I exited out of the tunnel system, slid the manhole cover back into place, and headed for the seafood place. Feras sat next to the window, charming some poor waitress that didn't know what she was in for.

The waitress's eyes thinned when I sat down across from Feras. She shot several lingering looks at Feras, though eventually walked off. The grifter himself just sighed dramatically. "I thought it was zero hour."

I pulled out my deck, and set up the 'pencil' antenna. It was so freaking nerdy. I seriously loved the whole set up. "It is."

I pulled up toe programs and connected to the Rootkit hidden in the receptionist's terminal. With a single press of a button, I put my little tapper to work and sat back to watch the fireworks.

I zoomed in with the dual zoom augment of my eye, looking deep into the office. Several workers made frustrated expressions almost immediately. In just a matter of minutes, the frustration grew and grew, transforming to true anger.

Feras waved and summoned a sprite next to me, letting a cute baby fox hop up onto the table. I barely resisted the urge to stretch out and pet its head. It looked up at me with its massive eyes, looking as though it may cry.

Feras leaned forward and picked the baby fox up, cupping it in his arms. A moment later, the Aether trembled once more and a spell went off. "They look mad. That part of the plan?"

Must be some kinda vision spell? I watched the guy bite down into a- was that a shrimp burrito? Heresy! Ugh- I felt sick just looking at him. Where'd he even get the Rayn? He'd been living off my dime this whole damn time.

"Patience." I held up my hand. Days of work and planning all led up to this. I wouldn't ruin it by trying to rush.

Nearly ten minutes later, after several workers came to complain, the receptionist reached for her phone. I went to work on my deck, using the rootkit to trace the phone call. It was Artoras. Without a second's hesitation, I redirected and spoofed the phone call.

My phone started ringing. I made my voice slightly nasally and higher pitched. "This is Artoras Solutions, how may I help you?"

Steffany's voice came across the line. "Hi! I'm with Ajay Insurance. We're one of your clients."

"One moment please." I clacked around on my deck, making noise to just make noise. "Ah, Ajay Insurance. Yes, how can I help you?"

"Our Net connection is going haywire here. It's glitching out and flickering on and off. Can you send someone to take a look at it?" Across the street, Steffany started pacing with the phone held up to her ear.

"Of course, ma'am." I clicked around again and checked the name on the badge I stole. "Our technician, Seki Yusoko, has been dispatched. She'll be arriving shortly. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

Steffany let out a relieved sigh. "No. Thank you so much."

"No problem, ma'am." I hung up the phone and settled back into my chair. Just like that, I was in… well, maybe not 'just like that'. It was a long process to get here, but it'd hopefully all pay off in the end.

Feras glanced at me before looking out the window. Rain started to fall, and the drops lightly tapped across the neon-lit surface. "Could use some work."

I tugged at my shirt collar uncomfortably. "My specialty lies in subtlety in the first place."

Hopefully, the next one would be more in and out. Less week-long planning and more execution. Coming up with a workaround for every little bit of security was a draining process. Smash and grabs were so much easier.

"Still. If she was more attentive, she would recognize that your voice was stilted…" He shrugged. "I reckon that woman is in a world of her own though. She seemed like the type that spends more time reading romance novels than anything else."

"Chek? Why do you say that?"

He gave me a long, deep look. "The same reason I'd say you have no friends and are a loner based on your antagonistic attitude and mannerisms. It speaks of not being fully socialized in your youth…"

"Hurtful." I muttered.

He was fully back to his drained city dweller face. "Step one of the grift; know who you are conning. Steffany practically ate out of my hand when I acted the gentlemanly type that shows up in fiction. As for you? I haven't seen you even talk to anyone else if you can help it."

The silence between us grew. His words- he was right, which was the worst part. Mira, quite literally, was my only friend my age. Granted, it wasn't really my fault. I was too busy trying to stay alive… or was that just an excuse? I did enjoy being alone…

The silence turned slightly strangling. We both tactfully dropped the conversation and looked out the window. Time slowly ticked by. On the other side of the street, Ajay's employees just grew more and more frustrated.

Ding! Ding! Dong!

My alarm went off. I packed up my stuff and stood up. The Artoras uniform clung to me uncomfortably, though there was no denying it looked good. My bag shifted, letting me feeling the comforting weight of my tools. I threw the strap of the deck over my neck, letting the 'tome' hang at my waist.

I looked at my reflection of the mirror. Something was missing. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and settled my Slashers' hat onto my head. And, finally, the last part. I pulled the virtu-goggles out of my bag and threw them around my neck.

I looked every bit the corporate runner now. "How do I look?"

"Like an annoyance." He shooed me away from the table. Then, as if thinking better of the motion, he flashed that annoying boyish smile. "I'll call anything weird. Good luck, Zuku."

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"Thanks." No comment on his special attention to 'my' name.

Without further ado, I left the neo-seafood restaurant and headed across the street. I kept my head down, using my hat to block the cameras. I already had this place memorized inside and out thanks to Eidetic Schematic, so it wasn't difficult.

I worked my way through the building, having to take the stairs since the elevator was out of order. Steffany immediately noticed me and stood at attention just behind her desk. I made a subtle adjustment to how I held myself, taking a note from Feras's book.

"Oh! You're finally here." Her reaction was entirely different then when she met Feras. She had on that typical corporate drone mask, though hers showed several stress cracks.

"Nice. Now sell the part, and act completely disinterested in everything she says. You are superior to this plebian from a small corp." Feras's voice came across the comms. Ugh- back seat driving was the worse.

"Artoras IT specialist… What seems to be the problem?" I imitated the drone mask, trying my best to ignore his voice in my ear.

Steffany headed out of the desk area before turning back. "Oh! Right! C-can I see your badge? I need to add you to the system."

"Ugh- fine." I shot her an annoyed look and passed over the badge. I fully dove into the artificial confidence of a person from a bigger corp.

Inside though? Completely different story. I barely held myself back from a panic attack. This was the moment of truth right here. All my planning and setting up wouldn't mean anything if this failed. I could feel my heart jackhammering away, beating pure adrenaline through my system.

She grabbed it and inserted it into the black box. "J-just a moment."

Steffany moved back to her terminal and clicked around on it. After a couple of seconds, my tapper struck again. All the terminals in the room stuttered. Her corpo mask fully shattered, showing off the pure extent of her frustration.

It's a good thing Feras pointed out the IRF scanner. If he hadn't- well, I'd have to start talking myself out of a very uncomfortable conversation. I definitely didn't have the confidence to convince her I was Artoras even without the badge. This frontal stuff wasn't for me.

The woman looked between me and her terminal in a slightly confused daze. "You uh- erm… you look quite a bit y-younger than the image here."

Feras buzzed in my ear once more. "Put some pressure on her. She showed a weak will when I spoke to her. She'll crack under the stress and ignore her suspicions."

I followed his advice and leaned fully into corporate disdain of my lessers. "You probably can't afford it, but I had some work done… Oh, but I shouldn't brag… You want me to fix your Net issues, or what?"

"R-right." Steffany flinched and went back to work on the terminal. Then she pulled the badge back out and timidly handed it to me. "D-do you n-need anything else?"

I moved a hand to my chin and looked like I was thinking quite deeply. "Hmm… should probably start with the servers. Make sure it's not a city-side error."

"I-I'll take you to them." Steffany moved out from behind the desk and led me further into the office, passing several annoyed-looking workers.

I shifted and moved my head to hide my face from the cameras the best I could, disguising the act as if looking around the office. The servers were located right across the hall from the boss's office, on the backside of the entire space.

"Here they are-"

Ajay's door popped open and the man himself stepped out. "Steffany! When is-"

"Th-this is Miss Yusoko." Steffany motioned to me.

I felt a sensation akin to ants crawling across my skin as the guy looked me over. He put on what he probably thought was a charming smile, but really just made me want to leave. "Nova! It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Yusoko… was Jeff not in?"

"He's talking about Jeff Schrot. One of the lead IT specialists at Artoras. Takes care of all their premium clients." Feras quickly informed me.

I kept my expression neutral. "You mean Mr. Schrot? He was unfortunately already on call."

Whatever guard the guy had immediately dropped and he moved to the server door. It had full biometric locks, including print and retinal scanners. Not to mention the door itself was a heavy vault-like one. It would've been a pain to crack if I came in my usual way.

"Just let me know if you need anything, Miss. The sooner this issue is fixed, the sooner these losers can get back to work." He shot out a glare at his workers like they were mere pieces of trash swaying in the wind.

"Of course, sir." I held the dead drone smile and nodded politely. Corporate culture could be disgusting, but it was damn easy to imitate.

I wasted no time getting into the server room. Several server banks were set up along the walls, casting moody blue light everywhere as they ran. They stuttered harshly. I pulled open my tome- deck to check. The tapper just hit once more. Glad to see it was functioning exactly as I planned.

I moved over to a terminal in the room and flashed my Artoras badge over a scanner. The screen blinked a few times before letting me through the lock screen. Steffany gave me full admin permissions. Pulling the jack from my wrist, I shoved it into the small deck and then connected the deck's output jack into the server's terminal.

Before I did anything, I ran a diagnostic scan and set it up to loop on the main screen. Had to make it look like I was actually doing something in case someone decided to check up on me. Then I linked the virtu-goggles up to my deck and turned them on.

The goggles displayed the Augmented Reality of the Net that most runners looked at. I could still see reality, but there was a dark grid pattern laid over everything like some kind of retro outrun art.

Hmm… on second thought, it looked really similar to the places that I learned the Land Vehicles Perk and Net. This version was just way less defined then the interface's learning spaces had been. How strange.

Between the grid layer of the Net and real space sat the actual Net Architecture of Ajay Insurance. Ancient-looking stone work covered the place with a refined touch of a master. It looked like I stood in some kind of ancient castle. Whoever set this Net Architecture up definitely had a flair for style.

Bookshelves covered the walls, each of them filled to the brim with glowing books of various shapes and sizes. They reached far into a vaulted roof that was several times taller than the real size of the floor. Each book and tome glimmered with potential information.

A tall figure loomed in the doorway, fully visible through my virtu-goggles though not actually there in meatspace. It was a gnarled, twisted ooze roughly the shape of a person. It looked at me with two pinpoints of red. After a moment, the thing approached and bowed before me like I was a king. A golden crown appeared, gently dropping onto my head.

Every line and pattern overlaying my vision was bits and pieces of code set into a visual representation. Netrunners in this space ruled absolutely and could shift and twist everything in here at will if they were good enough. High-level runners were like the gods of this digital augmented world.

I was not a Netrunner. If anything, I was a tourist lost in another world of confusing—albeit pretty—grids and art. I could see how they could get addicted to this, though. It was so over the top and stylized, completely different from the real world.

The whole bowing figure and flare for the dramatic was just a visualization of the system accepting me as an admin. No clue who originally made the code to make all of this possible, but they had my thanks. It was far more interesting than just looking at lines of code and trying to figure out what was going on.

Before doing anything, I pulled up the Daemons information. A scroll flew over from one of the shelves, unraveling before me. It was a type called a Mimic. Extremely high-end, and definitely didn't belong here in a small time corp. Its primary tactic was copying the code of whatever came at it, and then sending it back.

Daemons themselves were interesting pieces of technology. They were half-AI, and usually set up to defend a system like loyal guard dogs. Extremely expensive, and the prices only spiked as they became more and more capable. They were just inside of legality, what with actual AI being banned ever since the K-10 Convention.

Seeing such a high-end daemon here? It just further pointed out that something suspicious was going on with this place. Not that it mattered. I was here for a gig, and it was really about time I got to it.

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