“You’re kidding, right?” Anika asks.
“Uhm, yes?” I say.
“Why does that sound like a question?”
“I don’t know what you're talking about. Anyway, there was sothing that I was wondering about.”
“And what might that be?”
“Why is the rat man here?” I say, looking up at Anika.
“What do you an the rat man is here?” Anika whisper-shouts at .
“I don’t know what you want to say. He is here. I put a tracker on him in the tunnels. That tracker is now in your living room.”
“Yeah, but you are the smart one here. What does that an?” she says, making blush slightly.
“It was probably so kind of setup from the start. He was there to lead us to the bomb. Who knows, he might have been wearing the exoskeleton and sent it up there while waiting in the sewers.”
“That seems a bit like a stretch.”
“Yeah, that is fair, but thinking about it, the private investigator was probably a canary of so kind. Fuck, how do I keep missing these things?” I reprimand myself.
“Canary?” Anika asks, looking sowhat confused.
“So, when you do a coverup, sotis it is difficult to hide everything, so you make one clue more obvious than the rest, and you monitor where that clue will lead. And once you get so people sniffing around there, you know that you have work to do. Have you never done sothing like that before?”
“No, I usually get a cleaning crew to solve the problem.”
“That… and you never asked them what their plan was?” I ask her, trying to not sound too judgental.
“I am sorry, okay, but can we leave that for later? How do we deal with the current situation?”
“That kind of depends on who is in charge.”
“The squad leader would be the one in charge.”
“And do you outrank him?”
“Only in matters where the Miss's life is in danger.”
“Is a possible bomber in the room dangerous enough?“
“Let's just hope so,” she looks straight in the eyes. ”Let talk to them. I will ask if they will let you take over for a bit.” She says, putting a hand on my shoulder. Sheesh, I am not that much of a problem.
We walk back out of the room. Sam and Cierra are both sitting on the couch now, discussing sothing, while the security team is sweeping the entire house. Hope she does not have anything valuable or breakable around. Anika walks up to, I assu, the leader of this group while I stay in the entryway. I don’t need another hopped-up bully with a badge to shout at .
Anika and the officer are discussing sothing that seems to beco more heated by the second until Cierra notices, walks up to them, and joins the argunt. After a bit more furious whispering that is very hard to listen in on, they seem to co to a conclusion and then turn to .
“Well, Miss Vance, this is your show. Go for it.” The leader says. Ooh, they want a show; well, let deliver sothing then.
I slowly walk into the middle of the room. “I never thought that I would speak to the military like this, but how is everyone? How is it going? No reaction. That is fine, too. For the next mont, I will be asking questions, and you guys will answer.” I turn to the man who is supposed to be the rat man. He is in full uniform now, with a gun and everything. ”Anyway, you, what is your na?”
“I am Felix Koch, ma’am.” The rat man, or I guess Felix, says
“A German. Nice, but not important right now. Say, Felix. How long have you worked for us?”
“I have been with the company for about five years now, ma’am.”
“It has been a while, hasn’t it, and did you always belong to this squad?”
“No, ma'am, I used to be a security guard for the entertainnt departnt.” He says, now a lot more confused.
“Hmm, so you have been working for Zaine, then. Interesting, did you ever work for Zaine directly?“ I ask him. While getting closer.
“No, I was just on-site security only; why are you asking these questions?”
“Ooh, just curious why soone likes you likes to dress up like a crazy person and spew nonsense.”
Like you are one to talk.
“I don’t know what you're talking about, ma'am,” He says, but there is a slight tremor in his voice now. He also takes a more defensive stance.
“Sure you don’t, mister Ratman. You know, if you really wanted to stay hidden, you should have just burned out those augs and put new ones in. Knowing your employer's budget, they could have probably afforded it.”
And now I have a gun pointed at my face. Great, that is what this day needed: more things that go boom. How long till he realises it is no longer working? He tries to press the trigger a few tis. Okay, so, that long that was like 3 seconds or so. He then throws the thing aside and gets out a knife. But before he can poke with it, he is tackled to the ground by two guards.
“That was a bit extre,” I say, getting up close to him, “but what I don’t understand is why you did it; as far as I can tell, you don’t have an additional revenue stream. No sudden gifts or expensive cars or anything. It makes no sense.”
“Of course, it doesn't to you,” he spits at .
“Then explain it to .” I kind of bite at him.
“Sure, you are the worst. You killed my brother. I don’t need to get paid to want to get rid of you; I'd do it for free.”
“I don’t rember doing sothing like that,” I say in my confusion.
“What about free big win pulls?” he says, with gritted teeth.
I take a few steps back. “Ooh… I… I.. am sorry,” I stamred out, a bit caught off guard. I did not expect to hear that again. I keep walking backwards. Until I walk into soone.
“Sorry! Are you sorry? My brother is dead because of you! You are just so evil bitch that deserves death,” he shouts at .
When I hear those words, sothing inside of snaps; I stop feeling any warmth and just feel an icy cold seep into . My body moves forward before I can think of why, and I kick him in the face. Then I grab his head and push it into the ground.
“You're right. That was my fault, but that does not give you the right to blow up an entire building full of people. 84 people died, 135 in critical condition, 216 injured, and 18 people still missing. For what? A grudge? What did those people do to deserve it?”
Evelin, calm down you're spiking.
Suddenly, all the warmth rushed back into my body and sends reeling. I turn around to look at Anika. “Can you do the questioning? I really don’t feel like it anymore.”
As soon as I say that, I hear five very distinct pops. I look back to see Felix now dead, with five holes in his body: one in his skull, two in his spine, two on both sides of his chest, and one in his gut. Internal charges are ant to stop people from spreading information. Sothing I am more intimately familiar with than I would like.
I collapse to the floor. This is my fault. Sure, I have killed people before, more often indirectly than directly. But this is different. I was personally responsible for this. This is my fault. This guy was not a monster until I made him one, not like the people I usually kill.
I don’t know how long I sit there; at so point, soone wraps their arms around . I am about to push them off when I recognise the dark skin. This is Sam. We stay like this for a bit longer until she drags out of the house and into a car. There we sit until I finally calm down enough to speak.
“Thank you.” I say, leaning to the side and putting my head on her shoulder.
“One of your old victims, huh?” She says while patting my head with her free arm.
“I should have never made that program.” I sigh out.
“Well, nothing to do about it now. It already happened,” She says. “So we have the rest of the day off. Where do you want to go now? Ho?”
I take out my mask and plug it into the USB e-port; then I turn to Sam “Let's get my notebook first,” I say as I push the location into the nav system. After about an hour's drive, through start and stop traffic later, we make it to an unassuming street. We quickly get out and head to a little corner with so vending machines.
“You hid it here? Why?” Sam asks.
“I had Cierra on the regular in my room, which ans a bunch of inspections to see if I was hiding anything dangerous. So I needed to hide it sowhere else.” I say, pointing at the middle vending machine.
I quickly run a program, and the lock gets disengaged; I open up the front, putting my arm through the rows of soft drinks to a hidden panel and slide it away to grab my notebook. Then I quickly put everything back and lock the machine back up.
“Nobody ever found these?” Sam asks.
“Well, we are not in a very popular area. They probably only refill them once a month, and it is sowhat well hidden in there, so as long as the machine does not break, nobody cares.”
I quickly flip through the notebook, trying to find the right page. I do find it after a bit of searching, and I start to curse. Of course, it's like this: why did I not realise? I am so dumb! Before I start kicking myself anymore, I show Sam the page as well. As if this mont can’t get any worse, I get a ssage from Victor demanding that I co into the head office for a eting at once.
“Fuck, now, really?” I shout at no one in particular.
“What's wrong?” Sam asks in a concerned voice.
“The big boss wants to talk, no clue why.”
“Maybe he found out who you are?”
“Fuck, I should have been more careful. Wait,” I look at Sam ”How would you like to be Maniac for a day?” I say, taking out the mask.
She gives a brilliant smile. ”Oh, I have just the thing I want to do, but don’t you need it for protection?”
“Honestly, if they know and they want to attack, that mask is not going to do all that much, so don’t be getting into any firefights with it, please.”
“Don’t worry about it. What I will do is a lot safer.” She says, with a smile that makes reconsider if this is a good idea
“Good, well, you do that then; I call dibs on the car.” I say as I start running.
“You don’t have the keys!” Sam shouts after .
“Like we ever needed a key to get into anything.”
After getting into the car, I set its autopilot to drive to headquarters. The good thing about a company car is that the address is preinstalled.
After so more of Neu Stuttgart's worst traffic ever, the car rolls into the parking lot and puts itself down in its designated spot in the parking lot. I quickly head to reception. I kind of skip the line. I an, sorry, but I am not waiting around any more today.
The receptionist gives an annoyed look. “Miss, there is a line. You should probably get back in it.”
I take a look behind at the line of people. “Yeah, no. Victor Agroria told to co in imdiately. Where can I find him.”
“He is in a eting with the entire family on floor 72's deluxe eting room,” the receptionist says, so kind of victorious smile on her face.
“Okay, thank you." I say, as I turn towards the elevator.
“Wait, hold up!” the receptionist shouts after . “Normal people are not allowed in.”
“I am not normal people." I say as I flash my company id over every screen in this room, including everyone's augs. Let's just say that the amount of resistance after that is quickly diminished, and I head up with the elevator.
'The entire family, huh? This is about to turn into a ss.'
Lyssa will preheat the popcorn. Also, you might want to know that there is a hacker out there who claims to know Maniac’s identity.
‘Ooh, for fucks sake. Send them an offer to et sowhere private tomorrow.’
How would you like Lyssa to do that?
‘I don’t know. Can you say you'll pay them half now and the other half on delivery in person? As for the money, get it from wherever. I don’t care.
Lyssa will do so. Do you need extra assistance taking the hacker out
‘Taking them out, why? I just want to give them a job,’ I subvocalise, when the lift doors open. Well, let the show begin.
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