Anarchy Mary has been the leader of the street gang "Children of Nero" for quite some time now. She wasn't quite sure what it meant, but Sarvoz had explained to her several times that it had something to do with a crazy emperor or something. It sounded cool and that was enough for Mary. After all, there was nothing worse than being part of a gang that has no style. Naja Style.... OH NEVER MIND! She suppressed the wildly flying thoughts and tried to concentrate. She had an extremely important task to complete and couldn't be distracted all the time. Her trembling hand moved slowly and deliberately, a small top hat firmly between her fingers. Slow. Very slowly. She approached the Data Tube distributor and took one last deep breath.
With a flowing movement, she sprayed the last color accents on her freshly created graffiti masterpiece. It had taken her a total of five days and led to more than just a tantrum, but now it was finally done.
Mary threw the empty can aside and took a few quick steps back. In front of her, a cyborg with poison green eyes and shiny chrome broke out of the distributor, the Children's logo prominently on the chest. She had given him a hairstyle and hair color similar to herself, a wild pixie cut with a shaved side. She had a little longer hair than she created, but she hasn't cut her hair in a while.
You could actually see some of her in the sprayed character, physique and some of the augments were very similar, only the eyes had been fundamentally redesigned. Poisonous green pupils, on dark green sclera. She had wanted those eyes for years. It was part of a special edition of the Hakkimiru product line, inspired by military models that were said to have been popular decades ago.
At the moment she only had an ordinary eye eye, with a boring blue, and her left biological eye, with the even more boring gray/blue. Of course, the color wasn't the only thing that appealed to Mary so much, it would immediately make her many times more dangerous. Night vision AND thermal vision, both can even be activated simultaneously in one eye. That was.... Mary was taken aback and looked around. What did she want to do right now? She was sure it was something important...
"OVER THERE!" barked a deep male voice from the entrance of the exclusion zone, and a group of eight guards sprinted in their direction.
Oh. Correct. She had forgotten that her time window for the graffiti was not too long and that she should have been gone for 10 minutes. Fuck. Mary took her legs in her hands and ran in the opposite direction of the guards.
She could hear the screams and shouts behind her, but she couldn't make them out completely, because they overlapped. But she suspected that it was nothing nice. With a daring jump, she catapulted herself from the platform on which the Data Tube unit was located and dropped towards the street. The hydraulics in her leg joints had to work overtime to cushion the fall and despite this, Mary lost her balance and rolled unguided and unelegant for a few meters.
"Urgh" Mary stood up moaning and rubbed away the stabbing pain in her legs. She looked up, in the direction of her pursuers and muttered to herself: "I did a better job." The guards stood stunned at the railing of the platform and seemed to radio for reinforcements. So she didn't want to waste any time, she didn't want to repeat the incident of three days ago, when she had managed to break out of the Security Corp makeshift prison when she was surrounded by dozens of guards. She wouldn't be lucky this time that her watchdog was stupid and let herself be distracted. In addition, she no longer had hidden mini-bombs in the smuggler's hideouts in her cyberarm.
After about twenty steps, she noticed how her movements returned to normal and her eyes in her legs did their job without jerking. She was a little worried that her legs would just give up one day. The Cybernetic Augs, which made up her feet, calves, knees and part of her thigh, had only been second-hand goods when she could finally afford to pay for a good eye mentor a few years ago.
Mary crashed into a partially uprooted lamppost, forehead first, and fell onto the sidewalk as if she were part of a comedy holo. "Where did you come from now?!" she scolded as she picked herself up and felt her bleeding forehead with a finger. She looked around to see if anyone was directly on her verses, but she seemed sure for now. So she struggled into the next side street and sank to the ground behind a garbage container on a house wall. She saw stars in front of her and was about 95% sure that it was not yet night. The impact must have been heavier than she thought, because she had difficulty regaining consciousness.
The worst thing about the whole situation was that it was already the fourth time this week. Objects, walls or even people constantly appeared in front of her while she was trapped in one of her countless thoughts. Sarvoz has long believed that this would be their downfall at some point. Mary would never admit it, but she agreed with him. It had been insanely close more than once and most of the time she only escaped such situations through pure luck. But chaos was Mary's thing. Wasn't named Anarchy Mary by her previous gang for no reason.
While Mary was resting leaning against the wall, a holophone call came in on her interface: 'Sav'
"Heyyy Saaav. What's up?" she replied after wiping the blood from her face and trying to appear emphatically relaxed. "Where the hell are you? You should have been here hours ago, with the parts I need for YOUR little project." A little "Oh" escaped her. "Um. Something came up, but I'll leave right away, see ya". With that, she hastily hung up the call and tried to get something out of her pocket. After she had searched the fifth bag, she finally found the small note. Various equipment parts and tools were noted on it. Most of her list was already crossed out, but she was still missing a small tool called a digipin and about 10 meters of nanofiber cable. Mary knew where to find the cable, but the tool...
This device was the real reason why she had broken into the Data Tube Center almost a week ago, before she had lost herself spraying her graffiti. It probably wasn't clever to go in there again now... Or?
No. No, she had to think of something better. Countless security guards will now walk around there and keep an eye on everything. "If I were such a digi thing, where would I hide?" Mary leaned her head back against the wall and looked up into the city's smog-filled sky. Not far from here there was an EEI workshop with a high wall. The wall promised valuable equipment or interesting secrets.
Mary spent quite a while wondering where to look next until a thought occurred to her. If she didn't know what such a digi part actually was, it would be insanely hard to find it, even if it was right in front of her. So she would have to ask Sav. She had tried her own research days ago, but it didn't work out at all. "AAARGH," Mary moaned, mentally getting ready to call her best friend. She would definitely have to remind him what close friends they were and how many times she had helped him.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
A soft and empathetic voice answered: "What's up? Do you have everything?" "Well, as far as that is concerned... So suppose I would ... Digi- Digi Pin. What rough shape would I want to look for?" “...” "Sav?" came from Mary in her sweetest voice. "We already had it about it. A digipin is a small 13 cm long tube with glass in the middle, the metal is usually black and has small numbers in a pattern on one side that go from 25 to 95. You could look at a cybersecurity corp or on the black market." "oh. Yes, that's right, you had already explained that to me, thank you." "Mary, wait." "Yes?" "Take care of yourself. And takes care of the open wound on your head." "The? Oh fuck. Hehe, yep I'll do it, see ya Sav" She hung up as quickly as possible and grabbed the bloody wound. She had completely forgotten about them again.
A small wound spray and nanoplaster later, Mary made her way towards the Data Tube Center. If it were best to try a Cybersec Corp, then the Corposecs would be best suited there. After all, the Corp not only did guard tasks through personnel, but also had drones, cameras and what not. During her various break-ins, Mary had seen a lot of technical security.
But as she had prophesied, the center was like a hornet's nest that was knocked off the tree by a child with a stick. Dozens of figures crisscrossed the entire area and the sky was filled with drones. The worst thing, however, was that the place where she had always gotten in before was repaired and particularly well guarded. The long fence with the small hole in it had been barricaded by metal plates and Plasteel pallets. Even if she made it past the attentive-looking security guards, she wouldn't make it in. At least not here.
The rest of the area looked similar. Here she would never make it in and out alive. So change of plan: Grab one of the guards and see if he had such a thing with him. And if not... Then she would certainly have another idea. Mary was good at improvising.
Slowly, like a big cat in the jungle, Mary stalked one of the less fortified guards. It was impossible to get onto the premises from here and therefore only 2 guards were present. Both were dressed in dark combat gear, with pistols on their hips and small SMGs over their shoulders. One looked like the perfect soldier. Tall, athletic, focused and attentive. The other, however... Mary grinned slightly, was an apparent newcomer who fought against the boredom and monotony of the guard task. His SMG hung in such a way that he wouldn't reach it immediately and his holster still had the grip lock activated so that the weapon could not be drawn.
Mary took in the entire situation and imagined how she would proceed. She was here in a bush that stretched along the wall for a long time and the guards stood in the shadow of the wall itself. Nobody would see anything here. The good soldier was definitely their first target, otherwise he would react too quickly and puncture them with bullets. She couldn't use her massive revolver here without attracting the attention of everyone present. Knives, in other words. She took the razor-sharp Karambit from the holster in front of her chest and stalked a few steps further. She held the claw-shaped knife in her left hand and slowly reached for the kukri on her back. It was a kind of machete that was bent forward, making it the perfect tool to take out the newcomer right after the first attack. She paused for a moment. Should she really just kill the two? Then she had to suppress a laugh. Corpos sold their souls when they joined the company. A soulless body was little more than a meat doll, controlled by the faceless corporations that held everything in a stranglehold.
Her augment eye focused on her prey right in front of her. Like a panther, she went into an attacking position and tensed her well-trained muscles. In less than a fraction of a second, she blew herself out of the bushes and onto the guard with the power of her leg hydraulics.
He must have implanted a Reflex Co processor or something similar, because he reacted supernaturally fast and drew his pistol. He was really damn good. But all that didn't help him, because before he could pull the trigger, Mary had already thrown him to the ground with her momentum and the knife in his neck. Her left leg rammed into the ground above his weapon arm and broke it. The pistol fell from his hand with a soft clack. Still in the same movement, Mary turned her body so that she could push away from the now dead guard and focused on her second target. She jumped and let her kukri slide through the body armor and the flesh underneath. It wasn't a monoblade, vibro knife or high-frequency knife, but it was so sharp and the blade so thin that the armor didn't help much.
The newcomer realized too late that his body was already dying. For him, it was like being in a horror holo. A beast bursts out of nowhere and drove a long claw into his partner, who had been taking him on patrols for a few weeks to train him. The beast now turned to him and a glowing eye paralyzed him with fear. He didn't even think about drawing his weapon. It had happened so quickly that it was only when he fell to the ground when he fell to the ground that he saw that it was a woman and not a monster. His last words didn't make it out of his throat.
Mary stood up and looked at her work. Clean and quick. Very good. And no one had noticed. Now to the next item on the agenda, Digi Ding, she spoke to herself. She first searched the veteran, but found nothing that matched the description Sarvoz had given her. Even the newcomer didn't have anything with him that looked digi-like. Mary cursed softly and thought.
She rose and looked down at the two lifeless guards. Corpos. She wouldn't have to feel bad here. But a thought began to sprout when she saw the veteran's body. The equipment, apart from the collar, was still completely in order. And the black color helped hide the blood. She knelt down and began to undo the armor and remove the weapon holsters.
A few minutes later, she stepped out of the shadow of the wall as the veteran. It was a bit too small, but it wasn't noticeable if you didn't pay attention to it. The bloodstains were also barely visible and the helmet hid her face.
With an SMG on her shoulder and a pistol on her hip, she made her way to the entrance to the site. To her absolute surprise, she was able to just walk through the gate. A friendly nod to some of the other guards and just look like you belong here and are busy and no one paid attention to you. To create the illusion that she had an important task, she opened the holo interface on the left arm of the armor and randomly went through some data. The step is swift and determined.
Mary made it all the way to the Corposec operations center and entered what looked like an arsenal. Before her was a paradise for all cyberpunks. Dozens of weapons and countless gadgets. Among them is a digipin. The small device lay together with fine pliers and various circuit boards and a box, right next to other tools, from drills, to electrometers and other measuring instruments. Mary still wasn't quite sure what the device she had just captured was doing, but that wasn't important at the moment.
She filled her pockets with stun grenades, smoke bombs, EMP generators and GPS trackers before she left the small arsenal and walked again with a goal-oriented walk towards the exit.
But this time it was not ignored. One of the guards at the gate raised his arm in greeting and shouted, "Markus, where did you leave your shadow?" In a panic, Mary thought about it and walked on until she was finally next to him and a fake cough began and first at herself, then the surgery center and then the rough direction from which Mary got her outfit. Coughing throughout, she squeezed past the baffled guard and left the premises, praying that she could walk unmolested.
To her renewed shock, it worked. That had been too easy. A plan that actually goes as imagined?! There had to be a catch. But even when Mary got rid of her disguise and only with armor pieces and two Hamatachi SMGs and two pistols, the model of which Mary could not identify one hundred percent, she was not stopped by anyone.
Waiting for an ambush or other problem, Mary went back to the Children of Nero's hideout and only relaxed when she saw the members of her gang, especially the weak of the city, who could not protect themselves in this hell. A worried Sarvoz rolled towards them in his Roll/Cybermancing chair and the others made way for him.
Anarchy Mary had completed a work of art, procured a needed tool and returned to her family with a pile of equipment. And all this without giving up the spoon. She chalked this up as one of her rare victories in life and sat down with Sarvoz and the others in the common room to have a simple and tasteless dinner together and told them about her week.