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New day, new job...
This time, the job was from Rogue. And it wasn't just any job. When I heard what it was about, I knew it was an important one for her. Important because I had to steal something that used to belong to Kerry Eurodyne. But that wasn't what was important about the item; the important thing was the dedication... a dedication from Silverhand.
And that was the most important thing for Rogue.
So right now, I'm walking toward a very respectable hotel where a French diplomat is staying. He's the one who paid for the theft of this guitar. The idiot didn't even try to hide the guitar from people, holding receptions in his suite, which took up a huge amount of space on one of the top floors.
As Rogue herself explained to me, she wouldn't have known about any of this, but Kerry himself came to her after he was at one of those receptions as a guest star. And at the same time, the politician was very brazen, looking at him as he told a fake story about how he got the guitar a couple of years ago.
"Ladies?"
"The hotel has good ICE. We're not idiots, of course, but there's not much we can do without a shard in the security server. For now, we only have a map of the first floors. There's a guard room there. If a shard gets in one of the computers there, it'll be easier for us..."
I grunted in understanding. The hotel didn't belong to any of the corporations, which was a rarity. The owner was just a very successful businessman whose great-grandfather managed to get to the top of the business. And what's even more surprising than someone getting to the top is that the hotel still hasn't fallen under the control of any corporation.
In short, the girls got a direct order from me not to rob the hotel's owners, but the diplomat himself should be cleaned out a little more... and this wasn't so much our wish as it was Rogue's request.
I dodged a couple of passersby, as I was wearing my work suit right now. I had reprocessed some of the external armor for better resistance to heat from friction, and my optical camo was on. And all because there was just no place near the hotel where I could activate it discreetly. So I had to walk through the crowd with the system on, deftly weaving between people.
"Alright, I'm at the staff entrance."
"Just a second, checking the situation... you can go in."
After I heard the permission, I grunted, because I still had to open the lock, and that was a job for the girls. So I slotted a shard into a small tech port on the lock and started waiting for them to crack it.
It wasn't a difficult job for my girls, though, and a minute later, the lock gave a quiet beep, signaling that the door was open.
I went inside the building and, after activating my Sandevistan, I headed for the guard room. Thankfully, the room itself was pretty close, so soon, after carefully opening the door a little, I went inside. There were a couple of guards there, but they didn't even notice me as I appeared, left a couple of shards, and left.
After leaving the shards, I moved to the main office on the first floor, which was the staff bathroom, where I went into one of the stalls, turned off my Sandevistan, and waited...
"Get to work, ladies, and I'll wait a little..."
"What would you do without us?"
Kiwi decided to talk a little.
"Honestly?"
"Yeah..."
Lucy joined the conversation. It seemed she was really curious about what I would do if I didn't have such amazing runners.
"I would probably just break in, fight my way to the stairs, and go up... if I was lucky, 'fighting my way in' would mean a quiet entry without any incidents. If I wasn't, then with corpses..."
"I see... a brutish caveman who can't do anything without us..."
Judy said this with a hint of mockery. The other girls, meanwhile, just confirmed that description of my abilities. I was lying a little, though. I wouldn't have taken a job like this without them...
"Exactly, my beautiful Moxie. Although I have to say, I wouldn't take jobs like this without you..."
I decided to voice my thoughts to the girls.
"My ceiling would still be clearing the city of Scavs. Maybe I'd add the Animals and the Maelstrom to the list of groups to zero out..."
I shrugged.
"I wouldn't be living in poverty, but I wouldn't be thinking about the income I have now."
"Uh... girls, I think this idiot is serious..."
Becca was clearly a little shocked by my words.
"Well... in his defense, I have to say that he's probably telling the truth. I've known him longer than all of you... well, except for Moxie, but I've definitely been working with him longer than you have. He really didn't plan on doing anything bigger until a runner appeared in our crew. He just worked... Although, if you look at what he's doing now, we're still just working. We're not trying to get into the big leagues, even though we run into them, and we're just completing jobs. A lot of jobs..."
"Well..."
"So he would have probably just been zeroing out gangers without trying to go anywhere else. But he wouldn't be living any worse than he is now... he just would have belonged only to me..."
"Hey, hey! I have nothing to do with the runners either!"
Becca decided to try and squeeze into the family that Panam had hypothetically shrunk.
"Yeah, but we met because the runners needed protection, and without that, your services wouldn't have been needed. So..."
A hint of mockery was in Panam's voice.
"Well... to my regret, I have to agree with Cherry... But that doesn't mean I'll forgive her for taking me out of the family..."
Judy decided to voice her opinion on the matter.
"...so at the first opportunity, I will get my vicious revenge..."
And with that lighthearted conversation, the girls still managed to hack the hotel's security system. Not all of it, but a much larger part of it, which was enough for me to steal the guitar and get out unnoticed. So I calmly left the bathroom and, after activating my Sandevistan, I got to the stairs and went up.
The thirty-fifth floor...
It wasn't that much when you have synthetic muscles. It was more mentally tiring. But I still got to that floor. Thankfully, the stairs weren't very popular. Everyone preferred the elevators, leaving the stairs for emergency evacuations. I opened the door to the floor with the girls' help and got into a pretty large lobby...
Alright, room thirty-five-two.
I quickly looked around and walked up to the room's door, which was already unlocked. All I had to do was push it open, which I did, finding myself inside one of the most luxurious suites in the hotel. And this is where I had to be careful, as the owner of the suite was here, and I needed to carefully knock him out to teach him a lesson for deciding to take something that was precious to Rogue.
Not that Rogue was planning to keep the guitar for herself, not at all, but she wasn't about to put up with it being in the hands of someone it wasn't meant for.
Slowly...
Well, slowly for me, but my Sandevistan was still on. I went through the suite's rooms and finally found the owner. He was sitting in the bathroom, thoughtfully looking at a tablet showing a page of elite escorts who weren't shy about providing intimate services.
A light, almost weightless blow for anyone, even a very weak solo, and the politician passed out. His tablet almost fell right into the tub, but I slightly changed its trajectory by moving the guy's hand. And now the tablet was on the floor, with a big crack on its screen. It wasn't broken yet, though, so a shard was immediately slotted into it, as well as into the politician's personal port.
After that, I turned off my Sandevistan and went through the entire suite, inserting shards into everything I could reach. The girls were working hard, and I wasn't about to distract them. I had already found the main goal of my visit, Kerry Eurodyne's guitar. But I had to confirm that it was the one. Someone could have left a fake in a visible spot...
"Ghost?"
"Catch the high-quality footage. Send it to the client; let her look at it and tell me if it's the right guitar."
"Got it, receiving the file... wait..."
The call ended. I, meanwhile, went through the suite again, taking in its overly, in my opinion, luxurious decor. It felt like the suite was designed for people who had no taste and who loved to show everyone that they had an insane amount of money.
As I was walking through the suite, I noticed a case. When I opened it, I found that it was just stuffed with money. After quickly checking all the money with my optics, I made sure that there were no tracking devices in it or in the case itself. So I decided to take it with me.
And then I got a call from Rogue.
"Listening."
"Yeah, the client confirmed it; that's the target."
"Alright, then I'm grabbing it and leaving..."
"Are you going to deliver the guitar to the client?"
I shrugged.
"I can, if he doesn't mind giving my crew an autograph. Some of them are his fans. And I personally liked his style in Samurai more."
"I don't think he'll mind. I'm sending you the address..."
The call ended, and I immediately got the address where I had to deliver the guitar, which I calmly, without any reverence, took in my hands. Then, after hearing from the girls that they had hacked everything, which happened about fifteen minutes later, I collected the shards and went down the stairs to the first floor. From there, I took the shards from the guard room, and only after that did I leave the hotel.
"Alright, ladies..."
I looked at the girls after I got into the car.
"What's wrong?"
"Today is the only day you'll get a chance to get Kerry Eurodyne's autograph."
"Huh?!"
The girls stared at me in shock.
"The client wanted us to deliver the guitar in person, and Rogue said he probably won't mind giving a couple of autographs, and I'm also planning to get a little cocky and ask him to play a song on that guitar..."
"We have to go to a music store..."
Panam said this in a way that made it clear the decision was not up for discussion.
"What?"
I looked at her in surprise.
"The clan would not understand if, having the chance, we didn't get Eurodyne's autograph on a guitar! He's one of the few artists who can actually shred a guitar!"
"Well..."
I shrugged.
"...I'm not against it. We can also buy a couple of his albums for you to get autographed."
The girls nodded, and our next destination was a music store where we bought a guitar. I had to ask a consultant for help. I told him that my friend was good at playing the guitar and loved it, and also knew a lot about them, and I wanted to get him a gift...
And I was immediately taken to a special section, where I bought a good, but not finicky, guitar that wouldn't be damaged by life in the Badlands and minimal care. The girls, meanwhile, chose Kerry's albums. And only after we were done shopping did we head to Eurodyne's mansion.
It took us about an hour to get to our destination, which was outside the city, mostly because we had to go through city traffic for a part of the way.
"Holy fuck..."
"I'm not one to express my emotions so vulgarly, but I have to agree with Becca here."
Kiwi commented on the mansion we had just arrived at. It was, indeed, just huge. It didn't look overly luxurious on the outside, but its size...
When the car stopped in front of the gate, I calmly got out of the car. I had managed to take off my helmet and cover myself with a cloak that hid my armor before we got to the music store.
"Who's there?"
The intercom was answered about ten minutes after I pressed the button.
"Ghost, from Rogue. I have a delivery."
"Hmm... come in, but no funny business. My security system is set to paranoid mode after that guitar was stolen from me."
"Got it."
I nodded and got back in the car. When the gate opened, we drove into the courtyard and went down the driveway to the main entrance of the mansion, where the famous musician and singer was already waiting for us.
"Good day. I believe this is yours..."
I got straight to the point and gave Kerry his guitar. He looked it over, almost sniffed it, played a couple of chords, and winced a little.
"Bastards... they don't know how to play, and they even messed up the tuning..."
"I apologize..."
"Yeah?"
Kerry looked up at me.
"The thing is, when Rogue told us who we'd be delivering the guitar to, we prepared a little... would you mind signing some things for me and my crew?"
"Of course..."
Kerry smiled kindly and quickly signed the girls' albums, leaving some very nice notes with well-wishes. Then it was time for the guitar I had bought.
"Hmm..."
"Is something wrong?"
"No... it just brings back memories... a good workhorse with a good sound. Not finicky..."
He patted the guitar with his hand and even played a couple of chords before he signed it.
"When I was starting out in Samurai, all our instruments were like this. Now you have to buy fancy guitars and turn them into a painted mess that people will consider stylish... because if you buy something like that from the start, it's either too expensive or complete junk... I guess you haven't heard of Samurai, though..."
He gave me the guitar back.
"And you play the instrument?"
"No..."
I didn't hide the fact that I didn't know how to play the guitar.
"But I live in a clan, and I think there are a lot of good guitar players who will take very good care of an instrument that was in the hands of Kerry Eurodyne himself. And you're wrong, we have heard of Samurai. Judy is a braindance fanatic and writes them herself..."
We all introduced ourselves when Kerry was signing the autographs, so I saw no reason to call the girls by their callsigns.
"And she has a whole collection of braindances from Samurai concerts, and in very high quality, too!"
"Really?"
"Yeah..."
Judy smiled shyly.
"...it wasn't easy to find the video recordings, but I can proudly say that I have braindances of all of Samurai's concerts, although I had to do a lot of work to restore the recordings and improve their quality..."
"Can you send them to me?"
Kerry looked at Judy with interest.
"Of course..."
"Good."
"I apologize, but could you play something from Samurai?"
"Hmm..."
He looked us over thoughtfully, after which Kerry nodded and, grabbing the guitar, he quickly started to play... and it was amazing. A pro who didn't just play, but who put his soul into the music... you don't see that very often these days...
"It's amazing..."
Lucy voiced all our thoughts out loud when Kerry finished playing.
"Well... I guess I have to go now..."
Kerry glanced at his mansion.
"I apologize for the interruption... and by the way..."
"Yeah?"
He looked at me with a hint of annoyance in his eyes.
"I heard you're having a creative block... I don't know if that's true, or that you tried to flatline... But if it is, have you thought about getting Samurai back together? With a slightly updated lineup, of course, and not forever, just for a couple of concerts... just play a couple of gigs in some godforsaken clubs, to remember what it was like when you were young..."
Kerry looked me over from head to toe, now lost in thought.
"You know... that's definitely something to think about..."
And with that, we parted ways...
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