Birth of a Legend: Chapter 5

Chapter 5

I took the long way to the corpo's apartment. Instead of the shorter route though Heywood, I took the route through the City Center. Driving through Valentinos territory while riding something marked with Claws colors would just be asking for trouble that I don't want. Sure, I could explain that I stole it and get some measure of respect. But that's only if they didn't just shoot me first on principle. Valentinos might not be at war with the Tyger Claws but that didn't mean they'd let a Claw wander their territory freely.

It didn't take me too long to get close to the apartment I was after. I stopped about two blocks away and ditched the motorcycle. I had no idea if there were any trackers or anything attached to it. So, as much as I would love to just keep it, I couldn't risk it leading the Tyger Claws right to my doorstep or even giving them a hint of who I was. My safety was worth a two block walk.

Getting in the building and to the elevator was easy. It was a corpo building so the security was all automated. As long as I didn't do something gonk, like try to break into an apartment using force or the wrong code, the robots no doubt hidden away would come out and flatline me in an instant. Sure, I had a few new guns and could probably take out a few, but a building like this could have dozens. Like fuck am I messing with them!

There was one thing I payed very close attention to as I made my way inside. The security cameras. I watched them closely and made sure they were looking away from me before I made any move. There were surprisingly few between me and the elevator but I guess that was to be expected with the other security the place most likely had hidden.

It took a few minutes to reach the elevator doors since I was avoiding the cameras as much as I could. I double-checked the floor number, seventeen. Not quite the top floor but close enough to suggest this corpo was pretty high up in whatever department or corp he worked for. That was good, if he really was keeping most of his pay as cash then there should be quite a nice bit of it to steal.

Once I arrived at floor seventeen, I made my way directly to the door for the apartment I wanted. Once there I paused. This was the moment of truth and I was honestly wondering if I'd lost my mind. I was about to use the info I got off a corpse to break into an unknown corpo's apartment to rob him blind. If this code was wrong it would instantly set off the buildings security and robots would come pouring out from god knows where to flatline me.

“No risk, no reward.”

I take a few deep breaths and psyche myself up.

“Seven, three, nine, one... What is this guy a two-year-old with a code like that?”

Yes, I'm talking to myself. I can't help it. The silence was getting to me and adding to my fear. That fear quickly changed into elation when the door to the apartment beeped and opened wide. I couldn't keep the shit eating grin off of my face as I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.

“Fuck yes.”

This is the first time I've been inside of an apartment this fucking nice. Seriously. I can see clean walls, nice art, comfortable looking furniture, and everything is gleaming like it's brand new. Fuck, even the bottles of water sitting around are the most expensive brands of pure water. Fuck it, I'm stealing all of his water too. At least the unopened ones. In fact, I make my way over to his fridge and check out what's inside. Yeah, I'm stealing all of his unopened food too. This dude spends more money on food and drinks than I spend on my rip-off rent.

“Fuck it. If it's not nailed down, I'm stealing it. At least, as much as I can carry.”

Lucky for me, food and drinks weigh nothing inside of my inventory so it all disappears into that void space as fast as I can grab it. I also keep an eye out for anything else that might be of interest that I don't think could be tracked. Which is why I'm not taking the guys home computer. I'd be willing to bet my left nut that it's got all kinds of trackers and tracers all over it. Corpos are paranoid like that.

When I step into the apartment's bedroom I come to a complete stop and stare. This fucker is a brain potato! No wonder he wants all his pay in cash. Fuck. I hope there's some left and he hasn't spent all of it on these fucking braindances in here. I can see a high quality looking viewer and a literal ton of BDs laying around. As I look I notice a few that aren't as 'nice' looking and grimace, “Fuck, XBDs. Sick bastard.”

I ignored all that shit and made my way over to a painting on a wall. I pulled on it and it swung open to reveal a safe, “What a cliché.”

Seriously, a safe behind a painting? Might as well just leave the safe out in plain sight. Especially if he's not going to bother putting it behind a decent looking painting. Whatever. I double check the code for the safe and take a deep breath to calm the sudden surge of adrenaline that's making my hands shake. If this works I should be looking at a bonanza. If it doesn't I'm in deep fucking shit. Cylon's and robots will swarm this place and flatline me in a heartbeat.

I very carefully start typing in the ten digit code on the keypad of the safe. The dude has a four digit pattern code on his main door but a ten digit random looking code on his safe. Weirdly different levels of security going on there. I mean, if I knew shit about cracking computers and stuff I'd totally steal his computer rig to take home. That thing was top of the line and had to run tens of thousands of eddies. Not to mention that despite the art in the place not being something I enjoyed, it had to run even more eddies. Seriously, this place was wall-to-wall money and only guarded with a four digit code on his door.

That thought makes me even more excited as I press the last digit of the code. If he was only protecting hundreds of thousands with a four digit code, how much was he protecting with a ten digit code? The safe door lets out a series of quick beeps before I hear a click and the door opens a little. I quickly grip the edge and swing the door open wider. As I catch my first glance inside of the safe, I freeze and stare with my jaw hanging open.

The first thing I can see is a literal wall of eddies. Cash isn't something that's seen very often these days, but it does still exist and has its uses. With a shaking hand, I gently reach out and pull free a single stack of cash. The top bill is labeled with a pretty one hundred. I gently ripple the bills and see that every single one is a one hundred Eurodollar bill. A full stack of one hundred bills for a total of ten thousand eddies. A quick count shows ten stacks in front and I can see more behind the stack I removed. One hundred thousand eddies per row... how many rows?

I can't stop myself from grinning brightly as I start pulling stacks of bills out of the safe and dropping them into my inventory. I constantly watch as I get notifications of gaining ten thousand eddies every time I do. My balance rapidly swelling as I drain the safe. I remove four full rows, four hundred thousand eddies, and then a few extra stacks for a grand total of four hundred and forty thousand eddies.

But that wasn't all! Once the eddies were out I could spot some extra stuff that had been hidden behind the cash. First I grab the gun and grin brightly as I look it over. According to my inventory it's a Militech M-76E Omaha. The Omaha is a very powerful tech pistol that uses electromag rail tech to launch solid metal projectiles at deadly velocities. Even better, every single pull of the trigger on this thing fires not one, not two, but three projectiles with tremendous force. Even even better, if I pull the trigger half-way and hold it, I can charge the pistols capacitors and fire it with even more power, enough to pierce through concrete walls.

Hell, on top of all of that, this thing looks like its been heavily modded. I'm not entirely sure how but I can read over that later by looking more closely at it in my inventory. For now there's more goodies to steal in the safe. I grab a stack of credcips and toss them inside of my inventory and nearly have a heart attack as I watch my balance swell. The cash was chump change compared to what was on those cards! Each one added a quarter of a million eddies to my balance and there were five of them! Nearly two million eddies all told! FUCK, I'm loaded!

I laugh happily and grab what's left in the safe, a few datashards I'll read later and a glass container of some kind that looks empty. It's gotta be worth something with it being in the safe and all. With the saf empty, I use a cloth to wipe down all of my finger prints, should have worn fucking gloves, amateur move. I go through the apartment to wide down every surface and quickly exit the apartment when I'm done. I have got to get out of this place and head home.

Getting out took just as long as getting in did since I had to avoid the cameras just like before. I didn't have any chrome to hide my face from them like a high class solo would. Though, after today, I fully intended to head to a ripper doc and get myself some excellent pieces of tech to help me out. Chrome, weapons, and armor were all available for the right price. With one point six million eddies to my name, I could afford that price.

Once I was free of the apartment building, my system pinged me with a mission complete message and gave me a chunk of experience that filled the bar and I finally leveled up for the first time. I couldn't help feeling extremely excited as I opened the system and began looking into what I'd gained. I didn't gain a huge amount, but it was something. I'd earned one attribute point and one perk point. That was it. My health didn't even increase or anything. Which sucked but it wasn't enough to bring my mood down. I'll take a deeper look into what I want to do with them at home.

I started walking back toward the motorcycle. It was still sitting where I'd left it, guess I was the only guy gonk enough to steal a Tyger Claws bike. I hopped on the powerful machine and made my way back through the city center, using the circle of the corporate plaza, to make my way near the northside of The Glen in Heywood. It was as close to home as I could get on the bike and left me with only a kilometer or two to walk.

Once I ditched the bike, again, I started walking and decided to take a closer look at my spoils. I started with my new favorite baby, the Omaha. This thing was a monster thanks to the expensive mods the corpo put on it. Increased firepower was just the most basic upgrade. The biggie was that the pistol would fire four slugs at once instead of the standard three of a base Omaha. Which got even more scary when it was charged up. Instead of the standard short charge that would increase the power of the shots, this one would not only increase power but would double tap, firing eight projectiles instead of four. Lastly, it had an extended magazine holding twelve shots. So, if he fully unloaded the pistol he would be firing forty-eight projectiles.

So, yeah, this was definitely my new favorite gun. I made sure to equip it to the very top slot in my inventory so it would always be first. I drew and holstered it a few times to get used to its weight in my hand. I so wanted to fire off a few shots but that would be asking for trouble. As it was, messing around like this on the seemingly empty streets was the best I could do. I'll head down to a Second Amendment store and use one of their firing ranges to practice with it later. Honestly, I probably should have done that before. Live and learn I guess. It's not like I'm some super well trained combat genius or anything. I'm flying by the seat of my pants and hoping I don't do anything gonk enough to get me ventilated.

With my new Omaha put away, I start looking over the other little bits I got at the end. The first tings I check are the datashards. The first is just banking information, deposits, withdrawals and so on. Nothing I could actually use so I trashed it. The second was slightly interesting in that it showed the corpo I robbed, Daniel, was exchanging steamy messages with some chick named Sandra. Trashed.

The third I checked was just a set of coordinates with no other information. Intriguing and possibly a way to get more swag. Or a potential trap. I'll only check it out after some upgrades just to keep safe. The last shard was the only one that I couldn't read. According to my system I either need to have twenty Intelligence or slot it into my neuroport to interact with it the 'proper' way. No way in fuck am I jamming an unknown shard into my head.

I finally turned to the last item, the empty looking glass cylinder. As soon as I read the description, I froze in place and stared in absolute horror.

Self-Replicating Nanite Storage Container

This storage container holds within it a single self-replicating nanite developed by Night Corp in conjunction with Arasaka. It was designed to be controlled by a specifically created Artificial Intelligence program that was painstakingly crafted to be limited in an effort to keep it from potentially going rogue.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“FUCK!”

This was not good. So very very very not good. I could feel a panic attack coming on as I continued to stare in horror at what I'd just read. Self-replicating nanites were so illegal that even just a hint of someone even trying to make one would lead to EVERY FUCKING ONE killing that someone! And now here I was with one! What the fuck man?!

My first instinct is to throw it away and forget I ever saw it. However, I quickly crush that thought. If this thing got loose and began replicating it could quickly lead to a serious grey goo situation and literally lead to the end of the world. That's why they were so goddamned illegal.

Nanites by themselves weren't actually much of an issue. Hell, they were downright necessary in modern life. Every time someone got some chrome they were exposed to some nanites. It all depended on what kind of chrome someone got. For some, like small modifications such as a Smart Link, they were mostly used to rapidly heal after the operation. For major modifications the nanites are injected and provided raw materials so they can perform their job. Then they are either used as part of the materials or self destruct and are recycled by the body.

After all, it's not like a ripper doc was going to flay someone open to line their bones with metal to increase their durability. It would take months, if not longer, for something like that to be done manually without the use of nanotechnology. So, yeah, nanites were available everywhere and to all Ripper Doc's and anyone getting chrome. But every last one of those nanites did its job and died. This nanite, on the other hand, would make more and more of itself and expand exponentially until it devoured the entire planet and everything on it. This was the single most dangerous thing on this planet. Forget nukes, even if the whole world was nuked it would recover in a few millennia. Nanites would devour it until nothing remained.

What the fuck am I going to do with this thing? I have no idea so, for now, it's going to hide in my inventory until I know more. Shit. I need to be extra careful. I'm certain the corpo I robbed stole it from his job. Wish I'd paid more attention to which corp he worked for.

Oh. Fuck.

I looked at the limit locked datashard and grim grimaced. What are the odds that my luck is so terrible that the datashard contained the AI meant to control the nanite? Yeah, no way in fuck was I ever letting that thing anywhere near my skull! Corps were known to use AI but they were supposed to be 'restricted' after the Fourth Corporate War back in the mid twenty-twenties. Around the time the old Arasaka building got nuked by that psychopath Johhny Silverhand. Well, at least his music was still good.

I continued making my way back home. I had rent to pay and as much as I wanted to snag a new apartment, I couldn't risk it. Not yet. One point six million was a decent amount of money but I needed some serious gear if I wanted to walk the path of a solo. The system would help make me stronger over time, but right now I was still a mostly normal guy and needed time to get to the pinnacle of strength. I'll start that journey by spending my points when I get home.

----Line Break----

(BD – Short for braindance. A Braindance is the recording and playback of someone's experience including physical sensations, emotions, and thoughts.

XBD – Short for Extreme Braindance. The ugly side of BD's that usually involve things such as violence, torture, and rape. Highly illegal to make and own.

Cylon – Corporate security officer.)