Sam joined the waiting crowd in front of door number three, because the two smallest of the bouncers were present there. It didn't make any difference, but Sam could convince himself of a little bit of security if he could at least look one of them directly in the face.
The workers here had to go through extensive renovations, Sam realized as he got closer. From a distance, they all looked like living refrigerators, but that turned out to be false... no, not wrong... insufficiently. Their bodies were not only wider due to musculature, but looked as if they had been given the skeleton of a silverback gorilla, as Sam knew them from the old documentaries. Giant apes that were extinct in the 2060s.
The bouncers' arms were too long for a human and the forearms merged into HUGE hands, which were connected by wrists that were much too large. The muscles under the chic suits had also become closer, more inhuman, with every step. They must have received a complete overhaul. Sam wasn't even sure if the stoic faces were real, or if they were faceplates that made everyone look the same.
A completely different kind of tension now ran through Sam. In front of him stood Borgs that could have come directly from one of Europe's war units.
When he finally stood directly in front of the bouncer, who was only a little bit taller than him, he had to stop himself from showing his tension with all his willpower. But she was well trained and Sam had to admit to himself that she had seen through him completely with just one glance. Now she put on a short but friendly smile and with a surprisingly soft voice she asked: "Reservation or spontaneous?" It took Sam a few moments before he finally understood, "Neither. I have to do something..." He looked around conspiratorially, "deliver. Gu sends me." The attitude of the guard didn't give anything away, but Sam could see an outgoing encrypted call that went from her towards the upper floors. Instead of saying anything to Sam, she simply raised her hand with a raised finger and put her other hand to her temple, the unofficial sign of a phone call.
When she lowered her hands again after a few seconds and turned to Sam, she simply said, "Level 13, you're expected." And with that, the door opened behind her and with a side step she gave way to the Atlantis.
Sam's eyes almost rolled out of his head as the concentrated splendor of the foyer came towards him. Shiny glass floor, over exotic flowers, gold and other precious metals in the countless marble columns and the large reception desks, which were apparently made of real wood. Everyone present, whether staff or visitors, was stylishly and richly dressed. Some wore rare fabrics, others displayed large gemstones on their fingers. Well-groomed faces and noble faceplates, with the arrogance of the super-rich, glanced at Sam. Most of these looks were a mixture of disgust and disguised ignorance. There were one or two not completely disgusted looks, but that didn't change much for Sam.
He had fled from his family to avoid such people, too often he had had to endure those looks whenever he was too much himself. Balls were the worst. There he was regularly forced to represent his family, even though his father loathed it at least as much as Sam himself. Only for different reasons. But it was important to be present and the rest of the family couldn't be everywhere at the same time, so Sam had to serve.
He could see the same kinds of people here as at the balls of that time.
There were the nouveau riche who were here only for pleasure and did not take note of the majority of the political currents.
Similar to the first type were the nouveau riche, who desperately tried to fit into the hierarchy but had a success rate like those who were not even aware that there was a hierarchy.
The largest proportion were those who moved back and forth in the hierarchies and used all their time to find new allies, conclude contracts and discover trade opportunities. For them, it was nothing more than a job. A job with fantastic food and entertainment, but a job nonetheless.
And finally there were the colonels of the colonels. Besides, Sam should have been. Surrounded by boot-licking yes-men and ass-crawlers. Individuals with the power of gigantic corporations and the political influence of a senator. Most of these people were execs, who existed so far from reality that she considered everyone else to be an inferior species. A single sentence of such an exec could make the existence of a corporation so great that in no time at all anyone would have heard of it, or could stomp another corporation into the ground.
While Sam endured the gaze and kept making sure that the cameras showed a different image and fake identity, he made his way towards the elevators, which were signposted and ran not only to higher floors but also to other parts of the building.
====================
Royale Eternity Casino
Alfretto Paniri Italian Specialties
Gilles Gusteau Mediterrane Delikatessen
Iosef Petrovicz Finest from the East
Hotel 'Zu Poseidon'
Atlantis Club
Atlantis Club VIP
Atlantis Club Platinum
Atlantis After Hours
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Atlantis Bar
====================
The elevators were in full operation, even those leading to the nightclubs, even though it was barely afternoon. Long queues of chattering figures with champagne glasses in their hands waited in front of almost all of the elevator stations. However, Sam was lucky enough to just have to go straight up and was able to use one of the less occupied smaller ones to reach the 13th floor.
Of course, it had to be the THIRTEENTH floor. Shouldn't hotels actually skip the unfortunate floor, just like with the room numbers? When he got out of the highly polished capsule, a shiver ran down his spine and he felt cold sweat break out. Great. Fantastic.
The large hallway felt strange not only because of the association with the number 13. There were no doors, except the large gilded one at the end of the corridor. It felt like Sam was walking the 'Green Mile', the long road to execution in the old USA. Sam wasn't one hundred percent sure if that was really the name, but nevertheless it felt exactly like it.
He activated his improved vision and let his eyes go through the typical frequencies. He could see cameras, hidden turrets and something he couldn't quite place. It looked like small electric motors hanging symmetrically along the hallway just behind the walls. They were in a permanent connection with the subnet of Atlantis, but Sam couldn't make sense of what engines were used for.
The rest of the way, however, seemed very ordinary, more cameras, more turrets, a jammer that was probably meant to take away the view and control of cybermancers like Sam. But the device was nowhere near strong enough. With a skilful eye, he identified the model and searched for known exploits before coming within range of the interference field.
If the station wasn't up to date, Sam could try to use a hack that's been around the net for a while, for little money. But, if the owner, or more likely, the security guy, took his job seriously, he would install any firmware update immediately, rendering the hack worthless.
While Sam continued to walk towards the door with a steady but somewhat slow step, an idea came to him. Many security guards were lazy. He had learned this during dozens of infiltration gigs and cyberattacks. He began to prepare a daemon, which he always kept in hand, so that it would infiltrate the system and present itself as a firmware update. If the person responsible here was also lazy, the update would be installed automatically if the original signature was replicated perfectly.
It was now only three steps away from the point at which it would probably come within the jammer's radius of action. He slowed his pace a little more. Two steps. He had set the daemon to go through all previous updates to fake the signal and gain access to the network. As soon as it had a stable connection to the jammer, and thus to all the others, a simple program would resolve the interference field, but still indicate that it was active.
One last step. Sam sent his little mole and mentally prepared himself for the worst. He didn't know what that was, but he had learned that the worst in his head was usually not nearly as bad as what actually happened. So he tried to avoid imagining possible scenarios and simply prepared to end up dead in a sewer pipe.
Sam entered the radius of effect and... Nothing. HA! It had worked! 'Take that!' he thought to himself and opened the gold-decorated door.
Whether he was facing a committee of tie-wearers or a back room full of gangsters, Sam didn't really care. He still had all his cybermancing skills and his counterparts assumed that he was now helpless. Even if there were problems now, Sam would have a clear advantage.
The heavy door flew open and Sam was ready to draw his hamatachi and spread lead, but to his surprise the door opened to a huge living room, with cozy looking couches and armchairs, a 150 inch VidFeed, and a relaxed man who was taking a drag on a cigar, whiskey tumbler in hand, looking over at Sam in surprise.
"Oh shit, you're already there," the man managed to say, fighting a coughing fit. He clumsily rolled out of the comfortable leather chair and spilled a little of his drink. He stood up and Sam saw a small gangster in front of him in an ill-fitting suit, so far removed from the concept of 'menace', like one of those strange cloned rabbits with the fluffy fur.
He walked up to Sam, put the cigar in his mouth, still coughing a little, and held out his hand: "Moin. Mari told me that one of Gu's couriers is coming by." Sam hesitantly grabbed the hand and was surprised again, the little inconspicuous gangster in front of him had an incredibly strong grip. Sam felt himself immediately reduce his strength when he realized that Sam was rather weak even among the 'Ganics.
When the handshake ended, Sam remembered why he was here in the first place: "Oh yes, uh, here. I'm supposed to hand it in and say that Gu is sending me." He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out the small piece of paper, still folded and unread.
"Ah, great, thank you little one," came the answer and Sam was snatched the note out of his hand. His counterpart unfolded it and began to read. His remarkably banal eyes darted over the piece of paper and then met Sams.
"Well done, little one. Here."
Just as Sam was about to ask what was meant by here, he saw that 5,000 neuros had just been sent to him. He accepted immediately and then looked down at the gangster: "Thank you. I... would go again," Sam began to turn and continued, "so, ciao."
An uninterested grunt of approval was his only answer and no one stopped him as he left the room and closed the heavy door behind him.
Sam stood alone in the previously eerie corridor. Huh. That went better - No! No, no. He would not think this sentence through to the end. He was neither out of floor 13 nor out of the building yet.
With a determined walk and the attentive gaze of a falcon, Sam made his way out of Atlantis and had to realize that he had made it without any problems. He had just been led through door 5 and now, admittedly, he was standing a bit lost on the huge staircase. He blinked. Rubbed his eyes. He looked around.
But nothing happened.
Huh... Well then. Let's go home? Or did he have to do something else?
He would not download and activate the identity program in public anyway. To do this, he would either retreat to the Aizutachi dwelling or look for a nice corner far away from other people. Perhaps one of the never-finished apartment buildings on the border of Celestia. Most homeless people stayed away from it, as Celestia... had radical methods of dealing with undesirables and the church there had a lot of patrols on the way, which also kept an eye on the border buildings.
Sam knew that the fear of these patrols was often unfounded, because if you weren't directly on Celestia's soil, the patrols couldn't do anything. But he understood people's caution. One of the soldiers only had to have a bad day once and BOOM lights out. For most, it wasn't worth the risk. For the few who dared, however, a true paradise was offered. Some of the apartments were so far finished that even the pipes were installed to have water.
Sam stretched and felt more and more of the tension fall away from him. When the parking machine presented his Superbike, Sam didn't hesitate for a second and swung onto the seat. A few minutes later, he was already on the highway that took him in the direction of E.E.I. The bed in the Aizutachi bunkers was too tempting.