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The clock was ticking, so Tam and I were moved in fast and low with the Mitsu suits humming full spectrum. We ghosted under camera domes and over several laser trips before we hit the main lobby with the vault doors for the labs. Bio-ware shows up as a hot spot in a human body, and I’d already switched to thermal-view for a quick ID. The two guards in the lobby read negative so Tam double tapped and left them slumped in their chairs cooling to even lower temps. Then we went prowling for our live wired friend.

We found him in the bathroom, of all places. Another vet, this one scarred ugly from some old toxin burst, but it’s kind of hard to look intimidating with your pants down around your ankles. Tam kicked the stall door in and had him zip cuffed and gagged in no time. A die hard, he kept thrashing, growling, trying to head butt or body slam us. After a minute of that I chopped him hard in both shoulders and he quieted right down.

I pulled close to the side of his head and spoke through my faceplate, “If you play nice, you’ll still be alive when this is over. If not…”

Back to the main room and he lasted until he saw the other two guards, then he threw himself toward the desk panel trying to trip the alarm. I kicked his legs out and sat on him while Tam called Poet9.

“We’re in and we got the wired guy. You sure we have to keep him alive?”

I looked down to see him biting his way through the gag and bounced his head off the floor. “Just until we’re on our way.” He quieted down again.

Four and a half minutes later, Poet9 dropped in and went to work on the grid. He burned through their security in 5 minutes and grunted as the vault doors hissed open. “Stupid execs - always 6 months behind.”

”What am I going to do with this hard core?”, I asked, shoving the guard forward. He was sweating, his eyes wide now that we’d made it into the labs. Several times I saw the notion of a break or going limp flit behind his eyes, but he knew I wasn‘t in the mood. We’d get what we wanted and leave him alive. Not that it was much of a consolation because our run here was definitely not good for his long term career plans.

Tam spoke on the radio link, “See if you can find another bathroom, knock him out and leave him there. If DH scans the building, maybe they’ll think he has the runs.” Checking his HUD, he said “we have less than 23 minutes before the next security cycle. We need to split up to search. No one’s sure what this thing is supposed to look like. Look for a mini-vault, a case, even a stasis canister.”

We combed the main room, stealth suit sensors scanning every desk, locker, closet and container.
“Tam” I called, “ this seem easy to you?”

He was silent for a second, then, “Yeah. For an earth shattering piece of tech, they seem awful casual about it. I mean, the perimeter is tight, there’s squads of modded guards, even the bio-alarm, but in here there‘s no motion sensors, turrets, nothing. Maybe they already moved it?”

“We can only go on the Roh data, but they think there’s almost 2 weeks before D-H goes public with this. This is the final stage to tie up any loose ends. Their source double crossed them? ”

“We’d be dead, or nearly there, if that was the case.”

Poet9 came to a door. “I have something! Motion, cyber activity, in this room.“ He fast drew the bulky Walther 11.

“Don’t think the tech is going to shoot you, Poet.” We all went in.