When we arrived at the entrance to Pacifica,
Sasha appeared in the distance.
She ran quickly toward us,
but the moment she saw me,
she suddenly skidded to a halt,
pointed at me with one hand,
and stared at me with an expression that asked whether I was a corpse or a person.
She kept opening and closing her mouth,
unable to get out whatever she wanted to say.
Only then did everyone turn to look at me.
More precisely, they looked at my wounds.
"Oh, shit."
"Hey, you right now... Never mind."
"Kangal, uh... Hang in there."
Every last one of them looked at me like they were asking how the hell I was still alive,
and whenever they tried to say something to me,
they kept trailing off or stopping halfway through.
Yeah. Aside from my face,
there wasn't a single spot on my body without a hole in it, and my clothes were rags.
Seriously, I looked like absolute shit.
So what else could I do?
I would have to spend the day looking like a beggar.
My mood suddenly sank like a stone.
My clothes, my appearance—everything about me looked like some filthy vagrant's.
Had I gotten lost for three whole days to come here
just to end up looking like this?
Brooding over such pointless complaints,
I followed Sasha
into an empty house
in a quiet part of Pacifica.
Inside, Dorio
welcomed us while leaning against a wall,
and on the floor, a corporate executive
lay unconscious, bound hand and foot.
The executive was bruised badly enough
to look even more pathetic than I did.
The job had definitely called for stealth, but
wasn't that impossible from the start?
"What do we do now?"
"First, we'll contact Ms. Johnson
and get moving again."
"So can we rest a little until then?"
"Of course. Everyone except Kiwi."
"Why leave Kiwi out?
Sasha's a netrunner too."
"There's a difficult task
that only Kiwi can help with."
"What is it that only I can do?"
"Could you hack this for me?"
I removed a detachable reader
whose shape was barely recognizable.
Everyone's eyes went wide.
It was detachable chrome,
something nobody used anymore,
and a genuine antique released
all the way back in 2035.
Only an extremely limited number had been produced in the first place,
so there were only a handful of netrunners
who could even handle it.
Unless they were a netrunner with experience
on Kiwi's level,
finding someone capable of hacking
this relic was impossible.
"Isn't this a total antique?"
"Ahem. Kiwi, how long
will it take you to hack it?"
"I think five minutes should be enough."
"It's the kind that takes that long?"
"This is my first time seeing something like it too."
"Please... I'm counting on you."
"Yeah, so could you hurry up
and hand it over?"
"Yes..."
Kiwi took my antiquated relic, Chucky,
and began hacking it.
If even Kiwi had never seen something like it,
that ripperdoc either had money to burn
or collected antiques as a hobby.
Otherwise, there was no way he would have kept a relic like this,
which should have been scrapped long ago,
stored away in his warehouse.
Yeah, no wonder it was so expensive.
He had charged me extra because it was an antique.
What a fucking considerate ripperdoc.
When I got back, I'd have to squeeze something out of him.
"I'm done."
Just as I was feeling a strange sense of betrayal toward that ripperdoc,
Kiwi finished the hack.
"But why did you ask me to hack it?"
"To contact Ms. Johnson.
It looks like we'll have to change the transport method."
"..."
Everyone looked at me like I was, how should I put it,
some kind of weirdo.
Their expressions asked why I had needed to hack it at all
when I could have just asked for her contact information,
and why I had gone through all this trouble.
I merely gave them an awkward smile and let it pass.
Even Kiwi left to go smoke a cigarette.
When I texted Regina,
she sent me a new rendezvous point.
A corner of an abandoned power plant in Westbrook
became our new meeting place.
I changed the transportation plan as well
and even prepared a Plan B.
Unless something went wrong along the way,
there would be no need to put Plan B into action,
but it seemed better to be prepared.
I had gone out of my way to ask Kiwi to hack my device, but
I really hoped I wouldn't have to use this move.
Even I was pretty reluctant about this method.
•
•
•
•
•
•
About ten minutes passed while everyone got some rest.
Rebecca and Sasha got up from where they had been sitting.
Maine and Dorio were moving the still-unconscious
corporate executive into the trunk,
while Kiwi was backing up the ledger's contents
in case of an emergency.
Pilar was beside me right now,
helping me prepare my secret weapon for use.
Honestly, I hadn't expected Pilar
to seriously help me out.
"But are you really going to use this?"
"Of course I am.
Nothing works as well as this."
"Leave me out of it."
"Of course. Pilar, you helped me
prepare this, so I have to exclude you."
I wasn't going to let Pilar, a techie,
get caught up in this from the start.
The only ones getting caught up in it
would be Rebecca and Kiwi.
Unfortunately, that was because those two
had already fought alongside me after we had gotten somewhat in sync.
"What a shame, really."
...This was going to be a truly entertaining
first job.
The corners of my mouth kept trying to rise.
Just imagining their reactions when I used this
was fun enough.
If the others found out why I had done this,
they would never get in the car.
They would probably think getting into the car was even more dangerous.
Kiwi, maybe not, but Rebecca would hurl
every curse she knew at me.
Or she might unload her gun into me.
Pilar had helped me in secret from the others
partly because he wanted to see Rebecca's reaction too.
If Rebecca ever learned that fact,
well, the rest was best left to the imagination.
"So, Kangal, when are you using this thing?"
Pilar asked me again,
his face full of mischief.
"At least thirty minutes from now would be appropriate."
After hearing my answer, Pilar made
a peculiar expression and headed for the car.
It was a fact nobody cared about, but
Pilar was cool whenever he was serious.
It was just that those moments were rare.
"Kangal!!! How long are you going to keep us waiting?"
"I'm coming now."
When Rebecca called for me, I finished what I was doing
and started walking toward the driver's seat.
Then the conscience in one corner of my heart cried out
that when the job was over and we got paid,
I ought to take a little less.
For the first time in a very long while, my conscience and my thoughts agreed.
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