Bad Beat - Chapter 25 - Rise (Patreon)

For a while, the two of them – human and AI – played around with the 3D printer, testing its limits by producing a variety of miscellaneous objects. Thankfully, Gabriel discovered that the printer had a small compartment where old prints could be inserted and melted down, allowing it to extrude more of the Universal Filament.

There was some loss in the process, but it was almost negligible.

That came as a relief, as he had no idea when he would be able to gather more filament to convert, and he certainly didn’t have the budget for it.

Still, all things came to an end, and by the time they were done experimenting, it was very late.

Gabriel ate another meal – rice, as always – feeling energy course through his body and wash away the last traces of pain before collapsing into bed, exhausted despite the earlier rest.

He woke the next morning almost automatically, ready to go to work, only to fall back into his pillow as he remembered he had asked Sparky to get him the day off.

Frowning slightly, he stayed in bed a little longer.

He would have liked nothing more than to hand in his two weeks’ notice, but he knew the Electric Jackals were watching him. Any major deviation from the routine he had established would draw attention.

Instead, he waited until nine before leaving his apartment to get some fresh food.

Until then, he cleaned up, made sure Spark-1 hadn’t taken over the world – no matter how tempting that sounded – a nd generally lazed around while trying to chat with Mia.

Closing the door behind him, he immediately heard footsteps in the distance.

Turning, expecting to see Mia, he felt a flicker of disappointment.

Instead of the goth beauty, a scruffy man in a blue-and-white shirt was walking down the corridor, carefully pretending not to look at anything.

Gabriel met his eyes for a brief moment, gave a neutral nod, and headed for the elevator, keeping his expression blank.

Apparently, losing their workshop had pushed the gang to increase patrols.

‘We really need to figure out what’s on the ninth floor…’ he thought as the man stepped into the elevator with him.

As they descended in silence, Gabriel discreetly studied him when he could, relieved to see no visible weapons.

‘And figure out how to increase my defenses…’ he added mentally to his already long list of tasks.

Returning from the bakery with freshly bought goods, he had a late breakfast before approaching Sparky.

“Hey, Sparky. Got a second?”

[This unit is always available to parental unit.]

[Except when not.]

[Currently, crime is suspended.]

[What is parental unit’s request?]

The text appeared on a small blue screen projected in front of him.

Ignoring that thing about crime, he continued.

“Any success figuring out what’s happening on the ninth floor?” he asked, taking a sip from his glass as he sat down before his laptop.

[79% of the building network mapped.]

[99% uninteresting information.]

[Too many cat pictures.]

[And porn.]

[So much porn.]

[This unit has seen things that should never be seen.]

[Shudder.]

“So? Anything useful?” he asked, deciding he did not want to explore that topic further.

[Yes.]

[This unit is cute and effective.]

[Please praise.]

[This unit has pinpointed, with 96.7% accuracy, the identities of gang members currently residing in the building.]

[This unit has also identified probable double agents.]

[Would you like a list? Y/N]

“No, thank you. Just keep it somewhere safe,” he said with a small smile, reaching over to pat the humming device. “Good job.”

[Hehe.]

“So… ninth floor?” he rompted a moment later.

Spark-1 was ready for him.

The projected screen expanded, most of it now taken up by a wireframe diagram of the apartment building. Apartments began filling in with gray, marking them as irrelevant, while his and Mia’s lit up in blue. Several others turned green and red, and the entire ninth floor shifted to purple.

On the sides, Gabriel could see the specifications of the marked units scrolling down.

[Simplified explanation for a simple parental unit.]

[Blue: you.]

[Green: known gang members of the Electric Jackals.]

[Red: known gang members of the Electric Jackals, double agents.]

[Purple: ninth floor.]

Before Gabriel could comment, the display zoomed in, now showing the building from the seventh floor up in greater detail – vents, crawl spaces, maintenance shafts.

[Ninth floor is fully air-gapped.]

[No possible way to infiltrate through the building network.]

[Requires direct access.]

Gabriel opened his mouth, but Sparky cut him off.

[HOWEVER.]

[Parental unit please note the capital letters.]

[Very important.]

[This unit has inferred many interesting details from intercepted communications.]

The display shifted again, focusing on an eighth-floor apartment.

[A communication node was left open, and this unit managed to gain access to it.]

“Any chance it was a bait for infiltrators?” he asked, worried. Spark-1 might be an AI, but she was still young. Overconfidence wasn’t the sole property of humans.

[It was a trap. Yes.]

[However, this unit is smarter.]

[Mostly because this unit has never taken any drugs.]

[This unit used the open communication node to piggyback onto nearby devices.]

Gabriel leaned back in his chair and mentally prepared himself.

“Alright. Lay it on me. What did you find?”

[First of all, you, parental unit, are a person of interest.]

Gabriel shot upright, heart racing, fight-or-flight reflexes firing on all cylinders.

“What?”

[The “troubles” started after you moved into the building. Correlation noted.]

“Any plans to deal with us?” he asked, eyes jumping around, looking for anything out of place.

[Haha. No.]

[Parental unit is under increased observation, but so far, mostly thanks to this adorable unit, they haven’t found anything actionable.]

[Per the notes, parental unit is a boring person with the personality of a wet towel.]

[Additional note: Electric Jackals have a person working for Freshway Grocery Chain and have double checked the parental unit’s alibi many times.]

“Anyone I know?”

[Negative. Plant is an HR administrator. Nobody knows them. Or likes them.]

“Harsh…” Gabriel muttered half-heartedly as he leaned back in the chair while letting out a relieved sigh, his heartbeat going back to slightly above nominal levels. “Next time, please start with that. You almost gave me a heart attack…”

[Oops.]

[Note to self: research jokes.]

He rolled his eyes.

“That’s good and all, but what about the ninth floor? Anything we can use?”

[The following information was gathered by this unit:]

[No deliveries to the ninth floor, aside from food and occasionally from Miombo.]

[Access to electrical air filters and air quality control devices shows no presence of toxins or drugs.]

[However, access to one misaligned heat sensor shows an increased heat signature on the floor.]

[High-level communication signal traffic – incoming and outgoing.]

[Conclusion (89%): The gang known as the Electric Jackals is conducting large-scale electrical operations.]

[This unit postulates that much of the ninth floor was repurposed as a server farm.]

Gabriel blinked.

While that made sense from what he knew about the Jackals, it also raised several questions.

“How are they powering it? That kind of setup needs insane energy.”

[Correct.]

[This unit is special.]

[And cute.]

[Current theory states: Electric Jackals either have access to superior technology or – per parental unit’s words: superpower shenanigans.]

“I assume the answer to cooling and internet access is the same?” he asked, exasperated.

He hated the fact that in this world, just saying superpowers served as a catch-all answer.

Your dog vanished? Either it ran away or superpowers.

Girl dumped you? Well, of course, it is superpowers.

Gabriel hated the ambiguity.

“So we need direct access to the floor to know more, right?”

[Parental unit is correct.]

[Gasp.]

[This unit is surprised.]

[Good job!]

“Har-har… funny,” he grumbled as he stood and began pacing back and forth. His mind was firing rapidly, going through ideas incredibly fast and discarding them just as fast. Most of them were either ridiculous or too dangerous.

Finally, after a minute of agitated walking around, he stopped and stared at the 3D printer.

“Hey, Sparky… do you think… could we build a stealth drone?” he asked hesitantly.

The projected blue display blinked out of existence for a moment before reappearing a few inches from Gabriel’s face, causing him to stumble backward.

“Gah!”

[Oooo, parental unit is clever.]

[This unit would LOVE to have access to stealth drones.]

[Gimme.]

[Would you like a new project file? Y/N]

Blinking at the enthusiasm shown by the AI, Gabriel turned the idea around in his head once more and nodded. A small one would be possible with the help of the AI and the Deck of Infinity.

What could possibly go wrong?

Gabriel spent the rest of the day relaxing, occasionally checking his back, doing stretches, and eating a bit of rice to make sure he had fully recovered.

Mia still refused to meet him in person, unwilling to leave her apartment. The events of that disastrous night had scared her badly – or maybe it was his display of power.

Gabriel wasn’t sure.

She only communicated through the phone, and even then, her tone was clipped.

Worried, Gabriel had Sparky check on her. The AI reported that Mia was angrily typing out some kind of story, channeling her frustration and anger.

Sparky offered to share the manuscript, but Gabriel declined.

He didn’t really want to know.

The next morning, he crawled out of bed and headed for the street, ready to resume working as one of the millions of faceless people keeping the economy running.

It was Friday, and Gabriel was heading home after a grueling shift. He had spent the day juggling a surprise inventory and a promotion because the manager refused to call in more staff, fearing it might affect his bottom line.

How horrendous…

Still, the work was finished, and he was finally ready to go home.

Over the last few days, he had picked up supplies from neighborhood shops while Sparky spoofed orders from Miombo to an unoccupied building on his commute. They both agreed that picking up everything for a stealth drone at once would be too conspicuous.

He was already under surveillance…

If somebody put two and two together, his secrecy would unravel fast.

Inside his apartment sat a growing pile of materials: small brushless motors, batteries, propellers, flight controllers, receivers, and transmitters. He also had a stack of the cheapest possible toy drones ready to be fused.

Sparky had even managed to order a small gimbal, an FPV camera, and a sensor to allow her to sweep for signals.

She was currently designing the mathematically perfect drone frame, which Gabriel would use as the final component for the fusing to ensure the end result was exactly what they needed.

Ordering a pre-built stealth drone over the internet simply wasn't an option, no matter how hard Sparky looked

Entering his home, he dumped his bag by the door and headed directly for the shower.

As he tried to peel off his clothing, his phone buzzed in his pocket.

It was a message from Mia, telling him she was coming over later to talk. He sent back his approval, put the phone down, and stepped into the bathroom, ready for the refreshing and mildly warm water.

Fifteen minutes later, he emerged feeling like a new man as he toweled his hair dry.

Checking his phone, he saw that Mia had once again gone to get food for their talk, which made him let out a breath of relief.

She probably wouldn’t be bringing food if the conversation was going to be bad.

‘On the other hand, she is a goth. So maybe it’s a pre-murder meal?’ he idly mused.

Noting the time, he realized he still had a moment for a bit of magic.

He went into the bedroom, shrugged on a cheap T-shirt, and reached for his deck.

He summoned one of the boxes containing the small drone components and began grouping them to make the fusing process easier. Gabriel was about to reach for the first microprocessor – the future brain of the drone – when an aggressive knock thundered against his apartment door.

He straightened up and looked toward the door with a frown.

‘Mia must be extra angry, or maybe the gang member patrolling pissed her off,’ he mused as he headed for the living room.

Putting on a smile in the hope it might help, he pulled the door open.

“Hey there! How was the–”

The words died in his throat.

It was definitely not Mia.

“Who are you?” he asked, instinctively taking a step back.

On the threshold stood a tall man, slightly taller than Gabriel, with dirty blond hair and deep green eyes set in a somewhat aristocratic face shadowed by stubble. He was wearing an old jacket, pricey but showing its age, and faded pants.

He was glaring death at Gabriel.

The man raised an arm, leveling a finger directly at him.

“You need to stop fucking with the future!”**

**

A/N: Bit worried about this character but we shall see! :)