Bad Beat - Chapter 36 - Surface (Patreon)

Gabriel didn’t hesitate.

He headed for the door, opened it, and stepped into the corridor. The door closed behind him with a quiet click, leaving him alone, dressed in the Shifting Shadow Stalker Set, standing there and feeling a bit awkward.

The rest of the corridor looked rather ordinary, while he looked like he had just stepped out of a low-budget sci-fi movie.

Shaking himself, he began walking toward the staircase while the earphone in his ear crackled to life.

“Shadow, can you hear?” he heard Mia say.

In the background, he could hear Nate’s tiny voice. “Shadow? Really?”

Then came a grunt of pain, and he couldn’t hide his smile.

“Yes, I can hear you, Overwatch,” he replied.

“Good,” Mia said. “Head for the staircase. I’ll get ready with the first door.”

Gabriel nodded even though neither Mia nor Nate could see him. “Got it.”

He opened the fire door and took a look around the stairwell, checking if anyone was there, but after hearing nothing, he stepped inside the cavernous space and began taking the stairs two at a time.

Within seconds, he left the eighth floor behind, the door leading to it the same faded metal as the one on the seventh floor.

As he climbed higher, the stairwell changed.

It was much cleaner than the previous floors, and the door, instead of faded metal covered in ancient safety stickers, looked brand new. Weirdly, there were no more stairs leading upward. Where the next staircase should have been, there was only a clean wall with a fire extinguisher attached.

Aside from the usual safety bar, there were two more, one at the top and one at the bottom, anchoring the door firmly to the wall. There was also a small box next to it, superficially made to look like some kind of electrical housing, but when Gabriel arrived, the front hung open, revealing a surprisingly sophisticated security pad.

As Gabriel slowed down, he noticed a small red light blinking in the upper-right corner of the pad, indicating that it was locked.

“Smile, Shadow… you’re on camera… or at least part of you…” Mia spoke into his ear.

His head snapped up as he looked around until he spotted the telltale glint of a camera hidden among the pipes running across the ceiling.

He casually waved and placed his hand on the bar of the door. “Ready when you are...”

“Just a moment…aaand done,” Mia said just as Gabriel heard a quiet click and the red light on the pad changed to a cheerful green.

A second later, it was followed by a series of clicks and clanks as the locks disengaged, allowing him to push down the bar and gently open the door.

Thankfully, it didn’t squeak.

Carefully opening it just enough to allow his body to slip through, he soon found himself standing in a small alcove. On both sides were walls made from whatever cheap material people used in open-plan offices, and in front of him stretched an open corridor between several bare columns holding up the ceiling. Somebody had made an attempt to lay carpet along the length of the empty space, but nobody seemed to care about it. It was rumpled and covered in colorful splotches.

The entire area was filled with the humming noise that computers made in enclosed spaces. Beneath it was an even deeper vibration that he felt in his bones more than heard.

Probably the servers and their cooling.

Layered over the background noise was a television broadcasting some kind of sports match.

Aside from that, the entire space was empty.

Stepping forward, he saw that almost the entire floor was filled with desks. Each one was shoved next to the others, separated only by thin gray partitions. It reminded Gabriel of the soul-sucking pictures he had seen of the bleakest customer service centers.

The floor was a mess of cables, creating a tripping hazard for anyone foolish enough to step off the carpet.

On his right was a small area filled with bunk beds, clothing strewn everywhere, and a small room with its door ajar, revealing a bathroom beyond. On his left was the source of the noise.

Peeking around the wall, he spotted a guy in a dirty wife-beater sitting on an old sofa and staring at a ludicrously sized television while watching a baseball game. He was clearly already a few beers in, judging by the cans scattered across the desk before him, and he was munching from a bucket of popcorn.

“I have been incrementally increasing the volume on the TV for the last few minutes,” Mia whispered into his ear. “Be careful…”

Nodding thankfully but staying silent, he looked toward the other end of the room. There, the desk area ended at several large metal doors and a clearly ad hoc spiral staircase built into the space. Based on the way the ceiling had been cut around the staircase as it rose upward, it definitely wasn't an official modification.

Next to it stood a small metal box connecting floor to ceiling: the elevator.

Finally, his eyes settled on the walls hiding the servers behind them.

His targets.

For Mia, they represented the truth about her sister and her death. For Gabriel, they were ingredients for his fusion process, resources meant to increase Sparky’s power.

For Nate?

He had no idea.

Now all he had to do was walk over, help Sparky break through whatever defenses existed, then ascend to the next floor and repeat the process.

He couldn’t help rubbing his hands together, eagerly anticipating the haul.

He never pegged himself as particularly kleptomaniacal, but ever since receiving the Deck of Infinity, his relationship with ownership had changed.

Nowadays, if it wasn’t bolted down, he would probably swipe it.

Honestly, even if it was bolted down...

Shrugging slightly, he carefully moved forward, watching his feet to avoid stepping on anything that might alert the sole person remaining in the room.

Meanwhile, Mia kept whispering into his ear.

“Doors to the servers unlocked, but the servers are air-gapped.”

“Cameras are looped, so you’re even more invisible,” she said. “Still, keep to the columns. I don’t want to see you on some camera hiding on the other side of the street.”

“Seriously, if Nate doesn’t shut up about that damn game – Yes, I’m talking about you, you idiot! – I’m so throttling him…”

“Man, the Dodgers are losing super hard…”

Gabriel ignored most of it, especially the complaints about Nate, and kept stalking forward, practically jumping between columns while occasionally glancing behind him to make sure the guard was still focused on the blaring baseball game.

The drone escorting him followed close behind, mostly watching the direction he wasn’t.

It took a solid few minutes to reach the other end of what was practically the entire building. Reaching the metal door, eerily similar to the one in the stairwell, he stepped closer and waited.

A second later, Mia’s voice sounded in his ear.

“Opening door in three…two…one…done.”

The moment he heard the click and clanking of disengaging locks, he pulled the door open as silently as possible and slipped inside, closing it again as he heard the lock engage behind him.

It would have been rather stupid to get caught because somebody noticed the green light on the security pad, after all.

Inside, the first thing that hit him was the cold.

It wasn’t freezer cold where everything was covered in ice, but goosebumps instantly rose across his skin beneath his clothing. He was fairly sure his breath would have fogged if he hadn’t been wearing a mask. It wasn’t sub-zero temperature, but it sure felt like it was.

The noise was the second thing.

The server room must have had incredible sound insulation because the moment the door closed behind him, he was blasted by the roar of industrial cooling units pumping dry, freezing air into the room. The servers joined in, creating an absolute racket as fans spun relentlessly and hard drives clicked and whirred without any rhythm he could recognize.

This room was also filled with a cable arrangement straight out of an IT specialist’s nightmare. Thick cable bundles were everywhere without any rhyme or reason.

Lights blinked everywhere.

He had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to be looking for.

The drone flew over, buffeted slightly by the airflow from the cooling system, and began moving up and down the server racks, scanning them.

“Let me have a look…” Mia murmured.

Before she could continue, the screen inside his mask changed. One of the server racks became highlighted with a blinking green square.

Underneath it, small text appeared.

[Target acquired.]

[Proceed for crime.]

Chuckling quietly, he walked over to the highlighted rack. The glowing square shifted toward the middle, where several open ports were visible on one of the server blades.

[Insert generic cable and connect mobile device for crime.]

Following Sparky’s instructions, he pulled out the Deck and paged through it until he found the card containing a bag full of miscellaneous items.

Looking up, he smiled when he saw the drone conveniently not facing him.

‘Thanks, Sparky...’ he thought.

He summoned the bag and spent several moments digging through it for the requested cable, which was made considerably harder by the cold making his hands shake. Finally finding it, he absorbed the bag back into the card and connected the cable first to his phone and then to the server blade.

[Good job, parental figure.]

[This unit is now committing a crime.]

[How adventurous!]

The screen of the phone he had spent far too much time and money upgrading lit up. A command prompt instantly filled the display as lines of code flashed past faster than he could process.

Instead, he started walking around the room to stay warm while figuring out the order in which he would absorb everything.

Those servers would make a nice addition to his growing power base.

Finally, after ten agonizing minutes in the freezing room, another message appeared on his mask.

[Infiltration successful.]

[Please praise me~~]

At the same time, Mia also spoke up.

“Connection established!”

“Y-you are g-good,” he said out loud, teeth chattering. “Are we finished, or do I need to turn into an icicle?”

The screen on his connected phone changed into a loading bar.

[Downloading and indexing data found.]

[Approximate time until completion… 5 minutes…45 seconds…]

[Would you like to watch an exercise routine designed for arctic survival?]

Gabriel scoffed, but instead of arguing, he pulled out his Deck again.

He had an idea.

Holding one of the empty cards between his fingers, he focused on the cold permeating the room and tried absorbing it.

If he could absorb light and darkness, then absorbing the absence of heat should also be possible, right?

Exactly one minute later, he raised the card and resisted the urge to whoop.

The card had gained a green border and displayed a simple blue cloud: 1 x Cold.

Now motivated, he pulled out two more empty cards and focused on absorbing additional cold. Sadly, the room temperature didn’t seem to rise, meaning he still had to jog lightly in place just to stay warm.

Five-ish minutes later, he held eight cards.

Quickly fusing them together, he created a new one with an orange border: 1 x Cold (Strong). He had no idea what he would use it for.

But Gabriel was sure he could find a use for it.

‘I wonder if I can craft cold resistance?’ he mused as he stored the cards away and looked back toward the blinking phone.

The loading bar was full.

“Got everything?”

This time Mia answered. Probably because Sparky had already shown her the index.

Her voice was filled with frustration.

“Just fucking data about gambling and bets...” she grumbled. He could hear her turning toward Nate. “Why didn’t you say this place only contained online betting data?”

There was a brief pause before Nate’s tiny voice came through Mia’s microphone.

“I can only see information I can interact with. Plus, thanks to Gabel-Goose over there, this entire thing is a precognition black hole,” he said awkwardly. “The moment he uses his power, my vision breaks.”

“Then what use you are…” Mia grumbled. “Listen, Shadow, we got the data, but it frankly seems useless. You’ll need to check out the other server room.”

He let out a sigh, already expecting it. “Sure. Give me a second.”

“Of course, I’ll make sure there are no problems,” Mia replied, followed by the sound of frantic keyboard typing.

He picked up his phone and typed a quick message to Sparky.

Instantly, a mute icon appeared on his display.

Smiling, he spoke quietly. “Did you get anything interesting?”

There was a brief pause before Sparky replied.

[Searched new data.]

[Acquired all data related to the local betting scene.]

[Including private information of several thousand individuals.]

[Most suspected to be fake.]

[Also acquired access to several accounts temporarily holding money for the operation.]

[Amount exceeds several million credits.]

[Would you like to drain them?]

“Sure. Time it for when we’re finished.”

[Order acknowledged.

[Spark Foundation set up. Awaiting donations.]

[He.He.He.]

“Anything else?”

[Nothing pertaining to Mia’s sister unit.]

“Alright then. Can you fake the website working without the servers?” he asked while rubbing warmth back into his trembling hands.

[Please wait for simulation…]

[Website breached.]

[Mirroring established.]

[Estimated duration: 10 minutes.]

[After that, automated systems on the cloud hosting service will flag illegal operations.]

“Good enough for me…”

Gabriel stepped toward the first server rack and raised a hand. “Now if you could shut all of them down…”

Lights slowly blinked out as the infernal noise lessened and the rack powered down.

Waiting until the final indicator light disappeared, he touched the card against the metal and willed it to absorb. The server vanished, leaving a hole in the line of racks, and his card changed. Its border turned blue, and an exact image of the rack appeared on its surface: 1 x Server Rack (Functional).

Happy with his acquisition, Gabriel bounded toward the next rack and raised another card.