Harry looked over her cue cards. She did not do speeches, let alone in front of groups. She barely even spoke one-on-one with the people she worked with in the past. Nonetheless, this couldn’t be much harder than the usual tasks that she took to.
The rest of the room sat patiently, having waited the past five minutes for her to open her mouth. As patiently as a gaggle of Screaming Banshees could, given that most of them were indistinctly murmuring amongst themselves during Harry’s inexplicably awkward silence.
“Hello,” she said simply. She paused and shuffled to the next cue card, the gesture leading into another long awkward moment. “As you may know. Onigiri is currently on vacation. I will be filling in for her.”
“A vacation?”
“What?”
“At this time of year?”
Harry kept her stone-faced expression in front of the wave of questioning murmurs from the go-gangers. This was a slight lie on both fronts. Oni had overexerted herself earlier in the week when she dug into that datachip. She managed to pass over the files she recovered before passing out, and Harry had to personally run her to a street doc. Apparently, an overreaction on Harry’s end, given that the doc said it wasn’t serious, and that Oni only needed a few days of bed rest. It made it technically true that she was on vacation, but she did leave out the part about the intrepid hacker nearly cooking her own brain.
The other half was the bigger lie of the two. There was no way that she was remotely filling in for Onigiri. She barely knew how to use a commlink that wasn't the brand and model she was used to. Even if she could glean intel from more physical means, there was no way she could outdo someone like Onigiri for intelligence gathering.
“Harridan.” Switch's voice snapped her back to reality.
“Apologies,” she responded as she flipped to another cue card. “As you all may recall, there has been a significant uptick in corporate activities in the surrounding vicinity.”
The overhead projector flipped on, projecting an image of the Slag on the wall behind her. The blonde-haired woman gestured back to a few points on the map with a helpful pointer stick, each area lighting up with a red pip.
“Blackwell has been spared much of the incursion. Your neighbors have acted as a buffer for the time being. I do not know how long they will hold out under unabated corporate aggression without some form of unification or alliance.”
Pizzazz, the Banshee with the tall white mohawk, raised her hand. “Question.”
“No, my name is Harridan.” Harry stared at Pizzazz.
“I—No, I mean I have a question.”
“You may ask your question.”
“We're neutral at best with some of the neighborin' gangs, and downright hostile with the rest. What if unification or alliance isn't an option?”
“I would suggest you make it an option.”
She turned away from Pizzazz and tapped the pointer stick to three locations specifically inside of Blackwell, all of which are sitting on the fringes of the neighborhood.
“These three locales are potential corporate safehouses. They will be using these as staging grounds to equip and arm their security forces before they begin patrolling Blackwell proper. Supply warehouses will soon follow as soon as they find their footing.”
The image on the projector changes again. This time it’s a hand drawn blueprint of what appears to be a house. A house that seems to be built in a very obtuse fashion, with several tight corridors and blind corners.
“This is not an accurate representation as to what their current safehouses will look like. Be prepared for defensible architecture. For your own safety, I would suggest waiting until the brunt of the security forces are out on patrol before entering the safehouse.”
One by one, the eyes of the present go-gangers began to glaze over as Harry droned on, explaining even the most obvious of things with that same slow and methodical manner.
----------------------------------------
Pizzazz drew a sigh of relief. Being away from that droning monotone voice was the sweetest release. She might currently be stuck sitting and watching what looked to be an abandoned storefront, but anything was better than listening to Harry. The only real indicator that it wasn’t abandoned was that there were easily a dozen people constantly going in and out, loading up and unloading various trucks and sedans that pulled up. The rest of the neighborhood was practically dead otherwise. The corpos picked a good spot if they didn’t want anyone snooping around casually.
They’d only been there for about an hour, and there had been an obvious cadence to their activity. Every twenty minutes on the dime, a truck shows up. Corpo logic that everything has to run on a clock. Definitely something that Harry already covered in her briefing, but Pizzazz was willing to bet that everyone zoned out. Except maybe Switch. Switch definitely paid attention to every excruciating detail.
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Cherry sat down with a heavy thud next to her. “So, Harry seems like a nice enough girl, but—”
“—the way she did her briefing presentation bored your tits off?” Pizzazz interjected.
“Maybe not that bad, my tits are still attached and intact. But yeah, it kind of felt like sitting in a class being taught by a preprogrammed anthrodrone.”
“Who's to say she isn't?”
“What, you think she's an anthrodrone?”
“All I'm sayin' is she's way too stiff most of the time, and—”
A muted chirp from both their commlinks cut Pizzazz off. They opened up the most recent message in unison.
«From: Switch»
«Focus up. We are moving in soon.»
“…How did she even know we were talking? She's all the way over there.” Cherry pointed in the general direction of further down the block, where Switch and the other girls laid in wait on the other side of the safehouse.
With Hotrod tied up doing another task and Onigiri on that enforced vacation, it was slightly harder to keep eyes on all of the angles. They had to resort to spreading out to achieve the same effect that Hotrod could do with a couple of aerial drones. Pizzazz and Cherry were stuck loitering in the ruins of an old restaurant, peeping at the target building through a set of binoculars. Neither of them had the luxury of high-grade cybereyes and the usual visual enhancement suite.
«From: Switch»
«All hands ready. Begin offensive on the next truck. Hit hard and fast. We go on my signal, ETA one minute.»
Like clockwork, the next truck lumbered its way into view. Unmarked and jet black. Just like the usual corpo SOP, trying to be subtle by being audaciously overt. They flipped their lights off as they pulled into position, as if a large transport vehicle is anything but overt out here. A couple of corpo goons in black combat suits disembarked from the vehicle, rounding around the back to begin the process of unloading whatever goods they had in tow. It was hard to tell from this distance, but it didn’t matter.
«From: Switch»
«Now.»
Pizzazz and Cherry surged forth from their perch, moving down the street in a literal blur of speed. They might not have been quiet or stealthy, but the surrounding dark and the sound of crates being shimmied around was enough of a cloak otherwise. They’d done this a dozen times in the past. This wasn’t dumb bravado. This was practiced maneuvers. Five girls striking the same target all from different angles. Though, rarely against corporate targets.
Twelve meters. Pizzazz’s eyes glowed faintly as she channeled her connection to the Thread, continuing her hurried move forwards. Nine meters. Her hands frosted over. Six meters. The moisture spattering the tarmac began to turn into slick ice patches. Three meters. The poor mook with a crate in his arms turned around. He didn’t even have time to exclaim anything before Pizzazz hurled a discus of ice straight through his neck.
The second corpo’s attention was caught by the eruption of gunfire coming from the direction of the safehouse more than the sound of his coworker’s decapitated head hitting the ground with a dull thud. A javelin of solid ice piercing straight through his sternum was punishment for his inattentiveness.
“Damn, girl. Leave some for me.”
“You snooze, you lose, Cherry.”
Pizzazz kicked one of the cylinders that rolled out of the spilled crate, only stopping as she realized what it was. Timed explosive charges. She let out a sharp whistle when she saw more identical crates stacked inside the truck's cargo space. Seems like they weren’t skimping on their operation to knock over the Slag. She hopped up the sidewalk and onto the front steps of the safehouse. Not that it’d be much safer if any of those cylinders accidentally cooked off, given the distance of barely six meters.
Pizzazz shared the discovery with the rest of the team.
«From: Pizzazz»
«Truck's piled up with enough explosives to level our turf.»
The panicked shouting of mooks coming from inside of the building were quickly cut off by bursts of automatic fire, a good indicator that Switch and the rest of the crew were having no trouble with flushing the corpo rats out. A safe house only in name.
«From: Melody»
«Shame we can't just use those to blow this place up and call it a day.»
«From: Switch»
«We could, but it will be hard getting intel from under the rubble.»
«From: Melody»
«Fair point, Cap'n.»
«From: Switch»
«We'll push in further. Pizzazz, Cherry, keep watch out front and stop anyone from escaping.»
«From: Pizzazz»
«You got it, boss.»
Pizzazz and Cherry took up their assigned posts, ready to drop anyone who planned to leave through the front door. They also kept an eye out for any incoming vehicles.
Vehicles, just like the pair of headlights approaching from up ahead. Another pair. And another pair. Either someone called for reinforcements, or they just had horrible timing. Considering the reports of gunfire dancing through the evening air, there was no playing this one off. They’re coming in hot.
«From: Pizzazz»
«Uh, we got incoming. Three trucks so far.»
«From: Switch»
«Hold out as best you can. Interior is also hot.»
Pizzazz and Cherry had their backs to the literal wall. They had no idea if the front door was safe enough to go through, and they weren’t exactly going to take cover behind the truck that happened to be filled with an indeterminate amount of explosives. The mutual look between the two communicated that perfectly without words. A few more seconds and they’d have a few security teams up in their faces.
Up shit creek, and not a paddle in sight.