In Denver there are those that lurk in the shadows, dangerous people that do the dirty work for those that wish to keep their business concealed. They are considered to be the predators of the underworld, but when a new threat becomes an apex predator in their world things quickly turn concerning for those involved. For Tanakeah he is a cobra with a mission; to find the one known as The Nightmare and not only figure out who it is but also how to take them down. With his friends Serathin and Viratan the group of three take on missions in order to figure out what was going on and uncover a dark web of intrigue that was being woven around the city. Can the runner wake the city from this nightmare, or will the secrets of those in this underground world catch back up to him and those around him?

Cover art done by  royz

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Chapter One – Into the Void

The Denver skyline shined like a jewel in the night as the people of the city bustled about underneath the towering skyscrapers that made it up. Most people who walked the streets were going to and from places to eat, entertainment, or possibly just coming home from a late shift. Humans, elves, orcs, dwarves, shapeshifters, and other members of metahumanity moving around one another in order to attempt to get to whatever goal they had set for themselves. For one such creature moving in the night they encountered no such problem, despite the law banning those with wings from flying or gliding between the skyscrapers one dared to defy it… though that wouldn’t be the last thing or most severe thing that it would do under the starry sky.

The shadowy figure landed on the roof of one of the smaller buildings in the prestigious AA-District of Denver, one of the few in the area where it was feasible to do so. Since the incursion of Denver in the year 2056 most of the taller buildings that got hit by the planes that had flown over the city had been repaired with sloped roofs specifically to try and prevent the creature from doing what he was doing. As the draconic creature folded his wings back he looked through his glowing purple visor to scan the door that he was about to break into. The HUD identified a singular camera both on the inside and outside of the door as well as a security alarm that was set to warn the security team if someone attempted to open it at all. The technomancer scoffed at this and quickly injected a new subroutine that looped the inputs for a few minutes so that they were essentially frozen in time while he opened the door with an autopicker.

A few seconds later the lock turned with a near silent click and the creature was inside, his black matted bodysuit seemingly absorbing the light as he silently made his way down the stairs. Though small for a corporate building, only about thirty stories high, it had enough security to make up for it as the burglar encountered cameras on every floor leading down. Most of the time it was as simple as staying out of the blind spots since he wanted to leave his tampering of the actual system to a minimum. While he wasn’t sure that there was another technomancer or hacker on duty it was best not to push one’s luck on this sort of thing as he continued to go downwards.

When the thief got halfway down the stairs he decided that was far enough and looped the camera once more before hacking the card reader that was on the door, the red light flickering for a second before it turned green. Once more the creature moved as silently as a gentle breeze as he carefully clicked the door shut behind him before moving onwards. The entire floor looked to be empty office cubicles that one would expect in such a building, but that was not the thief’s primary motivation for going into the floor. Almost immediately he made a line for the elevators, though as he saw the brass doors he had to stop and quickly duck into a small alcove.

Security guard… though the thief wore a mask the electronic lights on his visor that represented his eyes narrowed in frustration as accessed his augmented reality screen. Digital information floated in front of his vision as he brought up the guard schedule and saw that the patrols had been started half an hour early. While the reason for this was unknown it meant that his previously empty floor was now occupied. That would have to be taken care of, and as the thief looked at the clock that was floating at the bottom of the invisible screen he couldn’t wait for whoever it was to do a full sweep of the floor before moving on.

The thief dismissed the AR screen and pulled his wing over his body, the metallic blue hexagonal membrane shimmering before going invisible along with the creature behind it. With his body cloaked in invisibility he slowly and methodically made his way past the elevator bank to where the guard had moved on to the main office area. Though there were a variety of ways that he could dispatch such a nuisance the thief knew that a lot of guards had body monitors, which meant that killing him would tip off the main security office. Plus it was a rather mean thing to do, the stealthy creature thought to himself as he pulled out a stretchy band of rubber with a weight attached to the end of it while following the guard.

His prey at the moment was a rather large troll, which meant that the thief would have to make sure to aim high and not miss. Once he was only a few feet away from the unsuspecting male the creature gave the weighted strap a few wind up rotations before dropping stealth and swinging it at the guard. The rubber band caught the edge of the neck of the troll and before the guard knew what was happening the weight on the end of it swung around and proceeded to wrap the band several times around his throat before the creature pulled. Not only was the guard pulled down to his feet but he also began choking as the band constricted around him, keeping him quiet long enough for the thief to kneel down and press an autoinjector against his artery.

Within a minute the guard’s eyes rolled back into his head and the thief quickly unwrapped the rubber and weight so that he didn’t pass out completely and possibly trip off his body monitor. The drug administered would keep his heart rate steady while keeping the troll completely passed out, and as the thief started to stand back up he saw something that would make things easier. “Don’t mind if I take that,” the thief whispered, his voice clear despite having his muzzle hidden behind a mask as he pulled the identification tag off of his lapel and read the name. “Sorry about that Larry, wrong place wrong time.”

With the identification card secured in his belt pocket the thief once more carefully made his way through the office cubicles before getting back to the elevator bank that he wanted. Though the take down had caused some time to be lost he was still on track and the guards didn’t call in until the end of the hour. The thief knew that this would give him plenty of time to escape still as he went up to one of the heavy metal elevator doors and pried them open. Almost immediately his technomancer senses kicked in as his opening caused a safety alert to go off, but before it could reach its intended target the thief tossed a data bomb at it and caused the signal to be destroyed.

If there was a technomancer here he would likely be suspicious now, the thief thought to himself as deftly hopped into the elevator and made his way down the shaft while the door closed once more behind him. With no alarms going off it meant that either the corporation he was stealing from didn’t have one on staff or they were going to try and take care of him themselves, which either way was good for him as he made his way to the ladder that hung against the wall. With it being so late at night the actual cars were likely locked down for the night, the shaft dead silent aside from the occasional light thuds from the creature hopping and sliding down to the ground floor. After a few minutes the thief got to the bottom of the shaft… but he wasn’t descending yet as he found a hatch that was hidden away in a corner underneath a false safety sign.

Unlike most of the building that he had traversed through this hatch had very heavy security encrypted upon it, and though the technomancer managed to crack the password and get through it this was a clear indicator that he was getting close to where he needed to go. Once he had gotten access he opened the hatch, except as the thief stood there he almost toppled over as the entire floor beneath him began to move. He quickly realized that when he had opened the door it was to the bottom of the shaft itself, normally reserved for the elevator car as the thief’s eyes narrowed once more at the oversight. It appeared that the extra noise, which was relatively minimal since the secret elevator access slid quite quietly, didn’t attract anyone else as he dove down through the opening deeper into the basement levels of the building.

Like the basements of most corporate buildings in the AA and AAA sectors of Denver this one hid the secrets that couldn’t be trusted in the office facade above. Though they likely used the upper floors for administrative tasks it was down in the depths where all the good stuff happened; server farms, vaults, illegal labs and manufacturing, all of it happened down below the cover that they put up to fool the masses. The thief cared little about any wrongdoings or other illicit activities, his motivations were for the goods that were being hidden down there. He quickly passed by various servers and other secured rooms and went straight for the biggest door on the floor, the heavy steel seemingly beckoning to him as he ran to access it.

When the creature got close he flared out his wings once more and used them to create a cloak, going invisible as he passed by the security sensors and cameras that looked over him. He was running out of time, his internal clock informing him that his window would shortly close as he got to the control panel on the side of the door… only to find that there were two of them. The fact that this was a dual-key system, which required two people to activate their codes at the same time, phased the thief for only a few seconds before he came up with the solution. With more than a bit of concentration, the purple visor glowing brightly behind the cloak that kept any cameras from picking it up, the thief created a virtual duplicate at the other system.

Though it didn’t appear in real space the technomancer could see himself in augmented reality working the door lock, the semi-autonomous program doing the same thing he did as he hacked his way through the biometric scanners. It took slightly longer than he liked but he managed to get through it, his digital clone doing the same on the other side. Once they were through all the systems necessary he took temporary control of his augmented self long enough to engage both locks at once. Even though he had opened the door successfully he was surprised at the latency… had he been less than a millisecond between his two activations it would have tripped the alarm, but even augmented creatures had a hard time pulling that off.

The thief shook his head of the thought and waited for the door to open, then snuck his way inside and immediately activated the vault door to close behind him. As he heard the gears turning to reverse the heavy chunk of metal his focus was brought directly to the metal pillar that stood in the center of the vault, and though there was nothing on it he knew that this was not the case. He also knew that just because he opened the door that the security measures ended there, passing through the small storage area at the front of the vault to the steel bars that separated him from the pillar itself. With no cameras in the area he stopped cloaking himself to conserve energy in his chameleon suit as he examined the lock he would have to get through.

It was another key card reader, something that was a bit strange to have considering the heavy security measures on the other side of the vault door. As he looked at the reader an idea came to the creature’s mind and he pulled out the identification card that he had taken earlier. Though he was pretty sure Larry the security guard didn’t have access to such a high-value area it didn’t mean that it wouldn’t have its use as he used his technomancer abilities to scan the chip inside. The coding was still active and as he sifted through it via his augmented reality screen he found what he was looking for, a security root key that he could exploit.

With a press of his finger against the badge he altered the code to the most logical configuration and pressed it against the chip, then swiped the badge against the reader. It beeped with a green light and the thief quickly opened the door before closing it behind him. Using a valid identification card to disable the lock also removed the alarm from the pressure sensitive floor as well. That only left the matter of the solid metal pillar that sat auspiciously in the middle of the otherwise empty vault, though the thief knew that what was stored in there warranted such security.

As the technomancer felt up and down the pedestal his frustration grew when he realized the entire thing was black boxed, which meant that unless he could find a way inside he wasn’t going to be able to get anything out of a scan. His time was quickly running out, especially with an unconscious guard that was about to get discovered, and the lithe creature kept circling it until he found some way to access the system inside. With the entire system being shielded it meant there was a mechanical switch somewhere as his gloved hands glided against the smooth surface trying to find where it could possibly be…

Just as he was about to check the floor next the enhanced touch sensitivity in his fingertips came across an edge so fine he almost missed it, which given his augmented abilities was saying something. Turning on the electromagnets in the palms of his bodysuit he lightly pulled out the nearly invisible tiny metal door on the pedestal, revealing a simple switch underneath it. It was an elegantly simple solution to defeat any technomancer… unfortunately for them he wasn’t just any technomancer as he flicked it. Had the mask not covered his face the thief would have been beaming from ear to ear as the top of the metal pillar opened and a small black cylinder rose up from it.

The thief practically shivered right there where he stood as he slowly reached out and grabbed it, holding the small metal container in his hands before he put it into one of his more protected bags. Just as he was about to head back out of the vault however his technomancer senses pinged so hard that it nearly caused him to be taken aback as various systems came to life all around him. It was the security systems… he tried to make a dash for the door but before he even step off the small platform it was completely surrounded by a force field that caused him to take a step back. As he tried to use his abilities to slice a way through it he suddenly felt his technomancer abilities get completely jammed, which caused the thief to look around in concern as his connection with the network was completely cut off.

“I have to say, we are impressed…” a voice said as a figure came out of the shadows, which only added more to the surreal nature of what was happening as the thief stared straight at what looked like a robotic eagle person. “Of course I wonder how far you would have gotten without that fancy suit of yours… but where are my manners, my name is Haleon and I’m the one you tried to rob tonight.”

“We’re the ones that you tried to rob from…” the second voice said as a second creature, this one a naga creature that looked like he was made out of ink or some other kind of liquid. “My name is Athear, and you were a very naughty boy for coming in here and trying to take what’s ours. But something tells me that this is not your first time doing this, why don’t you tell us who tried to take our symbiote and perhaps we can let you leave here completely intact?”

The thief continued to remain silent, his visor looking back and forth between the two as he attempted to figure out what was going on. While the strange naga creature was impossible to read he instantly got a ping off the robot that he was also some sort of technomancer. If they really were the owners of this company that meant that he was likely going to find himself in a deep, dark hole somewhere in the middle of nowhere unless he could escape. It sounded like they wanted the name of his employer, and though withholding such knowledge would keep him alive he knew that under no condition he could give that information… even if he wanted to.

“I think we may have all gotten off on the wrong foot here,” the goo naga said as he slithered around the cage that held the thief. “Perhaps we should start at the beginning of how a poor creature such as yourself got involved in all of this in the first place.”

“Sounds logical to me,” Haleon replied, those glowing yellow eyes staring into the purple ones of the creature he was interrogating. “Alright then, start at the beginning, tell us how the Nightmare began…”

******************************************************

Two months earlier under a similar night sky the local bar known as Beyond the Void was packed with customers, though very few of them were actually there for the drinks. The place was rather notorious for being the hub of criminals, all of them there to either network or see if they could find jobs or partners to do them with. It was a literal den of thieves, but for those who frequented the establishment they tended to call it the office, or home for some of them. Though they did little to hide who they were or why they were there police didn’t tend to go near it thanks to the efforts of the owner to keep the bar off of the radar.

“Vira!” a draconic sabrewolf said to a similar creature minus the teeth as he walked into the bar. “Where did you go last night? I thought that you said that you had a job lined up for us?”

The other dragolf grinned sheepishly as the other hybrid approached him and sat down on one of the stools. “Fell through Serathin,” he explained after ordering the two of them a drink. “Turned out to be a ruse to try and commit insurance fraud, which meant that the guys who pulled it were probably going to jail. Once I found that out I thought it would be best to pass.”

“Good call,” Serathin replied, sipping on the rum and coke he got. “Anyone actually take it?”

Vira nodded his head with a small sigh. “The ones that call themselves the Birds of Paradise decided they would have a go,” he informed the sabrewolf. “They even knew that it was going to be a trap, thought they could spring it and get out to try and extort the guy for more money. Police pinched them just as they got started to leave with the merchandise, all of them are going away for at least five years.”

“Looks like they’re going to be caged for a while,” Serathin replied with a smirk. “Perhaps the police are going to try and make them sing?”

The dragolf just rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Painful puns aside, it appears to be a slow night as far as crime is concerned,” Vira informed him. “So far I counted eight other groups just sitting around and looking for work. Who would have thought that there would be a slow season for illegal activities?”

“First time for everything,” Serathin replied as he patted Vira on the shoulder and hopped off the stool with his drink. “If the night keeps going slow maybe we can, I don’t know, go bowling or something.”

Vira laughed and stayed at the bar while the sabrewolf began to mingle with the others, trying to see if it was true that it was a slow night in the city of Denver. Even though everyone technically was competing against one another for jobs there was no reason for them to actively fight each other; in fact many times they would have to count on one another if a mark was too complex to handle alone, which meant that most were friendly if talked too. Plus if they got out of line around here the bartender, a blind human named Hot Chocolate Shark for some reason, would go out of his way to keep the peace… which was something that no criminal in Beyond the Void wanted to happen.

As Serathin continued to talk to people he eventually got to the pool tables where he spotted a familiar anthro snake attempting to line up a shot. “Well if it isn’t Tanakeah,” he said once the serpentine creature hit the ball, watching the sinewy creature arch effortlessly back up from their crouching position. “I thought you were still doing missions back in Japan. When did you get back to the states?”

“A few months ago,” Tana replied as he handed off his pool cue to another and excused himself from the game. “How about you, still running with Vira and the crazy feline?”

“Here and there,” Serathin replied. “Taken up to the occasional freelancing, you know, simple hack jobs and data theft. Not a lot of big crime out there right now but plenty of work for technomancers and the like. All the corps are being rather silent as of late it seems, no one’s made a move against the other in quite some time now.”

The snake nodded and the two went to sit down at a small booth that Tana had already been occupying before. “It was the same in Japan,” he stated while sitting back. “Even the Yakuza aren’t making any big moves, something has them all spooked.”

Though Serathin kept a stoic face through the whole matter he knew this was no small concern they were dealing with. There wasn’t a day that went by where some government entity or criminal organization or shady corporation wasn’t trying to hire out their services to screw over one another. To have them all suddenly go dark at around the same time meant that a major shift was about to take place, everyone waiting for whatever was about to happen to go through so that they could capitalize off of it. It didn’t happen very often, last time brought about several clans of werewolves that wreaked havoc throughout most of the western hemisphere.

“Definitely something about to happen,” Serathin confirmed, setting down his now empty drink glass.

“You think maybe it has something to do with Atlantis?” Tana speculated. “I’ve heard that the King of Islands has been talking privately more to several governing bodies, maybe they’re about to make a move.”

Though Serathin shrugged his shoulders he doubted that it had anything to do with the floating continent, mainly because the entire area had been in a state of lockdown since its sudden appearance in 2012 along with the resurgence of magic in the land. While no one knew much of its leader, other than it was a dragon that had given himself the title of the King of Islands, he had so far kept all the promises of remaining isolated and exacting swift punishment on those who messed with his people. The last corporation that had attempted to cross the dragon, which involved the experimentation and dissection of several of the mythological creatures that came with the floating continent, had been reduced to a smoldering crater in the ground. After that plus a stern warning that came from the King after he had annihilated the corporation the various regulatory agencies immediately put in laws to prohibit everything up to and including even the handling of Atlantean goods.

Of course all of that magical stuff didn’t really concern Serathin much; where those that had magical powers had to deal with things like artifacts and the Mage Investigation Unit, or MIU, he was merely a technomancer. As a child of the Network that replaced the internet he was all about that technology, able to interface and hack into computers without the need to use any input device. It was a skill that definitely came in handy when it came to committing crimes, just like having a mage in any good crew was invaluable a technomancer was the same. Of course there were many variations that one could go with as well, such as the snake man he sat across from who could use magic to augment their physical or mental abilities called an Adept.

“Well I suppose if something does happen we’ll probably be the first to know as usual,” Tana said with a chuckle, breaking Serathin out of his introspection with the response as he got up. “If you catch wind of any missions that require a sniper feel free to let me know, it was a pleasure to work with you when we got that mark out of the casino penthouse.”

“Good times,” Serathin replied as he raised his glass to Tana, then tried to take a drink out of it before he looked in the empty glass and frowned when he realized that it was still as such. He decided to rectify that by going back to the bar where Vira was still sitting and order himself another round, followed by another. With everyone looking for something to do the patrons of the bar started to get rowdy, passing the time with liberal applications of alcohol and increasingly dangerous games.

Just as they were getting ready to play a round of pistol jenga Hot Chocolate Shark told them all it was time for them all to find some other place to destroy. All the drunken patrons grumbled and booed but quickly filed out of the bar, most of them heading back to either the dens they hid out in during the day or to their apartments or houses to get ready to start their day jobs that they used as cover. For Serathin it was the latter, taking Vira and dumping him into his B-sector apartment before deciding this was where he was going to sleep too and crashed on the couch. Just as he was about to close his eyes and drift off into a drunken stupor his phone rang that caused them to shoot back open.

“Mmmmelo?” the draconic sabrewolf said blearily as he struggled to get coherent enough to understand what was being said to him on the other line.

“Mr. Sabertooth,” the voice, which was highly modulated and made it all the harder to focus on. “We have a job for you that I think you would be interested in and that can use your particular skill-set. If you choose to accept, we have a dead-drop waiting for you and will send you the coordinates.”

“Whoa, whoa, slow your roll here for like two seconds,” Serathin replied as he got up from the couch and padded his way towards the other dragolf’s refrigerator, rummaging around the various Chinese food boxes that were in there. “Now since you’re not going through the Network or calling through Beyond the Void I’m going to assume that this job is going to imply high risk.” When he heard nothing on the other end the sabrewolf assumed he was correct as he sniffed into a nearly-eaten box of shrimp lo mein and made a face before tossing it. “So since you’re hiring me direct why don’t you just cut to the chase and tell me what the mission is and how much you’re going to pay me to do it?”

“Very well,” the voice on the other end replied while Serathin combined several leftover boxes onto one plate. “We need you to break into a research facility and steal an asset that is being developed there. Further details will be supplied at the dead drop and that is all the information that we’re going to give you until you commit, and for that commitment you will be paid the sum of two hundred thousand credits.”

The noodles that the hybrid had been scooping out hung over the plate as his entire body froze. “A six figure payout?” he said as he suddenly sobered up, setting the box back down. “I think that’s all the information I need, why don’t you go ahead and give me those coordinates…”

A few hours later, after Serathin had gotten enough greasy food and sleep into him to absorb the effects of the alcohol, he went to the coordinates that had been given to him. His adventures had taken him to A-sector, a place where he and many other criminals started to feel uncomfortable as he adjusted the tie on his suit. He had on his stealth bodysuit underneath, ready to start the mission as the darkness crept into the sky overhead. Luckily when he got to the location he found that they were nice enough to hide the information in a hollow area inside a secret compartment of a chess table, not in a spillway or sewer grate like some of them were prone to do.

The dead drop turned out to just be a tablet, something that he quickly scanned before downloading the information into his wrist computer. It gave him his target location and what he was looking for, his gaze turning from the dimly-lit screen up to the cluster of skyscrapers that sat together. It was the Hydra Towers commercial park, a place where the exposure was its greatest security. There wasn’t much that someone could do in one of the towers without being spotted by people in two or three other towers. It also meant that he couldn’t sweep in from the roof; the Hydra Tower complex boasted some of the tallest skyscrapers in the city and even if he could glide from one of few taller buildings, which he wouldn’t have been able to get into anyway, they were equipped with special anti-air measure to keep winged creatures like him from landing there.

“Looks like we’re going to have to take the soft approach,” Serathin said to himself as he took the tablet and used his technomancy to wipe everything all the electronic data off of it before crushing it under his foot and tossing it in a nearby trash can after running it through a water fountain. Once he had made sure that his data destruction hadn’t been observed he began walking to his destination, but not before going to a nearby outlet store to purchase a few things…

About an hour later Serathin walked towards one of the skyscrapers of the Hydra Tower complex, looking up at the building he was about to rob. It was a rather unique design, the glass structure curling around like someone had grabbed both ends of it and gave it a twist. It also meant that he was going to have an interesting time navigating through the rather unique floor plans that each level of the building likely had, though his plan was to stick to the core of the skyscraper anyway. As he made his way inside he held the door open for a few others in business suits similar to his own and walked past him before he slid around the last one and went inside.

The inside of the lobby was extremely well-furnished; the floor was made of black marble and it had a fountain in the center where a sculpture of a hydra sat with the various heads spouting water. It was nicer than most hotel lobbies, the hybrid thought to himself as he passed by a few exotic-looking flowers to get to the reception desk. As he went up to the lioness that sat behind the shiny brass his eyes flickered back and forth to the cameras that hung on the wall as well as the security guards that were walking around.

“Welcome,” the receptionist said with a warm smile. “Do you need somewhere in particular to go to or looking for information?”

“I was actually wondering if you have any office space for rent?” Serathin replied as he opened the briefcase he had bought an hour ago and pulled out a piece of paper. “I work for Arkham Pharmaceuticals and we’re looking to expand into the Denver area. So far I’ve tried two other towers in this complex and they’re full up so I’m hoping that you have the space to accommodate our needs.”

As the lioness looked over the specs of the dummy corporation that he and several others used as a means to look official the sabrewolf technomancer was busy hacking remotely into the secretary’s computer. With the building being in the A-sector and the added recognition of being under the umbrella of an entire complex he already knew that their network connections would be black boxed to prevent people like him from attempting to hack in from outside. That meant that he had to be exposed, but with his abilities he at least didn’t have to use the receptionist’s keyboard as he mentally flipped through several key appointment books that he had already wormed his way into. When he found the program he needed he inserted his own addition to it, then quickly pulled out before any tech-savvy security could catch him in the act.

“Well from the specs that your company would need you would almost need a quarter of a floor,” the lioness said before she returned to her computer screen and began to type. “As I’m sure you’ve gotten from the other places that you visited, space here at Hydra Towers is quite exclusive…” Serathin resisted the urge to grin as she no doubt looked up to see if there was any available space. “Oh, it appears that we do have a space that would meet your needs on the fifty-seventh floor.”

“Wonderful,” Serathin replied. “If you don’t mind, I would like to check out the space, do you think it’s too late to get in a quick tour? I would really like to get an answer back to my superiors before the day is out.”

The sabrewolf could see the confliction on the receptionist’s face. “It is getting rather late,” she said as she looked at the clock, then at the almost completely darkened sky outside the windows. “I know you’re eager to get an answer in but perhaps you could come in tomorrow? I would have to get security approval to show you the floor and make sure that someone was there to escort you so that you didn’t get lost…”

At this point Serathin knew that he had to be very careful with what he said, if he aroused her suspicion too much she would either make him wait or call over a guard to escort him to an open office space that was occupied by another company. He could go back into her computer system again and try to find something but now she was looking directly at it, and though he believed he was good having a technomancer rooting around usually caused distortion that she might be trained to spot. He may not be able to do this entirely alone after all, and that gave him an idea as he asked to make a phone call. The lioness nodded and watched with rapt attention as the sabrewolf put his comm link in his ear and pressed one of the speed dial options that was labeled with the name Taiji.

“I’m just going to see if I can go ahead and expedite the process here a little bit,” Serathin explained to the receptionist before he held up a finger when he heard the call connect. “Hey, boss? Yeah, I need to see if we can get some sort of authorization here, I’m at Hydra Towers and I managed to find us some space but the receptionist here wants us to wait until tomorrow to look at it.”

On the other end of the line another lioness, this one with black fur and a mane stopped the video game she was playing and sighed. “Are you seriously using me to run a bluff right now?” she said as she paused her game. “I’m busy you know, I can’t keep helping you on your jobs whenever you call me. I could have been doing something very important at the moment.”

“Of course we could just wait until tomorrow,” Serathin replied, trying not to grit his teeth in frustration at his cohort’s lack of enthusiasm. “But we do have a really, really important meeting here in Denver and it would be great to show a floor plan. Perhaps you can get special permissions sent to her from the building manager to let me take a look?”

“Yeah yeah,” Taiji replied, laying down on the couch and playing with an empty soda bottle. “I expect to get generously compensated for my time you know, especially since you’re taking jobs without letting your loyal crew know about it. So what are we looking at here, distraction or intimidation?”

“Yes, first of the month,” Serathin signaled to the feline on the other end. “Perhaps you could talk to the receptionist a bit while you tap the proper channels? I would really like to get this paperwork back to AP’s database before the night is out.”

After a few more seconds of talking Serathin asked the receptionist if he could transfer the call to her, which she responded with a slightly anxious nod before transferring the line to her comm. The second the sabrewolf no longer heard Taiji’s voice he got to work, watching as the receptionist began to look for whatever the other lioness was asking her to get or look at as he once more breached her systems. This time it wasn’t a program he was looking for, it was her e-mail. Though this one was a little harder to decrypt he eventually managed to find his way into the address book and determine who the security manager was and mentally typed out a message.

Once he was finished he pretended to look bored while waiting for his distraction to finish up, the lioness looking slightly flustered as she hung up the line. “Well your boss definitely… knows what she wants,” the receptionist said as she composed herself once more. “She said that she will get me an e-mail from whomever is the one in charge of that place, oh, it’s already here it seems… and it looks like you are cleared to go, sorry for the delay.”

“Just doing your job,” Serathin replied with a smile once he was told where to go. When he had his back turned and walked some distance away from the lioness he breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t even want to think what Taiji’s help was going to cost him as he went into the elevator and pressed the button for the doors to close behind him.

The elevators were all connected to a central column that was close to the receptionist’s desk, which likely ran all the way up the length of the building. It was a smart move, Serathin thought to himself as he began to feel the car he was in move upwards, since that meant they only had to secure one elevator shaft. Fortunately for him he hadn’t intended on going that way anyway since the floor he had freed up the space onto was the same floor of the office he was attempting to break into. Once he was starting to ride up the technomancer got started scrubbing his identity from any cameras that may have seen him while also causing the fake data he fed to the floor availability chart to self-destruct.

By the time the elevator car reached its destination he had managed to find every image of him that had been captured and shredded it from the security hard drives, which always threw him was one of the least protected areas of security. He walked out of the elevator and looked around, he found himself in a small circular corridor that wound its way across the entire circumference of the column he had just emerged from. The company he was looking for was called Basilisk Solutions and it didn’t take long for him to find their name engraved on a metal plate behind one of the doors. The threshold was protected by a steel security shutter that went from floor to ceiling, protecting the contents from people like himself.

“This is why it’s always good to come prepared,” Serathin said as he looked at the keycard reader and took one out of his pocket. He had lifted it from one of the people he had opened the door for, and though it wasn’t the company or even the floor he needed it was enough for him to get started. “Hopefully they don’t have lockout protocols…”

With one hand on the reader he slid the card through, watching with his technosense on what happened when he did. He saw the pathways that the electricity followed for a wrong card and, more importantly, where the switch was between a card that would grant him access and one that wouldn’t. Once he determined that it was just a matter of making sure to push that electricity in the other direction once he slid the card through again. This time it gave him a green light instead of an angry beep and the shutter slid open to give him access.

The only lights in the office were that of the security lighting as he made his way through the rows of cubicles. He made sure to avoid the windows as he snuck along the ground, but part of him wondered if he had gotten to the right area in the first place. For the money he was being paid he expected a high-security layout complete with roving guards, drones, tripwire lasers… this was like he was walking through a typical office farm. The cameras weren’t even hidden as he continued to make his way towards the back area where he hoped he would find what he was looking for.

“Computer,” Serathin whispered, ducking into one of the cubicles decorated with sportsball memorabilia. “Activate protocol six.”

He watched as the screen on his wrist confirmed that the command was activated, then continued to press onwards through the office. When he got to the back area there was a row of larger offices, and more importantly a wall that separated them from the rest of the floor as well as the outer windows. “Well there you are…” Serathin said to himself as he looked at the heavy steel door of the safe. “I was beginning to wonder if you were real, though not the biggest one I’ve ever seen.”

While normally this would have been the most difficult part of finding passkeys the ones that hired him had already done it for him, walking up to the keypad and punching in the three different codes that he had been given. Finally after the third one all three lights turned green and the door slowly began to open, the sabrewolf stepping out of the way to let it swing out. Once it had finished he poked his head inside and saw a number of items that were inside, though there was only one that he was really looking for. He took a glance at the other stuff quickly before he went to the back of the vault and found the item that had been described to him, a sealed metal box the size of a toaster oven.

“Easiest money I ever made,” Serathin said to himself as he walked out of the vault with it, then opened his briefcase once again. He took out the cardboard box that he had stashed in there as well as the uniform, taking off his business suit and stashing it away in its place. Though the hybrid was slightly disappointed he didn’t need to sneak around in his stealth suit the money more than comforted him as he set up the shipping box and carefully slid the metal one inside of it.

Once he was finished Serathin added a few more layers of packing tape to it before finishing up his change, pulling the delivery uniform against his body to make sure that it looked fine. Once everything was packed away he made his way back down to the lobby of the building, this time looping the cameras so he didn’t have to go and look for any footage. When the elevator reached the lobby he saw that the night security had already settled in, which was exactly what he wanted. As he walked to the doors he merely held up the package to the guard that was sitting in front of the door, the orc hardly giving Serathin a glance before buzzing him out with the box tucked securely underneath his arm.