After topping off my tank, and pouring some AE3 into my canteen to test some things, I got on my bike and headed back north to the warehouse. Although we had gotten a face, we had yet to figure out what kind of group was behind the man and Ajay.
By the time I returned to Feras on the roof, easily sneaking past the building’s gonk security, I half expected the interface to announce level-ups. No such thing happened. Maybe it was because the powers behind the interface didn’t consider the gig finished? Sure, the first contract was done, but that five thousand Rayn gig had been on my mind for a long time. Maybe because I didn’t think I was done, the interface didn’t think it was done?
Feras immediately flinched back from where he sat on the roof's edge, the fox sprite sitting next to him instantly starting to move defensively. They only relaxed once they spotted me. “‘Bout time… d-did you bring snacks?”
“You didn’t ask.” Now that I was close enough, I sent over the Rayn. Six hundred gone just like that…
He immediately straightened his posture. “Six hundred! Thanks, boss!”
“Anything change down there?” I asked as I stepped up to the ledge we were camped out on. The building we were camped on sat across the street on the other side of the block from the warehouse.
I toggled the dual-zoom augment on my eye, zeroing in on the dilapidated warehouse. The guards were still camped out all around it with several on patrol around the sides.
“That guy returned shortly before you…” He tilted his head slightly to the side as he looked down on the warehouse. “Why are we here though? We already got paid.”
I paused and looked down on him for a moment. “This is a lead on another gig. Very high payout.”
He paused and met my eyes. “Twenty-five percent still?”
“Chek.” A sigh escaped my lips as I moved to the edge and settled down off to the grifter’s side. There goes another thousand Rayn… think happy thoughts, Shiro. You’ll still get thirty-seven hundred Rayn if things go well.
Silence returned to the roof. After about an hour of sitting around, I moved back towards the roof’s door. May as well do something while we wait. “What do you want to drink?”
“Um… Nova-Cola?”
I went downstairs to a vending machine I saw on the way up and bought two Nova-Colas and a bottle of water. I made my way back up, finding a small janitor’s closet to dump out the water as I went. Then I filled the thing up with AE3. Instantly the bottle chilled as the slightly glowing blue fluid poured out of the canteen.
After doing all of that to test my experiment, I returned to the roof and chunked the Nova-Cola can at Feras. “Here.”
He caught it and cracked it open. “Thanks.”
I settled back down for the watch, though I also kept my eye on the bottle of AE3. After thirty minutes of waiting, something changed. The blue liquid in the bottle started to evaporate at a rapid pace, completely disappearing.
A frown crept up to my lips. Originally I wanted to test if the AE3 from the canteen would keep its cold temperature over reacclimating back to a normal temperature, but this was a far more interesting experiment. I refilled the bottle outside of Feras’s view and tried again, only to have the same result thirty minutes later.
I tried it again with a different liquid after waiting for it to refill partially only to have the same result. It seemed as though liquids that came from the canteen couldn’t exist outside of it for longer than thirty minutes.
That wasn’t quite right. I had been using it to sustain myself for a while in terms of hydration- maybe it didn’t go away because it had already been digested? So would AE3 from it be able to run my bike as long as I refilled it every thirty minutes? Hmm… But I wouldn't always have time to fill up my bike before going, especially if I was getting chased. Just to be safe, I should keep at least half a tank of 'real' AE3.
“So… which fixer do you know?” Feras asked as the fox stretched out next to him.
I looked over at him, taking a moment to process the question as I tossed the now-empty bottle into my bag. “Carone… you?”
He stretched out like the fox and met my gaze, flinching back slightly as he fell back into his normal act. “M-more of a freelancer. I’ve been p-picked up in merc dives more than anything…”
“Never had the pleasure.” I’d always been lucky enough to have close contact with a fixer since I was young. I have heard plenty of horror stories about merc dives though. “How do those usually go?”
“Decent, I guess. It's more of a bunch of one-shot crews than anything permanent. Can’t trust anyone doing it either lest you get stabbed in the back.” He shrugged. “Like I said: decent.”
Sounds like the job I did with Shinobu. Yeah, I think I’d rather stick with working for a fixer… at least unless I want to start running my own jobs. Not sure if I’ll ever do such a thing, but I couldn’t deny it was tempting. I would be able to make a ton of Rayn without the need for a middleman- scratch that… I would still need some to sell my loot, especially if it was high-end, and that's where a fixer would come in once more.
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“I-I’ve been meaning to ask, but w-what do you specialize in? I thought you were a techie at f-first, but you got into Artoras and Ajay’s pretty easy.” He asked.
Was this a probing question to get at my weaknesses? Still, we were working together. It was a fair concern to wonder what your partner in crime was good at. “Klepping mainly, though I have gotten somewhat decent at tech stuff.”
He nodded and looked over at me, the fox following his motion and cutely blinking its big eyes. “I could see that… I’m really only good at grifting and negotiating.” He tilted his head. “W-well, I’m also pretty decent at staying alive thanks to being a Magus, though I c-can’t fight at all.”
Good at negotiating? Then why did he fail every time he's tried to negotiate with me- has he? Now that I really think about it, he's gotten his way almost every time. I shifted my head back to the warehouse in irritation, catching sight of a dark box truck moving in. “Movement.”
Feras turned serious and tracked onto the truck alongside me as the truck pulled off the street and into the small courtyard in front of the warehouse. “A shipment?”
The box truck pulled to a stop just outside of the warehouse's doors. A few moments later, a dozen or so of the armed guards poured out of the warehouse and set up around the outside of the box truck. They held their rifles at the ready as if expecting the cargo to put up a fight.
The driver of the truck got out and walked around the back, unlatching and sliding up the door as he arrived. From our angle, we couldn’t see into the truck. That didn’t matter though as the ‘cargo’ started to move.
Guards jumped into the vehicle, and a moment later a group of people were tossed out of the box truck. They all wore shackles around their limbs, holding them hostage as they hit the ground. The majority looked like normal citizens of Aythryn City, albeit on the poorer side. There were a few middle-class ones in the bunch though.
“Fuck.” Feras twitched as one of the guards smacked a woman upside the head with the butt of his rifle. The dual-zoom augment helped me watch in excruciating detail as the hit dislodged some of the chrome on her head, tilting it out as blood began to pour from the seams. “Scavs?”
“No.” I inspected the people a bit more, shoving aside the sinking feeling in my gut as I tried to focus on the details. “Look, some of them don’t even have chrome.”
We watched the group of people get battered around by the group of guards as they were lined up for what looked to be an inspection. Every single one of them had faces twisted into fear and despair as if they already knew what awaited them.
A non-compliant man tried to fight back only to be bashed over the head and outright shot, setting an example for the rest as they cowered in the line. “Think it's a Savant Lab then?”
“I-” I paused and looked around the operation a bit more before turning off the dual-zoom. The entire thing was just too surgical, too practiced to be anything else. “It would make sense.” Fuck! That meant I had been working for Savants this entire time… I felt sick.
Feras popped up with a disgusted look on his face as the fox bounded up onto his shoulders. “Let’s go to the Crusade! We can't just let this go on.”
“Just- just give me a moment. Let me think.” I said as my mind shifted into overdrive.
Savants were arguably the worst group in Aythryn City. They held a similar position in the hearts of many to Scavs; one of intense hatred. Their kill count was only slightly less than the various Scav Dens around the city. They were worse though in some ways. Whereas Scavs were the floor below the barrel, Savants were the sewers below the floor. At least Scavs had the ‘decency’ to kill their victims after shredding them into sellable pieces.
Savants were the same type of scum to take people off the streets, sometimes even preferring children, to be brought back to their labs for experimentation. They practically tortured their victims, sometimes for years, until the victim would inevitably die due to a failed human experiment. Some of the experiments I had heard of were truly the stuff of nightmares; like attempting to turn HMV into a bioweapon.
The worst part? Most had corporate backing and funding. Although no corpo would ever admit to it, Savants were the breeding ground for products still in their experimental phase. If a corporation had a product or idea that ‘required’ humans, they would pull together a Savant Lab to test it in a black site with the victims of human trafficking. Truly a disgusting establishment.
Okay, okay… what to do… what to do…
A sickening idea popped into my head. I pulled off my bag and rifled through it before setting up my deck. I wasted no time sticking in the chip with Ajay Insurance’s client database on it. Next, I scanned through the list and checked it back through the missing person’s list from the Blue Crusade.
One out of twenty people were on the missing person’s list, which was abnormal. I filtered the client list, focusing on those without any relatives and in positions of poor income. To my absolute disgust, the number jumped up to everyone and three. I even recognized one of the women from the ID I took from Ajay’s safe.
Everything clicked in my head. The oddities I noticed over the past week. The absurd amount of funds that seemed to just pop out of nowhere. The expensive security that was far above what most small corporations could afford. Even the warehouse trying to blend in as a gang. Ajay was using his clients as fodder to sell to the Savant Lab, and the Savants were using them to, well, prove they were sick fucks.
Logically, it made sense. Who better to use as a human trafficker than an insurance corporation? They would know everything they needed about their victims, including if anyone would come looking for them if they were to just ‘disappear’. Still, to think that Ajay was so greedy that he would sell out his own clients to-
“Zuku!” A hand touched my shoulder, and I jerked back in surprise, my hand going for my iron. “Did you hear me? Are we going to the Crusade?”
“Just- no.” I shifted the direction of my hand and pulled out my phone instead. “The Crusade will take too long with their red tape…” Not to mention they might not get Ajay. There was a way we could still play this though where I could cash in on that five thousand and ruin the Savant operation here.
I flicked through my contacts, settling on one in particular. It rang for several seconds before a drunken voice came across. “Shiro, to what do I owe the pleashure?”
I held a hand up to Feras, stopping him from further questions. “I think I found a Savant Lab on the north side of Little Yukuto.”
The drunken cheer completely vanished from his voice as the Jade Fang elder turned serious. “I’m all earsh…”