After multiple incursions and flooding in the Alps, a lot of the Switzerland towns and valleys were abandoned, having only a few of the major cities surviving. Including Zürich, its city plates cover most of the Zürich See. Creating one of the more unique undercitys.

-- The Changes Before the Fall, a mini-documentary by the Purple Truth 2053

After spending about an extra hour's worth of time chatting with Cierra, she also goes back to sleep, and I refocus myself back on my physical body. This impulse purchase is definitely complicated and disorienting, but I can already see how this would benefit us.

‘Lyssa, thank you. I think I needed that.'

Lyssa is always happy to help.

‘By the way, do you have any clue on how Bubbles got that image of me? I can’t find any compromises in my gear.’

Yes, Lyssa took it.

‘Why would you do such a thing?’

You tend to get distracted a lot, so Lyssa makes sure to send your girlfriend updates.

‘That… is somewhat helpful, thanks.’

The rest of the night goes by without many issues. There are no road problems, so we can make a decent amount of time. I spent most of my time practising with my sensors, trying my best to acclimatise myself, and when I get too sick to continue that, I start programming some new intrusion software; I want to be able to have a face overlay actively displaying different faces over people.

The other occupants of the car start to wake up when the first rays of the sun come through. I re-orientated myself. I put in an order for coffee and some breakfast pastries at one of the local rest stop drone delivery services. The system is nice and all, but the 2000 credit delivery fee is kind of crazy. I guess you don’t have many options when you are stuck in traffic.

“Fuck, Evelin, did you go to sleep at any point?” Heinrich asks when he looks back.

“Nope, I did not. I made some fun programs and got back together with my girlfriend, so not much was lost.” I say as I update our route.

“And that was a reason not to go to sleep?” Heinrich asks incredulously.

“Well, you told me to go to sleep when Mom woke up.” I say.

“Why does that matter?” Heinrich asks.

“She is still asleep, isn’t she?” I answer.

“And you did not think to wake her up?” Heinrich asks.

“I mean, I did think about it.” I say.

“Why not do it, then?”

“Well, she has a knife, and I don’t want to get stabbed today.”

I can hear Yui burst out laughing beside me. “You know, that's fair.”

“Ugh, well, how tired are you?” Heinrich asks.

“I can keep going, I take a little nap after breakfast,” I say.

After that exchange, I asked Yui for her opinion on the program I wrote. And we sink into a pleasant discussion about optimisation and bug fixing. Somehow, my program has enlightened some people so much, that they can be seen with a third eye.

While we finish taking out most of the bugs, the little drone arrives at the window, and we grab our breakfast. Honestly, it is not very impressive, especially for the price. But I am not paying, so I can’t complain all that much. After I finish my meal, I do something I would normally never do, but since Lyssa is here, it should be fine, at least I hope. I turn off my eyes and then make myself comfortable to take a nap.

I get gently shaken awake by someone, and after only freaking out for a brief period, thinking that I have gone blind, I turn my eyes back on. I look around only to see that we have made it to the edge of Zürich. Well, that is good. I turn to Yui, who is giving me a weird look.

“Something wrong?” I ask her.

“Your eyes look very off-putting when turned off. It kind of looks like you have died.” she says.

I blink at her a few times, a bit taken aback by the statement. Granted, I had never turned my eyes off before, and was only comfortable enough to do so now because Lyssa was here. “That is good to know, I guess; so what is the plan?”

Yui looks outside and then back at me. “Check in to the hotel, make sure it is secure and safe, set up some software and equipment and go out to do some scouting,”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“That is a good start. When are we going to get there?” I ask, while looking at the traffic.

“Not long. Once we get into the city proper, there should be more open sky lanes, and we can get there in an hour or so.”

I spent the rest of the trip looking outside. I mean, it is, in a way, more of the same big mega structures, where people can spend their entire lives without leaving, but it has some charm. You can see mountains, sometimes, at least. Ooh, and water, I guess it is built mostly over a lake, which means that there are a lot of ways to use water, so that is new and somewhat fancy, but probably horrible for the people living in the lower city.

We make it to the hotel, if you can even call it that. It is barely in the upper district still, and I assume the only reason why it is still in business, is that it is close enough to the big offices so that managers can take their nice secretaries or interns for some bed wrestling, and far enough away, that you won’t run into anyone familiar.

“How many does that make?” Yui says, after an hour of pulling out stuff.

“43 normal cameras, 21 high resolution 4k cameras, 12 ultra resolution 8k cameras, 16 microphones, and 4 wiretaps.” I answer.

Yui throws her arms into the air, “Fuck! If I knew it was going to be like this, I would have booked a different place.”

I look at her, confused. “I know, right. Who the fuck still uses wiretaps?”

Her gaze snapped to me immediately. “That is your issue? That they are using outdated gear to spy on us, not that they are actually spying on us?”

I just shrug. “I mean, I just see it as free gear, though we should probably buy a second lock for our room.”

Yui crosses her arms and does not look amused, “Oh, and can you be sure you got all of them?”

“Yui, I am New Hope's best watchdog; unless they hire someone way out of their budget, I will find all of them.” I say, full of confidence..

Yui lets out a deep sigh. “If there are any videos posted of me showering, I am going to make it my personal mission to fuck you up.”

“You promise?” I say, with a smug smile on my face.

“You! Not everything has to be a competition!" Yui shouts at me.

There is a knock on our door, stopping our stupid argument right in its tracks. “Sofia, Yui, you two okay in there.” Eva or, I guess, Katharina’s voice comes out from behind the door.

I stand up, walk to the door, and open it. “We're fine. We were just talking about this hotel's extensive security.” I show them inside, towards the pile of equipment we have found.

“Well, that is a lot. Have you got them all?” Heinrich says.

I look up at the ceiling. “No, there is one on the ceiling right there in that dark spot, but I can’t really reach it.”

Heinrich reaches up and grabs the little camera from the ceiling. “Only this one?”

I grab the little camera out of his hands. “Yeah, thank you. So, are we ready to go?

“Yeah, we are although I would appreciate it if you did a sweep in our room when we get back.” Heinrich says.

“That should be no problem. We can send our sniffer dog on the case.” Yui says, while looking at me with a big smile.

I raise my eyebrow at her. Did I do something wrong? “So, the plan?”

“Right, it is rather simple. We go to one of the nearby parades and walk around there for a bit before we split up. Katharina and I will go down to the lower district and look for information, while Yui and Sofia go to the upper city.” Heinrich explains.

“Wait, are you sending the two of us alone? Neither of us has combat training.” Yui says in a concerned tone.

“The two of you should be fine; there is a lot of security in the upper city, and” he stops to pull out a small handgun, and gives it to me. “Evelin does have gun training.”

I examine the gun. It’s a basic pistol holding six shots. “I have to admit that I am not at all that accurate with them.”

Heinrich smiles at me. “It is just a precaution meant to intimidate people.”

“Well, okay, then." I say, while I put the handgun away, making sure that it is out of sight. “What about James and Karter?”

“They will try to blend into the crowd at the festival, and see if they can find any rumours about what is going on. Any more questions?” Heinrich asks.

When everyone shakes their heads, we pack up and filter out of the hotel. I want to say that the streets are bright and colourful, but except for some very specialised areas, it all is still the same corporate hellscape, only with little rainbow flags in the windows. Well, I guess it is something. We split up at one of the crowded squares where people are dancing to loud music.

Yui and I take an elevator up, while Katharina and Heinrich go down to the shadier parts of town. We reach the top floor of a more well-off mega-scraper and start walking around, looking for any inconsistencies.

After walking around for an hour, Yui finally cracks. “Okay, what are we actually looking for? We have been at this for hours.”

I just shrug. “Any inconsistencies? I guess it's difficult to put your finger on, in most cases, but think of more people in areas where there should not have been that many. Working class in high-end establishments, more security in a place than what would be expected. And lastly that.” I say, as I point at a bar.

Yui looks at the bar and asks, “What is so special about that place?”

“Well, first of all, it's a doll house, which means that unless you are looking for that kind of service, people tend to stay away from it.”

I see Yui make a full-body shudder. “Disgusting” she mutters.

“But that is not the weird part. For this entire day, only five guys entered, but 34 girls entered.”

“So they have a nice doll that makes the girls interested. What so weird about that?”

“According to their files, only eight paid for any service there.”

“ What, do they have like 25 dolls?”

“26, and, I don’t know. Some have walked out at this point. I assume a few just wanted to take a look, and others are actually dolls, but the number is still high, so if you want to do something else besides walking around, we can look inside.”

Yui starts to move from foot to foot while looking at the club. “Fuck, sure, but how do we get in?”

“We act like customers,” I say with a shrug.

“And then what? Not much we can find out during sex.”

“Doll chips are simple. They put the host asleep while the AI personality takes over, so all we have to do is turn off the AI as well.” I say with a shrug.

“You can do that?” she asks, confused.

“I mean, yeah, been researching these chips for a while, so I should be able to get it done.”

“Huh, well, I guess, but why are you researching them? New Hope wants to make some mind control tech or something.”

“No, at least I don’t think so. I did it because if I was no longer useful, this would be one of the likely places for me to end up, so I wanted a way out of that.”

“You know, I was jealous of you at one point, but I am starting to question that now.”

“Welcome to the life of an indentured servant, I guess.” I say as I take her hand and drag her to the club.