The rest of the trek went smoothly. Rin and Ali joined the stream of people fleeing the violence that was popping off in all of the usual hotspots across the city. The locals all knew which streets, shopping centers, and apartment complexes to avoid, and our ground team simply followed the flow. They got a few hostile looks and lingering glances from the other citizens as they marched to the city center, but no one else tried to stop them. Still, it took nearly three quarters of an hour for them to finally elbow their way into the central courtyard and lay eyes on the Link ship.
The streets had become so crowded this close to the ship that Ali had tied herself to Rin with a short length of cordage, and was threatening and bullying people to make enough space for them to slip through. Rin tagged along behind her and remained surprisingly quiet, only occasionally complaining about being sent in the first place.
“Where do we go from here, sir?” Ali asked as she kept pressing on towards the ship.
“You need to get into the Travellers station, that''s where you can buy a fast-pass for the next free commercial booth.” I informed them, and then looked over at Max. “I’m guessing I can''t just use my mobile banking app to send them the creds. Can you send them the cash, or am I going to have to go back into the Link for that?”
Max shrugged in response. “I can send it over, you’re right that you shouldn’t use your normal app. I have a backdoor access I can use to sneak it past your nosy government though. The price is currently climbing as more and more people flock inwards, so they’ll likely still have to wait a few hours. I’ll send the bag over once we know the final number. We’ll be cutting things pretty close, but my sims are pointing towards us getting this done in time.”
“Alright, whatever. What about the armed escort? I’m not sure how we’re even going to find a group like that. I sometimes saw them when I went through the station back in Nubrag, but never talked to any.” I replied.
“Eeh, there are a few of them currently wandering around, but they don’t exactly advertise their services. It’s kind of a gray market, not illegal really, but normally highly regulated and licensed. We need a team willing to work off the books.” Max explained as he pushed his way through the swarm of screens and windows to sit next to me. “I could try messaging some of them, but after combing through their comm logs I don’t see any signs of them accepting jobs through text.”
I grimaced. “Then this might be more difficult than I imagined, I thought this was all above board and normal. You should have said it would be an off the books kind of deal before.”
“Unwind your panties, man. There''s a thriving gray market for this kinda thing and I’ve been dying to participate for a while. All of you are always such goody goodies, I’m pretty stoked to get to meet some real rawdog bastards with some actual grit!” Max answered as he started bringing up more windows.
This time, the windows were from a different social media site than the ones I was used to seeing. The profiles were minimal, with only a couple of pictures and mostly filled with text that described their capabilities. The first one was for a group called “Bodger’s NPC”, short for Non-denominational Protection Cadre of all things, and the main picture was a headshot of a surprisingly friendly looking man. He had short cropped brown hair, a sort of rounded face, receding hairline, and well worn laugh lines around his eyes.
I cycled the pictures through for a moment, scrolling past more pictures of the same man, including one of a much younger version of him in a military uniform, and multiple shots of him with a group of other people all decked out in weapons and armor. They seemed like they only owned a handful of the modern sets of powered armor, as none of the pictures ever showed more than a couple of the suits in the same shot while the majority of the guys wore standard plate carriers.
I glanced back over at the map when I heard Ali make a particularly loud growl of effort as she shoved someone out of her way. “Sir, this crowd is at a standstill.” She huffed with effort and yelled at the next person who refused to remove themselves from her path. “Move it! Out of the way!”
“I might have an idea, hang on.” Max said helpfully, to which Ali gave a grunt in reply as she continued forcing her way through the crowd towards the station.
“What are you thinking?” I asked as I continued to scroll through the list of local mercenaries. They all seemed similar, groups of ten to twenty men with military backgrounds and lots of scars and tattoos. It was almost as if there was a template they all used to configure their profile, and made choosing between them difficult.
“Just hang on a second, almost there…” Max said, his voice slowing down and dragging out the syllables to buy more time. I caught a whirring buzzing noise through the mix of yelling, pushing, and static filled rumbles through Ali’s mic, and the thermal drones view rose to the top of the stack from its position half buried in the mass of boxes and windows in front of me. The image zoomed in on the crowd, and I recognized the top of Rins head as he and Ali pushed through the writhing crowd. As the drone approached and buzzed over the heads of the people, scared faces turned up and looked at the camera as everyone tried to surge away.
Max laughed, and I watched as the camera panned across the crowd, sending waves of fear through the group as people tried to climb over each other and started to fight to get away from the drone.
“Calm down with that, Max. You’re going to cause a stampede.” I said as I watched the feed.
“Bah, this isn''t some locked-door auditorium or oversold music festival, they’ll be alright.” Max replied.
I nervously watched the video screen, and my now green-outlined friends hurry through the panicky crowd. I saw a few people get knocked off their feet in the crowd but despite their panic and fear, the surrounding people managed to keep it together enough to pull the fallen person to their feet before they were completely trampled.
With the help of the drone buzzing overhead, Ali and Rin worked their way across the crowded lot and made it up the steps to the travellers station. The normally open massive doors were closed, and only a small normal sized door built into one of the huge slabs of polished and embossed steel remained open. A line of guardsmen stood with tall shields to block the small opening, with the crowd nervously pressing away from them, opposing the crushing force of the huge crowd to create a few feet of space between the two groups.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“They’re checking IDs, but I got you guys, let them scan you and keep your traps shut.” Max said over the open line as we watched my friends approach the guards.
“You’re not going to blow up another building as a distraction, are you?” Rin muttered into his mic, which surprisingly caused Max to blast out a single hearty guffaw.
“Hah! No, although I totally could if you want.”
All three of us, not quite at the same time, said “No!”, which only caused him to laugh harder as they broke into the no-man''s-land and approached the guards. Ali waved at the mirrored helmet of the soldier behind the small clear viewing port.
Watching through the eyes of the thermal drone, I nervously held my breath as a cone of laser light flashed out from the top of the door and swept up and down the two. Two nerve wracking seconds later the shields parted and one of the soldiers reached forward, hauling the pair of them through the shield wall and pushing them through into the station.
The soldier who had grabbed them actually spoke through his helmet''s speaker. “Welcome to Green’s Ash, citizen. Enjoy the sights, stay out of trouble.”
Ali gave the soldier a nod, while Rin untied himself from the short rope that hung between them. The drone could only just see a glimpse of them through the doorway, but that camera feed minimized and slid to the side, being replaced by a mosaic board with dozens of live scenes from throughout the station. A couple of them grew to take up more space and zoomed in on my friends as they walked across the polished floor of the station.
The place was almost barren compared to what I was used to seeing at Nubranagain. There were only a few groups in the main lobby, well dressed people sitting on benches or leaning against the wall while they nervously scrolled their mobile comms and waited out the pseudo-riot. The cameras tracked the pair as they walked to the side wall and towards the curtained doors that led to the commercial Link line, then shifted to new cameras as they ducked behind the curtain.
There were slightly more people on this side of the station, milling about and watching the clock as they waited for their booth to open up or for a reservation to be missed. Max zoomed in with one of the cameras on them, blowing up the view until Rin’s scowling face was larger than life on the screen.
“Sir, and, um… Max, is there any way we can cut the line?” Ali asked with uncharacteristic hesitation.
“Sadly, no. Not without causing a stir anyways. People will notice if they get bumped, and there''s a 80 percent likelihood of one of them throwing a fit and causing a stir.” Max answered, seemingly not noticing her tone. “I’d recommend avoiding the group at two o’clock. The man with the slicked back hair is this station''s CLE.”
“Confirmed.” Was all Ali said in reply, before grabbing Rin by the wrist and hauling him over to one of the service screens on the other side of the narrow room from the group Max pointed out.
They both huddled close together to block the screen from view, a common strategy to gain some privacy in the normally packed space, and Rin began to navigate the menu to purchase a pass. Both of them let out a surprised noise, much easier to hear now that they were in a quieter space and no longer sprinting down the dusk-time streets. Rin made a small growly and angry noise that ended with the clack of his teeth, while Ali took in a small shocked breath.
“What?” I asked, wishing I could see the screen clearly through the cameras. As I thought it, a new window appeared and opened up a mirrored screen, identical to the one they were looking at. It was all a bunch of premium shop bullshit; train seat upgrades, express flights out of the city, or vouchers to give to the guardsmen for an escort through the line like the Shepherds had done for me back in Nubrag. With a quick glance, I saw what I was looking for sitting near the top of the stack.
“That’s more than I made in my whole two years as a proxy op… sir” Ali whispered.
Link Fast-pass
6,389.42 Cr. (rising) - 9th place in line
Valid through 30/7/582-31/7/582
I sighed, but looked at Max and gave a nod of approval. “I can cover it, we don’t really have a choice.”
Max helpfully popped up my remaining bank balance over the top of all of the screens, and I watched the numbers spin and scroll down to 15,570.46 and felt my stomach tighten as I neared dropping out of the five digit club. I knew we had to pay it though, Max was frustratingly correct when he said you have to spend money to make money. In our case, I had to spend it to stay alive and free, or at least have a better shot at it.
I watched as Rin poked the button to confirm the purchase, and he was given an estimate of 2 hours until they could get into a booth. With some time to kill, the two left that section of the station and walked back through the main lobby, this time heading towards the stairs to the upper floors. They walked along through the terminal, while Max started popping open even more windows and shifting his camera feeds around.
“I tracked down three mercs to a bar upstairs, but the camera coverage is piss poor inside so I’m not a hundred percent sure where they are. There''s a hostel right next door that a ton of them keep rooms in though. You two should start sniffing around in there.” Max explained, showing me the camera feeds and relaying the information to the ground team.
I searched the crowded bar through the few camera feeds, which seemed to do a pretty good job of covering most of the bar to me. There was one facing outside of the door, another just inside that depicted a large fat man sitting on a stool and scrolling on his mobile comm. While the last camera had a view from high above the bar, looking down at the bartenders back from above and giving a clear shot of the patrons'' faces seated on the other side of the long counter. My friends came through the doorway, and noticed that Ali had removed her hood.
The man’s voice was poorly recorded as it came through Ali’s mic. “Haven’t seen you two around before, I need to scan your ID.”
Ali held something out to him, and he brought his mobile close to it before checking his screen. After a second, he nodded and waved them through with a smile. “Thanks for coming, happyhour is going on for another twenty minutes, so you showed up just in time.”
The pair continued into the dimly lit bar and Rin’s voice came through, muffled and low as he brought up a hand to conceal his mouth while he spoke. “We need to know who we are looking for. Names, descriptions, price ranges.”
Again, I stupidly nodded, then shook my head in frustration. I really needed to get used to answering properly in the comms. “Sure, sure. Let’s see…” I turned and looked back at the list of people Max had spotted. “I see three guys, two are a pair of soldiers from some outfit called Greenstone, but one is the owner of…” I looked over the page for his group, and had to stifle a chuckle. “He must be Greg. He’s in charge of Greg’s Gang. Looks a bit like a younger, tanner Director Howard, bald, short, muscular and clean shaven.”
Rin scoffed, and then replied with a quick “Got it”, as the two crossed the sparsely populated section near the entryway, picking their way around tables and strangers on their way deeper into the bar.