“Well that was interesting,” Marcus said as they stepped out of the lobby and into the afternoon sunlight. “I’m sure we’re all in agreement that he’s crazy. And that he’s serious about this.”

“No doubt about it,” Kat said. “But look on the bright side, you actually managed to open your mouth and speak to an Inkeye this time around. You’re a big boy now.”

Marcus shrugged off the playful insult. “I’m making progress. Not all of us are as cold as Kat, right Dame?”

“That’s right,” Damien said. “I wish I could be as ruthless and heartless as her-”

Kat’s elbow jabbed him lightly in the side before he could make another comment. That was her favorite move to let someone know they were being an idiot, and she seemed to enjoy performing it a little too much.

“Joking aside,” Damien continued. “You guys didn’t have to do that back there and forgo your pay. You don’t have the same things at stake that I do.”

Marcus slung a heavy arm across Damien’s shoulder. “Ahh, no worries, buddy. We’re a crew so we stick together. Truth be told, I wanted to get that out there before Zero told us what he’d pay for this job. If it was a fat stack of cash, I probably wouldn’t have been so generous.” He laughed at his own remark. “I just wish he didn’t have to be such an asshole about everything. But let’s put that to the side. I think it’s about time I reveal the super secret thing I’ve been working on. Actually… never mind, not yet.”

“You’re gonna make us wait even longer?” Damien asked.

“Sorry, but I completely forgot something important,” Marcus said. “I just remembered that I’m running late to add the finishing touches before I can show you. Don’t go too far, you two. Give me about twenty minutes and I’ll send you the super secret location.” With those words, Marcus left for his truck with a pep in his step, no doubt relieved that the worst part of his day over.

Damien let out a long sigh. “I need a drink to take in everything that went on up there.”

“You read my mind,” Kat said. “I know just the spot where we can get a drink and kill some time.”

She lead the way to a fancy, high-end bar located beside some megacorp only a few blocks away. The entrance alone impressed Damien, the black and gold arches leading inside doing a great job of establishing the mood. Surely enough, the interior was easily the most lavish bar that Damien had ever seen. The black and gold motif embraced the entire establishment from the walls to the seats and tables. Smoking booths lined the perimeter, and a set of glitzy chandeliers sparkled above the rectangular bar at the center, shining like a wealthy halo.

It was all so different from what he was used to, and it admittedly caught him by surprise. He’d been to quite a few bars — getting drunk was the go-to casual activity in Neopolis, after all, but all the establishments he’d previously visited were more of the grungy and intimidating variety. This place was swarming with professional corporate types, likely all employees working within this financial district. Instead of the typical loud-mouthed crassness he’d come to expect, these patrons largely kept to themselves and moved and acted in a ritzy manner, giving off an air of elitism. He didn’t belong here one bit.

Kat took a seat on a bar stool directly underneath the chandeliers and signaled for two drinks. Damien sat beside her, looking around one more time to take it all in.

“Gotta be honest,” he said. “This doesn’t look like your kind of scene. Not to say that it’s mine.”

Kat shrugged. “Can’t say I disagree. But it’s good to change it up once in a while.” She let her elbows rest on the undoubtedly-expensive wood of the bar top and placed her chin in one palm. The fingers on her other hand started drumming on the wood, one of her signature tells. “Hopefully a drink will help us figure out a way out of this shit situation we’re now in.”

She almost always had the look of someone in deep thought, yet this instant seemed wholly appropriate, and she was right to to be pondering their circumstances. They now effectively had two missions to worry about. The first would be to get Zero’s packages into each of the buildings of the TrillTech headquarters, and the second would be to get close to CEO Horaka and steal any files stored in his neural network. Damien didn’t want to say it out loud, but the second mission was far more important to him than the first.

The way he saw it, there were two ways of going about the second mission. They could try to get to Horaka before the seven day headline, or they could try to ambush him during the event.On one hand, the second option seemed like the more straightforward choice, simply because it would be easier to track their target in a confined area. On the other hand, it would be on Horaka’s home turf, and security would be tight.

There was no clear and easy route to take. They were stuck between a rock and a hard place, but Damien’s instincts told him they could pull off anything. He wouldn’t let the person responsible for his missing memories die without getting his answers first.

“Any chance that we can get to Horaka before this whole thing goes down?” he asked, deciding to see where Kat’s head was at. “Somewhere outside the HQ?”

She shook her head. “No way. He’s got his guard up now. Wouldn’t surprise me if he’s one of the most heavily guarded people in the city. It would take far more than seven days to follow his movements and set up a proper plan. If we’re gonna do this, it has to be on the day of the event.”

So that’s settled, Damien thought. Option two it is.

One of the bartenders, a beautiful young lady in a silver dress, brought them their drinks and cracked them open. Kat took her bottle and swirled it around a little, her chin still resting on her palm. “There’s also another major problem. We don’t know for sure that Horaka is storing any more details about his illegal research in his neural network. But given the extreme time restriction, it’s probably our best course of action. I imagine that there’s a lot of dark stuff related to those biolabs, so I think it’s a safe bet that he’s storing something valuable in there.”

Damien thought back to Zero as he took a swig of his drink, conflicting emotions building up within. The Inkeye was the only one who had this kind of information, but he was also the once creating this time constraint in the first place. It was just like Kat always said, Zero had a full hand while they had no cards of their own to play. They had to maneuver around his wishes, and it made Damien feel like he was being used, like he was something that was only there to achieve Zero’s goals then be disposed of afterward. It was all so frustrating.

“I say this hypothetically…” Damien said, letting his voice trail off. “But is there any chance that we turn on Zero? It would get rid of this restrictive time window to get to Horaka.”

Kat’s response came swiftly. “Fuck no. Believe me, I understand how annoying it is that we always have to play along with him. But this kind of opportunity to take down a corp doesn’t come around often. Hell, it never comes around, so we gotta make the most of it. Besides, we really shouldn’t cross someone who’s power runs deeper than we know. Since we’re just employees in his eyes, we’ll help him out with this mission and part ways after, satisfied with our revenge.” She downed her drink, taking in at least half of it at once.

“I think it’s best that we leave the packages to Marcus,” Kat continued. “You and I will figure out a way to get to Horaka.”

“And how will we do that?”

“No idea. But we’ll figure something out.”

Damien paused, appreciating the rare moment of optimism coming from her. “I have to ask. You sure you wanna do this? Zero said everyone involved in their illegal research will die during that upcoming event. You and Marcus have an opportunity to help make that happen and get your revenge in the process. But you don’t have to go further and help me get the answers I’m looking for.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re still not getting it, are you? We’re a crew. If you got a problem, we all have that same problem. Do you know how many times I’ve had to save Marcus’ ass ‘cause he bites off more than he can chew? That’s how it goes. We stick together through anything. Well, almost anything. Just don’t be too dumb ‘cause there are some limits. This definitely isn’t one of those cases.”

“Fair enough,” Damien said. “But I still feel inclined to make it up to you at another time.”

“I’m sure there’ll be plenty of opportunities for that. Believe me, I’ll be cashing all the debt in,” she said with a wry smile.

Damien took another big swig of his drink. “In that case, I take it all back. I won’t be repaying you after you secure those files for me on your own.”

That line got a snort out of her. “I wish it were that easy, believe me. If we could actually isolate Horaka and get to him ourselves, that’d be great. But the truth is that we’ll be lucky if we can get anywhere near him. And even if we manage that, we’ll be swarmed by security if we try anything funny. Trying to rip out files from someone’s neural network counts as funny, by the way.”

“Guess that means we can’t do a repeat of our last assault,” Damien said. “Infiltration will be the way to go. Can we ask for Lana’s help with this one?”

“I already asked about her availability. She said she’s not interested in any work right now. We only got her help with the last mission ‘cause you agreed to go on a date with her, remember? By the way, how’re those plans going?”

“I try to forget about that. I wonder if I could use the date card again with her.”

Kat snorted. “You really wanna bargain yourself off like that every time you need a favor? I don't think its fair to either of you. Besides, if you impress her enough on your date, there’s a chance that she’ll offer to help out of her own accord. Though I wouldn’t count on that, and I definitely wouldn’t go into the date with that intention. You have the idealized vision of Grand Wiz to live up to, after all.”

Damien down the rest of his drink, forcing the last little bit down. “Please don’t remind me about that. That’s a problem for future me.”

“Well, without Lana’s help this will be even worse,” Kat said. “Remember that we barely managed to break into and escape out of some hidden underground research facility. Now we wanna steal some files from the neural network of the head of a major entire corp in his own HQ with his own personal and private security guarding the place. I think we’ve officially lost it.”

“Ah, yes. Can we at least switch roles this time around? I wanna be the one who gets to go unconscious at the crucial stage of the mission. You can carry me out of their HQ while their security fires at you.”

Kat gave a reluctant smile. “Alright, funny guy. We’ll figure out the details of this mission and how to go about it later. Let’s go see what Marcus has in store for us. When he gets this excited, you know it’ll either be something great or something awful.”