Andrew - Halls Corporation
“We have no connection here at all, and we’re not even inside their buildings yet,” Brian said to his three other team members.
“We’ll take a quick look around first. We need to gather some useful information about this place. Mark, go around with Brian and record everything you see of the east building, including the exterior. Remember to hightail out of here at the first sight of trouble.”
“Roger.” The two quickly moved as instructed, leaving only Andrew and Peng by themselves.
They moved toward the building by cutting across the parking lot they were in. The entrance had a set of automatic doors with a variety of sensors at the ready to scan anyone entering the building.
Andrew watched the other team circling to the back of the building until they disappeared from view before he led Peng to survey the west building.
They then met up to finish scouting out the main building together. Once they had the recordings of all three ten-story buildings and the sky bridges that connected them, Andrew quickly reviewed them. He found no openings or entry points that could fit a person on the exterior of all three buildings.
“The only way in is through the doors…We’ll need a cy-sec specialist for this, but they’ll have to come with us on the ground since we can’t connect to the outside in here.”
He looked between his teammates for opinions before his gaze settled on Peng, who was staring blankly back at him.
Andrew shrugged.
Should have expected as much.
“Let’s head back.”
After a quick five-minute in and out, Andrew led his team back to an unremarkable car nearby. Once outside the area around the QuickLinks Logistic base, they regained their connections. He quickly opened his company comms and compiled a report using a special encryption method.
I hope this information helps at all. All we found out is an impregnable fortress… We’ll need a lot of brute force to storm the place.
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“I received reports about your successful operation. Good job, Vin,” I said to the projection of Vin standing in front of me.
“It went a lot smoother than I expected, really. We didn’t expect to come across such a cowardly corpo as their leader. He didn’t even try to pull any tricks and pissed himself when I was only a little rough with him.”
“How many of their forces escaped?”
“According to their files, there’s only eight to ten of their employees unaccounted for. We eliminated or captured the rest. We let the mercenaries scatter, though.”
“Anything useful from the captives?”
“No. My cowardly friend here is willing to talk, but they didn’t inform him of the really important stuff. The only person who was entrusted was part of that convoy that attacked us in the wasteland near NLA.”
“That’s unfortunate. I doubt he’s still alive, but it’s enough that we removed a nail from our NLA branch. They shouldn’t be able to muster any significant forces there, and we can move on with our plan of striking at their headquarters to end this.”
“About that… I received news from the people I sent to Miles High. The QuickLinks headquarters is nothing to scoff at. We’ll need to concentrate our forces to attack it and probably sustain heavy casualties.”
Vin transferred me some files over our encrypted line. It was slow but safe.
Once it was done, I could view various images and videos someone recorded of the QuickLinks Logistics headquarters building. It was a ten-story high building, with a spacious outdoor parking lot at the front. A wall surrounded their compound. Above each section of the wall was a menacing turret that could rip apart any unarmoured vehicle with ease. Not even an armored vehicle could tank many shots.
We really should upgrade our headquarters into something similar. We’re a little short on cash now since we focused it all on producing our own vehicles, so maybe afterward.
I continued going over the various recordings and notes the operation had left.
“No connection once they step on their territory? Does that affect their own people, too?”
“Yes, I’ve tried to gather as much info on that as I could to see if there was any countermeasure, but the indiscriminate jamming affects themselves and all intruders without weakness to exploit.”
“...That must suck for the people working there. Like what, wired connections only?”
“Yes, their wired connections have to go through their own server first. They have cy-sec specialists on call managing their systems, too. Breaching their system through brute force isn’t really an option.”
“...I see. Give me a day with this. I’ll try to come up with something.”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Very well. We’re heading back to NLA for now to prepare for our trip to Miles High. You won’t be able to contact me while I’m in the wasteland.”
“Okay, safe travels.”
I disconnected from the call and went back to my workshop. It was time to study the specifications from the footage I received.
A frontal attack seemed like a stupid idea for this, and I had an idea of how to breach inside. The only problem was that it required a cy-sec specialist to break through their systems once they were in the building, but most of them weren’t exactly field-ready. Especially not an infiltration mission into a corporate headquarters.
I mulled the issues for the entire day and when the mental fatigue set in; I ordered a milkshake and some food to refresh myself. My order came swiftly, right after a quick shower, and I went to see the experts themselves to pick their brains for ideas.
“Leo, Lana, are you two busy?” I found the two sitting in their usual spot, where they blankly stared ahead as they were focused on what was displayed on their optics.
The glow in Lana’s eyes faded, and she turned to me.
“Leo’s busy right now. What’s up?”
“I wanted to see if you guys could help me come up with any ideas on how to sneak into this place here.” I held out a terminal with the information relating to QuickLinks Logistic’s headquarters.
She took the terminal for a second and transferred the info to her own before she took a few minutes to examine the information.
“This is the type of place you can expect to be loaded with cameras, turrets, and even traps. You’ll definitely need someone in their systems if you want to go in quietly, but the E-Dome listed here is the real problem.”
“Yeah, do you think there’s a way for me to punch a connection through to the outside somehow if I can plug in from the inside?”
“You read the info. We’re not magicians here. That thing jams all connections indiscriminately. You’ll need access to their landlines that connect to the outside world, but you won’t be able to get in there in the first place without someone in their system to disable their security.”
“I see… and I doubt either of you would be capable of sneaking in with us, then?”
“You can stuff as many of your stealth implants inside of us as you want, but it won’t make us infiltrators.”
I can already see them stumbling and out of breath, trying to keep up.
“So, no ideas on how to help us get in, then?”
“...You know the basics of how to breach their systems, but their cy-sec specialists would stop you cold in your tracks. Pre-made stuff won’t work against an active geek holding the reins. Maybe you could connect a landline to the outermost systems and we’ll be able to distract them…But even then…”
Her eyes lit up once more, and she typed away at her terminal.
“Here, try to breach into this network I’ve set up.”
I did as instructed and plugged into the terminal, using the cable coming out of my wrists.
The defenses were tougher than anything I had attempted to breach personally, but I’ve also seen better pretty often. All my pre-made programs didn’t work, so I was forced to tweak what I had to create my own on the spot to try to find the loopholes in the system.
While coding wasn’t the issue with my software development skills, I had trouble coming up with ways to bypass or trick the system. I continued at it, slowly making progress using trial and error. Just as I thought I was about to have it after almost half an hour, the entire system I had been trying to breach changed. It was as if I was solving a math question when it suddenly became a history test.
My progress was instantly reset. I tried again for another ten minutes, but progress was slow.
“Not nearly good enough,” Lana’s voice rang out beside me. “Leo had been battling me this entire time, and he still had to leeway shrug off your breaching attempts. You don’t have a delicate touch at all, so you made it easy for him to notice you, too.”
“She’s… right, Rollo. Maybe you should try finding a cy-sec specialist merc that is also good at infiltration…Or not. Talent like that must be corporate trained, and they wouldn’t be allowed to leave the company even if they wanted,” Leo added from the side.
If we can’t infiltrate their headquarters, a frontal attack would be costly and risky. Even if we succeeded, we would be weakened and vulnerable to others. We might not even have enough strength to take over the route like the alliance wanted.
“I have an idea. Let’s try this exercise again tomorrow.”
“Rollo…there’s no point. You would need to train for a few years to get to the point required. Even if you got a cassette with the right knowledge, it would take a few weeks,” Leo warned.
“Don’t worry about how I’ll do it. Just let me do it one more time tomorrow morning.”
“...If that’s what’ll satisfy you.”
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“...Cloak, can you please reconsider this?” Thorne—No, Ken asked.
“It should be fine. Our new allies have been on the lookout for any enemies in the city for us. They should’ve all gone underground by now.”
“But to accept a gig that pits us against some gang, really Cloak?”
“Hey, we’re rescuing some poor kid, way better than helping some gang squabble among each other.”
“...”
We made our way toward the megabuilding our intel department had picked up. The gig we took to find the kidnappers was a breeze when we were up against idiots who thought texting in their so-called ‘codes’ would magically encrypt everything they sent.
A quick breach into the megabuilding’s security cameras, which were full of holes, was all that we needed to confirm the intel.
We made our way up the elevator and found a crowded floor that was filled with junkies and other unsavory crowds. We entered the side halls where the residential units were and soon found the unit we were looking for.
Once I confirmed there were no cameras in the area, we both turned on our active camouflage and knocked on the door. There was no answer, so I knocked again, louder this time.
“What do you—Huh?” A man opened the door and looked around before angrily cursed as there was no one there.
“Those dumb junkies!” He said as he slammed the door shut. However, we had already gotten inside.
I followed the man walking past the living room, into one of the bedrooms where half a dozen other people were. He soon sat down by the desk then picked up a syringe and injected it straight into his arm.
“Woah dude, look at you taking another plunge.”
“Shut up! How else am I going to calm down after those shitters outside screwing with me?”
“Haha, I told you not to go get the door.”
We moved past them to inspect the other rooms. A few of them had people sleeping, while others were simply watching something on their optics. When I got into a bathroom, I found a girl tied up like a mummy.
“You take care of her, Ken. I’m going to clean this place up.”