The waitress placed another steaming bowl of noodles on the table and gave a shallow bow before returning to the kitchen.

“You sure you don’t wanna go for round two?” Marcus asked as he palmed the bowl and slid it directly in front of him, a ravenous grin growing on his face.

Damien covered a small burp with his fist then patted his bloated stomach. “No way, man. I’m done.” He’d surprised himself with how much he’d eaten during the first course, the spirit of competition pushing him to keep pace with his crew mate. That spirit was now crushed under the weight of a few pounds of food.

The front door of the small diner opened and Kat came back inside, having stepped out for a moment to talk to an old friend. She made her way to their booth and slid in beside Damien. “Geez, Marcus, you ordered more? Honestly, I don’t know how your stomach doesn’t explode.”

“It’s a gift and a talent,” Marcus said from across the table as he expertly mixed the noodles with his own custom pair of chopsticks. His wide stature covered up as much space as the other two pirates combined.

“Zero’s offer whetted your appetite, eh?” Damien teased. “You should’ve seen your face when he mentioned the pay for this job.”

“Can’t believe how you quickly you backtracked, too,” Kat added. “Went from ‘fuck you’ to total silence. Then again, I can’t really blame you. A hundred and thirty grand is a lot of money. Enough to make most people shut up.”

Marcus nodded in agreement then pinched a group of noodles and shoveled them into his mouth, slurping up any stragglers that almost got away.

“That reminds me,” Damien said as he turned toward Kat. “I’ve been meaning to ask, how did you get into Zero’s office without us? I thought we were barred from even entering the elevator unless we all came together before a meeting.”

“That was the case before,” Kat said, “but after dropping off the prototypes with him, he granted us some access to the building. I guess you could say he’s starting to trust us a little.”

“And what were the two of you talking about before we got there?”

“I only arrived a few minutes earlier, so we didn’t discuss anything that turned out to be useful. I wanted to get some info on what he found within the prototype, but he wouldn’t tell me. He’s too elusive. Just skirts around my probing.”

“So, what do we do now?” Marcus said through a mouth full of food. “Dame already said that he was down, but what do you say, Kat? Continue along with this job or bail?”

“We can still bail?” Damien interjected.

“Of course. He can’t force us to do shit.”

“But the money…” Kat said. “It’s too good to turn down. And this is still our only lead on Jay. I don’t see how we can stop now.”

Marcus nodded again as he shoveled more food into his mouth.

“The only problem is, Zero didn’t have any info on that research facility so we don’t have a starting point for this mission.” Kat’s icy blue eyes met Damien’s gaze. “I know you’re still learning on the job, but I’m curious what you have to say. How do you think we should approach this one?”

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Damien didn’t expect to be asked for input on something so important. Up until now, he’d mostly just tagged along and let the other two lead, not that he had a problem with that. Perhaps he’d seen enough for his input to now have some value.

He leaned back against the leather backrest and contemplated on the mission briefing for a moment. “First thing’s first, we gotta come up with a plan. The way I see it, we have three options to get those files. Our first option would be to break in with weapons in hand and take the files by force. Or we could somehow sneak in discreetly and take them from under their noses. But based on what I heard during the briefing, this place will have a lot of security so both of these options are risky.”

“And the third option?”

“We get someone else to get the files for us, preferably someone from the inside. We could coerce them with threats or bribes, but I’m not entirely sure if that would work. The information on those files is high priority, right? So it’s unlikely that one employee has all the info we want. And the high-level people who may be able to access those files individually could be facing bigger bribes and threats from TrillTech itself.”

Kat’s face softened, a rare moment of warmth taking over her features. “Impressive. You’re quickly learning how to think like a pirate.”

“Not gonna lie,” Marcus said. “I didn’t consider doing something like that third option. It would save us a lot of hassle if we don’t have to go in there ourselves.”

“But there’s the issue of time,” Damien added. “We need to get those files in two days, which doesn’t give a big window to find a mole and threaten or bribe them. That means that we’re really only left with the first two options.”

“So which of those two do you think we should pick?” Kat asked.

“It’s hard to say. We need to gather some intel first. Zero showed us that there were multiple buildings surrounding that bulkhead, so we need to find out what’s inside each of them. We gotta learn their defenses and where the control room is located. Once we get that info, we can decide on how to proceed. I think we should scope it out one at a time, each of us going at different times to see what we can find.”

“But that area is mostly deserted.” Kat said. “It’s busy enough that it’s not strange for people to move in and out, but not so busy that if unknown people come by they won’t be noticed. If we’re spotted snooping around, they may become suspicious.”

Damien rubbed his chin in contemplation. “Then we’ll need to gather intel from a distance. Or better yet, make use of information that others already have. We could follow an employee when they leave and coerce the info out of them. Or we could find the floor plans of the facility somewhere. Maybe inside some city records.”

“That’s possible. But none of those methods are reliable. Time is of the essence, and we could end up dead if we go in unprepared or with bad info. This is one mission we can’t afford to screw up.” Kat drummed her fingers on the table. “There’s another option that you hadn’t considered, not that I blame you. It’ll cost us a good chunk of our pay, but it’s better to lose some profit to increase our odds of completing the job.”

“Oh? And what’s that?”

Marcus slurped the remainder of his noodles and dropped the empty bowl on to the table between them. “You’re talking about a hacker, right?” He wiped his mouth with a napkin and he grinned at the two of them. “I’m surprised I didn’t think of it myself.”

“We’ll need one for the files anyway,” Kat said. “We can’t trust Zero to give us all the info he finds, so we’ll need to give a copy of those files to someone we trust. It’s very likely that they’ll be heavily encrypted, which means that we’ll need a top tier hacker.”

Marcus raised both eyebrows. “You really wanna ask her? It’ll cost an arm and a leg.”

“We have no choice. We’re on a strict deadline and this mission calls for a specialist.”

Damien swapped glances between his two companions. “A specialist? Who?”

“Our ace in the hole,” Marcus said. “One of the best hackers in Neopolis.”

“I’ll call her now.” Kat’s eyes let out a flash of blue, and she spoke to someone other than the two pirates at the table. “Hey, Lana. You busy?”