There was indeed someone inside the room. The person was currently enjoying some alone time with his hand and something inside the Virtual-Connect.

That one look was enough for Trace, who raised the suppressed pistol and fired. The man slumped over dead, a portion of his head missing, and his pants forever down with indignity. Gingerly, he entered the room and swiped the credits from the man’s crypto-vault. Just getting near him while he was in that position made him feel uncomfortably dirty.

Pushing on, he kept sweeping each room he came to. They were slowly becoming cleaner the further he entered the floor. With each no longer looking like wallows that scavs slept in. They were still unclean, but it was approaching the level of month-old dirty sheets with the occasional stain, instead of the outright filth it had been initially.

The next three gang-members he had found were put down with an ease that equaled the first. They were each napping when he found them.

Trace grabbed what he could from them and then dragged their bodies to join the first fellow. Eventually succeeding in creating a somewhat disturbing, but increasingly humorous tableau of bodies in awkward positions around the first partially disrobed man. It was important to find joy in your work; he had been told, and well, that was what he was doing.

The last two the scan had shown him were on opposite sides of the floor. It was tempting to run another S&R scan, but he needed to be judicious in their use, otherwise he would risk cooking his brain. It was something that he was trying to be more mindful of, especially since he was still near the beginning of the mission. Overheating his equipment straight out the gate would be nothing but a rookie move, and not one he was willing to make.

So, he slunk along, staying low in an attempt to minimize any visible profile he might accidentally make.

The fifth person he found at a computer desk, typing away at a keyboard that used ideographic images instead of letters. It was one of the methods a person could use when they were breaching a system. Each symbol was associated with a script of some kind.

In other words, what the gonk in front of him was attempting to do was no better than be some lame version of a script-kiddy. Admittedly, it was how you were taught to start out; he had perused the teaching module on the subject already and this was part of the early lessons. That said, they also told you straight up that it was a crutch you needed to distance yourself from as quickly as possible.

It was a slightly more manual version of the system breaching module, or at least it could be if you had the right scripts.

Which then begged the question of why they weren’t just using one of those? At this fellow’s stage of development, it was still better and faster to use a pre-made module instead of attempting to use your own setup.

Trace glanced around the area. Then again, he supposed there wasn’t exactly a race against the clock to break into the system. Why not use the chance to get some good practice in?

A shot to the back of the head ended him quickly, though it did create a fair bit of a mess over the desk computer. At least it had missed the keyboard, which Trace made sure to unplug and grab. It might be a crutch, but it was a useful one for learning and he had already discovered how useful system breaching was.

He stuffed the corpse under the desk and continued on his way. From his current location, he could see that he had covered roughly half the floor up to that point. If he ran a Search & Rescue scan from his current location, then its range wouldn’t quite be enough to cover the rest of the floor, but it would be close.

He decided to use another scan.

Vaguely, he caught sight of someone walking between floors on a second set of stairs at that end of the building. The scan didn’t quite have the power to penetrate between floors, but it could show him if someone was on the stairs, as that was more of a void.

Other than the one person heading further down, that side of the floor was thankfully empty.

Trace turned his attention to the one person he knew for sure was still on the floor. Someone who seemed to be in the process of violently cursing out a taco chain as they glued their cheeks to the unholy throne of porcelain. From the squirts and grunts that were mixed with the accompanying moans echoing out of the bathroom as they emptied out everything they had ever eaten; it was clear they were enjoying themselves. It was perhaps a little mean of him killing the man on the toilet mid-butt-plosion. However, there was something to be said for useful distractions.

Waving the smell away from his face, Trace quickly, but carefully, swept the rest of the floor. He knew the S&R scan had said it was clear. However, if he was going to leave this floor at his back, he wanted to be extra sure.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

The next floor down was made up of several conference rooms, and dozens of rows of what had been cubicles. The walls on many of the cubicles had been torn down in such a manner that Trace had difficulty believing the gangsters were the culprits of that particular offense.

The cubicles weren’t being used at the moment, but the tables in the conference rooms were covered with weapons. Each of the rooms had over a dozen people inside that were taking apart, and cleaning all the different guns. Some of the guns were their own, as he saw them get holstered once they were finished. Others were merely placed into a different pile from the rest.

While he mentally congratulated them on being better than scavs, it looked as though this was a floor he would need to skip. Which isn’t exactly what he wanted to do. That was the entire reason he had taken the time to clear out everyone on the top floor. Yet, no matter how he thought about it, this was not a floor he should take on at the moment.

It would create too much noise and would only result in him getting noticed early.

Grinding his teeth, he carefully closed the door and used the blade of a knife he had picked up from one of the dead guys to jam it shut. It wasn’t perfect, but it would hold them back for a few seconds.

That was another item he needed to add to his ever-growing list of crap to get at some point. A laser or portable spot welder of some kind, something that he could have used to actually seal the door shut.

The list of toys he found himself wanting versus what he could realistically afford or carry around was drastically different. It was rather annoying really.

Sneaking down to the fifth floor, Trace found a small side room where the server was. He made a note to come by and snatch that later. He had all the components back at his place for a sever setup but was missing the actual server. It didn’t matter that he had no personal use for one; he was sure that Deckard could find a use for it.

Closing the door behind him, he marked its location in his mind and moved on. This entire floor was comprised of the company’s tech department, it appeared. There were components scattered across the floor where the new inhabitants and carelessly tossed them, uncaring of their value. There were surprisingly high-end oscilloscopes sitting next to magnification and vacuum chamber equipment.

It was a mix that Trace wouldn’t mind having back at the warehouse. He was suddenly finding himself curious as to what the company that had been in this building had been working on.

Some of the equipment was non-standard for anyone working with cyberware. Which was pretty much everyone these days, it seemed, which only made him more interested.

That could come later. For now, he needed to delicately remove anyone on this level. Without ruining any of the equipment.

At least that was his intention until he heard a crashing from further in.

There he saw a group of the gangsters taking bats and pipes to the equipment. They were destroying it all, simply for the sake of destruction.

Before he had time to second guess what he was doing, or even realize it for that matter, he had already shot two of them. This time around, he was less concerned about kill shots and more worried about debilitating them. Preferably in ways that would keep them from screaming. He wasn’t being too picky though as he fired, swapped magazines, and continued firing.

The second magazine ran dry, and his trigger finger twitched a few more times as he took a second to breathe.

That had been an absolute rush of speed shooting, and yet, his aim hadn’t suffered as much as he thought it would.

The world around him warped around the edges in an unsteady bubble effect. It forced him to notice for the first time how slow everything had become.

He breathed out, and everything abruptly returned to normal.

Trace staggered as suddenly he felt everything, all the adrenaline, anger, fear, annoyance, and more that he had pushed aside in those seconds came rushing in. He had no idea what had happened, but the aftereffect was discombobulating to the system.

Each of the gang members collapsed to the floor, sprouting several new holes in each of their chests.

At the same time, a new notification appeared in the corner of his vision.

- Administrator Trace Delevey has unlocked the hidden function ‘Perks’

- Special first Perk unlocked has been identified as ‘Overdrive’

- Overdrive 1 – A special Perk that increases the adrenaline in the user’s body for a temporary full body burst

- Second Perk unlocked has been identified as ‘Steady Hands 1’

- Steady Hands 1 – Reduces recoil from current weapon by a small amount

He blinked and rolled his eyes, great something he probably wouldn’t be able to control.

Still, he had to admit, those perks had come in at exactly the right time to be useful. Once this was over, and he was back safe at the apartment, he would need to go through the G.H.O.S.T. System menu and learn what he could about this new function.

Swapping out the empty magazine for yet another fresh one, he drained each of their crypto-vaults dry of money. A quick run through the floor confirmed that it was empty, and he was free to go down to the fourth floor.

At last, he found where everyone was congregated together. The other floors had been mostly empty, and he was starting to think he hadn’t actually found their headquarters. That all changed when he laid eyes on the fourth floor.

There were over a hundred people scattered about the place. Far too many for him to deal with at the current time, in other words. However, he might just be able to send a message.

Trace rarely used them himself, as they were far too noisy, but the people he fought tended to enjoy carrying around grenades. As a result, he always had an ample supply of them on hand. Case in point, at the moment, he currently had over twenty stuffed into his courier bag.

He thought about how he wanted to do this and then laid eight of them out on the floor next to a knife. A ninth was set to the side.

Trace edged the door to the floor open, grabbed the first grenade, popped the pin, and threw it as hard as he could. In rapid succession, the next seven all followed to different parts of the floor. He didn’t particularly care where, as he was looking to cause maximum damage with these, more than eliminate everyone.

As soon as the eighth grenade was in the air, he slammed the door shut and jammed the knife into place.

The ninth grenade was tossed behind him down the stairs while he sprinted up them. The time for quiet had ended. At least that was what he told himself as the entire building trembled. It could be that he was just a terrible wraith in training.