Short story collection

Tin Man - Part 5

[Message received]

   2:07 AM
   Nix: All done.
  Y/N flicked through his visual feeds and closed every notification coming to him. They were mostly newsletters from corporations telling him of their new updates.
   "What do you think?" Y/N asked, hopping out of Nix's chair.
   "Right as rain." His smile faltered with a raised finger. "But it says here someone was diggin' around recently. Any idea who that was?"
   "A friend." His answer made Nix hum in satisfaction.
   "'Saka hardware's a whole 'nother beast." Nix stated. "What're you plannin' on doin' with it?"
   "I'm not planning on keeping it for long." Nix gave a half-nod. "What do you think? You think you're able to use it as a connection between your hardware and mine?"
   "Like a portable chair?" Nix's brows rose in interest. "In theory, sure. In practice, you can only find out."
   Netrunners faced as much danger as any solo did. However, it was a general consensus that an unlucky bullet was preferable to being caught Netrunning.
   The idea brought a certain memory to mind. Two years ago Y/N was met with heavy resistance. Nix had been the one who bailed him out by intercepting an enemy Netrunner.
   Nix had fried the man's head, overloading his brain with mountain-sized data loads. Catching him off guard from there was easy, and while it was a second for Y/N to keep moving, it was an eternity of excruciating pain and suffering for the enemy Netrunner. Only one can imagine what it feels like to have your entire nervous system burn up like a power source short-circuiting.
   Now a Netrunner that was on the ground and on the move was another thing entirely. They faced a hill of ice as opposed to a crevice. Their quickhacks were near instantaneous, connection ports could be manually accessed, and the possibilities only grew from there.
   "I got somethin' to get the blood flowing." Nix sat in his chair with a lit cigarette. "Small-time stuff but easy money. Get in and get out in under a minute. You down?"
   "I'm down." Y/N collected his jacket and was out the door.

  "Jobs simple-simple." Nix's voice came to his head as if he were right next to him. Right now he shared his feed, giving him a view as clear as day. "Scavs run this joint. In. Get in. Access their terminal."
   "Do your thing." Y/N said, relaxing.
   "EZ PZ."
   Y/N shook his head, fighting the sudden nausea he experienced when he felt Nix invade his head.
   "Temps are good-good." He nodded. "We'll stress test."
   Nix began feeding him nonsensical files. Most were labeled as music but some were even larger, consisting of whole movie libraries with running feeds all across the Net.
   "I'm seein' good th-things." Nix said, sounding impressed. "Temps are holding. Data usage ain't enough f-for you-you to feel like shit."
   "If I still ate I would've yacked..."
   "My bad." Nix brought down the data stream, leaving just their shared feed. "We're good-good. Now go and jack in."
   Scavs inhabited the underbelly of Night City. You could find them just about anywhere. It all depended on how well they hid and how well they did.
   The City Center had some of the most renowned mercs, Fixers, and criminals. It wasn't easy working here when NCPD, MaxTac, and Trauma Team were around every corner.
   Y/N did the numbers with help from Nix. The slowest response time he was looking at was just about two minutes. Maybe even less if a Scav had platinum coverage.
   A high rise was the most inconspicuous place imaginable, but what mattered was underneath.
Y/N slipped inside far faster than most gigs. He didn't need to rely on camouflage or speed, just a hand on a bit of tech and Nix was in.
   "Ten seconds. Now. Go now."
   In the eyes of the security guards and staff, he appeared to be a glitch in their implants. To real eyes, it would be like a bit of muck of blurry crud you would wipe with your hand.
   The elevator was child's play for Nix. Although it was convenient, having everything connected to a local Net was also risky. But nobody ever thought a Netrunner would stroll in and set up a chair.
   Was the building a front? It was possible. Scavs would have an easy time getting chrome if they could just open anyone's door while they were asleep and take them. From there it was a simple coverup.
   That was only an assumption. Neither man considered looking into it. The only thing that mattered now was Nix accessing the cameras and scanning the floor for anyone connected to the building's Net.
   "Five inside." Nix said. "This your first time testing your new-new chrome?"
   "To this extent."
   "No better time to go all out..."
   Y/N removed the restraints on his mind, allowing the CPU to run live simulations, take over the nervous system, and act accordingly with inhuman speed and reaction time.
   His finger tapped the door controls, ringing the doorbell.
   "Yeah?" A voice came from the intercom.
   "Let me in." Y/N said; his hand covering the camera.
   "Hold on." Someone said. They were clearly agitated.
   "Running the scan." Nix added, highlighting the bio readings of everyone inside, making them visible through the walls with their implants highlighted.
   The thick metal door slid open, giving Y/N a good view of his opposition. The only thing to note was her metal jaw and glowing eyes before the Mantis blades in her forearm opened.
   "The fuck?" She recoiled. In a tenth of a second, she acknowledged the suppressed revolver in his hands and acted on instinct alone.
   Y/N's CPU predicted her favoring the implanted blades, giving him ample time to aim, fire, and take the top half of her head off.
  The revolver wasn't anything to scoff at. At close range most implants wouldn't stand a shot against it, let alone two or the whole cylinder.
   The Scav began to drop before he suddenly held her close, blocking a savage shotgun blast from further inside.
   With calculated precision, he aimed and fired twice. The first shot peeled a man's sub-dermal armor back, revealing the inner workings of his chest before another shot left a hole where his heart was with his comrade joining him in a small pile.
   Nix planted a quickhack on his next target, making them drop to the floor with their synapses burning out.
   Y/N strolled by and planted a bullet at the back of their head, leaving just two more Scavs.
   "NCPD are on their way." Nix added.
   Deeper into the boiler room was the usual setup for Scavs. Surgical tables, a furnace, and a break room. It was all contained in a room no bigger than the Afterlife.
   Y/N crossed the hall and ducked down, avoiding the nervous gunfire from inside the break room. His revolver wouldn't have done much against the bulletproof glass, but the Scav inside solved that problem with his Carnage shotgun.
   The fifth bullet went through the Scav's head, ending them before they could pump the monstrous weapon.
   "Temps are holding under—pressure."
   "And the cops?"
   "Outside."
   The last of the bunch was confused. He had no idea what was happening and couldn't phone his friends.
   His hands shook and he sweated profusely. So as soon as the door opened he fired, peppering the walls and surgical table with his SMG.
   Only when his gun clicked empty did he finally see his assailant round the corner. Could it have been a masked man? Or was it a helmet? He wasn't much of a techy to know what model the chrome was, but he did see the skeletal grin pointed his way with the artistic message telling him to smile.
   Y/N popped the young man's head off his shoulders and tossed the revolver. It wasn't his anyway.
   "The safe." Nix said.
   Y/N laid a hand on a strong box, allowing Nix to connect through the ballistic reader in his palm. Within a few seconds, it opened.
   "A few data shards." Y/N noted before pocketing them. Next, he jacked into the terminal.
   "Heats coming down." Nix said. "I stopped their ele—elevator..."
   "What's inside?"
   "The terminal?"
   "Both."
   "A few. Some emails, files, and access—access to an account..." Shortly after, Y/N was notified of a hefty transfer of money. "Emptied it. Delta."
   The elevator rang at the end of the hall, offloading a few heavily armed police officers.
As they rushed into the room and cleared it with pointed guns and shouted orders, the air shimmered behind the closing elevator doors.