Chapter 8 - Behind the Code

Discarded metal 

Chapter 8 - Behind the Code

"Crack the code, get the secrets."

Gloria wakes up, still seated at the desk. 

The screen in front of her is off, the machines connected to it are also off. 

"I don't remember turning anything off…" She thinks to herself. 

She turns all the machines back on, lights flicker and the screen is back on. 

She stares at the screen in awe as she sees that all attempts to crack the encryption had failed, nothing seems to be able to go through. 

"That's wrong… This is not a regular file… What are they hiding?" She says out loud. 

She stands up from the desk and starts pacing back and forth in the room. 

"More power… I need more power…" She thinks out loud. 

She pushes behind her ear and a call opens. 

"Pulse, I need more power to crack that file, I really think we scored big time, I tried every code cracker I have and nothing went through." She says. 

"Slow down, G, nothing went through at all?" Pulse asks. 

"Nothing at all… Not only did nothing go through but it caused a power surge that shut down everything here…" She says. 

"We need to invest, boss, if it's really that big maybe we should gather the crew." Pulse suggests. 

"Find us a place and call for a meeting, send me the dets when you are done." She says and closes the call. 

She gets back to sit at the desk and stares at the screen again. 

"What's in there?" She asks herself. 

She turns off the machines and unslots the shard. She stares at it for a while before putting it in her jacket. 

"Damn… I'm still wearing these corpo's rags…" She says as she gets up from the desk. 

She walks through the door and is now inside the main room of the warehouse, her motorbike is waiting in a corner. 

She gets on it and puts her hand on the control panel, it lights up instantly and the engine starts. 

The front door of the warehouse opens automatically and her bike dashed out. 

She rides through the streets of the commons, the familiar scenery of street vendors and random pedestrians. 

The bike blasts on the road, speeding through the morning traffic. 

She finally arrives at an open parking lot surrounded by small buildings. 

She parks her bike in front of the door of a small apartment. 

It's a small apartment complex composed of several cheap rent flats. Only a few cars parked in the parking lot indicates that it's a pretty discreet place. 

Gloria enters her apartment, she passes a small living room with a circular sofa surrounding a holoscreen and enters a small bedroom. 

She drops her corpo jacket on the sofa and lets out a sigh. 

"Screw these clothes… How can they wear this all day long…" She complains as she takes her skirt off, kicking her high heels away. 

She let herself fall on her bed, wearing a sports bra and assorted underwear. 

"Screen on." She says and an image flickers against the wall. 

"News channel." She says. 

The image stabilizes and a female news anchor appears on the screen. 

"Psysoft hasn't made any comments about the nature of the theft…" 

Gloria smiles. 

"Of course, they haven't…" She says out loud. 

The news anchor moves on to other news. 

Gloria makes herself comfortable, puts her neural implant on silent and slowly falls asleep. 

She wakes up fully rested in the morning but realizes she has several miss calls from Pulse. 

She stands up from the bed and heads to the small bathroom. As she starts the shower, she calls Pulse. 

"Boss, where did you disappear last night?" He asks. 

"Can I have a private life? Or you can't live without mommy?" She answers sarcastically. 

"Screw you! I worked my ass off! The crew meets tonight, I got us a new place." He says. 

She gets under the running water of the shower. 

"Good boy, mommy is pleased, send me a GPS location." She says as she starts washing herself. 

GPS marker received. 

"See you tonight." Pulse says as he ends the call. 

Gloria finishes her shower and wears her clothes. Tight leather pants with combat boots, a leather jacket over a tight tank top. 

She ties her hair on the side, showing a shaved side with metal plates on her skull. Her neural implants are visible, LED lights blinking at all times. 

She checks the corpo jacket left on her bed and takes out the shard from the inside pocket. She sits on her bed and stares at it. 

"I'm gonna pierce your protection…" She says as she puts it inside her leather jacket. 

She heads out and walks to her bike, puts her hand on the control panel. 

"Marcus shop." She says. 

The screen on the bike shows an holographic map of the city and the way to get to her destination. 

She pulls the throttle and the bike dashes out of the parking lot. She speeds her way through the streets of the commons. 

In no time, she arrives at Marcus' shop, she stops her bike and enters. 

She goes through the same ritual as always to get to Marcus' office. 

Marcus welcomes her. 

"Hey, G, what brings you here?" He asks her. 

"Marcus, I have something I want you to check." She says as she tosses the shard on his desk. 

"Hmmm…" Marcus grabs the shard and slots it on the holoscreen on his desk. 

The screen flickers a bit and he starts browsing while making muffled noises. 

"Hmmm…" He doesn't say more. 

"So? What do you think?" She asks him as she leans against his desk. 

"Psysoft, Hu? I have never seen anything encrypted like that before…" He says while he keeps staring at the screen. 

"Are you selling?" He asks. 

"No, I will crack it, I have to." She answers. 

"You sure that's what you want? You never know what it might be…" He says as he turns his head to look at her. 

"It is the weirdest file I found in their vault, there's no way that it isn't valuable." She says. 

Marcus softly nods and turns back to the screen, he keeps checking the encrypted file. 

"Psysoft hasn't made any public announcements, that's suspicious enough. You have to be careful who you show this to, they probably have a recovery team working on it." He says. 

She nods and sits across from him. 

"I will need more power if I want to crack it…" She says. 

"Yeah, I know some goons… But they might double cross you when they can." Marcus says. 

"I know the type, send the dets anyway, I can't afford to be picky…" She says. 

He nods at her. 

Contact received. 

Marcus unslots the shard and hands it back to Gloria. She nods, grabs it as she stands up and leaves Marcus' office. 

She gets on her bike and sends a message to the contact Marcus gave her. 

"Need special tech, encryption problems, powerful gear. Send details and price range."

She starts her bike and punches in the GPS location Pulse sent her. She zooms through the commons on her bike as the daylight slowly gives place to night time. 

As she speeds through the streets, the city lights flicker and dance around her, casting a futuristic glow on the pavement. 

The GPS guidance system displays information directly on her eye implant, showing directions on her vision in an AR environment. 

Suddenly a message icon appears. 

Open. 

"We have good gear, must meet in person, coordinates attached, come alone or no deal."

Gloria thinks for a second and uploads the coordinates in her bike's GPS. 

Gloria's heart races as she accelerates her bike towards the meeting point. The city lights blur into a colorful smear as she focuses on the GPS navigation display hovering in front of her eyes. 

She weaves through the evening traffic with ease, her cybernetic enhancements allowing her to react faster than any human driver.

As she approaches the coordinates, the GPS announces her arrival. Gloria slows down and parks her bike next to a decrepit building on the outskirts of town. 

The area is deserted, with only a few flickering street lights providing illumination.

Gloria dismounts and looks around cautiously while opening a compartment on the side of her bike. She takes out an automatic pistol and cocks it. 

Suddenly, a figure emerges from the side of the building. 

"You won't need that." He says as he gets closer. 

Gloria feels nervous and points the gun at him. 

"Don't get closer!" She shouts at him. 

The figure is wearing a dark hood from which two red lights are emitted, making him extremely scary. 

He raises his hands up. 

"You come here to deal and you point a gun… Not cool…" He says quietly. 

Slowly some laser pointers move on the ground and all converge on Gloria's body. 

"Shit…" She says as she lowers her gun. 

"Good, now let's talk." He says as he starts walking toward her again. 

"Your message says powerful gear… Explain." He says. 

His red eyes are scanning her. 

"I have strong encryptions that I need to crack… That's all you need to know…" She says as she tries to keep herself composed. 

The figure raises his hand and the lasers pointing at Gloria disappear. 

"I have some military grade tech, but that will cost you, are you sure you can afford it?" He asks as his red eyes keep scanning her. 

"How much?" She asks. 

"Cyberdecks, 100k each. But I also have something less invasive. Self powered cryptic shards, you just slot them in and let them work. 20k each." He says. 

Gloria keeps silent for a while. 

"If I take 2 cyberdecks, you throw in a shard for free." She says. 

The figure keeps silent, his eyes never stop to scan Gloria. 

He makes a sign to someone hiding in the shadows who starts walking toward them, carrying a small case. 

"Check it." He says while handing it to her. 

She opens it and instantly recognizes Meditech's logo. In the case there are two cyberdecks in pristine condition, ready for implantation and a shard. 

Gloria nods and sends him 200k through her neural implant. 

The figure slowly walks away as she gets back on her bike, securing the case in the opened compartment. 

She rides away as fast as she can, not wanting to spend more time than necessary in this area. 

She punches in the coordinates that Pulse gave her earlier and the direction displays on her vision again. 

Her bike zooms on the road, making the street lights look like running lines. 

The city streets blur together as she speeds through the night, the wind whipping through her hair. 

She can feel the adrenaline coursing through her veins, her heart racing with excitement. She's been in situations like this before, but never has it felt so intense. 

"Military grade implants… Now we are talking…" She thinks to herself. 

The GPS signals that she is nearing her destination, she slows down into a small parking lot. 

It belongs to a building that was an electronic shop before, Pulse is outside, his back leaning against the wall. 

"You took your time, boss." He says sarcastically. 

She ignores him and dismounts her bike, focusing her attention on the case that she takes out of the compartment. 

She walks toward the open door and gets into the small building followed by him. 

Inside, Pulse has installed several desks with cheap holographic screens, a long sofa taking up an entire wall side and high tables and stools. 

Pulse waits to get praised but Gloria ignores him and takes the closest desk, putting the case on it. She opens it and turns it in his direction. 

His jaw drops. 

"Meditech… Military grade??" He says with a surprised look on his face. 

As they hear him, the other members of her crew gather round the desk and get the same expression of amazement. 

"Yeah, find us a ripperdoc who can install military grade cyberdecks. Pulse, you're gonna get upgraded." She says with a wink at him. 

That night, Gloria and the crew started to celebrate in their new HQ. As the party went on, she couldn't stop thinking about the encrypted file she took from Psysoft Corp. 

With the new implants and the cryptic shard, she was sure she could get the secret out… 

… At what cost?