As soon as I got home, I started work on my calling cards once more. I took measurements of the holoprojectors and then tinkered around on my deck, getting the model just right. It wasn’t anything crazy, just a simple playing card.

The playing card was a light gray, contrasted sharply by a dark blue crescent moon in the dead center of it. The two corners where a normal playing card had the number or letter were punched out, leaving a small gap. The card itself was a bit thick since it was completely hollowed out for electrical parts.

I got the card and then started to wire up the holoprojectors into it. They fit almost perfectly into the two holes. I only needed to file some extra bits of the plastic for them to pop in. From there, I wired them up to a battery in the center of the card.

From there, I reprogrammed the two holoprojectors. It was surprisingly easy to do. I hooked up my deck to their microchips and it opened up a program to edit what they projected. They didn't have any protections, which made sense considering where I got them from. They didn't have a connection to the Net at all either, which completely removed any chance of them getting hacked. There wasn't much of a need to give them protection.

I spent a while trying, and failing, to get a good projection of what I wanted. It was way harder than the static models I was used to doing for my three-dimensional printer. Instead of getting what I wanted, the projection looked like a blob of jello by the time I was done.

I gave up and searched the net for one… after finding the right file to fit what I wanted, I tossed it into the program. The projection looked nice, but it was a bit off. I fixed that by messing with the sliders and changing the color scheme to something that would fit the card far better. I also adjusted the model to fit the card and manipulated some parts of it.

I unplugged my deck, sending one last command to turn them on. Instantly, the playing card was lit up with fire. Neon blue fire arced along the edges, casting a blue glow across the silver card. It looked extremely realistic to the point I involuntarily flinched back as the flames danced.

The card sat there, on my desk, flickering with a faint blue flame that illuminated the dark blue moon. I watched it for a few moments, a smile forming on my lips as I stared down at my newest creation.

From there, I disassembled the card and changed the blue moon in the middle to a button of sorts so I could turn the projection off and on. It wouldn’t do to have a bright, glowing card on me when sneaking around places. After that, I managed to make eleven more of them before my printer's final spool of wire went out.

A frown worked its way across my lips as I pulled the empty spool out of the printer. They weren’t exactly cheap, and I wasn’t swimming in wealth at the moment. The current gig was taking up too much time for its payout, which sucked considering I was already behind on rent.

Where would I-

Oh. Yeah, that could work. With a thought, the request tab popped up in my vision.

「Request - Precious

* Steal the precious item

* Crow’s Wheel of Wares」

I thought back to the warehouse restaurant combo I got the request from. What was it again? Bury BBQ? Ruddy’s BBQ? Something like that. It wouldn’t be too hard to get back into if I was lucky. More importantly, the Neo-Jokers had a printer set up there with extra spools of plastic.

I could grab the requested item, get the reward, and get more wire all in one fell swoop. ‘Course, the reward was probably the biggest part of this whole idea. Crow’s Canteen of Chaos has become a staple since I originally got it. It was an important part of my kit, and all but guaranteed long-term survival if I was ever out in the wilderness thanks to its infinite nutrients.

All that being said, what else could I get from the wheel? An infinite bag that could hold everything I owned? An infinitely reproducing block of steel? Or maybe even something weird, like an immovable rod that ignored physics? Excitement already started to cross through me.

Walking around my apartment, I started to gear up. I also dumped out my bag entirely, packing extremely light so I could get out with more stuff. I brought little more than my deck, devices, tools, mask, calling cards, my Sidewinder, and the jade dagger I got from Drew, the thief. I also set the canteen back to the haze liquid.

Then, I headed out to my bike for my first heist in a long while. I cleaned it out, pulling everything I had left on it back into my apartment. I wanted to get out with a treasure trove this time, so I wanted room to store shit on my bike and saddle bags.

I cleaned up as best I could and then hit the road. At the very least, this’d be a warm-up before cracking the corpos on my list.

— —

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

I spent a couple hours watching the place, Ruby’s BBQ apparently, to see if anything changed. It looked mostly the same, the only difference being several more bikes parked out front than the last time. Maybe since it was the weekend?

Nothing stood out other than that, so I went like I did the last time as I threw on my new mask. I walked around the block, getting out of vision as I entered the alleyway between the buildings. From there, I worked my way around back to the fire escape I used in my original heist.

The entire bottom floor had been chopped off since the last time I was around. I checked the rusty bars, and they were definitely chopped, not rusted off. Maybe the Neo-Jokers wised up since I was here the last time?

I looked around, spotting a dumpster off to the side of the alley. I moved over to it, hopped on, and lined myself up. I got a running start, the lid of the dumpster bouncing underfoot, as I leaped from it with my arms outstretched, catching the rusted bar of the fire escape. As soon as my grip locked on, the bar creaked loudly as it shifted in a light splattering of dust that my mask kept me from breathing in.

I winced as I tried to pull myself up onto it, failing miserably. I took a deep breath, straining as I barely managed to get myself up over the lip. I rolled the rest of the way, fully getting onto the groaning fire escape.

Not immediately climbing up, I took a moment to tie some of the microwire I got from Mira oh so long ago around the bars of the escape, creating a short rope down to ground level.

From there, I went up the stairs of the fire escape. Just like last time, it creaked and groaned, threatening to collapse under me. I didn’t let that slow me as I peeked over the edge of the roof. Nothing immediately stood out to me until I locked onto the electrical shed on the other side. A camera panned slowly from one side of the roof to the other.

I waited for it to get to its furthest arc, then raced across the roof to the shed. I slid into the shadow of the building, stopping just below the camera as it panned back to the fire escape.

Once it got back to its furthest arc, I pulled a Tapper from my bag and jammed it up into the gizmo responsible for turning the camera. It shifted, clamping onto the Tapper as it froze in place. Not exactly what it was intended for, but it worked nonetheless.

Hopefully, the stalled camera would be less eye-catching than a broken camera for whoever watched the feeds. If not, then I had minutes at best before they sent anyone up here.

Just to be safe, I dropped a Listener right below the camera and linked it up to my earpiece. Hopefully, I’d be able to hear if someone came up and investigated. If anything, I should have a few seconds warning before shit hit the fan.

I moved to open the door to the electrical shed. They had set up several more locks since the last time I was up here, but what were more locks really supposed to do when the first one hardly took a few seconds? I easily unlocked each of them and popped open the metal door.

The inside of the shed changed significantly from the last time. Not that the old electrical panels had been removed. Funnily enough, I spotted my original Tapper still linked to their light system. Several more panels had been added. It took a bit to figure out what I was looking at.

Whoever set up the grid was nice enough to label what each of the breakers and switch boxes were for. Most of them were related to additional security systems of the facility. They really beefed the place up since the last time.

One set of controls in particular caught my eye: vault controls. Unfortunately, all the new stuff was hooked into security systems of their own that would go off with the slightest change of voltage, so I couldn’t do anything from this side without setting off the alarm preemptively. Or at least I didn’t want to try. I could probably manage to divert the voltage and get a workaround, but it wasn’t really worth the risk.

What did they have in the vault though? Part of me - a large part of me at that - wanted to forget the original mission and find this tantalizing vault of theirs. I could be set for a long time if I just-

No, bad Shiro! You need the statue and spools of wire first! Maybe after that was over though? Risk a return trip back for them? Hmm… wait and see how things are going, then make a decision.

After looking through the security systems, I was half tempted to jack into them with my deck and try to work around them so I could access their cameras. Then the rest of my brain caught up, along with the realization that I definitely didn’t have enough skills to manage such a thing.

Looks like playing with the lights was about the extent of what I could deal with. I did, however, mentally mark down the positions named on the circuit breaker for future reference. I also reset the link to my deck for the old Tapper just in case.

I slid back out of the electrical shed, careful to stay out of view of the jammed camera as I moved back to one of the pyramid windows. They had also received an upgrade since the last time with far beefier bolts and screws instead of the half-rusted ones. In fact, the entire thing looked new, windows and all.

I dropped my bag to my side and sifted through it for my tools, then undid the bolts that kept the pyramids down. Carefully, I slid the glass panel to the side just like last time and looked down into the warehouse. Unlike last time, I pulled a Scouter from my bag and Crow’s Canteen of Chaos. I filled in the hollow outer layer of the scouter with the liquid, almost immediately losing sight of the thing. Trippy.

The scouter sailed through the air as I lightly tossed it onto one of the racks a bit ways across the room. I slid back down, using the cement box below the pyramid as a backrest as I pulled out my deck and connected up to the Scouter. From there, I set it to auto-transfer to my HUD before putting my deck back up.

The Scouter overlooked one of the many rows of tall industrial shelves. The lights were as dim the last time, so it took me a minute to figure out what exactly I was looking at.

They added more stuff to the shelves since the last time, a lot more at that. Almost every shelf was stacked with boxes, most of them marked in a language I couldn’t quite read. Maybe Sovet? It looked Sovet at least. Still, the boxes meant more cover for me.

I watched the Scouter’s view for a while longer, catching sight of guards walking around. They upgraded since the last time in terms of gear and hands it looked like. Now there were duos on patrol instead of just a solo.

’Course, I could put two and two together. Since the last time I was here, they must’ve upgraded from a simple stash to something far more important. It was the only logical reason for all the money sunk into the place. That thought process, combined with the security for a ‘vault’, suggested the back side of Ruby’s BBQ had become a major storehouse for the Neo-Jokers.

Did that make me more hesitant about popping in to klep their shit? Yeah. Would it stop me? Well, I was already here…

I doused myself in the haze liquid, slid the deck back into my bag, and dropped over the side of the pyramid, silently falling into the darkness below.