Chapter 4 - No Rest For The Wicked

Discarded Metal

Chapter 4 - No Rest For The Wicked

"Money doesn't grow on trees..."

It's night time in New Paris and the city looks more alive than during the day, especially in the commons. Most of the people gather around several night clubs and bars, HellsBells is the favorite spot for hackers. 

The place is an old assembly line that went bankrupt, bought by a gang and recycled into a club. 

At the front there's a big parking lot surrounded by a wall with a single gate to get in. At the back there are loading bays that were used for shipping products, but now they are used as operation rooms and tech hacking workshops. 

Most of the activities going on there are illegal but it's one of the hot spots in the commons to get cheap implants and tech. 

It's 11 pm and like every night the place is packed, cars are checked by a group of guards at the gate, a few Eurodollars at the entrance and you're in. 

A car with two men passes the gate and stops at a spot in the parking lot. They get out of the car and hurry to the front double door. 

The first man is a tall thin man in his mid twenties, wearing large pants with a hoodie covering his head. 

He stops in front of a strong man with cybernetic eyes implant guarding the door. 

"Oy! Kent! Is she in?" He asks the guard as he knows him for a long time. 

The guard turns to him and taps his shoulder to acknowledge him, his eyes scan the second guy. 

"Who's that?" Kent asks back. 

The second man wears a suit and looks nervous as if he is completely out of place. 

"A client." The young man says as he passes through the door. Kent keeps scanning the man in the suit as he hesitantly follows through the door. 

The loud beats of techno music can be heard from outside, they walk through a small corridor with open doorways at the end. 

People come and go through the corridor, sometimes bumping into each other. 

The young man pushes through followed by the nervous guy in the suit. 

Inside, the main room is full of people dancing, the whole room is lit with neons and lasers following the beats of the music. 

The young guy starts dancing as he pushes through the crowd, the guy in the suit tries to follow him through. 

They finally reach the back wall, the young guy leads the way through a door that leads to an area with less people. 

It's a smaller area with a long bar against one of the walls and several high tables and high stools. There are several holographic screens showing a cage fight, several people are watching and cheering. 

The young guy keeps walking through the whole room and passes through an arch doorway on the back wall. 

The man in the suit follows him closely. 

The next room opens up to the loading bays. From inside it looks like a long corridor with doors giving access to the bays. Some bays have glass walls that let people see what happens inside and others are more private. 

The young man nods at some regulars as he keeps walking followed closely by the guy in the suit. 

They enter in one of the private bays, half of the room is a circular sofa with a small round table in the middle. The other half looks like a small surgery room with a workshop table and lots of screens. 

A young woman is sitting on the sofa, she has short black hair and is wearing a small vest with black military pants. 

She gives a sign to the young man to come to sit with her, he taps the shoulder of the man in the suit and they move to sit with her. 

"So, you are the guy who wants out?" She asks the man in the suit. 

The man nods nervously. 

She turns to the young man who puts a small device on the table. 

"Pulse told you that as long as you stay close to this device, they can't track you." She says. 

Pulse nods, the guy in the suit tries to take a deep breath to calm himself before talking. 

"Are you sure you can do it?" He asks her. 

She sighs as she scans him from head to toes, her eyes implant emitting rays of lights that sweep through his whole body. 

"You aren't heavily modified, it should be easy." she says with confidence. 

The guy in the suit holds his head in his hands. 

"You sure you can modify them so they can't track me anymore?" He asks. 

"As long as you have the Eddies (Eurodollars), I can do anything." She says. 

The man in the suit takes out a shard and puts it on the table. Pulse grabs it and slots it behind his ear, in a cyberdeck implanted on his skull. 

After a few seconds, he nods at her. 

She takes a device from under the table and puts it on it. The device is a small cube with several ports on it. 

"Jack in." She orders the guy in the suit. 

He pulls a cable from his hand and hesitantly Jack's it in the device. The young woman pulls a cable from behind her ear and Jack's it in. 

"You will have to accept a file named GForce, it's my codename." She says. 

The man in the suit nods, his eyes starting to emit a soft light indicating that he is accessing files from his Neural connection with the device on the table. 

"It's done… You look so young… Are you sure you know what you are doing?" he asks nervously. 

"Shut up already, she will be done in no time." Pulse says. 

GForce keeps silent as she starts accessing his Neural implant through the device. 

"I'm going to have to crack the protection, so you better relax." she says. 

The man in the suit lets out a heavy sigh as he tries to make himself comfortable on the sofa. 

The whole room goes silent and she dives in. 

Her vision slowly displays the network of implants the man has installed in him and in no time she localizes the protection she needs to crack. She starts cracking the protection. 

Corporation's techs all have different protections and protocols according to the type of implants and the manufacturer. 

This guy works for Psysoft, a software corporation, their protections are usually top notch but they do not manufacture hardware. Gloria can easily find exploits she can use within the hardware itself. 

After what feels like hours, she finally cracks the protection. 

"I'm in." She says. "Now relax, all I have to do is return all protocols to you and get rid of their trackers." She continues. 

"Welcome to the free world." Pulse says. 

Gloria proceeds and gets rid of all the trackers within the man's implants, making sure that his implants are free to use only by him. 

"I'm done, I will log off from your network, reboot and see the change." she says. 

She unplugs from the device and the man does the same. She stands up and goes to grab three bottles of beer in a small fridge in the corner of the room. 

She puts them on the small table as the man is rebooting his system, she sits back on the sofa. 

The man's eyes emit a few blinking lights that indicate the rebooting is done. 

Pulse grabs the small device they were using to cloak the signals emitted by the man's implants, turns it off and puts it in his pocket. 

The man looks relieved. 

"Damn, it worked… I'm free!" He says with excitement. 

"Not so fast." Gloria says, sending shivers in the man's spine. 

"What? What do you mean?" He stutters. 

"I need you to work for us." She says. 

"Work for you? I paid you! What the fuck you want?" He protests. 

Pulse slowly pulls out a Militech Avenger from under his hoodie and points it on the man's belly. 

"Shhh, just listen to the girl." he says as he puts his arm on the man's shoulder and pretends to relax. 

The man in the suit starts regretting his decision but he has no other choices than listening now. 

"I have control of your implants and I need an insider for a job, if you do that for me, you can earn your freedom." Gloria says with her arms crossed against her chest. 

"Shit! What bloody job?" He asks. 

"It's easy, you just need to go back to work next week and connect to the Psysoft network like you did everyday." She explains. 

"Is that all?" He asks nervously. 

Gloria nods and waits for the man's reaction. 

The man rubs his hair nervously as he ponders her request. 

"Damn… I'm screwed… Do I have a choice?" He asks. 

Gloria says nothing but shakes her head hinting at a no. 

The man looks at Pulse holding the gun towards his belly and starts to show signs of acceptance of his fate. 

"You only need me to jack in and I'm free?" He asks. 

"That's right." She says. 

"OK, I will do it…" he says. 

"Good man, here have a drink, relax now." Pulse says as he puts back his gun under his hoodie and pushes one of the beers in the man's direction. 

The man hesitantly grabs the beer and pauses before opening it. 

"Is it going to blow at my face when I open it?" He asks. 

Gloria and Pulse start laughing as they open their bottles and start drinking. The man opens his bottle and hesitantly takes a sip. 

"Boom!" Pulse shouts to scare the man. 

The man barfs and spills some of his beer on the small table. 

"Damn! You bloody hackers!" he says angrily. 

Gloria stands up while laughing and walks out the door. Pulse drinks up his beer and puts the empty bottle on the small table. 

"Contact us before you get connected at work next week." He says. "Enjoy your night here for now, it's on us." He continues as he stands up and walks to the door, holding it for the man in the suit. 

They get out of the room. 

After establishing themselves as a strong group of hackers in the commons, BinaryGhosts was ready to take on the corporate world. 

Gloria's methods could be questionable but none inside her group would ever question her, 19 years old and she was flying high. 

Maybe too high…