Outrun - Chapter 465 - Kobold Shiro (Patreon)

After I brought a frankly massive bowl of shrimp up to Lexi, she dismissed me to go attend to other matters. I wasn’t complaining. I’d rather not be stuck sitting up in the lounge with her while the heist went down. Not when I was the one supposed to make the swap in the first place.

I stopped by a storage closet, and grabbed a bunch of cleaning equipment. With that in hand, I smoothly moved through the hall toward the bathroom our gear was stashed in. Several times, I had to press up against the wall to let passengers pass me by. The yacht was already loaded up with passengers, and we had already left the harbor.

Naturally, that meant sea sickness had started to strike. Not me, ‘course. The guests invited on the yacht, though, were a whole other matter. An exec in an incredibly fancy suit sprinted down the hall with her face turning green. “Ah gawd, get outta the way, bitch!”

I froze up instead of moving. She ran into me, and we both staggered. My hands flew forward to support her. “I’m so sorry!”

”Heuk.” She darted past me as I flattened against the wall, and darted into the bathroom. The same bathroom I was about to go retrieve my gear from. She tried the door, only for the locked handle to rattle rapidly. While gagging, she forced her way through a different door and slammed it shut behind her.

”Shame,” I muttered quietly, and swung a fancy pearl necklace around my finger. No idea how much it cost, but there was really no reason to cuss me out like that. I flicked the pearls down a vent where they’d likely never be found. Petty? Me? Never.

“Moonfall, you have eyes on Mr. Sancho?” Ronin called across the comms.

”He’s in the main hall. I’ll let you know when he leaves.” Luna’s mechanical voice came across the line. 

She was also on the ship, ‘course. As a Netrunner working the event no less. No idea how the Hound managed to get not one, but three of us hired on as official positions. His ability to set things up was certainly impressive. If it was just me working this gig… I probably would’ve just airdropped onto the ship once it got out of the harbor, and snuck down to the vault.

I flicked out a wet floor sign, and leaned against the side of the ornate hall to wait. A few moments later, the door popped open and a familiar man stepped out. Tex adjusted his sleeves, and his eyes instantly locked onto me. “Sorry, little miss. You trying to get in here?”

”Ah, no.” I blinked, and pushed off the wall. “There was another woman.” 

The man slowly nodded his head. He honestly looked a little weird without his cowboy hat after all this time seeing him with it. “Hey, you have some of those seasickness pills? I was told y’all would have some.”

“Chek.” I fumbled through my maid outfit, and pulled out a small box. All of the maids were given some. Honestly, that woman was hurting herself by not asking for one for some reason. “Here you go.”

”Thanks, partner.” He took a pill, though didn’t immediately pop it. Instead, he just stared at me for a long moment. Right as it was getting uncomfortable, he dipped his head and set off down the hall back toward the party.

Weird. I watched him go, and then slapped an out of order sign on the bathroom. I slipped into the bathroom, and stood up on the toilet to reach the ceiling—only to fall just a little short of actually being able to reach it. I fruitlessly strained and strained for the ceiling tile.

Damn you, tall people! With my gear out of reach, I slumped against the wall and grit my teeth. So much for that. I squeezed my eyes shut, and pulled out one of the summoning tokens Fox gave me. Originally, I brought all three thinking I could push off any maid work onto the sprites. This so wasn’t how I thought I was going to use one.

Just before I could activate it, I stopped. This yacht was covered in wards, chek? Wouldn’t they notice if someone unregistered summoned a sprite? Instead of activating the coin, I pulled out the ward master control device I was given. “Moonfall, can you look up how to work this thing?”

”What thing—how the hell did you already get control of the wards?!” She called across the comms in surprise.

”I swiped it,” I lied, and fidgeted with the device covered in runes. It looked a bit like a burger bun, to be honest. Only, this one was made out of stone and magic so complex that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing with it. “So?”

”Um… give me a moment. I’m a Netrunner, not an Adept.” She groaned softly.

“Send me a picture.” Ronin came to the rescue. I usually didn’t work with Adepts, so it totally slipped my mind I should be asking him instead of Luna. “If it is regular model, I can walk you through it.”

”Uh, right.” I set it down on the bathroom sink, and sent an image through Luna to him. “I need to give myself guard permission. Specifically as a Magi.”

“Hmm… this new model.” Ronin went silent for a few moments. “Swipe two fingers across to activate it.”

I followed his instructions, and swiped two fingers across the center of the runic device. It instantly started to glow in my hands. “Got it.”

“Send me another picture.” He asked. After looking across the new picture, he came back with further instructions. “Rotate it ninety degrees. Adjust all runes in this pattern…”

What followed was a long, and extremely complex operation to lock onto my specific badge and grant myself permissions. The butler made it seem so easy, but even just thinking about all the operations hurt my head. No wonder Lexi Sancho felt comfortable handing it to me just like that. Most people would need a PhD in Runic Studies to even have a hope at knowing what they were doing. 

After several long minutes, I adjusted one final rune. “Now what?”

”Scan your badge. What color does it turn?” He asked.

”Um…” I lifted the maid badge I’d been given to the runic device. The ward controller flicked and shifted colors. “Dark grey.”

”Should be done… if you can, give it to me. I will set up a contingency.” His heavily accented voice abruptly cut off as chatter came across the line like he was talking to someone.

I slipped the device back into my pocket, and finally activated the summoning token from Fox. With permissions as a Magi, I shouldn’t trip the wards at all. I kept an eye on the control device just in case. It didn’t even flicker as a fox sprite in a tutu dropped through the portal.

The fox landed on the sink, and struck an elegant pose. “Yip yip!”

Spectral fire spelled out THANK YOU FOR USING FOX MAID SERVICES! This time, it was actually all spelled out correctly. Vulpes must’ve helped her out after I said something. 

“Come here.” The fox, wearing an outfit that was unfortunately similar to mine, jumped up into my arms. I hopped back up onto the toilet, and held her above my head. “Can you please grab the duffel bag for me?”

The fox sprite rolled her eyes, and pushed the ceiling tile to the side with her snout. She hopped up and disappeared into the darkness. A moment later, she pushed the duffel bag out into my waiting arms.

Ugh, this world really wasn’t designed for normal people. All that work just to retrieve my gear. It was crazy! I should really look at getting chrome bones or something, though Nael would probably tell me I should wait till I was eighteen before getting any invasive chrome again. 

He… he unfortunately had a point. I still might grow a bit more, so stunting my growth now by getting heavy chrome wouldn’t be smart. Chek, I was still growing! It may be slow progress, but I’d gained at least a hair's height in the past year! I wasn’t out of hope yet. I wouldn’t end up like Luna…

I grabbed all my gear, and slowly slipped it on under the maid dress. The gloves and boots I couldn’t quite wear around since they’d be so noticeable. I’d thought ahead, though, and modified those pieces of gear to mostly flatten using an incredibly complex arrangement of servos, and slimmed down Gravitite. I strapped the flattened gear to my thighs underneath my dress, and tossed the duffel bag back up into the roof. 

With my gear all back together, I left the bathroom behind and headed for the kitchen. I stopped by the kitchen, and grabbed a tray of food just as one of the chefs popped it up onto the line. In a matter of moments, I merged into the maids carrying trays up to the main hall. 

Although I called it a party, that wasn’t quite right. It was a party in the same sense that Sentinel’s celebration party was a party. No one was here to have fun—or, at least, most people weren’t here to have fun. Everyone had a corporate agenda to work, which made the air inside the main hall feel… stifled?

Classical music played across the hall from a live band near the back, and people milled around chatting without seemingly a care. Every word was filled with double meanings, though, and their eyes constantly sifted through the crowd like thieves looking for their next mark.

I blended in with the maids, and waltzed around the place with the tray of food I brought up. Guests grabbed some from me as I passed by here and there. The food disappeared at a rapid rate. Right as I got to the edge of the room, an older maid stopped me.

The maid waved me over. One of the guests was already getting handsy with her, and she was putting on a show of barely holding herself back. “Easy big boy. I’m not going anywhere.”

”Ah, and here I was hoping we could have some alone time.” The man grinned at her in a way he probably thought was charming.

”Alas, I must work. Unless…” The maid handed over a tray covered in champagne to me, and grabbed my empty one. “Thank you, dear. I’ll… return this to the kitchen.”

I just mutely nodded my head, and pretended I didn’t see anything as the two went to the kitchen together. With my new tray in hand, I swept over the crowd for familiar faces. 

I slipped past Ronin, who’d been repositioned in the main party at some point. The man chatted with a group of executives off to the side of the room who seemingly recognized him. I held out the tray toward the group, and put on my most elegant service smile. “Champagne?”

“Ah, thank you, my dear.” One of the executives with an incredibly thick mustache reached forward to grab one of the glasses perched on my tray. “Sancho really knows how to hire them, eh?”

“You can say that again.” One of the others likewise moved to grab a glass. “Now, where were we, Ronin?”

The moment they went to grab it, Hidden Hands activated. I slipped the control device out of my pocket, and smoothly passed it over into Ronin’s without anyone the wiser. 

Ronin’s glowing red eyes darted to me before losing interest and returning to the conversation with the executives. “You asked about Yukoto.”

“Ah, yes! Is the market still as volatile as always? You know, back when I used to travel…” I tuned out the conversation, and slipped back into the party to pass around more drinks.

Once I was done with my tray, I headed back down to the kitchen to grab another. Thirty minutes later, I moved to a quiet corner and called across the comms. “I passed you the controller, Ronin.”

”When did you—impressive,” the red samurai muttered. “Phantom thief, huh?”

”So they say.” I dodged a handsy exec reaching for a little more than a glass of champagne. Honestly, the guards weren’t the main issue here. I was more worried about someone bumping into me and discovering all the gear I had on me. “What’s your plan?”

”Adjust permissions.” Ronin looked around the room, and his eyes glazed right over me. “It will work as distraction.”

Hopefully, that meant the wards would work in our favor, and not just explode the ship or something. Honestly, I wasn’t all that sure what the man could do with the master controller like that.

“Smart thinking,” Tex’s warm drawl came across the line. “Either of you manage to peg down who he’s making the trade with?”

”Negative.” I’d been keeping my eyes peeled, but all corpos kinda looked the same to me. It was like face blindness to the extreme.

”Was afraid of that,” Tex muttered. The man himself had left the main hall a while ago, and was smoking by himself outside on a deck. “Moonfall?”

”Been busy.” Our Netrunner groaned softly. “There’s a surprising amount of attempts to hack this boat’s mainframe.”

“Just remember which side you’re on,” Ronin said. ”Not here to actually netrun.” 

“I know that. I’ve had control of the entire boat since we got onto it,” she snapped at the man. “I’ll be ready.” 

The conversation naturally died down after that. An executive snapped his fingers at me like I was a dog. However unwilling I was, I approached with a fresh tray of champagne and a smile on my face. When I pulled away, I naturally did so with his watch, phone, and wallet. All of which mysteriously went out the window and into Aythryn City’s harbor immediately after. 

I worked for several hours. Each passing minute made me more and more bitter that I even took this job on. Through the windows of the yacht, I watched us get further and further away from the harbor. It was like a sign that it was already too late to leave.

More and more people throughout the part found themselves without the items they brought in with them. At some point, I got bored tossing them out the window and just started planting them on other executives to cause some chaos. Unfortunately, that just drew more guards up into the room to keep watch.

Not that I stopped, ‘course. More guards only made the challenge more fun. ‘Sides, the more guards that were here, the less that were patrolling the ship when the time came. I fully let Kobold Shiro out of her cage to klep as much shit as possible. 

My target had to shift, though. Instead of continuing to sow chaos until someone finally cracked down on me, I shifted focus to the guards. It was all too easy to approach with an innocent smile and snack, swipe their firearms, ensure they wouldn’t go off, and then move away like nothing was happening. For the most part. I kept clear of the heavily chromed guys just in case.

Stealing was always fun. Actually working the event? Not so much. Honestly, it was exhausting work that I wasn’t expecting from tonight. Not for the first time, I was incredibly glad I had a job as an inventor rather than stuck in some corporate service industry. 

I couldn’t even imagine the monotony of this being my entire life… then again, most of these people probably couldn’t imagine being a thief with their life on the line either. Either way, they had my respect for all the bullshit they had to put up with.

Finally, just as I was starting to actually get pissed while watching Tex and Ronin enjoy the party while I had to work it—

“He’s on the move,” Luna called across the line. After waiting around and working so long, it was finally go time. I couldn’t wait to get out of this stupid maid dress.