling down the sand until it came to a stop on the main road next to Kendal Park.

...

"YOU TWO OKAY?" he shouts, still dizzy from the collision.

"Y-yeah... I think the back's on fire though." Rebecca returns.

Ori pulls himself from the cockpit and kicks the cabin door off while carrying Sasha out. The Biotechnica AVs were hovering above them, but were probably more careful now that they were in a populated area.

Rebecca runs up to a nearby car that'd stopped in front of the wreckage and points Guts in the driver's face, "GET OUT OR I'LL BLOW YOUR FUCKIN' HEAD OFF! NOW!"

With a car successfully commandeered, the group jump in and Ori accelerates them down the road, turning East into Rancho Coronado with the thought of entering Heywood, the AVs definitely wouldn't follow them there.

Bullets fly at them, some piercing through the roof, but most were 'fortunately' aimed at the driver. Ori just grits his teeth and bares it and lead enters his shoulders and back. He could see 6th Street gangers already headed out onto the street and firing up at the unwanted flying trespassers.

Once the trio reach the bridge out of Santo Domingo the AVs had already retreated, allowing the group to breathe sighs of relief. At least, until the NCPD showed up and started chasing them.

---------------------

Six hours later, Ori and Rebecca stumble into their apartment after seeing off Sasha to a trustworthy Ripperdoc to get her fixed up. After that, they'd had to negotiate with Night Corp when exchanging the data.

The fact that it'd taken them hours to escape the NCPD and get out of Biotechnica's Netrunners was annoying enough without everything else.

"Want a vacation now?" Ori drawls.

"Maybe..."

They both drop onto the couch, Rebecca falling onto his chest as he flips on the TV, a news report of evidence against Biotechnica immediately greeting them.

"Huh, they work fast..." he mutters as the camera pans to the pregnant women that'd escaped the facility earlier, telling their stories of being kidnapped and experimented on.

"Good, that bitch should get what's coming to her."

"I don't know, she'll have an escape plan. We'll probably need to call our new 'friend' if we wanna get even with her."

"Well, she'll have to run with bare minimum security..." Rebecca remarks, "But I don't trust that Bastiano guy, he's just waiting to zero us."

"I'm more worried about Sasha... She won't let this go now, she'll contact him solo if we don't try for it. Plus with her injuries she'll be spending most of the gig's reward healing up. Maybe we should chip in? Considering she did the most work." he offers.

She shakes her head, "She doesn't do charity, let's just help her deal with the Corpo when they start hounding her."

Ori nods, but Rebecca pins him to the couch... Unfortunately, it wasn't the 'sexy time' he was expecting, "Now, what the fuck was that shit back there? Turning that guy to gross paint!? And the poison spit!?"

...

He sighs, deciding that giving her a 'basic' outline would probably be for the best. 'A Prototype Cyberware that improves itself and harvests corpses'? Yeah, something like that.