Carefully opening the door, he slunk toward the room that the cameras had all been connected to. His scan had revealed that there were four people in this area. One in the office with the server equipment, and then three more in another office right next to it.

  This really needed to be done quietly. He had gotten lucky with that first group of three, due to their own inattentiveness. It was deep in the night when any normal, sane person would be asleep, so he might get lucky again with the next three. Only time would tell.

  The only ones who had even been semi-awake were the four he had encountered who were actively walking around.

  So far, he hadn’t seen any sign of the four auged bruisers, or the two blitzers. He was assuming they were in the parking lot area, but there was no way to say for sure. The range of his S&R scans was pretty high, but there was only so much he could process during the time the scan lasted.

  Trace hugged the wall as he silently walked towards the room that held who he hoped was the net breacher. He kept his eyes out for any cameras that might appear in the hall as he was walking down it. He hadn’t seen any connections earlier, but it never hurt to be careful.

  A minute later he was outside the door, slowly inching it open with one hand and slipping the suppressed barrel of his gun in with the other. There was no need for him to fully enter the room with the new scope on the pistol. All him attempting to do that would accomplish is bring attention to the door opening.

  By leaving the door mostly closed, he was lessening that danger.

  As soon as his hand was fully inside the room, he put his finger on the trigger and put some pressure on it. That activated the scope and reticle system and brought the inside of the room into view.

  The person they had been so worried about might have been trained, and he might have skills, but he was also a virtual-connect spark addict. The man was currently connected to the virtual net, experiencing everything through the spark that represented the man’s consciousness, and perhaps more. Some liked to think that the spark was a digital manifestation of a person’s soul or their ghost, but Trace thought that was pushing things a little too far.

  Either way, it was always easy to tell a spark addict apart from a normal user when they were connected. The line of blissed-out drool leaking from the corner of the man’s mouth was the easiest tell. The second was that his physical body was no longer responding to the stimuli it received from the virtual realm. A regular user could still feel a certain amount of pain and pleasure. It was what led to them getting addicted in the first place.

  Those who were too far gone though, had minds that no longer truly belonged to their bodies. Oddly enough, they were the perfect subjects for cyberware modifications as they wouldn’t experience any sort of dysmorphia from it. As long as their body could handle the surgery, their mind would have no problem accepting the change.

  There was also little point in experimenting on them, as there was nothing to be gained.

  Trace shifted his aim to the man’s neck and squeezed the trigger, once and then twice. One of his perks helped with recoil and keeping his aim a little more steady. Not exactly a large problem with this gun, or his cyberware hand and arm, but every little bit helped.

  The first bullet took him in the neck, destroying his NetConnect, while the second took him in the head, pulping his brain. He had wanted to ensure the man couldn’t send out any sort of signal, just in case he had some sort of protection around his head. He hadn’t.

  Entering the room, Trace headed directly to the computer, ripping out the cord through which the man had been connected to everything. The cameras spread around the area had been more or less completely unmonitored. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t be as lucky down below. There was one camera inside the building that was pointed at the stairs going down. He could just barely glimpse what appeared to be another security camera at the bottom. One that definitely wasn’t under the control of the station he was currently at.

  That meant there was another security network setup down below, and possibly another netuser or other person watching the cameras.

  For the time being, he shut down everything else and then left the room behind. It was time to get a move on. The people in the room next door needed to be eliminated next, in a careful manner.

  Trace scanned the area again before leaving the room. He was vaguely aware of someone with a sword working their way through the people in the parking lot. Kenshin, unless one of their own people had gone crazy.

  The three people in the next room were still in the same place, not having moved at all. There were also four people in the lounge on the far side of the room.

  He still had no idea how he was going to accomplish taking them all out before someone could raise the alarm. Unlike everyone else he had encountered up to that point, those three weren’t giving into the call of the night in some way. Instead, they appeared to be holding some sort of meeting.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  His stealth suit didn’t help as much if he needed to draw attention to himself first by opening the door. There were a few failings to the suit, but overall, it was much better than just trying to sneak around as he had been doing before.

  Trace hesitated before deciding to turn away from the room. He would take care of the people in the lounge first.

  Hugging the wall as closely as possible, he snuck into the lounge and watched the occupants for a minute before choosing to act. They were cleaning their weapons while talking to each other. When he first entered, they had been chatting about the latest pleasure doll hotel each of them had visited. However, that topic only lasted a few more blessed seconds before one of them, with a tie-dye-colored mohawk, threw his barrel-cleaning brush to the side and glared at his compatriots.

  “How do you three feel about us working with scavs?”

  “The boss ordered it,” One of them with a cyberware throat and clavicle said simply.

  “I don’t care! They’re scavs! Do you think the other gangs are going to put up with this situation? As soon as they find out what we’re doing, they are all going to turn on us. The blood-dogs aren’t going to be around for much longer.” He said forcefully, with a slam of his hand on the table.

  “You… aren’t wrong, but the boss still ordered it. We just need to be prepared to leave as soon as things go wrong.” Another one said.

  The fourth one scoffed and tilted his neck while pulling down the neckline of his shirt. “Not all of us have metal necks and can simply scrape away the signs of our affiliation. You think anyone will remove these once the truth comes out?”

  The man with the multi-colored mohawk sighed and got up to retrieve the brush he had thrown. “So, either we leave now and face the wrath of the rest of the gang or die with everyone else.”

  “I suppose we could take our chances with removing it ourselves?” The second one to reply answered while placing a knife and a small blowtorch on the table.

  “Why do you have a blowtorch on you?” The one with the metal throat asked. “We’re just cleaning our guns.”

  The man shrugged. “You never know what you might want to dry quickly or etch-burn onto the surface of your gun.”

  “You’re an idiot,” The others said in unison.

  Deciding he had listened to enough of that particular conversation, Trace discreetly raised his pistol. Aiming at the rightmost idiot, he squeezed the trigger.

  The lounge was dead silent for a second as the man’s head slowly fell onto the table.

  Trace brought his other hand up to cup the first, steadying the gun and helping him aim as he quickly found the next target. The second one fell just as they began to react. The last two yelled in surprise and scrambled out of their chairs.

  They weren’t the only ones moving, as Trace was doing his best to slink away from the position where he had last fired the pistol. The gun itself had been lowered back down to his side, where it was no longer visible.

  From his new position in the room, he was able to take them both out a second later.

  It was too late though, as they had already yelled out in fear. The three who had been having a meeting in the room next to the lounge burst out of the room.

  Bullets were waiting for each of them. They weren’t all headshots, but extra bullets quickly took care of that matter.

  Trace quickly shut off the active stealth mode and slowly slid to the ground with a groan. That had been too close! Even with his new suit, he was still running into issues. His actual skills and patience were lacking. He had no idea how real wraiths managed to pull off missions like this without ever getting noticed or raising any sort of alarm.

  How was he supposed to eliminate four people all at once in that sort of situation? It was something he would need to think about later. He liked his guns, but it might be time to start looking at other options to disable several enemies at once.

  A quick S&R scan revealed that the building, or rather the first floor, had been cleared. Looking outside, he saw Kenshin running toward the building. The outside parking lot had been entirely cleared by the man. While Trace had struggled to silently take out everyone inside the building. Kenshin had wiped out four bruisers, two blitzers, and the rest of the normal gangsters in the same time frame.

  Maybe tier 2 edgers were a little better than he had originally assumed if that was the sort of skill they possessed.

  He slowly got to his feet and pushed away from the wall with a stumble. Trace wasn’t exactly physically tired, so much as he was mentally tired. Sneaking around, even with the stealth suit, put a lot of pressure on the mind. The pressure got even worse with the battle just now.

  He made it to the back door only a few seconds before Kenshin arrived and waved at the man.

  “Are you alright?” The dangerous sword-wielding edger asked. “You look tired.”

  Trace was leaning heavily against the door frame and merely. “Mentally tired is all. The last two groups I took care of were all bunched up and it was a little stressful. Even if this suit helps me sneak in easier and remain unseen, my actual skills in dealing with multiple opponents leave something to be desired. A failing you don’t seem to have.”

  Kenshin glanced back at the silent parking lot and patted the hilt of his sheathed sword. “In the right hands, these are far more dangerous than most assume. Plus, I still have my other weapons.” He pulled the front of his outfit away, revealing the bandolier of throwing knives and his own suppressed pistol.

  Trace chuckled, not having realized how equipped the man was. This was a different outfit than the one he had worn in the pit before. “Can I ask you a question?”

  Kenshin nodded.

  “What tier are you?”

  The ninja chuckled. “I am tier two, but I am one priority mission away from being allowed to test for tier three.”

  “That… makes me feel a little better at least,” Trace muttered, mostly to himself. “We have another problem though. This place has a basement floor, with people moving in and out of the sewers on a regular basis. We can probably move the trucks without alerting them. However, there is no telling how long we would have before someone comes up the stairs to check on everyone or wonders why they haven’t come down or any other number of possibilities.”

  Kenshin cursed and began pacing.

  Meanwhile, Trace turned on his communication systems and sent a message to Monroe, updating him on the situation.

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