Chapter 13: Grieselda

The code breaker’s lair was a less than impressive building. A weathered greenhouse on small plot of unkempt land in the farming districts, on the outskirts of south Gau City.

From the cover of a pair of bushes, Grieselda and her armed entourage – the captain, his two droids and Shenko – were crouched.

She studied the old greenhouse. The dull glass was sprayed in mist. Countless bundles of writhing green vines enveloped the inside of the glass planes further obstructing the view of what lay within.

“This is it?” Grieselda said to no one in particular.

The criminals were becoming more and more inventive with their choice of locations.

“The place is hooked to the virtual net,” the captain said.

“What do you see?”

He forwarded the security feeds over to her mech suit and she viewed them through her visor.

Instead of plants the inside of the greenhouse was littered with med-pods scattered haphazardly. Numerous armed guards weaved back and forth between the pods. A steel staircase was erected on the far left rising up to a small office that hung in the corner.

‘The code breaker is undoubtedly in there.’

Her lips quivered, a great sum of the med-pods were occupied. The occupants weren’t sleeping rather they were fully submerged in virtual. Their eyes were open but glazed out. They had dishevelled faces and chalky pale skin.

‘Like they haven’t felt the Gau City sun in years.’

Grieselda furrowed her brows. “What is this?”

“Must be his side business,” the captain said absentmindedly, his mind in two places.

“An underworld clinic,” Grieselda muttered.

It wasn’t uncommon for terminally ill patients to be loaded into the virtual network as their bodies were operated on.

‘Would also explain the med-pods.’

Shenko giggled through the helm of his ebony mech suit, beside himself with joy. “You’ve never seen a VR farm?”

“A what?”

Shenko chuckled some more and answered with a question. “How long is one allowed to stay in virtual?”

Grieselda frowned but played along. She knew Shenko loved the sound of his own voice.

“Excluding guild mages who monitor the virtual network. By law, the rest of us are only allowed 9 hours a day and each chip is designed to comply, kicks you out if you try to exceed the limits.”

“Correct but their chips have been hacked to ignore those limitations so as long as their pods have power to keep their bodies electrically stimulated and pod nutrients are regularly refilled they can stay in virtual indefinitely.”

‘Are they trapping people in virtual somehow?’

Grieselda raised an eyebrow. “Is this some kind of underworld virtual prison?”

“Oh heavens no.” Shenko waved her off. “They chose to be here.”

“Chose?”

“For some people nine hours isn’t enough you see. They want to escape the hell of pain, age, reason, loneliness, society or whatever their dealing with in preference of an eternity of their own making.”

Grieselda cringed, disgust washing over her eyes. “Who would want that?”

Shenko burst into laughter, an annoying laugh straight out his gut. “Obviously them.”

She didn’t like it.

‘An unhealthy detachment from the world. No matter how justified their need to escape reality.’

“Not many can afford it though,” the captain added. “To pay for a year of uninterrupted full submersion costs over 70 million credits.”

“A rich man’s drug then,” Grieselda said. Paused. Rolled her eyes. ‘Why am I not surprised you even know the prices for such things?’

Just expect the worst of him and you’ll never be shocked.

She recalled Shenko’s advice and her expression sank. ‘Don’t normalize their actions. Don’t fall into their pace.’

She sucked in a cold breath, exhaled through her slim nose, fogged her visor but the air conditioning quickly cleared her display.

“Here’s the plan,” the captain said. “Grieselda and I will rush inside take out the assailants. Shen you cover the perimeter we need to be prepared for any secret escapes. The lieutenant’s new mandates want us to cut down on the cybercrime kill stats so we use non-lethal force, unless we encounter well equipped hackers or some heavily augmented bastards.”

Grieselda and Shenko bobbed their heads.

“Get ready,” the captain said and withdrew his stun gun.

“Ready,” Shenko said and he drew his stun gun.

“Ready,” Grieselda said with her shard gun.

The captain considered her. “I said non-lethal. Where’s your stun gun?”

Grieselda paused. Blinked at her firearm. “Shit! I didn’t bring one.”

She had a spare shard gun in her stun gun slot. She’d never thought this corrupt unit was the type to pull its punches hence she never even considered packing a stun gun.

‘Will they use this as an excuse to leave me behind? No, I can just fight unarmed at close combat. They won’t get rid of me that easily.’

Guardian’s abdomen clinked and sliced open. The captain slipped a hand into the compartment, ruffled through it and pulled out an extra stun gun.

“Good looking out,” she blurted out without much thought. And the words left a sour taste in her mouth because for the first time during an assignment she’d given thanks and actually meant it.

‘Why aren’t they more scheming?’ she cursed. It would make it easier on all parties involved when it came time for the big reveal.

‘It’s just a stun gun, nothing to be grateful for.’

She dug out her mentor’s words. His unshakable reasoning always gave her strength.

She held up the stun gun. Her hazel eyes hard within the concealment of her green visor. “Ready.”

As per usual the captain’s droids lead the charge. They smashed through the glass doors side by side, sent countless shards flying and crunching back down in a twinkling melody.

A wide-eyed guard blocked their path. “Intru—” His pointless alarm was interrupted as Lancer backhanded him out the way, sent him crashing into a med-pod.

“Police!” The captain yelled belatedly. “No one move! You’re all under arrest!”

“Open fire,” a voice came from the scattered guards.

A hail of rifle beams erupted onto the captain and Grieselda beside him, the two droids ahead of them weren’t spared as well.

“The hard way then,” the captain said, unscathed and holding up his glass shield which received all the laser fire without complaint. Grieselda beside him had also summoned her shield, same with the two droids in the vanguard.

Lancer pounced, rammed the tip of its shield into a guard’s stomach, the man folded, crashed to his knees and retched at the droid’s feet.

Guardian caught and flung a charging guard who crash landed into a pod with a shrieking cry.

Grieselda hurled stun beams at a cluster of guards. A chorus of deafening screams rang out as they plopped to the ground twitching electricity.

“Go wild,” the captain said to her. “Criminals own this place so you don’t have to worry about property damage today.”

“You’re doing more damage than me,” she snorted.

The captain shrugged. “I can’t be held liable for Guardian and Lancer’s actions.”

‘More dry humour?’

She waited for him to crack up to show he was joking but the moment passed.

‘What kind of upbringing did he have to become so socially awkward?’

The captain sighed wearily. “This would so much easier if they would just give me more droids. My latest request was denied too, can you believe that?”

‘Can I believe they won’t give an alleged dirty cop more power? Yes, yes I can.’

“Very unreasonable captain.”

“Right, I keep telling Rafinya the same thing.”

The droid pair advanced unhindered and eventually the remaining guards descended into chaos. Some fled, one guard dropped his laser rifle, threw his hands up. Lancer still thumped him square in the face, blood sprayed from his cracked nose.

Grieselda winced.

‘They fight more like thugs than precision machines.’

This spoke volumes of their controller. The captain himself hadn’t lifted a finger, his stun gun rested idly within his grasp, letting his two minions do all the dirty work. Sure he was controlling the droids.

‘But there is a sinisterness to such a combat style.’

Now more than ever she could appreciate how aptly the droid controls were nicknamed when referred to as minion style.

The low risk nature of employing droids as disposable attackers and/or as a first line of defence.

‘Where’s the honour in such a combat style?’

Now more than ever she could appreciate how minion style reeked of cowardice.

The path cleared. The droids didn’t let up and chased the fleeing guards while Grieselda and the captain marched on, made their way up the stairs.

Grieselda thrust a boot, blasted the wooden door off its hinges. Smoke flowed out, obscured her sight but her visor’s spectral assist activated, scanned through the smoke making sense of what lay within.

The room was lined with empty shelves. The floor littered with empty files. There was a desk to her right with heaps of files on it. A brown suited man, cloth wrapped around his mouth and large glasses resting on his long nose was chucking stacks of documents into an office incinerator stationed atop the desk.

The crash of the door dazed the code breaker for a moment. He dropped the file in his hand, lifted a pistol off a pile of files and motioned to his head.

“No!” She bellowed, raising her stun gun.

There was a sizzle and the captains stun blast crackled over the code breaker. She fired a moment later, stacked another stun into the code breaker who crashed and writhed madly, his skin scorched.

“Shit!”

She’d been slow to react because of the smoke and they ended up double stunning the scumbag.

The young code breaker stopped twitching and lay motionless.

“Check on him!” The captain snapped.

“I flunked first aid.” Grieselda flushed.

The captain sprinted. Crashed to one knee. Gently tilted the code breaker’s head. Motioned his ear to the man’s nose and exhaled.

“He’s breathing.”

“I’ll com-link an ambulance just in case.”

The captain loomed over the code breaker. “Still, his loyalty is quite admirable.”

Grieselda snorted. “Because he tried to escape a charge by offing himself.”

‘That’s just cowardice.’

“He could’ve offed himself from the jump but he tried to destroy the evidence first. If that’s not loyalty I don’t know what is,” the captain said with a shrug.

“Foolish,” Grieselda said. “What is loyalty worth among criminal scum?”

The captain regarded her. Not knowing what kind of expression lay underneath that helm greatly annoyed her.

“Despite their villainy,” the captain said. “Criminal scum as you say, are still human and even evildoers crave to belong sometimes and in loyalty they have glorious purpose.”

The captain paused, gently rolled over the code breaker to his side, slapped on electromagnetic handcuffs and said. “Still doesn’t make their crimes any less despicable.”

‘He sounds just like mentor—’

She shook her head and rubbished the thought.

‘No, he’s just another assignment,’ she reminded herself.