Tiny flares of light flowed down the suit in a wave, hundreds of micro thrusters working to keep the pilot stable while she floated in midair. Angel had to admit, it was as easy as Mae promised. Arte was neatly tucked between her arms in a princess carry, while they waited for a signal.

Angel looked at her passenger. “I bet you never thought you’d do something like this.”

Arte laughed. “Not really, or at the very least, in my daydreams, I’d be the one wearing power armor.” He glanced down, then wrapped tighter around Angel. “Just don’t drop me.”

The pair jumped out of the Raptor a few minutes ago, then slowly sank into position a few hundred feet above the facility while the craft soared away. Angel hadn’t the foggiest idea where Mae went, but Arte’s faith in the mercenary put her at ease. The Class Bs were an odd sort, to be sure, but nothing like she expected.

Angel was interrupted from her rumination by a voice in her helmet. “The virus is in, move fast,” Mae said over the radio.

Angel shared a look with Arte. They both nodded, and Angel dropped as fast as her nerves could manage. They touched down a minute later in front of the rear cargo door. Arte hopped from her arms, then pulled a silver card from a pocket and swiped it over a nearby pad. According to Mae, Gale’s security bypass program made it so every lock would open with any signal.

Angel sighed with relief when the door rolled up. “I’ll wait on the roof,” she said as Arte disappeared into the dark space.

Arte rushed through the wide hallway, passing a pair of double wide doors on either side. He scanned the labels on the way by, but didn’t stop, instead continuing until he reached an intersection, where he turned right. His path crossed beside an office door, which opened as he walked by. His eyes flashed in alarm, and he glanced behind.

Standing out in the hallway, but facing the room he departed, was one of the facility technicians. He said, “The damn thing has been throwing error codes all week, and the fucking system can’t make up it’s mind about what’s wrong.”

“And what are you going to do about it,” replied a voice from the office.

“For starters, I ain’t gonna spend another five hours replacing some part that clearly still works,” the tech answered. “And then I’m going to provide a little ‘concussive maintenance’ to her.”

“You’re nuts man.”

“What? It worked all the time at my last job.”

“Didn’t you get fired?”

The man laughed. “I said it worked, I didn’t say they liked it.”

While the technician and his coworker were talking, Arte made it to the door he was looking for. He swiped his card and stepped into the server room after the lock clicked open. Inside he was greeted by a dozen rows of shelves, each packed with piles of computing hardware and all the attendant necessities to keep them powered and cool.

A handful of robotic carts whizzed through the room on tracks mounted to the ceiling, hunting down faulty components and scanning the shelves for developing issues. Arte ran across the aisles and turned down the second corridor from the end.

He walked between the two lines of whirring servers, counting out racks as he went. While he was focused on his work, he failed to notice an automated cart rocking to a stop above his head. He looked up just in time to see it plummeting towards him and dived out of the way. It lurched to a stop on the lowest rung, leaving less than an inch of space for his legs.

The cart removed and replaced an item, then zipped back to the ceiling and zoomed away near as fast as it came on. Arte clambered to his feet and rested a moment on a metal frame. He took a deep breath and let it out, then continued.

“What number was I on again?” he muttered, then frowned. Being careful to check up periodically, he started scanning the barcodes on each tray. After a minute, he read out a label, then said, “Finally.”

He spent a few seconds checking the tags on the various hard drives, comparing them to a number written on his arm. Eventually he landed on a match, then pulled a tool from a pouch on his belt. He loosened a pair of bolts on either side and tugged the drive from its fixture. He took a silver grey plastic sleeve from his bag and slid a nearly identical piece of hardware from it.

It wasn’t a perfect match for the ones in the data center, but had the same form factor. Angel picked it up from a shop in Central City before they departed. While Arte was tucking his stolen disk drive into the sleeve, one of the robotic carts came scooting down the aisle and parked above his head. He fumbled the replacement into place, barely pulling his fingers away in time and tumbling to the floor.

The machine removed the decoy, apparently unbothered by the loose screws, and installed a fresh drive. It then returned to the ceiling and whirred off to dispose of the remains. According to Mae the defective drives were never checked, so all evidence of the theft would be dumped in an incinerator without them lifting a finger.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

In any case, Arte spent a few seconds settling his breath, before gathering his things and slinking back the way he came. He stepped past the edge of the shelves, and then dived for cover when the door opened.

A man walked in and said, “Alright you piece of shit, get your ass over here.”

Arte’s eyes flashed in terror, and he froze, pressed tightly against the wall. He didn’t so much as twitch until there were a few beeps up front. He ducked low, and poked the side of his head around the corner. A man was standing near the door, facing away, tapping on a pad. One of the ceiling carts answered his summons, and slid into position on a bench beside him. He pulled out a wrench and started whacking the machine in various places.

Meanwhile, Arte darted to the door and slid into the hallway, unnoticed by the tech thanks to the combined racket of the whining fans and his own repeating clangs. Arte turned right, and returned to the exit at a brisk pace.

He passed an empty office, then turned left at the intersection and followed the hallway to the rolling metal door he came in through. He swiped his card one last time, and was greeted by a rush of cool air and the back of the other tech. The man was midway though a drag of his cigarette.

The technician got caught in several conflicting impulses, which when summed together amounted to a hacking cough and him awkwardly sputtering, “Ah! I-I was—“

“As you were!” Arte barked as he turned left and marched towards the far corner.

The man blinked twice and shook his head, looking around in confusion a moment before following the stranger who barreled past. He reached the end of the wall and scanned the empty field between the building and the distant horizon. There was no one to be seen. He eyed the smoke in his hand warily, then for good measure squished it against the wall and tossed it in a clump of grass.

Meanwhile, Arte was being carried away by Angel, who scooped him up moments before and took off into the sky, using the building as cover.

“Thanks for the rescue,” Arte said.

“I tried to warn you,” she answered. “But like Mae said, the inside is shielded from radio.”

“I think it worked out, for the most part. Hopefully that guy doesn’t think too much about what happened.”

Angel laughed. “He’ll probably keep quiet either way. Smoking doesn’t do your safety score any favors.”

Arte hummed, and they remained silent until they got high enough for the Raptor to swoop down and welcome them into the passenger compartment. Angel wasted no time setting Arte on his feet, then ordered him into the forward cabin. When he returned a minute later, Angel was out of the power armor, and back into her loose fitting slacks and shirt.

Arte folded down the corner bench and took a seat on the inside, while Angel sat beside him. They waited about fifteen minutes for the craft to dive once again, this time to retrieve Mae before soaring off into the sky.

“Great work kids,” Mae said. “The mission went perfectly.”

“I don’t know why you keep calling us kids,” Angel said. “You’re barely older than either of us.”

Mae smiled, a touch of blush on her cheeks. “Aw, ain’t that darling of you to say, but I’m literally twice your age.”

“You’re forty-six!”

“The secret is keeping your life stress free,” she said with an impish grin. “Speaking of, why don’t we go ahead and make sure our little incursion didn’t add any years unnecessarily.” She looked at Arte. “You still got the drive?”

He laughed and said, “Wouldn’t that be embarrassing.” He pulled the silver pouch from his bag and handed it over.

Mae folded out the other bench and center table, then fetched some hardware from a wall panel and sat down. After a few seconds fussing with it, she placed a large thin tablet between the three of them. She tapped a few more times, bringing up a window filled with a list of folders. Each had a number followed by a name, and a few exploratory swipes suggested there was a considerable amount of them.

“Who are these people?” Arte asked.

Mae shrugged. “No idea.” She breezed through a few pages.

“Wait! Back up,” Angel said. Mae scrolled the other way until Angel pointed at a name on the list. “Steven Armstrong is the name of a US Senator. Could this be for him?”

“Only one way to find out,” Mae said. She tapped the folder open, which revealed a list of files. There were a few video clips mixed in with other data types. Mae picked one at random, which contained footage of a middle aged man in a suit sitting at a table with a group of similarly dressed men. There was a flock of topless women waiting in the periphery.

“That’s him!” Angel said. “Is he gambling?” She winced in disgust. “And in such a raunchy setting. This should be a big knock on his Safety Score, but he’s got the best in Congress.”

“Let’s see what else is here,” Mae said. She closed the video and opened a file with a matching name. It was a collection of financial records, which showed the Senator was deeply in debt as a result of his gambling.

“This… this can’t be true,” Angel said. “He… his score….” She took a breath. “He shouldn’t even be eligible to enter a post office, let alone win an election.”

“These are cryptographically authenticated files,” Mae said. “If you look here”—she tapped a banner at the top of the screen—“you can see this report was generated by the CSA itself. I would guess there are additional files which validate the data as well.”

“I… I can’t…”

“Let’s check some of the other names,” Arte said.

Mae returned to the main list and opened a few folders. Each one documented the bountiful sins of its namesake, transgressions ranging from drugs to prostitution to jaywalking and even as far as homicide in one case. A few net queries revealed every person investigated was some matter of politician, celebrity, or powerful businessman.

By the end of their search, Angel was close to tears. “These… I….” She shook her head and wiped her eyes. “The One Law Society believed powerful people were… were getting a little bump in their score, or maybe a few infractions were overlooked. This… it’s unconscionable. They’re like a whole separate class of people.”

“No way. They’ve never done something like that before,” Mae said in a flat tone. Angel winced, fighting back a sob. “Ah, sorry,” she mumbled.

“I…. This is too much.” Angel stood up. “I have to….” She shook her head and stiffened her lip. She fixed Mae with the sturdiest gaze she could muster and said, “Please let me know when we get back.” She drifted towards the front cabin.

Arte half stood, reaching for Angel and said, “Wait, what about—“

“Let her go,” Mae said. Angel finished her journey and disappeared beyond the sliding door.

“What are we going to do next?”

Mae hummed, tapping her lip. After a second, she said, “I suppose we stick with the plan. We get this data to Gale and see what shakes out.”