Chapter 36

"I'm online, the cameras will be under our control approx. now."

Lucy reported back to me the moment they couldn't pick me up with the cameras.

"Ugh. I could have handled it, they have no security at all, it's like they don't care if they get hacked."

Judy sounded a little frustrated at the lack of difficulty and grumbled just for the sake of grumbling.

"You're too hard on them Smarty, in fact we only found out about this place because of Regina, and how much money she poured in for it and how many strings she pulled..."

Lucy spoke in a slightly reproachful tone.

"Stop talking, you're out there having fun with your Raner stuff, Cherry was having fun while we were driving, Tihonya is about to go have fun, and I'm actually jealous."

"I hope there's no holiday on your street after all, and we'll pay you off with a very nice shooting gallery that we'll go to at the end of the first week of assignments as a team."

"Pfft!"

"Don't snort, I heard during a lecture at Arasaki Academy that the corporations have a very cool shooting range where they train their employees in near combat situations, a combination of Braine, virtual and regular shooting ranges. If you're good, I'll try to find out more from her, and then we'll find out through Rjina where we can find such a place without contacting the corporations."

"And it sounds interesting..."

"Well, even Judy's gonna be interested in this, and I want to shoot! I really do!"

"What do you want me to do, shoot, or, say, make real ramen instead of that fast food crap?"

"Can you do that?!"

"Well, finding a recipe isn't a problem for me..."

I shrugged.

"And even though I can't count on the excellent results of the best restaurants for the elite, I think I'll do much better than in third-rate eateries.

"All right, I'll keep quiet and stay quiet, but you owe me pork ramen!"

"It will be."

"And I want a mega large portion!"

"There will be..."

"Okay..."

Becky's voice was radiant with pleasure. It wasn't hard to please Maniac, though.

"And yes, you have a call sign now."

"Hmm?"

"Since you're so addicted to food that you'd do anything for it, you're now a Glutton."

"Hey!"

"Enough talk, we have the map of the lab building and facilities, handing it over to Tikhona..."

"Yeah, you'll have a nickname, too. but I can't think of anything but Snowflake. Map's in, I'm on my way."

"Pfft! Very original! By the way, Tihonja, I got a call from Kiwi asking if we need another roner..."

I sighed.

"What do you think, Snowflake?"

"Well, I realize this may be a bit redundant, but she's my mentor... it's, uh. it's hard to just say no to her."

"Okay, okay, no specifics in conversations, just general phrases and call signs."

I slowly approached the alleyway where the only known entrance to the lab was and activated the sandi and walked quickly through it, only to find myself at an open garage that was filled with thugs pretending to be repairing a car. Naturally the trio of idiots were immediately stunned, after which they were inserted with program slivers from Lucy. After which I shut off the sandi.

"Snowflake work..."

"I see three signals..."

There was anxiety and some tension in Lucy's voice.

"Regarding your question... is there any particular reason why you're willing to fit in for her? Well, except for the fact that she's supposedly your mentor."

"What do you mean?"

Lucy's voice became more strained.

"What he means is that we are professional solos after all, and even though our first job happened rather spontaneously..."

Judy decided to take a theatrical pause, but Panam did not support her in this endeavor and finished for her.

"But do you really think that after the first job we didn't buy and fixer a dossier on you and your entire team?"

"Yeah, girlfriend. screwed. You're right, she's not exactly a Kiwi student..."

"Gluttony, is there something you don't understand about call signs? Just because we don't get busted doesn't mean we don't have to be careful."

"Gluttony..."

"Tz... Snowflake, Tycho, I didn't agree to that call sign... Fuck. they've already found out a lot anyway and keeping quiet will only turn them against us. Do you want that?"

The last question was clearly addressed to Lucy.

"I... no."

"So?"

Judy decided to hurry them up. I calmly went to the only door that led downstairs, opened it carefully and quietly, and then started slowly downstairs. I listened to the conversation.

"Anyway. Didn't Quiet say he went to a cool academy?"

"Yeah..."

I didn't make a secret of it.

"... Snowflake was sort of schooled too, only there instead of schooling they had spartan laws and trained them to do the dirty work. She was one of the few who survived. managed to escape. but she had zero socialization. Have you read the very old Mowgli story?"

"No..."

This was uttered by all the girls at the same time, and I even paused and raised my eyebrows in surprise.

"Let's say..."

My voice became extremely quiet and cautious, and I even stopped myself from falling down the stairs in surprise. It's not every day you find out that a small ulcer obsessed with weapons... No, I'd have to be more specific.

"...you mean you've read it?"

There was just a sea of skepticism in my voice, which clearly didn't go unnoticed.

"Hey, I actually really like to read! Of course I don't have enough money for paper books in my life, at least I thought so until I found out that you eat natural food on a regular basis, so if I work at your pace maybe I'll have money for paper books, but I can pay for my own access to an online library!"

I shook my head.

"The nickname Glutton is no longer valid, you are now Scribe."

"А?"

"Come on... you read books. you're the second person I know who does it. The first was my mom, who instilled that love in me."

And it was true, I loved reading books in my previous life, and David read books too, though not in very large quantities, and he clearly preferred entertaining stories about powerful solos who bend the world with their pathos.

Do I judge him for such tastes?

No.

In my previous life, at a certain point in my life, I got hooked on Dontsova, although before that I considered it a tabloid read not even suitable for wiping ass in the toilet, the leaves of these books are too uncomfortable for that. So there are different moments in life, and in these different moments different types of literature can come in. He might eventually read something serious...

"So now you're a Bookwoman. And that's non-negotiable. As for where you started and why you brought it up... You mean to say that she was raised by wolves in the wild and mentored by Snowflake's mentor, I assume she was socializing her?

"Well, as far as she could do it herself, but yeah..."

"I graduated. and yes, she was the one who introduced me to society. I owe her. but she's very distrustful and always told me not to trust anyone. Not even her. Anyway, I just want to show her that it's okay to trust people."

I sighed.

"Let's discuss this a little later... after the assignment, I'll contact the fixer and order an expanded file on your mentor. If she's up to snuff, at least I'll give her a chance to work with us. I can't promise that she'll be on the team, but she'll have a chance to work with us..."

"Thank you..."

"You're welcome..."

I shook my head and continued my descent downward.

"There's four thugs in the room. And there are no doors or anything to stop the sounds from spreading, so keep it quiet unless you want five more people to come running..."

I sighed.

"Mm..."

The door opened quietly and I activated the sandi, only to have it deactivated after two seconds of real time. All of the opponents were gently placed on the floor, lucky for me they were in the center of the room playing cards. They were using some old boxes as chairs and a bigger box as a table.

"Snowflake..."

"Working... she started hacking again."

"There's a hotspot nearby, can you put a chip in it too?"

Judy had marked on my map where the access point would be, so I calmly walked over to it and waited for her to open the door for me and went inside and plugged the splinter into the socket.

"May we be rich..."

"Hmm?"

"We were lucky, this lab had just sold its goods, and its accounts were full of bucks, so to spend it all offshore and we are rich, I would even say very rich. Apparently, it was a pretty big shipment."

"Can you find out who did the buying and also try to find out about other labs?"

"There's definitely nothing here about the others, but I'll get you a list of buyers."

"I'll have to get this list to the fixer, have him send the Sixers out to clean up these tails."

"Uh-huh...

I stepped out of the small room and continued on my way through the drug lab's hideout. There were only two things that helped me keep my composure and not kill every thug I saw. The first was that I could make money off of them, which Lucy was doing while Judy led me around the building, and the second was that they would all die anyway, because after I planted the bomb, I would go back and kill them, just so they wouldn't suffer...

Except that they'll die after we've gotten everything we need from them...

I sighed.

"Two more."

"Got it..."

Sandi is active again and I calmly make my way into the room and knock out two more by putting slivers in them.

"Man, at this rate, we need another runner! I just can't keep up with the data coming in! Just slow down a little bit!"

Inhale... exhale.

Now, that's a dangerous thing to do...

"How sure are you about her?"

"А?"

"In his mentor..."

"Well. that's enough."

"Can you set up a remote contact and delegate some tasks to her?"

"Yeah..."

"Put it together."

"Quiet..."

"I'll take responsibility. We just can't stay here too long. We don't have a lot of information under control and at any moment there could be a shift for these thugs, or an unscheduled shipment of reagents or some other shit..."

"Yes, I can."

"Quiet..."

"Good girl, I'm not thrilled about it myself, but on the other hand, we only hired Snowflake for her first job on the recommendation of Bookwoman. So we'll give her a first chance in advance, if I may say so... All right, that's enough talk, Snowflake, put her through."

A couple seconds passed and I heard a slightly disgruntled voice.

"I'm listening."

"All right, listen up and don't interrupt-- you were recommended by Snowflake.

A sarcastic snort was heard from the other side.

"Yes, yes, that's how unoriginal I am... You will work remotely, communication only by call signs, I'm Quiet, the girls you know are Snowflake and Bookwoman, my partners are Cherry and Smarty. Your job is to hack into the data I give you access to. Download information on "shiny things" is paramount, labs, customers, anything you can find. If there's time, hack into personal accounts and offshore withdrawals, Snowflake will give you an account to make the final withdrawal. If you work well, you and Snowflake will get large shares of these credits, as it was your direct labor that earned them. Are the terms clear?"

"Yeah..."

"Okay, while you're working with us, you're temporarily responding to the call sign Mentor. Now get to work, because I've moved on, and yes, there are two laptops here, so now the information from them will flow into the general stream..."

And I put two slivers into the laptops, which made Lucy howl, and Kiwi quacked in surprise. Apparently, she had already been given access to the network where her student was working and had seen the amount of work to be done.