Chapter 84

"You... shouldn't..."

"Quiet," I whispered in response to Lucy's weakening voice. "Right now, just focus on holding out until I get to you. We'll argue about this later."

I made my way up the service stairs, the same ones Panam and I had used to get down earlier. Threw on the stolen body armor as best I could. Hopefully, if no one looked too close, I'd pass for one of the guards. Just had to keep the silenced pistol out of sight—security wasn't issued that kind of gear. If comms were down, loud gunfire was a call for backup. Suppressors? That was the kind of shit security was supposed to stop.

So, I played the part of a close-combat specialist. Katana and a cyberarm fit the role well enough. Instead of Lucy's voice in my head, I suddenly picked up security chatter on their comms. Must've been another way she was trying to help. She really needed to lay low.

"Intruders spotted between floors 30 and 40. Moving in via stairwells. Elevators are locked down. Code Red, Protocol 2-6."

Shit. I needed to get to 46. The fastest way to help Lucy in the Net was to jack in at the hotel's server room. Take over the knocked-out runner's chair.

I moved through the empty kitchen without a hitch—until I ran into four guards.

"Hold it! Where are you headed?" one of them asked, blocking my path.

"Thirty," I shot back without slowing down. "Code Red, Protocol 2-6."

The words worked. At the last second, the guy stepped aside, and another one even rushed me along.

"Move it! Move it! Stairs!"

Like I wasn't already running for my life. Every second I wasted here cut into my odds of making it out. A solo raid on Konpeki wasn't in my plans. My best bet was social stealth and my netrunning skills. Too many different security units were scrambling through the building—no way they had full battlefield control. Confusion was inevitable, and if I played it right, I could slip through the cracks. But if they cornered me? Fucked. No secret agent badge would save my ass. Wouldn't even get the chance to flash it before they dragged me in for interrogation—or shot me on the spot. This wasn't just another high-risk job. Saburo fucking Arasaka was killed today.

The one good thing? Hotel surveillance still wasn't fully operational. Looked like Arasaka's netrunners had countered the invaders, but they hadn't retaken the subnet entirely.

I reached the service stairs leading from the basement levels to the hotel proper. That's when I heard a very bad update.

"Service parking post is unresponsive. Teams Five and Seven, move in. Prepare for contact. Protocol 2-8."

If memory served, "2-8" meant no prisoners. Fuck. Yorinobu wasn't planning on interrogating the chip thieves. They'd played their part as his alibi. Now he just needed them erased.

I made it up eight flights without issue. Then I caught sight of a reinforced security checkpoint through the stairwell opening. Seven guys, heavily armed. They had some unlucky employee or guest face-down on the floor, hands cuffed behind their back. And not the "standard search" kind of treatment—this was an execution waiting to happen.

No way I was talking my way through this one.

I backed off a floor. They must've heard something, but nobody followed. Orders probably had them locked in place.

Alright. New route.

Another staircase? Probably locked down too. How else could I hit 46?

The elevator shaft.

Now that was more like it.

I wasn't bullshitting when I grilled Frank Nostra for hotel blueprints. I knew Konpeki Plaza inside and out. Some of the elevator shafts had maintenance ladders—well, more like metal rungs built into narrow recesses. Exactly what I needed.

Right, left—wait it out.

Through the walls, I saw patrols of two to three operatives sweeping the floor. My optics and layout knowledge were my only advantages. But I knew sooner or later, I'd hit a dead end. Stealth is fun and all, but it's a lot less fun without a quicksave button.

And it was only getting worse.

"Twenty-third floor, all clear. Moving up."

"Twenty-seventh floor, clear. Continuing patrol."

The teams were closing in, and my options were thinning fast. Behind me—three-man patrol. Ahead—four more operatives.

No choice.

I burst onto a balcony, inhaling that wonderful mix of sea air and toxic waste. The next move? Risky as all fuck. The kind of stunt drunk assholes try when their wives lock them out—ends in a trauma team picking up the pieces.

I climbed over the railing and looked down.

Eighth floor.

Yeah, I might survive the fall. But dragging my ass anywhere on shattered legs? Whole other question. And not one I was eager to answer.

I pulled a synthetic strap from my gear—a trophy from some poor bastard. Sturdy as hell. Should hold. In seconds, I was hanging off the balcony, feet dangling over open air. Now I just had to swing myself over to the floor below before a security drone spotted me.

One… two…

I rocked my body to gain momentum, but my grip slipped, and a gust of wind twisted me around the strap. My ribs seized.

Fuck fuck FUCK!

Only the raw strength of my cyberarm kept me from dropping like a rock. A normal body would've let go by now, but mine had adjustments. Micromotors pumped blood, hormone regulators countered the pain. Muscles relaxed.

Come on, V. Your girlfriends pull acrobatic shit like this all the time. One jump. You've trained for this.

I swung once, let go—

And barely managed to grab the next railing with my cyberarm. Pulled myself up, adrenaline slamming through my chest.

Heart pounding.

No time to breathe. Move.

The suite I landed in wasn't empty. One operative. He'd heard the landing and was heading for the balcony.

I met him halfway.

Big room. Luxury suite. Not Yorinobu's penthouse, but close.

"Stop!" He raised his rifle. "What unit are you with?"

"Fifth," I bluffed, closing the gap.

"I don't know you. Hands where I can see—"

Kereznikov.

Time stretched as I shifted out of his line of fire, surging forward.

No time for a second strike—one clean slash.

Monotanto ripped through his throat, severing his spine.

"Well," I exhaled, flicking the crystalline blade clean. "Guess now you do."

I sheathed the tanto, looted two grenades, and bolted.

No time now. The moment they noticed his biomonitor go dark, backup was coming.

But thanks to my acrobatic stunt, I'd made it to the maintenance sector. Pried open a panel, stepped into the elevator shaft.

Then—there it was. The ladder. Just a series of yellow rungs bolted to the wall. The elevator itself was jammed somewhere around the thirtieth floor. Fuck. That meant I wouldn't make it straight to forty-six. I'd have to climb out at thirty-four, take the normal stairs one floor up, bypass the elevator, and then re-enter the shaft.

Somewhere above, gunfire rattled through the building. Was that still Jackie and his new partner having fun, or was security just scrubbing out anyone too suspicious? Guess I'd find out when—if—I reached the server room.

At first, climbing through the shaft was easy. I got to about the twentieth floor before—

"FUCK!"

How many times had I yelled that today? No idea. "Bad day, bad day!"—like that old Jackie Chan cartoon, the one where he wasn't allowed to cuss.

The elevator moved. Not up—down. If I didn't want to get turned into a fine red mist, I had seconds to drop down a few rungs and get the hell out.

No time.

I was about to flip on Sandevistan—then the elevator screeched to a halt between floors, spitting sparks. A moment later, it started crawling upward.

"Hold on…" Lucy's voice crackled in my head. "I'll take it to the roof and—"

Her words drowned in static.

But the elevator kept climbing, then froze near the top of the shaft.

"Yeah, thanks, but I told you to stay quiet," I muttered through gritted teeth, hauling myself up again. "If you just did what I said, I wouldn't even be here right now… Not talking? Fine. We'll discuss it at home."

Now I had a straight shot to forty-six. The maintenance room was clear—good. The server room wasn't far. But even before stepping in, I knew getting there would be a fight.

Six guards at the entrance, plus more scattered across the floor. Fuck. I needed every possible advantage—but I was running low on those.

They weren't even standing close enough for one grenade to take them all out. Two at the outer doors, three in the monitoring room right before the server chamber, and the last one stationed inside—right by the netrunner's chair. At least the runner was down for the count. He wouldn't be waking up without a ripper's help.

I needed a plan.

I ran through different shootout scenarios in my head. If I took out the outer guards first, the ones inside could just barricade themselves and call for reinforcements.

So—different approach.

I crouched near the corner, peeking with a small handheld camera. The two guards stood at the end of the hallway, scanning for threats. If they had X-ray optics, they weren't using them.

Good.

I switched to the camera's infrared view. Their ice was standard but solid.

Amnesia. Memory Wipe. Puppet.

Couldn't hijack him outright—not yet. Had to weaken his defenses first.

First came Memory Wipe—the guard froze, then twitched violently.

"Post Three, Forty-Sixth Floor! Network attack, repeat, we're under attack!" his partner shouted into comms.

"Informing our netrunners," someone replied. "Assist the injured, hold your positions."

"Takero, you good?"

I heard the words—inside his head.

"Yeah…" I rasped. "Just need a second."

I walked into the monitoring room. Three arasaka grunts—one in a security suit, two from the reinforcement squads.

"Hey! Why'd you leave your station?" one of them asked sharply as I approached.

I activated a grenade.

Dropped the Puppet link half a second before detonation.

The explosion rocked the room. The hallway guard snapped his head toward the blast, just as I swung around the corner and put a round through the back of his skull.

One, two, three.

A sharp click, a jolt of recoil, and the delayed sound of shells hitting the floor. The Nue worked like a charm. Not my usual go-to, but it packed enough of a punch to chew through their armor. And thanks to the suppressor, I didn't set off the whole damn floor.

Still, reinforcements were inevitable.

I lobbed another grenade through the now-open monitoring room door—then another. My optics tagged four enemies inside, still dazed from the first explosion.

Two more blasts.

Confined space. Nowhere to hide.

I moved in right behind the shrapnel, already knowing where they'd be lying.

Seven more shots. Swapped mags.

The last enemy—the one stationed inside the server room—wasn't charging in. He was busy calling for help. I couldn't throw a grenade in there. Too much risk of frying the equipment.

Alright. He was waiting, shotgun ready. If I walked through that door, I'd take a faceful of buckshot.

So? I wouldn't be the one walking in.

I picked the least-mangled corpse from the monitoring room—one of the reinforcements—and ran a Puppet script. Then I hit the floor myself, lying among the bodies.

Seconds ticked by as I wrestled the dead man's implants into compliance. The body moved—jerky, uncoordinated, glitching. Vision kept flickering.

Didn't matter.

I guided the corpse to the server room door. Made it open it.

The security agent inside whipped his shotgun up.

"Adams? That you?" he asked, startled.

The corpse answered with a burst from its rifle.

But the agent was fast. Sandevistan.

And just like that, I lost the link.

Fuck. Fuck. FUCK!

He blew my puppet's head off in an instant.

And now? He was ready for me—and reinforcements were definitely inbound.

"Post Three, Forty-Sixth Floor! We're taking losses! Enemy's using control scripts! Request immediate backup!"

Think, V. Think.

He just burned his Sandevistan.

I hadn't used mine yet.

I flipped the switch.

Rushed the door, Nue already lined up.

First shot, second—

Kerenzikov!

The bastard still dodged. But I had eyes on him now.

I didn't have to kill him with bullets.

Memory Wipe. Short Circuit. System Reset.

I launched the scripts and dove back—just in time to hear the corridor behind me erupt in gunfire.

Reinforcements had arrived.

I threw myself forward instead.

The Arasaka agent was still spasming from my quickhacks. Finished him off, then locked the server room door with a magnet override.

It wouldn't hold them for long.

Didn't need to.

I sprinted to the netrunner's chair, yanked the cord from the back of his skull, and—

Fucking again!

Even a quick glance at the setup told me I was fucked. The hardware was locked down tighter than a corpo's credit account. Fucking biometrics. The chair, the ports—everything was keyed to the runner's DNA. If I sat in that thing now, best case? It'd knock me out cold. Worst case? It'd fry me like cheap meat on a street grill.

I could crack it—but that'd take time. And time? Not something I had. The guys outside were already lighting up the door, and soon, some techie, netrunner, or trigger-happy psycho with a breaching charge was gonna show up.

All this fucking effort… for nothing?!

Then, it hit me. A workaround. A way to get inside.

The netrunner was already jacked in. He was just unconscious. Normally, when I devour a mind, I rip the info straight from their head. But what if—what if—I did it differently? A fusion of devouring and puppeteering.

Instead of taking the data, I'd use the runner as a bridge. Merge into his neural pathways. Make his brain a fucking modem.

In theory, it should work.

In practice? Guess I'd fucking find out.

No time to think about the consequences. No time for a plan B. I plugged directly into his neural port.

And then, I started doing some truly fucked-up shit.

I dove into his mind—ripped apart the outer layers of his consciousness. But instead of consuming him, I tried to stitch us together like some psycho Nazi scientist. Meld our digital ghosts.

Turn this dying netrunner into a fucking access point.

I had seconds to pull it off.

Everything I had—everything—got thrown into the mix. My AI-powered abilities, my netrunning expertise, the stolen knowledge from Figure Skater. My brain pushed past its normal speed limits, firing faster than humanly possible.

And it fucking hurt.

For a few moments, I blacked out of the devouring state, nearly knocked loose by the agony. A migraine like my skull was splitting. My brain felt like it was boiling.

Like I was trying to shove my entire nervous system through the eye of a needle.

A needle heated to a thousand degrees.

No idea how long it lasted. No idea what the price was—on me, on him.

But then—

Something clicked.

The grotesque data-monster I'd created lurched to life.

And just like that, I had full fucking control of the hotel's subnet.

Not just access. Dominance.

The cameras flicked back on—feeding directly to me.

I switched to the hallway feed.

Aha.

Two techies, marching up with tools, ready to crack the door. Behind them? Seven fully geared-up security goons.

Too fucking bad for them.

I didn't even need to use separate quickhacks to weaken their ice—the whole system was mine.

One by one, I flipped their implants against them.

With just a single command one of them yanked the pin on his grenade.

Then another.

And another.

Within seconds, the hallway turned into a blender of fire, shrapnel, and screaming meat.

That problem? Handled.

Now, onto the real fight.

Time to burn through the Net and drag Lucy out. Then? Get the fuck out myself.