Mike pushed the package towards his client and smiled.

"It's all there. I think I earned it this time. They've switched to a new encryption scheme. Took a bit of work to break it."

The fat man on the other side of the table picked up the little box and nodded. He was wearing a generic player skin, with no customization at all. Which meant he stuck out like a sore thumb in the tavern, which was filled with high-level warriors, wizards, healers, dwarves, and clerics. It was bad security and more than a few of the other players were casting glances at the three of them.

Mike just wanted to get it over with. He was decently skinned as a mage, and Aventine, their escrow broker, was a witch. She actually looked really good, and Mike knew she was a regular player here. They had exchanged eyerolls when the client walked in wearing nothing but Level 1 player rags. Inconspicuous he was not, but then again he was probably using a throwaway account.

"Good enough," the client said. He nodded at Aventine. "I'll forward the keys once we verify."

Aventine smiled and tapped a confirmation over to him.

"I'll look forward to it," she said in her husky voice.

The client froze for a few moments, then looked up at them, obviously confused.

"How do I... Oh wait, got it..."

He popped out of existence.

Mike flopped back onto the tavern chair and smirked at Aventine.

"Any idea who they are?"

She gave him a little shrug.

"Not amateurs, in spite of how that one looked. Their business side was rock solid. Probably competition."

Which meant there was nothing special about the transaction. Companies were always working to steal tech upgrades from one another. It was barely worth remembering, but at least it paid the bills.

He stood up.

"Thanks, I'll wait to hear from you," he said. In fact he'd been working on the crack for about twelve hours straight and he was tired and wanted to go to bed. He had no concerns about Aventine. They'd done business together forever.

"I'll let you know as soon as they confirm," she said. Then she stopped and looked up at him. "I'm going to be joining a Guild raid in a bit. Interested?"

Mike shook his head. "I have some work for a new job," he lied. "Another time. No rest for the wicked."

Right now he had zero interest in playing games, and wanted to get back to the real world and forget about work for a while. Spending hour after hour immersed in the deep code for games always sucked any joy out of actually playing them for him.

Aventine gave him a pouty look.

"Your call. Let me know if there's anything I can do."

He took a last draw on his mead, then plunked the mug down on the table boards. There was no denying the somatics on the updates were impressive. It tasted and felt like he was really drinking, sans the getting drunk part.

"Will do, promise."

He logged out without another word.

But something went wrong the moment he phased back into reality. There was the usual spinny feeling, and his vision cleared up quickly enough. But the room was shaking. It only took a moment to realize it wasn't an effect of the VR gear. He jerked up quickly and pulled it off of his head.

The whole room was vibrating. A stack of books fell off of his nightstand and scattered on the floor.

Earthquake?

Then there was a final, crunching, explosive thud that shook his wall and knocked a picture off the wall, the glass shattering. His chair jerked to one side and he jumped up, worried that the building was going to cave in on him.

"Shit!" he yelped.

Then there was quiet. He heard a few scattered shouts from outside, and ran to his window. Tabbing it to transparent he tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

Normally it was a drab view across the street to another set of apartments, their own windows usually darkened as well. The street at this time of night would be mostly deserted apart from a few wandering drunks or druggies. Instead there was something leaning up against the other building. It was big, grey, and brick-shaped. Smoke was pouring from it, and the ground was littered with debris; glass and stone and crumpled metal.

But the moment he saw the logo he knew what had happened.

Stolen story; please report.

"God damn," he muttered. "Looks like we won the lottery."

The elevator took forever – he wasn't the only one who'd clued in to what was happening by a long shot. He contacted Bill on the way down. Bill didn't even bother with a hello.

"Yeah Mike I saw it, where are you?"

"On my way."

"You'd best hurry, they already have the cargo doors open."

"Ugh. Fast as I can. Cameras?"

"Maureen flooded them right away. We're clear. Don't doddle."

When he finally ran out of the lobby it was straight into a crowd. There were probably fifty denizens of the Burbs milling around the big doors of the cargo transport, and packages were being tossed out from the back while others were trying to climb on board.

He spotted Bill pulling apart a mid-sized shipping container. The old guy grinned up at him, a real sparkle in his eyes.

"It's Christmas morning Mike! I'd guess we've got another five minutes at best before the cops show up, so grab what you can."

"Anything so far?"

"Shitload of clothes and shoes, but I leave that to the punters. Look at this."

He held up a small box, still wrapped for sale. It was a current-gen LifeBand, very expensive wristwear, the kind with full experiential recording.

Mike gave him a quick grin.

"Nice nice, I got to get started. I want to see if I can get in the cab."

"I figured. Good luck to you."

The cab of the transport was a crumpled mess, but at least the access hatch was bent open. He crawled into the service bay and did a quick scan. His gear showed no active net connection so they were probably still in the clear. Whatever had fried the truck's AI had probably blown out everything. It wasn't a great sign, but he still needed to see if there was anything left worth downloading. A full set of current DynCorp piloting AI nets would set him up for the next six months, easy.

But it was as bad as he'd feared. When he ripped open the access panels to the redundant computers he groaned. They were a mess. Some kind of power surge had arced through the whole bay and it was blackened, melted, and dead. He pulled on an insulated glove and unseated the firmware modules. They were probably useless now, but he definitely wasn't going to be using any of the truck's own hardware to take a peek. That was all garbage now.

He dropped back out of the service bay and pocketed the dead chips. It was time to see if he could still find anything good before they had to run.

Probably should have taken the easy win. Can't blame a guy for trying.

Also you couldn't fault the residents of the Burb for efficiency. The crowd was already thinning out and there were only a dozen or so people busying themselves with loading up their arms with everything they could carry, regardless of value.

Motivated random unloading. It's still nearly as fast as any optimized software plan.

He jumped up into the back of the transport. There were a bunch of big containers, but they were all thick and heavy, and nobody was going to waste time trying to unload those. He wriggled around between them, hoping to find something the crowd had missed.

Bingo.

There was a crate with an ArialNexus logo. It was trapped and partially crushed under another bigger box, but he pulled out his knife and slashed away at the packaging until he'd revealed a row of Total Ether 3 consoles. It wasn't a gigantic win, but if he could run out with two or three of them they'd be an okay consolation prize for wasting time trying to hijack the truck's AI software.

That was when he heard the voice.

"Hello? Can you hear me? We need help!"

It was a woman's voice, but strangely musical and pleasant.

"What's wrong?" he said, looking around between the crates. "Are you stuck?"

It would be typical if he had to waste time rescuing some numbskull who'd gotten their foot trapped or something.

"We can't get out!" said the voice. "I'm the only one who activated. can you help us?"

"Activated? Who are you?"

He could hear the wail of a police siren in the distance. Time was nearly up. He should just grab his shit and leave them here. Their stupid fault for not being careful. Cops would rescue them anyway.

"I'm Meela," said the voice. "Are you my master?"

"What? Where are you?"

"We're in a box. I'd like to get out. There's a hole. I'm wiggling my finger in it. Can you see?"

He spared a last glance at his lost score.

I guess I'm screwed.

It only took a moment to find her. One big box was leaning against the wall, and a little finger was sticking out of it, waggling at him.

"Found you," he said. "How did you get in there?"

"I don't know," the voice said. "I just activated in here. I think something went wrong. Are you our master?"

Mike didn't know what she was blathering about but he told her get back from the side of the box with the hole and aimed his solidest kick right at that spot. The side of the box cracked in a neat line, all the way down to the bottom.

"Perfect," he said. "I'm going to pull from this side and you push from that side, okay?"

"I can't obey orders unless they're from my master. Are you my master?"

"Do you want to get out? We need to hurry!"

"I do want to get out! But I can't do what you say unless you're my master!"

She sounded insane. The sirens were louder.

"Okay, yes, I am your master! Now push while I pull, okay?"

"What should I call you, master?"

"What? Mike. I'm Mike, now push, that's an order!"

"Yes Master Mike!"

But before he could even get a good grip the side of the box bulged outwards and he only barely managed to jump aside as the whole panel broke apart, revealing Meela. The one with the finger.

It was a Catgirl. Mike stared at her, his eyes wide.

She was petite, her head barely coming up to his chin. Auburn-red hair. Cat eyes. Cat ears. Her tail swished anxiously back and forth inside the container. She was gorgeous, of course.

But her eyes lit up and she smiled.

"Oh Master Mike! I can finally see you!"

The sirens were loud now. They would be landing any second.

She leaped and wrapped herself around him, making a little squeal.

Mike barely noticed.

Behind her were two more Catgirls, their eyes closed.