After multiple incursions and flooding in the Alps, a lot of the Switzerland towns and valleys were abandoned, having only a few of the major cities surviving. Including Zürich, its city plates cover most of the Zürich See. Creating one of the more unique undercitys.
-- The Changes Before the Fall, a mini-docuntary by the Purple Truth 2053
After spending about an extra hour's worth of ti chatting with Cierra, she also goes back to sleep, and I refocus myself back on my physical body. This impulse purchase is definitely complicated and disorienting, but I can already see how this would benefit us.
‘Lyssa, thank you. I think I needed that.'
Lyssa is always happy to help.
‘By the way, do you have any clue on how Bubbles got that image of ? I can’t find any compromises in my gear.’
Yes, Lyssa took it.
‘Why would you do such a thing?’
You tend to get distracted a lot, so Lyssa makes sure to send your girlfriend updates.
‘That… is sowhat helpful, thanks.’
The rest of the night goes by without many issues. There are no road problems, so we can make a decent amount of ti. I spent most of my ti practising with my sensors, trying my best to acclimatise myself, and when I get too sick to continue that, I start programming so new intrusion software; I want to be able to have a face overlay actively displaying different faces over people.
The other occupants of the car start to wake up when the first rays of the sun co through. I re-orientated myself. I put in an order for coffee and so breakfast pastries at one of the local rest stop drone delivery services. The system is nice and all, but the 2000 credit delivery fee is kind of crazy. I guess you don’t have many options when you are stuck in traffic.
“Fuck, Evelin, did you go to sleep at any point?” Heinrich asks when he looks back.
“Nope, I did not. I made so fun programs and got back together with my girlfriend, so not much was lost.” I say as I update our route.
“And that was a reason not to go to sleep?” Heinrich asks incredulously.
“Well, you told to go to sleep when Mom woke up.” I say.
“Why does that matter?” Heinrich asks.
“She is still asleep, isn’t she?” I answer.
“And you did not think to wake her up?” Heinrich asks.
“I an, I did think about it.” I say.
“Why not do it, then?”
“Well, she has a knife, and I don’t want to get stabbed today.”
I can hear Yui burst out laughing beside . “You know, that's fair.”
“Ugh, well, how tired are you?” Heinrich asks.
“I can keep going, I take a little nap after breakfast,” I say.
After that exchange, I asked Yui for her opinion on the program I wrote. And we sink into a pleasant discussion about optimisation and bug fixing. Sohow, my program has enlightened so people so much, that they can be seen with a third eye.
While we finish taking out most of the bugs, the little drone arrives at the window, and we grab our breakfast. Honestly, it is not very impressive, especially for the price. But I am not paying, so I can’t complain all that much. After I finish my al, I do sothing I would normally never do, but since Lyssa is here, it should be fine, at least I hope. I turn off my eyes and then make myself comfortable to take a nap.
I get gently shaken awake by soone, and after only freaking out for a brief period, thinking that I have gone blind, I turn my eyes back on. I look around only to see that we have made it to the edge of Zürich. Well, that is good. I turn to Yui, who is giving a weird look.
“Sothing wrong?” I ask her.
“Your eyes look very off-putting when turned off. It kind of looks like you have died.” she says.
I blink at her a few tis, a bit taken aback by the statent. Granted, I had never turned my eyes off before, and was only comfortable enough to do so now because Lyssa was here. “That is good to know, I guess; so what is the plan?”
Yui looks outside and then back at . “Check in to the hotel, make sure it is secure and safe, set up so software and equipnt and go out to do so scouting,”
“That is a good start. When are we going to get there?” I ask, while looking at the traffic.
“Not long. Once we get into the city proper, there should be more open sky lanes, and we can get there in an hour or so.”
I spent the rest of the trip looking outside. I an, it is, in a way, more of the sa big ga structures, where people can spend their entire lives without leaving, but it has so charm. You can see mountains, sotis, at least. Ooh, and water, I guess it is built mostly over a lake, which ans that there are a lot of ways to use water, so that is new and sowhat fancy, but probably horrible for the people living in the lower city.
We make it to the hotel, if you can even call it that. It is barely in the upper district still, and I assu the only reason why it is still in business, is that it is close enough to the big offices so that managers can take their nice secretaries or interns for so bed wrestling, and far enough away, that you won’t run into anyone familiar.
“How many does that make?” Yui says, after an hour of pulling out stuff.
“43 normal caras, 21 high resolution 4k caras, 12 ultra resolution 8k caras, 16 microns, and 4 wiretaps.” I answer.
Yui throws her arms into the air, “Fuck! If I knew it was going to be like this, I would have booked a different place.”
I look at her, confused. “I know, right. Who the fuck still uses wiretaps?”
Her gaze snapped to imdiately. “That is your issue? That they are using outdated gear to spy on us, not that they are actually spying on us?”
I just shrug. “I an, I just see it as free gear, though we should probably buy a second lock for our room.”
Yui crosses her arms and does not look amused, “Oh, and can you be sure you got all of them?”
“Yui, I am New Hope's best watchdog; unless they hire soone way out of their budget, I will find all of them.” I say, full of confidence..
Yui lets out a deep sigh. “If there are any videos posted of showering, I am going to make it my personal mission to fuck you up.”
“You promise?” I say, with a smug smile on my face.
“You! Not everything has to be a competition!" Yui shouts at .
There is a knock on our door, stopping our stupid argunt right in its tracks. “Sofia, Yui, you two okay in there.” Eva or, I guess, Katharina’s voice cos out from behind the door.
I stand up, walk to the door, and open it. “We're fine. We were just talking about this hotel's extensive security.” I show them inside, towards the pile of equipnt we have found.
“Well, that is a lot. Have you got them all?” Heinrich says.
I look up at the ceiling. “No, there is one on the ceiling right there in that dark spot, but I can’t really reach it.”
Heinrich reaches up and grabs the little cara from the ceiling. “Only this one?”
I grab the little cara out of his hands. “Yeah, thank you. So, are we ready to go?
“Yeah, we are tough. I would appreciate it if you did a sweep in our room when we get back.” Heinrich says.
“That should be no problem. We can send our sniffer dog on the case.” Yui says, while looking at with a big smile.
I raise my eyebrow at her. Did I do sothing wrong? “So, the plan?”
“Right, it is rather simple. We go to one of the nearby parades and walk around there for a bit before we split up. Katharina and I will go down to the lower district and look for information, while Yui and Sofia go to the upper city.” Heinrich explains.
“Wait, are you sending the two of us alone? Neither of us has combat training.” Yui says in a concerned tone.
“The two of you should be fine; there is a lot of security in the upper city, and” he stops to pull out a small handgun, and gives it to . “Evelin does have gun training.”
I examine the gun. It’s a basic pistol holding six shots. “I have to admit that I am not at all that accurate with them.”
Heinrich smiles at . “It is just a precaution ant to intimidate people.”
“Well, okay, then." I say, while I put the handgun away, making sure that it is out of sight. “What about Jas and Karter?”
“They will try to blend into the crowd at the festival, and see if they can find any rumours about what is going on. Any more questions?” Heinrich asks.
When everyone shakes their heads, we pack up and filter out of the hotel. I want to say that the streets are bright and colourful, but except for so very specialised areas, it all is still the sa corporate hellscape, only with little rainbow flags in the windows. Well, I guess it is sothing. We split up at one of the crowded squares where people are dancing to loud music.
Yui and I take an elevator up, while Katharina and Heinrich go down to the shadier parts of town. We reach the top floor of a more well-off ga-scraper and start walking around, looking for any inconsistencies.
After walking around for an hour, Yui finally cracks. “Okay, what are we actually looking for? We have been at this for hours.”
I just shrug. “Any inconsistencies? I guess it's difficult to put your finger on, in most cases, but think of more people in areas where there should not have been that many. Working class in high-end establishnts, more security in a place than what would be expected. And lastly that.” I say, as I point at a bar.
Yui looks at the bar and asks, “What is so special about that place?”
“Well, first of all, it's a doll house, which ans that unless you are looking for that kind of service, people tend to stay away from it.”
I see Yui make a full-body shudder. “Disgusting” she mutters.
“But that is not the weird part. For this entire day, only five guys entered, but 34 girls entered.”
“So they have a nice doll that makes the girls interested. What so weird about that?”
“According to their files, only eight paid for any service there.”
“ What, do they have like 25 dolls?”
“26, and, I don’t know. So have walked out at this point. I assu a few just wanted to take a look, and others are actually dolls, but the number is still high, so if you want to do sothing else besides walking around, we can look inside.”
Yui starts to move from foot to foot while looking at the club. “Fuck, sure, but how do we get in?”
“We act like custors,” I say with a shrug.
“And then what? Not much we can find out during sex.”
“Doll chips are simple. They put the host asleep while the AI personality takes over, so all we have to do is turn off the AI as well.” I say with a shrug.
“You can do that?” she asks, confused.
“I an, yeah, been researching these chips for a while, so I should be able to get it done.”
“Huh, well, I guess, but why are you researching them? New Hope wants to make so mind control tech or sothing.”
“No, at least I don’t think so. I did it because if I was no longer useful, this would be one of the likely places for to end up, so I wanted a way out of that.”
“You know, I was jealous of you at one point, but I am starting to question that now.”
“Welco to the life of an indentured servant, I guess.” I say as I take her hand and drag her to the club.
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