Chapter 90: Data Theft

Mimicset Modules [7/10]:

* Stabilize: [I+B] Sustain/Sustain

* Burn: [2B] Overclock/Overclock

* Insight: [2B] Analyze/Network

* Wield: [2B] Integration/Integration

* Databreak: [I+B] Dataweave/Jailbreak

* Hammer: [I+B] Accommodate/Overclock

* Overcome: [2B] Sustain/Database

2:55 AM

August 30th (35 minutes since mission start)

Ripley [Western Shandian Facility: 1F]

My drone flew from table to table, this floor we were on seemed to mostly be office and cargo distributing space. Since we were here in the dead of night, not many workers were actually here, but I expected things would be different the deeper we went. I let my Webcrawler land on a table, quickly hooking up the computer in place there and-

Nope. More porn.

Skittering away, in a few minutes I managed to find an elevator with subterranean access near the cargo bay — a maintenance lift.

“I could have just sliced through underneath us.” R0N1N didn’t help by giving up his brute-force method to my ears as I worked to clear a route to the elevator.

I sighed in disbelief. “For a guy called The R0N1N you really do not like being stealthy. Like, what if there are hostages or something?”

“I’m fast enough to secure hostages… and first of all.” R0N1N’s gaze searched deep inside of me. “That’s racist, as Topaz would say. You’re confusing me with a ninja. A Ronin is a wandering samurai without a master.”

“What happened to you not knowing about your own culture? Like the straw hat thing?” I scratched my chin, while my eyes were busy disabling cameras several rooms away.

“That’s actually a pirate thing where I come from, according to the resources Topaz had me look through in order to… prepare myself for you.”

“Topaz prepared you for me?” Okay, now I needed to know the gossip. “So are you two really close friends or…”

“We engage in casual intimacy.” R0N1N clarified with no shame, and you know what… I didn’t need to know any more details.

”Cool… I found a way down.” I coughed, changing the subject as quickly as I could, marking the location. “We’re going to need an access code of a guard first to-!”

Wind slapped me as every door in the next several rooms slammed open all at once, the R0N1N nowehere to be found… oh no, I could see him alright, he was hovering right underneath my drone.

While R0N1N could just blitz fast enough to not be seen by the naked eye, I actually had to be a bit stealthy on my way there. First, I used my Shard Op’ claws to fudge the lock of the washroom and set it’s holographic display to ‘out of order’. Then, using my Insight Module, I mimicked a Network Feature to link up to the various cameras I’d overridden to be able to chart guard pathways and avoid the lines of sight of anyone working. It was a good thing the underpaid things were half asleep right now.

When I made it through to the elevator, R0N1N was impatiently tapping his feet. “Did you get the codes?”

“Nope.” I pointed to the elevator. “You can just yank it open, I know you can.”

R0N1N tilted his head in a way that made me think he was smiling behind that mask, and he obliged very easily to grab the elevator in the center and part as easily as a marshmallow. He jumped down, landing like a panther on the floor beneath us.

My four Arachne arms scraped the walls of the elevator shaft as I descended, putting us officially at…

[Western Shandian Facility: B1 (Iron-Grade Production Line)]

R0N1N opened the elevators just a tiny bit, flicking his head to the tiny robot in the air. My Webcrawler leaped through the gap, observing the new surroundings of the floor below. It was noise and heat everywhere, the sheer radiation of the Iron-Grade Warp Energy was nauseating. Zooming further into the facility I saw hundreds of conveyor belts curving and winding amidst giant machines that pounded, smelt, stabbed, clinked, shaved and fused together various Shardware components into something larger.

”Dreadwire.” R0N1N made sure to use my pseudonym. “Why are we at the Iron Level, there should’ve been direct access to the Bronze-”

I shrugged innocently, feigning any sense of purposely doing this. “I thought it would be… safer.”

“You wanted to look at the Shardware.” He accused.

“I wanted to look at the Shardware.” I admitted.

R0N1N sighed, eying the hundreds of various components and then putting black highlights in my optic feed on several conveyor belts. “These pieces are the foundations of my own Shardware. Learn them.”

I nodded, not seeing any immediate staff I left the safety of the elevator and aimed my Arachne Livewire tips into the ceiling as they silently reeled me all the way to the top of the manufacturing floor onto a catwalk. My arms stabbed and adjusted to give me purchase while my suit shimmered to make me invisible. My Shardware-scanning optics zoomed in across the various conveyor belts and memorized the patterns used to build up the Shardware, I was feasting.

It was a good thing then that I had managed just the tiniest bit of Warpcode-manipulation earlier today to put a new Feature Link in my Neuroframe. Info-loader. Originating from a Database Feature, it was king among all Feature Links designed for memory, as my brain directly built up blueprints of the various Shardware they were building here… with this, I could even begin to make my own Neurowire and Neuroprocessors.

After around six minutes of scanning and taking control of cameras from my concealed perch, I carefully slid down, pointing out to R0N1N the quickest way to the floor below us.

[Western Shandian Facility: B2 (Bronze-Grade Production Lines)]

Stolen novel; please report.

“Yeah just cut a hole, we should end up… right above a break room.” I searched for my Warp Energy to drag them into my eyes, activating one of their unique properties. The floor began to permeate, as I saw its various layers of piping and structural supports peel apart until I could make out various electromagnetic signatures underneath me. “There’s going to be… four people, can you… you know? Do it exactly here for maximum effect!”

“Yes.” He answered confidently, taking out his sword and carving a perfect circle in which the cylinder slid downwards, crashing right onto a resting guard in the head and knocking him unconcious. R0N1N dropped, as did I… and before I even touched the floor, the three other guards all had needles within their clavicles.

R0N1N twisted his wrists from side to side, grunting as he noticed a slight resistance in them. My eyes began scanning through them, but they were hefty pieces for my Bronze optics to decipher.

Silver-Grade, very much high Silver-Grade tech. Might even be pushing into true Gold territory.

“Need a hand?” My four spider-arms stood ready and waiting, and R0N1N casually showcased both wrists for me to look at. Taking a closer look, I readjusted their carpal joints which had slipped out of place, and fine-tuned the fingers to loosen them up.

R0N1N flexed them, nodding in approval as he took out his sword again to-

“No.” I warned him. “Can’t read what’s below us… floor’s too thick and Warp-dense, besides that’s the Security layer. We could be dropping into a firing range right now.”

“I’ll be fine.” He prepared to plunge the blade.

“I want to…” I paused, my confession laced with shame. “…look at the Shardware on this level. It could be useful.”

R0N1N didn’t groan out in annoyance, rather, he almost looked at me in understanding. A strict, no bullshit, understanding. His personality was confusing, pragmatic and stoic but also… vaguely empathic? “Remember what we’re here for. Security will be much tighter at this level. You have ten minutes.”

I clapped my hand, my webcrawler zipping up my arm as I began to follow the route to the main production line. We were situated in a breakroom a little above the production lines and I had a great view of the various production lines from here. Though, I’d be lying if I said that’s what I was really here for.

Shardware was both complicated, and paradoxically simple. It was whatever you wanted it to be. The Founders weren’t dedicating themselves to giving their consumers the best, in fact, quite the opposite… by nature their Shardware was faulty. Designed to require maintenance and replacement parts to leech ever more Shardyne from their people.

Learning how to make Shardware their way wasn’t what I was here for. R0N1N had his own agenda to secure Goliath, and I had my own. To consume the knowledge of this factory. Spending so much time and risk on the Iron layer would have been downright stupid, considering how much I had worked at that grade all my life.

I needed information of the Bronze and Silver Grade to truly progress. And how often do you end up performing a heist at a Shardware factory of all places? Truth be told I had discovered quicker, more exact ways down to where we needed to go — I was sure the R0N1N knew it too. Thing is, we were both benefiting from me learning Yuzhou tech, he was anti-Yuzhou, what better way to scorn them than by having their secrets fall into the hand of a Gold Adapter with every inclination to perform intellectual theft and infringement?

This had all been engineered by me, maybe not the washroom bit, but the entrance into the Iron layer and Bronze layer had gone exactly to plan. Right now, I was positioned right beside their main overview hub for this layer’s production lines. What I wanted, direct access to their manufacturing secrets, was right here.

Still, this was risky, I’d begun to reach the level where the Datajammer in my left claw wouldn’t give me enough time to secure a backdoor into their camera feeds to keep me hidden. Which meant I had to rely entirely on Twilight’s DataCleaver to do the work for me now. That was fine, but the more I would use it, the less effective it would be as time went on. It would dull as it’s Warpcode structure disintegrated on Datashield after shield.

Still, a few cameras would be fine. I snuck my drone into a ventilation grate connected to the central hub, only to find various lasers and motion detectors pinging inside the shaft. Great, barely a minute down and I was already facing trouble. That meant I had one option left to look inside the room, I would have to breach through the camera network in order to search for their internal view of the hub.

It was one thing redirecting what a camera is telling the DataDelver viewing it, but sneaking through the Warpcode itself was akin to putting a flashlight on you if your name wasn’t Mirage. So I pulled my Warpcode back. If I had a module with both Network and Jailbreak, then maybe I could attempt it… but as it stands that wasn’t an option.

Instead, I resorted to manually opening the door, using my claws to loosen up it’s lock and leverage my Gold strength to lightly pry it open enough that my drone could skitter towards the ceiling… and bingo! It was sorely understaffed, just a few half-dozing middle-managers enjoying a coffee break while the automated machinery did the rest.

I still spotted pistols on the sides of their thighs, but I wasn’t too worried about it. If anything, it was a good sign that they were expecting something, or someone to break into this facility. It meant Goliath was here.

With my drone firmly nestled into a shady corner, it drew sights on the three employees as a lock-on symbol began to squeeze slowly over them. Yet another Feature-Link, Target-Lock gave my mask the ability to use my drone’s sight and my own visual field to lock-onto targets without my gun being its issuer. That had its own issues, however, as without the paired Target-Aim Feature-Link the process of locking on was much longer, nearly 12 seconds per target assuming they were completely still.

Though, switching over to the double-Integration Wield Module smoothed things out. I took a steady hold of my Parastim vials, the target locks readjusting to take into consideration the arc of movement and my own throwing skills — despite being a poor aim with a gun, I was pretty good at darts actually.

And so, with a burst of strength, I pulled the door open, aiming and throwing my first Iron-grade Parastim at the woman enjoying a cup of joe who was facing the door. The second man spilled his drink, startled by my appearance enough that I had pounced right over and stabbed a second vial into his neck.

The last man… was snoring on the monitors. Just for safety measures, I sunk a third more into his subclavian. Satisfied, I familiarized myself with the control desk as I plugged in my various direct linking chords spinning out of my arm and wired them into the consoles.

First, I used the Databreak Module alongside the DataCleaver, then switched to Insight where I could safely override the controls without alerting the main factory system for too long. There were many options set out for me to enjoy, but right now I found the various files and schematics of manufacturing procedures that… were Warp Signature locked to the people I’d downed.

I grinded my teeth, before the obvious option rattled in my head. Kneeling in front of one, I began reading and mimicking their Bronze BUGs… took me around half a minute, but it was an okay Integration and Analyze BUG for Shardware and factory systems linking — one update in particular was to get access to this floor’s security bypass. If I could permanently have this on me the whole time… no, it was stupid. First, if they died the Security team would get notified and second, just because they worked for Yuzhou didn’t mean they were deserving to die.

Still, I felt the harmony of the Bronze BUG… and then tried to get my own Gold to feel it out and mimic that signature.

[Access granted to Dr. Anna Shelby: Bronze Security Clearance]

Data Mimicry V.2.10 has updated to V.2.11

Effect: Increased ability to mimic Warp Signatures of mimicked Implants.

That got me admission into a whole lot of things, but I was already low on my time-limit of ten minutes with just five left. So I set the Shardware schematics to download directly into my head, ignoring the throbbing pulse of my Neuroframe digesting terabytes of information a second to instead scan through the more… profitable options.

A Warp Shard Depository? Now that sounded good. I clicked to access it, marveling as a giant cabinet behind me opened up to reveal hundreds of Bronze Shards lodged into slots that seemed to be one part of a network to charge Warp Energy into creating the Shardware.

I probed the massive cupboard, questioning if they would notice… a Shard or two going missing. There didn’t seem to be any option to remove or add the shards, so maybe opening the cabinet itself equated permission?

Whatever, I’ll just take one-

“ATTEMPTED WARP SHARD THEFT HAS OCCURRED IN BRONZE CONTROL HUB 3; STATIONED PERSONEL, PLEASE REPORT TO THE CRIME.”

Oh fuck.