Chapter 65
My left eyelid was twitching, as I listened to the
Okay he looked like a shark man. So Im just calling him Sharkman.
The Lions Den isnt just any bar in Night City apparently.
Its the Exotics bar.
Exotics was the description of a type of Biomod. I knew a little bit about it, although I hadnt actually even seen someone with them yet.
But here they are. People that used Bioware to turn themselves into animals.
I had parked in the bars parking and walking up to the entrance only to get instantly held up by Sharkman, the bouncer.
His blue tinted skin, and grinning shark maw was intimidating I guess. Although I suppose the fact he was nearly eight feet tall probably helped.
Listen kid. This aint a public watering hole. Go find another bar. He had denied me entrance instantly. Which was irritating.
Listen Im meeting a choom of mine-
If you were meeting a choom, youd be on the invite list. You aint. He stated simply arms crossing over his massive chest, which was bare. Showing off perfectly sculpted muscles.
You know if you were into Furries.
She must have forgotten. I just want to- Once again I was cut off by the Sharkman shaking his head instantly, and poking a finger into my chest pushing me back.
He might be the shark, but if he kept that up, he was going to lose some digits.
Listen, not sure if youre just curious. Or you are planning some shit, but this place doesnt welcome standards. He said and it took me a moment to realize he was using standard to refer to Well everyone.
I opened my mouth to argue but I could feel someone walking up behind me so I stepped aside, letting a woman that was definitely supposed to be some type of lizard pass without any issue from Sharkman.
This is so annoying. I grumbled turning back to the conversation but the Sharkman seemed done.
Go on kid, you aint one of us, and until you are, you ain't welcome here.
Im just here to see someone. Im not looking for trouble, choom.
If you dont leave youll find it. He threatened simply, and I considered it. But I wasnt here to kill a bunch of people doing their jobs.
I backed off. Walking back to the Quadra in a huff. I would just sneak in then. There was always a back door, or a roof access.
An old Warehouse turned club wasnt going to stop me.
So I drove down the block, found a place to park and walked back, this time making sure I was out of sight from the bouncer as I checked around the warehouse.
Two ground floor entrances I noted. The front, and a rear entrance that was an old loading dock, but had a few vehicles parked around the walled off rear parking lot, turned Private park?
It also had security.
A camera was sweeping around over the rear door. I stuck to the shadows far from the building, hugging old storage units that were the nearest building to the club as I scoped out the place. Unfortunately the rear door was going to be difficult too.
Not just the security camera, there was activity in the back, all along the loading dock, there were tables set up, and revelers were hanging around drinking, smoking, or worse.
And all of them were Exotics.
Guys with fur, women with multiple arms and eyes, some were minor exotics. Dog or cat ears at most. Some were full bore, looking more like a werewolf than a man.
All of them were friendly and knew each other. They were all partying together, chatting or switching tables.
There were a lot more people here than expected, and I wasnt going to be able to sneak in without instantly being noticeable. I wasnt a regular here, I would stick out immediately.
I climbed up onto the storage units nearby and started checking out the roof of the warehouse, but that was a no go as well. There were tall walls surrounding the roof, and it took me climbing from the storage units roof to a nearby powerline before I was able to see down onto the roof.
There was a pool up there.
For fuck sake. What kind of bar was this?
I bonked my head. Exotics werent cheap. The mods required the risk to yourself, only rich crazy people tended to do it. It was even more of a niche culture now than it had been decades ago, Exotics havent been cool in like thirty years. There werent any exotic gangs in NC anymore, except maybe the animals, if you squinted.
So if you were an older rich person wanting to hang out with an in group? One that was no longer fashionable?
Of course they all kept their bar in top condition, private, secure, and if Regina had said was right, had an in house exotics ripper.
I sighed, running through the options.
I could go loud I mean, I did have a Rocket Launcher No I shook that thought away, I wasnt going to shoot up a bar to kill one guy. I would just have to do this like Jotaro, only I had known how to kill Jotaro, here? I didnt even know what my target looked like.
Regina. Im going to be asking for a raise on this one I grumbled to myself as I realized this wasnt going to be a single night gig.
Okay so Loud was out. Quiet was looking extremely unlikely I would have to hang around for a while and see if the bar got quiet. If they closed down in the morning, I could sneak in during the off periods.
If anything else, there was another option
I didnt really want to consider that option.
--
I had gone home, picked up a full selection of stakeout snacks, and then headed back up onto the roof of the storage units next to the bar so I could keep an eye out.
With my Laptop in hand, at least I could do something while I waited, so I programmed as I watched the club.
Stupid private furry club. Just let me in so I can systematically target and kill one of your people! Damn gonks!
By the time the sun was peeking up hours later I was growing annoyed. Despite it being the start of the day, people were still showing up.
People were leaving, but the amount overall seemed to stay the same.
To my annoyance, I couldnt even sneak in as a worker. The cooks were exotics. The bartenders were exotics!
The whole damn place was exotics!
Fuck. I grumbled thinking of other options I couldnt even rely on reboot optics or something to just blind anyone that I came across.
Biomods cant be quick hacked. Most of the exotics didnt have a lick of chrome in them, at lest not the high end ones. Bioware only.
Okay, I wasnt going to be able to infiltrate normally. It just wasnt going to happen without me doing something drastic.
Lets get more information.
With the confirmation the party never ends, I peaked out from behind the top of the storage units until I could see the camera sweeping back and forth over the rear door.
My eyes flashed as I started breaching in.
Time to see what net security was like.
The camera itself fell without too much issue, and I used it as an access point to their main system, but I immediately hit a snag.
The system security was good.
Really good. I wasnt net diving so I couldnt see the exact way the security revealed itself, but it wasnt off the shelf. A Netrunner maintained the security at the club I realized as I poked around. And I was pretty sure they werent active in the system right now.
Which at least opened up a chance.
So I started poking through the ICE. Security alerts popping up as my searching daggers werent as quiet as I would have liked.
I broke through the initial ICE after about ten minutes, mostly I was just hoping the netrunner was asleep.
The breach was successful, I could feel my Wall Breaking Daemon slip in and hide within the system. That particular Perk hadnt been as useful as I thought when I initially took it, but hopefully here it would help
I began exploring, the window in my eyes showing the directory of connected systems as I began navigating through them, trying to find
I found it. The internal security cameras.
There were a lot of them. And there were a lot of people inside like I suspected.
The old warehouse had been completely remodeled, and there was even a basement floor! Any hope of me being able to slip in sight unseen went out the window. There were just too many exotics around.
Especially when the cameras confirmed the ripper lived in an apartment in the basement. A full ripper office, and personal room that was heavily lived in. There wasnt a camera directly in her private room, but the door in her office was open and I could see inside a bit.
Unfortunately I couldnt just hack into her computer from the camera either.
-Quick Hacks 4
-Programming 4
Cool 8
-Ninjutsu 8
-Cold Blood 8
-Rockerboy 5
Technical attribute 4 (8) Due to Cyberization, Maximum value has increased by 4.
-Crafting 4
-Engineering 3
0 Stat point.
4 Skill point.
Perks.
Ambidextrous Blades 2
Quickdraw Handguns 2
Gun Nut Assault 2
Parkour Athletics 2
Grappling Street Brawler 2 Future unlock: Improvised weapons.>Gun-Fu.
Drive By Driver 2
Cat-like Athletics 5
Cool Nerves Cold Blood 2
Danger Sense Ninjutsu 2
Wall Breaking Breach Protocol 2
Cyber Security Quick Hack 2
Recoil Reduction. Annihilation 2
Cyber Ninja Ninjutsu 5
Fearless Chill. Cold Blood 5.
Improvised Weapons Street Brawler 5
Parry Blades 5
Robotics wizard Crafting 2
Drifting Driving 5
Rapid Reload Handguns 5
Design Wizard Engineering 2
Rifle Ace Assault 5
*Unused* Breach 5
Perfect Musical Memory Rockerboy 2.
Debug Programming 2
Siren Song Rockerboy 5
Cyberware:
Seacho Electronics Mk.2 *Adaptation Seacho Mk.2 0/0*
Kiroshi Mk1 *Adaptation Kiroshi Mk1 1/2*
Militech Condor *Adaptation Militech Condor 3/8*
Arasaka SmartLink System. *Adaptation Smart Link 0/0*
Arasaka Ex-Disk *Adaptation Ex-Disk 0/0*
I browsed through the page. Honestly I didnt tend to look directly at my stats very often. More often I just checked where I was at, and then went to work on whatever stat or skill I was focused on at that moment.
I still had four Skill points.
I also still had a breaching perk I hadnt used.
Ugh Im such a gonk I forgot all about my perk. I sighed staring through the floating screen to look at the ceiling.
I had decided to hold off on using it until later when I might need something special, but I had ended up just forgetting about it.
Would a Breach perk have solved my problem?
I started looking down the list. The options I had looked at before were still there, but my understanding of systems was wider now.
I had a better idea of what I would need, and what I wouldnt.
Strong Breach still sounded useful though. Being able to breach through a system much faster, in exchange for guaranteeing an alert would get sent off?
Well considering most systems werent secured well in the first place, it would give me some neat tricks.
But it wasnt exactly what I wanted.
Lets be honest. Speed is useful, but when it comes to netrunning, there was only one true king.
Stealth.
If no one ever realized I had breached their system, they had no hope to stop me. So I started browsing the perks.
I hadnt seen what I was looking for last time, but I hadnt done a perfect deep dive back then either.
Then, because I was reading through every perk. I found it.
Ghost touch: Slow and quiet, Breach through a system as a ghost, without anyone the wiser.
I thought about it for a moment.
Then I decided that fuck it, it was what I had just decided I wanted. I pushed the button accepting the Perk.
I shivered as the ideas slipped into my head. Tricks on how to not just break security, but to bypass it entirely.
I blinked.
Then I blinked again because wow. That was some serious shit.
I knew as well that as powerful as it was now, it would only grow stronger as breach leveled up. The time it would take would reduce, and my ability to ghost through systems would grow.
Yeah.
Thats right! Im Motoko Kusanagi! My skill with a gun or a knife was great! But on a digital battlefield? I wouldnt be matched by anyone!
I knew with a surety of self, that I was going to become the sort of super hacker that made corpo netrunners piss themselves in fear.
I rose up untangling myself from the blanket and popped my access cord out of the back of my head as I grabbed my ICE laptop.
Time to get to work.
