Now it was time to unwind for a bit. Yes, I knew that the others needed my help and that it was a jerk-move to play in the matrix, but until my new smart glasses were done and in my hands, I was of rather limited utility.

Then I had an idea and had the house fabber create a set of blindfolds from spider silk. There was no need for me to keep my eyes closed by myself after all.

And then I flew. I had, long ago, created a VR of an aerial obstacle course, with a randomly generated layout. It was always one of my deepest pleasures flying through it.

Unfortunately, this did not much to help me regain my energy this time. I was too worried, too exhausted to fully enjoy it, and I ended it after only a few minutes.

Then I looked into the results the cluster had for mutant medical treatment. The sources alone were telling about how degenerated humanity had become.

Nearly everything I got came from veterinary courses. The universities placed mutants, an intelligent, sentient, and generally sapient species that we had created, together with animals.

The thought made me sick for a moment. I was close to firebombing the computer systems of the universities in question, but I managed to hold myself back.

Yes, they did deserve it, but the majority of professors, teachers, and students there did not. At least I hoped they did not.

And as much as I wanted to punish them, the universities were a critical requirement if humanity wanted to survive Sanderson’s Folly. Without research, no cure. Not that a cure was very likely to come forth anyway. I had to keep up the hope though.

Slowly I pulled myself back from the dark place.

After a few minutes of Tai Chi, which surprisingly worked nearly as well in cyberspace, I got my rage back under control.

Then I began looking into the information. First, it was relatively easy to develop a program to fix Kate’s shoulder for the auto surgeon, either of them, and it was done in a few minutes.

Then I began manually devising a mutant setting for my auto surgeon, only to stop after a few minutes. I realized I had not to reinvent the wheel after all. There were auto surgeons for large animals. The remaining breeding stock for when we get our agriculture back under control, the pets for the rich, zoo animals, and so on.

Yes, it was rare that these animals needed surgery, but seeing the value of some of them, there had been auto surgeons developed for them.

And so I downloaded the hacked version of the OS of several of them. Only half of them had the mutant setting, but that was enough, and I had the cluster distill said settings down into one coherent version, and compare it with the veterinary course about mutants.

It would probably take it a few hours to create a comprehensive set, but that was one situation where a VI was a distinct advantage. It was smart enough to actually create a comprehensive program all on its own.

I know I should have made a detailed inspection of the MCU then and there, but I was mentally at my limits.

Considering that I never even noticed the VI activating told me that it was probably not something that would hurt me. Not for sure, but it had not done anything bad until then, so it could wait for a day or two.

When I surfaced from cyberspace the glasses and blindfold were waiting for me. I was relieved beyond measure that they worked as I had hoped.

Yes, the perspective from the cameras was a tiny bit off, and they lacked the definition of my natural eyes, but I was no longer forced to walk around blindly.

With a quick order, I set the bots to clean up the mess the assault had created. And it was a bloody mess.

Then I had to get back to the lab, supervising the auto surgeons. On the way, I opened the com and called Doc Schaeffer.

It took him a few minutes to answer.

“Schaeffer here.”

“Hi, Doc, Veronica here. I have a bit of a problem. Somebody assaulted my building. It was a very professional operation, and we beat them mostly through a bit of luck and some preparations I thought verging on paranoia earlier.”

I heard his tone shift.

“What? That is horrible! How could that happen? Why did it happen? Are you all OK?”

“How it could happen is complicated, and let’s just say that the other side committed several million dollars for the assault.

Maybe triple-digit even. The why is that they found out about the CRS free cyberware. You can guess who is ultimately behind it.

And lastly, no, we are not all OK, and that is why I am calling you. Most of us have a few minor wounds, but Mark Holt, one of my friends, and Justin are much more serious.”

“Oh, ok, so you need medical help? I can be there in, let me see, 15 minutes, maybe 20, if that helps.”

“No, it is not that urgent. Mark has lost his right arm above the elbow, but he is otherwise all right, and Justin has been stabilized. I had to remove one of his kidneys, and he has lost much blood, but he will most likely survive.”

“Ah, fuck. Well, I can have somebody take care of them, but it will be expensive to get cloned replacements. I have to look into where we can get them.”

“Mark will probably remain here. Yes, he lost the arm, but that is all. I wanted to ask you if you could take on Justin in the clinic. Again, I have no qualified medical care available, and he needs care.

Also, don’t bother about finding some cloned replacements, I have a cloning station. It will take a few months, but then they can get the replacements.”

“You have a cloning station? Since when?”

I had to actually think about the answer. That was pretty telling how my mental state was.

“Uhm, nearly three weeks now. I needed at least a basic research station to work on the biosheathing process. The full-sized one did only cost three and a half times what the basic one did cost, and I had the idea to offer cloned parts in addition to cyberware. It just happened that I needed it faster than I thought.”

“Hm, ok, well, I send somebody to get Justin. And it is no problem about taking care of him. He is one of Ben’s men after all, so no charge either.”

Justin was one of… oh right. Darn, what was wrong with me?

“Oh, yes, sorry, I am a bit addled at the moment. I have some problems thinking straight right now.”

“Yes, I think I can understand that. I would too if I had just been attacked. Now, the ambulance should be there in 15 to 20 minutes. I hope they are not underway already.”

I connected to the auto surgeon and got a status update.

“It is not that urgent. He will be in the auto surgeon for the next hour.”

“Hm, ok, I will send somebody. I hope everything else is alright for you.”

The timing was impeccable, as I arrived in the lab only a handful of seconds later. Mia was still fidgeting around Mark, while Christine was keeping vigil at Justin’s side.

Both Mark and Justin were still suspended in the standard anti-grav field the respective auto-surgeon projected to get at all places.

Especially the operation on Justin was a gruesome sight. With a silent reprimand for myself, I set the auto surgeons to opaque, cutting off the visuals. Both Christine and Mia jumped when the transparent tube turned black.

Then Mia’s eyes landed on me.

“WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE NOW?”

I was immediately happy that my audio filters were back in business.

“I have done what I should have done from the beginning. You don’t need to watch when your men are operated on. That will do much more harm to you than it will help them, especially as it helps them in no way. If you want to know what is happening, look at the status screen.”

I examined Mark’s status, and it was essentially what I had expected. No surprise here.

“Where is the rest?”

“The rest are cleaning up the mess out there.” Christine was obviously much more rational than Mia.

“Can you tell us what happened?”

I nodded, careful not to dislodge the glasses.

“Yes, I have the basics. But it is somewhat complicated, so please wait until we are all together.”

She was thinking about it before she acceded with a nod.

“Ok, I will get the rest. The bots seem to actually are working now, so we can let them do the clean-up. We should probably meet in the cafeteria though. We have only three chairs here in the main lab.”

With a last check-up on the surgeons, I set up an alert should anything go wrong with them.

At least I could trust the cluster to keep security up and running.

In the cafeteria, I briefly thought about getting some food to replace what I had spewed into the trash can, but I lacked the nerve. But I made myself a coffee. Decaf, I did not need any more stimulation that day.

After I had sat down with my cup, the others came in bulk. Natalie seemed pretty upset, and Mia still looked as if she wanted to rip somebody's head off. No big surprise here. Kate had now her arm in a sling but otherwise seemed fine.

I was a bit surprised that Darren was so… aggressive looking. Yes, I got that we had just been assaulted and he had more or less kept back the power armor user on his own, but… it was so uncharacteristic for him to let that hit him that hard.

Jacky on the other hand was exceedingly nervous, not that I blamed her for it. Among all of us, she was the one with the least exposure to crime.

Ryan got himself a coffee too, but he seemed calm and collected.

When they all had sat down there was a moment of awkward silence, when everybody looked around, before Darren rolled his eyes, sighed, and then spoke.

“Fine, I’ll start. What the fuck happened?”

He looked directly at me, so it was easy to guess who he addressed.

“I assume the obvious answer, that we were attacked is not quite what you want to know, right?”

“No, that is not what I want to know. I want to know how the hell these assholes got into the building in the first place.”

“Thought so. And at the bottom of it, we all, but mostly me, underestimated the opposition. They hacked the network here, shut down the security, and opened the door.”

Natalie snorted.

“They hacked our network? Did you not overhaul our security? You said you had. So why did they so easily break through?”

I shook my head.

“Yes, I did overhaul the security. And before you ask, I could have upgraded it more. I did not expect an attack of that magnitude. Because, for your information, they did not break through that easily. From the information I gathered, they cased the building for more than a week without seeing a way into the network.

Then they brought in outside help. And honestly, nothing I could have done to upgrade the system would have stopped him.”

“Hu? Him? Who him?”

I was not the only one suppressing a chuckle at Jacky’s confused ramble.

“They hired an Abyss-dweller. One of the top 30 hackers in the world. And if I had let the industrial fabber run the whole time since I had it here to build computer parts it might have slowed him down somewhat.

Sure, he would have triggered an alarm before he managed to open the doors but remember, for a jack of that caliber, every three seconds in real life are two minutes of matrix time. He would have been able to shut down security and open the doors before I could have possibly reacted.

What saved us though was that I integrated off-site monitoring of the network, and the security system specifically. It alerted me when it had gone down.

That enabled me to quickly reenabling the security system. That is responsible for the six intruders killed by the security system in the building, as well as keeping out the other dozen attackers when it closed the doors again, as well killing them with the rail guns.”

I took a sip of my coffee.

They all showed signs of understanding, but the atmosphere remained tense.

Another minute or so of silence, before Mia posed the next question.

“Ok, we get it, they got somebody to take down the security, you got it running again. Then what? Where were you during the firefight?”

I sighed, shaking my head.

“I was where I said I would be. In the matrix. Do you think the opposition did sneak in, threw a switch, and then sneaked out again?

No, they were waiting, sifting through our files, prepared for one of us to reset the security.

I had to take them out to prevent them from deactivating security again. And they had heavy support.

That took some time. Then I checked the video feed and realized that they send Cyberzombies after us. Not to sell you short, but that Kate was able to keep four of them at bay is nothing short of a miracle. The rest of you, of us, would have been useless.

But Cyberzombies invariably have a kill switch. That, in turn, meant that I had to find the controlling computer and activate the switch.

That was when I realized that they brought in a professional. And he was much harder to overcome.

I managed it, and that was when the Cyberzombies fell down. There was only the power armor left to deal with. I was in the process of decrypting the control channel when the bot made that unnecessary.”

“And then what? It took you nearly three minutes to come to us. You are the trained medic here. We needed you.”

“Mia, that is the time it takes for me to come out of the matrix. Well not completely, but trying to decrypt the channel had some side effects. So yes, I came as soon as I could. I don’t know if you were aware, but I could barely stand before I could get my implants working again.”

“So what? We all had…”

Ryan knocked on the table.

“Mia, enough. We all were under a lot of stress. But you were so focused on Mark that you completely ignored the rest of us. Kitten was wobbling as fast as she could. It became much faster when I began leading her around, something that you could have done as well. If you had actually cared for anything but Mark.

You say she is the only trained medic. What about you? I know you have some training from Doc Schaeffer. So shut up. We all had a shitty evening. Yes, Mark has lost his arm, and Justin will spend the next few months healing. But fuck it, we stood against four Cyberzombies and a power armor.

We are lucky that we got off so lightly.”

The way Mia inhaled it was clear that she intended to unload on Ryan, but Darren lifted his hand.

“Wait, what the fuck was that? Mark has lost his arm? Really?”

I nodded.

“Yes, he lost his right arm halfway between the shoulder and the elbow. But he will most likely survive. As will Justin. He was hit much harder. His right lung collapsed and had to be reinflated, his liver is lacerated, and he lost one of his kidneys. Both lost much blood. But they were lucky that the auto surgeons were just in the next room.”

“Fuck. What will he do? Shit man, how will he make a living? Ah… a cloned arm. We have to find a way to pay for it. Shit, these things are expensive.”

“That is actually no problem. The bio lab on the third floor has a complete cloning station. I already have started a new kidney for Justin. Mark’s arm will have to wait for his decision. He can get a cloned arm or a cyber arm. Or, as unlikely as it is, he can refuse to get a new arm at all.”

Darren calmed down visibly.

“You… you can clone him a new arm? Ok, then… you are right, then the situation is not so bad.”

“Bad enough. So who the fuck was it? You only talked about the opposition.”

Natalie too had calmed down, but it was clear that she still was angry.

“Oh, yes, sorry. It was Falconer.”

It took a moment for that to sink in. And then I saw Kate being agitated for the first time.

“FALCONER? A FUCKING TRIP-A? What the fuck did Falconer want with us? Fuck, how… what will we do? We can’t stand up against a triple-A corp.”

I tried several times to answer that, but in the end, she was mostly right. It was not quite as bad as she believed but nearly so.

“They are the ones trying to incite a gang war. They had two objectives. First, they want to prevent the bosses from getting CRS-free cyberware. Second, they want to get exclusive access to said cyberware.”

I finished my coffee and placed the cup on the table.

“And as far as I see it we have only one option. Well, we could try to bug out and go into hiding. It would among other things mean that we have to leave nearly everything behind. The fabber, the cloning lab, and Mark’s new arm are among them.

I would give that option roughly a one in three chance of working. So no, I think we need another way. And fortunately, I found proof that the ultimate goal for Falconer here is to move to the US, supplanting Ralcon and Enertech as local powerhouses.

You are right, we can’t fight a triple-A. But two triple A’s can. And I am pretty certain that Ralcon and Enertech are not particularly keen on being reduced to double-A, if not downright sent to the minors.

So my idea was to inform the two corps of Falconer’s plans. That should keep the freebies busy. Especially after they unpacked my gift basket.”

After a moment of silence again, and a series of wordless communication, Darren sighed again, and asked with a tired voice.

“All right, I will ask. What gift basket?”

“I felt I needed to make my lack of amusement known, and used the Justicars board to send Falconer some of my files. Nothing spectacular. Old design studies, a couple of failed tries for the CRS cure, and a couple of utilities I sell. Stuff that is looking legit, but basically worthless. And then I included a few land mines.

Roughly half of the encrypted files launch some of my most powerful malware on the system when decrypted. Depending on where they working on it it probably will destroy their special operations group, maybe their research group. Everything with a computer will be wrecked.”

Darren facepalmed, Natalie simply closed her eyes and leaned back, and the rest took a moment to scrape up their jaws from the table.

Ryan was the first to find his voice.

“You are insane, you know that, right? Do you really think that will make Falconer back off? They will use orbital weapons to take you out. Just to make you pay.”

“Ok, scatter and hiding it is. And it had just gotten to the point where I felt somewhat at home. It was nice to meet you all folks.”

Natalie sounded defeated.

“That will not be necessary. I will place a message in the Abyss tomorrow that the Justicar attacked me and stole some of my files. With a warning that some of them might have nukes in them.

They will be angry, sure, but angry at the Justicar, who ‘brought them the poisoned chalice’ and not me.”

I was getting really tired by now. But we were not yet finished.

“We will see. At least that should diffuse the situation somewhat. And Falconer will be very careful of using WMDs in Ralcon territory. I am more worried about them sending a grav cruiser or a destroyer squadron. But we will see that coming.”

Kate had become the voice of reason now. A role that was normally Darrens, but we all could see that the psionic was on his last leg.

“We can increase the number of rail guns, maybe find something stronger to defend against an assault like that. But ultimately we will have a chance to get out of that alive. I think more important is, why were the bots behaving so strangely? Don’t get me wrong, I am not concerned about most of them, but the big industrial one, if that one goes berserker I won’t be able to stop it.”

Yup, the one topic I wanted to postpone for a bit. But it couldn’t be helped.

“Yeah that. That is actually the real problem we found today.”

Yeah, I sounded awkward. I was not proud of it at all.

“Just to make it clear, we were attacked by a triple-A corporation, with the help of one of the top-30 hackers alive, finding out that said triple-A is in the process of provoking a new corporation war in our home, while our resident mad scientist waved a whole clothing factory of red rags in front of the triple-A. And the bots behaving strangely is the fucking real problem?

Ryan is right, you are absolutely fucking insane, you know that?”

Christine participated in the discussion for the first time after the fight, and boy was she aggravated.

“The triple-A is a challenge, yes, but the real problem is that I apparently have accidentally created a VI.”