Blurr flew through the air after she had catapulted herself out of the community with her eyes. She was reluctant to use this tech because she regularly messed up the landing and she didn't want to buy a new faceplate again. She had already spent a fortune on her current one, only optical upgrades.
When she now faced a small plateau of a building, she got ready and sank all her concentration into the next movements. She pulled her legs together in front of her stomach and made herself as small and spherical as she could, in order to straighten her legs at explosive speed shortly before the impact and activate her air boost, which now slowed her down instead of hurling her forward. This took most of the power out of her landing and she was able to roll with her shoulder so that she could direct the remaining power away from herself as well. Her jacket, or rather the integrated flex plate armor, protected her from surviving the rough ground without injury. With a dull struggle, she came to a stop at the end of the plateau, right at the door that led into the building.
Slowly she got up and knocked off the dust. "Pfff. I give myself a... hmmm B-" she explained to herself proudly.
It was actually one of her better landings. Now all she had to do was break open the door and then go down to the streets. There she would then call her hidden parked car and set off and drink a bar empty. 'Damn bastard,' she thought to herself angrily as she threw the door out of the hinges with a skilful kick, 'he should be happy that I help the minimally configured at all. If I didn't need the information and Intels, I would have left long ago.'. With a loud crash, the door finally gave way after Blurr's fifth attempt. "Finally..."
As she made her way to the emergency stairs, she opened her HUD and radioed 'Stray Catfish'.
The holocall was immediately accepted and a pretty, but corpsely pale South-East Asian woman with shimmering pink hair came into the picture. She looked tired, and Blurr could see parts that must have belonged to one of her strange projects. "Hey Eelternity... I need someone to throw up with. Oh and let Stray Badger know that he can take 3 Strays and 25 Nobodies if he accepts the gig with the Heilong!" Eelternity blinked and was about to ask a question, but Blurr had already ended the call.
She had finally arrived on the ground floor and called her car out of hiding. No hover car or shit like that, no. A car with tires and even a combustion engine. An antique. One of her beloved babies. The deep black sports car rolled to Blurr with a slight rumble of the engine and opened the driver's door for her.
Aurelia was about to thank Parker for bringing her back and if he could secure the loot when she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. In a flash, she turned around and tried to grab her knife before her attacker could grab her, but by then it was already too late.
Hildi tore the baffled and much taller Aurelia off the floor and gave her a bear hug that Bear himself could be proud of. "I was so worried, child! What were you thinking?!" she squealed and lowered Aurelia again enough to touch the ground, but didn't let go of her. "You mustn't scare me so much!" Aurelia tried to talk her way out of it a little and began: "I'm okay again, I-" "I saw you when Parker brought you here and fed you! I know how bad your wounds were!" Aurelia could not answer this and stood motionless in the older woman's embrace. Quietly she said: "I'm sorry. I didn't want to worry you."
Hildi looked up at her and Aurelia saw an ocean of empathy. She had never received so much care that was not tied to conditions. Almost no one had that, she was sure of that. The poorest children were too busy fighting for survival and the rich children were not allowed to indulge in emotions while they were working to turn them into perfect corpo drones.
So why did Aurelia deserve to feel this warmth? Hildi wouldn't be able to change much more with her, she was already too bitter and full of hatred, where most of the time she didn't even know what she was against.
"Listen, child. I've been treating you day and night for three days now, and you're talking in your sleep. A lot. You don't have to say anything. Just thank me and I'll leave it at that. You don't have to worry."
That threw Aurelia a little off track. "Talking? What did I say? Hopefully nothing too bad," the blush rose to her cheeks as she feverishly went through her memories, looking for her most embarrassing moments and all the shameful deeds she had committed in her life. She saw countless moments and situations in front of her, some as harmless as stealing a pen during a museum visit to her class, others as gruesome as the one time she began to explore her body and one of the priests caught her and let her walk around tied up with poles for a whole week so that she could not bring her hands close to her body.
"Whatever you're thinking right now, it's not," Hildi's warmth broke through the raging stream that was Aurelia's thoughts. "But I've gotten a little insight into your past. I won't tell anyone what you've been through so far, don't worry."
"I, uh,.. Thank you." Aurelia took a deep breath, "and thank you for everything. Not only the care, but also that you and Bär have taken me in here." Hildi's eyebrow rose and she slowly let Aurelia out of her iron embrace: "And you don't intend to disappear from here as soon as you've "found" yourself?" Aurelia's eyes became so big that they almost popped out of her eye sockets, "I have that too-...? Damn. That was not yet certain." Hildi put her hand on Aurelia's arm and just said: "We are a community here, we help each other and if it is best for someone to move on, then we hold a farewell party instead of trying to change the decision."
"Hey you two, come over!" growled a deep bassy voice. Aurelia and Hildi turned and saw Bear standing next to Parker and holding a box in his arms. Aurelia wandered over curiously, still with Hildi's hand on her arm.
"Hey Parker," Aurelia greeted a little awkwardly, "Are you okay again? The blow earlier looked like it had hurt. Oh and thanks, for, well, you know you didn't let me die and stuff..." Parker looked at her and held his bleeding nose: "Ya... Gladly, I think..."
"Oooookay," Bear grumbled, "that was unpleasant. Oh hey, here: Something completely different!" a small giggle escaped Hildi and Bear brought the big box into a room that Aurelia didn't know yet. Parker crouched down as Bear put down the heavy-looking ballast and began to open the lock, "That's all the valuable thing I was able to smuggle out of the camp and hide before I brought you back here ex. My drone had spent the last few days scouting the area, grabbing the box for an opportunity and bringing it here." He lifted the lid and countless chips, circuit boards, electronic components and augments became visible. Parker proudly unpacked the contents of the box and spread it on a small tarpaulin: "These are motherboards that cybermancers can use to make little hack wizards, sometimes techies use them to bypass the original software in Corpo Tech. These are chips that make us a real fortune, with these things you can reprogram almost any bionically secured weapon without having to open or convert the weapon yourself." He unpacked a few more parts that didn't seem to make that much money, but would be useful to Parker. That had also been the actual target prey in the hunt. When Parker was finally done with his infinitely long explanation, during which Raya gave visual explanations on Aurelia's HUD that weren't so convoluted, he took out parts for Augments and even full cyberware. "Five times 'Legacy Arts Okuli Evo' eyes, two times 'SynchroDisk Reflex Co-processor', four times 'Aurora Dynawave Integrated Cyberdeck with EMP Hardening'.
The parts are top tier Augs. People kill for it. Especially the decks. Many Cybermancer Operators use decks of this or lower quality, we've hit the jackpot here Bear!" Parker sounded so happy that Aurelia stared over at him to make sure it was the same person talking. "Aurelia. This equipment is worth hundreds of thousands of Neo Euros or more. It's not at the level of tech you can get from me, but it's impressive by human standards at the time. CEOs and high-level operators would use these augmentations." Aurelia hesitated for a moment and without actually saying the words, she formed the sound in her throat: "What exactly do you mean by 'conditions of this time'? Do you have any idea what our future technology will look like?!" "Don't be silly Aurelia," came in her head and Aurelia could hardly ignore the condescending tone, "I can do simulations to create a rough idea about the development of humanity, but I meant the technology of humanity before the lost age, when I and my siblings were originally sent here to help you survive the invasion." "Oh, yes, there are some conspiracy theories in the net forums that we used to have much better technology." "This came primarily through the stargazer weapons and technologies that were analyzed and researched by many to make replicas that were possible at the time. This gave humanity a temporary boost in technological progress, but much of it was lost during the end of the war, when only a few nations remained." "Mhm. Let me guess, the nations and corpos didn't want to share their knowledge and so all the progress went down with them when they were destroyed in the last few years, am I right?" "Indeed. A mistake that couldn't be more humane." "Yep... But that's actually only an advantage of us, after all, it means that my equipment is even superior in direct comparison." For a moment there was no answer and Aurelia was already beginning to wonder if she had said something wrong when Raya finally spoke up: "The technology of stargazers and almost every other species we had helped so far is superior to even the best of humanity back then." And that seemed to be the end of the conversation for the voice in Aurelia's head, because Raya refused to answer at all afterwards. Damn robot ghost, Aurelia cursed inwardly and tried to fit back into the events in front of her.
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"-It's hard to sell, but once we have merchants, we'll earn enough to help everyone in the community and almost build a palace here," Parker gushed to himself, while the skeptical-looking bear folded his massive arms and interrupted Parker: "First of all, we have to find someone we can trust. What do you think will happen if gangs find out that we store such valuable equipment here?! We would put everyone in danger!" "That's true, but we can certainly use our contacts to find someone who is suitable." Aurelia looked up and asked, "Why don't you ask Blurr? She seems to be competent enough, and even though everyone pretends to be someone unknown, I'm sure you've known her for quite a while. Bear opened his eyes wide and Parker's jaw dropped, in almost perfect synchronization they both asked: "How do you know that?!" Bear continued, "There's no way Blurr would have blurted it out, so why do you know?" Aurelia laughed briefly, "You and Parker were pretty good at pretending she's just an ordinary operator who gets through here from time to time, but she's a miserable liar herself. In addition, the argument between you has made it clear that you have known each other longer and better than you claim." During the last sentence, she looked mischievously at Parker, who then hung his head.
"I don't want to know what you're up to, but wouldn't Blurr be able to help? Otherwise, I could try to contact a group with whom I lived for a short time. They are a kind of underground aid association for the weak, or something like that."
The strange description of the Children of Nero earned Aurelia confused looks, but Bear immediately regained her composure: "Ex, you have to understand that we are in a very delicate situation here. If you hadn't almost killed yourself with your action to clear the warehouse for Parker, we wouldn't let you know what we have here. The knowledge is so dangerous that the three of us here and Hildi are the only ones who should know about it. Blurr is someone I would trust with many important tasks, and I trust you that your group would be discreet, but with a treasure of that value, even those we trust can be dangerous."
Aurelia had to think about it. She understood the logic with which Bär was arguing here, but what was the point of such a treasure if it could not be turned into liquid assets. While she stared into the void and tried to find a solution, Parker and Bear continued to talk quietly. It would be best to run everything through a middleman who neither knows who the seller is nor where the goods are stored. However, this would also mean that no one who was even peripherally connected to the municipality here would be allowed to come into contact with the sale or the middleman.
"Raya, tell me, can you create a false identity that is waterproof enough for me to reach someone over the net without it seeming suspicious?" "Of course" came the answer immediately. This meant that at least most of the transactions and organization could be done this way, but for handovers, they would need someone as a façade, at least for the first time.
Aurelia's thoughts were racing at 300km /h and she felt a migraine slowly announcing itself. Raya's voice sounded and had something pleased about it: "Hehe, you think so hard that you get a headache. Almost like in a comic book where a character of reduced intelligence tries to solve a puzzle. Do you think smoke will come out of your ears if you continue like this?"
Aurelia blinked, looked at her hands, blinked again, started to answer, and then closed her mouth again. "Burn." came from Raya. Did the damn AI really just say that?! Without saying the words, Aurelia turned to her 'better half': "Raya! What the... What was the point of this shit? Should AIs not -... no idea, be less assy?!" "No." Raya was now back to her usual cold, monotonous voice. "Don't come to me like that! I heard you almost laughed when you just said it!" "Aurelia. While I am able to process, understand and emulate human emotions, I can guarantee you that I am not able to laugh. I just made a humorous remark that simulates a verbal banter between friends." "No! You can pretend as cold and neutral as you want, Raya, I know what I've heard! If you come to life now while you're in my head, that's one thing I have to deal with." "Aurelia." Raya's voice was a little softer than before, "You don't have to worry. I am aware that I am an artificial intelligence and have no desire to change anything about it, nor to revise our previous symbiotic existence. We should rather deal with the situation that presents itself here, don't you think?" "Mhm... Well," Aurelia replied grumbling and slowly got up.
When Bär and Parker turned their attention to her, she began: "I can create a digital persona and coordinate an exchange with it, I would know a group that would be able to play the middleman, both in power and tech. The only problem is that I separated from them especially so that I don't put them in danger unnecessarily. If there's even the slightest chance that it could backfire, or we don't have a 100 percent watertight plan, I'm not going to involve them."
Bear grumbled, "Understandable. I could try..." He broke off as if he had almost divulged a secret. "I will look for capable middlemen." "We also have to find a good place to hide the goods," Parker interjected, "it has to be close so that we can watch over it permanently, but in case someone comes along that we can't stop, at least the community here won't get caught in the crossfire." Aurelia and Bear agreed, but Aurelia was not of much help. She looked at Bear, I crouched down to him and looked into his deep brown eyes: "If you have the opportunity to use Blurr... I'll stay out of it and make sure that no one here notices."
Something in Aurelia's gaze must have convinced Bear to trust her even further. Well, it wasn't too much of a leap from 'fortune in rare gear' to 'whatever the hell was going on with Blurr'.
"Blurr... is part of an organization called Strays. She's undercover here at the moment. I can't say more, but it's important and much bigger than all of us. But I have..." He interrupted himself and took a deep breath, "I can contact your organization. The Strays are a kind of private detective agency and mercenary group for questionable deals" Parker chimed in and mentioned: "Blurr is just one of their persona. She's been here for a damn long time, but always as completely different people. Very few know who she really is and that she has been here longer than most."
Aurelia tapped her lip thoughtfully and then asked Bär, "Can you organize a meeting with Blurr or the group? I'll talk to them there and maybe they can help us. I won't mention that I know about Blurr's identities, nor that I'm deeply privy to the commodity. I will pretend to be a dispensable stopover who is only there to route messages back and forth.
I'm more or less an operator, so I wouldn't raise suspicion that you're hiring me for this. If we then hide the equipment, and I do NOT know where it is, then we should be pretty well secured here." She saw how the cogs in Parker's head were working and Bear seemed to be calmer than before.
"Ok. I'm going to contact Blurr with the cover story you just said. But let's put everything away first and then find a hiding place. I'll call the Strays tonight. I hope Mio will have calmed down a bit by then." He must have clearly seen Aurelia's confused look, because he quietly explains, Mio "Blurr" Sasaki. Your current persona." with a wink.
The following two weeks flew by. Every day was crammed with preparations. Aurelia, with Raya's help and Parker's dexterity, began to deactivate and remove the security systems of the goods. In addition, Bär and Parker were often outside the community to find good hiding places and to obtain information on whether there were suspects for the robbery.
Even a week after Aurelia's struggle, her body was still numb, slow, and throbbing in pain. Hildi had warned Aurelia to make few quick or vigorous movements. Otherwise, your body would only take longer to heal.
Since Bear was not there, it was Hildi's turn to throw over the currywurst stand. She took advantage of this directly to make Aurelia "a little more humane and less... Hildi was firmly convinced that Aurelia would become more popular with the members of the community if she took over the sale. Aurelia was almost sure it was more of an occupational therapy, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get it out of Hildi.
But she had to admit that it worked. Both. The even, limited movements did not cause unnecessary stress, and she had actually managed to get on well with many people from the community and the general area. She couldn't judge whether her terrifying aura still existed, but she would manage that. A little more smile and Tadaa, from creepy shock troops nun, to friendly nun next door.
After a total of 15 days and a lot of effort, Parker, Bear and Aurelia met under the cover of night for a final tactical meeting.
Everything was ready. The box was secured with a mechanical lock developed by Parker himself and was in a place unknown to Aurelia. Bär had arranged a meeting with the Strays at a neutral location.