I put the food packages back under the bed to tidy up the little mess I’d made searching for clues and headed out of the big tent. If corp types took mom then at least she couldn’t be far, likely somewhere in the street still. But finding a person in a crowded, ten story residential street also riddled with little alcoves, utility rooms, maintenance tunnels and so on while it was already filled with people wasn’t exactly the easiest task.

Getting through the crowds was harder than earlier, maneuvering around the tents poking from the sidewalks into the roads. It was getting busier as the day went on.

Arriving at the closest IR cluster, the same one as earlier I quickly pulled up my connection request and waited for it lock in.

[Laser connection found…]

[Connecting to local grid…]

[Connected to local grid.]

[134 injector daemons detected. Deploying ICE.]

[Daemon connections to user implants blocked.]

Okay, so same as last time then. But this time I have to check for signs of mom on here. Can you bypass the security like last time sanctum?

[Bypassing security…]

[Previous vulnerability exploited.]

[User now has access to the maintenance functions of the IR cluster.]

Seeing the new window on my display I opened the files I thought were relevant until I found a logging file for connections to the grid. It was full of mostly encrypted data but it did contain register codes for the implants of the people connecting visible.

I opened my mom’s contact information on my mail application and went into the debug mode to check her register code. Then I ran a search for the code in the logging file. It took a few minutes of waiting around but it then showed the entries I needed.

She’d connected three times since we’d been in the tent together. Twice before she was gone, so nothing of note. The third time she connected shortly before I’d woken up. It was registered at this cluster too, so she was here at least.

[Minimum compatibility reached for the Tracing Skill. Does the User want to integrate it now?]

Yeah. It’s worked good so far.

[Integrating micro-pattern based on Skill compatibility…]

I barely even lost balance this time, maybe I was getting used to it.

[User profile updated.]

[Acquired Skill: Tracing. User Rating: Untrained.]

Alright then, so I sift through the video from the time of the connection and watch where she goes. I took note of the time and pulled up the footage, quickly forwarding to the right moment. I paused the frame to see my mom looking a bit tense, she’d have to be suffering from at least a little from withdrawal by now. Or at least I hope it’s just that.

She seemed to pause in place as she read through something on her display. I couldn’t read it though. I’d have to breach the security on the traffic layer of the IR cluster and then crack the encryption of the stored traffic and hope that my mother’s data was still in local storage and hadn’t been cleared to make space yet. I knew what I’d have to do, but not how to do it. Damn skills coming back to bite me there. I wonder if there was stuff like that with engineering, like synergies to do stuff.

Shaking off the thought I scanned forwards through the footage until I saw mom head off away from the tent, past the cluster. I switched to the opposite camera to see her walk into frame and away towards the end of the street only to lose her in the early morning crowd as she got further away.

But she was headed towards another cluster in the next street, so unless she took a lift to the upper floors and left the street or ducked into some alley she would be visible from that cluster. I opened up the grids cluster list and switched my access over to the next cluster along, no security check for someone already using the maintenance layer. Kind of a security flaw there but whatever works for me is fine.

From there I opened up the video from the right time, scanning back and forth until mom came into view. She was simply walking along heading towards the security checkpoint that led away from the corp controlled streets. Left me a little worried, maybe it wasn’t a corpo that she was looking for. That could open up some rougher options.

I watched her walk past cluster, switched camera feed to the other side and watched her walk to the blockade. She called out to the cylons standing around and one of them with an IR backpack, probably the captain or communications guy or whatever corpos call them, walked over to her and spoke to her for a minute or so. Then he went still for a few seconds, likely messaging on his display.

Then mom walked off to the with the backpack guy and out of view of the cluster. I quickly switched to the next cluster along the street but that one didn’t have a visible angle to where they were going. Then they were gone out of view completely into an alley with a load of corp tech set up in big, unfolded cases.

Damn. Well, I’d have to go poke my nose around there then. Likely get in trouble with the cylons if I get too obvious about it. It’s mom though, so I gotta get this done. Worst case scenario they start shooting and I delta as quick as I can past the gang side of the blockade and lose them in the crowds.

I disconnected from the IR cluster and headed towards the blockade. I was feeling nervous about this though. I’d learned not to take risks years ago, they get you thrown in the recycler real fast. just as fast as relying on other people.

Seen too many kids my age or younger say “No, we just need to go a bit further!” and then get mangled in some machine, cut to bits by a borg ganger or just shot by a lookout of some drug dealer.

Getting through the crowds I didn’t approach the blockade right away. I headed off to the side and took in the scene a bit.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

There was the blockade itself, just a load of concrete barriers and some metal posts rigged to stall charging vehicles. There were the cylons, the corpo grunts, standing around looking tough with their batons and submachine guns.

And there was the alley mom went down, a little walkway into the wall of the side of the street which had a load of boxed tech opened near the entrance with some wires going between them, maybe a mobile grid for the corpos down here? Nah, not out in the open like that. Not sure then.

So, I’d need to get into that alley. The cylons were on alert, which wasn’t going to change seeing as that was there job right here. I could maybe sneak past if they were busy but they might have a lookout further away I haven’t seen yet. It’s what I’d do, I’d probably have two. And a netrunner manning portable cams set up out of the way at different angles.

I could try talking to the corpos, maybe play the lost kid routine. I really am looking for my mom at least. Chances are I’d either be told to get lost, or beaten and then told to get lost though. That kind of game really only worked when someone was trying to at least look good in front of an audience.

Trying to get the gangs to cause some noise nearby, rile up the cylons a bit and take their attention might work but I didn’t have any leverage to make that happen. No real money and no favors owed, if they’d even care about favors of a kid like me.

Urgh. I was going to have to just sneak by in the riskiest way possible, straight out in the open, and hope there wasn’t a lookout. This was going to go badly, I could almost taste it.

Walking forward among the crowd I casually and slowly drifted from the middle to the left edge of the flow and tried to keep a casual air about me as I left the crowd and headed across to the other sidewalk, the one that was block by the barriers. Walking towards the blockade with a confident but slightly slow walk I tried to check on the guards without making eye contact or breaking my stride.

I was hoping the casualness of my walk made them think this was normal behavior for a normal situation and didn’t warrant attention. The slightly slower stride made me slower than the crowd on the other side, less likely to catch their eye immediately as they scanned for danger.

The closer I got to the blockade the less these little changes would work so when I reached a certain point I switched slowly to a normal walk speed and tightened in my frame a bit. Still casual but less noticeable. I’m not the shortest kid I know but I’m still ten, so I’m already small. That would work for me here.

Finally I reached a couple of steps away from the alley, now far from the background of the crowd and among the corp guards. This was the danger zone, I couldn’t fade into anything here. I was a trespasser on their little safe zone now, if they so much as glanced near me they’d lock on to the unexpected thing in their space.

Dumb luck had my side then though, I kept my stance small but confident and just swept past the boxes of tech stuff and into the shadows of the alley. I was safer now. I slid into a gap between two half working vending machines, small but just enough to fit me.

None of the cylons had managed to get a solid view of me at the critical moment and that was all I’d needed to get past their line.

[Minimum compatibility reached for the Stealth Skill. Does the User want to integrate it now?]

What? Wait, where was this when I was actually using it just now?

[Sanctum left the alert pending until the User was in a less dangerous situation.]

Oh, well that’s great. Yeah, give me the skill then.

[Integrating micro-pattern based on Skill compatibility…]

I barely even lost balance this time, maybe I was getting used to it.

[User profile updated.]

[Acquired Skill: Stealth. User Rating: Proficient.]

Is proficient good? I feel like I’m pretty good at keeping myself out of sight.

[Proficient is roughly four out of ten in a scaling measure of proficiency. Four or proficient is considered effective enough for most common applications but will fail against advanced counter measures.]

Nothing higher than ten? That’s the top?

[There are anomalous results that have scored higher in my recorded patterns for several skills, but not all of them. Additionally, these scores were achieved by intense cybernetic augmentation and a lifetime or more of mastery. These results were left out of standard scoring measures due to rarity and the extremity of the results.]

Can you give me an example of what that would be? Like a guy who could track so well he could find a dropped piece of gum from weeks ago and know where you are now, kind of thing?

[One of the highlighted examples during the process that removed such scores from normal grading was a master of archery.]

Oh, a bit old world there. Must have been a bit of a weirdo.

[He had three cybernetic arms and his primary uniquely designed bow had a draw weight of more than two thousand pounds. He is recorded having taken down a Jackal class Liwan Industries heavy interdiction cruiser with a single arrow from five thousand meters away while standing in vacuum on the hull of a Feather class Munin corporation interceptor.]

What the hell.

Well that’s pretty ridiculous sanctum. I’m meant to compete against that?

[These records are not included in standard comparisons. The User need not worry about comparing poorly to such outliers.]

I can at least sneak for now. Maybe I can become the true master of sneaking and never be seen again. Actually, that sounds a bit boring to be honest. Especially compared to bow guy. Let’s just find my mom.

I looked around the area for signs of her passing but outside some empty food wrappers and cans there was nothing to find. I didn’t have anything to check for footprints or fingerprints or anything like that so I just went further into the alley.

It made a turn right at a big industrial unit of some kind, big caged in metal box with a bunch of power cells plugged into it. Judging by the words on the small access panel it looked like a power hub for some machines under the street. Not getting through that cage without a high end laser beam welder though.

Turning around the corner I looked down the alley to see it ended a little roofed area with doors on both sides, one going into the building the alley cut into and the other into some storage area. This was getting sketchy now. Well, sketchier.

If mom has resorted to being a hooker I’m gonna be pissed, we have enough money to get by and she knows what happens to those girls half the time. Most of the time for us slummers. Put on drugs, locked up somewhere and at some point used up, zeroed and found in the recycling.

Nah, it doesn’t line up. Mom isn’t that desperate for cash and she knows that’s a dead end. There’s something going on here.

I walked to the storage entrance carefully, there wasn’t a guard there but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one on the other side. I checked the door for obvious traps but nothing stood out.

Time to take the risk then. I opened the door as smoothly and quietly as I could, the door barely squeaking on it old hinges. The storage turned out to be a warehouse, not uncommon down here but I lived not far away and I’d never known it was here so it was a bit jarring.

Warehouses meant cameras and likely guards but fortunately this warehouse was in total disrepair. The one camera I could see was hanging off it’s mounting by a wire and was clearly broken, while the ancient shelving units were all dust covered and empty.

I looked around and noticed a boxed computer terminal similar to the ones at the mouth of the alley over at the back of the warehouse. This one was alone but it had a little tripod next to it with a IR emitter on top of it pointing at the dark ceiling. Maybe there was a cluster up there? Or just a receiver?

Was it worth trying to use my cerebral implant to try and break into their grid and try and get some information to work with? Or would trying just alert them all and make me a problem they had to solve right away?

[The chances of a more robust ICE and defensive daemons present within an active corporate field grid are very high. User will need suitable Hacking and related Skills to overcome these challenges successfully. The chances of a known vulnerability for Sanctum to exploit are low.]

So not getting into that right now then.

I headed towards it and as I approached it the dusty gloom of the warehouse parted and I noticed a thick cable going from the computer along the floor and into a small hole in the wall at the back. There was also a closed door, colored gray by neglect and barely discernible from the wall from far away.